Money can change minds as easily as it can change hands.

So it may be no surprise that this billionaire who was once one of old finance’s most proven traders…

Is now singing a very crypto tune.

More on this change of heart in the deep dive.

Espresso Shots

☕️ Ledger's Functional Leak 📒 💧

A little known feature of the Ledger wallet included an optional “Ledger Recovery” feature which would divide your wallet’s seed phrase and send it to three separate companies who could then reconstruct it if you ever lost your recovery phrase.

Critics are calling this feature a massive violation of privacy and urging users to abandon the Ledger wallet.

But it’s still unclear if this feature… really exists? Ledger has denied the feature’s existence but also deleted a tweet in which they admitted it was true.

Is this just a case of incredibly incompetent PR or a very real privacy risk to Ledger users?

Based on the public backlash, Ledger will no longer be releasing the “Ledger Horcrux” which splits your soul into seven parts and sends them to separate companies in the event a baby ever kills you.

☕️ Florida Bans CBDCs, More States to Follow? 🐊 ❌

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill that will ban CBDCs in his state and it seems Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and North Dakota are positioned to do the same.

This is an ongoing trend as Republican lawmakers will turn CBDC’s into a political issue in the coming election. The party of less-government and more guns will want to ban them and Democrats will want to implement them.

Similar bills to the Florida legislation are being drafted in the aforementioned states.

“The adoption of a CBDC by the federal government would hand unprecedented control over the lives, freedoms, choices, and sovereignty of the people of North Dakota to the Federal Reserve,” reads the bill presented by North Dakota Representatives.

Off the record, Representatives from North Dakota were thrilled to be mentioned in literally any news cycle.

☕️ Coinbase One Drops 🪙 ✨

Coinbase has officially released its subscription service, “Coinbase One.”

Available for users in the U.S., U.K. Germany, and Ireland, for a $29.99 subscription fee, paid subscribers won’t pay trading fees and will be eligible for higher staking rewards.

But more than the four regions covered in the initial release, Coinbase intends to expand Coinbase One to an additional 35 countries.

This expansion may certainly be a part of Coinbase’s plans to move away from America’s uncertain regulatory climate and focus their attention internationally.

But the most important feature of Coinbase One, one that Coinbase hasn’t explicitly mentioned, is that paid subscribers will get to feel superior to users that have to listen to crypto with ads.

Spilling the Beans

The Billionaire Betting on Bitcoin ♠️ 💰

Crypto seems to have drawn all kinds of eccentric billionaires to the space and many of them at the heads of their own crypto outfits such as Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, Binance’s Changpeng Zhao, or Gemini’s Winkelvoss Twins.

But more numerous than crypto’s wealthiest enthusiasts, there are plenty of billionaires openly skeptical of crypto.

Warren Buffet is probably the most famous. Buffet has taken the time to go on record to say that Bitcoin is “probably rat poison squared.”

But more powerful than crypto’s ability to draw big money to Web3 with its siren’s song, is its power to convert.

Yes, we see lots of young bucks with tech degrees and Web3 in their hearts launch themselves into crypto. 

But a much rarer animal is the individual who came up in traditional finance, cut their teeth on Wall Street, and then pivoted to crypto.

One such beast is Paul Tudor Jones.

Now, Paul Tudor Jones was a Wall Street Trader with a capital “T.”

His claim to fame was predicting Black Monday in 1987, when the stock market crashed in one of the world’s greatest financial disasters to date.

But rather than lose his shirt, Jones shorted, well, just about everything and made hundreds of millions overnight.

In the world of finance, aside from Warren Buffet, Paul Tudor Jones is the closest thing to a living god.

This guy donates to both Republicans and Democrats. He just wants to be in the most important rooms with the most powerful people.

Paul Tudor Jones is 68 years old and worth $7.5 billion. He doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone.

But that didn’t stop him from hopping on the Bitcoin train.

Jones came out in 2020 to say that he had allocated 1 to 2% of his multi-billion dollar fortune to Bitcoin.

“I’ve never sat on a horse that long… From the beginning, I’ve always said I want to have a small allocation to [Bitcoin] because it’s a great tail event,” said Jones. “It’s the only thing that humans can’t adjust the supply in, so I’m sticking with it. I’m going to always stick with it. It’s just a small diversification in my portfolio.” 

But Jones, usually content to operate outside of the public spotlight, recently had to step in again to say that he was concerned about Bitcoin’s future in America.

Jones was quick to point out that recently, investment hedges like gold and Bitcoin have done pretty well as the dollar weakens and confidence lowers in the American economy, but that may not be the case for long.

Jones feels that Bitcoin may not be as attractive as an investment as it once was because “Bitcoin has a real problem, in the United States, you have the entire regulatory apparatus against it.”

What’s more, as inflation lowers and the American economy recovers, that will almost definitely hurt the price of Bitcoin.

Though, it certainly doesn’t seem like Paul Tudor Jones is going to sell anytime soon. Despite lowering inflation and an unclear regulatory environment, the man’s still hodling his Bitcoin even if it’s “yesterday’s news.”

So, we pump crypto all the time. But take it from one of the greatest minds that Wall Street’s ever seen. 

Crypto’s here to stay.

Meme of the Day

We're not throwing away our Ledgers just yet, but we may start looking into alternatives...

Crypto 101

Ledger Wallet: Ledger is known for their hardware wallets, an important tool for users looking to self-custody their crypto.

Cold wallets allow you to safely manage your crypto and provide the protection of offline storage. It’s a small device, smaller than your phone, and many of them have a cute, flip mechanism that lets them slide out.

The unclear revelation that Ledger was offering a backdoor into people’s private recovery keys was such a big deal because these devices are supposed to offer an unequaled level of security and privacy. 

The Last Sip

Here are three more features in the cold storage wallets that Ledger forgot to tell us about.

• There’s a metal toothpick that slides out.

• It comes with the Bitcoin white pager uploaded as well as several decaying corpses of Nintendogs.

• It vibrates.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.