Progress, no matter how inevitable, is always going to be met with resistance.

We’ve always been somewhat surprised that horses didn’t band together and start smashing every Model-T they could find with their back hooves.

So, yes, even as innovation stumbles forward, there are going to be detractors.

That’s why Sam Altman, the founder of Open AI and the developer behind ChatGPT, feels that there’s a war against crypto… and AI could be next.

Espresso Shots

☕️ Fake Spot ETF Report Sends BTC Soaring

A since-deleted X post from Cointelegraph sent Bitcoin hurtling over the $30,000 market cap and generated over $100 million in liquidations.

The post was deleted by 10:00 AM ET, but the toothpaste was already out of the tube.

An official spokesperson from BlackRock told Blockworks that the company’s iShares Bitcoin Spot ETF was still under review and had yet to be approved.

But that didn’t stop the liquidation of more than $73 million in short positions and $32 million in longs, according to data from Coinglass.

A this time, any reports of insider trading or market manipulation are just suspicions and not verifiable.

But historians are already calling this the most impactful fake event since the Moon Landing or the 2000 Presidential Election.

☕️ The Feds are a Bitcoin Whale?

Turns out, the Federal Government is one of the largest Bitcoin whales with more than 200,000 bitcoin, worth an estimated $5 billion, according to a report from 21.co.

And how did the U.S. government acquire all this BTC? Certainly not by being a Bitcoin maxi. No, the U.S. acquired its bitcoin through three, massive asset seizures.

An amount of 69,369 BTC was seized from the Silk Road in 2020. In 2022, 94,643 BTC were seized from the Bitfinex hackers. Another 51,326 BTC were confiscated from James Zhong in 2022, who had stolen that crypto from the Silk Road.

More than $1 billion in BTC has already been sold off at government auctions, but the federal government is still sitting on a staggering amount of Bitcoin.

President Joe Biden is reportedly demanding to know where the White House is storing all of this Bitcoin, as he was planning to swim in it “Scrooge McDuck” style.

☕️ Fund Your Ferrari with Crypto

Ferrari, the luxury carmaker and sure sign of a midlife crisis, is now accepting crypto in the purchases of its fine automobiles.

This development is made possible through BitPay’s platform, the same provider offering the sale of Taylor Swift movie tickets with crypto.

Currently, Ferrari is accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDC stablecoin.

Ferrari feels that this new avenue will help to expand its customer base. "Some are young investors who have built their fortunes around cryptocurrencies," said Enrico Galliera, Ferrari’s Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer, in an interview with Reuters. "This will help us connect to people who are not necessarily our clients but might afford a Ferrari."

But if buying a Ferrari with crypto already sounds expensive… just imagine the gas fees.

Polled Brew

Spilling the Beans

ChatGPT CEO Warns of ‘War’ on Bitcoin 🤕 🤖

When ChatGPT arrived, it redefined the human relationship with AI.

ChatGPT became more prevalent and controversial than any grammar assistant or Rumba before it.

And now that AI has moved to the forefront of conversation, is it about to receive the legal and regulatory backlash that crypto has been fighting against for years?

Sam Altman, the founder of Open AI, seems to think so. And he candidly discussed the war on crypto as a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience.

“I'm disappointed that the U.S. government has done recently, but the war on crypto, which I think is a, like, we can't give this up, we're going to control [bitcoin and crypto] makes me quite sad about the country," Altman said in the show.

And Altman thinks this development is all the more tragic because he believes in crypto’s unfettered potential.

“I’m excited about Bitcoin, too,” Altman continued in the show. "I think this idea that we have a global currency that is outside of the control of any government is a super logical and important step on the tech tree."

Rogan echoed his sentiments, adding that he feels Bitcoin has “the most likely possibility of becoming a universal viable currency.”

ChatGPT’s popularity has somewhat positioned Altman, rather than Asimov, as the father of AI.

And AI and crypto have become as inexorably linked as cake and ice cream or Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and unfiltered cigarettes.

Why? Because the two just go together.

One only needs to consider the prevalence of AI-based tokens or AI’s potential to revolutionize crypto trading to understand that, like it or not, these two industries are shackled together.

And when Altman and Rogan discuss a “war” on crypto, they’re not just being paranoid.

There’s already been a clear, well-documented war on crypto, and like any American military operation, it has an appropriately action-movie-sounding name.

Operation Chokepoint was a 2013 initiative from the Department of Justice to reduce high-risk behavior in American banking.

Now, it seems that the Biden administration is unofficially engaged in Operation Chokepoint 2.0, which involves maintaining a firm, unbreachable wedge between crypto and the traditional banking system.

And it appears that AI is about to be drawn into the conflict.

Rumors are swirling about a new executive order from the Biden administration that would bring the regulatory scrutiny that crypto has languished under, onto AI.

Alexander Grieves, head of government affairs at Paradigm, a crypto-focused investment company, called this development “‘Operation Chokepoint’, but for computing power.”

Now, we’re walking a delicate line here. The constant, unattainable goal is common-sense regulation without stifling innovation.

Yet, crypto’s current situation in America isn’t a path to sensible regulation, but rather something just short of prohibition.

And we’d hate to see AI bogged down in the same regulatory quagmire.

Yet, even Sam Altman, an undisputed AI bull, isn’t without a sense of practicality.

Altman, as well as several hundred industry leaders, signed a letter last May calling for the establishment of an international agency to regulate AI and mitigate the risk of human extinction.

No, you shouldn’t need a permit to talk to Siri, but we don’t want to go about creating Skynet either.

AI and crypto are inevitable, we just need to be sensible.

But, as a country, America can’t afford to keep punting AI and crypto regulation to a later date.

If we cordon off, reject, and isolate AI and crypto, the two will have no choice but to form a devastating alliance, and then we won’t just have a limping economy, we’ll be fighting against blockchain-backed androids in a conflict that historians will surely call “The Cold War of the Wallets.”

Crypto 101

Gas Fees: These are the transaction fees in crypto.

Much like how a car needs gasoline to run, these transaction fees are the fuel that keeps a blockchain running.

Gas fees are allocated to crypto miners and those working to keep a blockchain safe and secure.

The Last Sip

The Last Sip: If you can buy sports cars with crypto, it’s only a matter of time before you can buy trucks. Then we’ll have a real “Ford vs. Ferrari” on our hands.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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