My Interview With Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC)
My Interview With Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC)
The Democrats Haven't Committed To Protecting Your Right to Self-Custody BTC
[Editor’s note: Please click on images to be taken to corresponding articles or tweets.]
This week, I spoke with Congressman Wiley Nickel (D) of North Carolina, one of the two elected Democrats serving in the US federal government that showed up to speak at Bitcoin 2024.
Rep. Nickel was a nice enough guy to speak with, and I appreciate that he didn’t blow off my interview with him the way that Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) did earlier this week.
In our interview, he discussed how he wants to make sure that Bitcoin and crypto doesn’t become a partisan issue and he admitted that SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s regulation-by-enforcement approach has been wrong.
He said that he’s working to “reset” the Democrats’ approach to Bitcoin and crypto, and highlighted some of the positive things that Democrats did for Bitcoin and crypto under the Biden administration.
HOWEVER, when I asked him whether or not Democrats are in favor of people being able to hold the private keys to their bitcoin in non-custodial wallets, he avoided the question and said that there were other important matters regarding Bitcoin and crypto that Congress needed to tackle first.
This was enough to remind me why I won’t be voting Democrat in this presidential election.
If you can’t clearly answer whether or not you support the right for people to self-custody their bitcoin without KYC (know your customer) requirements, then you don’t have my vote. Nothing else matters without the right to self-custody, as bitcoin is peer-to-peer money that doesn’t require a third-party custodian be involved in transactions.
Trump and Kennedy have made their position clear on this matter — they both support the right to self-custody.
I recommend that Democrats do so soon if they’d like the support of people like myself who believe that the right to self-custody BTC — a right that the Constitution protects — is a non-negotiable.
Rep. Ro Khanna’s Roundtable
On Monday, Rep. Khanna will host a roundtable with Democrats and crypto industry leaders to help repair the party’s relationship with the industry.
Judging by some of the people on the list for that roundtable, my hopes aren’t high that it’ll make much of a difference.
I’m hoping to speak with Rep. Khanna after the meeting, and I’ll be sure to share my interview with him here if it happens.
Upcoming Interview With Vivek Ramaswamy
This week, I’ll be interviewing Vivek Ramaswamy, A Trump advisor who convinced Trump to take a pro-Bitcoin and anti-CBDC stance in this election, for Bitcoin Magazine.
If you have any questions you’d like me to ask Ramaswamy, please leave them in the comments section.
ADVERTISEMENT
If your bitcoin is still in the custody of the exchange on which you bought it, you don’t own any bitcoin. Instead, you own an IOU for bitcoin.
To actually take ownership of the bitcoin, you have to hold the private keys to it. And the Trezor Model One is a hardware wallet that can help you do just that.
Get started with self-custody for just $59.99 by click on the image above.
Theya Makes Bitcoin Multsig Easy
This week, I published a piece on one of the co-founders of Theya, an app that makes safeguarding your bitcoin keys through a multisignature (multisig) setup much easier.
A multisignature setup entails signing off on a bitcoin transaction with more than one digital signature.
Above this section, I advertised the Trezor Model One and referred to it as a “hardware wallet.” A better term for such a device is actually a signing device. It allows you to sign off on bitcoin transactions.
With Theya, you would use a signing device like your Model One along with another signing device, like your mobile phone. Requiring two devices to sign off on bitcoin transactions helps to protect your bitcoin holdings.
Check out the piece to learn more!
BTC’s Price
BTC’s price dropped pretty hard this week.
I don’t see any catalyst that would cause its price to rise significantly until the September FOMC meeting, when The Fed will likely cut rates.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see it fall as low as $48k, but I would be quite surprised to see it drop as low as $38k. This means that it’s currently at decent buying levels — good for dollar-cost averaging (DCA) into (That’s not financial advice, nor is anything you read in this newsletter.)
If you’re enjoying what you read in this newsletter and want to share it with friends, please do so via the link below.
And if you do get friends to sign up, please drop your LNURL in the comment section of this newsletter, and I’ll send you some sats as a thank you!
Best,
Frank Corva
X | LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Fountain | Wavlake
Nostr: npub1dnzzyhmewrzkh862z7z2shwmhh5htx0rvkagepj2fkgst9ptwg3qj4x52h
