Greetings Bitcoiners! We've got two events lined up for this month and next. First, we've got a bitcoin & coffee event this month, which will be at Denim in Mechanicsburg at 10:30am on Sunday, June 28th. Our July event will be Proof of Hike, and will be on Sunday, July 12th, at 8am. We've had great experiences with hiking events in the past, and really look forward to hitting the trails with bitcoiners again. We'll be meeting at the Appalachian Trail parking lot on Peters Mountain, and departing for Table Rock at 8am. Kids and dogs welcome! There was a story that grabbed my attention two weeks ago. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said during an interview that "I believe we have seized about $1 billion of [Iran's] crypto, just outright grabbed the wallets. Some of them may be typing in right now, and they might not have realized that their wallet had been grabbed.” What this implies is that the US treasury department has the ability to seize "crypto wallets" of individuals/organizations/nations, and has recently exercised that ability to sanction Iran's crypto assets. There's a critical nuance here that deserves explanation, our favorite, the seemingly evergreen "bitcoin vs crypto" distinction. The "crypto wallets" that were seized were those of fiatcoins such as USDT, AKA Tether. These products are centrally controlled, and one phone call from the right person to their operators can block an address from being able to transact. There have been many of these such occurrences over the years, in which "crypto" has been seized because either it was being held on an exchange, or the network itself is so centrally controlled that an address can be frozen. In both these circumstances, a massive amount of trust is being placed in a single counterparty. It isn't an accident that the treasury secretary used the word "crypto", and didn't use the word "bitcoin". It's in the interest of the powers that be for them to be perceived as being omnipotent. Admittedly, short interviews don't lend themselves to being nuanced in one's language. If he were were more nuanced and forthright in his language, he'd have said something to the effect of "we've seized about $1 billion of their stablecoins". If you want someone's bitcoin who hold their own keys, you have to get them to voluntarily send it to you. There's no one you can call to freeze their sats, no public official you can convince, no crypto project leads who you can coerce, and no exchange who you can bully to hand it over against the "owner's" wishes. Bitcoin ownership is a radical form of ownership and unlike anything else. Once that power is understood and wielded, it's hard to go back to only "owning" the promises of others. Hope to see you this summer! Keep stacking sats, keep stacking skills. Bitcoin in the Burg 1. Provide value to others 2. Spend less than you earn 3. Save in a money that can't be printed by someone else for free