Hodder Law Newsletter - September 13, 2022

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all having a great week! The price of Bitcoin as of Tuesday, September 13 at 5:00 EDT was $20,237. Michael Saylor brave enough to be buying?

HODLCast Podcast - HERES HOW CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCIES WILL CONTROL OUR LIVES - In Episode 131, I talk about CBDC's. The Federal Reserve recently announced its pilot project with the cooperation of 120 different companies and every major bank. I summarized it in this blog which you can read on my website.

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The FBI & Chainalysis recovered $30/$600 million from North Korean hackers. Chainalysis Incident Response team helped to recover $30 million in cryptocurrency from North Korean-linked hackers Lazarus. It’s estimated that Lazarus has stolen nearly $1 billion so far this year.

Chainalysis stated, “It is becoming more difficult for bad actors to successfully cash out their ill-gotten crypto gains. We have proven that with the right blockchain analysis tools, world-class investigators and compliance professionals can collaborate to stop even the most sophisticated hackers and launderers. There is still work to be done, but this is a milestone in our efforts to make the cryptocurrency ecosystem safer.”

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Coinbase fights OFAC sanctions. Coinbase "is funding a lawsuit brought by six people challenging the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions of the Tornado Cash smart contracts and asking the Court to remove them from the U.S. sanctions list. The sanctions exceed Treasury’s authority, harm innocent people, remove privacy and security options for crypto users, and stifle innovation." Thank you Coinbase!

Tornado Cash is an open-source software project that allows users to send assets privately on the Ethereum network.

The lawsuit stated, “Tornado Cash smart contracts are neither person nor property. This means OFAC exceeded its authority from Congress when it recently added these to the SDN List . . . The outcome sought by this challenge is to have OFAC remove these crypto addresses associated with software from its SDN List, so that U.S. persons can once again use this privacy technology.”

Law-abiding citizens should always have a right to privacy, including with their finances.

In an innovative society, dev's shouldn't have to fear serious legal consequences if their software happens to be used by criminals, especially when the majority of users' are lawful. Fear of prosecution should be removed from their creative process.

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Gun-buying Surveillance. The subcommittee of the International Organization for Standardization has approved the creation of a merchant code for gun retailers. It would allow banks to decide if they are to assign the new code to merchants.

This is a great example of why anonymous crypto transactions should be normalized.

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MicroStrategy Buying the Dip! Recent SEC filings showed Saylor was planning to sell up to $500 million in stock, to further its investment in bitcoin. This will add to the approximately 129,699 bitcoins the company already owns.

This type of strategy inevitably ties MicroStrategy’s stock price to the volatility of bitcoin. However, it’s a gamble with potential world-changing implications. Although founder Michael Saylor recently stepped down as CEO to become executive chairman, this is a sign they aren’t reversing course on bitcoin.

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Canada elects pro-Bitcoin Conservative Party leader. Pierre Poilievre was elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada over the weekend in a landslide victory. With statements such as, “I want to make Canada the blockchain capital of the world,” and "government is ruining the Canadian dollar, so Canadians should have the freedom to use other money, such as bitcoin," crypto enthusiasts should be encouraged by his victory.

Poilievre has disclosed that he owns bitcoin and campaigned as a proponent of bitcoin. During his leadership campaign this spring he was pictured purchasing a shawarma at a restaurant in London Ontario with bitcoin. Poilievre has come out staunchly against the Liberal government's interest in developing a central bank digital currency. Thank you Mr. Poilievre!

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White House calls for Crypto Mining standards to protect the environment. Last week the White House released a document titled Climate Energy Implications of Crypto-Assets in the United States.

The report calls for standards to limit proof of work mining's environmental impact, and suggested Executive Orders may be needed to enforce the standards. This article from CoinDesk dives further into the analysis of the White House report.

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HODLCast Podcast - HERES HOW CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCIES WILL CONTROL OUR LIVES - In Episode 131, I talk about CBDC's. The Federal Reserve recently announced its pilot project with the cooperation of 120 different companies and every major bank. I summarized it in this blog which you can read on my website.

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Make it a great week!

Sincerely,

Sasha Hodder

Hodder Law

sasha@hodder.law

www.hodder.law

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