For the second week in a row, Michael

Sailor's strategy sold Bitcoin to buy

back STRC. And that's just one of the

many stories we're going to unpack on

today's Daily Wolf. You don't want to

miss this one. Let's go.

Happy noon everybody to those who

celebrate. Welcome to the Daily Wolf on

Yahoo Finance. I'm your host Scott

Melker, also known as the Wolf of All

Streets. Now, since I know there's

millions and billions and trillions of

you that watch this show every week with

baited breath, you're probably wondering

what happened last week. We did take a

blackout week. I was on vacation

exploring around the Mediterranean.

And finding out that Europeans call

anything with a rock and an ocean a

beach. The European mind cannot

comprehend sand on a beach is something

that I learned in the last week. People

lay out on jagged rocks and pretend that

they're having a good time. But we did

have a great time and it left us a lot

of fodder here to discuss on the Daily

Wolf because we took so much time off.

But regardless, it's Monday, which means

our first story has to always be this

one with this guy. Strategy sells 1690

Bitcoin, raises 653 million from MSTR

shares. So, what happened this week?

They sold 690 Bitcoin as it says, raised

$18.6

million. I would say not coincidentally,

they bought back exactly $108.6 6

million worth of STRC, which is now

floating around $95, almost back to par.

As I told you in the past, buying STRC

in the 70s was probably a really, really

good deal when there was peak FUD and

maximum insanity with people saying that

strategy was going to zero. They also

issued a whole lot of MSTR to raise

another 653 million, re bringing their

cash reserves up to $4.65 65 billion

about 32 months of coverage for STRC and

other expenses. But the big story here,

we used to have Megade Sailor who would

just suck up all the Bitcoin. He had one

strategy. One strategy. Issue stock,

raise debt, do anything you could to

simply get cash and buy Bitcoin.

Remember when we started the show, we

used to talk about Megaade all the time.

Well, unfortunately back then we used to

joke, "What ever happened if Mega Vade

went from suck to blow like in the

movie?" Well, here he is blowing out all

the bitcoins into the apocalyptic

hellscape of planet Jeridia, right? So,

listen, clearly the market does not

care. And I think that that's actually

the biggest story here. But we had a

machine that was, you know, to sell all

of these things to be able to buy

Bitcoin. And now he's selling Bitcoin to

be able to buy all of these things. And

like I said, last week they also sold

1638 uh 1638 Bitcoin to raise 104.7

million which also was used uh for SDRC

buybacks and to fund dividends and to

raise cash. So we have a very

interesting scenario here. A like I said

the most bullish scenario here was that

strategy would start to sell Bitcoin and

the market wouldn't care. We've seen

that now over the past few months. Every

time they sell the price of Bitcoin

shrugs it off and does nothing. So

clearly selling Bitcoin is not a problem

and the fact that he's not buying also

seemingly not a problem for the market.

But the thing that I'm wondering now at

this point and this remains an

open-ended question is now that he's

selling Bitcoin to buy STRC, what

happens when STRC inevitably returns to

par? I guess it's not inevitable, but

gets back to 100 bucks and the old

machine of using STRC to buy Bitcoin

kicks back into motion. Are they

actually going to then be selling STRC

to buy Bitcoin back at a higher price?

right? Are we selling the lows on

Bitcoin after buying the highs on

Bitcoin? Uh only to then buy that

Bitcoin back higher with the very same

instrument that he's buying back. I

would say that Michael Sailor here is in

a bit of a pickle. But once again,

having this not be the main narrative

for crypto at the moment is really,

really good news, right? I mean, Michael

Sailor spent years here turning dollars

into Bitcoin. Now he has discovered that

there's a reverse button, you know? uh

and and I don't love it. But either way,

that is the story for now and we can

move on to the next one, which is one

that I did not have the chance to unpack

at all last week. So, it's not brand new

news, but it's really important. And

that, of course, is the cold card

self-custody wallet hack that we saw in

crypto. I like this headline because

it's not necessarily the news, but it

does encapsulate what I'm thinking here.

why the latest Bitcoin hack hurt more

than most. So listen, we all remember

the 2022

downtrend, the bare market, the

collapses of Voyager, BlockFi, FTX,

Teraluna, you name it, right?

Those were counterparties that failed.

So people who listen to Bitcoin maxis

back then could understand not your

keys, not your coins, that you should be

self-custodying your Bitcoin. You should

never trust a counterparty. Leaving your

tokens on exchanges was dangerous. That

rationally made sense. It gave you a

boogeyman to blame. Well, now we have

self-custody, not writ large, but an

example of self-custody failing here. So

cold card was hacked. Now people saying

up to $130 million worth. The number

doesn't really matter. What matters to

me is that these were people that took

their self-custody seriously and did

everything right. These are not

speculators. They're not altcoin

gamblers. They're not out there flipping

meme coins. They're not leaving their

coins on their exchange. They bought

Bitcoin. They moved it to self-custody.

They saved their seed phrase and were

hoping that that would be safe forever.

And that's exactly what they were told

to do. And they still lost their money,

right? Right. I mean about 1,816 Bitcoin

so far drained from 5,200

addresses. And what happened was a flaw

weakened weakened the randomness that

was used to generate seed phrases. So

people didn't realize that when they

generated their seed phrase that it

could theoretically be reconstructed

without stealing the device, in

installing any malware on their device

or even having that device connected to

the internet. Now Coin Kite behind Coin

Glass is a small issuer. This doesn't

mean that all self-custody is broken,

but it should definitely shake your

faith. I believe in the ability to trust

yet again another counterparty in this

case, your self-custody wallet provider,

also a counterparty, but from outside

the crypto echo chamber. This is what I

want to get at. This is so nonsensical.

I mean, think about like trying to

explain this to someone, right? Like I

bought a $200 effectively 80s looking

Texas Instruments calculator. That's

what a cold card looks like to protect

my imaginary internet money, but I

couldn't uh trust it to generate a

random number. So I rolled casino dice

99 times to create enough entropy,

whatever that is, right? And then after

I created all my entropy, uh, my fifth

level ender dragon killed the grand

wizard and I engraved my 24 magic words

provided by the death of this grand

wizard onto a steel plate and I I buried

it under a bird bath in the backyard.

Right? I mean, we talk about this like

it's the future of banking, but it's

really not, right? I mean, it's yatsi

crossed with Dungeons and Dragons.

Except if you lose, your retirement

disappears and customer service is 12

nerds on Reddit telling you that it's

your fault you did everything wrong,

right? Like, who in the world right now

that's not deep in crypto is looking at

us and not thinking that this is a

complete and utter clown show? These

guys are storing their life savings on a

flash drive and burying it and hoping

that their family can find it. Now, I'm

a fan of self-custody in general, of

multi-IG, but I've often said like you

have to be really serious about this and

be willing to go very deep down the

rabbit hole to be self- sovereign and to

be your own bank and to do it. And

clearly, even if you do that, you can

still at certain times lose your money.

And that's not the only clown show.

Listen, I just want to give this one a

very uh quick honorable mention, right?

I mean, Bitcoin hits block 961,632

as the controversial BIP 110 software

attempts begin. Like, if it wasn't bad

enough, the optics of the self-custody

hack, we have like the entire Bitcoin

maximalist community fighting on X. You

sign on to X as a new user and all you

see is a bunch of dudes talking in code

about things that aren't even going to

happen. And we got a fork and then it

was two blocks were mined and then the

miners were right and sailors weighing

in. Nobody

cares. None of this works unless grandma

can understand it. And all we're doing

with our community is is confusing

everybody with narratives they can't

understand and are going to just dismiss

outright as nerd talk for DND weirdos.

Right? Bitcoin maximalists are the best

thing that ever happened to Bitcoin in

that they drove us this far to the point

where, you know, there was institutional

adoption, all these things. The problem

is is that they don't know how to

communicate and stop fighting with each

other about things that nobody

understands. This wallet hack to me is

an absolutely huge deal. Uh it made it

to Bloomberg unfortunately and is just

going to confuse people further, but

once again has nothing to do with actual

Bitcoin

uh or the future of Bitcoin as digital

money or as digital gold. Next story,

hopefully the last time we have to talk

about this for a month. Clarity Act

survives barely. Barely. US Senate opens

first stage of cryptoclarity act voting

to give uh bill a chance next month. So

obviously they didn't get it done in

August as we said, but majority leader

John Thun on a Saturday morning filed

for closure, which is a word that none

of you had any idea what it meant until

we started talking about genius in the

Clarity Act. Don't pretend you know what

closure is, right? But basically, the

Senate started the process of eventually

deciding whether to start the process.

And they did it in a tiny window in

September when they will have a few days

to decide this. So maybe they can get it

passed and maybe they'll vote on it and

maybe all the things. So listen, not

only did the poly market or the couch,

they all jumped in the 20% chance

clarity act passes, but if you actually

look at what's being said, I would say

that the odds have actually decreased

even though this first vote is being

proposed. Why? You have seven Republican

senators, three or four outright, and a

few that have been listed by the

Blockchain Association and others as now

saying it's safe to poke their heads out

and do what they've been paid to do by

the bank lobby, which is to oppose the

Clarity Act. All these Republicans, a

bunch of them that were supposed to be

voting for it, have come out and said,

you know, I don't really like that this

doesn't protect community banks and

there's going to be deposit flight. all

the old narratives we were seeing from

Jamie Diamond and JP Morgan. Now that

they realize this thing is unlikely to

pass now they're like, "Oh, we we need

to go earn that bank lobby money, that

sweet, sweet bank lobby money we've been

collecting and stick our heads out and

say that we oppose this." Not because of

the ethics or all the new things back to

the old stable coin yield argument. Now,

there's this completely seemingly

irrelevant, but I think he's irrelevant

because he was on the OC guy named Ben

McKenzie who wrote a book about crypto

who probably is also captured by the

same banking lobby. He made a video

about this celebrating. I'm going to

show it to you really quick. Let's

>> having a beer. Why? Because today is a

good day. The good guys won. I teamed up

with Indivisible and Americans for

Financial Reform and together we beat

the corrupt crypto bill, the Clarity

Act. Few months ago, the odds of it

passing were 75%, now it's dead. In

fact, we beat it so bad they didn't even

bring it up for a vote. This is a win,

not for us, but for the vast majority of

Americans who are sick of Trump's

cryptocrumption. Sick of the hundreds of

millions of dollars the crypto lobby is

spending to corrupt our democracy. Sick

of the lying and the nonsense coming out

of Washington. I want to be clear, the

fight against crypto is far from over.

The Clarity Act could still come back

like a corporate zombie rising from the

dead. But today, we won. And because of

that, I'm having a beer to the most

corrupt president in history. And to the

crypto bros everywhere. Cheers.

That's not beer. That's apple juice.

That's not apple juice. It's ODS. That's

not a beer. That is a tumbler glass.

Nobody drinks beer out of a tumbler

glass. that probably had ice in it. I

don't even care what he said. I'm so

confused that he's drinking beer out of

that glass, right? But who he's

literally sitting here saying that he

and his friends are responsible somehow

for the Clarity Act not passing. Oh, and

by the way, it is going to get that

initial vote in September. But that

basically just sums up the sentiment.

Who is that guy? It sums up the

sentiment uh from the anti-bank lobby

and the rest of the world as to what

they think about crypto right now and to

what they think about the process here

around the Clarity Act. Let's not spend

any more time. I really just wanted to

talk about him drinking beer out of that

glass. That beer's warm. We all know

that apple juice. I think it's apple

juice. Anyways, we have another story

right here. Mastercard completes BVNK

acquisition to boost stable coin

infrastructure. uh BVNK taking a note

out of a Coachella flyer and spelling

bank in a really funny uh kind of way

and flipping the V upside down and not

having any vowels. That's what DJs do.

There's a company now that's getting 1

point I think 1.8 billion here. Yet

another unicorn uh in the crypto world.

The story here though isn't that

Mastercard bought this. It's that

Mastercard realized that there's they're

in a hell of a lot of trouble and

they're struggling to catch up to make

sure that they are a part of the stable

coin race. This is the biggest story in

crypto right now is the adoption of

stable coins and the incumbents in

payments struggling to find ways to keep

up and make sure that they're able to

capitalize from this new revolution.

Right. And this is going to give

Mastercard the ability to do all things

on chain. It's going to connect stable

coins, traditional currencies, bank

accounts, payment systems across more

than

130 countries. Willing to pay $1.8 8

billion for a company that you and I

have never heard of that has bank

spelled wrong just to keep up. Guys,

that is basically what we've got for you

today. The sailor machine is in reverse.

It's a bit confusing, but we're going to

see how it plays out over the coming

weeks. That's all I got for you today.

See you tomorrow. Peace.