The SEC finally wrote the rules down. Citi is about to hold your Bitcoin. Thirty-nine state banking associations are building their own blockchain. And a $3 billion short squeeze shoved Bitcoin through $71K — right before Joel disappears on his honeymoon until November.

On August 18, the SEC published a 402-page proposing release called Regulation Crypto Assets: two registration exemptions plus a conditional safe harbor that can finally retire the "investment contract" label once an issuer permanently stops the managerial efforts it promised. For eight years this industry was regulated by lawsuit. For once, nobody had to get sued to find out what the rules were.

Meanwhile Bitcoin ripped more than 20% in a week — and is still down on the year. Joel says zoom out: $81K keeps rejecting price, that's a double top, and the four-year cycle still points at a bottom somewhere between late October and early December. Which makes this rally a bull trap until proven otherwise.

Also in this one: Open USD and its 140-partner consortium taking aim at Circle and Tether, the BankChain Alliance putting 3,283 banks on a chain of their own, Arthur Hayes coming out of retirement to sell food for AI agents, 512GB Macs that run frontier models on your desk, Anthropic's $65 billion run rate ahead of its IPO, and the guy calling the entire AI industry a con.
This is the last one until mid-November. Joel's getting married.

Full show notes: https://badco.in/815

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