Bitcoin exchange rate on July 4:

2013: $80
2014: $630
2015: $260
2016: $683
2017: $2,601
2018: $6,599
2019: $11,198
2020: $9,179
2021: $35,287
2022: $19,293
2023: $30,901
2024: $58,600
2025: $109,000
2026: $62,500

250 years ago a revolution separated church and state.

Today a revolution is separating money and state.

The ability to transact without government and banking oversight is fundamental to our freedom.

We used to only have millionaires.
Then we got billionaires.
Now we have trillionaires.
Soon we’ll have quadrillionaires.

Are we creating more value or just printing more dollars?

~~~

Study bitcoin

From Lawrence Lepard:

Bitcoin is a revolution. It is much more than number go up. It is an invention which can free humankind from the long sad history of monetary debasement, which empowers few and taxes everyone else. In a fiat system the wrong people win. We all pay for it. It is unjust and unfair. Throughout all of human history we never had a monetary standard that did not dilute over time. Now we do. Those of us who are partisans and are fighting for it understand the stakes. Freedom, fairness, prosperity, less war, etc.

Unsound money is the issue of our age. Currently few see it, but this will change. This Fourth Turning is well on its way and the monetary issue will be resolved.

As I observe the current Bitcoin landscape and the attacks on its leaders i am reminded of the opening of Thomas Paine's second writing, The American Crisis. Written in December 1776 after Washington had gotten his ass kicked on Long Island and retreated from Brooklyn and through New Jersey, Paine wrote:

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in the crisis, shrink from the service of their country: but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have the consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem to lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value."

Sound money has to win. History will be kind to sound money partisans. This is about a lot more than number go up. Don't forget why we are in this fight. Spread the word. The system they run is evil. We know the antidote. Time is on our side.

‘MERKA!

"Bitcoin is too volatile to be real money."

Fine. Let's look at the other side of that trade.

The Argentine peso has lost over 90% of its value in the last decade. The Turkish lira, the Lebanese pound, the Venezuelan bolivar: each one a "real" currency that wiped out the savings of everyone forced to hold it. Even the U.S. dollar has quietly lost most of its purchasing power since 1971.

Bitcoin is volatile up and down on its way up. Fiat is remarkably stable on its way to zero.

Volatility you can ride out. A slow, guaranteed bleed you can't.

Short-term noise is the cost of owning money they can't print. The "stable" option just takes everything, quietly, instead.

— Zach 🧙‍♂️

The first time you help someone set up their own wallet, watch their face.

Not when they buy. When they send. That moment they move their own money, to their own keys, and realize no bank approved it, no app could freeze it, and nobody had to say yes.

Something shifts. They stop seeing Bitcoin as a number that goes up and down. They start seeing it as theirs.

We've watched grandparents do it. Teenagers do it. People who swore they were "not a tech person" do it in about ten minutes.

That quiet click of understanding is the whole point. Money you actually own, that answers to you and no one else.

You can't hand someone a feeling. But you can hand them the keys, and let them find it themselves.

Dear Fort Bragg City Council,

Fort Bragg likely adopted Flock cameras with good intentions—safer neighborhoods. My concern is that few of us are stopping to consider where this path leads.

Surveillance capabilities are growing exponentially as AI layers onto cameras, sensors, and databases. A tool that reads license plates today can evolve into one that tracks and profiles people through countless digital signals—phones, smartwatches, vehicle systems—building a remarkably complete picture of someone's life.

These changes happen gradually. Each new capability arrives as a small, reasonable upgrade. Viewed individually, they sound harmless. Combined, they become something very different.

History shows freedoms are often surrendered one small step at a time. In trying to build a safer society, we risk building one where everyone is monitored by default—without fully realizing it.

I hope the Council keeps asking not just what these technologies can do today, but what they may become. Once this infrastructure exists, it's nearly impossible to roll back.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,