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Wallets, Hash Power and Nodes
The News Surge host covered Trump Media's Bitcoin plan, Tether on Lightning and the state reserve bills, then named three risks Bitcoiners can act on.
This story is an episode of the Bitcoin Radio podcast."Ladies and gentlemen, we are currently facing at least two potentially catastrophic issues for Bitcoin." That is how the host opened the Mining Disrupt News Surge on Monday, February 3, 2025.
He said the price was hovering just above one hundred thousand dollars that week. Bitcoin traded at $95,214 on the date of the episode. On October 26, 2026 it was $79,651.
He went through the news first. Senator Cynthia Lummis wrote that legislators and their staffs still had a lot to learn, and that the suddenly moment was close. Trump Media and Technology Group said its board had approved investing up to 250 million dollars, custodied by Charles Schwab, with Bitcoin among the options. Lightning Labs announced that Tether was coming to Bitcoin and Lightning. And a state tracker showed 18 states with Bitcoin bills under way. The host predicted that would pass 25 before the end of the year.
Then he came back to his warning, in three parts: your wallet, your hash power and your node.
The wallet first. Unconfirmed transactions had fallen to 7,440, where a few months earlier the mempool had held hundreds of thousands. He took that as a sign that fewer people were moving coins off exchanges into their own custody. "If you don't have self custody of your Bitcoin," he said, "then you don't really truly have any Bitcoin."
Second, hash power. Foundry had found seven blocks in a row. The odds of that are low, he said, but if more and more hash power points to one pool, it will happen more often. That is why he called the decentralization of mining paramount.
Third, the node. If BlackRock or anyone else forked Bitcoin and dropped the 21 million cap, running your own node is what keeps you on the original rules. Otherwise, he said, we are back to the same old problem we have with fiat.
His advice was practical, and he said two of the three can be done the same day. A hardware wallet can be shipped in days. A node can run on an old computer, set up in an afternoon. Home mining is harder, and he noted Solo Satoshi is often sold out.
His last word was about who Bitcoin depends on. Not BlackRock, not Fidelity, not MicroStrategy. Those are icing on the cake, he said. Bitcoin needs the plebs, the everyday holder, and the cake itself is you and me.
The full story is on the Mining Disrupt magazine at miningdisrupt.com.