What a tragedy. The Coldcard drama has been intense (and somebody is laundering funds via SN??)

If you, for some unfathomable reason, have missed it: immediately go check on your Coldcard. Funds secured by Coldcard products (mk3-5, Q) are in grave danger; move them. This is not a drill. Or a scam. 

Background summary: if, as we say in Icelandic when you don’t have a clue what’s going on, “I came all the way from the mountains” (ég kem alveg af fjöllum), should you mess up the most important line of code in your Bitcoin hardware wallet’s firmware, your product is done for and everyone using it has unknowingly put their funds at risk. That was revealed, painfully so, last week.

I had prepared an entire Nordic Node sesh about BIP-110 forks and prediction markets and the purpose of financial markets in society, plus a playbook for trading forkcoins. To no avail: Such is the nature of slow and thoughtful non-AI journalism. Sometimes your neatly laid plans are thrown out by an entropic(!) universe dead set on ruining your afternoon. No bother: I only lost time and (increasingly valueless) words. Others lost life savings. And some lost hope: remember, you are not your stack… and your worth is not determined by it. Go touch some grass (it’s nice this time of year); we shall persevere.

The fork will happen Saturday-ish… and absolutely nobody will care.  (If you’re still interested, Jimmy Song’s rundown of “The Messy Middle” was very helpful.) There’s something more important now.

Here’s a mildly uncomfortable thought:Here’s a mildly uncomfortable thought:

For bitcoin to win, truly, you kind of want these attackers to succeed. Money that can’t be stopped and can’t be traced, can’t be in any way clawed back or thwarted. (I refer you to the “Unstoppable” entry in your closest dictionary.)

Not because it’s good that regular sats stackers lost funds (it’s not) or because thieves are great people (they’re not), or because Coldcard users deserve what came to them (definitely not! Could have been any of us…) but because if permissionless freedom money can’t be turned into real goods and services, somewhere and at some point, it isn’t truly global freedom money. It’s just another system of permissioned and surveilled control.

READING LIST:READING LIST:

Coolcations Are Cool: A *Financial Times* feature story (giftlink) about increased holidays to the Nordics. Excellent way to escape heatwaves… we keep it cool and nice up here. Grab a ticket for 25-26 Sept; we cool. 

Norway Mania Continues: The other week, we wrote about Norway’s World Cup success. Last week I was bragging even more about Norway, both for the Mises Institute — recounting the extraordinary story of how Norwegian found oil and didn’t mess it up — and (though stupidly headlined) for The Daily Economy, explaining that the typical American’s rose-tinted dream of socialist Nordic paradise is a myth. 

Also, Comrade Mamdani: his New York City grocery stores are a bad idea. Brian Albrecht breaks it down in detailed Econ101 fashion for Economic Forces. 

Disagree But Worth Reading: Barry Eichengreen, long-term monetary history professor at the credentialed U.C. Berkeley university, has a new book out Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies From Croesus to Crypto. You’ll be shocked to learn that there’s no bitcoin in there… as in none at all. Stablecoins and gold and empty speculations for a future monetary world beyond the dollar, but nothing about the really obvious candidate for a money beyond borders. Pathetic. 

(Yes, I’m reading tradfi economists; up until about six days ago, Bitcoiners were boring…)

It's true** (#1535748)

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The Nordic Node #5: "EU Overlords, Decaying Cultures, & Treasury Companies Dying"

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The Nordic Node #1: "Welcome to the Nordic Node!"

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