Happy Friday!

As promised, we’ve learned our lesson: No weekend well wishes for any of you this week.

It’s been a bit of a rough ride this week but there have been green shoots if you know where to look — and you stick with us every morning. 

We’re cooking up some minor changes starting next week, so until then go touch some grass and we’ll see you bright and early Monday.

✊ Long live Satoshi

Humanity clings to mysteries that border on compulsions at this point. 

The moon landing — did we actually go, and if we did, is the footage real? And what about the pyramids — built by laborers and farmers, or were those 80-ton granite blocks actually set in place by ancient alien technology?

Satoshi Nakamoto’s true identity has fast become another cultural oddity that just won’t quit. 

Craig Wright was the ringleader of that particular media circus for years, until courts took action against him. Now that Wright is finally proven to be totally wrong, it’s the rest of us that are doomed to be repeatedly punished for the closure. 

In the past six months alone, we’ve had multiple fresh attempts at reviving the Nakamoto narrative. First was HBO’s Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, from documentarian Cullen Hoback, and a new documentary from the UK’s Channel 4 lacked compelling evidence, let alone a tangible theory.

You can read my thoughts about HBO's take, but ultimately it came to the laughable conclusion that long-time Bitcoin contributor Peter Todd was in fact Satoshi, hiding in plain sight. 

In between those releases, we were also subjected to threads on X, including one from Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, which suggested that tech billionaire Jack Dorsey is the man behind the Nakamoto moniker.

Veteran Bitcoiner Jameson Lopp shared his method of debunking the Dorsey theory during a premiere episode of Supply Shock on Thursday — a brand-new Bitcoin brand and podcast hosted by Bitcoin Historian Pete Rizzo. 

Lopp had previously busted an earlier suggestion that Hal Finney was Nakamoto by showing Finney had competed in a 10-mile race in Santa Barbara at the same time Nakamoto was emailing early developer Mike Hearn. 

Eventually, Lopp found enough instances, after trawling through Dorsey’s old Twitter posts, where it would have been almost impossible for Dorsey to coordinate a double life as Nakamoto to consider the theory bunk.

“I think a lot of the people who are accused of being Satoshi candidates are Bitcoin legends in their own right,” Lopp told Rizzo.

“Like they don't have to be Satoshi — they have contributed in a variety of different ways to being Satoshi in the way that we are all Satoshi, right? It's like anyone who contributes to [Bitcoin] is essentially building upon the legacy where Satoshi, you know, left the project open to the world so that anyone who cared could contribute to it.”

If it weren’t obvious by now, here it is: Nobody can ever prove any theory in any case. The only legitimate proof would be to sign a transaction with one of Satoshi’s keys — but even if someone did, we would likely never know for sure how those keys came into their possession — sending us on a never-ending loop of inconclusive proof.

It’s high time we relegate the Satoshi question to the annals of boring normie talking points, like the moon landing and pyramids, and move on. 

Speaking of, you won’t see me much around Empire for the foreseeable future. I’m headed on a spirit quest to learn more about this whole Bitcoin thing, I hear it might be a big deal. It’s been a pleasure.

— David

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The biggest names in crypto, finance, and policy are coming to NYC. VIP passes? Gone. The agenda? Live. With less than 30 days to go, the time to secure your spot is now.

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📅 March 18-20 | NYC

Need some reassurance after watching bitcoin fall under $80,000 last night? 

We managed to climb back above that level this morning, but only slightly — at least at the time I was writing this. I hope I didn’t jinx it. ETH, on the other hand, is holding on to $2,100. 

On the Empire roundup this week, co-host Jason Yanowitz explained his thoughts on the current market. For him, there are only three options: The start of the bear, the end of the four-year cycle or a simple pullback. 

If you voted for pullback, then you’re right on the money. 

“ I feel very convicted that this is not a bear market. So let me just [go] on the record, this is not a bear market,” he said, giving it a 20-30% chance that this marks the end of the four-year cycle and roughly an 80% chance that this is merely a bull market pullback.

Yanowitz gave 2021 as an example, citing the 56% pullback that bitcoin experienced a few years ago. 

“ ETH drew down 61%, SOL drew down 67%. And a lot of other things, in the middle of the year — in the middle of what we look back and think [of as the] 2021 peak bull market — drew down like 70 to 80%. I just think people are very quick to forget that,” he said.

If Yanowitz is right — and my reporting this week is in favor of what he’s said — then the harsh truth is that pullbacks are tough and anxiety inducing, but they’re not forever. 

I know it’s an utter cliche at this point, but the Brits really nailed this one: Keep calm and carry on.

And now you know.

A dose of clarity was handed over to the market last night in the form of an SEC statement on memecoins. I think, after spending some time on it, that I’d characterize this as a bit of a mixed bag, though I’m leaning towards optimism.

Let’s start with the good: The SEC actually put the Howey test to work without a lawsuit! Huge. Love this for them. It’s exactly what the industry has wanted to see — and no one had to file a lawsuit or a FOIA for this clarity.

If the collectible language sounds familiar, it’s because crypto czar David Sacks seems to have paved the way for this statement by saying, back in late January, that memecoins resembled something more akin to collectibles than securities. 

SEC commissioner and head of the new crypto task force, Hester Peirce, also said that memecoins don’t fall under the SEC’s jurisdiction in an interview earlier this month.

Why is the SEC’s new stance a mixed bag? Because it now seems more likely that the industry will have to self-regulate, meaning that it’s still open season for memecoins.

The SEC isn’t totally washing its hands of them, noting that any “fraudulent conduct” in relation to the sale or the offer of memecoins is still subject to enforcement actions and prosecution by federal agencies. 

But this statement did come at the perfect time: We’re starting to see memecoins slow down naturally, which could point to a focusing of market momentum elsewhere, potentially leaving memecoin hype behind.

My insight is that I think it’s okay to let them operate in their own bubble. We don’t want memecoins taking up so much space, but — bear with me here — I’m not sure I totally see them as something akin to baseball cards. However, I definitely think they’re like slot machines or something more along the lines of a crappy penny stock with no fundamentals. If people want to put their money there, then let them. The trick is to ensure that folks are well aware of the risks.

Now we only have to hope for a flight to higher quality tokens backed by fundamentals, and bam, we’re cooking again.

— Katherine

Last week, we asked: “What are you most jazzed about in crypto right now.”

43% of you said: “I love celebrity token launches, especially political ones.” This is why we can’t have nice things.

This week, screw what David said. We want to know: