 Welcome to Digital Asset News, the top stories in crypto, currency, and digital assets. And a big amount of bite-sized pieces today. We've got some pretty interesting stuff as it relates to different countries as far as crypto and digital assets. And first up, the governor of Texas just comes out out of the blue and says, hey, we're going to make a big splash into blockchain. But I want you to pay attention to his exact wording and what I think he actually means. And we'll get into that and also a nice little snippet about how Russia is removing all the US dollar assets from its $600 billion national wealth fund as there are more sanctions being imposed upon them. And it really makes you wonder just how much things are going to topple for the US dollar around the entire world. So we'll take a look at those two things on top of the fact that the guys over there at Trade the Chain are going to be doing a live stream. It's going to be a big announcement. I'll be a part of that, which is going to go on like the next 45 minutes. Let's break into what's going on in the market and we'll go over those stories and then we'll go do a live stream with the guys over there. So first up, here's what we got. $1.64 trillion market cap. Not much has changed. And I think the reason why not much has changed is pretty much all the big, we'll say all the big whales or so. They're over on this, this Bitcoin 2021 live stream, not live stream conference that is going on right now. So you got like 50,000 or so people from all over the world just attending this event. So what I really think is that this is actually going on. And this I think is maybe some of the issues as far as like a lot of volume going on. So I don't think much is going to happen until this actually concludes. And like I talked about yesterday, it's not about what you know, it's who you know. And right now all these people are together, they're connecting, they're figuring out the next way to actually scale things. And I think this is going to be the catalyst into the months moving forward as far as the crypto market. I think it's going to be big, but who knows? Anyhow, so let's take a look at the prices real quick. It just drops a couple of billion as I was talking, which is a problem when everybody who's buying is actually in a conference doing nothing. So well, they're not doing nothing. They're all probably all with hangovers. So let's see Bitcoin below $36,000, $26,000. So let's see. All red today. Not surprising. So on a 4%, good for them. Everything's red. That's what it is. Don't really care. Let's go on the big stories. So here's what we got. First up, so I saw this and I thought to myself, why is the governor of Texas coming out all of a sudden talking about that they're going to go big into blockchain and he just signed a new bill? And it didn't make much sense and I really thought about it and I kind of get it. So here's exactly what he said. Let me get the volume up and here we go. Blockchain is a booming industry that Texas needs to be involved in. So I just signed a law creating a master plan for Texas to get involved in the blockchain industry. Okay, so here's the thing. Pay attention to what he said. Blockchain industry didn't say cryptocurrency, didn't say digital asset, definitely didn't say Bitcoin, did not say Bitcoin. So what is he talking about? What is so great about the governor of Texas coming out and talking about blockchain? Well, first of all, it's probably what his handlers told him to say. And nah, I wish he didn't say handlers. He's a smart guy. Abbot's a smart guy. But I think what it really comes down to is that he just wants to be, you know, just kind of just put it out there just a little bit and then go from here. So in my personal opinion, what does Texas have to offer for blockchain? Well, first you have to understand, Texas is a big hub for the technology-based individuals. It's kind of like the second Silicon Valley. As you know, in California, that's where everything is based. You know, the Googles and the Facebooks and things like that. But over a little bit of time, these companies got sick of that area because of the taxes and then this management and things that are going on. I would never live there personally. And they just said, we're out of here. And we're going to go someplace where we're treated best, just like no man capitalist talks about. Andrew don't know no man capitalist. And they went to Texas and most of them settled in Austin. And it's now the new hub for technology here in the States. I think Miami could be the second one. And what they all came down here for was the tax breaks. And they're really great with businesses. But on top of that, you know, who else is there? Tesla's there. I'm not going to say that guy's name, the CEO. But his company's there. And you know, I think maybe there's a bit of a connection there. But I think on top of that, it's not so much that. But I want you to remind you of a story we covered months and months and months ago. This was all the way back in, well, just a year ago, February 20, 2020. It says, why is this Peter Thiel backed startup mining Bitcoin in West Texas? West Texas. Well, right now, I mean, El Paso's West Texas. We are in East Texas in Houston right now, dealing with this investment property. But the whole thing was, why are they building a Bitcoin mining operation in West Texas? First of all, to mine Bitcoin, you want things as cool as possible. That's why you see a lot of those things in Iceland and Russia and whatever places that they have. That's not so darn hot. Or in parts of China because of hydroelectricity. So why West Texas? Because, I mean, Texas, what are we known for? Well, oil, gas, refineries, the type of thing, right? Well, here's the thing. Not only is that, the real draw of West Texas is cheap power. We're not talking about the Texas mainstays of oil and gas, but wind. Texas is by far the biggest wind power generator with 20,000 megawatts and 70 second megawatts under construction. It's the cheapest power in the world at scale. It says LIGO 27, who kind of founded Layer 1 and Layer 1. They got a way to dump these, these mainframes and these mining operations, these chips into a liquid cooled vat, I guess. It's not like a regular liquid cool. So I'm kind of like mineral water or something, oil. And this really reduces the actual heat, which is great. So you have reduction in heat, which means you reduce the power. Also the fact that you have super cheap renewable energy sources for power. So this all comes full circle to what Abbott's saying to Governor of Texas. He's like, we're going to get into blockchain. Me personally, I don't see why he wouldn't just start to talk about, let's get involved in Bitcoin mining. Why not? There was a, there's a new law trying to be passed in New York, where they're trying to ban Bitcoin mining in New York and the whole entire state. And look, if you're going to cause a vacuum, they're going to go someplace else. So thanks, New York. We appreciate that here in Texas. And we will take all the Bitcoin miners that want to come here for cheap electricity and for very low corporate taxes. And we welcome with the open arms. So great job. And that's how I see things. Now I could be wrong. Let me just think of the comments section. And I think this is good news overall, especially to bring Bitcoin mining into the good old USA. And that's what I got. So that is that part as far as USA and what is going on with Bitcoin. Now let's turn our attention to what's going on globally. And this was, this caught my, my surprise. That's not really a surprise that they would do this at some point. But Russia is removing all the US dollar assets from its 600 billion national wealth fund. 600 billion, right? Pretty close to a trillion. And if we think about it, if Russia's doing this, how many other countries are going to follow suit that are just like, you know what, we don't need this. We don't need the sanctions. We don't need the dollar as the reserve currency. We don't need this so much. We're going to go on away. And for all the armchair economists, come at me. Because I mean, why wouldn't they do it? I don't see why countries that have to deal with the US dollar when they have alternatives would just get it. Would just say, you know what? We're out of here. We don't need to do this. Let's see what's going on. So first of all, Russia's finance minister Anton Swolnov announced that the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday, that dollar assets will be removed from the national wealth fund all together as Washington continues to impose sanctions on Moscow. Any states like the central bank, we have decided to reduce investments of the NWF in dollar assets. Very Russian of him, just to say the bare minimum. And this is where it comes. It gets interesting. He revealed that the changes will happen within the next month, after which the fund will likely hold the euro 40%, the yuan 30%, gold 20%, Japanese yen 5% and the British pound 5%. The dollar portion of the fund will be replaced by all those currencies and there will be no US dollar in that wealth fund. And to finish up, Russia's national wealth fund was initially designed to support the country's pension system. It forms part of Russia's gold and currency reserves and according to publication total 600 billion as of May 27th. So look, first of all, if you're a gold bug, this is a great news for you because you're like, oh, fantastic. And actually cryptocurrency and digital asset holders is also great news for you because they're getting out of the dollar, which, let's be honest, we are printing the dollar to infinity as far as quantitative easing. We are printing so much. If it wasn't for the fact the US dollar is the reserve currency of the world, we would have printed ourselves to infinity and out of everything and we would have had hyperinflation already. Could be wrong. But once you start to print 30% of the entire stock of your entire fiat system in a year or so, it seems like a lot of money and seems irresponsible. But only time will tell. I am not 100% sure, but I can tell you this. I don't like the way things are going, especially if you see is what is about to happen. More money printing. Countries around the world going, we don't need this. We're going to get rid of this. And the different problems that are happening around the globe with everything that has to do with the fiat system and hopefully the acceptance of crypto and digital assets. So let me know what you think of the comment section about those articles, but in all honesty, with this type of news, this is actually, in my opinion, pretty much like an advertisement for crypto. Like, look, you don't like the dollar and you're worried about it and you see how it's, you know, things that are going on. Maybe it's time to get into an alternative hard asset. And it's Michael Saylor, one of the hardest assets out there. So we will see. And then lastly, let me finish up with just saying this. I need to get this video off because I will be here at 1.45, which is about 30 minutes from now. We'll be doing the live stream. The guys over there are at the Miami conference. You can watch this live. Just go to Bitcoin Magazine on YouTube and watch the live stream going on. And that is it for today. So look, thanks for watching. I appreciate it. Thumbs up. If you liked it, consider subscribing. A lot of you talk about timestamps and all that good stuff. And I'll see you over on Alex's show as we talk about their big announcement. All right, see you in the next one.