 Welcome to digital asset news to get top stories and cryptocurrency and digital assets and break them out in bite-sized pieces. Today, we have conflicting reports from two different agencies. First up, the IRS commissioner is saying they are probing into the dark web for sales of NFTs and illicit cryptocurrency activities. And what they're pretty much saying is that they're having a very hard time tracking all the disturbing instances of cryptocurrency foul play, which goes in direct opposition to what a former CIA director report puts out and says, look, we need to get on blockchain and cryptocurrency. It's actually a very good thing and it's very easy to use and track. And these are the types of things we need to find out exactly what is going on because there's conflicting reports. And this, my friends, is where the battle is won or lost in regulation. So we'll take a look at what those two things are going on a little bit deep dive. But first take a look, let's go on the market. So today it is Thursday, April 15th. Congratulations. We're almost towards the end of the week. And the market is very healthy. Actually, maybe a little bit overbought, but I'm not going to tell you that market cap right now is $2.24 trillion. So not too shabby. Some of the hottest things that we're talking about right now on Twitter is band maker balance. They're in classic. Sure. Curve, iOS Tzen and the pirate chain, which is R. That's pretty funny. And that is form trade the chain, which is all sentiment analysis. Let's just take a look at the price itself. Bitcoin $63,000. So great. Can't beat that. Ethereum up 20% for seven days, 2,500 almost, Binance coin. Everything's pretty much up or maybe down a little bit with Binance coin, but all for seven days. I mean, just fantastic results. And this is all leading up our was really a culmination of the thing that happened with Coinbase, with their direct listing or IPO where it started off at around 350, 380 jumped out to 423 and then took a little bit of a dive, a little whipsaw. And now I think we're trading around 330, 340. We expect to see a lot of big things with that, but that really just does bring legitimacy and it was good to see. So that's pretty much gone in the market. I mean, really, everybody's in profit. Let's just be honest. It's a great day. Enjoy the day. Look, you did the hard work. So just sit back and be like, don't do anything. That's really all you have to do today. And real quick, let's take a look at any kind of our inside traders. If you're a trader, this is all sentiment analysis. You can find a link in the description for trade the chain. If you want to check it out, you're looking in between, not too much 1% gains from Harvest Finance, Aave, Audius, which I really got to take a look at. Looks like a great project. Make your Troy and cover protocol. And yeah, that's what's going on the market. Let's just jump into today's top story because I think this is the most interesting thing. And actually, before we get to that, let me make mention of, there's like three different things I want to cover. First of all, over on Alex Mascioli's show, we had Steven Erlich, the CEO of Voyager, sit down and give us an in-depth detail of what is going on because people are really complaining and upset about deposits and withdrawals. That is the big thing. And then, of course, some people are talking about wait lists and they can't get in. So Steve Pomer says down and said, look, this is what's going on. And it's about 30 minutes long. I'm going to link at the very end. I highly recommend you watch it because he just says, look, it's not like we're doing anything nefarious. The problem is we're having problems with fraudsters. People are trying to gain access and they're trying to steal your money. And we have to do a lot of different things to really clamp down that right now as we put in new protocols and different things. So they're bringing a whole new team to help them out with this. And I, for one, am like, when I hear these things, I'm like, Steve, just do what you got to do. Just keep my money safe. Keep my crypto safe because there's all these things going on. And that is a, that is a, I don't want to lose anything for just some fraud, you know, scam piece of junk garbage. So there's that. And he's also talking about some of the banks that they're working with are really not as careful as they should be. He goes, you know, they're all FDIC insured. They kind of like are a little bit like, whatever, flippant. So they're like, we're going to shut some things down. It's going to take a little bit longer. We've hired a lot more customer service reps. And it just goes over the whole thing. So just watch the video and you'll probably get a whole better understanding of what's going on. On top of the fraudsters, we also got this kind of garbage going around. So Celsius is coming out with their web-based application instead of just on the phone. And this is an email that went out that almost fooled me. It said, hey, have you heard the news? And this looks exactly like it's from Celsius. We're thrilled to share that the Celsius web wallet is officially live. And then we're going to give you away 500 bucks. Hint, no one's given away free money. So just connect your wallet and we'll be good. And people have been falling for this. So there was a post put out, Celsius dropped an email. They put everything out on Twitter. They put everything on, especially this blog post. And the big thing is that your funds are safe. Just don't fall for this. So this is really important that on this channel, I talk about these things to make you aware. You're not special. No one's given you free money. And just be safe out there because everybody wants what you got. Be super careful. And that's the big thing. So those two things, that's one of the bigger stuff. And then lastly, to finish up, I thought it was just really funny, is that CZ Binance, he said, hey, I know that really, if you know, there's a rivalry between Binance and Coinbase, especially when Coinbase pretty much walked out of a regulation group that was working with Congress and different lobbyists because Binance was added to the group. And they're like, hey, you know what? We still love you guys. And we'll even list your coin or the Binance or the Coinbase coin on our platform so you can trade it as like a synthetic stock. I thought it was pretty funny, but it's pretty like just a little subtle jab. Nice to see a little passive aggressiveness. And then finally, just so you know, there is the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami June 4th to 5th. I will link this in the description below. There's going to be a lot of cool people there. Let's see who else. Tony Hawk and some other people. And yeah, that'll be cool. And I don't know if I'm going to go. Maybe just to sit around and watch just what's going on in the world of crypto. That'd be awesome. So I'll link that below and you can check that out. All right. So let's jump in today's top story. So first up, this was interesting to me because to me, I always feel like everybody's trying to pull the wool over our eyes, or they're trying to do a little bit something for their own purposes. And I'm going to explain this in a bit. So the IRS is probing the dark web to look for crypto and NFT tax evasion, says IRS commissioner. So first of all, taxes are coming up and you might want to definitely think about filing because of this reason. This is just for Americans, you know, wherever else you are. But this was interesting because it just talks about the things that they're doing. So IRS commissioner Charles Redig in a testimony before the Senate Finance Committee said Tuesday, the US fails to collect as much as a trillion dollars in taxes owed each year in part due to the explosion in crypto, which are difficult for the agency to track and tax. First of all, let me just say this. They've sent out a bunch of John Doe summons, they work with the exchanges, they know damn well that they can get all the information that they need for people who go through exchange. That's why there's an AML and KYC. If you're going to sit here and tell a committee that you're messing out on a trillion dollars in taxes, there's a reason for that. And the reason is because when you go through a committee for Congress, you're trying to tell them like the worst case scenario that's really going on, because guess what? Every single agency out there, I learned this in the Army, is that you're all looking for money for your division. And if you can tell them just how awful it is and how much you need help and what else is going on, all of a sudden your division gets a ton of money. So I would not be surprised because the IRS has been been pretty much shortchanged over the last so many years. And they're looking to say, hey, we need a lot of help and we're missing out on a trillion dollars in taxes we can get, so just help us out and we can do it. There is no reason why they can't find people who are avoiding taxes. I mean, yes, they can use Monero and things like that. Yes, they can do some kind of mixer, but for the majority, come on, trillion, get out of here. So this is just something like to me, it just feels like they're like, hey, there's a boogeyman out there and we got to really control this. All right, so yeah, he talks about, so now we have these non-fungible tokens, which are essentially collectibles in the crypto world. Yes, these are not visible by design. The crypto world is not visible. Again, it is a public ledger. It's the same thing the banks talk about, they're full of it. And you can find a lot of great information. Actually, I can find out more information about you watching this video right now, especially for wallets and what's in your wallet that I ever can for your bank account unless I'm a great hacker. So really, wallets are very open. Take a look at Ethereum scan, Theta scan, Bitcoin scanner, all those different things you could find every wallet out there. Now, you can't say who it is attached to, but if you have access to an exchange and a KYC and AML and stuff that they have, I guarantee you can find a bunch of information. In the criminal context, the IRS criminal investigations, cybercrime unit has been spectacular operating in the dark web, engaging with crypto related transactions and some other stuff when I pretty much just bypassed it because it was boring. So that's really what's going on here. And again, the big thing is it's all a pony show, dog and pony show in my opinion. Like they're like, oh, we just can't do it. It's just really tough, which is weird because here's a nice little report from my friend, Ryan Gorman, where he talks about what's this from the Forbes article where the former CIA director just says, look, I did an in-depth report and it's very easy to track things. And all this less than activities you guys are talking about. That's not the case. So what's going on here? So Bitcoin just received a strong load of confidence from an unlikely source, a former acting director of the CIA. And doing so, you put government officials on notice, such as Janet Yellen, all the rest of the people were like, this is just awful. We're not going to go with this. Michael Morel, a 33 year veteran of the agency, published an independent paper commissioned by the newly formed lobbying group, Crypto Council for Innovation. Members include Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Square, No Binance. Directly refuting this well-traveled narrative in an expansive study, Morel came to two key conclusions. One, the broad generalizations about the use of Bitcoin and illicit finances are significantly overstated. Shocker and blockchain analysis is a highly effective crime-fighting and intelligence-gathering tool, which is true. You can find a lot of different things about different wallets and everything else. Just pretty track things from one to the other together. Very simple. Again, if you use other options, maybe you can get away with it, but that's not the majority. Morel made it clear that there will also be severe geopolitical repercussions for the US versus China if it wastes energy and resources chasing a ghost as opposed to leveraging blockchain. He states, we need to make sure that the conventional wisdom that is wrong about the illicit use of Bitcoin doesn't hold us back from pushing forward the technological changes that we're going to keep pace with China because they are blowing right past the United States. Well, in all honesty, every country is, so it's not surprising right now. If you don't like that comment, it's the truth. Sorry. One of his key assumptions was that people like Secretary Yellen and Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, were some of the most informed people on the planet, which is what I would think too, because you have access to all this information. So they probably speak the truth, right? However, in doing his analysis, he discovered just the opposite that Bitcoin and crypto weren't rife with illicit activity. In fact, there was probably less illicit activity in the Bitcoin ecosystem than there is in the traditional banking system. Shocker. Who are some of the biggest lobbyists in Congress? Well, it's some of the people with the most amount of money. And who is that? The banks and all the different people. Health insurance also too. So when you hear about these people going up in arms about these things, well, of course, because they don't want this to happen. It only makes sense. Thanks for getting a blockbuster. That's just how it is. So what did he find? He found that less than 1% are illicit activity. This is from on-chain analysis. And this is a nice little graph where he just talks about, look, in 2013, there was a lot more with Silk Road, but that got shut down. And then in July 2017, Alpha Bay shut down, whatever that was. And in 2019, there's a little bit of an uptick with the plus token Ponzi scheme, but that's already gone. So we're looking at less than 1%. And as far as like banking and other types of things, it's more than 2%. In fact, he said he was literally blown away by how they find illicit activity. Oops, sorry. Perhaps even more interesting to Morell was how analytic firms such as Chainalysis, Cypher, Trace, and Elliptic can employ forensic and artificial intelligence to find illicit actors and activity on blockchains. And he was blown away by this. So again, what they just talked about with the IRS was like, we can't find anybody. And this guy's like, we can find everybody. So it's just kind of weird. And then he talks about how, yeah, you can bypass the whole thing if you want to use some type of privacy coin, like a Zcash, like a Monero or something like that. And that was pretty much it. So again, I'm just going to leave this up to you for you to decide and don't let me sway you in my opinion. But that's just how I see things. I just see a lot of dog and pony shows and people are coming out and talking about how awful it is so they can do whatever for their own purposes. But in all honesty, if you just take a look at it, like again, I can find a lot of information for a lot of different people just by looking at wallets and especially with Chainalysis and all the things that are really just open. It's amazing how big and open it is and how people are like, oh, it's just awful. So let me just take the comment section. Maybe I'm incorrect. And that is pretty much it. There's a couple of things I want to make mention that is that if the IRS really is looking in the dark web and the NFTs, and we know that they're knocking out the doors and they're talking to the exchanges they're doing John Doe summons, you really want to think about filing taxes. And I'm going to file my taxes yet again, just like I did last year. And of course, I'm going to use crypto trader dot tax, super simple as soon as you open it up. So I show I did this when I opened it up, got it all in, sent it over my CPA to me 30 minutes. This year to me a little bit longer, excited away from Voyager CSV file. I think we all know that I've been talking about it, but it's very simple. So there's two options here in the link in the description. I'm going to actually end this at the very top. You can go to this web address and you can enter to win for a free $300 unlimited report. And they'll draw a winner every week. If you want to get things done right now, all Dan looked in the description, there is a 20% discount for Dan users. Just click on that very easy peasy and off you go. On top of that, if you don't like paying taxes at all, I would definitely recommend using my trust IRA. That's a crypto IRA. I have that now for two years. I've maxed out. And just so you know, before May 15th, for tax time in America, you can actually retro add in funds for 2020 until May 15th. And then after that, you can actually max out 2021. They'll talk all about that. Again, if you have a traditional IRA, you want to roll it over to 401k, 403b, TSP, if you're retiring, tax and penalty free, then check these guys out. I've got a Roth IRA. It's all cryptocurrency. Actually, I have Gold, Silver, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, get some of the things in there too. And you can trade in there tax free as well. And there's no charges. So that's pretty cool. And then just lastly, just so you know, they also just added Cardano to that mixed. So Polkadot, Ethereum and now Cardano, if you have that in your Roth IRA, I think in Q2, I'm pretty sure, they're going to allow you to stake it within your IRA, get those rewards, and also not pay taxes. So again, link in the description to get 30 days for free just to check it out. And you can also schedule a call right here in the upper right end corner says schedule call. That's why I did sit also down with you 30 minutes and explain what the heck this all is. And also, I did a video on how this all works in the description. Alright, so I know it was a little bit long, and I was rambling a little bit, I apologize, but a lot of good information. So if you made this far, first of all, thanks. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming by. Give it a thumbs up if you liked it. You found some value. Also consider subscribing. A lot of things we talk about very time sensitive, like obviously, and that is it for today. So thanks so much. I appreciate it. And we'll see you on the next