today Tether announced the “freezing” of $344 million in USDT. the main conclusion here is that self custody is not the same as sovereign ownership. what happened today is another reminder that bitcoin is the only thing known to mankind that no one can prevent you from owning, that no one can prevent you from paying with, that no one can confiscate from you unless YOU made a mistake, that cannot be printed, whose users have a self-sovereign way to steer the protocol while consensus is tightly, objectively, and materially subject to the laws of physics and thermodynamics, and all of this without blood on your hands. chainalysis, “sanctioned” bitcoin, et. al. are mere fragile coordination between centralized parties. they will disappear sooner or later. these are inherent, emerging realities given the coordination and conflict resolution mechanisms in place: the mechanisms of governments and institutions that do all this are based on words, handshakes, laws written on some paper, bureaucrats. bitcoin's coordination mechanism is thermodynamics. the same process for that laws and regulations are not self-sufficient, they need force and kinetic energy. it's all agreements, regulation and discussions until the first shot is fired or the bomb drops. and it's all chainalysis checks until someone else accepts your "sanctioned" bitcoin and the tx is mined in blocks at 970.6 EH/s.