Claims Under Review

“Bitcoin's electricity consumption peaked in December 2025, at about 190 TWh.”

The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index did not peak in December 2025. In the index's own published daily series the best-guess annualised estimate reached its maximum of 227.43 TWh on 18 October 2025. December 2025 ranged from 189.56 to 211.75 TWh — between 7 and 17 percent below the October maximum — so the month named as the peak was already part of the decline, and the figure named for it is the bottom of that month's range rather than a peak. Whether Bitcoin's actual electricity consumption peaked is a separate question this verdict does not reach: the index is a model, and what is established here is what the index published.

2 sources · checked 19 Sep 2026

“Holding bitcoin through a regulated custodian is the same as owning bitcoin.”

Bitcoin defines ownership as control of a key. A coin is a chain of digital signatures, and it moves when the party controlling it signs. A customer whose custodian holds the keys therefore does not hold bitcoin in the protocol's sense: they hold a contractual claim against the custodian, which the custodian settles from keys it controls. Deutsche Bank's September 16, 2026 announcement describes exactly that arrangement in its own words. Custody can be prudent, insured, and for some institutions the only lawful option. It is a different relationship to the asset, not the same one.

2 sources · checked 16 Sep 2026

“The Federal Reserve Act ended gold redeemability.”

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 did not end gold redeemability. Section 16 authorized Federal Reserve notes as obligations of the United States, made them receivable by banks and for federal dues, and required redemption in gold on demand at the United States Treasury or in gold or lawful money at a Federal Reserve bank.

1 source · checked 27 Aug 2026

“The Constitution requires gold and silver money.”

Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 forbids a state from coining money, emitting bills of credit, or making anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 separately gives Congress power to coin money and regulate the value of United States and foreign coin. The cited text restricts what states may make legal tender; it does not impose a general gold-and-silver-only rule on Congress or require every form of money in the United States to be gold or silver.

2 sources · checked 26 Aug 2026

“The government confiscated everyone's gold in 1933.”

Executive Order 6102 required individuals, partnerships, associations, and corporations in the continental United States to deliver covered gold coin, bullion, and gold certificates by 1 May 1933 to a Federal Reserve bank or member bank. The order expressly excepted reasonable industrial, professional, and artistic uses; up to $100 in gold coin and certificates per person; collector coins; and specified foreign official holdings. Section 4 directed banks to pay an equivalent amount in another form of United States coin or currency. The order therefore did not reach everyone's gold and was not uncompensated under its own terms, although this row does not resolve the wider economic effect of the official valuation regime.

2 sources · checked 26 Aug 2026