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Chairman Krapo, Ranking Member Brown, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Peter Van Valkenburg and I'm the Director of Research at Coin Center, an independent nonprofit focused on the public policy issues affecting cryptocurrency and public blockchain networks. What is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is the world's first cryptocurrency and it works because of the world's first public blockchain network. What does Bitcoin do? It's simple. It lets you send and receive value to and from anyone in the world using nothing more than a computer and an internet connection. Now why is it revolutionary? Because unlike every other tool for sending money over the internet, it works without the need to trust a middleman. The lack of any corporation in between means that Bitcoin is the world's first public digital payments infrastructure. And by public I simply mean available to all and not owned by any single entity. Now we have public infrastructure for information, for websites, for email. It's called the internet. But the only public payments infrastructure that we have is cash, as in paper money. And it only works in face-to-face transactions. Before Bitcoin, if you wanted to pay someone remotely over the phone or the internet, then you could not use public infrastructure. You would rely on a private bank to open their books and add a ledger entry that debits you and credits the person you're paying. And if you both don't use the same bank, well then there'll be multiple banks and multiple ledger entries in between. With Bitcoin, the ledger is the public blockchain. And anyone can add an entry to that ledger, transferring their bitcoins to someone else. And anyone, regardless of their nationality, race, religion, gender, sex, or credit worthiness, can for absolutely no cost create a Bitcoin address in order to receive payments digitally. Bitcoin is the world's first globally accessible public money. Is it perfect? No. Neither was email when it was invented in 1972. Bitcoin's not the best money on every margin. It's not yet accepted everywhere. It's not used often to quote prices, and it's not always a stable store of value. But it is working, and the mere fact that it works without trusted intermediaries is amazing. It's a computer science breakthrough, and it will be as significant for freedom, prosperity, and human flourishing as the birth of the internet. And Bitcoin is just the beginning. If we can replace private payments infrastructure, then we can replace other private choke points to human interaction as well. Now, why should we want to build more public infrastructure? Why should we embrace blockchains over corporate intermediaries? Why should we tolerate their inefficiencies and work to make them better? Why should we want the pioneers of this technology here in the United States and not fleeing overseas? A simple reason, because the corporate intermediaries providing today's critical but privately owned infrastructure are becoming fewer, larger, and more powerful, and their failures are increasingly grave. So roughly half of all Americans, 143 million people, had their social security numbers exposed to hackers because of a breach at Equifax. The Swift network has relayed hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent transactions because of hacked member banks in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Ecuador, and Russia. The FBI suspects now that the largest of these hacks was perpetrated by North Korea. Corrupt, low-level employees at an Indian bank, Punjab National, were able to fraudulently certify Swift messages stealing 1.8 billion dollars. It's the largest electronic bank robbery in history. In fact, it's the largest bank robbery in history. In October 2016, an estimated 1.2 million internet connected devices were hacked and turned into a botnet that for several hours made prominent websites unavailable across Europe and North America, including CNN and Fox News, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Increasingly, physical machines are being connected to the internet to augment their capabilities. They're wired through servers that are owned and maintained by private and trusted intermediaries, the so-called Internet of Things. Pacemakers from St. Jude's Hospital have been hacked, baby monitors from TrendNet have been hacked, and Jeeps from Jeep have been hacked to the point where they can be remotely commandeered and driven off the road. Now those vulnerabilities are inescapable in systems that have single points of failure. It doesn't matter if the point of failure is a corporation or if it's a government. There shouldn't be a single point of failure. Similar choke points existed before the internet. If you wanted to deliver a message, you'd have to go through one of three television broadcasters or a handful of newspapers. Private corporations are essential, but no critical infrastructure should rely on one or two. The internet removed single points of failure in communications infrastructure and ushered in a wave of competition among new media corporations building on top of its public rails. Blockchains can similarly disintermediate critical payments and IoT infrastructure. The technology is not yet ready to answer all of those questions today, but it is our best hope. And as with the internet in the 1990s, we need a light touch pro-innovation policy to ensure that these innovations flourish in America for the benefit and security of all Americans.

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(audience applauds)

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- There has been a morale shift in the last two months. I see it on these guys' face. I saw it four years ago. I saw how they were performing and just wanted to do their job. Tell me about the morale shift in your men and women because you supervise it. - Right. Well, I think that you hit it right on the head, right? Is, you know, Border Patrol agents sign up to do Border Patrol work and the fact that they're actually getting out there and going and patrolling and doing what they sign up to do. I think that makes a lot of folks in our organization very, very happy.

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Mr. President, I voted for you twice. First of all, I'm so glad you're in the office. It's the new era. And in this situation, I'm glad you're the president. And thank you for bringing me home. And I've never been so proud to be an American citizen. Thank you, Mr. President. And I just want you to know all the women in the Afghan jail, they always ask me, when does Trump come in? You truly, they just treat you like their savior. They're waiting for you to come and set them free. And just sense regards. And just don't want to forget all those women are still in jail and don't have any rights. So thank you, Mr. President, and God bless you.

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President Donald Trump on Sunday Morning Futures, from tariffs and the budget to deals abroad. We're not going to let people take advantage of us anymore. Maria has the must-see interview today.

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From the very beginning of our Republic, America has always been a nation founded by people of faith and strengthened by the power of prayer and united by four simple but very beautiful words, "In God we trust."

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Before our monologue, Rosie O'Donnell has a few choice words from MSDNC, poor MSDNC hosts, liberal Joe and Mika. Take a look. So Mika and Joe went down to Mar-la-Argo to kiss the ring. It's the last time I ever watched Morning Joe. Period. End of statement. Unreal. Unreal. For months you were telling us he's the worst thing that could happen in this country in democracy. Then you go kiss his ring. Despicable. Readjust your thinking. It's not going to be a good four years, I can tell you that much. Land of the free, home of the brave, well, has now become in liberal land, the land of the woke snowflake. Look, don't you just hate to see liberals turning on each other like this? So sad to see. Trump derangement syndrome is taking its toll, speaking of which tonight we have more big news from the president-elect and bad news for the radical left. Donald Trump is assembling his new administration. He is doing it in record time. According to an ABC News report, he is making appointments, nominations in, quote, a quarter of the time it has taken some of his predecessors. Coming up, two of those appointments will join us live, including the soon-to-be deputy chief of policy, Stephen Miller, along with the incoming press secretary. I wouldn't wish this job on anybody, Caroline Levitt, although I do have suggestions for her. After four long years of circle back Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre, change is coming to the White House briefing room. By the way, what a great idea that Ari Fleischer had. He said, "Put new media, put talk radio, Fox News, put, you know, people in podcasting, put them in the front rows and take the legacy hate Trump media in the back. Their influence is dead anyway." They had 90% negative coverage of Donald Trump, 90% positive for Kamala. Trump still won in a landslide. Nobody cares what they say. And now change is coming to every facet of our federal government. Might as well do it there as well. And whether the legacy media, the radical left like it or not, it's happening. Moments ago, Donald Trump announced that American business mogul and small business administrator, Linda McMahon, will be appointed to lead the department of education, which might cease to exist by the end of Trump's term. Now that's great. Why? Because state and local governments know better how to raise their children. And there should be national requirements that they must meet. Our friend, Dr. Memenaz, he has been nominated to be the administrator for Medicare and Medicaid, which Donald Trump has promised to protect, where he will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That'll be a great one, two punch. Dan Scavino is back. He has been picked to be Trump's deputy chief of staff. Good choice. According to reports, vice president-elect Vance has also confirmed that Trump is interviewing candidates to replace Chris Ray at the FBI. Now, Ray had an opportunity after Comey, I spoke about it often, to restore the reputation, the former greatness, the integrity to the FBI, which continued to operate in a very hyper partisan manner under his watch. So Chris Ray's time as FBI director is now running short. In fact, far left politically motivated bureaucrats from all across the federal government. They should know that their reign of oppression on the American people is about to end. The witch hunts will end. The leaking will end. The abuse of power, the corruption will end. The so-called resistance within our government against we the people will be over. Donald Trump has nominated a team of disruptors like he said he would. They are hell bent on reforming every single department. Look at what Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami will do. Waste, fraud, abuse will be gutted. Constitutional order. Remember, the principles of limited government, greater freedom, they will be restored. You won't have the nanny state cradle to grave, wound to the tomb, promises of the left that would never be realized anyway, that always result in broken promises, more, more poverty and a loss of freedom. The DOJ must no longer ever, ever be weaponized. We can't live in that country and institutions, great institutions like the FBI and our intelligence communities, they need to be restored to their former greatness under Donald Trump. They will. And despite what you hear from the hysterical legacy media, the incoming administration is confident Trump's cabinet will get confirmed. Not only will Republicans have a 53 seat majority in the Senate, but the president elect is also ready and willing to use another tool at his disposal. It is not the ideal way to do it, but if he has to, he will, like other presidents have, it's called recess appointments. And like everything else that Donald Trump does, this will send the left, the state run legacy media mob into a fit of hysteria. Here's some facts. Let's look at Reuters as the source, shall we? The U S constitution says that a president can make recess appointments to fill vacant positions when the Senate is not in session. The Supreme court ruled that a president can make those appointments once the Senate has been adjourned for at least 10 days. The first ever recess appointment. Well, that was made by the first president himself, George Washington during the very first congressional recess in 1790. More recently, Ronald Reagan made 240 recess appointments. President George H W Bush made 77 recess appointments, including a secretary of state. Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments. George W Bush, 171, Barack Obama 32. So this Thanksgiving, if you're sitting with your liberal relatives and they're not throwing Turkey legs or mashed potatoes at you and they are freaking out, you can present them with these simple, basic fundamental facts and truth. Presidents from both parties have made hundreds of recess appointments. It will not be unusual. It will not be unlawful for Donald Trump to do the same. So tonight we can all feel very good about Donald Trump's incoming cabinet. They are about to clean house in the Washington swamp. There is little that anyone on the radical extreme left can do about it. And of course that won't stop them from screaming, yelling and crying and trying. But their manufactured hysteria didn't work during the election. It's not going to work now. It's sort of like it all comes together. It's just one big nine year period of, you know, breathless Trump, Trump, Trump. And the American people rejected that overwhelmingly in the election. Won't cancel culture is now about to die. Americans are over it. They no longer listen to the media. They don't care what Hollywood celebrities have to say, which is great news. Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney could go back and focus on counting their money. Americans want the American dream restored for everybody else with freedom and justice and prosperity and equal justice under the law, equal application of our laws for everybody, along with a border that is secure streets that are safe, lower grocery prices and lower gas prices.

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Before we begin, I want to send our prayers to the people of Florida, getting hit just about now in a little while. You're going to see a hurricane like we haven't seen in a long time, as well as all of the people still recovering from Hurricane Helene. So we have -- North Carolina has been hit very hard, and this administration has not done a proper job at all. Terrible, terrible. Nobody's seen anything like it, but we just pray for everybody. We want them all to be good, and we're going to be there hopefully soon, and we're going to help them rebuild and get it all back together. We hope that God will keep them safe. God will keep them safe.

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In a Fox & Friends exclusive, Melania Trump is setting the record straight on her life, her family and the election that's coming up. She lays it all out in her new memoir called Melania, set to hit the shelves next month. So we were able to sit down with the former first lady for this exclusive interview, her first in more than two years. Take a look. Why did you want to tell your story in this book? I believe that it was the time that I tell my story and the truth. It is a lot of misinformation and falsehoods written about me. And I want to put the record straight and people can learn some things that they were never discussed. And I hope they enjoy the book.

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sound here guys and see if he says anything. Alright. And fantastic it went through. [laughter] [cheering] Oh it did go through. Alright we're done. Your first transaction by a president on the Bitcoin protocol. History. [applause] Hello everybody. I gotta go back and see them. Well let's go.

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Somebody has to help this country, and if they don't, the country and the world are in big trouble. Someone's got to overturn the tables in the temple. Trump jumping into the presidential race. She's a bit worried. Of the Apprentice guys? They fear that power. You didn't do an insurrection. Had you called for one, there would have been one. And there would be one if you called for one now. I'm not sure I want that power. I want the power just to make the country better. America first! And that scares them. A lot about Donald Trump scares them. Let's look at everything. Campaign, his family. Let's get foreign eyes on him. We have one target. You know who he is. Going after their companies, their families. That is a dictator. It's a very dangerous time for our country. The goal is to put him in jail because they're so afraid of his voice. I am your voice! We'll bury him so deep and legal, it'll bankrupt them. Broke Donald and Jill right before the election. That's hard for being that guy, but isn't that election interference? It's not interference if we do it. We just want a free and fair election. Sounds expensive. Ballots ain't cheap. Wait, wait, wait. Did you actually say the word "buy the ballots"? We were able to purchase 10,000 ballots. That's terrifying. They cheat in many different ways. That's all they're good at. Ready to save democracy. We need to stop him permanently. And that person will be risking his life. Too bad it's not the '60s, right? It's the way you survived. I said get me up. Trump has beaten back every attack against him. It's like the damn Terminator. We're gonna fix our borders, and we're gonna fix our elections. We're gonna win. Indicating Trump. The best is yet to come. Only in theaters September 27th.

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- We came in much weaker than expected on non-farm. We came in at 114,000 jobs on non-farm. The estimate was 175,000 jobs on non-farm. The unemployment rate unexpectedly went up. We went up to 4.3%. We were looking for a rate of 4.1%. Government jobs, 17,000 on the government job story, and that is actually a lot less than what we got last month. Remember, last month on government jobs, we had 70,000, now we've only got 17,000. All right, private sector jobs, 97,000. Again, that is much weaker than expected. We were looking for 148,000 private sector jobs. Factory jobs, only 1,000.

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