Music.
Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 56. My name is Chris,
chrislas.com, jupiterbroadcasting.com.
Well, as I'm getting ready for a road trip, packing my gear,
I see that a major controversy has broken loose in the Bitcoin core development community.
Hotly debated, and this time it seems to be reaching new levels,
with some trying to say this would end Bitcoin as distributed money,
and others arguing the changes you fear have already happened.
And at the heart of this debate is really a fundamental question.
How exactly should we be using Bitcoin's blockchain?
What really belongs on the blockchain? And you need to have a little bit of context.
So just really briefly, Bitcoin Core, it's the most widely used software that
enforces the Bitcoin consensus rules.
Typically, when you're running a node, you're most often using Bitcoin Core.
There's also a well-known alternative called Bitcoin Nots. We'll talk about that more later.
And the last time I checked, it had around 2% of the node network.
So this battle around storing arbitrary data on the blockchain has been raging forever.
I mean, classically, from the beginning, everybody always likes to cite this.
The Genesis block in 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto embedded a message in there saying
the Chancellor is on the brink of the second bailout for banks.
Which did demonstrate that you
could store arbitrary data along with financial data on the blockchain.
So this is something that's been around for years. And developers have been
split between those who view arbitrary data as spam and those who see that the
blockchain could hold data along financial transactions in perhaps a censorship-resistant
way, you know, time chain attributes and whatnot.
And I vaguely remember in 2013, this was really raging.
And it was all about like the technical means of doing it, the consent of the
node operators having to store this stuff, the legal risk because some illegal
things were put into the blockchain.
And then of course, just everybody talking about is this good or bad?
And so by 2014, after a lot of debate,
OpReturn was introduced to sort of formalize and limit data storage.
There was some debate after it was put in.
It is there. However, that has not stopped users from continuing to store media
spam and other non-financial data outside of Operaturn.
There's places like script-sig fields and unspendable outputs that they can stash stuff in.
Others have just simply bypassed the 83-byte limit of Operaturn in script-pub-key
by privately sending transactions directly to minor mempools,
there's a few of them, that just don't enforce size restrictions.
So that's kind of the background and the context here. the debate around storing
data outside of financial transactions in the blockchain.
Okay, so fast forward to the last couple of weeks. You might remember Peter Todd.
He was recently outed as Satoshi Nakamoto in that silly HBO documentary we covered in the show.
He submitted a change request to Bitcoin Core. It's also supported by others like James Lopp.
And a similar PR request was submitted a couple of years ago,
but didn't go very far. In this new poll request, it's number 32359,
Peter Todd suggests eliminating the current restrictions on op return. No restrictions.
So if accepted by Bitcoin core maintainers, this change would allow miners and
node op users basically to store large amounts of data directly on-chain.
That is, as you can imagine, provoking a pretty big response.
Anything that's going to allow arbitrary data to go on the blockchain,
increased blockchain size, cost of node operations, etc., it's going to get a lot of pushback.
Jason Hughes, he's a longtime Bitcoin contributor. He warned that this proposed
Bitcoin core change could undermine Bitcoin's core value by allowing excessive
non-financial data on the blockchain,
potentially bloating it with
gigabytes of unrelated content and making it harder to use as a currency.
Bitcoin podcasting's own Guy Swan added, Not only is this an issue deeply that's controversial,
and the standard has been since the beginning to not force or push changes that are controversial,
and this is a horrible look and will create pointless distrust in core,
but continuing to spend time on this issue and making changes for the sake of
making changes when nobody asked for this is such a profound waste of time and resources.
Luke Dasher, a strong critic, of course, of Operaturn and some of its uses,
such as inscriptions and ordinals, also criticized the idea as, quote, utter insanity.
Others joined him with him with upvotes, supportive comments.
He added, quote, the bugs should be fixed, not the abuse embraced.
So, strong reaction, this is going to decentralize Bitcoin, or this is going
to hurt Bitcoin's decentralization, I should say.
But there has been some response to the pushback.
Developers in favor of removing the arbitrary limits on OpReturn argue that
the existing limit has proven ineffective.
Users are using the blockchain to store non-financial data already through various
methods, such as taproot unspendable outputs, private memory pools like Mara's Slipstream.
So, in other words, it's already happening. so let's
just remove the limits and because it's already happening
removing the limits don't really change anything which it's
an interesting argument i thought guy had a pretty reasonable response
to that too saying quote that's like saying it's easy for someone to jump over
my fence thus why should i be allowed to put up a fence the point is i'm deciding
whether or not i want a fence and when you push a change that removes the option
you're gonna make people furious over nothing and per your own argument,
it wouldn't change anything.
If it doesn't change anything, then it's clearly not needed for any reason.
The only reason to even suggest it would be to argue that it does,
in fact, change something.
So here we are once again. We have a group of folks that think there could be
future potential and use cases for the blockchain outside just monetary use cases.
And you have several groups of people that are opposed to non-monetary uses of the blockchain.
And they both argue their points. Now, that's the facts that we have today around
Bitcoin Core and the dispute you might be hearing about.
Now, I want to introduce some speculation and opinion.
So here we go with that. I think, in my opinion, it's sort of reasonable to think we should wait.
I can't really understand the benefits of doing this right now,
especially with Bitcoin in its price discovery phase, which it will be in for a very long time.
The stability and purity as a store of value is critical for this phase of adoption.
And I think what Bitcoiners haven't really been able to culturally accept is
we don't get to have it all.
We're probably not going to live in a hyper Bitcoin utopia where world banks
are trading Bitcoin, world governments are trading Bitcoin, and users are trading
Bitcoin to buy their coffee. I just don't think we may never see it.
I don't think we'll ever see it in our generation.
I think humanity moves too slow. Price discovery moves too slow.
There will be incredible gains for our generation. Stories will be told,
good and bad, just like the gold rush.
But humans take a long time to incorporate technology into society.
Look how long the internet's taking.
And I think Bitcoin needs 25 years of this just being rock solid.
And it's possible that allowing arbitrary data on the blockchain could be something
that's beneficial down the road. I mean, hear me out.
Maybe it does help the security budget in the future. Maybe it can make mining
profitable after all the Bitcoin has been mined.
But we're not there right now. We're still in discovery phase.
So what I believe is beneath all of this and has been for so many years is it's
not really a software problem. It's a human problem.
Bitcoin doesn't really have any firm lines that separate it's a financial project
or it's a do-whatever-you-want project.
Taproot and Ordinals, BRC20, they're all just things that are following their
incentives trying to use Bitcoin for their particular use cases and incentives.
So if the Bitcoin community doesn't realign some of these incentives,
maybe through relay rules or minor guidelines or whatever it might be, maybe even a soft fork,
it seems like Bitcoin is going to become harder and harder to defend as a global
financial foundation that all these other things could be built into a layer too.
And that's where I would prefer to see these innovations. If you want to do
an EVM, if you want to do smart contracts, do it in a layer two or a side chain.
Make Bitcoin the source of truth on the blockchain, but do that extra computation
and complexity, maybe non-financial stuff in a different chain or in a layer two.
And node operators are going to have to make a decision here.
I think, you know, they're going to have to watch and see where this goes.
The adoption of node nodes could be an indicator of their decision.
And it's just hard for me to understand why this change has to happen right now.
I think there are companies involved in this scene that would like to see this change.
I don't think it necessarily makes the change inherently bad,
but I feel like everyone's incentive should be on the table here.
And Citreya is working on, quote, the first roll-up, it's a ZK roll-up for Bitcoin
that enhances the capability of Bitcoin block space with zero-knowledge technology,
making it possible to build everything on Bitcoin.
Now, Citreya uses Bitcoin as a settlement layer via its BitBM-based,
trust-minimized two-way program, Clementine.
They also note that Citreya is fully EVM-compatible, that's the Ethereum virtual
machine, which, quote, enables all the EVM developers to easily build on Bitcoin.
And this is the type of use case that would benefit from the proposed change.
Is there use cases for EVMs and smart chains? Maybe.
I don't think the altcoins have successfully made that case yet.
I don't see it. Not yet. I'm willing to say maybe in 5-10 years it'd maybe be
nice to have that on Bitcoin but why couldn't I have that on Lightning or Liquid
or some other sidechain or layer too?
I just don't understand why it has to be on Bitcoin itself when block space is so precious.
I mean, yes, right now fees are low but if you start doing the math and you
look at corporate adoption even if a few percentage of corporations buy and
hold and transfer Bitcoin, the blockchain gets real busy real quick.
And I have not seen the benefits of an EVM long term.
I mean, I've seen short term gains, but I have not seen the benefits long term,
at least not the complexity when that can be solved with other systems.
But maybe I'm wrong here. I don't know. If you're listening,
I'd like to hear your opinion on this.
So if this debate between how to use bitcoin's block
space either just for financial transactions or
just any way we want if this concerns you and you fall on the side of you don't
want arbitrary data well then you can vote with your feet this is where bitcoin
knots comes in this is an alternative Bitcoin daemon that you can run on your
node that is already designed to filter this out.
So if this becomes a concern for you as a node operator, you could take action that way.
It's already probably available on Start9 and Umbral and a lot of the platforms
out there. I think for me, my route will be somewhere in the middle.
I'm going to watch how this goes. If this PR gets merged, I'm going to hang
back on upgrading my Bitcoin node for a little bit,
see how things go and then make a decision of course
report back to you but what we have here is a fundamental disagreement of how
bitcoin should be used and there's no central authority that makes the decision
it has to be done through a period of time and consensus and we've been trying
to work this out for many many years this is this was at the core of the operaturn
debate back in 2013-2014.
And I guess I fall on the side of keep it for financial data right now,
just simply because we do have the experience of all the altcoins and their mistakes.
I do worry about holding Bitcoin's potential back because it is software.
It should evolve. It should enable other use cases as we discover them.
You know, we did certain things in development to enable lightning.
I think that was a real benefit.
So I guess I want to ask you, where do you stand on this issue as you've heard about it so far?
Boosting your thoughts on arbitrary data storage in the blockchain.
Here's an example. Would you inscribe something like a wedding or childbirth
or some other memo moment on the blockchain? Would you like to be able to have
access to put certain arbitrary data like some sort of legal document on the
blockchain? And, of course, you'd pay for that.
Or do you think this would be an awful use case for Bitcoin?
I'd like you to boost it. Tell me where you stand on this.
I'm not 100% firm on either direction, but I feel like, at least for now, I'm against it.
All right, I think we should look outside the community for a moment.
Look outside the debates.
And if we look at how many positive changes have been happening in the wider
market, behind the scenes,
regulations and legal changes and enforcement changes that are basically ensuring
Bitcoin's path to wider adoption over the long term, assuming we don't blow it up ourselves.
Things have really, really shifted in the last few weeks across the West.
The U.K. and the U.S. announced today they're going to work together to help
crypto adoption, whatever that means.
But really starting, I think, during the U.S. election, we saw a big shift with
their money involvement and the way politicians were cozying up to them.
And then specifically, in the last 100 days since the election here in the States,
there has been a lot of positive behind-the-scenes shift that are setting Bitcoin
and quote-unquote crypto up for long-term positive gains.
I mean, we're talking enforcement changes, of course, but also,
more importantly, oversight changes.
A top priority of my chairmanship will be to provide a firm regulatory foundation
for digital assets through a rational, coherent and principled approach.
We will work to ensure that the United States is the best and most secure place
in the world to invest and to do business.
That was the new SEC chair, Paul Atkins, a.k.a. Paul Atkins died. That was last week.
And then this week, we got another big announcement in terms of enforcement and regulation.
Welcome back to Squawk Box. This morning, banking regulators pulling back some
U.S. cryptocurrency guidance.
This is interesting, guys, because the Fed said it was withdrawing supervisory
letters that said that banks should seek advanced approval from authorities
before engaging in crypto asset and stablecoin activities.
In addition, the Fed, the FDIC and the Office of the Controllers of the Currency
pulled back statements from 2023 that urged banks to be careful when it comes
to crypto related risks.
During the 2020, excuse me, 2024 campaign for the White House,
President Trump promised crypto investors that he would have their backs if he was reelected.
In a statement announcing the latest changes, the Fed said that regulators would
look into whether new guidance to support crypto asset innovation was appropriate.
But it means effectively that I think a lot of those letters has scared the
banking system sort of out of getting meaningfully involved in crypto.
And now they're saying...
You know, do what you like. Immediately following this, SoFi announced that
they would be getting back into Bitcoin lending within a few months.
They were, they said in the interview, in progress and then held off due to
concerns around crypto regulation enforcement.
And now that that seems to be easing up, they're going to get into Bitcoin-backed collateral loans.
For better or worse, but it's an indication that wider banks are thirsty and
ready to get in here. And this has all been really extremely positive for the
long term, then they fight you narrative.
Everyone expected to have this long, protracted fight with Western governments
in general and probably particularly with the United States government.
And instead, they seem to be opening the pearly gates, perhaps because of the
wider, greater macro issues. that doesn't necessarily mean this is trickling down to normies.
And this is an interesting thing that we're watching, I think.
And I wonder how many times this cycle has been repeated throughout history
as some new innovation, some new market force change was being developed.
And a few people that followed it closely understood.
And they were diehards for years. And then shortly after them, the banks figure it out.
And then the banks come in, the bankers buy up all the goods and they buy up
the companies involved and they buy up the product and the stock and then once
they've got their bags full, they start marketing to the normies,
to the no-coiners and then they get them to buy at incredibly marked up prices and from them.
And you have to wonder how many times this has happened throughout history.
And then people are, oh, the banks, oh, they blame the banks,
they blame the rich but in reality, opportunity was knocking on your door this
entire time, in this case, Bitcoin.
But the reputation is so bad that most no-coiners dismiss it immediately.
I've had several conversations with normals in the last couple of weeks.
And when they ask what I do, inevitably we get to this week in Bitcoin,
and then the conversation always takes a turn there.
And there's a real brand problem here. In fact, I'm reminded of an old exchange
between Andro and Andro. Andro.
That's Joe and Andrew put together when they're doing Andro.
When Andro are arguing on CNBC. This is from a couple of months ago.
I played a little bit of this before on the show. But just as a reminder, that's not true.
I don't appreciate it because I'm
using it for ransomware. I appreciate it because it's a store of value.
I don't appreciate it. You're considering it a store of value or an estimate
that goes up? If it was a store of value, it would stay one price.
No, no. Like gold was $300 not too long ago.
It's now $2,000. It doesn't stay at the same price. It goes up as you print
more money. It's more of a speculative message.
No, I don't think that's like Michael Stale or another. You know,
for so long, it was regulatory uncertainty or the government's going to kill
it or the banks don't know how to engage with it.
All of those excuses for not engaging with Bitcoin are gone.
But yet the reputational harm has been done. So that was from,
you know, a couple of months ago, might have even been late 2024.
This is from just under 24 hours ago. This is a modern take.
And while some of this might be true, there is so much additional loaded language
when discussing the topic.
This is how everyday people view crypto in general, and they lump Bitcoin in
with that. And this is MSNBC.
Almost four years after Donald Trump called a, quote, a disaster waiting to
happen, the president is now all in on crypto.
The New York Times has this unbelievable piece out about how Trump has become
a monster player and a policymaker in one of the least transparent industries out there.
Crypto. With me now to discuss one of the authors of that piece,
Eric Lipton, investigative reporter for the New York Times. I do think it's
kind of ironic to call crypto the least transparent industry out there because,
I mean, obviously, first point, everything's on the blockchain, right?
So we're always seeing where the money is getting transferred.
We're always seeing when scammers scam and rug pull. We know immediately.
And then, of course, the price charts are real time, 24-7. So you know even
on the weekend when a scam's happened, unlike in the regular market where you'd
have to wait till Monday morning.
And then additionally, when they talk about how opaque it is,
it's not transparent. Really?
Because what I've seen is every stupid, well, not every stupid,
but many stupid crypto scammers immediately jump on CoffeeZilla with a call.
They get on a Zoom, and they confess the entire plan in their heart out to CoffeeZilla
in an hour-long YouTube video where the entire scheme is laid out bare every single time.
I mean, it seems, or what about Sam Bankman-Fried and how we basically learned
everything there that happened?
I just it's a weird accusation, right?
It's a weird one because there's a lot of things you throw out there,
but not transparent, kind of inherently transparent. It's just a weird one.
The least transparent industries out there. Crypto with me now to discuss one
of the authors of that piece, Eric Lipton, investigative reporter for The New
York Times and Dan Nathan, CNBC contributor and co-host of the Risk Reversal podcast.
You know, before we started, Eric, Dan, Stephanie, you're all over the crypto.
It's not the crypto that I'm all over. It is the massive conflict of interest.
Scott Galloway said it recently. It's like these hundred days.
What have we seen the most of?
Executing pure grift. I want you to walk us through what did you learn about
Trump's platform that he's built?
Right here, I would argue that the brand of Bitcoin and crypto,
Bitcoin unfortunately being a sub-brand of crypto, I would imagine,
in most people's minds, normies, it is now being intrinsically linked to the Trump campaign.
Better or for worse, that's obviously good. I'm sure there's been a lot of Trump
supporters that are now curious about Bitcoin and buying Bitcoin.
Of course, there's a flip side to that coin as well.
And this is the association that's being drawn. He's seen the most of executing pure grift.
I want you to walk us through what did you learn about Trump's platform that
he's built? Because at the same time, he is the chief policymaker.
Yeah, it really is pretty extraordinary that simultaneously Trump is appointing
the top financial regulators in the United States,
and he has built one of the fastest growing and really quickly emerging as one
of the largest stablecoin players in the world.
WorldFi, Liberty, whatever it is, is a tiny stablecoin player compared to Tether and Circle.
They're not even on the same map. Tether is the seventh largest treasury customer
for the U.S. government.
Tether prints money. It's one of the most, it might be the most profitable business in the world.
What? This is like, no, Tether is the big stablecoin.
Trump's Liberty Mutual, whatever, WorldFi, whatever, stablecoin,
it's got like a billion dollars behind it, max. Really, you know,
quickly emerging as one of the largest stablecoin players in the world.
And so he is simultaneously both the regulator and the regulated.
I mean, he appoints a regulator. He just appointed the new SEC chair who is pro crypto.
But there is there is multiple Senate.
There's multiple congressional oversight committees.
I mean, your buddy Elizabeth Warren's on one of them where they're constantly
testifying to Congress and explaining their decisions. So they could be a political actor.
I definitely would be amenable to that argument.
But to say that Trump is the one making the decisions for the regulatory chief, that's not my take.
My take is that he has appointed someone who will essentially execute what Trump
wants done because that's where the person already aligns. They already align
and agree where Trump sees and aligns and agrees.
It's kind of a normal thing for a president to do. In fact, it would be weird
if Trump appointed somebody to the SEC chair that disagreed with him and didn't
want to implement Trump's policies and wanted to implement the opposite and wanted to ban crypto.
That would be weird and incongruent to his promise to voters.
So there's no winning here. There's no winning. really, you know,
quickly emerging as one of the largest stable coin players in the world.
And so he is simultaneously both the regulator and the regulated.
And he has just really historically massive conflicts of interest here that
just don't have very many precedents in American history.
And, you know, the deeper you look at World Liberty Financial,
the more complex and troubling, really, the conflicts are.
And so what we try to do is, this is less of a story about the cryptocurrency
industry and more of a story about this operation and some of the challenges
it presents to being both the regulator and the regulated.
It's possible that they are just banking on the public's distrust of crypto to drive the story home.
Because I don't think, I could be wrong, but I don't think Donald Trump directly
owns World Liberty Phi, crypto crap, whatever it is. I think the Trump kids do.
So if that's our standard, if to say, well, if the Trump kids benefit,
then Donald Trump benefits, well, then we could hold that same standard to the Bidens.
And I think we know how that conversation would go.
I do think it's awkward, gross, and weird that the president is directly mingling
in a new evolving market while he's president.
If you want to make that kind of a – if that's the grounds you want to play
on, then I'll agree with that.
Yeah, I don't think either one of the families should be benefiting,
the Biden kids or the Trump kids. Okay, great. We both agree on that, Ben.
So here we are anyways. And I think the way that Trump's look at it is,
look, this is going to be a huge, this is the new, what did he call it?
The new gold oil or something? The new something like that?
The new gold oil or something? Silly.
Yeah, I think they do see it as that. And they have conviction around it.
And that's why they're placing their bets.
But it does associate it with a certain political party. It does look bad.
It's a bad look. The launch of the Trump coin was a bad look.
And I don't think it helps with the image of Bitcoin. And there was a comprehensive
essay written by Mike Dye that explores this very topic that I'm going to link you to.
And it's Bitcoin has a brand problem.
And he writes, despite its technological strengths and financial performance,
struggles with widespread public acceptance remain.
While institutions and government are increasingly embracing Bitcoin,
many average people remain skeptical or outright resistant.
Then Dye argues in this piece that it isn't just about technical misunderstandings.
Or volatility, although I think volatility is a big piece of it.
They're just scared of it.
He says it's branding and a perception crisis.
His article highlights how Bitcoin's cultural narrative has become dominated
by controversial figures like Trump, McKellie, and Musk, making it hard for
newcomers to disassociate the protocol from toxic politics, authoritism, and grifting.
I don't necessarily agree with this last take.
I think maybe with crypto because of Doge and the Trump coin.
The core here is that Bitcoin needs to separate from those things.
Bitcoin has, Musk never talks about Bitcoin, right? That never happens.
And they're painting everything with a broad brush.
He says there's really four groups out there. There's early adopters,
newcomers, I guess I'd be in the early adopter, and the skeptics,
and then the vocal Bitcoiners who often fail to address the third group concern,
which would be skeptics.
I don't know about that. But he argues that if we don't see a change around
perception, we're going to
have a real adoption problem, and that ultimately will be bad for Bitcoin.
Things like Noster intended to be onboarding ramps are too insular for most, he says.
Even Bitcoin's technical layer is too intimidating, requiring a degree of literacy
that most people aren't ready for, especially when living paycheck to paycheck.
He says, through analogies to Crock, American Peril, and Apple,
it illustrates how even great ideas need the right cultural messengers and branding
to reach mass adoptions.
Then he concludes that while Bitcoin itself is sound, it may never scale if
its image doesn't change.
And he says the answer isn't marketing in the traditional sense,
but new voices, cultural translators who can speak to real people free of politics or posturing.
Is that true? Has the Bitcoin message gotten too political? Do we have a perception crisis?
Adoption is life for Bitcoin. So what can we do to improve the perception?
There clearly is some bad perception out there.
I think some of it comes down to separating Bitcoin from the rest.
Maybe some of it comes down to messaging. I don't know about that.
I think this is a hard problem. And I'd like you to boost in and tell me if
you think Bitcoin has a perception problem.
Maybe it's just price. Can it be something as simple as price?
You know, if Bitcoin gets to $500,000, does that change perception?
Or will we always have people fighting it? I used to think it came down to price.
I'm not so sure I do anymore. Nowadays, I think there'll always be people that fight it.
They've just built an identity around it to some degree. Boost in. Tell me what you think.
Music.
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And we do have some boosts this episode. This, of course, is a value for value podcast.
I put it out there for free. I try to help with a high signal podcast to help
you navigate the Bitcoin world.
If you get some value, you send it back this way. It really is the purest way to produce a podcast.
There's no secret deals behind the scenes. It's value from the audience directly.
These boosts incentivize me to work harder. It gets a better show for you.
It's a real nice circle of podcast life. And our first boost this week is a
baller boost coming in from OBL918 with 53,456 sats.
Just a little boosty McBoosterson to say that while I agree that we don't need
to worry about MiningPool attacking the network for the obvious reason they
have no incentive to destroy the value in the system, there's still entities
out there who might just want to do exactly that.
The same governments who can print money to buy mining hardware just may decide
it's a good investment to destroy fiat's only real competition.
I don't necessarily think it'll happen, but it is a possibility.
That is an interesting attack factor.
I've sort of let my nation-state attack guard down recently.
And that's a good reminder to stay skeptical and stay aware. I like that.
Thank you, OBL. He says, last week Fountain didn't get my boost through,
so I'm doubling up this week. Thank you very much for doing that.
You asked me what I think about buying Bitcoin adjacent stocks.
Personally, I think one of Bitcoin's strengths is it doesn't have a CEO.
Does Bitcoin become better when you add a CEO to it? As much as I like Maulers
and Saylor, the answer for me is obviously Nopi McNoperson.
Maulers promised to increase Bitcoin per share is interesting.
But in the end, I just don't see why I would buy one of those stocks when I
can hold the asset myself.
So this is one of the things I think is underappreciated about Bitcoin.
And you just touched on it, Obi, is you don't have a company that can screw up, right?
Like you can have a company that's kicking ass for 20 years and then the CEO
dies and And the new guy comes in and they just tread water or go on, go under.
Bitcoin doesn't have that risk. And so if you're looking for something you can
truly hold for your life and not have to manage it, nothing beats Bitcoin.
I think where, you know, this 21 Capital or your MSTRs are incentivized or I'm
not sure what the right term is there, but I guess I'll say tempting to people
is short term higher returns.
So maybe Bitcoin does, you know, 30, 40% this year, let's just say return, right?
But maybe MSTR does 62 or maybe 21 Capital does, you know, 65 or something.
So you can get a little bit more and then you could go maybe stack some more Bitcoin.
I'm skeptical that people actually take those earnings and turn around and buy
Bitcoin. I think they tell themselves they're going to do that.
And I'm kind of skeptical they actually do it.
But we'll see. We'll see. Hey, another baller boost from the Podfather himself,
Mr. Adam Curry with 50,000 sats.
I hoard that which your kind covet. B-O-O-N. He says the index note typically does well with Breeze.
Love the show. You know what? I need to make sure I have a channel still open, Podfather.
I think I don't have a channel to the index anymore. I did for a while.
And then, you know, you know how it goes with lightning channels.
You know how it goes. I'm sure you know just as well as I do.
It's kind of, you know...
Oh, yeah, no, totally. It's all under control. Thank you for the boost,
Podfather. Nice to hear from you. So Achilles is here with 2,500 sats.
And he just says boost. Boost. Thank you, Achilles. The Muso is here with 4,000 sats.
All right, so I was asking y'all, you know, who you have channels with for your
lightning node and how it's all
going. He says, I have channels open with Megalith and Olympus by Zeus.
I'll never buy shares in a company. Stacking Bitcoin is good enough for me.
Boom. Look at him answering both questions in two sentences.
As per your previous question about donations to NixBitcoin,
they have a section on the front page at NixBitcoin.org, which has a link to
their BTC pay server where they do accept donations.
Yeah. Do they have a lightning note? I think is my question.
NixBitcoin.org, a big shout out to them. If you would like to,
if you're a member, if you're a Jupiter Party member or a member of Linux Unplugged,
we did an extended post show where we talked about our Bitcoin node setup.
And I think we will probably do additional content on that in the future when
we have like a sanitized config to share.
Really like NixBitcoin for just a good appliance.
On the topic of wallets, I also like the combination of Zeus and AlbiGo.
Zeus is able to dig an info channel, yeah, as well as look at the route taken
when I send a payment. Zeus is so great.
I find AlbiGo useful to dive into the details of boost, messages sent,
etc. It's been useful to identify failed boost payments when starting with AlbiHub.
If it's just me, or has Podverse's node been down, I always get no route when
attempting to send a payment to Podverse when boosting via the Podverse website.
Oh, hmm. Might be worth pinging them on Mastodon or Matrix.
The AlbiGo and AlbiHub setup are really pretty sweet and simple,
and I was just experimenting with Unraid 7.1 this week, and in the Unraid App Store,
or whatever you want to call it, the community apps they got an albi hub
and it was pretty straightforward to set up so i got albi
hub running on unrate in like 10 minutes it's pretty
nice thank you for the boost appreciate it the muse so good to hear from you
baked potato is here with 10 000 sats it's over 9 000 no message though just
the value appreciate it very much mk ers i'm going to say markers is here with 10 000 sats.
Pump the brakes right there. He says, first time booster. Well,
I'll be dead. Was taken aback by the amount of last episode's boost.
Decided it was time to return some of the value.
Thank you very much. I really do appreciate that.
Boost! Last week was a little weak. And this week, hopefully a little stronger, I will be off next week.
So I'm a little nervous they'll dip because we'll miss a week.
So we'll see how that goes.
Hey, another 10,000 sat boost with no message. It comes from Marius February.
He's a good guy. He's a real good guy. No message, just send in some value.
Always appreciate that.
We have 5,000 sats from user 47.
Says, big fan of the show. Well, I'm a big fan of you sending some value this
way. Thank you for coming in and sending a boost.
User 74 comes in with also 5,000 sats.
Still the best Bitcoin show. I look forward to it every week.
Please keep it up. Well, thank you.
Ace ackerman's back nice to see you with a row of ducks.
2222 sats says i like the bitcoin adjacent investment
products i think it increases adoption and allows profit from price swings without
selling any of your long-term stash man's got to eat okay ace you bring up a
good point it does allow you to play in the market a little bit without having
to actually give up your your bitcoin there is some logic to this,
Additionally, you know what? I'm going to give you also some points.
It might not be a product for me and some of the listeners, but it could be
a product for a lot of next generation adopters, and they don't need to run
a Bitcoin node. They don't need a Bitcoin wallet.
They can just use derivative products. I know it seems gross to us,
but Wall Street loves this stuff, and it does increase adoption.
So, Ace, some sound wisdom there. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Tapatango comes in with a 5,000 sat boost. That is a Jar Jar Boost.
No message, just the value. Always appreciate that very much.
Hello there comes in with a row of ducks.
It just says quack. Things are looking up for old ducks. Thanks,
hello there. Nice to hear from you.
Oh, Nico the Geek's back with 7,007 cents.
Oh, my God. This drawer is filled with blue. It says goodbye,
digital gold. Hello, physical Bitcoin.
I can't believe I'm first hearing that from mainstream media.
I recently acquired a BitX solo miner and have been looking at options of how
and how I want to set it up.
I'm doing in doing so. I came across Bitcoin knots.
Simultaneously, I've been seeing some infighting regarding Bitcoin core,
which I currently run. Maybe it's too big of a topic during the boost segment.
Could you shed some light on the issue or the possible solutions?
Lastly, the show is always on point. Fellow Bitcoiners boost in those sats.
Well, I hope, Nico the Geek, that the top of the show was useful for you.
Your boost was one of the inspirations for doing that right there in the show
where I had some room for it. Because you were right. It was a little too big for the boost segment.
And I also would appreciate any additional questions or corrections to that.
I feel like it's a topic I'll probably be following for a while.
So that's just kind of my opening salvo on the topic.
And if you have any other questions, please do boost them in. thank you
too to everybody who boosts in below the 2000 sat cutoff i
have a 2000 sat cutoff for on air just to save time but i
do save all of them and i appreciate every single boost especially
from some of the newbies out there that are sending their very first boost so
let's bring it all together if we look at the sat streamers
who just sat who just sat back listen to the show and stream sats as
they listened 14 of you this week did a pretty good
lift look at that let me sure i have this
number right 44 of you wow 44 of you
not 14 holy smokes 44 of
you were streaming sats as you listen that's a decent number 67 428
sats by the sat streamers out there i'm pretty impressed
with that thank you everybody that's you know it's a nice way to
just sort of quietly low-key send value you don't get a message but
it's still really much appreciated and then when you combine that
with our boosters that brings a total participants for this week's
episode in value for value to 52 of you out there that's overall
a lower percentage but you know what that makes
52 of you absolutely essential to making episode 56 happen so when we add it
all up this week's episode stacked 233 935 sats not too bad getting in that
comfortable stretch right there and i really appreciate it if you would like to boost the show.
You can use Fountain FM. They host the lightning infrastructure for you.
You just got to get the sats in there over the lightning network.
Strike makes that real easy, but there's other ways you can do it.
Of course, if you want to host it on your own, you hear people talking about
AlbiHub all the time. You compare it with a lot of great apps.
Castamatic is a killer app on iOS.
Podverse is fantastic on Android, along with Fountain on both of those platforms
and other apps listed at podcastapps.com, including web apps like TrueFans and other.
There's lots of solutions out there. so you can get in, get on the fun.
Not only can you boost the show, but a percentage of your boost also goes to
the podcast index to help those great folks out and to the app developer themselves.
It gives a direct path to monetization that isn't creepy, that doesn't require
tracking or advertising integration or other weird schemes.
They just get a small fee of the boost. And as a podcaster, I'm delighted to
let them have it because we want those apps to be healthy and to thrive.
So you're contributing when you boost this podcast, you're contributing to an
entire ecosystem of development and services.
Additionally, with the Podcasting 2.0 app, you get transcriptions.
Every single episode of This Week in Bitcoin is transcribed.
They're available in Podcasting 2.0 apps.
There are chapters also available in Podcasting 2.0 apps.
And when a new episode comes out, you get notified within 90 seconds.
And if and when, which I'm threatening to do one day, if I hold a live stream,
it'll also be live in your Podcasting 2.0 app.
Plus, you're saying to the world, I don't want Apple, I don't want Spotify,
and I don't want Google defining what podcasting and free independent media is.
That's my pitch, podcastapps.com.
Music.
Well, I'm looking at some interesting language coming out of the UN.
They claim that mining is a, quote, powerful tool for money laundering,
which is an obvious and deep misunderstanding of what mining is.
So The Rage, which I've been really impressed with, TheRage.co,
took a closer look at the recent United Nations report on crime in Southeast Asia.
And I agree, it's baffling. They pointed out that the report might be setting
the stage for introducing anti-money laundering measures that directly target Bitcoin mining.
So, I think it goes without saying, but I'm just going to say it.
Money laundering typically requires moving illicit funds through legitimate
channels to disguise their origin.
That's not what mining does. That's not what, quote, illegal mining can achieve.
The report uses unrelated evidence, such as a Thai Electricity Authority report,
which is also questionable.
It's bad, you guys. The piece further challenges, from the rage,
the piece challenges the UN's claim that illegal mining is low cost.
And minimally detectable. I think in reality, it's quite detectable.
There are expensive ASICs you have to buy.
There is maintenance you have to perform, especially in harsh environments like Libya.
And the reality is they produce heat, which is easily spotable by authorities.
So it is actually pretty easy to detect Bitcoin mining.
And the UN even contradicts itself in the report describing these operations
as both off-grid and reasonable for grid-based energy storage,
which how can you be one in the other?
And lastly, the Rage article points out the geopolitical inconsistencies,
noting that fuel smuggling and chaos following the U.N.
Interventions may better explain the energy issues in Libya than Bitcoin mining. But the U.N.
Tries to paint energy issues in Libya as problems related to mining.
And they suggest that regulating crypto mining under anti-money laundering frameworks is necessary.
That's what the U.N. is arguing, that mining will be used for money laundering.
It's being used to disrupt the power grid. We must get our arms around it at a global level.
It's a rather disturbing report, and I'm glad the rage is on it.
I will link to this in the show notes if you'd like to read more.
Now, we are 100 days into the Trump administration, and I told you I wanted
to keep track on how he did to his promise to Bitcoiners during the campaign.
And thankfully, CRDLX has put together a Trump 100-day report card for us,
which I will link to in the show notes.
And he's tracked 10 pledges, which are the same 10 pledges that I had tracked,
and he's been giving them a grade as time goes on.
So pledge number one was to fire SEC Chair Gary Gensler on day one.
I think we can say done. So he gets an A on that.
Pledge two was to commute the sentence of Ross Albrecht on day one.
All right, so he gets an A on that.
Remove capital gains on Bitcoin transactions.
That ain't happening. And he has an F on that. Create and hodl a strategic Bitcoin stockpile.
We're going to give him a C- on that one, according to this chart.
Prevent a CBDC during his presidency. This is number five. He gets an A.
Number six, create a Bitcoin and Crypto Advisory Council.
They're going to give him a C on this one. And he does have explanations for
each one. So for the cryptocurrency, the Trump Bitcoin or crypto team consists of the following.
David Sachs is the crypto czar. Bo Hines is executive director of the Presidential
Council on Advisors for Digital Assets.
A White House crypto summit was held on March 7th.
Which was a good sign, but not more than that has been done.
So C grading for the Bitcoin Crypto Council.
Number seven, support the right to self-custody. They're going to give him a B minus on that one.
Okay. Number eight, end the war on crypto. They're going to give him a B plus on that one.
Mine all the remaining Bitcoin in the USA. A seemingly impossible pledge. Number nine, he gets a C.
And number 10, make the U.S. the crypto capital of the planet.
It, he's going to give him a C plus on that one.
This pledge closely aligned with pledges eight and nine. If the war on crypto
ends, the USA becomes more and more crypto and Bitcoin friendly.
And he writes, if the hash rate stays high and even increases,
that puts the USA at the center of it all.
Most of the categories above seem have seen improvements, all of which help this last pledge.
Trump's executive order to help this grade as well as the as they move from
word spoke to actually becoming official policy to get it higher.
The Bitcoin Reserve should move from a name change only to acquiring more Bitcoin.
So the overall grade for the 100 days of Trump's 10 commitments to Bitcoin,
ladies and gentlemen, is a C plus.
Not amazing. But when you look at some of the changes, like the SEC changes,
you know, some of them and Ross, you know, I was really pleased to see that.
But I will link to the full report card with all the explanations in the show notes.
If that's your thing, I'll keep an eye on it. We'll check back in a little while,
We'll see if any of those have changed for the better or worse.
I think Coinbase really should have been the original micro strategy.
They really blew it. So I've always wondered, does Brian Armstrong,
the CEO of Coinbase, does he still get Bitcoin like he did back in the day?
Does he truly still understand it? And he was recently at a big mucky muck event,
and he was asked about big banks and governments holding Bitcoin.
And this is what Brian had to say.
But I think it's clear at this point that, you know, Bitcoin is a better form of money than gold.
It is provably scarce, just like gold, but it's more portable and divisible.
So you can actually use, it has higher utility, I would say.
And it was the best performing asset of the last 10 years. And so for store
of value, I think it's going to be important for governments to hold this over time.
It may not, it might start with being 1% of their reserves, but I think over
time it'll come to be equal to or greater than gold reserves.
Music.
In on the state of the network. As I wrap up, we are at block height 894,637.
The fee rate still two sats per v-byte.
Two sats per v-byte. Two sats still. It's been like that for weeks.
The USD price is 94,150 US dollars.
That means sats per dollar right now is around 1,062 sats to a US dollar.
We're up just 0.2% since the last episode, but an up is an up.
Which means we're just 13.8% off our all-time high, which was exactly 100 days ago as I record.
Of course, January 19th, 2025, 109,160.
Now, I think we're seeing a decrease in the nodes, boys. We need to get out there.
Got to deploy the nodes.
21,364. I don't know what we got to do.
I don't know what we got to do. Maybe you've got to skip a meal and spend that
time setting up a Bitcoin node. Maybe go deploy a not node. I don't know.
We need to see that creep up.
21,364, though. I guess not so bad. Still quite a lot of nodes.
And those are just the ones we know about.
Could be even more than that. All right. So the Bitcoin network ticks right along.
Things are looking really good.
We are just a few days away from the next retarget date. May 3rd, 2025.
Well, if you made it this far, you should probably check out the links in the
show notes at thisweekinbitcoin.show. You could always check out previous episodes as well.
Remember, I won't be here next week. I'm going to be on the road rescuing my buddy Brent's van.
I will have some recording gear with me, so if anything really major breaks, I'll break in.
But I'll probably just use this opportunity to sit back, read,
and think, and come back with a banger.
Now, if you liked the episode, let me know with a boost to try to build something
here that is a high signal, low emotion show that gets you the information you
need and doesn't get distracted by emotions or a bunch of drama.
It's a little tricky in this one because there is a lot of drama to be had,
but I hope I focused on the signal.
Let me know with a boost and of course, boost in with what you'd like to see from the show.
If anything was missed or if perhaps you wanted to hear something else in the
show or would like me to include something in the future, you can include that.
And then I love it when you share the show with somebody who's Bitcoin curious.
Of course, word of mouth is the number one way to market a podcast.
Now, you probably know the game by now. I like to end the show with a value for value track.
But I want to take a moment and just remind you why I do this.
This is an incredible example of what you can do with programmable money with Bitcoin.
So when the music plays in the background, the splits for the lightning boosts
automatically change over to the track artist.
And this enables podcasts like mine to play music when we never could before.
There was never really a way to credit and pay for the music.
But it also has the secondary benefit of discovery. Just like the radio provided
discovery for music artists for so long, now Value for Value Music and podcasts
offer discovery mechanisms for these artists.
And they love your boost. It makes their day to see and hear messages from people
that are enjoying their music.
So we play a Value for Value track on this song because it is an amazing demonstration
of what you can do with Bitcoin and what this type of technology can enable for content creation.
The fact that I can play fantastic music on this show is something that only
the largest radio stations could have access to in the past.
And now, with Value for Value music and the Magic Wallet switching technology,
any show has access to this with just extra data in your RSS feed.
It's really incredible.
And so I love it when you boost the artist. They love it. It's really great.
It brings it to the top of the charts and helps with discovery too.
And so this week, I'm leaving you with a banger and I'll see you.
Music.