Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 65.
My name is Chris.
Chris, L-A-S dot com, jupiterbroadcasting.com.
Well, I warned you.
I told you the Bitcoin price action, while a lot of fun, was going to slow down.
And it did just that this week.
It really takes big money now, right?
I mean, we're talking banks, institutional wealth, thousands of plebs every single day, the ETFs.
It takes a lot right now to move Bitcoin.
And the truth is, there's been a lot of selling pressure recently by long-term hodlers and by a lot of people that are rotating into what some call paper Bitcoin.
I'll get into that in just a moment.
But it's incredible.
Even during the sell pressure that happened over the last week as a lot of big money rotated into altcoins like ETH, Bitcoin still did pretty good.
In fact, our 200-day moving average got up to $50,000.
But the thing that still blows my mind is even in this quote-unquote new era where everybody's debating, are we post the four-year halving cycle?
Is institutional demand going to be so strong that we won't see a four-year halving cycle anymore?
and ETFs are stacking like crazy and Saylor and everybody copying Saylor stacking like crazy.
We can still, even with all of that, have our momentum stolen by altcoins.
Breakthrough for the crypto industry.
The House has packed the Genius Act, sending that stablecoin legislation to President Trump for his signature.
Emily Wilkins in Washington, D.C. with the details.
So they delivered on Crypto Week.
Sarah, they got Crypto Week back on track and they got it done.
Obviously, a huge week for the crypto industry, not just for the bill on stablecoins.
That is important, set to be signed into law by Trump today.
Of course, Trump did sign the Genius Act into law, but there's two bills.
There's the Genius Act, which is all about stablecoins.
And then there's this Clarity Act, which is what they call market structure, i.e., who's in charge of what.
Now, that one really is the first rules of the road bill for a specific digital asset.
But it's the other bill the House passed yesterday on market structure that crypto companies say is their true top priority.
That one is, of course, for all digital assets, not just for stable coins.
But that bill now has to go to the Senate and it has a ways to go.
Yeah. So we'll come back to that. That's not really the focus right now.
I'll follow up on that. But let's just stick with the Genius Act briefly here.
It's true things did get off track for a bit, which gave us a chance to get one of my favorite bits on the floor.
It is customary when we consider major legislation to give credit to those who created the bill.
The ghost of Sam Bankman Freed looms above this auditorium.
He is the genius behind the Genius Act.
and one can only hope that he's able to watch C-SPAN
on a black and white television set in his prison cell.
That's a nice touch. That was a nice touch.
Of course, while he was doing bits,
Liz was out freaking everybody out on the cable networks.
And guardrails to make sure that crypto is used to blow up our entire economy.
What? Crypto is going to blow up our entire economy unless you save us?
So I'm very worried about that, but I want to add one more twist,
and that is the clarity.
Oh, yeah. Let's talk about it.
So this is something you're probably going to find pretty common
is proponents are really focused on the Genius Act right now.
And those that are against it are really kind of blurring the lines
between the Genius Act and the Clarity Act.
And they're kind of talking about it as one thing like Liz is.
So I'm very worried about that, but I want to add one more twist,
and that is the clarity bill has all those problems,
but it also has a provision in it
That would let any company listed on the New York Stock Exchange opt out of SEC regulation by just digitizing themselves, put themselves on the blockchain.
And all of a sudden, it turns out that Amazon or Meta or General Motors is no longer governed by the SEC.
You do realize that literally would blow up the value of the New York Stock Exchange.
You know, and Liz has always been a big defender of Wall Street and the big banks, and she's concerned about their future.
So somehow, some way, Liz and Brad didn't manage to stop the momentum.
The Genius Act passed and was signed into law by President Trump.
You know, to be clear, Genius Act does nothing directly for Bitcoin. Let's not lose sight of that reality here. It really does nothing for Bitcoin directly. It's establishing a regulatory framework for stable coins. It mostly seems to force it into the domain of financial institutions. So, for example, I was worried about Walmart coin or Microsoft coin.
those companies, they would have to seek an exemption from the government in order to issue
a stablecoin. It's mostly written so that way only banks and financial institutions can mess
around in this. I do think its passage is seen as a significant step forward for quote-unquote
regulatory clarity that some investors like to see. I think that's likely to benefit Bitcoin.
I think it'll make more people digital asset natives where it's easier for them to swap into
Bitcoin. So that's the positive stuff. And I do want to come back to this because I think ultimately
stable coins and Bitcoins, well, stable coins and Bitcoin are linked. There's going to be,
if there's more stable coins, people are going to be buying more Bitcoin, et cetera. I'll come
back to that. But there is, there is also a clear reality here. You know, this isn't Bitcoin
legislation. This wasn't a Bitcoin reserve. It's clear all the Bitcoin initiatives, you know,
the stuff Trump actually campaigned on, it's on the back burner right now. He didn't, you know,
go to the Bitcoin conference and say, my first thing I'm going to do is pass stablecoin legislation.
He said, we're going to establish a Bitcoin reserve. I think that got backburned the moment
they realized the Doge cost cutting strategy, whatever that initial strategy was, wasn't working.
And they had to pivot to finding buyers of U.S. debt. And so they put all their wood behind the
Genius Act era. And to do that, they had to get all the big banks on board. They had to get
MasterCard and Visa on board. They had to get on board with the crypto industry.
And now they're in and they're involved and they're they're the customer now.
My name is Michael Meebacher. I'm the CEO at MasterCard. And we just witnessed the signing
of the genius bill. This is really the beginning of a financial revolution here in America.
This is Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase.
With the passing of this, we've got crypto stable coins now that can be built right here in America to make every payment fast, cheap and more global.
Enables us to upgrade the financial system.
This is Ben Horowitz of Anderson Horowitz.
Make it fairer, more accessible.
The president was able to achieve one of the most important changes in the legal framework in the United States.
This is the CEO of Tether.
To allow the creation and the safely usage of stable coins.
This is going to mean fantastic benefits for individuals and businesses around them.
This is the CEO of Kraken.
Looking forward to the great results for crypto and for the U.S.
This is a great day for crypto.
This is the Winklevoss twins, the CEO and president of Gemini.
This is a great day for the U.S. dollar, and it's a great day for America.
This is foundational legislation, foundational regulation that is going to unlock the power of the Internet in rebuilding the financial system.
Not only that, but it positions the U.S.
This is the CEO and co-founder of Robinhood, Vlad.
As the global leader in this new digital assets industry, which I think is incredibly important.
That was produced and released directly by the White House.
You notice I didn't catch anybody dealing with Bitcoin.
I didn't see Jack Mahler's in there.
I didn't see any Bitcoin developers in there.
Right.
The promises, as always, are huge these days with stablecoins too, so everybody's so excited.
The White House is clearly all in.
It's stablecoin season, and the promises are huge, trillions of dollars.
I put together a little cut of what White House officials have been promising about stablecoins.
This will be a few of them coming together to talk about why stablecoin legislation is going to be, I guess, such a boondoggle, such a money opportunity, I guess.
And I think this would increase confidence in the industry.
And I think that you would also see banks getting into the act.
This is David Sachs, White House AI and Cryptozar on June 18th.
You'd see traditional financial players getting involved in it.
And that's why the float is expected to grow from, call it, roughly 250 billion to trillions of dollars.
We're also going to have the stablecoin legislation.
This, of course, July 3rd, Scott Besant, Treasury Secretary.
Which I think could create at least $2 trillion in demand for treasury bills.
These are not securities, and it's the banking regulators who are going to be looking after them, and I think that's appropriate.
This is Paul Atkins, the SEC chair, just recently.
Because of the role that stablecoins play, and I think will play in the future.
Under the Biden regime.
This is Bo Hines. He's the President of Council of Advisories for Digital Assets. He sits just under David Sachs. This was just a couple days ago.
It was really mostly just policy through prosecution. These folks were victims of overregulation. When we started devising a plan of how we would solve this problem, we kind of looked at it in three phases. We said we're going to have a demolition phase, getting rid of the overregulation. Then we're going to have a construction phase, which is underway. And obviously, we have one building that's been constructed here with stablecoin legislation, but we're heavily relying on our colleagues up on the hill to get this done. And then we have the implementation phase.
Okay, so we have these phases. Now, I don't know how much of a plan that actually is, but what we get in the meantime is a stablecoin pump party.
Consider a lot of Wall Street is, you know, as they say, chasing alpha.
They're not deeply learning about the underlying investment.
They know Bitcoin goes up and by the numbers,
and they know the White House is pumping this new stablecoin industrial complex.
And they know there's going to be a few winners and losers in the stablecoin game.
and the ones that make it are going to probably make a ton of money,
but it will only be just a few.
Arthur Hayes recently had an essay or a blog post or a medium post
or whatever you want to call it,
where he took a look at the stablecoin ecosystem,
how it's evolved, where it kind of came from,
going into Circle's recent IPO.
And what he says is what you have to understand about stablecoins
is the true innovation came from adapting fiat transfer challenges in Asia,
adapting to these challenges in Asia.
So it wasn't that something came from Silicon Valley or Wall Street.
Tether's early adoption by Bitfinex combined with the inability to wire fiat easily
positioned it perfectly for the ICO era utility and usage.
And I think I agree with this.
Stablecoins came about because it started to get hard to get fiat into the crypto ecosystem.
And so the places that couldn't get access to fiat started using Tether.
As a result, Tether got early dominance in greater China, solving real banking issues for people over there.
And then it was the go-to stablecoin during the ICO era.
So there's been a lot of issuance.
And it really comes down in stablecoin land to distribution.
You need to have the plumbing to have people be able to use it.
You need to have merchants that accept it.
It's the plumbing.
You know, so Circle and Tether, a few of these are going to be able to get that.
But it's not going to be a lot of companies that are going to make a ton of money here.
And I think Tether is nearly impossible to catch up with at this point You know Tether makes million per employee Tether was the seventh largest buyer of U bonds in 2024
The Federal Republic of Germany was the eighth.
So Tether's buying more U.S. bonds than Germany.
So the scale of Tether is remarkable.
And they've got three years to get in compliance with the Genius Act.
So they have to figure out a way to do that, but they're clearly motivated to do it.
and Trump gave him a shout out at the entire signing event, which was a big deal.
So you're going to see a lot of noise around stablecoins and around the altcoins that power
them. But I think there's only going to be a couple of winners, a couple of chains and a couple of
companies. So why, as Bitcoiners, do we care about any of this? I personally don't use stablecoins,
really couldn't care about stablecoins. I imagine that's probably true for most people in the States
and probably even the West.
But Bitcoin doesn't exist in a vacuum.
And I, for one, want to be aware of what's going on around Bitcoin
that very well could have some kind of impact on Bitcoin.
And I have to believe that the legitimization of altcoins
is one of those things.
That's what's happening.
The Genius Act legitimizes at least Ethereum.
The debate if it's a security or a commodity is over.
The debate, if it's decentralized enough, is over.
And big money has decided they're all in.
And they're piling into these companies that are building ETH treasury companies that are aping the microstrategy playbook.
Let's turn now to crypto as shares of the blank check company Dynamics Corp are higher.
On the news, they'll merge with CryptoVenture, the Ether Reserve, to form a new company called the Ether Machine.
Got that?
That deal is expected to close in Q4, and Ether Machine will trade on the NASDAQ under the ticker EHTM.
It's a SPAC, in other words.
CNBC crypto reporter Taneya McKeel says it's vying to be the micro strategy of Ether, but with a focus on generating yield.
Let's bring her in to discuss.
And Taneya, this reminds me so much of stablecoins where they went through this whole era where it was all about yield until it blew up and so forth.
Obviously, they're hoping that's not a good analogy and that this model is much more sustainable.
Yeah, what could go wrong?
It's like microstrategy, but with yield.
And they're out there playing this narrative that I said they would just last week, that
Bitcoin is an old technology.
ETH is a platform.
It's the future.
ETH is a productive asset.
ETH has cash flow, right?
Bitcoin doesn't have cash flow.
ETH is a productive asset.
You don't want that old, crappy Bitcoin.
Don't underestimate what I've been saying here.
This is happening.
It is a narrative that they're going to push.
They have people that they can pay to go on TV and spin these narratives.
Here's an example.
This is the CEO of this new Ether or the Ether machine.
So you're an Ethereum guy.
Do you own Bitcoin?
I'm not.
I do not own Bitcoin.
None.
I'd rather have an iPhone than a landline.
Ooh.
There you go.
Just last week, I said they'd do this.
This is going to be the message where they're going to try to differentiate
because they can't lean on Web3.
The whole thing is just a piece of crap technology platform that could come along with something that's much better, much more elegant, much leaner, and much more efficient.
So they can't really lean on the fact that it's a technology platform.
They've got to come up with some other narrative, and this is it.
They're the iPhone.
So the reality is attention might not be on Bitcoin or any kind of Bitcoin reserve for a while.
And if the U.S. slows down their talk of a sovereign reserve, likely other countries will too.
The next thing the animals in D.C. are going to focus on is this market structure stuff, you know, what they call the Clarity Act.
And this to them is their next big focus.
This is how they're going to make money legally.
They need these rules so they can get out there and just start pumping.
Clarity started in the House, and so it has passed the House, and now it's going to the Senate.
And they still have to do their hearings and markup on it.
And we expect that will happen over the next couple of months.
In fact, the chairman of the Senate Bank Committee, Tim Scott, has said that he wants to finish with the market structure legislation by the end of September.
So if all goes well, then we could be looking at a second bill signing in, say, October.
And like Bo said, that would be pretty much the crypto industry's wish list for having a clear legal framework in the United States for both stable coins and other crypto tokens.
So it's really pretty amazing.
I'm not sure.
I think maybe there's something missing from my wish list.
It's times like these that we have an opportunity to practice low time preference,
prioritizing long-term benefits over immediate gratification.
The reality is Bitcoin is the apex asset.
The world needs Bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn't need the world. And that need is only going to grow as fiat debasement accelerates. It's clear that's the direction Western governments are going to go in. So I think it's incumbent upon us not to get sucked into these short term narratives. And in my opinion, just stay focused on Bitcoin, not what some are calling paper Bitcoin.
But that's what the Bitcoin community is calling it when instead of stacking Bitcoin or when you sell your Bitcoin and you buy shares of one of these companies that are buying Bitcoin.
that's a definite short short-term play i was going to say high time preference play but i
don't want to be confusing it's a short-term play because ultimately just like the stablecoin
companies there's probably only going to be a handful of bitcoin treasury companies that are
successful and it's not clear at this moment which ones those will be microstrategy or strategy
seems like an obvious one.
But last week I told you about Adam Back's company.
They're out there and they're in it to win it.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
I mean, I think that there are going to be just a couple of winners here.
I think that BSTR will be one of the winners.
We're showing up with a bulldozer and a permit to clear cut Bitcoin.
BSTR is the company that Adam Back helped create by selling some of his OG stash.
We're going to open up in the fourth spot.
And we think that we'll very quickly slingshot into number two.
That's our mission.
We're really trying to create a fortress-like environment for our Bitcoin
and really trying to position ourselves at the Berkshire Hathaway of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
What do you mean by that?
Do you mean by going and then buying other companies that are in the space
and running them yourself the way that Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway has done?
Yeah, I think there's a great arbitrage here.
We can issue debt at 1%.
We can buy Bitcoin.
And then as Bitcoin appreciates, we naturally delever our balance sheet.
So I think that's a really unique capability that Bitcoin treasuries have access to that other companies don't.
I think that you'll see over time that, you know, you can build a treasury that will become the preferred counterparty to a lot of the financial companies out there.
So if you think about who do you want to face as a finance company or as a bank, if you need a Bitcoin revolver, we want to make sure that BSTR is the counterparty of choice.
So to me, it sounds like they're going to be buying some Bitcoin companies, but they're also going to be playing some sort of financial backer to loans.
They'll use their massive reserves.
But again, only a few of these companies are likely to play out.
They think so themselves.
So if you play the long game here, you're going to end up with fiat rewards by buying these company shares, not Bitcoin.
And yeah, you could argue, well, I'm going to take the temporary gains and then I'm going to cash out at the right moment.
Then I'm going to go buy Bitcoin.
Maybe.
I mean, maybe, but maybe not. So why play with a middleman if your goal is to save in sats?
My goal is never to cash out into fiat. Why would I take Bitcoin and cash out into fiat?
Maybe if I wanted to buy something temporarily, I need to pay for something I needed to buy right
away, like a medical emergency or something like that. I mean, there's moments. But when we're
talking in the context of an investment, why would you sell Bitcoin for an inferior asset that's going
down sort of in a straight line. If you play this out, your goal is to have as many sats as possible.
And I think Bitcoin naturally wins this race because we are now living in an era where
everything's online. Your email's online. Your accounting is online. You pay all your bills
online. You order supplies online. Your assets are going to be online. Bitcoin wins in this
digital native world because it is born of the internet. Jack Dorsey was recently interviewed
and kind of put this in perspective. I think the podcast is called like revolution.social. I think
I'll put a link if I can find that. And he had a good point on this. All you have to do is look at
the first page of the white paper, which I encourage everyone to do, which is it only
sought out to solve one problem, which is verifying that there's no double spending. You're not
spending twice without having to rely upon a third party. Like it literally is just, how do we
transmit money without having to rely on a Visa or MasterCard or a bank to tell us that this was
not a double transaction. That was it. That was the innovation. And the title of the white paper
is electronic peer-to-peer cash. Like that was the dream. That was the intention. It was supposed
to be a way to transmit money protocol for the internet to transmit money anywhere without a Visa
or a MasterCard or a bank or any gatekeeper whatsoever. And it's become, and it's not like,
you know, I think the true Bitcoiners dream is still that it's money, but it's become this like
digital gold narrative, which I think is important because like, if it's valuable, more people want
to work on it. And you can think of Bitcoin like you would an equity or an asset. And if I make it
better than that asset goes up and I can, you know, convert it to whatever I need or just,
you know, give it to merchants to pay for food for my family, you know, anything I need to do
until it's widely, you know, dramatically accepted. But it all goes back to that core concept of like
the internet needs a native currency. It needs an open protocol for money transmission. Otherwise,
we're reliant upon a Visa, a MasterCard, a Stripe, a Square, you know, all these companies,
and you have to get permission from them to use them. And I just don't think that's fair
for something as fundamental as money.
And I also don't think it's fair
for something fundamental as speech,
which is where Nostra comes in.
Okay, so Boostin and Let Me Know,
have you tried Nostra and bounced off it?
Or maybe you haven't given it a go yet.
And if you have tried Nostra,
what's made you stick around?
And if I get some good answers to this question,
I'll tell you what's made me stick around
and why, even though I'm not a big social media user,
I find some utility in Noster.
So boost in and tell me if you've tried it,
if you bounced off,
and if you have yet to give it a go.
Now, speaking of Jack there,
Jack Dorsey's got a few companies
and Block is one of them
and Square is one of them.
Cash App, I believe.
I'm probably missing one or two other ones.
And Square had some big news.
You might recall at the Bitcoin 2025
conference, they made the following announcement. So if you're wondering if Bitcoin is still just an
asset, the answer is no. It's already a network. It's already a protocol. And now Block is leading
the effort to make it into the world's best payment system. So today we're taking the next step.
For the first time ever, businesses will be able to accept Bitcoin natively directly through the
square point of sale just like they would with cash credit cards and tap to pay
no clunky workarounds just one seamless elegant flow for both the customer and the business now then we shortly found out that well it actually not quite ready yet Well this week Square enabled Bitcoin Lightning payments for its first batch of merchants
And once those merchants are fully rolled out to their business,
you could potentially have 4 million different point of sales terminal users
that could enable Lightning payments.
It doesn't mean they will, but that's pretty big.
And it's just right alongside all the other payment options.
It's just one of the options users will have available.
And I have to say, if I see that option, I'll probably use it,
assuming, you know, I'm not making some giant pizza purchase.
But like, you know, maybe a tank of gas or something just to help support that.
I just would love to see it.
And if you see it anywhere out there on a square point of sale terminal,
boost in and let me know.
All right, coming up, your boost.
Lots of updates.
Final clip of the week you won't want to miss,
and of course, the state of the network.
But before we go on, I want to let you know
you can support the show by doing what you do.
You want to stack Sats on River?
One of the best ways to stack Sats in the U.S.
Plus, they have that 3.8% cash in Sats interest savings account.
Woo-wee!
We'll use our link in the show notes to support the show.
Now, if you're all about self-custody,
you're in Canada or the U.S.,
check out the Bitcoin Whale, an amazing automatic self-custody platform. Buy and sell directly from
your own wallets, Lightning or on-chain. Now, speaking of Lightning, you got some sats and you
want to convert them into a gift card. The Bitcoin company has hundreds of gift cards and they only
do Bitcoin. You can sign in with Lightning too. No user account required. That's the Bitcoin
company. Link in the show notes. Time to stack your sats while you're paying your bills, swiping
in your debit card. That's where Fold comes in. Really popular in our audience, and I use it every
single day, the Fold card. And last but not least, one last link, Salt Lending. You want to get access
to your Bitcoin value without selling it? Salt Lending. They have a bunch of great options.
Been using them for a bit on and off. It's been working great. All those links in the notes.
Four score and seven boosts to go.
And we do have some boosts to support the show this week.
People send value directly to the show using the Lightning Network
with a podcasting 2.0 technology called Boost.
And Satsquatch is our baller booster this week
with 75,000 sats.
Hey, rich lobster!
Woo!
Satsquatch writes,
Boom-a-grandma, rang-rang.
Keep up the fine harangue.
Still the best show in Satoshi land.
Boost!
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Satsquatch.
Appreciate that baller boost.
You know what?
Thank you for helping us help you.
Thank you for helping us help you help us all.
Yes, and appreciate that baller boost.
PJ is here with 22,322 sats.
That's a big one, PJ.
Thank you.
He writes, I think he was trying to send me in a longer message.
So he says, I sent you some more info regarding my mining.
So he says, my summer electrical rates are here,
and I have a full billing cycle to check some numbers to share.
Oh, this is good.
People have a real interest in mining Bitcoin on solar, including myself.
So this is what Jeff says.
I've been running my miner at 2,000 watts daily.
It fires up when my solar hits 2,000 watts and shuts off at 5 p.m.
to avoid peak grid rates.
This ends up being about 8.5 hours of mining per day
and earns between 1,000 and 1,300 sats.
and that consumes 17 kilowatt hours.
This month, the miner consumed 500 kilowatt hours,
earning 33,247 sets.
At the time of the current price of $120,000,
that's around $39.92 in value I earned.
If I sold that power back to the grid instead,
I would have earned $37 of credit towards my bill.
Here's the kicker.
If I ran this miner at the same times,
But without Solart, it would have cost me $94.20.
So as it stands, I'm breaking even cost-wise,
essentially putting that $37 into SAT savings account monthly.
That's fascinating, Jeff.
Okay, so you're running for 8.5 hours a day.
You're earning around 1,000 to 1,300 SATs a day.
For an entire month, that's around 500 kilowatt hours of power,
which earned you a total this month of 33,247 sats,
which is about $40,
which is just above the $37 credit
if you just would have sold that solar energy right back.
But if you would have used grid power,
it would have cost you $94.20.
So that's a pretty big difference.
So the solar really makes a difference there.
He says, here's some power reference.
My home's total power consumption for the month
was 1.5 million megawatt hours
and total solar production was 1.1 megawatt hours.
And I only imported 555 kilowatt hours from the grid.
The rest was all covered by my solar.
As always, thanks for the great show.
Thanks for that great boost, Jeff.
Really appreciate that.
I'm going to soak that up for a second.
I've often thought excess solar is the way to go.
And I like the idea of kind of timing it around
or automating it around other large loads.
So if you need to run the AC or the washer and dryer,
really the dryer,
You know, maybe it'd be even great if he could crank down the mining proportionally.
If anybody else has any experience with solar mining, please send it in.
I think people have a big interest in there.
And thanks, PJ.
Appreciate that information and appreciate that boost.
He's a good guy.
He's a real good guy.
No, he's a great guy.
Paranoid Coder comes in with 2,222 sats.
That's a Rotux.
And he just says boost.
Boost!
And a Monday is here with 4,444 sets.
McDuck.
Things are looking up for old McDuck.
Could be an Aflac.
He says the best part of the Trump-Powell drama is how Trump keeps talking about horrible Powell is when he was the one who appointed him.
I know.
And then he says, well, but Biden appointed him again.
I was absolutely blown away by the clip where Trump said, quote, he didn't know why Biden appointed him.
He didn't.
Trump did.
Ah!
I just think this means I should buy more Bitcoin.
Yeah, there you go. That's really the conclusion. Also, when your president refers to the reserve currency as the dollar standard, another reason to buy Bitcoin, in my personal opinion.
Gene Bean, thank you for the boost. Gene Bean's here with 4,096 sats.
The traders love the vol.
Hey, Gene Bean. He says, yeah, keep the Fed chair news. Regarding wallets, I actually have a Jade Plus. I like it fine. But that Bitbox O2 Nova that works with the iPhone is really enticing. I may get one.
for very long-term hodl what do you think about the trezor one it seems like there's nothing to
give there's nothing to give out as it's usb powered i've got a couple while back in a multi
sig wall i like the simplicity i'm curious on your take yeah so i do like the one of the trezor
products and you got me there too gene i also like that it doesn't have a battery i don't want
my cold wall to have a battery just i'll hook up a 9 volt or usb whatever it takes and as regarding
the iPhone. Yeah, I think it's either the BitKey right now or the BitBox O2 that are your best
options if you want to have cold storage with an iPhone. I could be wrong, but I think you got
all that right. And between the two, between the BitKey and the BitBox O2, I'd go with the BitBox
O2 because now you're with BitKey, you're really dependent on Block, which they'll probably be
around for a while. I do have one family member trying the BitKey from Block. So, you know, as I
and experiment with, like, when they get a new phone or something like that.
I'll, uh, I'll let you know how it goes.
Thank you for the boost, Gene.
Always good to hear from you.
KG2MV is here with 2,025 sats.
Well, I'll be dipped.
He writes, I earned these sats listening to you.
Seems fair that the proof of work belongs to you.
More to come.
Aw, thanks, KG.
Well done.
Appreciate that.
Ace Ackerman's here with the Road Ducks.
Jay Powell resigns at the end of September,
and his replacement lowers rates just in time
for the fourth quarter Bitcoin?
Mega bull run.
The giga run.
Okay, here's my counter, Ace.
If JPOW gets out this year
and they bring somebody else in
and he cuts rates,
could we see the bond market freak out?
Because who cuts rates
when everything's ripping?
And if the bond market freaks out,
then you'd actually see
interest rates on credit cards
and housing go up.
We've actually seen that happen
once before, I believe.
So a rate cut doesn't necessarily mean housing rates and credit cards and those types of things that are set by that price go down.
In fact, sometimes they go up because they react in a way that says this is not a healthy thing to do, right?
They get spooked.
We'll see.
Then again, people love a money printer, right?
So you say September.
September seems very possible.
I keep hearing rumors that it could be any day now, right?
So we'll see.
Thank you for the boost.
Keystone Hoddle's here with 10,000 sats.
It's over 9,000!
Shout out to my friend Satsquatch for telling me about TWIB.
Hey, awesome!
Thank you, Satsquatch, and thank you, Keystone, for coming in with 10,000 sats.
Appreciate that a bunch, you guys.
HDW39's here with 5,000 sats.
Thanks for the consistent signal.
I do appreciate your takes on political views,
but I think I'll get that covered in so many pods,
I'd prefer to your take on the network protocol and open source software projects in Bitcoin.
So we got this feedback, which is political news a couple of times.
And I always find this interesting because I don't consider it political.
To me, it's financial news, financial news that's going to have a big impact on the macroeconomic
situation that absolutely will have consequences for Bitcoin.
But I think probably because Trump gets involved in all of that, I think people kind of associate
it with political news.
I think in more of a historical context, like if we think back five years from now, like you want to listen to TWIB from five years, in five years in the future, you want to listen to one of these episodes.
This is kind of documenting what happened here, how this whole thing fell apart, how J-Pow, who supposedly gave us one of the greatest soft landing in Fed chair histories, where, I mean, inflation was really crazy.
The official numbers were what, 8, 9%, but we know it was way more than that.
And he gets it down to somewhere between 2 and 1%.
He gets it down.
I mean, let's be real.
There's a lot of factors there.
But supposedly, the guiding hand of the Fed, if you go with the narrative, has reduced inflation while keeping employment high.
So they managed to bring down inflation without causing the ton of pain they said they would and essentially create a soft landing.
and we never had the recession that everybody kept saying we were going to have for like the
last three years. So JPOW, by how you measure a Fed chair, now I think you could argue there
shouldn't be a Fed, but by how you measure the Fed seemingly has been successful. I don't think
that's political. I think it's a fascinating historical development that we should capture,
but I have seen that. You're not the only one that feels like it's political news,
So I appreciate that feedback.
Thank you, HG.
User 51 is here with 9,000 sats, which is not over 9,000, but is 9,000 right there.
This is a tasty burger.
Yeah, you see, I don't have a, it's just 9,000, because 9,000 is still great.
So what's up?
Yeah, I got answers, and I want some questions.
I'll tell you what's up.
Value!
Coming in hot with the booze!
No message just value from User 51 And User 12 is here with 3 sats Just pump the brakes right there Really interesting stuff from PJ there about the solar power mining I agree with HG39 that a bit of politics is good and often provides a welcome laugh
but the hardware and software storage and usage conversations are the most valuable.
For example, an interesting conversation came up recently on our local Telegram group about gap limits on wallets.
There's just so much to know.
And record your journey to Linux and beyond, Chris.
Thanks.
Yeah, local telegram group.
I like that terminology.
I don't know why that just really stood out at me.
Like, your local telegram group.
You know, it's just a small group.
Thanks for the boost and for the feedback.
Jabits is here with 5,000 sats.
Thanks for the solar info, PJ.
And to Chris, of course, for the show.
Yeah, PJ, you're a star this week.
I love it.
Oh, and you're welcome.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much.
Nakamoto 6102 is here with 3,500 sats.
and they just say thank you very much for the value thank you for the value thank you for
everybody that participates in the value for value exchange i put this year show out there for free
hoping hoping that it helps you navigate this crazy complex always developing always changing
world with the highest signal that i know how to put together and so 44 of you stream sats as you
listen to Thank Me and send back some value.
Collectively, you stacked 73,000 and 76 sats with all that streaming.
You combine that with our boosters,
and this week's episode stacked 224,311 sats.
Thank you, everybody. Appreciate it.
If you'd like to get in on the fun,
fountain.fm is probably the easiest way to do it.
They make it easy to connect to Stripe.
They make it easy to connect to Strike, and they host the Lightning Wall.
But there's lots of self-hosted routes you can go as well.
Check out the newpodcastapps.com website for all the apps, and AlbiHub, which, speaking of, we have an update to get into.
Now, before we get to AlbiHub, I want to highlight a story that I'm trying to parse.
I have been now for about six months, but there's been enough development that I want to bring it to you now.
So the IMF has released a report that implies that Bukele is lying about El Salvador's Bitcoin purchases.
And the key takeaways from the IMF report, which I'll link in the show notes, say that El Salvador is still on track to wind down its Bitcoin programs, that they're shutting down the Clevo wallet successfully, and that the recent Bitcoin activity that they've been reporting as new Bitcoin purchases is actually just El Salvador consolidating Bitcoin from other addresses that the state holds.
They also imply that there has been some increase in Bitcoin holdings as a result of consolidating and a result of their earnings from Chivo wallets.
But there has been no new purchases of Bitcoin and there will be no new purchases if El Salvador wants that sweet, sweet IMF honey.
Now, Bekele has denied this on X.
It says the IMF report is wrong. It says, if we didn't stop when the world ostracized us and most Bitcoiners abandoned us, we won't stop now. And it won't stop in the future. Proof of work over proof of winning. Or equals proof of winning.
It's not exactly a denial, though.
It's just claiming that they're going to continue.
It's a confusing situation coming out of El Salvador,
and I've seen reports on and off now for, like I said, almost half a year that this is going on.
If you've got any insights, let me know.
Electrum 4.6.0 has been released, and it adds support for submarine swaps
using Noster for discoverability.
Noster.
I think you're starting to get a hint of perhaps where Nostra could play a role in the Bitcoin ecosystem, even if you don't use it as X or Blue Sky replacement.
AlbiHub version 1.118 is now out, and it offers Bolt 12.
This is really good to see.
This is really good.
I'm thrilled at the support of Bolt 12 because it brings a lot of advanced features to Lightning.
In fact, Bolt 12 would significantly improve the state of boosts for podcasting 2.0.
But of course, we have to see support everywhere else.
AlbiHub 1.18 also integrates swaps, both on-chain and on-chain to Lightning and vice versa.
You can also now generate Lightning addresses for your sub-wallets.
So if you, like I, have several sub-wallets on my AlbiHub, they can now get their own direct address.
Channel rebalancing is now in beta with a new UI, and it looks really sharp.
They say they've partnered with Bolts to swap from Lightning to on-chain and on-chain to Lightning without ever having to leave the hub.
You can now set up auto-swap-outs to keep swapping your Lightning balance periodically to your cold wallet and say goodbye to incoming liquidity headaches.
That is pretty slick, guys. Well done.
That's a feature I've honestly been requesting since before they released AlbiHub to the public, so I am very thrilled to see that.
Also noteworthy this week, Albi released an Albi Bitcoin Payments MCP for AI agents.
So it's a Albi Bitcoin Payments connector to enable Lightning payments inside of AI agents.
Albi has really been cooking and still enjoying and using Albi Hub for some of our Bitcoin Lightning infrastructure.
and it's probably become one of our most reliable nodes over the last few months.
So they've really built something awesome over there.
Great to see it continue.
Over the last few weeks, I've covered that the White House has seemed to have pivoted
to pump the economy, get liquidity into the system, let the banks buy more treasuries,
Do whatever we can do.
Pressure the Fed to lower interest rates.
We got to go all in.
We got to grow, grow, grow, and we got to debase, debase, debase.
But how do you do that without causing massive inflation?
This is something we've been debating on the show.
You've been boosting in your opinions on if inflation is going to go up or down.
And it started to click for me with all this rush to get the Genius Act signed.
Stablecoins are going to play a role here, but sort of indirectly.
You see, the stable coins are going to help create purchasers of U.S. debt.
But we need sinks so that way we don't inflate up the economy like crazy.
We need something that's going to suck up that liquidity that doesn't directly inflate the economy.
And Jack Mahler's, in his recent podcast, The Jack Mahler Show, which I'll link to,
explained this process and how stable coins, Bitcoin, and probably gold,
will play a very significant role in, perhaps,
keeping all of this liquidity pump from inflating us to beyond.
This is what I've been saying, guys.
Debase the dollar against what?
What are you going to debase it against?
I tell you what's a really bad idea.
Do not debase the dollar against housing.
Bad idea.
Because if housing starts to rip 60% year over year, that's bad.
A lot of people are going to be really pissed
because they don't want to be homeless.
Here's another one.
Don't debase the dollar against eggs.
Bad idea.
Because people need to eat or else they'll be malnourished, starve, and die.
So a bad idea would be debasing the dollar against eggs.
Good idea.
My recommendation, debase it against Bitcoin and gold.
Are you guys following me now?
That's the stablecoin idea.
That's it.
because the last logical conclusion I come to
is that Bitcoin is the sink for stablecoin liquidity.
So stablecoin's the sink for fiat inflation liquidity
and Bitcoin is the sink for stablecoin liquidity.
Do you understand?
If you want stablecoins to grow, Bitcoin grows.
You want to debase the dollar against something?
Bitcoin.
Put it to you this way.
The United States sends Bitcoin to $500,000 a coin.
that's 5x from here. Stable coins then have to 5x in growth. At least. That's five times the
amount of demand for US debt. Guys, this is, I'm telling you, this is it. I'm telling you,
I feel it in my bones. I really do.
Let's check in on the state of the network.
Before we wrap up here, the show is ending at block height 906,858.
Bitcoin's USD price, one Bitcoin, is $118,420,
which puts the sats per dollar at 844 sats to one US dollar.
We're down 3.9% from our all-time high of $123,180, which was nine days ago.
Now, the next estimated difficulty change is just 0.3% up.
There are currently 22,955 nodes on the network, and Bitcoin Noughts is clocking in at 14.4% of that share.
It's pretty good.
Things are moving right along.
And it's nice to see that 200-day moving average price get to $50,000.
Generally, we don't go below that for very long, if ever.
Takes a pretty bad bear market to get below that.
So that is the state of the network.
Things are cooking and moving right along.
Now, I don't have a value for value track for you this week.
I know it's the first time ever, but I'm waiting on the Fountain FM podcasting platform to finish up all of the integration on their end.
So that's working.
So I don't want to play a song if we can't boost them.
But hopefully we'll have that wrapped up pretty soon.
So if you made it this far, I want you to go to thisweekinbitcoin.show.
That'll send you over to my site where we have links to all the previous episodes.
Of course, the ways to support the show and the links to the stuff I talked about today.
And sometimes more stuff that didn't make it into the show.
So let me know how I did with the boost.
My goal here is to make a show that focuses on the signal, doesn't get distracted by the emotions around what's happening.
so a boost
either what I missed
how I did
what you'd like to hear
in the show
all of that
is always appreciated
another way to support the show
is by telling a friend
sending somebody an episode
you thought was particularly
informative
informational
don't send them this part
but send them the good stuff
spread the word
it's the number one way
to promote podcasting
thanks so much for joining me
see you back here
next week
Thank you.