In all honesty, everyone's asking me, I don't know what the answer is. Why is Bitcoin shooting
higher right now? Yeah, thanks for having me on. I think it's a really simple answer. There's
unrelenting demand from corporations and institutional investors, and that's colliding
with severely limited supply. You know, the Bitcoin network only produces 450 Bitcoin per day.
Yesterday alone, Bitcoin ETFs bought 10,000 Bitcoin. This institutional investment into
Bitcoin is a one-time event. It's going to take years to play out. But I think over the course
of those years, there's going to be this persistent bid where there's more demand than there is supply.
And the natural response to that is what we're seeing in the market, which is Bitcoin's price
goes higher. I think it has a long way to go. I think it could end the year closer to 200,000.
So I would get used to this story of new all-time highs. I think we're going to be there in a couple
months at this rate, maybe a couple of weeks.
Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 64.
My name is Chris, chrislas.com, jupiterbroadcasting.com.
You do kind of love the irony of it, right?
Like, I don't often talk about price on this show.
And then when I do, there always tends to be fireworks.
But it was a fun week, wasn't it?
Just as I was wrapping up last week's episode, you know, Wednesday afternoon in the Pacific Northwest,
the Bitcoin fiat price really started to rip.
and I always kind of have a mixed bag of emotions when this happens.
It's exciting, but I also have like this feeling in the pit of my stomach
like a window of opportunity is closing.
I don't like that feeling.
And the timing, though, very funny because there was just like this enough frustration
and Conspiracy Bacon was getting cooked up about why the prize wasn't moving.
I finally felt like it's time to talk about it.
And then, of course, we really went off to the races.
In fact, for a day or two there, Bitcoin was setting all-time highs in USD multiple times a day.
I mean, things were really cooking.
Bitcoin this morning hitting a new high above $123,000.
Doing this right now on the move and what it means.
Anthony Pompliano is here as the founder and CEO of Professional Capital Management.
Good morning to you.
I guess, as Joe said, if you're going to get to $250,000 or $500,000, you got to cross $123,000 at some point.
I love how they're so casual about it. So now, of course, they've got their go-to guy. Whenever it's time to talk pump, you bring on Pomp. And now, oh, yeah, well, you know, it's not at 250 yet. So, yeah, you know, I guess 123,000. I guess you got to get there.
Good morning to you. I guess, as Joe said, if you're going to get to $250,000 or $500,000, you got to cross $123,000 at some point.
But what do you think is happening, what's driving it right this moment?
First of all, welcome to the greatest show on Wall Street.
I think that Wall Street's full undivided attention now is on Bitcoin.
And there's three things that drove this move.
The first is that there's been record inflows into the ETFs.
So last Thursday, $1.2 billion, second highest day.
Those ETFs now collectively have over $140 billion.
BlackRock's fund is now almost $90 billion in about a year.
They went from not having a Bitcoin ETF to now they have a top 20 largest ETF in the world.
In fact, BlackRock just announced that their IBIT Bitcoin ETF is their most successful ETF product in history and makes them the most revenue now.
So a lot of inflows there.
Second thing is the options expired at the end of Q2.
And so all that downward pressure on Bitcoin obviously goes away.
That helps kind of like a beach ball getting put underneath the water, right?
obviously it could pop back up. And then the third thing is that there was a lot of short
sellers and you started to see that build up. And as they got blown out as Bitcoin ran,
you get into this price discovery phase. And if you go back to November, we went from 70,000 to
90,000. All right. Pop is actually onto something here. I have a price cycle theory that I want to
get into, but I'm going to replay what he just said, because he's essentially giving you the
cliff notes. On Bitcoin obviously goes away. That helps kind of like a beach ball getting put
underneath the water, right? Obviously it could pop back up. And then the third thing is that there
was a lot of short sellers and you started to see that build up. And as they got blown out as Bitcoin
ran, you get into this price discovery phase. So here's, I think, the activity we're seeing right
now and the price cycle theory that I have for it. Bitcoin's fiat price reaches an all-time new high.
Traders and miners, don't forget about the miners, they take profits because they're seeing an all-time
new high. But meanwhile, whales like the ETFs and the plebs like us, we keep stacking. And now,
of course, treasury companies as well. But the supply and demand, it's mostly in sync for a bit
while miners and traders take their profits. But I think what's changing is instead of that process
taking a year or two for that to stabilize, it happens in eight weeks because there is a lot of
buy pressure. The ETFs alone are often buying more than the daily supply each day. And now you have
Bitcoin treasury companies buying. And their demand, it's interesting because they're not
buying spot Bitcoin. They're not buying off the exchanges like the plebs do. They tend to buy off
of these trade desks. And these trade desks are sourcing these from OGs, people that have been
sitting on a stash. They got thousands of coins and they're willing to slice off 5%. And they'll
sell at just below market rate to these desks. And then when your sailors or your 21s or your
others, when they go to buy for the treasury, they're buying from these desks. It doesn't
immediately affect the spot price, but eventually Bitcoin's supply scarcity, it comes for everyone.
And demand does start to outstrip supply. So then the price starts to go up again. You start,
and that's what we were seeing at the end of last week's show, the price was starting to tick up.
When the price ticks up like this, the short squeeze hits. See, Wall Street plays these stupid
games, and then they're forced to buy back Bitcoin at a much higher price to cover their
positions when the price starts to go up. This is what's called a short squeeze. You've probably
heard this before. On a big price surge, exchanges will often even automatically liquidate heavily
leveraged short positions. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. They just start selling them automatically.
Then we start to see the price rip, and we start reaching all-time new highs as we liquidate these
positions. That then causes the miners and the traders to start taking profits again,
and the cycle repeats. And I think this is why we're seeing these consolidation at these different
price levels. But the nice thing about these, when we get to these price levels and we consolidate
and we don't tend to, you know, we maybe take one step back, but we're taking two steps ahead,
is that 200-day moving average price is getting drug up. And that really tends to set the floor
and it's what the big finance boys look at, is that 200-day moving average price is getting drug
up as we level off. Now, I think there's another element to this that Bitcoiners are probably not
giving enough credence to. Now, I don't want to throw cold water on the party. But a big part of
the story around Bitcoin's price ripping is the dollar's value has been tanking.
The U.S. dollar just crashed to its lowest level since early 2022, plummeting nearly 10%
since Donald Trump's inauguration in January and erasing the post-election rally that followed
as victory in November 2024. That's three years worth of price action erased in just three months,
and a reversal that nobody saw coming. Many analysts predicted that Trump's tariff-heavy
economic policies would strengthen the dollar. That's what tariffs typically do, by increasing
demand for U.S. goods and attracting capital to American markets. In January, Trump's Treasury
Secretary, Scott Besant, said that tariffs would strengthen the dollar, offsetting any inflation
that happened as a result. The problem was is that history's trends were just too powerful to change.
And there has been something, we've been talking about this since the Bitcoin Dad podcast,
there has been a trend in central banks and others to differentiate into other assets besides the
dollar to de-dollarize. And then once we saw the tariffs kick in, we saw a lot of the international
markets say, oh, I need to take my money out of this market. I need to go somewhere else.
And I think we saw the tariffs actually accelerate a trend that's been playing out for about a decade
that has sped up since COVID and now has really accelerated since the Trump administration
launch their tariff policy.
And as this guy on Bloomberg said,
like, yeah, the dollar is losing its king status
just sort of chip by chip, paper cut by paper cut.
President Trump saying he's prepared to punish countries
that challenge the reserve currency status of the U.S. dollar.
If we lost the world standard dollar,
that would be like losing a war.
He does know it's called the reserve currency, right?
Not the world standard, right?
He does know it's called the reserve currency.
A major world war. We would not be the same country any longer. You ever hear the expression dollar is king? The dollar is king. We're going to keep it that way.
Joining us now to discuss Terry Weisman of Macquarie. Terry, good morning.
Good morning.
Is the dollar still king?
No, the dollar is not still king. There's plenty of indications out there that there is de-dollarization taking place.
It's happening slowly. And I think that's why maybe some traders don't pay too much attention to it or try to be in denial effectively.
If it's not staring you in the face and it's a slow drip, why talk about it?
But the slow drip continues.
The reserve allocators are allocating less of their balances to the dollar.
We're seeing banks in China, for example, that lend money to some of their emerging market clients,
asking them to borrow in renminbi and not in dollars.
The Federal Reserve did a study about this.
We are seeing clearly a movement away from the dollar by private investors and semi-official investors, including pension funds.
They want to effectively diversify. I think these are all aspects of a de-dollarization that's taking place slowly. I think the ideology of this, the origin of this, is the view that, first of all, the U.S. is disengaging from the rest of the world.
And the Bretton Woods II arrangement, implicit as it may be, it no longer applies as strongly as it did prior to this administration.
And of course, there's plenty of policy uncertainty. The idea that the U.S. is exceptional because we have something called ordered liberty, I think, is breaking down. We may have managed chaos, but we certainly don't have ordered liberty anymore. And I think that's an aspect of the de-dollarization story as well.
So we have to consider the loss of the dollar's value, too.
In a way, the Bitcoin all-time high is priced in USD is not quite the victory we think it is.
I mean, it's still great to see, but the benchmark has changed, I suppose.
And so, of course, we all know at this point that the issues the dollar has been facing are existential.
And the pressure of this situation has pushed Congress in the U.S. to really cozy up with the idea of private stablecoins.
And as I record right now, they're hashing out the last minute details for three different bills, one of which is the Genius Act for stablecoins.
And things have been looking really good.
I mean, after all, it's crypto week.
So this is the week we should have high expectations, except for they can't come to an agreement.
Breaking news on the stablecoin front.
as that bill has failed to advance in the House, I believe.
Let's get the details from Emily Wilkins.
Emily.
Hey, Kelly.
So, yes, this House was just holding a procedural vote
that would have been led to the vote on three different crypto bills,
and that procedural vote has failed.
Now, we should note, of course, here that that rule was not just on crypto bills.
It was also going to set up a vote on funding for the Defense Department.
We're trying to learn a little bit more about why.
Yeah, well, we will talk more about that.
But we did see some statements about, at least in the Genius Act, that the language around CBDCs was loose and would actually allow for the creation of a CBDC.
I don't know what Lummis was thinking there, but there's a handful of senators or Congress creators that didn't want that, thank goodness.
I think overall, though, people are expecting this to pass, perhaps even by the time you're listening to this.
Some of this, if not all of this, will pass.
Today, the House is expected to vote on landmark cryptocurrency bills to boost America's crypto dominance after failing to advance the bills yesterday.
President Trump says he met with a number of holdouts, writing, quote,
After a short discussion, they have all agreed to vote tomorrow morning in favor of the rule.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was at the meeting via telephone and looks forward to taking the vote as early as possible.
Florida Congressman Mike.
Now, what we need to brace ourselves for as Bitcoiners is a just incredible wave of very frustrating, clearly stupid alt-coining.
Prepare yourself for the narrative wave.
You're going to hear a lot.
It's going to be at first just a tweak.
Bitcoin is just digital gold.
Crypto is more.
Bitcoin is just a store of value.
But crypto, you can build on top of it.
It will lower your payment costs.
All you can do with Bitcoin is just hold it.
And we're already seeing altcoins pump on this narrative right now.
Just this morning, Ethereum liquidated something like 40 million worth of shorts.
I mean, it's been pumping like crazy today because of all this buzz and noise around stable coins and real world asset tokenization.
And we're going to have to sit through rounds of stuff as Bitcoiners that we felt like we've already sat through.
Rounds of blockchain for everything.
And then now they're going to try to pair it with AI.
And these are going to dominate the mainstream headlines.
They're going to dominate the mainstream media and on TV.
In the background, just like always, Bitcoin will continue to grow. It'll gain traction as collateral. We're going to see Lightning and other second-layer payment systems improve. We're going to see wallet technology improve. We're going to see mining get more integrated with energy systems. We're going to see more companies putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet, even just small companies that just want to have a little inflation protection.
but you're going to have so much noise.
It's going to feel like we've already had these conversations.
And they are going to speak with such certainty,
these pundits and these reporters,
these media personalities,
they're going to be absolutely positive,
even though they barely grasp what they're talking about.
And they will convince people Like I told you last week I had family ask me about Ripple No one has asked me about Bitcoin this cycle No one I had questions about Ripple
And all this hype around stablecoins, I mean, it's good for selling treasuries.
It's good for Scott Besson.
But stablecoins are just fiat that you can tokenize.
They can still make unlimited fiat.
And most things that they're going to pitch blockchain for, a database would simply do better.
Blockchain's really not very great, except for decentralizing a monetary network.
And there will be some that just take it way, way too far.
The type of person who's always parroting the seemingly most sophisticated Bitcoin attack of the time,
you know, the typical uninformed smart person.
They hear what seems like a smart attack and they just latch onto it.
Then they rotate through them as they kind of get smacked down.
And the hot one right now, and it's only going to get hotter as stable coins become a big deal,
is, and you've probably heard it already, Bitcoin is propped up by Tether.
Bitcoin's propped up by Tether, and that's why Bitcoin's ripping. Tether just prints money and
they buy Bitcoin. And then they maybe will, they'll bring up like a chart if you're watching
a video or something. They'll bring up a chart. They'll be like, here's where Tether issued a
bunch of USDT. And then a few days later, here's where the Bitcoin price ripped, right? They'll do
that all the time. But the irony is they have it exactly backwards. They don't seem to understand
the correlation. The creation of stable coins does not pump Bitcoin. Creation follows demand.
Stable coins are minted when real dollars enter the system. So they're not printing money. It's a
conversion of fiat in, token out. Then the capital flows in. When they get their tokens, they buy the
Bitcoin. So it's the demand from bringing in fiat that issues the tokens that then they go and buy
the Bitcoin with. If billions in USDT show up before a Bitcoin move, it's because someone bought
billions of fiat tokens and then used those stable tokens to buy the Bitcoin. It's just a market
function. If the user buys stable coins, then they use that to purchase Bitcoin, then the price of
Bitcoin is going to go up. And then Tether itself buys Bitcoin for its treasury with its profits.
And it makes a lot of profits. But they get it backwards. It doesn't matter, though,
because when you're talking about Bitcoin and you're making predictions and you're saying this
is going to happen or that's going to happen, eventually you'll be proven right or wrong.
And some of the biggest haters of all time have fallen to Bitcoin this year.
Vanguard, the firm that said, quote, given the current state of crypto as an asset class,
they wouldn't be supporting it, and then said Vanguard does not have plans to launch its own
Bitcoin ETF or any crypto-related products. We do not currently believe that there is an
appropriate role for them to play in long-term portfolios. And then they wrap up the entire
piece with, quote, our mission statement to give investors the best chance for investment success
isn't just a saying for us.
It's built into our DNA.
And we're staying true to our mission by making this decision.
The decision being not to have a Bitcoin ETF.
Now, I guess their protection of their investors
doesn't necessarily apply to them.
So they're going to prevent you from making a bunch of money,
but they're going to go ahead and make a bunch of money.
Vanguard is now the largest holder of MicroStrategy.
So just take that in for a minute.
The folks that made a big stink when the Bitcoin ETFs launched
and called the market not ready,
are now the largest holder of MSTR.
Next, Vanguard's unintended exposure to Bitcoin.
The firm has long held firm
that Bitcoin has no inherent economic value,
is an immature asset class,
and is not appropriate for long-term investors.
Yet, Vanguard is now the single biggest shareholder
of strategy, as you can see here.
Michael Saylor's a software firm
that's become a proxy for Bitcoin.
Vanguard owns 20 million shares.
And the reason?
Index investing.
Vanguard mutual funds and ETFs
to passively track indexes, have no choice but to end up holding shares of strategy,
even though the firm dislikes Bitcoin.
Irony, clearly.
Yes, it is clearly irony.
It did make me chuckle.
Another brilliant moment this week when we're talking about big bankers
that are having to own their words.
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase,
got called out on CNBC for being wrong about his Bitcoin predictions.
One of the things I love when the price rips is
you see people get called to account for their predictions.
Refuse to even talk about Bitcoin,
which now outpaces a 10-year gain of NVIDIA, Amazon, Netflix, Tesla.
He may have gotten that wrong.
He may have gotten Bitcoin wrong.
The thing he's gotten right is he's been the CEO since 2006.
What he's gotten right is that J.P. Morgan's got an $800 billion market.
What he's gotten right is that next week...
And that's what shareholders care about.
When it comes to his predictions, I'm always happy to listen,
because how can you not listen?
And by the way, it's always refreshing because he actually speaks his mind in a way that many CEOs are incapable of doing.
He does.
That said, he's not right a lot.
OK, so David.
He's not right a lot.
I mean, that was as brutal as they were going to get, right?
There was still a lot of couching.
I still found that to be pretty enjoyable.
I want to know, do you care what happens to the Fed chair, Jerome Powell?
I've been lightly covering this story because I think J-Pow stepping down or getting fired would have a noticeable impact on Bitcoin's fiat price, at least for a window of time.
So it's something that in the States is going to be big news if it happens.
But I'd like to know if everyone is interested in this story.
Hope you'll stick around for one more minute.
We're going to get your reaction to some breaking news that we're getting out of Washington and our Megan Casella.
Hey, Megan.
Hey, Carl, we can report now that the White House says the president is considering firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
That's according to a senior White House official saying the president asked lawmakers meeting in the Oval Office late yesterday how they felt about firing the Fed chair.
The lawmakers that were in the room, 12 Republicans, expressed their approval for firing the Fed chair.
And the president then indicated that he is likely to do that soon.
Now, you'll notice that that is coming from a White House official.
But then just a little while later, during a presser in the White House, Trump says he's not considering it.
Fed chair, I was surprised he was appointed.
I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him.
But they did.
So, no, we're not planning on doing anything.
We're very concerned.
He's doing a little renovation for $2.5 billion of the Fed.
First of all, I think that word planning is doing a lot of a heavy that we're not planning to fire him.
That's doing a lot of a heavy lift there.
And then, you know, he does this quick diversion to the Fed building a very expensive building like the FBI didn't just do the same thing.
No, we're not planning on doing anything.
We're very concerned.
He's doing a little renovation for $2.5 billion of the Fed building a renovation.
And they have a close to $900 million cost over on.
and it's a shame. But the biggest cost overrun is the cost overrun for interest rates
because we should be paying three points lower and we would save a trillion dollars a year in
interest if that were the case. And all it is, is the stroke of a pen. And that goes for his board
too, because his board is not doing the job because they should try and rein this guy in.
So he's doing a lousy job, but no, I'm not talking about that. We get, fortunately,
we get to make a change in the next, what, eight months or so. And we'll pick somebody that's good
and we'll pick somebody. I just want a fair job. I'll remind you, Trump did pick J-Pow and then
Biden kept him. Now, I've been covering this lately. I'd like to know if you'd like me to
continue to cover it. Now's your chance to voice your opinion. Just boost it and let me know if
you're interested in this whole J-Pow getting fired or not story. I want to hear your opinion.
Well, coming up on the show, it's your boost.
Some big updates, some surprising updates, a great final clip of the week.
Of course, our song of the week, state of the network, and a lot more.
So I'm going to take a moment and say, if you want to support the show by doing what you do,
you can buy your sats on River here in the States and support the show.
We've got a link in there for buying and stacking sats and supporting the show.
If you're in the U.S. or in Canada, the Bitcoin, well, it's an amazing automatic self-custody
Bitcoin platform. These are all Bitcoin-only companies, by the way, every single one of them.
Speaking of that, the Bitcoin company spends your sats via Lightning quick. You can log in via
Lightning, take those Lightning sats into a Bitcoin-powered gift card in like 10 seconds.
It's awesome. If you want to stack sats by just daily expenses, maybe like by buying gas, paying
bills, things like that, the Fold Card gives you a series of options. It's really popular in our
audience. It's really popular in my house. My wife loves the Fold Card. Then, if you need to get
access your Bitcoin value without selling it. Salt Lending has a great platform. They have a lot of
options there, including loan amounts that the other providers won't let you do, like, you know,
stuff below $10,000 and whatnot. Click the link in the show notes for any of these to support the
show by doing just what you're doing.
Ask not what your podcast can boost for you,
but what you can boost for your podcast.
And we do have some boost to support the show this week,
and Hybrid Sarcasm is our baller booster for episode 64.
with 30,000 sats. Now, hybrid sarcasm comes in with a good question. I'm glad he asked this. He
says, you said buy Bitcoin, hold Bitcoin and shut up. What would you say to the people who insist
you have to spend your sats for Bitcoin to gain relevance as a currency? It's a good question,
because when I say things like that, I'm really talking about in the context of investing.
And I always kind of just shorthand this, but what I'm really saying is I think we should all have a Bitcoin savings that we don't touch and then some spending sats.
And I think, you know, you do this like that.
It's like sats in, sats out kind of a wallet.
Buy some sats, use the sats generally within the same month or something like that, maybe a little bit longer depending.
And that I think is a good idea.
I've always done that just because I do think we want to not only help prove out the systems,
but it's just awesome to pay with digital currency.
It's convenient to pay with digital currency.
It feels empowering to pay from your own self-hosted wallet.
All of these things.
Plus, I love zapping and boosting.
It feels good.
And it's a great use of the Lightning Network.
So I definitely think there is an element for both.
But when I am talking in just the investing context, you know, DCN, that stuff you don't touch.
So, you know, you can splice some of it off.
Everybody has their own strategy.
That's a good question.
And I'm glad you asked it, Hybrid.
And thank you for being our baller.
I think you got it at a fair price this week.
J-Cube came in with 25,000 sets.
I hoard that which your kind covet.
This is a tasty burger.
Thanks for the tip on the Albie extension.
Ah, and I see that was sent from the podcast index.
Ha ha.
Well done.
Fun will now commence.
Well done.
Nicely done indeed.
I'm glad you got to try that.
Good job, J-Cube, and thanks for updating me.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Mix comes in with 3,333 sats.
No message, though, just the value.
Gene Bean's here with 8,888 sats.
He says, thanks for the detailed response to my boost.
Following up on the question of the BitBox02 or the JID+,
and your recommendations on the former,
I don't think the BitBox02 supports Liquid.
Do you have a preferred Liquid wallet, be it software or hardware?
Ah, the Liquid element does make me actually think you might want to consider the Blockstream and the Jade setup because that wallet has Liquid support in there.
That's why I presently have a couple of Jades and the software.
See, Liquid does change it a bit.
I think Liquid's a great function and I think it's worth it.
They have lightning support.
So if you wanted to, you know, use bolts to go from lightning or from liquid to lightning to get to BitPox02, you definitely could do that.
That's a good question.
He says, I also, when I was stumbling across, oh, I saw that one, the Shopster one.
He says, I'd be down for having episodes that are deep dives on a bonus content, maybe like a cashew deep dive.
And he sent some bonus of sets to our artists too.
And he says, is fountain breaking the magic wall at switching technology?
I think it is broken at least now.
I'm looking into it with them.
I think it's something they have to change on the hosting platform.
But hopefully resolved soon.
I will hopefully know next week.
Thank you, Gene.
And I'm glad you clarified on the Liquid stuff.
I think maybe you should consider the Blockstream
and the Jade stuff.
I just...
Yeah, I mean, you can't...
And you can get around that server-side dependency I was worried about.
It's not an impossible thing.
Like, if it went down, you'd still make it.
So, it's not a deal-breaker.
Opelio 1984 came in with 4,000 sats.
While I do believe the establishment Democrats are anti-Bitcoin, I don't think the El Salvador investigation is just about the use of Bitcoin.
While I'm sure the use of Bitcoin is a factor, it may just be a convenient way to mask their true intention of just driving a wedge between El Salvador and the current administration over the migrant detention center.
Then again, this is the Dems we're talking about.
So they may just have their Bitcoin bad blinders on and they're taking any opportunity to attack Bitcoin.
Hmm. Hmm.
You know, I could see that as a way to drive a wedge.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, maybe you're saying it's more political than it is about the Bitcoin.
I had to consider that.
Thanks, Oppie.
Appreciate the perspective.
It's pretty funny.
Next caller.
User 12059 is here with 3,333 sats.
You're doing very well.
Love the show, Chris.
In fact, as a simple pleb marooned in Western Europe, I rely on your take for some sanity,
you and a handful of others.
in all of this craziness,
some advice on the best cold storage options,
your opinion on the 2526 would be very useful.
Why you got to ask me about hardware walls right now
when I'm torn between the BitBox O2,
the Jade, and the cold card?
Still, if I could only have one, I'd...
Hmm.
Don't know, actually.
I don't know.
I do like the cold card,
but having used it now for a while, many years,
and then having tried to train, you know,
family members to use it and stuff like that,
kind of, you know, like outside the immediate family,
didn't go well.
And then when I showed that same family member, say a jade,
it was just really simple So sorry I don have a better answer for you user120 I going to give it more thought And what I do when I have time
is I'm going to sit down and kind of just do a wallet off
and look at the different combinations of software hardware options
and really kind of come to my conclusion.
Because in the past, I just would have immediately said,
cold card and Sparrow, you can't beat it.
But I don't necessarily think that's true.
And I think one of the things that has really changed my opinion on that
is there's just a lot of mobile-first people,
and they've made a pretty good argument
about the security of mobile OSes over desktop.
It's crazy, though.
Nice to hear from you.
I'm glad I can help out over there.
And thank you for the value.
I appreciate it.
Hey, the Immunologist is back with the Rodex.
Streaming is currently off for me for some reason,
so take some value.
Hmm.
Well, I'll have to see if that dropped.
I wonder if that's a feature.
Thanks, Immunologist, for letting me know.
I'll keep an eye on that.
Thanks for the value.
Jordan Bravo is also here with the Rodex.
jcube asked if there's any way to send boost directly from a cell phone to albi hub the answer
is yes i'm sending this from podverse connected to my albi hub yes you can so that's another option
of course is podverse is great and you can also use podverse from the web if and of course i
mentioned podcast index thanks jordan nice to hear from you well hello there's got a row of ducks too
How about that?
And they say boost.
Boost.
One Doll Geek's here with 4,960 sats.
And they also say boost.
Boost.
Thank you very much.
And then they said boost again.
Boost.
Double boost.
That's not possible.
Nothing can do that.
He did it.
Bobby Pin's here with 10,000 sats.
It's over 9,000.
tokenized stock shares derivatives you say yeah that's a bit too far from real estate and a real
asset for me i think i'll just stay humble and stack stats hope you and the fam had a good road
trip we did i know bobby i like and how would tokenized real estate work like realistically
you own this 10 square feet of land like you just like divide the land into a bunch of squares
or how does it work triangles i don't know how they do it you know bobby pin if you do let me
No.
We did have a good road trip.
I miss it already.
It's beautiful up there.
It's beautiful.
Ace Ackerman's back with a row of ducks.
I think you should do a Bitcoin tip of the day.
Ask Dana Burnetti.
I hear he's good for these types of things.
Yeah, somebody want to make me a jungle?
A jingle?
A jungle.
Yeah, make me a jingle for a Bitcoin tip of the day.
Sure.
Yeah.
You make me want to be a better man.
Nice to hear from you, Ace.
Thank you.
Clarkian's here with 5,000
Sats
Multi-pass
Yes, multi-pass
I need to
If anybody wants to clip me
Five elements, the fifth element
Like one or two great clips from the fifth element
Gotta be tight
Lilu and her multi-pass would be a good one
Thanks Clarkian, good to hear from you
Pab's also here with 5,000 Sats
You supposed
I would love for you to produce an audiobook
Or limited series
that documented your Bitcoin journey
from the perspective of a Linux user.
I'd be very interested to hear you discuss your choices
along the way in more detail,
as well as the setup you might have right now.
Just an idea for the type of content
I would unlock with a boost.
I'd have to really sit down and think that through.
You know, you forget it over that amount of time,
even when we're talking 14 years or so,
it really starts to fade.
I do have some really fond memories of my mining setups.
And it was one of the things
that did help me get into Linux too.
yeah, hmm, that's a great suggestion, Pab.
I'll consider it if anybody else wants to plus one that.
It also sort of feels like a vanity project,
so I'm not going to do it unless I think people would actually listen.
You know what I mean?
It feels weird.
But now I think about it, it has been a fascinating one.
Thank you, Pab. Nice to hear from you.
Cardboard Warriors here with 8,000 sats.
Well, I recently got a call from my aunt
asking to explain Bitcoin to her.
I asked her why, and she responded with,
well, I just bought $500 of XRP.
Oh, my.
Oh.
I asked her where she had gotten the influence from,
and she responded with TikTok.
Since I only have been into Bitcoin for the better part of a year,
I tried to explain the difference between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
by sending her videos and other resources.
I advised her to sell her XRP and educate herself on Bitcoin
before she makes any financial decisions based on emotion and outside influence.
The altcoin influence is strong.
Stay humble.
Educate your family members and stack sats.
Yeah, it really is.
And they have these narratives around them, you know, and they have marketing and they
pay influencers.
The biggest thing I think you can help people understand is the pre-mine.
Go look up XRP's pre-mine and then help them understand that even Satoshi had to mine their
own Bitcoin.
Help them understand that XRP has a CEO.
Bitcoin does not.
Right?
And when you're looking at these currencies, you're looking for something that's an improvement from the system, something that can be a salvation from the system, if nothing else an improvement, but maybe best case a salvation.
Help them understand the differences there between something that's open source and truly distributed versus something that's centralized, has a CEO and a pre-mine.
I think that's maybe something most people can understand if you put it in the right language.
Cardboard warrior, that's a tough situation, man.
And like it echoes exactly the experience I was talking about.
It's so frustrating, too, after all these years and Bitcoin just winning and winning and winning.
And they still get sucked into this other crap.
And it's about to get so much worse.
So you're right.
You got to educate your family.
And you also got to stay humble about it.
Good luck, everybody.
Thanks for the boost.
HGW39's here with one, two, three, four, five sets.
So the combination is one, two, three, four, five.
Glad you're back.
Appreciate the signal.
I'm calling out the grift.
Here is some ideas for exclusive content.
A technical summary of core versus nots.
Yes, I love that idea.
That was number one on my list.
An explanation of self-hosted open source stack,
including L&D node connections to Noster and Fountain
to manage boosts and zaps from your own node.
Great idea.
A Bitcoin-style challenge for listeners
similar to the TUI challenge of Linux Unplugged.
Hmm.
A challenge, huh?
A challenge, you say?
I kind of like this idea.
It says, I hope these ideas help. Thanks for the show. It's great to hear a voice in the Bitcoin space who lives in Breeze Foss. Hey, yes. Right? I know. It's so weird that it's not more merged, right? Bitcoin is free software. It's crazy to me. The tunnel vision most of the free software community has. And it's not something the Bitcoiners really think about much either. And yet it's so fundamental.
HGW39, thank you. Super valuable boost. Appreciate that.
hey tones here with a row of ducks it's micro strategy but with ethereum it sounds like a
hilariously bad idea like something you would suggest as a joke i know and you know you know
where they're getting that eth too so these these ethereum treasury companies you know there's a
couple of them right now like tom lee's building one you know where they're getting their ethereum
from right they're buying it quote directly from the foundation which first of all the fact that
The Ethereum Foundation exists and all that's gross.
The way it's all set up is gross.
But they got access to pre-mined ETH.
So they essentially got ETH at zero cost.
They have a huge bag.
And then they strategically dump it on retail to fund their operations.
But now, now they can sell it right to these giant treasury companies.
And they can make billions of dollars.
but because these were pre-mined coins,
it totally screws with the market economics of ETH
and the supply.
It's essentially like they've just printed supply
and they've sold it and didn't move the spot price at all
and didn't change the spot price pressure dynamics
for scarcity.
Like when Sailor buys from an OTC desk,
that OTC desk had to go source it
from somewhere in the market.
There's no pre-mined.
So somebody, there had to be an exchange
of like, well, okay, I'll buy a thousand coins from you at $90,000.
So maybe they got a big discount, right?
But that still removes supply from the market,
and it eventually affects spot price.
But the way the Ethereum Foundation does it,
it totally screws over retail while they're funding these treasury companies
that will then stake it and get control over the network.
What a scam!
Oh, Eton, it's really something.
Thanks for the boost.
I appreciate it.
Monday's here with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 sets.
That's a Spaceballs boost.
Yes.
That's amazing.
I've got the same combination on my luggage.
Oh, and he's also traveling through time.
So I think it's a flashback boost too.
He writes a time travel boost listening to episode 60 on July 15th
and working my way backwards through the catalog.
Thank you.
I always like to know where people are at.
Hot take.
I can't stand Sailor.
It seems like he's realized what a certain segment wants to hear
and just keeps on turning that handle.
I also agree that MSTR being so huge
and rapidly going up is becoming a risk.
Appreciate the signal, keep stacking.
Yeah, well, here's what I thought about today, Monday,
is you have these companies like Vanguard
who are now these giant holders of MSTR,
which is essentially a remote exposure to Bitcoin.
Saylor could really screw this up.
And he's likely to get MSTR
as part of the S&P 500 in a short period of time.
Like he really better not mess this up
because it's fundamentally getting integrated
for better or worse into the entire system.
So let's see how this goes.
And I think, you know, as Bitcoiners,
we need to be prepared to kill our heroes,
metaphorically speaking, from time to time.
Just something we have to keep an eye out for.
Nice to hear from you.
Thanks, Monday.
Amorph Osage.
I never get it right, do I?
amorphous sausage amorphousage ah nope no probably not it came in with 4 000 sets well let's hear
it good buddy boy they are doing a lot with mayo these days uh he says i never really call out i
think it's rely r-e-l-a-i i have mentioned them once or twice but he says they allow you to buy
bitcoin with euro or swiss francs one could add a referral code and the person that uses the code
gets 10 of the buying fee have you thought about setting up a code i don't even know if i could
create an account. I have heard good things from the audience. I don't mention it because
it's outside my ability to use it, but I should look into that. Thank you for Amorph for reminding
me. It's something that's easy for me to forget about just because it's not really in my wheelhouse.
Thank you everybody who boosted in. Also, all of you who boosted in below the 2000sat cutoff.
I do keep all those. I read all those and put them in the show notes.
And of course, everyone that boosts in 2000sats or above, I try to read.
Now, we did have some of you stream stats.
It was working for 44 of you.
You collectively stacked 63,010 sats for the show.
Thank you very much.
All systems are functional.
And I'm sure all of you got those from a certified vendor.
Did you buy that from a certified vendor?
Of course you did, right?
And when we bring it all together,
we stacked this episode 213,965 sats.
I like you.
You're a hot ticket.
Thank you, everybody, who supports this show.
It's a value for value production.
That means I put it out there for free.
If you get some value from the show, you can send it back with a boost or maybe some time.
Maybe you got a special talent that would be helpful for the show and you want to get in contact.
There's lots of ways to support the show, but a boost is the most direct way,
and it gets your message right here, right on the show.
A lot of people love Fountain because it's very simple to get started,
and they just keep going from win to win with the app.
They've been improving a lot of things.
But the technical folks in the audience seem to really enjoy setting up their own system,
getting AlbiHub going, running a node, because you just learn so much about the Bitcoin network.
And then one of the things you get to do is also boost the show.
So there's a few options in there.
Thank you, everybody, for making episode 64 of This Week in Bitcoin possible.
This is the funding source of the show.
We don't have sponsors, at least for now.
I think I'm keeping it that way.
I've had a couple of offers.
But I guess you could consider the audience a sponsor,
which I think is the right way to do it for this type of show and the type of content we're talking about.
Well, here's some updates for you.
Adam Back, one of the Bitcoin OGs of OGs, has inked a huge deal.
Cantor Fitzgerald is nearing a $4 billion deal to buy some of Back's Bitcoin.
So Brandon Lutnick, he's the son of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
He is nearing a $4 billion deal with Adam Back to acquire billions in Back's Bitcoins through their Cantor Fitzgerald Bitcoin stacking company.
Now, you might recall Adam Back is the inventor of the HashCash protocol and his proof of work system that we use today.
Back was one of the first two people to receive an email from Satoshi Nakamoto.
and ever since the dopes at the Financial Times said he was Satoshi back in 2016,
he's also gotten to live with that.
He's the CEO of Blockstream and they're involved with Liquid and other things like that.
He's been around for a long, long time.
And so people were sort of shocked when an OG Bitcoiner came along and said,
yeah, I'll sell. I'll sell. I'll sell you like a few billion worth,
four billion worth of my Bitcoin stash.
Let me just slice off a little bit of that.
And I'm surprised that people were surprised.
Yes, he is a Satoshi-era Bitcoiner, and we're used to these folks hodling forever.
But I think Adam's probably been strategically planning to slice off a little bag of profits for a while.
Adam was born in London in 1970, but he currently lives in Malta.
Now, Malta does not impose capital gain tax on long-term holdings of cryptocurrencies.
So if you hodl your Bitcoin as a store of value, your profits are yours.
They're not taxed as capital gains.
So it seems like to me, if you knew eventually you were going to slice off a bit of a bag
and take some profits at some point down the road, you'd move to Malta, you'd establish
yourself there for a nice long period of time, then you'd sell off a bag.
I wish I'd thought of that, actually.
But it's interesting.
This is really how this works.
We just don't normally see headlines around it.
But when it's at and back, well, it becomes news.
U.S. inflation has risen to 2.7% in the official numbers, higher than the 2.6% expected.
So it's up, you know, just a bit.
We're going to start in the United States, where we've had more detail about the world's
largest economy, because the rate of inflation accelerated last month,
according to official data that was out a little earlier.
Now, it adds to concerns that President Trump's tariff policies will push up prices.
Consumer prices rose at an annual rate of 2.7% in June.
That actually up from 2 in May Now if you look at core inflation that strips out anything that pretty volatile things like food or energy prices that was also higher So what does it
all mean? Let's head to our North America business correspondent, Michelle.
No, my name's Chris. Thanks. Yeah. So overall, the CPI moved up to 2.7 in June,
which is the highest level since February. 2.6 was expected, so it's not too much of a shock.
and core CBI moved up to 2.9%, which is also the highest since February.
Now, this probably means any chance at all that the Fed was going to cut rates in July are out.
But when you look at the Truflation dashboard, it's showing today inflation only at 1.82%.
Now, I remember I asked you to bet where you thought inflation would be by Halloween.
Well, the official numbers are ticking up a little bit and the media is kind of playing it as
It's the beginning of a trend. It's going to be going in this direction for a while. It's because of the tariffs. We're all doomed. Well, your buddy, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson says, you know, I mean, one report. Don't focus on just one report.
But I wouldn't put too much emphasis on one number. I think it's the trend. And I think one thing that Wall Street, a lot of economists, market in general got wrong early on was that tariffs were going to cause a substantial price level rise, which just hasn't happened.
Well, happened yet. You see, the argument goes like this. If tariffs cause prices to rise, it's mostly going to be a one-time increase in cost versus inflation caused by money printing, which tends to debase the value of the currency, resulting in prices to continue to rise over time.
And this is largely, I think, a valid argument for the most part.
But like everything in economics, it's a bit more complicated than just that.
I think it is fair to say tariffs are a tax on imported goods.
And when a tariff is imposed, the cost of bringing that good into the country increases.
So there is a cost increase.
That cost is almost always passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices for the affected
goods.
Now, that does tend to be a one-time price impact on the goods.
However, there are some second-order inflation impacts.
If the goods get more expensive, that can reduce their supply in the domestic market.
And so when there's less competition from imports, domestic producers sort of feel less
pressure to keep their prices low, and they can also raise prices.
That is another second-order level of inflation.
Also, if the input goods to build something are all getting tariffed, like a car, if the
raw materials are getting tariffed, then that causes the production costs to go up for a
domestic business. And so the domestic prices go up. So you can have the initial price increase
plus in the second order effects because the businesses are going to pass those higher costs
on to consumers. That's going to lead to higher prices for a range of the final goods.
So I think one could make the argument, and I'd love to hear your response to this. So boost in
and tell me if I'm crazy. Should the Fed cut rates either way here? I mean, couldn't you argue that
if tariffs are only short-term impacts on the prices, then the public is going to need some
help. They're going to need some relief to deal with that. And we're at historically high credit
card debt and historically high credit card rates. People are trapped in loans that they can't refi.
they still feel tight. I mean, you look at the cost of food alone, it still feels crazy. I'm
still getting shocked at the cost of a burger or groceries. And so I think, by the way,
this is why we're mostly seeing retail sit this Bitcoin pump out. Mostly. They just don't have
any spare funds. Their dry powder is gone. They're tight. Everybody's feeling tight,
unless you happen to be a lucky well-off boomer. Because you see this everywhere,
in jewelry and in home buying. Right now, the median home buyer age in the United States
is 56 years old. That's the median home buyer age right now, 56. Home buying by those under 35
continues to decrease to its lowest levels ever. Average home buyer age for a new home is 38,
the highest it's ever been, 38 years old. That's the average. You see, people are super, super
tight right now. So you could argue that if tariffs are going to temporarily increase prices,
the Fed should cut anyways to help at least give some relief.
I don't know if that's an accurate argument.
That's the one being made.
So you boost it and tell me what you think about it.
I'm willing to listen to it.
Now, here's a story that I think I covered at the beginning of TWIB,
and it's finally playing out.
This has been in the works for a bit.
And I think it's actually about sending a message to the entire Bitcoin mining industry.
But I'm happy to see it.
Fort Worth of Texas has become the first American city to officially mine Bitcoin at the city level.
The city of Fort Worth is jumping into cryptocurrency and doing it in a big way.
They're going to mine for Bitcoin at City Hall, the first for an American city.
Mayor Maddie Parker says this is a commitment to a high-tech future for the city of Fort Worth.
The Fox Sports' Macy Jenkins joins us now.
And you've got the pluses and the minuses and all things crypto from Fort Worth, Macy.
I really hate how we can't have a single story about Bitcoin. This is about Bitcoin mining. This is about enticing the Bitcoin mining industry. And yet, we still have to work the word crypto in. The ship has just sailed.
absolutely heather and steve learned a lot about crypto and bitcoin today fort worth of course
getting a lot of attention after announcing that they will have three bitcoin machines running in
city hall 24 hours a day for the next six months like you said mayor okay so maybe this is why
everyday folks can't navigate this because every piece of media they consume conflates crypto and
bitcoin they put them on the same plane it makes it sound like these cryptos are just as legitimate
it. Anyways, that's an aside. It's three units. OK, they're not going to be rich. They're not
going to like, you know, bring in a bunch of revenue for the city. It's three mining units.
It's about sending a message. However, wouldn't it be hilarious? Wouldn't it be hilarious if they
did discover a block? I mean, just wouldn't that be something, you know, like those solar
mine, solo miners you hear about sometime that, you know, just get lucky. That would be quite the
story. A lot about crypto and Bitcoin today. Fort Worth, of course, getting a lot of attention
after announcing that they will have three Bitcoin machines running in City Hall 24 hours a day
for the next six months. Bitcoin machines. So you learned a lot about crypto and Bitcoin today,
guys, and they're going to have three Bitcoin machines. Like you said, Mayor Maddie Parker
says that these machines mark the city's commitment to becoming a leading hub for technology and
innovation. Okay, we are officially mining Bitcoin in the city of Fort Worth.
Fort Worth making history today as the first city in the United States to mine Bitcoin. I love what's
happened last 24 hours. People are already talking about Fort Worth that have never heard of our
community before. But even though everybody's talking about Bitcoin, not everybody understands
exactly what it is. Like the person who's doing the voiceover? Bitcoin is a digital currency. It
exists only online. And as TCU entrepreneurship professor Michael Sherrod explains that digital
currency or cryptocurrency is hidden in cyberspace. You know what else only exists online?
The fiat balance in my bank account. The inventor put the Bitcoin out on the net and you have to
solve cryptological problems in order to find Bitcoin. See, this is the other problem is these
are the experts they're going to. And this guy, you know, he's held up as a as an expert on this.
It's literally a treasure hunt, and it takes powerful, high-speed processors to do the searching.
The computers that you use have to solve problems continuously. This is why they use up so much electricity.
For the next six months, three Bitcoin mining machines will run 24-7 in a climate-controlled data center inside of City Hall.
But the city insists each one will only use the energy equivalent to a household vacuum cleaner.
It's an incredibly innovative thing to do. There's no question about that.
Sherrod says an alternative pool of currency may come in handy for the city during a disaster or an emergency.
It could be used as a hedge if there's another pandemic, for instance, and sales taxes fall.
They could use it as a hedge to pay for city services and that sort of thing.
Looking ahead, Sherrod says mining Bitcoin may also be a way to create more equity for Fort Worth residents.
I mean, they're not going to mine a lot with three miners.
they would be better off using the money spent on the hardware and electricity just buying the
bitcoin if it was about that like how did they not like the the mayor says it right there in
the clip they play and yet they still miss that the point is to speak to the entire industry to
come out here fort worth is bitcoin mining friendly so bitcoin mining friendly that we
even mine right here in city hall it's so obviously that's the point and yet they miss it
All right, I want my final clip of this week to kind of bring it all together.
I opened up with Bitwise's CIO, Matt Hogan, talking about some of the market dynamics that led to the recent rally.
And it's a point that I've made here on the show before.
But now he's going to respond to what we commonly hear is Bitcoin is just digital tulips.
It's everybody getting hyped up and excited and buying the vibe.
And Matt's got, I think, a pretty solid response to that old trope.
Vibes, Matt, will make the purist go, see, this is just digital tulips.
Yeah, I know people say that.
Look, at the end of the day, Bitcoin provides a service, which is the ability to store wealth in a digital format without relying on a bank.
The vibes are definitely part of it.
Vibes influence stocks.
They influence bonds.
But the underlying driver for the rise is more people want this service that Bitcoin provides.
In this uncertain world where there are tariffs and geopolitical tensions, people want to be able to own their wealth in a digital format.
We're seeing a massive number of people join that crowd, and that's going to force prices higher.
I do agree.
It's sort of everything everywhere all at once.
We have positive regulatory news, positive legislative news, institutional adoption, concern about debt and deficits.
add those together and the price goes up.
Let's check in on the state of the network before I get out of here.
I'm wrapping up at Blockite 905-863.
Boy, I'm getting old.
It's hard to even read the numbers now.
The price in USD is 119,180.
That means sats per U.S. dollar are 839 sats to one U.S. dollar.
Wow.
We're only down 3.2% from our all-time high just two days ago, which was 123,108 on July 14th.
Now, we have a difficulty retarget date coming up on July 25th.
It'll be an upwards adjustment of 2%.
And there are 22,620 reachable nodes on the network.
Not a bad number.
Hmm, wonder if we could get that to 22,625.
And checking in on knots, currently clocking in on my dashboard at 14.3% of the network.
The growth seems to be slowing, but still going.
But perhaps the initial reaction is over.
Bitcoin network, moving right along.
It's incredible to watch some of these statistics at all-time highs.
like it's still great time to consolidate your UTXOs and open up channels, set up a node.
You're not priced out. A lot of that stuff requires moving sats around. And when the fees
are high, it's a bad time to do it. Excellent time to get your hands dirty right now on the
Bitcoin network and learn stuff by going hands on because the state of the Bitcoin network
is very strong.
Well, if you made it this far, links are at thisweekinbitcoin.show.
That now points to the main Jupyter Broadcasting website.
We're still adding features, and I'd love to hear your feedback on that.
Now, my goal here is to create a show that doesn't get distracted by emotions
around what's happening, but just focuses on the signal.
So let me know how I did with a boost.
And of course, if you felt like I missed anything,
you can always boost and tell me about that as well.
I always try to incorporate that feedback.
I'm going to leave you with a value for value track.
I don't know if the Magic Wallet switching technology is fixed or not.
I'll have an answer by the next episode.
But if you're listening to this in the past or like a week or two after release,
it should be all solved if there is any problem.
Hopefully.
But the track this week, it's a good one I dug up recently.
I think I got this on one of the, on LNBeats.
I think, yeah, if you want to go find some, it's LNBeats.com.
If you want to find some great value for value music, LNBeats.com is like an online web player.
and I came by Numbi.
That's Numbi from Circle the Earth.
I'll see you right back here next week.
Emotions on a tightrope
And I'm barely hanging on
Time flies when I move slow
Thinking about the things you've done
It felt so real, it felt so real
Just like a pill on an empty stomach
I let it sit till it made me sick
Guess I was something for nothing
No love has got me jaded
Running around town with my high heels wasted
Your drug drives me crazy
Slipping on pain, no one can save me
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
When I'm numb, I feel everything
Night sweats in a cold bed
And I don't wanna be alone
Crashing from what you said
In a parachute of alcohol
It felt surreal, it felt surreal
Just like a pill on an empty stomach
I let it sit till it made me sick
Guess I was something for nothing
No love has got me jaded
Running around town with my high heels wasted
Your drug drives me crazy
Slipping on pain, no one can save me
When I'm numb, I feel everything
No, no, no, no, no, no.
No love has got me jaded
Running around town with my high heels wasted
Your drug drives me crazy
Slipping on pain, no one can save me
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
When I'm numb I feel everything