Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, Episode 88.
My name is Chris, ChrisLAS.com and JupiterBroadcasting.com.
The headlines say the economy is booming, GDP is surging, and the spending is strong.
But I think the numbers probably don't tell a whole story, perhaps not the complete picture.
And I also think it's remarkable that credibility and consequences and a lot of pomp and circumstance have collided out in the open this week.
And Bitcoin's price doesn't seem to be bothered at all.
In fact, it's picked up a little bit of steam.
So the question is, is why now, despite all the drama?
So to get to that, I think we should probably start by looking at the macro outlook.
Well, President Trump has merged patience with the American people since winning re-election,
telling folks that his agenda would take time to start paying off.
And based on some of the latest numbers that are starting to roll in, that prediction looks accurate.
So let's start with GDP growth.
When President Trump launched his trade war, the consensus among most economists and also a lot of Democratic lawmakers
was that it would tank the economy and really stall GDP growth.
We covered that in some detail here on the show, the conflicting opinions.
We saw folks like Luke Groman say that it would be the destruction of the dollar,
and within a year, we would have essentially a collapse.
But each month, the data continues to defy those expectations.
So at the beginning of 2025, the U.S. GDP shrank by half a percentage point,
really setting off alarm bells across Washington that a recession was looming.
And really the people that said, I told you so really had their moment right now.
And it looked like things were bad.
But quarter two then saw 3.8% growth.
By quarter three, it was up to 4.3%.
What?
And based on the latest projections from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta,
GDP growth in the final quarter of 2025 will be a stunning 5.1%.
I mean, that's the Bank of Atlanta.
That's amazing.
Honestly, if you would have asked me back in April of last year if that was possible,
I just don't think it would have been possible.
I mean, sure. Could El Salvador do it? Yeah, I bet El Salvador could do it with the right tourism incentives and industry. But the U.S. economy is just slightly bigger than El Salvador. So it's a remarkable, remarkable accomplishment. Now, this, of course, you could argue how these numbers are calculated. What we're operating from is the assumption that the rest of the market's operating from. So they don't question it. Oh, that's the number. Well, I mean, they'll question this number. But it's remarkable even if it's within spitting distance of this.
And based on the latest projections from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, GDP growth in the final quarter of 2025 will be a stunning 5.1 percent.
White House economist Kevin Hassett was jubilant at that news.
Here he is taking a victory lap on Monday.
Right now I'm looking at the output numbers and we got GDP now north of 5 percent in the fourth quarter after 2.4 percent the previous quarter.
So I think you got to say that Trump policies are really working.
And from there, there's plenty of other good stuff to go on.
On Monday, for example, gas prices fell for the seventh straight week.
The average price at the pump is now $2.79.
That is the lowest mark we've seen in more than five years.
And in 19 states, Americans are paying less than $2 a gallon.
Unfortunately, not here in Tennessee, but they're moving in the right direction.
Now, on the housing front, mortgage rates just fell below 6% for the first time in nearly three years.
Now, some of this, I think, is perspective.
Why are gas prices down? Because gas demand is down.
Why is gas demand down? Because the regular folks are hurting. Why are mortgage rates and house prices going down? Because nobody under 40 can afford to buy a house. And so there's not very many buyers. And we're starting to see a slide back, a reset, a return to baseline. But even then, they're still extremely, extremely high. So, yeah, it's a good thing they're coming down. Why they're coming down could also be seen potentially as a bad thing. Same with gas prices.
While the cost of rent nationwide has now fallen five months in a row.
That comes after the president directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities.
I think that's a bit of spin. I mean, clearly that's going to make a dent.
But I think, you know, the market realities that have been in play now forever, really since 2008, are just coming due.
Driving those interest rates even lower.
And then you have inflation, which has undoubtedly been heading in the right direction over the last few months.
The Labor Department will release their latest numbers for December, showing where we are later this morning.
And if those rates hold steady below 3% in the 2.5, 2.8 range, there is a very good chance that we'll see further rate cuts from the Fed in 2026, which obviously would provide even more relief for American consumers and borrowers.
Those are pretty significant numbers.
I mean, it is impressive how that's turned around, but I think there are some details in there that we should analyze.
But before we go too far, let's remember just a few weeks ago when Mr. Luke Groman decided to sell his Bitcoin stash so he could buy back cheaper.
I sold most of my Bitcoin in the short run.
Still have some.
Not all.
Didn't sell at all.
Sold most of it.
My view is that I'll be able to buy back the Bitcoin I sold cheaper.
Maybe.
I mean, he may still have an opportunity.
Who knows?
Things in Bitcoin are wild.
But I think it's fascinating.
You know, you have people that are very good macro analysts and they have a deep understanding of monetary history and society's interaction with money and just all of that that gives them such a significant, unique perspective and something that, you know, I've aspired to try to get to over the years.
And besides, you know, many years of process and learning.
And so folks like Luke have done a lot of that work.
And yet at the end of the day, they're just humans and they make emotional decisions.
Maybe he'll get it back.
or maybe he got himself something he really, really likes with that Bitcoin.
And maybe that's an OK trade for him, too.
I don't know.
But I think it's I think it's actually indicative of perhaps what Luke is watching, which I'm a little concerned about.
And that is we are still seeing some significant weakness in the labor market.
And I, to me, I just cannot get past that being a sign that everyday Americans are hurting.
And maybe you have a five plus percent GDP print, but this is still a significant problem.
Megan Hsu of the Wilmington Trust is with us as well. All right. So earnings season is off and running now.
Markets having a little bit of an issue today. How do you feel about things?
Yeah, I feel pretty good starting off the new year. I mean, we ended the year on a pretty solid note and we're looking at expectations for really pretty robust earnings in 2026.
I think the one red flag that we're sort of watching is pretty significant weakness or at least stalling in the labor market.
And that is, of course, sort of complicated by reduced inflows into the labor market, reduced immigration.
But when we look at some of the weakness in private payrolls, it is a little bit concerning.
I think what we're expecting to see is a little bit of softness in the first half of the year with some recovery in the second half of the year.
And the market's probably going to be looking through that to continued strong earnings in 2027.
I wish when the federal government did mass layoffs that there was some, you know, not don't spend a bunch of money on it, but some study done to document how many of those workers went into the private workforce.
Did those employers then stop hiring?
It's just I'd love to know details on that.
But retail has been tapped out.
That's a theme on this show that I've covered in detail.
So I don't need to spend time explaining that.
I think you guys all get that.
And I think the data continues to show us that.
Right.
We're still looking at horrible aggregated inflation, right?
So people are still at least, at least things are 20% more expensive than they were five
years ago.
So anyways, I think what we're really seeing and what's been going on with some of Bitcoin's
sideways price action since October 10th, retail isn't really buying beyond those of
us that have recognized it as a store of value or a savings account and a hedge against things
like inflation and debasement.
But not everybody's there.
I'd say the people that buy things like meme coins or they play around on Polymarket, they are a or were they were a driver of liquidity for Bitcoin, especially during the pre ETF eras and the pre corporate treasury eras.
They were drivers. They were drivers. They needed to bring their money in to get the price moving again.
I don't think they really matter anymore. And I don't think they've been participating for most of the year either.
And I bet you suspect that, too. It really feels like retail has just totally checked out.
They got burned by all the other crypto scam stuff and they didn't hear the signal of Bitcoin. And we knew this would happen. We knew that these projects affinity scamming on Bitcoin would lead to a bad reputation for Bitcoin. And, you know, it's so funny. I'm going to play a clip from 2016 at the end of the show. And in that clip, which I'll link to the full clip in the video, Andreas predicts tens of thousands of coins that would harm the reputation of Bitcoin. He was very prescient on that.
And so I think retail got burned. They're tapped out. They don't have money anyways. And so even once they do kind of get wind of it again, they don't have the money to spend on it. That seems to be a pretty agreed consensus. So who is spending the money? Who is buying Bitcoin? You know that it's institutions. It's small businesses. It's individuals like you and I that are still saving for their family and for their future for themselves.
It's mostly, though, the large institutions.
That's really who's moving things.
You know, your Morgan Stands and your Black O'Rox and your sailors, right?
That's who's moving the price these days.
And so the messaging to them matters.
And the reason they're buying, they're always constantly looking to buy the narrative.
And a huge thing in today's market is momentum trade.
So they're looking for something with a good narrative and a lot of momentum.
And it's been gold now for weeks, and they've really twisted their analysis on Bitcoin.
Yeah, look, I think there is protection being taken.
I also think gold is because some of the people that were hanging on to the dream of Bitcoin and others being inflation hedges or stores of value have seen the lie put to that.
OK.
Now, this matters, right, because this guy speaks directly to investors that move a lot of money.
That's why they're watching him.
And he's saying that the Bitcoin, what did he say, narrative or whatever, that Bitcoin is an inflation hedge has been put to lie.
Nobody believes that anymore.
That's so it's so ignorant, right?
It's it's taking, I don't know, 100 days of price action.
How many days has it been?
Let's just see.
It's wow.
100 right on the nose.
It's been 100 days since the all time high.
Right.
So when Bitcoin was at $126,000, it's one of the best inflation hedges ever, and everybody should have a little bit in their bag.
100 days later, oh, that's obviously been false.
That's been a lie.
Bitcoin's a failure.
Well, we're talking about a debasement trade that operates at the timeline of decades.
And we're talking about a 17-year-old asset that's now worth almost $100,000.
And so if you look at the 10-year performance, there's nothing better, right?
So gold still hasn't caught up if you look at the 10-year performance.
And if you're talking about debasement trades to protect against inflation, you should be talking a minimum of five to 10 years.
So I think this – the reason why this analysis develops is because they're looking at the short-term price, but they're looking at it through a particular world lens.
And this is where investors get their emotions mixed into this just like Luke did, and they make mistakes.
So I want to walk this back a little bit and then see if you can detect what lens he's viewing everything through.
Bitcoin and others being inflation hedges or stores of value have seen the lie put to that narrative.
So you've had those go into gold as well.
Look, you know, as I said, right now, steady as she goes.
But at some point, I do believe that there will be reckoning.
And, you know, it's interesting.
Amy and I were talking about this before the show.
So if people haven't read 1929, I'm only a third of the way through it.
Oh, here we go.
Andrew Sorkin's Panic book.
Now, remember when 1929 came out, you may not remember.
I watch a lot of the news, so you don't have to.
Andrew was stressed out.
Andrew was anxious.
Andrew was nervous because he thought the book was too late and the crash was underway as the book was getting published.
Well, guess what?
That was a long time ago now.
And so he's managed to freak a lot of these investors out with this 1929 because they're looking at it as if we're going to return to a baseline.
And this is why you need to understand this, because these biases are affecting the way people judge a scarce, hard asset like Bitcoin.
And so it's important for you to be able to have this understanding when somebody's making their analysis or having an argument with you or posting something on Twitter or X or whatever, Noster or a blog, I don't know, a podcast.
And it sounds so confident.
It sounds so cocksure of what they're saying.
You have to be able to detect these filters.
So this is the filter.
It's this everything's going to crash because we're super speculative right now.
And eventually we're going to go back to some sort of normal.
I don't know, like a pre-COVID normal maybe?
So you've had those go into gold as well.
Look, you know, as I said, right now, steady as she goes,
but at some point I do believe that there will be reckoning.
And you know, it's interesting, Amy and I were talking
about this before the show if people haven read 1929 I only a third of the way through it But I tell you there are definitely similarities between then which was a highly highly speculative investing environment that led to the crash
And we're seeing that kind of speculation.
See, I think where my view differs here is that while it functionally appears to be speculation, what it really is is a symptom of the fiat machine.
The system is creating additional fiat liquidity and it needs to go somewhere.
And the tech industry has developed a machine designed with different areas and entry points and different representatives and all of the mechanisms necessary, has designed a machinery to absorb as much as that money as they possibly can.
Of course, Wall Street gets it first.
They're closer to the money printer.
But real close after that is all of the rich people that love to invest in tech or are rich themselves because of tech.
And so that's why these tech companies pivot so damn fast from blockchain to AI, edge computing, whatever it might be.
That's why these ginormous trillion dollar corporations can turn on a dime like a startup and lay off 20,000 people that they just urgently needed to hire for whatever their previous endeavor was.
It all makes sense when you understand that they are mechanisms hyper-designed to absorb the excessive fiat liquidity.
And we are going into a period where there's going to be a lot of excessive fiat liquidity.
We'll get into that in just a moment.
And so you would then expect a debasement trade to continue for a prolonged period of time.
And when you are in this kind of debasement trade world, there's only a few trades.
Hard assets and growth plays.
hard assets, and growth plays. Well, tech has defined itself as the quintessential growth play.
So as long as there's just stupid amounts of money coming into the system and we've just
entered baby quantitative easing, we've now gone through multiple lower rate and we're feeling
pretty good right now. GDP's up. Big tech spending like crazy. It has to continue.
They need that GDP number to come up. It all comes back to the debt. It all is going to come
back to the Federal Reserve, which we're about to get to. They have to have this set up. So could it
all blow up in their face? Absolutely. Totally could. You never know. Like, you know, private
credit blows up and then the whole thing goes down like dominoes. But they're going to fight
like hell to prevent that from happening. Scott Besant, even Jay Powell, Trump and everybody in
between is going to fight like hell because there's midterms coming up. There's elections.
It's the most important election of your life. We can't afford to do this. Why do you think
They're talking about putting 10% credit card interest rate caps.
Why did Trump just work with Microsoft to come out and say, we're not going to raise your power bill.
We're going to give you more water than we use.
We won't take any property tax breaks.
Why?
Because they need the populist voting base to be okay with the pump because the pump must continue.
And so that's why we're getting great GDP numbers.
It's working.
So that's why I think when the analysts on CNBC misdiagnose what Bitcoin is for, it's actually a bigger problem than some of you might think initially, because there's two plays, hard assets and growth.
And Bitcoin's the best option for the hard asset play, and they're saying it doesn't work.
But go buy some gold ETF.
This is incredible.
Now, it doesn't always go wrong.
I was actually really impressed.
Fred Teal, Fred Teal, not Peter, but Fred Teal sat down and just sort of like Neo at the end of the Matrix fighting Agent Smith is just sort of like confidently and lazily blocking every punch the host tries to take against Bitcoin.
And I was surprised because I was bracing myself after weeks of horrible Bitcoin coverage to get really worked up.
All right. So we hit on this a bit earlier, Fred. Bitcoin and Ether, in all fairness,
up from the market year to date. Bitcoin up right around 8 percent year to date.
You say this is part of a shift due to how the world is just viewing monetary risk and geopolitics.
What is the shift that's taking place and why do you think Bitcoin's benefiting?
Well, Bitcoin benefits really from global liquidity primarily. So if you think about
markets right now, you have U.S. government increasing liquidity. Interest rates have
come down. You have other countries also increasing liquidity. And Bitcoin operates
in two particular worlds, the developed world and the developing world.
Okay, he's got me so far. Of course, Fred is the CEO of Meridigital. And I wasn't sure if we were
going to get all corporate jargon here. And I like the way he handles the upcoming Ether question.
And note how the CNBC actors don't even know if they should be calling it Ethereum or ETH or Ether,
and they just sort of flop between it.
In the developing world, Bitcoin is really a hedge against the decrease in value of local currencies.
You can see what's happened in countries like Iran, Turkey, Venezuela, other countries like that,
where their currencies have been debased, and it's a great way for people to hold value against that debasement.
In the U.S. and developed world, it's more of a store of value.
And you've seen now banks come into the market.
You've seen TradFi institutions really come into the market and adopt it.
And so it becomes much more affected by global liquidity because it's treated more as an investment asset and an asset that trades sometimes like equities, sometimes like gold, but really is driven primarily by global liquidity.
All right. You mentioned gold very quickly. I was talking to a lot of different people about this, including Barbara Goodstein, who runs R360.
You know, it's funny because there's a thousand follow-up questions he could ask. He could ask, so then why has it been going sideways? Isn't global liquidity been on the rise? M2 has been increasing for months.
while Bitcoin sort of went sideways.
Could you expand upon that, Fred?
That would be my question.
But no, we're going to go to some shitcoiner question.
Community for ultra high net worth individuals,
they really value Bitcoin.
It's kind of scarcity is the argument for them.
They believe it's more scarce than even gold is.
They believe that.
It's true.
It's mathematically true.
There's 21 million, right?
We don't know how much gold there is.
First of all, we don't know how much gold there is on the earth
and we don't know how much gold there is orbiting the earth,
et cetera, et cetera.
so and they see more value going forward but scarcity is one thing utility is another
everybody we have come on the show says that ether is really the future of cryptocurrency because
yep you can build things on the platform oh yeah yeah ether because he doesn't know what to call
it ether is the future of cryptocurrency right now you could say ethereum right because ethereum
would be the network ether is the token right eth is the token and that's not the network and
They don't understand.
Everybody we have on the show says that Ether is really the future of cryptocurrency because you can build things on the platform.
What's Bitcoin's future other than potentially being stored value?
Is there some other utility for it?
Fred Ghost in Neomode.
Bitcoin has a couple of dynamics that are quite different than Ether.
Ether and the Ethereum network is really a technology platform on top of which you build different tokenization solutions.
And that's what Ether is designed for.
It's really a programmable network.
Bitcoin was always designed really as a highly decentralized form of storing value and exchanging value.
And Bitcoin will remain that way.
Its scarcity is one key thing.
Another key thing about Bitcoin that's very unique is the fact that there is no central entity that controls it.
In the world of Ethereum, the Ethereum Foundation, Metallica and others have a huge say in what happens.
You see that the Ethereum network has continual upgrades done to it and changes done to it.
Bitcoin is stable.
It's like the internet in a sense.
We're still running the vast majority of nodes on the internet on TCP IPv4, which is a technology that is decades old, even though we're now at TCP IPv6, generally speaking.
That's an interesting analogy.
I do like the TCP IP analogy.
I don't like comparing it to IPv4.
I think it was IPv6 out of the box.
Better coverage.
And one of the things he touches on there was central control, something that Ethereum struggles with and, well, something that the U.S. is struggling with.
You get it? Get it? Central banks. You get it?
Well, here it is. Let's talk about the story that has dominated the macro conversation this week and has seemingly had a somewhat positive impact on Bitcoin.
Now threatening to indict Fed Chair Jay Powell over comments to Congress about the Fed's renovation project.
Eamon Jaffens is in Washington this morning with the latest. Good morning to you, Eamon.
Yeah, good morning, Andrew. Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell struck a defiant tone in an unprecedented video statement on Sunday night,
revealing that the Department of Justice had served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas in an ongoing and previously unknown criminal investigation.
Dun, dun, dun.
of the situation that other people might be missing.
So this is Fed Jerpao at an oversight hearing,
giving testimony on the ridiculously expensive castle.
You should go look up pictures of this thing.
It is fancier than the fanciest palace.
It's unbelievable.
It's opulent.
It's the definition of opulence.
It's beautiful.
It's definitely beautiful.
But it's sort of the wrong signal
when the Fed has spent the last 40 years debasing the currency
and then goes and builds himself a palace
and then blames the cost overruns on inflation.
I mean, that's pretty rich.
Here's Jay Powell during a testimony that seemingly got him in trouble.
Would you talk a little bit about just exactly what's going on with your building
when you have that type of an overrun on the prices
and you're talking about billions of dollars in costs?
I think it's appropriate for you to be able to explain to the committee
exactly what's going on.
And would you take a few minutes, please, and explain what's going on with the value of that building and why the costs seem to be so exorbitant?
I'd be glad to if I can have that time.
So please.
Thank you for the letter we received late yesterday.
We will provide a much more detailed response.
But just generally, I would just say we do take seriously our responsibility as stewards of the public's money.
And the other thing I would start with is no one in office wants to do a major renovation of a historic building during their term in office.
Much prefer to leave that to your successors.
And this is a great example why, let alone two historic buildings that needed a lot of work.
But we decided to take it on because, honestly, when I was the administrative governor before I came chair,
I came to understand how badly the Eccles building really needed a serious renovation.
It never had one.
It was not really safe and it was not waterproof and that kind of thing.
So we took it on.
I would start by – I would also say that the media reports that you –
You know, there's some irony that the Central Bank of the United States of America has a leaky building that's falling apart.
It seems actually kind of appropriate.
I think they should keep it that way.
It's sort of representative of where we're at right now.
It's beautiful.
I would also say that the media reports that you accurately quoted, they're misleading and inaccurate in many, many respects.
And I would just point to it, there's no VPI dining room.
There's no new marble.
We took down the old marble.
We're putting it back up.
We'll have to use new marble where some of the old marble broke, but there's no special elevators.
There are old elevators that have been there.
There are no new water features.
There's no beehives, and there's no roof terrace gardens.
It would seem that the Federal Reserve, especially at the top, is paying pretty close attention to what the media says about them.
Very close attention.
And there's no roof terrace gardens.
Other than that, you know, so all of the sort of inflammatory things that the media carried are either not in the current plan or just inaccurate.
But notwithstanding that, the cost overruns are what they are.
So let me just say on that.
Well, let's, we're well over the five minute mark.
I'm happy to give you time to talk about that.
I'm happy that there are no beehives in there,
but we're going to figure out what they are anyways.
That's Senator Tim Scott,
and he had done his homework before Jay Powell gave his testimony,
so he confronts Powell on a couple of what seemed to be inconsistencies,
and this might actually be the part of the testimony
that got him in the most trouble.
You go back to the spending at the Fed for the construction,
and you said that the items that were listed are not happening,
I will say that the National Capital Planning Commission website, ncpc.gov,
anyone can take a look at it for themselves,
not just looking or listening to the New York Post,
not just the Wall Street Journal,
but page 129 of the final plans reflected rooftop garden terraces.
The page 127 and 129 were where we found the ornate water features and final plans the new elevators that dropped board members off at the VIP dining suite was page 37 of the final plans The white marble was pages 40 41 65 of the final plans I would
welcome your staff coming in to walk my staff through what is happening there as opposed to
what we not only read in the New York Post, not only in the Wall Street Journal, but also
at the National Capital Planning Commission's website.
So we would welcome that opportunity to have a...
Can I just quickly say, some of those are just flatly misleading.
The idea of elevators, you know, it's the same elevator
that's been there since the building was built.
So that's a mischaracterization.
And some of those are no longer in the plans.
You know, that's earlier.
The plans have continued to evolve.
One of the questions I asked my staff before having the conversation with you
in preparation and assuming that your response would be
to refute some of the things that were happening
was to ask the question,
well, since the articles came out in April,
have the plans changed since April
as a result of the media attention to it
or was that just never in the plan?
I would just say that having an understanding,
a clear understanding of what's going to be
and when it changed would be helpful for us.
I will note that having confidence in what we hear
is incredibly important
and I would give you the opportunity
to bring your team in
and or send your team over
so that we can have that conversation, that would be helpful.
Look forward to doing that.
And if you'll allow me to say one more sentence,
none of those things really were the cost drivers.
The real thing is what were the cost drivers that caused the spending to increase?
And we have those too, but those are not the things that did that.
We look forward to the conversation.
Yeah, I don't think that conversation ever happened,
though we'll follow up on that a little bit.
So why did I play all that?
Because we're off in the weeds a little bit.
It's interesting, as faith seems to be eroding in the central bank,
this last couple of weeks,
well, really since this whole campaign has started,
it's either had a positive
or a non-negative effect on Bitcoin.
And I think people,
there is a bit of a buy anything but America trade
for people outside the States.
And then there's a bit of a buy hard money trade happening.
I don't think it's any significant momentum at the moment.
And I have really had to swallow
over and over again,
a lot of sanctimony and pomp and circumstance around the Fed. And I'm no fan of the Fed. I
think Jay Powell's been decent. As far as federal chairs go, he's been a good one in my lifetime,
but that's not a very high bar. I think he's blown it multiple, multiple times.
I think he was wrong about transitory inflation. I think his policy failures,
as well as the rest of the board, have destroyed purchasing power across the country.
Inflation is now structural.
We had trillions in stimulus and the Fed just kept rates super low.
Real wages fell.
Savings eroded.
Retirement plans have taken a hit.
Households have been paying the bills.
And, you know, Powell acts like they've been making the most rational decisions.
Now, it takes two to tango, but I'm not a big fan of the central bank.
Not a fan of the concept of the central bank or I'm not a fan of their results either.
And I do want to get into the rest of this, but I think as Bitcoiners, we should take a little reset.
This is a clip from the Money Masters documentary series, which is like a three or four hour series.
I'll link to it. It's on YouTube for free.
But this bit tells us a little bit of the history.
It's from 1996.
Well, what we're about to show you is that there's nothing federal about the Federal Reserve and there are no reserves.
The name is a deception created back before the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913 to make Americans think that America's central bank operates in the public interest.
The truth is that the Federal Reserve is a private bank owned by private stockholders and run purely for their private profit.
So if there's been billions of dollars of construction overrun paid by taxpayers so that way a private bank can have a new building, I do think we should have more information about that.
We should know why.
These people live such incredible lives of privilege.
And they set the purchasing power for the entire world.
And the central bankers will all work arms locked together and they've all come out in defense of J-PAL.
And so if our tax dollars are paying for that renovation for a privately owned bank that's owned by other banks, we should know why the overrun occurred.
We should know that.
That's exactly correct.
The Fed is a privately owned for-profit corporation, which, again, has no reserves, at least no reserves available to back up the Federal Reserve notes, which is our common currency.
Oh, absolutely.
The Federal Reserve is neither federal and has doubtful reserves.
It's a private bank that is owned by member banks, and it was chartered under the guise of deceit by an act of Congress in 1913.
If there's still any doubt whether the Federal Reserve is a part of the U.S. government, check your local telephone book.
In most cities, it is not listed in the blue government pages.
Got him.
It is listed in the business white pages right next to Federal Express, another private company.
What?
More directly, U.S. courts have ruled time and time again that the Fed is a private corporation.
Why can't Congress do something about the Fed?
Most members of Congress just don't understand the system, and the few who do are afraid to speak up.
For example, initially a veteran congressman from Chicago asked us if he could be interviewed for this video.
However, both times our camera crew arrived at his office to do the interview, this was all we were able to film.
An empty seat.
The congressman never appeared and eventually decided he no longer wanted to participate.
But a few others in Congress have been bolder over the years.
Here are three quick examples.
In 1923, Representative Charles A. Lindbergh, a Republican from Minnesota
and father of the famed aviator Lucky Lindy put it this way,
the financial system has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board.
That board administers the finance system by authority of a purely profiteering group.
The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits
from the use of other people's money.
One of the most outspoken critics in Congress of the Fed was the former chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee during the Great Depression years.
Louis T. McFadden, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in 1932,
We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.
I refer to the Federal Reserve Board.
This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government.
It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.
Senator Barry Goldwater was a frequent critic of the Fed.
Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international moneylenders.
The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited.
It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.
So let's now go to this Sunday. In a shocking video that was posted to X, pre-recorded and ready to go in the chamber, Federal Chair Reserve, Jay Powell, Jerome Powell, released what kind of almost felt like a hostage video. I mean, he's nervous, he's swallowing in it, and it's a very odd vibe. I'll play a little bit or maybe all of it. I don't know. It's kind of historical, so we should probably capture it.
Good evening. On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas,
threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June.
That testimony concerned, in part, a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings.
I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy.
No one, certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve, is above the law.
But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure.
This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings.
It is not about Congress's oversight role.
The Fed, through testimony and other public disclosures, made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project.
Those are pretexts.
The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.
This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions, or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
This is about fiscal dominance or central bank dominance.
see this isn't because of trump this isn't because of j-pow they are both symptoms of our time
trump is a populist he's going to want to get the rates down i think it's it's a it's the it's what
did obama call it it's like the wave of history i think is what he said presidents are just riding
the wave of history and these this setup has been happening for 40 years it didn't happen this year
It didn't happen in 2008. This has been happening for 40 years. This is where we've been going for a long time.
I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike.
In every case, I have carried out my duties without political fear or favor, focused solely on our mandate of price stability and maximum employment.
You know, the funny thing is, is I don't really buy that.
But unfortunately, the timing of his previous rate cuts did seem political.
And you just look at the timing of it, and it's hard to argue that, especially when the
rate cuts happened when inflation numbers were higher than they are right now.
And then this dual mandate thing has always been absolutely ridiculous.
Price stability, so everything has to have a 2% inflation indefinitely.
What kind of sense does that make?
And how do you have a dual core mandate?
That's also impossible.
And the two things are in conflict.
In order to help or maintain the rates, you often have to hurt the employment numbers.
And they're constantly, and he always says it, picking between two hard choices.
Literally, the two things are in conflict.
It's sanctimonious also to say that it's not political because when you're choosing between the price of money that picks winners and losers literally in the market or employment, that's inherently political too.
So the Fed has become inherently political because the actions they take have political ramifications.
It's just it's you are responsible for the impact you have on the world.
Now, what is kind of unusual about this is to have J-Pow just dump this out there like this.
It typically would go down kind of quietly.
Here's here's the details I have.
This all really kicked off back in July, July 21st, 2025.
Representative Anna Paulina Luna kicked this process off when she referred J-Pow to the Justice Department over the testimony that I just played for you.
That eventually made its way to the D.C. office where a recently appointed attorney general or U.S. attorney, I guess.
Sorry, U.S. attorney Janine Perrero, which is a.k.a. Judge Janine from Fox News.
Her office emailed the Federal Reserve staff in December asking for a meeting or a call.
They then followed up 10 days later with no response by last Thursdays.
They obtained a grand jury authorization to subpoena the information.
And Judge Jeanine released a statement later on after all this came out saying, quote, the word indictment has come out of Mr. Powell's mouth.
No one else's. None of this would happen if they had just responded to our outreach.
So we're playing a game here. We're playing a game where Judge Jeanine is going to pretend like this isn't political.
She's going to pretend like the boss that just hired her hasn't been tweeting that they need to sue him and go after him.
We're going to pretend like this is just all because a referral came down to their office.
So that's one side. And then the other side is we're going to pretend like this isn't about protectionism of the central bank.
And we're going to throw a whole bunch of sanctimony on top of it.
And we're going to pretend like he's been just this absolute awesome public servant.
I mean, it's just a whole bunch of that.
But I did want to play just a moment of judging expanding on the timeline here.
We started the investigation in November.
On December 19th, we sent a letter, an email, and we said we'd like to talk to people at the Federal Reserve.
Give us a call. No response for 10 days.
December 29th, please give us a call. We'd like to talk to you. We'd like to speak to you.
No response for 10 days. We want to meet them the first week of January. No response.
So then we did what any normal prosecutor would do, and we issued legal process.
I'm not saying that. He's saying that.
So does the Federal Reserve Chairman Powell respond to that No What he does is he issues a video He claims that he being threatened threatened with a criminal indictment threatened that the independence of the Fed is under attack which couldn be further from the truth
Now, normally what people do is they pick up the phone, they call you, they say, yeah, let's talk about it.
Also, normally what people do is they don't time the emails and the phone calls right around the holidays.
I mean, these are bankers, right? And you're sending them emails on December 29th and you're sending them like emails like the day after New Year's.
and then you're giving them like four or five days.
These are bankers.
They move frustratingly slow, and it's the holidays.
Should they have responded?
Yes.
Should Janine expected them to be a little slow?
Yes.
So if we're going to play like, well, all you had to do,
well, yeah, all you had to do was, you know,
not hit them up on the holidays.
You could play that game both ways.
Couldn't be further from the truth.
Now, normally what people do is they pick up the phone,
they call you, they say, yeah, let's talk about it.
But if they had responded, I wouldn't be sitting here right now.
And he's using this language about the independence of the Federal Reserve as some kind of ability for them to ignore any kind of legal oversight or legal scrutiny or that would require us not to investigate potential lying before Congress.
That's not how we work.
No one is above the law.
Oh, I love it when they keep turning that one back at each other.
That's fun.
Now, here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
I can buy that this is a bit of a standard process that the Federal Reserve sort of went to Lebanon.
I can buy that because, you know, they're high on their own supply.
And I can also buy that when they've wanted some response and they're trying to, you know, they're trying to be tough.
that they would escalate to subpoenaing the information, their lawyers, that that makes
sense to a degree. And I'm no fan of the central bank, but I have to say this seems a little sus.
She protests a little too much that they're not trying to interfere with the independence of the
Fed. Yeah, they need to. They need to because they need to take control of the rates. They need
to have more pressure on them because they got a print baby print and they got $38 trillion in debt.
the way it is.
Now, the thing is,
is this is going to be a hard fight.
Not only will every single establishment politician
and every single central banker
and all of the media actors
come out in defense of J-Pow,
so it'll be a chorus of defense,
but you're dealing with the federal chair
of the biggest central bank, right?
They are the definition of people
who dot their I's and cross their T's.
And we're already starting to see that they likely have their asses covered in this situation.
You're getting a new development in the probe of the Fed chair, Jay Powell,
and a potentially very important one.
Emily Wilkins is on the Hill, as you see, with these details.
Em?
Hey, Scott.
Well, as you know, this entire investigation is about what Jay Powell did
or did not tell Congress during his testimony last year.
And now we can report that the Financial Times is coming out with a report that Powell actually sent lawmakers a very detailed and in-depth letter after that testimony where he really laid out some of the costs, the reason why the projects had gone over, answered a number of lawmaker questions.
And this kind of raises the overall question of whether or not some of the information that the DOJ is accusing Powell of not coming forward with has actually already been out there to lawmakers throughout this time.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's made its way to the DOJ, right? And I suppose the D.C. Attorney's Office process wouldn't be to go try to get it from senators. They'd be to go try to get it from the source. However, like I said, they've already got the documentation ready to go. They could easily hand it over now. This could also delay the replacement. We are just four months out from J-Pau stepping down, and this could actually clog the works up when it comes to that.
So this may end up getting spun down. They're already doing damage control. And if they continue, they run the risk of turning him into a martyr. And I don't normally play Larry Kudlow on the show, and he doesn't normally go against the Trump administration. But his assessment is we are headed down to martyrdom town.
All right, folks.
Wow, that was abrupt.
Next up, why make a martyr out of Jay Powell?
I guess that's the subject of the riff.
So don't martyr him.
He was a terrible Fed chair, but he's not a criminal.
All right, over his tenure,
he consistently missed the Fed's inflation targets
with the worst price hikes in 40 years.
He was the most political Fed chair in memory,
Raising rates to stop Trump's tax cut boom back in the first term, lowering rates to reelect Kamala Harris and the Democrats in the last election.
Totally political.
Totally.
And the timing, I came to that conclusion when I just went and looked it all up myself and put it all down on one list.
I was like, oh, crap.
Yeah, that's – that doesn't look good.
That doesn't look good.
So here's my question to you, y'all.
Do you think that we are going to see the Trump administration back off on this attempt to take out J-PAL legally?
And secondarily to that, if they proceed, what do you think the impact will be on Bitcoin?
Sometimes it doesn't respond positively to this kind of volatility.
I'm not 100 percent sure they will back off.
Possible in the Fed. We have a real stiff in the Fed, but that's for another day. But they raise rates. So everyone says, oh, they announced great numbers. It's great, great, great. And the market goes down because they immediately raise rates. No, they don't immediately raise rates. But that's how he sees it. Right. He sees it as, you know, blocking his agenda. And affordability is becoming the one of the number one fights of the midterms.
And I think this is an indication of how desperate they are to win the midterms and what they'll do and how it impacts Bitcoin.
I'm not sure. So I don't know. Can they back off? Can they even back off?
Or are the stakes too high for them as a party?
Let me know what you think and let me know how you think it's going to impact Bitcoin.
So far, so far, not so bad.
We've had a little bit of a pump today. It's sort of begun to cool off as the day has gone on.
but we're still sitting at 97,000 as I record, at least right now, which feels pretty good.
Well, did you know you can support the show while you're protecting your purchasing power?
Yeah, you can use links in our show notes to stack sats on River, one of the best ways to do it in the U.S., or the Bitcoin Well, an automatic self-custody platform where they don't even have a wallet.
You host the wallet.
If it's time to spend those sats and take advantage of some gains, well, the Bitcoin company, they only deal with Bitcoin and they turn your Lightning sats into a gift card in, like, minutes at most.
You can even log in with the Lightning Network.
If it's time to just passively stack sats as you pay your bills and go about your day, check out the Fold card.
It's an audience favorite.
I use it every day.
And if it's time to get access to your Bitcoin value without selling it, like salt lending,
they have some nice features there and they have some of the best rates, competitive rates,
some of the best availability, and they have some nice protection programs if the Bitcoin
price were to drop.
Those links are in the show notes.
Great way to support the show just by doing what you do.
I appreciate it very much.
And now, as the French say, it is time for le boost.
It is, and we will start with our baller booster this week,
who is Derivation Dingus.
He's back.
Hey, rich lobster.
And he's coming in with 218,526 sats.
All right, Derivation Dingus writes,
Hey, Chris, I had some trouble sending my first message,
but I haven't boosted in a while,
So Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Bitcoin Birthday from the Dingus family.
This weekend, Bitcoin is my favorite Bitcoin podcast.
I love the low emotion, high signal vibe.
Thanks for what you do.
Oh, thank you, sir.
He says, here's my setup.
I'm still rocking the same Nix Bitcoin node in a NixOS container.
I use Ride the Lightning on a PC or Zeus on a mobile to transact.
Killer setup.
Plus one to that.
But I think people have forgotten what a great node management tool Zeus can be.
He says, I then DCA with Swan and River different days each week.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on daily versus weekly buy.
I prefer daily.
I don't know why.
I feel like I have more opportunities to feel like I'm getting a little dip, right?
Where if I'm doing a one buy once a week, you know, then maybe I missed it.
But when it comes to the actual amount of transactions, I prefer weekly.
So I don't think there's a wrong way to do it.
Oh, he sent me a second note because the first one didn't come all the way through to all the nodes.
I'll answer a question as well.
He says, I'm currently using the Blockstream Jade for the hardware wallet, but I'm going to move to the cold card Mark IV that I bought on a Black Friday sale.
Oh, nice score.
Oh, nice.
I think my recommendation to a beginner would be the Blockstream devices.
But if they're pretty tech savvy and are serious about stacking, I'd probably recommend the cold card.
I think I like that.
I like that a lot.
But I think the Blockstream Jade just had a security update.
So everybody, if you haven't done that recently, you should probably plug it in and get it updated.
I don't love it when that thing happens, but it's a natural.
It happens. It's software.
Great setup. Really good to hear from you, Derivation.
Thank you very much, and happy holidays to the Dingus household.
Thank you very much for being our baller booster.
Hey, there he is.
SatSquatch is back with 96,000
sats. I hoard that
which you all kind covered.
He's a good guy. He's a real good guy.
No, he's a great guy. Yeah, he's a great guy.
He says, my Albie hub was having some troubles with the
boost. What's going on, you guys?
Hmm. But I, oh, I did
have to open up some channels earlier
in the week because a couple channels closed.
That might have been what happened, SatSquatch.
He says, I hope this works and wishing you the best in
2026. I've got off knots and I've gone back to core after listening to you and reading Jameson
Lopp's write-up on Luke. Yeah, I'm not super loving going back to core myself. I'm sticking
right now with version 29. I'm still waiting to see just, I'd love to see more competition
in the node software space. And I think maybe people that are maybe new to nodes think that
they need to upgrade right away. And you really don't. Bitcoin's pretty great about that,
unless there's a significant security issue,
but usually the last couple of major releases
get those security fixes backported.
And there have been some updates recently.
Nice to hear from you, Satsquatch.
Thanks for the boost.
Chuck Runamuck is here with 77,777 sats.
Let's hear it, good buddy.
Hello, Chris.
I've been a JB and last fan since maybe 2008.
Oh!
Those were the days.
XBMC, trying to hack Linux on random hardware that it wasn't meant for,
and the Plan B podcast.
Proud to say my household is 100% Linux
and has been for more than a decade.
I finally became Boost Enabled so I can give back for all your great work.
Oh, thank you for doing that.
You get an eagle.
Thank you very much for doing that.
That feels...
Do a little dance.
It says,
I recently discovered the origins of one of your soundbites,
and I binged all 12 seasons of Letterkenny.
It was a long walk, but I'm retired now,
so I have some free time.
Keep up the good work.
Well, very well done.
Why you got to put numbers and letters together?
Why can't you just go f*** yourself?
Letterkenny's fun.
It takes a particular type, but it's a fun show.
And then also, if you're looking for a follow-up,
Shorzy, I think, is also really great
and still being actively made.
Their new season just came out
and it's a spinoff of Letterkenny.
And it's done well.
Thank you, Chuck Ronamuck.
I hope to hear from you again in the future.
Very nice to hear from you.
That boost made my day.
Hey, there's Bobby Pin with 50,000 sats.
Ten gold blooms out of a possible ten gold blooms.
That's pretty nice, man.
Thank you very much.
He says hosted mining is big now.
If you want the most hash rate for your dollar, if you want a home miner, then the CAN Avion Q is a great entry point.
The CANAN, or however you say that.
It's got 90 terahash.
It looks just like a desktop and it runs on 120 volts.
So no modifications necessary.
I co-host a weekly space on X about mining.
I can reach out to some of the people there that I've met.
Maybe get you in on the podcast.
Oh, and just to say,
And I'll reach out.
If I sent you a DM on X last year, it has my username.
You did?
I think when X switched out their DM system, something went haywire for me.
I am very interested in that bobby pin.
And in particular, I would love to have more information on hosted mining because I have seen pitches where you buy the mining gear and then you do a capital tax write-off thingamabobber for it.
You know, that's my – I guess there's some new tax law that passed.
where you can appreciate 100% of the cost of the miner in the first year.
And so people are taking advantage of that and then hosting them a data center.
So they're essentially getting a nice tax write-off for the cost of the miner.
Of course, you have to be able to front that cash.
And then they get to run it in somebody else's data center.
And I don't know if that's what people are doing that they like.
I don't know if that's a scam, if that's a bad idea,
because in previous cycles, that's how people lost their Bitcoin mining.
They would end up in different countries that had very bad laws.
and when they decided no more Bitcoin mining,
they would just seize the equipment.
And that has been a thing that's happened historically.
So I'd love your insights on that, Bobby Penn.
And yes, I would love to be connected with more folks
in the mining industry.
Also, I'd just like to listen to your podcast too
if you want to boost me or DM me a link.
And thank you very much for the boost.
Appreciate it.
MDS is here with 21,000 sats.
Put some macaroni and cheese on there too.
That's our Bitcoin boost.
We need a good sound effect for the Bitcoin boost.
You know what I mean?
There's coffee in that nebula.
Welcome back. As a COVID-era Bitcoin maxi, this four-year cycle is all I've ever known.
And it's clear to me that the having has had negligible impact on price over that time.
The 22 pump and dump was a COVID-fueled macro hysteria and fraud, while the ongoing pump is clearly adoption.
Adoption is the real metric of success, and the USD price has become a messy signal for that.
That's a good point.
Yeah, because there is a lot of other inputs into that USD price
that doesn't necessarily reflect the incredible year of adoption that we have seen.
I'll have some numbers in the updates coming up later in the show,
so stay tuned for that.
He says, I bet it was satisfying to experience that clockwork shock supply
on the price for you old timers.
Maybe it'll happen again for the USD price for us.
Yes, I don't think it's done.
I think we have a long ways to go.
It takes about four or five years.
And then you look back and you go, what happened?
That's amazing.
Thank you for the boost.
Nice to hear from you, MDS.
Appreciate you.
Next boost is from, did I say MDS?
I meant Bobby Pin.
Sorry about that, Bobby Pin.
Thank you, Bobby Pin.
Our next boost is from MDS.
Like I got my, you know, I got my things mixed up.
What can I say?
And it's 21,000 sets.
Oh, that's why.
Because the numbers are similar.
Well, you know, math is hard.
Well, I'll be dipped.
That's hard.
I don't know.
I got all the, oh, and OB also sent an NSK.
Oh my gosh.
No wonder it got me all messed up.
There's multiple, you guys.
All right, that's it.
I got to get an official Bitcoin boost sound effect.
Oh, I, ha.
Four score and seven boosts ago.
Not good enough, not good enough.
Keep the change, you filthy animal.
That could be, but it doesn't invoke Bitcoin in my mind.
That's all I don't know.
None of these really invoke Bitcoin to me.
Hmm, but thank you.
OB comes in with 21,000 sat.
Grab a bidaxe, Chris.
It's a cool little art piece for the desk.
He's a good guy.
He's a real good guy.
Thank you for that.
All right, I've got to figure it out now.
I don't understand what the heck is going on here.
No, I really do.
I've got to figure it out.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate that, OB.
SK88 came in with 21,000 cents.
I like you.
You're a hot ticket.
I want a suggestion for that sound effect.
SK says, been listening for a long time.
Definitely one of the best Bitcoin podcasts out there.
I tried boosting several times, but Fountain posted an error message.
See, when did you?
Yeah, earlier in the week.
Yeah, yeah.
I think my channels were closed on Wednesday or Thursday of last week,
right after the show.
So I think it bit some of you guys.
So thanks for still trying to get in there.
I really appreciate you sticking with that.
You know, Lightning Network, right?
It's kind of my bad.
I should have some sort of alerting on.
I don't know if you can do that for AlbiHub, but I should do that.
To answer this week's question about hardware wallets,
I recommend Passport by Foundation.
It's open source, air-gapped,
and has an optional view-only app for the iPhone or Android.
And it has a customer-replaceable battery
should you ever need it.
It's extremely easy to use
and owned by another trusted Freedom Tech podcaster,
Young Goverable Misfits.
Okay, here's my question about that, SK.
Could you leave it in your desk with the battery out?
And would it persistently store everything?
I would assume yes, but I'd just be curious.
I love that it's replaceable
because if you're going to have that sit in a drawer
for five years, that battery could expand.
So if you could remove that
and just pop it in when you needed it,
I like that a lot.
Obviously, I like that it's open source, too.
That's pretty great.
But the other thing you said in there that really hit me was view apps.
View-only apps, just to kind of see where things are at,
to see if there's been any transactions.
I think those are underrated, and I really appreciate those.
And there's ways to do that with other wallets,
but it's nice to have that built in.
Thanks, SK.
Good boost.
Thor's here with 3,000 sats.
The traders love the vol.
Ah, he wants some Wes Payne.
Bring the pain, he says.
Heck, yeah.
You know what?
Oh, I'm in.
Well, that's not Wes, but Brent can go sign for Wes on that one.
Thank you, Thor.
I'll pass that along.
I think it would be good.
Ace Ackerman's here with a Rodex.
Ace says, I recently switched from Ledger devices.
I bought before the customer formation breach to a cold card Mark IV.
I've used and liked the Jade as well.
So why not another new Jade, Ace?
You know, they have an update with a better camera and a nicer screen.
I also have Jade, but think I'm going to move to a cold card.
just I really don't want to have any
have to have any connection to Blockstream
for like the virtual element and stuff like that
that's my reason but I'd be curious to hear yours
and thank you very much for the row of ducks
hey hello Gene Bean
Gene Bean's here with
3781 sats
I use the
Jade Plus at the moment and had to get it replaced recently
check out how that went and I did
and it seems like it went really well
I may switch to something else like the BitBox
to Nova but I haven't decided
I do like Bitbox.
I guess I should add that I also have a couple of Trezor Model 1s with Bitcoin-only firmwares on them, and I use that as part of a multi-sig setup.
I kind of like and simultaneously dislike their simplicity and the lack of a battery.
Yeah, and there is also something, you know, Gene, to a multi-sig using different wallet vendors.
You know, it adds a layer of complexity, obviously, so there's a downside.
But the upside is you're sort of spreading out the risk.
So that way, if Cold Card had a compromise or the Trezor Model 1 had a compromise or something like that, your entire multisig isn't compromised.
So there is some nicety to that.
And it's a decent excuse to play with multiple wallets.
You just got to pick good ones.
Nice to hear from you, Gene.
Thanks for the boost and the boot.
Blazer4151 is here with 4,321 sats.
This is the way.
Glad you're back.
Well, thank you, Blazer.
Glad to have you boost me.
Appreciate that.
Hey, producer Jeff's here with the Spaceballs Boost, 12,345 sats.
So the culmination is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Well, here's today's anecdote.
I'm sitting in front of my bank for the third time this week
and attempt to get some of my own cash out.
Not having control over your own store value is frustrating at any amount.
Times like this make me wish I could pay for more things in Bitcoin,
even though I really don want to spend it in Bitcoin Oh man You know like for the business too like when we had to book some travel or like buy a piece of equipment or do something for Linux Fest and we had to like cut a check or actually was the debit card You know I have to call and like ask them if I can spend my
money. Okay. Well, why do you want to spend your money? And for how long do you want to spend it?
And I just sit there and just can't wait till you are all out of business. I know what you mean,
PJ. Thank you very much for the boost. I'm feeling you on that one. All right. Our next boosts,
We're starting to round it out now.
It comes from Code 27.
Put some macaroni and cheese on there, too.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
And he says, welcome back.
Well, thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
It's good to be back.
Jim from Batik also comes in, and he's got 2,000 sats.
Give me a holler when this goes south.
Hey, Chris, I finally started mining three weeks ago.
I jumped on the new miner, the Nerd Octax Rev 3,
which is a 12-terahash from Bitronics,
which they released their first batch.
Now they're selling their third batch.
I bought two miners, but didn't want to do solo mining.
I prefer to experiment with brains and later ocean.
You can have a look here and you can buy yours at bitronix.store.
I want to do, I would love to do a mining pool for Twib.
And then maybe like down the road, some sort of, we play around with like a cashew setup.
You know what I mean?
Little community thing going.
Could be really awesome.
That could be really awesome.
Thanks for the update, Jen.
That's fascinating.
and 12 terahash at home.
It's nothing to sneeze at.
And those things are cool looking too.
Sarah Jade's here with 2,222 sets.
That is a row of ducks.
She says, love the podcast.
Thanks for supporting value for value artists too.
Here's the same shameless self-promotion.
Check out my new value for value single, Splinters.
Well, I'll tell you what, Sarah,
that will be our value for value track this week.
And it's a banger.
So stay tuned to the end of the episode, everybody.
we're going to play Sarah Jane's new track.
Thank you for the boost, too.
Great to hear from you.
And I love that Value for Value music
might be getting some artists into Bitcoin.
I hope that's the case for you, too.
Appreciate the boost and the song.
Everybody boost in when we play the song
so we can support Sarah.
Kiwi Bitcoin Guide is here with 4,567 sats.
You're doing very well.
Hey, Chris, keep the value coming.
I would love to see a podcasting 2.0
replace the paid advertising model.
there's nothing worse than listening to a bitcoin podcast shill treasury companies custodial services
and even telling you not to bother holding your own keys keep it up and may the force be with you
i know what you mean thank you very much this is the way yeah i honestly could use the revenue from
advertising on this show and i think we're at a period of time where this would be one of the
easier shows of the jb lineup to sell to an advertiser because it's a clear market there's
It's a little underserved in some respects, but it's just so hard to do a new show like this and advertisers.
It's not an impossible thing, but as long as the value for value model keeps working and the boosts keep coming and we have these great interactions, I am going to try so hard to keep it this way.
Even if it means one day I have to get another job.
I mean, I really am committed to it as hard as I can, unless some sort of real serious life situation came up or the boosts were really to drop off for the memberships.
then I'd have to pivot for a little while at least until we got things back on track.
So I really KiwiBitcoin when folks like you boost in and acknowledge that it it means a lot.
It really does mean a lot. Thank you very much. I mean this is my life.
This is what I do. This is my full-time job. This is how I support my family.
And the reason why I've decided to do that is because over the years I've learned
each show is really a business and you have to focus on it like it deserves it.
And you've got to work so hard for each podcast.
And I just don't think I'd be able to have that level of commitment and run a full-time job.
and it is more than a full-time job.
You know, I work basically seven days a week.
Maybe I only work three, four hours on a Saturday.
So maybe you could say six, six and a half days a week.
And I'm not complaining.
I'll keep on doing it as long as you guys keep on supporting
because this is what I want to do.
Thank you, Kiwi.
Appreciate you.
Galactic Starfish is here with 5,555 sats.
Live long and prosper.
People often confuse strategy and tactics.
In chess, strategy is over the course of the game.
Tactics are temporal, clever moments.
like in chess, like in poker, or like in life.
If you only ever play a static technique,
well, then you're mistaking tactics for strategy.
A supposed reliance on the issuance schedule
admits an ever-changing macroeconomic environment?
Well, I think a four-year cycle was a blip,
a clear, clever technique to use Bitcoin's adolescence,
but not something you should expect to continue.
Oh, galactic starfish coming in with a great take.
Thank you very much.
This is a tasty burger.
Appreciate that.
Appreciate the boost.
Bob is here, or Boba?
I think it's Boba or Boba with a row of ducks.
Look at them ducks go by.
What, in your opinion, would be a valuable next technological step for a stat-sacking pleb newbie?
Should I invest in a solo miner or should I node up or maybe something else entirely?
What's the next baby step that benefits a noob and the network, regardless of hardware wallets?
Oh, I gifted a tangent for a wallet for Christmas.
Good question. And I think you're not going to be surprised to hear would say node. The reason I would say a node is because it's free if you already have the hardware and it's significantly cheaper, even if you don't, than a miner. And you would be contributing to the network, but you also will learn a lot more about Bitcoin.
You will learn.
It's interesting.
You can go deeper and deeper, right?
And mining is definitely an area to get to.
But you want to node up first because that's going to increase your independence, your privacy.
You become more like your own bank and you are participating in the consensus.
You're keeping track of the network.
You're helping other people.
You will have your own little mempool.
And that's very nice.
So I say go for it.
Do the node thing.
Then start playing with Lightning and AlbiHub.
And then when you have that, I think, you know, might be time to scratch that wallet or that mining itch.
But then you'll have a good setup with a node and all of that.
You're going to want anyways.
You're going to want all of that anyways.
Thank you, Baba or Boba.
Don't know which one it is, but I appreciate that question.
That's a good one.
And probably one that a lot of people have on their minds when they've discovered Bitcoin.
It's like, where do you go next?
And my standing advice, node up.
Node up.
That's my standing advice.
And then go from there.
Let me know how it goes.
Thank you, everybody who boosted the show,
even those of you who boosted below the 2,000-sat cutoff.
I appreciate it.
Really do appreciate the value and the interaction.
So let's look at the numbers.
We had 33 of you stream sats.
Just set it on stream and listened,
and you collectively stacked 55,491 sats for the show.
It's a good little boost right there.
When you combine that with all of our messengers,
including our ballers who did a nice heavy lift,
we had a really great welcome back
and start to the new year.
Episode Lucky 88 stacked 854,950 sats.
That is fantastic.
Thank you everyone who supports the show.
It means a tremendous amount.
It is a value for value podcast.
We have fountain memberships, which will be enhancing and refining over 2026.
We have the Jupiter dot party, which gets you access to all the great content on the
Jupiter broadcasting network.
And we have the boost which is often my favorite segment of the show because you guys give me new ideas great feedback and new things to check out So thank you very much If you like to boost the show Fountain FM makes it real easy Oh yeah Let do it again
All right.
Sure, why not?
Thanks, Soundboard.
It's worth it.
Thank you, everybody, very much.
You can also grab AlbiHub and any of the new podcast apps at podcastapps.com.
All right.
We have some big updates that are going to move things and make a difference.
So let's shift gears and get right back to it.
The numbers are in, and corporate Bitcoin buying has outstripped mining supply 3-2-1.
Public and private companies that have Bitcoin treasuries have expanded by 260,000 Bitcoin
over the last six months, tripling approximately 82,000 Bitcoins
produced by the miners during that same timeframe.
So the private and public companies bought 260,000
and the miners produced 82,000.
All right.
Corporate digital asset treasury balances grew from roughly 854,000 Bitcoin
to 1.11 million between mid-2025 and January of 2026.
I bet old Sailor Ruski is a part of that,
But not all of it.
The Bitcoin ETFs had their best week since the October flash crash.
Almost $700 million of ETF inflows have been coming in,
and BlackRock and Fidelity have been leading those ETF flows,
suggesting that the boomers are buying Bitcoin once again.
Now, in a ultimate twist of fate and irony, the Zcash developer team has resigned.
after a December of quantum FUD that fed the pump for Zcash.
And everybody said, you need to have an insurance policy against Bitcoin's quantum vulnerability.
And the numbers went up and up and up as the influencers pumped it.
Well, developers have quit.
Yes, the Electric Coin Company's group of developers, ECC, have left amid governance disputes.
And they say they're forming a new startup that will continue Zcash development.
Now, from what I can tell, the core issue seems to be $35 million in U.S. dollars that are in ZEC, which is the Zcash token, and it's locked away for the dev team.
And the only problem is the dev team cannot access the funding until they push a new protocol forward, which requires a protocol upgrade.
And, of course, this has been stuck in limbo and debate forever.
And the idea here is, well, Zcash is still changing.
We're still building it.
So we're going to have a dev tax.
and 12% of the mining rewards get locked up.
12% of all mining rewards get stashed away in a vault
that freezes the funds until a governance group
decides on the distribution model.
But that governance group has failed to agree
on that distribution model.
So the dev team basically rage quit
and they're going to try to spin off their own company
and build Zcash.
Boy, and we thought we had problems in Bitcoin.
Now, this is an interesting one.
And remember, we were talking about Venezuela rumored to have 600,000 Bitcoin.
Well, press is trying to get as much information about that as possible.
And I'm not feeling confident, guys.
Venezuela has a Bitcoin stash worth about $60 billion.
The chair of the SEC, Paul Atkins, joins me now.
Mr. Chairman, what's going to happen to those Bitcoins?
Oh, well, that remains to be seen.
I think, you know, this whole operation has been amazing.
the president and Secretary Rubio and then the brave service people in our armed forces have done
a really spectacular job. The office of the SEC is definitely not political, though.
I try to help bring peace and liberty and prosperity to the people of Venezuela,
and then obviously safety to the American people. Are we trying to take those Bitcoin off them?
Well, I leave that to others in the administration to deal with that. I'm not involved in that. I'm
focused really this week is an important week because the Senate's going to be taking up a...
All right, stop there. So we know that there is a rumored 60 billion-ish, somewhere between,
well, actually now it'd be a little bit more than that, but somewhere around 60, I'm sorry,
600,000 Bitcoin. Well, we don't have any confirmation on it and the SEC chair won't make
any proclamations about it. I think he would probably at least be aware of it,
even though it wouldn't be under his jurisdiction. I think he'd probably still be aware of it.
I think it's just a rumor, but I hope I'm wrong because it would be just such a fascinating
development. And I would love to know how you feel if the U.S. were to seize it.
I mean, nobody's really brought up the morality of the fact that the U.S. would just
rock up in Venezuela. And I mean, it's one thing to take out Maduro if, you know, okay,
it seems both administrations had a target on his head. That was clearly an agenda item for the
U.S. government. Okay. All right. Let's set that aside for a second. Does that mean they get to
just take assets, though?
I guess if they were assets of the administration,
I don't know. Perhaps you know how that works.
Because I certainly don't.
You might just want to watch this whole talk.
It's from 2016,
and it's still incredibly relevant.
It's just so good.
Especially this week,
when all of the talk about the trust in the central bank and the institution and all of that.
Well, Andreas Antonopoulos on September 24th, 2016,
held a talk that's just one of his classics, just really a fiery talk.
He's so good at delivering these.
And he explains that Bitcoin is a platform of trust.
Think about that in the context of everything going down with the Federal Reserve.
In the history of money that now spans tens of thousands of years, there have been maybe five major changes.
From pure barter exchange to the introduction of the first abstraction of value,
shells, feathers, beads, nuts, stones, and then precious metals, and then paper money,
Then plastic money, and now network money.
Bitcoin introduces a platform on which you can run currency as an application on a network...
without any central points of control, a system completely decentralized like the internet itself.
It is not money for the internet, but the internet of money.
What is money? Money is a language. Money is a linguistic abstraction.
Money is a language that we use to communicate value to each other.
Money simply allows us to express value. That value may have economic consequences,
but it also has other consequences.
We use money to express and create social bonds, relationships, associations, and organization.
Bitcoin is the first system of money that is not controlled by any entity that is completely decentralized What that does is it introduces the very same things that the internet brought to communication
If money is speech, if money is a language, and you disconnect it from all other media,
and you make it pure speech, pure content, an internet content type, a protocol designation,
money over IP, it completely separates it from all of these previous notions of nations,
sovereign issuers, institutions that control.
So we go from institution-based money to network-based money.
And of course, everyone will welcome this with open arms.
Not a chance.
All right, let's check in on the state of the network.
I'm wrapping up at block height 932,228.
The current Bitcoin price to US dollar is $97,410.
That makes our sats per dollar 1,027.
We are down 22.8% from our all-time high, which is $126,180, exactly 100 days ago, October 6, 2025.
Our next retarget date's a little bit out, January 22, 2026.
Currently an estimated difficulty adjustment downward of 4%.
We might see that even out as it gets closer.
and there are a little bit fewer nodes on the network this week, 24,894.
So maybe that's your homework.
Go node up if you haven't yet.
The network needs you.
It needs your node, actually.
We're doing fine.
But, I mean, why not, right?
Why not?
This is interesting.
I was looking at lightning channel age and capacity,
and the lightning network is growing again.
It has, after a little bit of a decline, started picking back up,
and currently the capacity of the Lightning Network is 683.6 Bitcoin.
How about that?
That's a lot of liquidity you can move around.
State of the network is strong and looking real good.
Well, if you made it this far, you should come say hi.
I'm going to be at Planet Nix and Scale, the Southern California Linux Expo.
That's in Pasadena, California, March 5th through the 6th.
There's a little registration there.
You can use my promo code UNPLG, U-N-P-L-G, I think it is, and get 40% off.
We're going to have a little meetup on Friday or Saturday.
So if you're in the area, come say hi.
Let's talk some Bitcoin.
Keep an eye out on meetup.com slash Jupiter Broadcasting.
As the date gets closer, I'll put the meetup on there.
I don't have the details yet, but we usually figure something out so you have time to plan.
I'd love to see if you're in the area.
And it's a great event, too, Planet Nix and Scale.
Could be a lot of fun to go to.
All right, let me know how I did with a boost.
You know, this show tries to focus on the signal, not get distracted by the emotion,
so that way you can make the best decisions for yourself, your family, your business.
And, of course, we have links to everything I talked about this week at thisweekinbitcoin.show,
Well, you'll also find all of the other episodes and the other great Jupiter broadcasting shows.
So send me a boost.
Let me know how I did or let me know what I missed.
And you can also support our Value for Value artist this week.
You heard her earlier during the boost segment.
This is Sarah Jade, and it's her single, Splinters.
One use
Laying all right
Than I've been in 20 years
Took your fire
You're in stone
Acid rain and acetone
Guess I should've known
That you slept
Under my skin
My skin, my skin
Slept under my skin
And left your splinters
Slept on a mask in, mask in, mask in
Slept on a mask in and left to splinters
Out of place in an empty space but no one minds
If you'd asked I would have said I'm doing fine
Shape me with your paper sand
Stain my heart in firebrand
Is that what you planned?
Oh, you slept on my skin, my skin, my skin
Slept on my skin and left to splinters
Slept on my skin, my skin, my skin
Slept on my skin and left to splinters
I built the high road, you took the last train
Seeing all the signs now covered in red paint
Except for my mind, my light's changed
Over and over again
Oh, you slept on my skin, my skin, my skin
Slept on my skin
Home
I am the mast
I am the casket
And the pine
Choking on your splinters
Until I recognize
I am fortified by what's left behind
Guess it should mine
That you slept under my skin
My skin, my skin
Slept under my skin
And left your splatters
Slept under my skin
My skin, my skin
Slept under my skin
And left your splatters
Oh
Thank you.