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Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, Episode 88.

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My name is Chris, ChrisLAS.com and JupiterBroadcasting.com.

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The headlines say the economy is booming, GDP is surging, and the spending is strong.

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But I think the numbers probably don't tell a whole story, perhaps not the complete picture.

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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.

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And Bitcoin's price doesn't seem to be bothered at all.

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In fact, it's picked up a little bit of steam.

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So the question is, is why now, despite all the drama?

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So to get to that, I think we should probably start by looking at the macro outlook.

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Well, President Trump has merged patience with the American people since winning re-election,

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telling folks that his agenda would take time to start paying off.

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And based on some of the latest numbers that are starting to roll in, that prediction looks accurate.

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So let's start with GDP growth.

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When President Trump launched his trade war, the consensus among most economists and also a lot of Democratic lawmakers

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was that it would tank the economy and really stall GDP growth.

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We covered that in some detail here on the show, the conflicting opinions.

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We saw folks like Luke Groman say that it would be the destruction of the dollar,

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and within a year, we would have essentially a collapse.

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But each month, the data continues to defy those expectations.

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So at the beginning of 2025, the U.S. GDP shrank by half a percentage point,

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really setting off alarm bells across Washington that a recession was looming.

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And really the people that said, I told you so really had their moment right now.

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And it looked like things were bad.

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But quarter two then saw 3.8% growth.

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By quarter three, it was up to 4.3%.

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What?

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And based on the latest projections from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta,

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GDP growth in the final quarter of 2025 will be a stunning 5.1%.

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I mean, that's the Bank of Atlanta.

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That's amazing.

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Honestly, if you would have asked me back in April of last year if that was possible,

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I just don't think it would have been possible.

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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.

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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.

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White House economist Kevin Hassett was jubilant at that news.

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Here he is taking a victory lap on Monday.

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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.

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So I think you got to say that Trump policies are really working.

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And from there, there's plenty of other good stuff to go on.

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On Monday, for example, gas prices fell for the seventh straight week.

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The average price at the pump is now $2.79.

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That is the lowest mark we've seen in more than five years.

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And in 19 states, Americans are paying less than $2 a gallon.

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Unfortunately, not here in Tennessee, but they're moving in the right direction.

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Now, on the housing front, mortgage rates just fell below 6% for the first time in nearly three years.

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Now, some of this, I think, is perspective.

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Why are gas prices down? Because gas demand is down.

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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.

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While the cost of rent nationwide has now fallen five months in a row.

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That comes after the president directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities.

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I think that's a bit of spin. I mean, clearly that's going to make a dent.

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But I think, you know, the market realities that have been in play now forever, really since 2008, are just coming due.

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Driving those interest rates even lower.

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And then you have inflation, which has undoubtedly been heading in the right direction over the last few months.

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The Labor Department will release their latest numbers for December, showing where we are later this morning.

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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.

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Those are pretty significant numbers.

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I mean, it is impressive how that's turned around, but I think there are some details in there that we should analyze.

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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.

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I sold most of my Bitcoin in the short run.

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Still have some.

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Not all.

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Didn't sell at all.

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Sold most of it.

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My view is that I'll be able to buy back the Bitcoin I sold cheaper.

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Maybe.

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I mean, he may still have an opportunity.

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Who knows?

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Things in Bitcoin are wild.

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But I think it's fascinating.

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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.

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And besides, you know, many years of process and learning.

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And so folks like Luke have done a lot of that work.

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And yet at the end of the day, they're just humans and they make emotional decisions.

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Maybe he'll get it back.

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or maybe he got himself something he really, really likes with that Bitcoin.

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And maybe that's an OK trade for him, too.

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I don't know.

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But I think it's I think it's actually indicative of perhaps what Luke is watching, which I'm a little concerned about.

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And that is we are still seeing some significant weakness in the labor market.

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And I, to me, I just cannot get past that being a sign that everyday Americans are hurting.

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And maybe you have a five plus percent GDP print, but this is still a significant problem.

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Megan Hsu of the Wilmington Trust is with us as well. All right. So earnings season is off and running now.

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Markets having a little bit of an issue today. How do you feel about things?

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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.

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I think the one red flag that we're sort of watching is pretty significant weakness or at least stalling in the labor market.

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And that is, of course, sort of complicated by reduced inflows into the labor market, reduced immigration.

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But when we look at some of the weakness in private payrolls, it is a little bit concerning.

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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.

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And the market's probably going to be looking through that to continued strong earnings in 2027.

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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.

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Did those employers then stop hiring?

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It's just I'd love to know details on that.

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But retail has been tapped out.

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That's a theme on this show that I've covered in detail.

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So I don't need to spend time explaining that.

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I think you guys all get that.

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And I think the data continues to show us that.

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Right.

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We're still looking at horrible aggregated inflation, right?

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So people are still at least, at least things are 20% more expensive than they were five

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years ago.

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So anyways, I think what we're really seeing and what's been going on with some of Bitcoin's

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sideways price action since October 10th, retail isn't really buying beyond those of

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us that have recognized it as a store of value or a savings account and a hedge against things

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like inflation and debasement.

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But not everybody's there.

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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.

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They were drivers. They were drivers. They needed to bring their money in to get the price moving again.

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I don't think they really matter anymore. And I don't think they've been participating for most of the year either.

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And I bet you suspect that, too. It really feels like retail has just totally checked out.

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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.

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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.

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It's mostly, though, the large institutions.

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That's really who's moving things.

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You know, your Morgan Stands and your Black O'Rox and your sailors, right?

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That's who's moving the price these days.

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And so the messaging to them matters.

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And the reason they're buying, they're always constantly looking to buy the narrative.

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And a huge thing in today's market is momentum trade.

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So they're looking for something with a good narrative and a lot of momentum.

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And it's been gold now for weeks, and they've really twisted their analysis on Bitcoin.

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Yeah, look, I think there is protection being taken.

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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.

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OK.

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Now, this matters, right, because this guy speaks directly to investors that move a lot of money.

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That's why they're watching him.

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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.

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Nobody believes that anymore.

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That's so it's so ignorant, right?

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It's it's taking, I don't know, 100 days of price action.

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How many days has it been?

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Let's just see.

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It's wow.

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100 right on the nose.

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It's been 100 days since the all time high.

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Right.

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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.

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100 days later, oh, that's obviously been false.

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That's been a lie.

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Bitcoin's a failure.

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Well, we're talking about a debasement trade that operates at the timeline of decades.

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And we're talking about a 17-year-old asset that's now worth almost $100,000.

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And so if you look at the 10-year performance, there's nothing better, right?

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So gold still hasn't caught up if you look at the 10-year performance.

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And if you're talking about debasement trades to protect against inflation, you should be talking a minimum of five to 10 years.

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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.

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And this is where investors get their emotions mixed into this just like Luke did, and they make mistakes.

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So I want to walk this back a little bit and then see if you can detect what lens he's viewing everything through.

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Bitcoin and others being inflation hedges or stores of value have seen the lie put to that narrative.

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So you've had those go into gold as well.

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Look, you know, as I said, right now, steady as she goes.

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But at some point, I do believe that there will be reckoning.

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And, you know, it's interesting.

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Amy and I were talking about this before the show.

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So if people haven't read 1929, I'm only a third of the way through it.

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Oh, here we go.

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Andrew Sorkin's Panic book.

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Now, remember when 1929 came out, you may not remember.

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I watch a lot of the news, so you don't have to.

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Andrew was stressed out.

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Andrew was anxious.

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Andrew was nervous because he thought the book was too late and the crash was underway as the book was getting published.

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Well, guess what?

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That was a long time ago now.

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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.

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And this is why you need to understand this, because these biases are affecting the way people judge a scarce, hard asset like Bitcoin.

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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.

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And it sounds so confident.

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It sounds so cocksure of what they're saying.

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You have to be able to detect these filters.

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So this is the filter.

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It's this everything's going to crash because we're super speculative right now.

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And eventually we're going to go back to some sort of normal.

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I don't know, like a pre-COVID normal maybe?

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So you've had those go into gold as well.

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Look, you know, as I said, right now, steady as she goes,

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but at some point I do believe that there will be reckoning.

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And you know, it's interesting, Amy and I were talking

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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

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And we're seeing that kind of speculation.

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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.

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The system is creating additional fiat liquidity and it needs to go somewhere.

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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.

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Of course, Wall Street gets it first.

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They're closer to the money printer.

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But real close after that is all of the rich people that love to invest in tech or are rich themselves because of tech.

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And so that's why these tech companies pivot so damn fast from blockchain to AI, edge computing, whatever it might be.

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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.

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It all makes sense when you understand that they are mechanisms hyper-designed to absorb the excessive fiat liquidity.

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And we are going into a period where there's going to be a lot of excessive fiat liquidity.

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We'll get into that in just a moment.

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And so you would then expect a debasement trade to continue for a prolonged period of time.

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And when you are in this kind of debasement trade world, there's only a few trades.

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Hard assets and growth plays.

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hard assets, and growth plays. Well, tech has defined itself as the quintessential growth play.

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So as long as there's just stupid amounts of money coming into the system and we've just

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entered baby quantitative easing, we've now gone through multiple lower rate and we're feeling

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pretty good right now. GDP's up. Big tech spending like crazy. It has to continue.

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They need that GDP number to come up. It all comes back to the debt. It all is going to come

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back to the Federal Reserve, which we're about to get to. They have to have this set up. So could it

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all blow up in their face? Absolutely. Totally could. You never know. Like, you know, private

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credit blows up and then the whole thing goes down like dominoes. But they're going to fight

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like hell to prevent that from happening. Scott Besant, even Jay Powell, Trump and everybody in

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between is going to fight like hell because there's midterms coming up. There's elections.

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It's the most important election of your life. We can't afford to do this. Why do you think

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They're talking about putting 10% credit card interest rate caps.

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Why did Trump just work with Microsoft to come out and say, we're not going to raise your power bill.

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We're going to give you more water than we use.

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We won't take any property tax breaks.

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Why?

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Because they need the populist voting base to be okay with the pump because the pump must continue.

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And so that's why we're getting great GDP numbers.

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It's working.

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It's working.

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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.

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And Bitcoin's the best option for the hard asset play, and they're saying it doesn't work.

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But go buy some gold ETF.

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This is incredible.

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Now, it doesn't always go wrong.

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I was actually really impressed.

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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.

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And I was surprised because I was bracing myself after weeks of horrible Bitcoin coverage to get really worked up.

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All right. So we hit on this a bit earlier, Fred. Bitcoin and Ether, in all fairness,

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up from the market year to date. Bitcoin up right around 8 percent year to date.

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You say this is part of a shift due to how the world is just viewing monetary risk and geopolitics.

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What is the shift that's taking place and why do you think Bitcoin's benefiting?

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Well, Bitcoin benefits really from global liquidity primarily. So if you think about

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markets right now, you have U.S. government increasing liquidity. Interest rates have

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come down. You have other countries also increasing liquidity. And Bitcoin operates

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in two particular worlds, the developed world and the developing world.

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Okay, he's got me so far. Of course, Fred is the CEO of Meridigital. And I wasn't sure if we were

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going to get all corporate jargon here. And I like the way he handles the upcoming Ether question.

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And note how the CNBC actors don't even know if they should be calling it Ethereum or ETH or Ether,

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and they just sort of flop between it.

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In the developing world, Bitcoin is really a hedge against the decrease in value of local currencies.

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You can see what's happened in countries like Iran, Turkey, Venezuela, other countries like that,

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where their currencies have been debased, and it's a great way for people to hold value against that debasement.

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In the U.S. and developed world, it's more of a store of value.

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And you've seen now banks come into the market.

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You've seen TradFi institutions really come into the market and adopt it.

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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.

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All right. You mentioned gold very quickly. I was talking to a lot of different people about this, including Barbara Goodstein, who runs R360.

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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.

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while Bitcoin sort of went sideways.

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Could you expand upon that, Fred?

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That would be my question.

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But no, we're going to go to some shitcoiner question.

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Community for ultra high net worth individuals,

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they really value Bitcoin.

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It's kind of scarcity is the argument for them.

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They believe it's more scarce than even gold is.

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They believe that.

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They believe that.

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It's true.

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It's mathematically true.

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There's 21 million, right?

258
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We don't know how much gold there is.

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First of all, we don't know how much gold there is on the earth

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and we don't know how much gold there is orbiting the earth,

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et cetera, et cetera.

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so and they see more value going forward but scarcity is one thing utility is another

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everybody we have come on the show says that ether is really the future of cryptocurrency because

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yep you can build things on the platform oh yeah yeah ether because he doesn't know what to call

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it ether is the future of cryptocurrency right now you could say ethereum right because ethereum

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would be the network ether is the token right eth is the token and that's not the network and

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They don't understand.

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Everybody we have on the show says that Ether is really the future of cryptocurrency because you can build things on the platform.

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What's Bitcoin's future other than potentially being stored value?

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Is there some other utility for it?

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Fred Ghost in Neomode.

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Bitcoin has a couple of dynamics that are quite different than Ether.

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Ether and the Ethereum network is really a technology platform on top of which you build different tokenization solutions.

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And that's what Ether is designed for.

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It's really a programmable network.

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Bitcoin was always designed really as a highly decentralized form of storing value and exchanging value.

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And Bitcoin will remain that way.

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Its scarcity is one key thing.

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Another key thing about Bitcoin that's very unique is the fact that there is no central entity that controls it.

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In the world of Ethereum, the Ethereum Foundation, Metallica and others have a huge say in what happens.

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You see that the Ethereum network has continual upgrades done to it and changes done to it.

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Bitcoin is stable.

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It's like the internet in a sense.

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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.

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That's an interesting analogy.

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I do like the TCP IP analogy.

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I don't like comparing it to IPv4.

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I think it was IPv6 out of the box.

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Better coverage.

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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.

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You get it? Get it? Central banks. You get it?

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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.

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Now threatening to indict Fed Chair Jay Powell over comments to Congress about the Fed's renovation project.

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Eamon Jaffens is in Washington this morning with the latest. Good morning to you, Eamon.

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Yeah, good morning, Andrew. Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell struck a defiant tone in an unprecedented video statement on Sunday night,

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revealing that the Department of Justice had served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas in an ongoing and previously unknown criminal investigation.

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Dun, dun, dun.

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of the situation that other people might be missing.

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So this is Fed Jerpao at an oversight hearing,

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giving testimony on the ridiculously expensive castle.

301
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You should go look up pictures of this thing.

302
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It is fancier than the fanciest palace.

303
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It's unbelievable.

304
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It's opulent.

305
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It's the definition of opulence.

306
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It's beautiful.

307
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It's definitely beautiful.

308
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But it's sort of the wrong signal

309
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when the Fed has spent the last 40 years debasing the currency

310
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and then goes and builds himself a palace

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and then blames the cost overruns on inflation.

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I mean, that's pretty rich.

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Here's Jay Powell during a testimony that seemingly got him in trouble.

314
00:24:13,739 --> 00:24:17,339
Would you talk a little bit about just exactly what's going on with your building

315
00:24:17,339 --> 00:24:19,539
when you have that type of an overrun on the prices

316
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and you're talking about billions of dollars in costs?

317
00:24:22,399 --> 00:24:24,579
I think it's appropriate for you to be able to explain to the committee

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exactly what's going on.

319
00:24:25,559 --> 00:24:31,819
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?

320
00:24:32,519 --> 00:24:34,619
I'd be glad to if I can have that time.

321
00:24:34,879 --> 00:24:35,239
So please.

322
00:24:35,419 --> 00:24:37,859
Thank you for the letter we received late yesterday.

323
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We will provide a much more detailed response.

324
00:24:41,239 --> 00:24:48,679
But just generally, I would just say we do take seriously our responsibility as stewards of the public's money.

325
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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.

326
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Much prefer to leave that to your successors.

327
00:24:59,999 --> 00:25:04,439
And this is a great example why, let alone two historic buildings that needed a lot of work.

328
00:25:04,859 --> 00:25:10,139
But we decided to take it on because, honestly, when I was the administrative governor before I came chair,

329
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I came to understand how badly the Eccles building really needed a serious renovation.

330
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It never had one.

331
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It was not really safe and it was not waterproof and that kind of thing.

332
00:25:19,719 --> 00:25:20,799
So we took it on.

333
00:25:21,439 --> 00:25:24,959
I would start by – I would also say that the media reports that you –

334
00:25:24,959 --> 00:25:33,599
You know, there's some irony that the Central Bank of the United States of America has a leaky building that's falling apart.

335
00:25:34,339 --> 00:25:35,619
It seems actually kind of appropriate.

336
00:25:35,739 --> 00:25:36,699
I think they should keep it that way.

337
00:25:36,779 --> 00:25:39,119
It's sort of representative of where we're at right now.

338
00:25:39,159 --> 00:25:39,739
It's beautiful.

339
00:25:39,739 --> 00:25:48,579
I would also say that the media reports that you accurately quoted, they're misleading and inaccurate in many, many respects.

340
00:25:48,759 --> 00:25:51,139
And I would just point to it, there's no VPI dining room.

341
00:25:51,559 --> 00:25:52,639
There's no new marble.

342
00:25:52,879 --> 00:25:54,079
We took down the old marble.

343
00:25:54,199 --> 00:25:55,179
We're putting it back up.

344
00:25:55,559 --> 00:26:00,719
We'll have to use new marble where some of the old marble broke, but there's no special elevators.

345
00:26:01,619 --> 00:26:03,559
There are old elevators that have been there.

346
00:26:03,739 --> 00:26:04,999
There are no new water features.

347
00:26:04,999 --> 00:26:09,499
There's no beehives, and there's no roof terrace gardens.

348
00:26:09,739 --> 00:26:16,139
It would seem that the Federal Reserve, especially at the top, is paying pretty close attention to what the media says about them.

349
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Very close attention.

350
00:26:17,519 --> 00:26:19,559
And there's no roof terrace gardens.

351
00:26:20,079 --> 00:26:28,939
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.

352
00:26:29,659 --> 00:26:32,879
But notwithstanding that, the cost overruns are what they are.

353
00:26:32,999 --> 00:26:34,219
So let me just say on that.

354
00:26:34,219 --> 00:26:38,359
Well, let's, we're well over the five minute mark.

355
00:26:38,359 --> 00:26:41,259
I'm happy to give you time to talk about that.

356
00:26:41,339 --> 00:26:42,879
I'm happy that there are no beehives in there,

357
00:26:42,939 --> 00:26:44,699
but we're going to figure out what they are anyways.

358
00:26:45,319 --> 00:26:46,419
That's Senator Tim Scott,

359
00:26:46,599 --> 00:26:50,199
and he had done his homework before Jay Powell gave his testimony,

360
00:26:50,199 --> 00:26:56,059
so he confronts Powell on a couple of what seemed to be inconsistencies,

361
00:26:56,159 --> 00:26:58,759
and this might actually be the part of the testimony

362
00:26:58,759 --> 00:26:59,859
that got him in the most trouble.

363
00:26:59,859 --> 00:27:05,519
You go back to the spending at the Fed for the construction,

364
00:27:05,519 --> 00:27:10,399
and you said that the items that were listed are not happening,

365
00:27:10,839 --> 00:27:16,039
I will say that the National Capital Planning Commission website, ncpc.gov,

366
00:27:16,099 --> 00:27:17,839
anyone can take a look at it for themselves,

367
00:27:18,439 --> 00:27:21,159
not just looking or listening to the New York Post,

368
00:27:21,939 --> 00:27:23,239
not just the Wall Street Journal,

369
00:27:23,499 --> 00:27:29,579
but page 129 of the final plans reflected rooftop garden terraces.

370
00:27:29,819 --> 00:27:49,539
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

371
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welcome your staff coming in to walk my staff through what is happening there as opposed to

372
00:27:56,578 --> 00:28:00,958
what we not only read in the New York Post, not only in the Wall Street Journal, but also

373
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at the National Capital Planning Commission's website.

374
00:28:05,039 --> 00:28:07,158
So we would welcome that opportunity to have a...

375
00:28:07,158 --> 00:28:10,818
Can I just quickly say, some of those are just flatly misleading.

376
00:28:11,018 --> 00:28:13,358
The idea of elevators, you know, it's the same elevator

377
00:28:13,358 --> 00:28:14,938
that's been there since the building was built.

378
00:28:15,338 --> 00:28:16,838
So that's a mischaracterization.

379
00:28:16,978 --> 00:28:19,058
And some of those are no longer in the plans.

380
00:28:19,238 --> 00:28:21,039
You know, that's earlier.

381
00:28:21,478 --> 00:28:23,198
The plans have continued to evolve.

382
00:28:23,198 --> 00:28:26,678
One of the questions I asked my staff before having the conversation with you

383
00:28:26,678 --> 00:28:29,338
in preparation and assuming that your response would be

384
00:28:29,338 --> 00:28:31,078
to refute some of the things that were happening

385
00:28:31,078 --> 00:28:32,198
was to ask the question,

386
00:28:32,638 --> 00:28:34,398
well, since the articles came out in April,

387
00:28:34,718 --> 00:28:36,178
have the plans changed since April

388
00:28:36,178 --> 00:28:39,018
as a result of the media attention to it

389
00:28:39,018 --> 00:28:40,958
or was that just never in the plan?

390
00:28:41,318 --> 00:28:43,838
I would just say that having an understanding,

391
00:28:43,978 --> 00:28:46,118
a clear understanding of what's going to be

392
00:28:46,118 --> 00:28:48,218
and when it changed would be helpful for us.

393
00:28:48,618 --> 00:28:51,898
I will note that having confidence in what we hear

394
00:28:51,898 --> 00:28:53,658
is incredibly important

395
00:28:53,658 --> 00:28:56,618
and I would give you the opportunity

396
00:28:56,618 --> 00:28:57,818
to bring your team in

397
00:28:57,818 --> 00:28:58,938
and or send your team over

398
00:28:58,938 --> 00:29:01,838
so that we can have that conversation, that would be helpful.

399
00:29:02,438 --> 00:29:03,258
Look forward to doing that.

400
00:29:03,378 --> 00:29:05,158
And if you'll allow me to say one more sentence,

401
00:29:05,518 --> 00:29:07,898
none of those things really were the cost drivers.

402
00:29:08,258 --> 00:29:12,498
The real thing is what were the cost drivers that caused the spending to increase?

403
00:29:12,598 --> 00:29:14,938
And we have those too, but those are not the things that did that.

404
00:29:15,518 --> 00:29:16,958
We look forward to the conversation.

405
00:29:17,198 --> 00:29:18,958
Yeah, I don't think that conversation ever happened,

406
00:29:19,178 --> 00:29:20,578
though we'll follow up on that a little bit.

407
00:29:21,039 --> 00:29:21,938
So why did I play all that?

408
00:29:21,958 --> 00:29:23,318
Because we're off in the weeds a little bit.

409
00:29:23,518 --> 00:29:27,758
It's interesting, as faith seems to be eroding in the central bank,

410
00:29:27,758 --> 00:29:29,838
this last couple of weeks,

411
00:29:30,018 --> 00:29:32,278
well, really since this whole campaign has started,

412
00:29:32,918 --> 00:29:34,238
it's either had a positive

413
00:29:34,238 --> 00:29:37,238
or a non-negative effect on Bitcoin.

414
00:29:38,058 --> 00:29:38,698
And I think people,

415
00:29:38,938 --> 00:29:41,278
there is a bit of a buy anything but America trade

416
00:29:41,278 --> 00:29:42,638
for people outside the States.

417
00:29:42,838 --> 00:29:45,518
And then there's a bit of a buy hard money trade happening.

418
00:29:45,818 --> 00:29:48,158
I don't think it's any significant momentum at the moment.

419
00:29:48,818 --> 00:29:51,718
And I have really had to swallow

420
00:29:51,718 --> 00:29:54,058
over and over again,

421
00:29:54,058 --> 00:30:02,318
a lot of sanctimony and pomp and circumstance around the Fed. And I'm no fan of the Fed. I

422
00:30:02,318 --> 00:30:06,638
think Jay Powell's been decent. As far as federal chairs go, he's been a good one in my lifetime,

423
00:30:06,878 --> 00:30:11,758
but that's not a very high bar. I think he's blown it multiple, multiple times.

424
00:30:12,358 --> 00:30:18,138
I think he was wrong about transitory inflation. I think his policy failures,

425
00:30:18,218 --> 00:30:21,658
as well as the rest of the board, have destroyed purchasing power across the country.

426
00:30:22,578 --> 00:30:24,198
Inflation is now structural.

427
00:30:24,838 --> 00:30:28,958
We had trillions in stimulus and the Fed just kept rates super low.

428
00:30:29,858 --> 00:30:30,758
Real wages fell.

429
00:30:31,398 --> 00:30:32,058
Savings eroded.

430
00:30:32,838 --> 00:30:34,078
Retirement plans have taken a hit.

431
00:30:34,478 --> 00:30:35,818
Households have been paying the bills.

432
00:30:36,938 --> 00:30:40,598
And, you know, Powell acts like they've been making the most rational decisions.

433
00:30:41,418 --> 00:30:45,658
Now, it takes two to tango, but I'm not a big fan of the central bank.

434
00:30:45,978 --> 00:30:50,078
Not a fan of the concept of the central bank or I'm not a fan of their results either.

435
00:30:50,718 --> 00:30:54,738
And I do want to get into the rest of this, but I think as Bitcoiners, we should take a little reset.

436
00:30:54,898 --> 00:30:59,698
This is a clip from the Money Masters documentary series, which is like a three or four hour series.

437
00:30:59,758 --> 00:31:01,398
I'll link to it. It's on YouTube for free.

438
00:31:01,958 --> 00:31:04,618
But this bit tells us a little bit of the history.

439
00:31:04,838 --> 00:31:06,078
It's from 1996.

440
00:31:06,078 --> 00:31:13,438
Well, what we're about to show you is that there's nothing federal about the Federal Reserve and there are no reserves.

441
00:31:13,438 --> 00:31:26,638
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.

442
00:31:27,218 --> 00:31:37,438
The truth is that the Federal Reserve is a private bank owned by private stockholders and run purely for their private profit.

443
00:31:37,438 --> 00:31:49,278
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.

444
00:31:49,539 --> 00:31:50,378
We should know why.

445
00:31:51,178 --> 00:31:54,798
These people live such incredible lives of privilege.

446
00:31:55,118 --> 00:31:59,818
And they set the purchasing power for the entire world.

447
00:31:59,818 --> 00:32:06,458
And the central bankers will all work arms locked together and they've all come out in defense of J-PAL.

448
00:32:07,438 --> 00:32:17,758
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.

449
00:32:17,998 --> 00:32:18,798
We should know that.

450
00:32:18,798 --> 00:32:20,178
That's exactly correct.

451
00:32:20,458 --> 00:32:32,618
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.

452
00:32:33,558 --> 00:32:34,038
Oh, absolutely.

453
00:32:34,218 --> 00:32:36,738
The Federal Reserve is neither federal and has doubtful reserves.

454
00:32:36,738 --> 00:32:45,298
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.

455
00:32:46,198 --> 00:32:53,038
If there's still any doubt whether the Federal Reserve is a part of the U.S. government, check your local telephone book.

456
00:32:53,638 --> 00:32:57,638
In most cities, it is not listed in the blue government pages.

457
00:32:57,878 --> 00:32:58,178
Got him.

458
00:32:58,318 --> 00:33:04,898
It is listed in the business white pages right next to Federal Express, another private company.

459
00:33:05,678 --> 00:33:05,878
What?

460
00:33:05,878 --> 00:33:13,298
More directly, U.S. courts have ruled time and time again that the Fed is a private corporation.

461
00:33:14,158 --> 00:33:16,598
Why can't Congress do something about the Fed?

462
00:33:17,218 --> 00:33:24,258
Most members of Congress just don't understand the system, and the few who do are afraid to speak up.

463
00:33:24,778 --> 00:33:31,198
For example, initially a veteran congressman from Chicago asked us if he could be interviewed for this video.

464
00:33:31,198 --> 00:33:38,598
However, both times our camera crew arrived at his office to do the interview, this was all we were able to film.

465
00:33:38,738 --> 00:33:39,258
An empty seat.

466
00:33:39,338 --> 00:33:44,718
The congressman never appeared and eventually decided he no longer wanted to participate.

467
00:33:45,418 --> 00:33:49,098
But a few others in Congress have been bolder over the years.

468
00:33:49,558 --> 00:33:51,278
Here are three quick examples.

469
00:33:52,198 --> 00:33:57,278
In 1923, Representative Charles A. Lindbergh, a Republican from Minnesota

470
00:33:57,278 --> 00:34:02,258
and father of the famed aviator Lucky Lindy put it this way,

471
00:34:02,918 --> 00:34:07,618
the financial system has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board.

472
00:34:08,178 --> 00:34:13,658
That board administers the finance system by authority of a purely profiteering group.

473
00:34:13,658 --> 00:34:20,158
The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits

474
00:34:20,158 --> 00:34:22,638
from the use of other people's money.

475
00:34:22,638 --> 00:34:31,419
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.

476
00:34:32,078 --> 00:34:36,979
Louis T. McFadden, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in 1932,

477
00:34:37,979 --> 00:34:42,718
We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.

478
00:34:43,098 --> 00:34:45,098
I refer to the Federal Reserve Board.

479
00:34:45,298 --> 00:34:52,178
This evil institution has impoverished the people of the United States and has practically bankrupted our government.

480
00:34:52,638 --> 00:34:58,338
It has done this through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.

481
00:34:59,278 --> 00:35:03,258
Senator Barry Goldwater was a frequent critic of the Fed.

482
00:35:04,358 --> 00:35:09,439
Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international moneylenders.

483
00:35:10,058 --> 00:35:13,238
The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited.

484
00:35:13,238 --> 00:35:19,398
It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.

485
00:35:19,398 --> 00:35:47,698
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.

486
00:35:47,698 --> 00:35:55,158
Good evening. On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas,

487
00:35:55,738 --> 00:36:00,959
threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June.

488
00:36:02,338 --> 00:36:09,098
That testimony concerned, in part, a multi-year project to renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings.

489
00:36:10,499 --> 00:36:15,178
I have deep respect for the rule of law and for accountability in our democracy.

490
00:36:15,979 --> 00:36:19,698
No one, certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve, is above the law.

491
00:36:20,278 --> 00:36:26,778
But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure.

492
00:36:27,158 --> 00:36:33,398
This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings.

493
00:36:34,078 --> 00:36:36,238
It is not about Congress's oversight role.

494
00:36:36,758 --> 00:36:43,578
The Fed, through testimony and other public disclosures, made every effort to keep Congress informed about the renovation project.

495
00:36:44,398 --> 00:36:45,738
Those are pretexts.

496
00:36:46,459 --> 00:36:57,999
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.

497
00:36:58,678 --> 00:37:09,698
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.

498
00:37:09,698 --> 00:37:13,558
This is about fiscal dominance or central bank dominance.

499
00:37:13,578 --> 00:37:21,738
see this isn't because of trump this isn't because of j-pow they are both symptoms of our time

500
00:37:21,738 --> 00:37:28,298
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

501
00:37:28,298 --> 00:37:33,378
did obama call it it's like the wave of history i think is what he said presidents are just riding

502
00:37:33,378 --> 00:37:42,038
the wave of history and these this setup has been happening for 40 years it didn't happen this year

503
00:37:42,038 --> 00:37:48,258
It didn't happen in 2008. This has been happening for 40 years. This is where we've been going for a long time.

504
00:37:49,439 --> 00:37:54,598
I have served at the Federal Reserve under four administrations, Republicans and Democrats alike.

505
00:37:55,058 --> 00:38:04,198
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.

506
00:38:04,638 --> 00:38:06,818
You know, the funny thing is, is I don't really buy that.

507
00:38:06,818 --> 00:38:10,178
But unfortunately, the timing of his previous rate cuts did seem political.

508
00:38:10,718 --> 00:38:14,738
And you just look at the timing of it, and it's hard to argue that, especially when the

509
00:38:14,738 --> 00:38:17,858
rate cuts happened when inflation numbers were higher than they are right now.

510
00:38:18,158 --> 00:38:21,459
And then this dual mandate thing has always been absolutely ridiculous.

511
00:38:21,718 --> 00:38:24,658
Price stability, so everything has to have a 2% inflation indefinitely.

512
00:38:25,378 --> 00:38:26,738
What kind of sense does that make?

513
00:38:27,358 --> 00:38:29,358
And how do you have a dual core mandate?

514
00:38:29,598 --> 00:38:31,218
That's also impossible.

515
00:38:31,578 --> 00:38:32,919
And the two things are in conflict.

516
00:38:32,919 --> 00:38:37,638
In order to help or maintain the rates, you often have to hurt the employment numbers.

517
00:38:37,999 --> 00:38:41,459
And they're constantly, and he always says it, picking between two hard choices.

518
00:38:41,898 --> 00:38:43,678
Literally, the two things are in conflict.

519
00:38:44,378 --> 00:38:56,838
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.

520
00:38:57,398 --> 00:39:02,718
So the Fed has become inherently political because the actions they take have political ramifications.

521
00:39:03,838 --> 00:39:07,439
It's just it's you are responsible for the impact you have on the world.

522
00:39:08,078 --> 00:39:12,838
Now, what is kind of unusual about this is to have J-Pow just dump this out there like this.

523
00:39:13,118 --> 00:39:16,118
It typically would go down kind of quietly.

524
00:39:16,878 --> 00:39:18,598
Here's here's the details I have.

525
00:39:18,718 --> 00:39:23,419
This all really kicked off back in July, July 21st, 2025.

526
00:39:24,138 --> 00:39:32,818
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.

527
00:39:32,919 --> 00:39:39,439
That eventually made its way to the D.C. office where a recently appointed attorney general or U.S. attorney, I guess.

528
00:39:39,638 --> 00:39:45,198
Sorry, U.S. attorney Janine Perrero, which is a.k.a. Judge Janine from Fox News.

529
00:39:45,878 --> 00:39:51,058
Her office emailed the Federal Reserve staff in December asking for a meeting or a call.

530
00:39:51,419 --> 00:39:55,939
They then followed up 10 days later with no response by last Thursdays.

531
00:39:55,939 --> 00:39:59,698
They obtained a grand jury authorization to subpoena the information.

532
00:39:59,698 --> 00:40:08,019
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.

533
00:40:08,178 --> 00:40:12,538
No one else's. None of this would happen if they had just responded to our outreach.

534
00:40:12,838 --> 00:40:18,698
So we're playing a game here. We're playing a game where Judge Jeanine is going to pretend like this isn't political.

535
00:40:18,959 --> 00:40:23,019
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.

536
00:40:23,198 --> 00:40:27,858
We're going to pretend like this is just all because a referral came down to their office.

537
00:40:27,858 --> 00:40:34,019
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.

538
00:40:34,019 --> 00:40:36,979
And we're going to throw a whole bunch of sanctimony on top of it.

539
00:40:37,058 --> 00:40:41,198
And we're going to pretend like he's been just this absolute awesome public servant.

540
00:40:41,338 --> 00:40:43,058
I mean, it's just a whole bunch of that.

541
00:40:43,278 --> 00:40:47,979
But I did want to play just a moment of judging expanding on the timeline here.

542
00:40:48,118 --> 00:40:50,459
We started the investigation in November.

543
00:40:50,459 --> 00:40:57,278
On December 19th, we sent a letter, an email, and we said we'd like to talk to people at the Federal Reserve.

544
00:40:57,778 --> 00:41:00,658
Give us a call. No response for 10 days.

545
00:41:01,038 --> 00:41:06,439
December 29th, please give us a call. We'd like to talk to you. We'd like to speak to you.

546
00:41:06,758 --> 00:41:11,678
No response for 10 days. We want to meet them the first week of January. No response.

547
00:41:12,019 --> 00:41:16,338
So then we did what any normal prosecutor would do, and we issued legal process.

548
00:41:16,838 --> 00:41:19,538
I'm not saying that. He's saying that.

549
00:41:19,538 --> 00:41:37,658
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

550
00:41:37,778 --> 00:41:43,038
Now, normally what people do is they pick up the phone, they call you, they say, yeah, let's talk about it.

551
00:41:43,518 --> 00:41:47,718
Also, normally what people do is they don't time the emails and the phone calls right around the holidays.

552
00:41:48,178 --> 00:41:54,578
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.

553
00:41:54,578 --> 00:41:56,658
and then you're giving them like four or five days.

554
00:41:56,758 --> 00:41:57,498
These are bankers.

555
00:41:57,978 --> 00:42:01,538
They move frustratingly slow, and it's the holidays.

556
00:42:02,618 --> 00:42:03,858
Should they have responded?

557
00:42:04,318 --> 00:42:04,678
Yes.

558
00:42:05,598 --> 00:42:08,518
Should Janine expected them to be a little slow?

559
00:42:09,038 --> 00:42:09,418
Yes.

560
00:42:09,778 --> 00:42:11,898
So if we're going to play like, well, all you had to do,

561
00:42:12,238 --> 00:42:13,558
well, yeah, all you had to do was, you know,

562
00:42:13,578 --> 00:42:14,638
not hit them up on the holidays.

563
00:42:14,858 --> 00:42:16,218
You could play that game both ways.

564
00:42:16,418 --> 00:42:17,938
Couldn't be further from the truth.

565
00:42:18,038 --> 00:42:20,778
Now, normally what people do is they pick up the phone,

566
00:42:20,878 --> 00:42:23,318
they call you, they say, yeah, let's talk about it.

567
00:42:23,318 --> 00:42:27,878
But if they had responded, I wouldn't be sitting here right now.

568
00:42:27,878 --> 00:42:49,458
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.

569
00:42:49,658 --> 00:42:51,398
That's not how we work.

570
00:42:51,758 --> 00:42:53,578
No one is above the law.

571
00:42:53,718 --> 00:42:57,158
Oh, I love it when they keep turning that one back at each other.

572
00:42:57,258 --> 00:42:58,838
That's fun.

573
00:42:59,598 --> 00:43:00,158
That's fun.

574
00:43:00,678 --> 00:43:01,518
Now, here's the thing.

575
00:43:02,158 --> 00:43:02,838
Here's the thing.

576
00:43:03,618 --> 00:43:10,718
I can buy that this is a bit of a standard process that the Federal Reserve sort of went to Lebanon.

577
00:43:10,998 --> 00:43:14,738
I can buy that because, you know, they're high on their own supply.

578
00:43:15,118 --> 00:43:21,038
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.

579
00:43:21,038 --> 00:43:25,158
that they would escalate to subpoenaing the information, their lawyers, that that makes

580
00:43:25,158 --> 00:43:31,538
sense to a degree. And I'm no fan of the central bank, but I have to say this seems a little sus.

581
00:43:31,638 --> 00:43:35,958
She protests a little too much that they're not trying to interfere with the independence of the

582
00:43:35,958 --> 00:43:40,378
Fed. Yeah, they need to. They need to because they need to take control of the rates. They need

583
00:43:40,378 --> 00:43:45,058
to have more pressure on them because they got a print baby print and they got $38 trillion in debt.

584
00:43:45,058 --> 00:43:47,578
the way it is.

585
00:43:47,778 --> 00:43:49,018
Now, the thing is,

586
00:43:49,038 --> 00:43:50,418
is this is going to be a hard fight.

587
00:43:50,578 --> 00:43:55,778
Not only will every single establishment politician

588
00:43:55,778 --> 00:43:57,858
and every single central banker

589
00:43:57,858 --> 00:43:59,838
and all of the media actors

590
00:43:59,838 --> 00:44:01,318
come out in defense of J-Pow,

591
00:44:01,378 --> 00:44:04,278
so it'll be a chorus of defense,

592
00:44:04,738 --> 00:44:07,858
but you're dealing with the federal chair

593
00:44:07,858 --> 00:44:11,218
of the biggest central bank, right?

594
00:44:11,218 --> 00:44:13,398
They are the definition of people

595
00:44:13,398 --> 00:44:16,298
who dot their I's and cross their T's.

596
00:44:16,298 --> 00:44:21,418
And we're already starting to see that they likely have their asses covered in this situation.

597
00:44:21,738 --> 00:44:26,538
You're getting a new development in the probe of the Fed chair, Jay Powell,

598
00:44:26,738 --> 00:44:29,858
and a potentially very important one.

599
00:44:30,258 --> 00:44:32,977
Emily Wilkins is on the Hill, as you see, with these details.

600
00:44:33,178 --> 00:44:33,218
Em?

601
00:44:34,118 --> 00:44:34,618
Hey, Scott.

602
00:44:34,698 --> 00:44:38,598
Well, as you know, this entire investigation is about what Jay Powell did

603
00:44:38,598 --> 00:44:42,158
or did not tell Congress during his testimony last year.

604
00:44:42,158 --> 00:44:58,138
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.

605
00:44:58,498 --> 00:45:09,858
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.

606
00:45:09,858 --> 00:45:34,318
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.

607
00:45:34,318 --> 00:45:53,718
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.

608
00:45:53,718 --> 00:45:57,418
All right, folks.

609
00:45:57,858 --> 00:45:58,977
Wow, that was abrupt.

610
00:45:59,158 --> 00:46:02,238
Next up, why make a martyr out of Jay Powell?

611
00:46:02,378 --> 00:46:03,938
I guess that's the subject of the riff.

612
00:46:04,558 --> 00:46:05,358
So don't martyr him.

613
00:46:05,938 --> 00:46:09,098
He was a terrible Fed chair, but he's not a criminal.

614
00:46:09,778 --> 00:46:10,977
All right, over his tenure,

615
00:46:11,518 --> 00:46:15,078
he consistently missed the Fed's inflation targets

616
00:46:15,078 --> 00:46:17,498
with the worst price hikes in 40 years.

617
00:46:18,258 --> 00:46:20,977
He was the most political Fed chair in memory,

618
00:46:20,977 --> 00:46:32,138
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.

619
00:46:32,418 --> 00:46:33,358
Totally political.

620
00:46:34,838 --> 00:46:35,398
Totally.

621
00:46:35,838 --> 00:46:41,378
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.

622
00:46:41,438 --> 00:46:42,898
I was like, oh, crap.

623
00:46:43,018 --> 00:46:46,178
Yeah, that's – that doesn't look good.

624
00:46:46,258 --> 00:46:47,078
That doesn't look good.

625
00:46:47,818 --> 00:46:49,938
So here's my question to you, y'all.

626
00:46:50,977 --> 00:47:00,418
Do you think that we are going to see the Trump administration back off on this attempt to take out J-PAL legally?

627
00:47:01,038 --> 00:47:06,977
And secondarily to that, if they proceed, what do you think the impact will be on Bitcoin?

628
00:47:07,818 --> 00:47:10,318
Sometimes it doesn't respond positively to this kind of volatility.

629
00:47:10,918 --> 00:47:13,198
I'm not 100 percent sure they will back off.

630
00:47:13,198 --> 00:47:39,998
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.

631
00:47:39,998 --> 00:47:47,858
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.

632
00:47:47,977 --> 00:47:51,438
I'm not sure. So I don't know. Can they back off? Can they even back off?

633
00:47:51,538 --> 00:47:53,758
Or are the stakes too high for them as a party?

634
00:47:54,418 --> 00:47:57,698
Let me know what you think and let me know how you think it's going to impact Bitcoin.

635
00:47:57,858 --> 00:48:01,118
So far, so far, not so bad.

636
00:48:01,378 --> 00:48:05,578
We've had a little bit of a pump today. It's sort of begun to cool off as the day has gone on.

637
00:48:05,578 --> 00:48:10,558
but we're still sitting at 97,000 as I record, at least right now, which feels pretty good.

638
00:48:29,238 --> 00:48:32,938
Well, did you know you can support the show while you're protecting your purchasing power?

639
00:48:32,938 --> 00:48:42,477
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.

640
00:48:42,658 --> 00:48:43,578
You host the wallet.

641
00:48:44,018 --> 00:48:54,798
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.

642
00:48:55,018 --> 00:48:56,498
You can even log in with the Lightning Network.

643
00:48:56,998 --> 00:49:01,838
If it's time to just passively stack sats as you pay your bills and go about your day, check out the Fold card.

644
00:49:01,838 --> 00:49:03,078
It's an audience favorite.

645
00:49:03,078 --> 00:49:03,958
I use it every day.

646
00:49:03,958 --> 00:49:08,618
And if it's time to get access to your Bitcoin value without selling it, like salt lending,

647
00:49:08,618 --> 00:49:14,338
they have some nice features there and they have some of the best rates, competitive rates,

648
00:49:14,338 --> 00:49:18,938
some of the best availability, and they have some nice protection programs if the Bitcoin

649
00:49:18,938 --> 00:49:19,678
price were to drop.

650
00:49:19,678 --> 00:49:21,158
Those links are in the show notes.

651
00:49:21,158 --> 00:49:23,578
Great way to support the show just by doing what you do.

652
00:49:23,578 --> 00:49:25,018
I appreciate it very much.

653
00:49:31,838 --> 00:49:47,398
And now, as the French say, it is time for le boost.

654
00:49:49,878 --> 00:49:53,998
It is, and we will start with our baller booster this week,

655
00:49:54,118 --> 00:49:56,198
who is Derivation Dingus.

656
00:49:56,258 --> 00:49:56,718
He's back.

657
00:49:56,718 --> 00:49:58,098
Hey, rich lobster.

658
00:49:58,098 --> 00:50:06,598
And he's coming in with 218,526 sats.

659
00:50:20,698 --> 00:50:22,358
All right, Derivation Dingus writes,

660
00:50:22,418 --> 00:50:25,178
Hey, Chris, I had some trouble sending my first message,

661
00:50:25,298 --> 00:50:26,338
but I haven't boosted in a while,

662
00:50:26,338 --> 00:50:31,378
So Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Bitcoin Birthday from the Dingus family.

663
00:50:31,918 --> 00:50:33,957
This weekend, Bitcoin is my favorite Bitcoin podcast.

664
00:50:34,298 --> 00:50:35,938
I love the low emotion, high signal vibe.

665
00:50:36,358 --> 00:50:37,538
Thanks for what you do.

666
00:50:38,018 --> 00:50:38,878
Oh, thank you, sir.

667
00:50:39,198 --> 00:50:39,998
He says, here's my setup.

668
00:50:40,078 --> 00:50:43,538
I'm still rocking the same Nix Bitcoin node in a NixOS container.

669
00:50:43,698 --> 00:50:47,457
I use Ride the Lightning on a PC or Zeus on a mobile to transact.

670
00:50:47,738 --> 00:50:48,977
Killer setup.

671
00:50:49,138 --> 00:50:49,858
Plus one to that.

672
00:50:49,858 --> 00:50:56,438
But I think people have forgotten what a great node management tool Zeus can be.

673
00:50:56,898 --> 00:51:00,638
He says, I then DCA with Swan and River different days each week.

674
00:51:00,758 --> 00:51:03,477
I'm curious to hear your thoughts on daily versus weekly buy.

675
00:51:04,198 --> 00:51:05,298
I prefer daily.

676
00:51:05,718 --> 00:51:06,457
I don't know why.

677
00:51:07,078 --> 00:51:07,858
I don't know why.

678
00:51:07,938 --> 00:51:11,838
I feel like I have more opportunities to feel like I'm getting a little dip, right?

679
00:51:11,838 --> 00:51:16,498
Where if I'm doing a one buy once a week, you know, then maybe I missed it.

680
00:51:16,598 --> 00:51:19,578
But when it comes to the actual amount of transactions, I prefer weekly.

681
00:51:19,578 --> 00:51:21,198
So I don't think there's a wrong way to do it.

682
00:51:23,178 --> 00:51:26,578
Oh, he sent me a second note because the first one didn't come all the way through to all the nodes.

683
00:51:27,038 --> 00:51:27,998
I'll answer a question as well.

684
00:51:28,038 --> 00:51:34,918
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.

685
00:51:34,998 --> 00:51:35,957
Oh, nice score.

686
00:51:36,838 --> 00:51:37,418
Oh, nice.

687
00:51:37,518 --> 00:51:40,778
I think my recommendation to a beginner would be the Blockstream devices.

688
00:51:41,198 --> 00:51:45,258
But if they're pretty tech savvy and are serious about stacking, I'd probably recommend the cold card.

689
00:51:45,858 --> 00:51:47,138
I think I like that.

690
00:51:47,338 --> 00:51:48,118
I like that a lot.

691
00:51:48,118 --> 00:51:53,498
But I think the Blockstream Jade just had a security update.

692
00:51:53,578 --> 00:51:57,358
So everybody, if you haven't done that recently, you should probably plug it in and get it updated.

693
00:51:57,518 --> 00:52:02,158
I don't love it when that thing happens, but it's a natural.

694
00:52:02,418 --> 00:52:03,538
It happens. It's software.

695
00:52:04,098 --> 00:52:06,418
Great setup. Really good to hear from you, Derivation.

696
00:52:06,538 --> 00:52:09,558
Thank you very much, and happy holidays to the Dingus household.

697
00:52:09,957 --> 00:52:12,698
Thank you very much for being our baller booster.

698
00:52:12,698 --> 00:52:18,158
Hey, there he is.

699
00:52:18,218 --> 00:52:20,518
SatSquatch is back with 96,000

700
00:52:20,518 --> 00:52:21,918
sats. I hoard that

701
00:52:21,918 --> 00:52:23,438
which you all kind covered.

702
00:52:24,098 --> 00:52:26,078
He's a good guy. He's a real good guy.

703
00:52:26,238 --> 00:52:27,598
No, he's a great guy. Yeah, he's a great guy.

704
00:52:28,058 --> 00:52:30,058
He says, my Albie hub was having some troubles with the

705
00:52:30,058 --> 00:52:31,898
boost. What's going on, you guys?

706
00:52:32,457 --> 00:52:34,058
Hmm. But I, oh, I did

707
00:52:34,058 --> 00:52:36,058
have to open up some channels earlier

708
00:52:36,058 --> 00:52:37,838
in the week because a couple channels closed.

709
00:52:38,538 --> 00:52:39,818
That might have been what happened, SatSquatch.

710
00:52:39,898 --> 00:52:41,878
He says, I hope this works and wishing you the best in

711
00:52:41,878 --> 00:52:47,218
2026. I've got off knots and I've gone back to core after listening to you and reading Jameson

712
00:52:47,218 --> 00:52:53,598
Lopp's write-up on Luke. Yeah, I'm not super loving going back to core myself. I'm sticking

713
00:52:53,598 --> 00:52:59,457
right now with version 29. I'm still waiting to see just, I'd love to see more competition

714
00:52:59,457 --> 00:53:04,898
in the node software space. And I think maybe people that are maybe new to nodes think that

715
00:53:04,898 --> 00:53:08,738
they need to upgrade right away. And you really don't. Bitcoin's pretty great about that,

716
00:53:08,738 --> 00:53:10,298
unless there's a significant security issue,

717
00:53:10,457 --> 00:53:12,518
but usually the last couple of major releases

718
00:53:12,518 --> 00:53:14,098
get those security fixes backported.

719
00:53:14,198 --> 00:53:15,518
And there have been some updates recently.

720
00:53:16,218 --> 00:53:17,198
Nice to hear from you, Satsquatch.

721
00:53:17,457 --> 00:53:18,218
Thanks for the boost.

722
00:53:19,138 --> 00:53:25,878
Chuck Runamuck is here with 77,777 sats.

723
00:53:31,258 --> 00:53:32,338
Let's hear it, good buddy.

724
00:53:32,898 --> 00:53:33,378
Hello, Chris.

725
00:53:33,438 --> 00:53:36,558
I've been a JB and last fan since maybe 2008.

726
00:53:36,957 --> 00:53:37,258
Oh!

727
00:53:38,738 --> 00:53:41,258
Those were the days.

728
00:53:41,698 --> 00:53:44,398
XBMC, trying to hack Linux on random hardware that it wasn't meant for,

729
00:53:44,778 --> 00:53:45,938
and the Plan B podcast.

730
00:53:46,398 --> 00:53:49,018
Proud to say my household is 100% Linux

731
00:53:49,018 --> 00:53:52,238
and has been for more than a decade.

732
00:53:52,457 --> 00:53:55,398
I finally became Boost Enabled so I can give back for all your great work.

733
00:53:55,477 --> 00:53:56,598
Oh, thank you for doing that.

734
00:53:57,558 --> 00:53:58,418
You get an eagle.

735
00:53:58,538 --> 00:53:59,638
Thank you very much for doing that.

736
00:54:00,278 --> 00:54:01,838
That feels...

737
00:54:01,838 --> 00:54:02,638
Do a little dance.

738
00:54:02,698 --> 00:54:03,258
Do a little dance.

739
00:54:03,258 --> 00:54:04,618
It says,

740
00:54:04,698 --> 00:54:06,957
I recently discovered the origins of one of your soundbites,

741
00:54:06,957 --> 00:54:09,518
and I binged all 12 seasons of Letterkenny.

742
00:54:09,858 --> 00:54:11,878
It was a long walk, but I'm retired now,

743
00:54:11,938 --> 00:54:12,718
so I have some free time.

744
00:54:13,098 --> 00:54:14,198
Keep up the good work.

745
00:54:14,338 --> 00:54:15,977
Well, very well done.

746
00:54:16,138 --> 00:54:17,878
Why you got to put numbers and letters together?

747
00:54:18,178 --> 00:54:19,538
Why can't you just go f*** yourself?

748
00:54:21,238 --> 00:54:21,798
Letterkenny's fun.

749
00:54:21,858 --> 00:54:24,578
It takes a particular type, but it's a fun show.

750
00:54:24,678 --> 00:54:26,778
And then also, if you're looking for a follow-up,

751
00:54:27,278 --> 00:54:28,618
Shorzy, I think, is also really great

752
00:54:28,618 --> 00:54:29,758
and still being actively made.

753
00:54:29,977 --> 00:54:31,138
Their new season just came out

754
00:54:31,138 --> 00:54:33,318
and it's a spinoff of Letterkenny.

755
00:54:33,698 --> 00:54:34,498
And it's done well.

756
00:54:34,957 --> 00:54:36,098
Thank you, Chuck Ronamuck.

757
00:54:36,098 --> 00:54:37,598
I hope to hear from you again in the future.

758
00:54:37,798 --> 00:54:38,878
Very nice to hear from you.

759
00:54:39,457 --> 00:54:40,718
That boost made my day.

760
00:54:41,218 --> 00:54:44,438
Hey, there's Bobby Pin with 50,000 sats.

761
00:54:44,738 --> 00:54:46,698
Ten gold blooms out of a possible ten gold blooms.

762
00:54:46,818 --> 00:54:47,758
That's pretty nice, man.

763
00:54:47,838 --> 00:54:48,658
Thank you very much.

764
00:54:53,438 --> 00:54:56,638
He says hosted mining is big now.

765
00:54:56,798 --> 00:55:02,938
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.

766
00:55:02,938 --> 00:55:04,457
The CANAN, or however you say that.

767
00:55:04,457 --> 00:55:06,778
It's got 90 terahash.

768
00:55:06,778 --> 00:55:09,678
It looks just like a desktop and it runs on 120 volts.

769
00:55:09,678 --> 00:55:11,977
So no modifications necessary.

770
00:55:11,977 --> 00:55:14,618
I co-host a weekly space on X about mining.

771
00:55:14,618 --> 00:55:17,018
I can reach out to some of the people there that I've met.

772
00:55:17,018 --> 00:55:19,178
Maybe get you in on the podcast.

773
00:55:19,178 --> 00:55:20,438
Oh, and just to say,

774
00:55:20,477 --> 00:55:21,357
And I'll reach out.

775
00:55:21,457 --> 00:55:23,497
If I sent you a DM on X last year, it has my username.

776
00:55:23,557 --> 00:55:23,897
You did?

777
00:55:24,317 --> 00:55:29,297
I think when X switched out their DM system, something went haywire for me.

778
00:55:29,577 --> 00:55:31,837
I am very interested in that bobby pin.

779
00:55:31,837 --> 00:55:46,177
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.

780
00:55:46,317 --> 00:55:50,017
You know, that's my – I guess there's some new tax law that passed.

781
00:55:50,017 --> 00:55:53,397
where you can appreciate 100% of the cost of the miner in the first year.

782
00:55:53,857 --> 00:55:56,397
And so people are taking advantage of that and then hosting them a data center.

783
00:55:56,497 --> 00:56:00,397
So they're essentially getting a nice tax write-off for the cost of the miner.

784
00:56:00,717 --> 00:56:02,157
Of course, you have to be able to front that cash.

785
00:56:02,657 --> 00:56:04,517
And then they get to run it in somebody else's data center.

786
00:56:04,837 --> 00:56:06,697
And I don't know if that's what people are doing that they like.

787
00:56:06,777 --> 00:56:09,357
I don't know if that's a scam, if that's a bad idea,

788
00:56:09,357 --> 00:56:14,157
because in previous cycles, that's how people lost their Bitcoin mining.

789
00:56:14,557 --> 00:56:18,177
They would end up in different countries that had very bad laws.

790
00:56:18,177 --> 00:56:20,237
and when they decided no more Bitcoin mining,

791
00:56:20,297 --> 00:56:21,157
they would just seize the equipment.

792
00:56:21,577 --> 00:56:23,037
And that has been a thing that's happened historically.

793
00:56:23,537 --> 00:56:24,917
So I'd love your insights on that, Bobby Penn.

794
00:56:24,957 --> 00:56:26,717
And yes, I would love to be connected with more folks

795
00:56:26,717 --> 00:56:28,677
in the mining industry.

796
00:56:28,797 --> 00:56:30,497
Also, I'd just like to listen to your podcast too

797
00:56:30,497 --> 00:56:32,497
if you want to boost me or DM me a link.

798
00:56:32,957 --> 00:56:34,177
And thank you very much for the boost.

799
00:56:34,417 --> 00:56:35,037
Appreciate it.

800
00:56:35,737 --> 00:56:38,077
MDS is here with 21,000 sats.

801
00:56:38,237 --> 00:56:39,957
Put some macaroni and cheese on there too.

802
00:56:40,197 --> 00:56:41,117
That's our Bitcoin boost.

803
00:56:41,157 --> 00:56:43,477
We need a good sound effect for the Bitcoin boost.

804
00:56:44,037 --> 00:56:44,537
You know what I mean?

805
00:56:45,117 --> 00:56:46,717
There's coffee in that nebula.

806
00:56:46,717 --> 00:56:52,917
Welcome back. As a COVID-era Bitcoin maxi, this four-year cycle is all I've ever known.

807
00:56:53,177 --> 00:56:57,597
And it's clear to me that the having has had negligible impact on price over that time.

808
00:56:57,997 --> 00:57:05,457
The 22 pump and dump was a COVID-fueled macro hysteria and fraud, while the ongoing pump is clearly adoption.

809
00:57:05,997 --> 00:57:10,597
Adoption is the real metric of success, and the USD price has become a messy signal for that.

810
00:57:11,077 --> 00:57:12,197
That's a good point.

811
00:57:12,877 --> 00:57:16,937
Yeah, because there is a lot of other inputs into that USD price

812
00:57:16,937 --> 00:57:20,357
that doesn't necessarily reflect the incredible year of adoption that we have seen.

813
00:57:20,937 --> 00:57:23,797
I'll have some numbers in the updates coming up later in the show,

814
00:57:23,857 --> 00:57:24,697
so stay tuned for that.

815
00:57:25,297 --> 00:57:28,817
He says, I bet it was satisfying to experience that clockwork shock supply

816
00:57:28,817 --> 00:57:30,717
on the price for you old timers.

817
00:57:30,717 --> 00:57:33,417
Maybe it'll happen again for the USD price for us.

818
00:57:34,157 --> 00:57:37,377
Yes, I don't think it's done.

819
00:57:37,817 --> 00:57:39,457
I think we have a long ways to go.

820
00:57:39,457 --> 00:57:41,197
It takes about four or five years.

821
00:57:41,657 --> 00:57:44,137
And then you look back and you go, what happened?

822
00:57:44,197 --> 00:57:45,017
That's amazing.

823
00:57:45,817 --> 00:57:46,597
Thank you for the boost.

824
00:57:46,757 --> 00:57:47,697
Nice to hear from you, MDS.

825
00:57:48,157 --> 00:57:48,777
Appreciate you.

826
00:57:49,517 --> 00:57:52,937
Next boost is from, did I say MDS?

827
00:57:53,077 --> 00:57:53,617
I meant Bobby Pin.

828
00:57:53,757 --> 00:57:54,577
Sorry about that, Bobby Pin.

829
00:57:54,657 --> 00:57:55,237
Thank you, Bobby Pin.

830
00:57:55,297 --> 00:57:57,077
Our next boost is from MDS.

831
00:57:57,437 --> 00:57:59,437
Like I got my, you know, I got my things mixed up.

832
00:57:59,457 --> 00:57:59,937
What can I say?

833
00:58:00,337 --> 00:58:01,737
And it's 21,000 sets.

834
00:58:02,117 --> 00:58:02,897
Oh, that's why.

835
00:58:02,957 --> 00:58:03,957
Because the numbers are similar.

836
00:58:04,117 --> 00:58:05,317
Well, you know, math is hard.

837
00:58:05,437 --> 00:58:06,437
Well, I'll be dipped.

838
00:58:06,737 --> 00:58:07,197
That's hard.

839
00:58:07,417 --> 00:58:07,797
That's hard.

840
00:58:07,797 --> 00:58:08,137
I don't know.

841
00:58:08,537 --> 00:58:08,937
I don't know.

842
00:58:08,937 --> 00:58:11,277
I got all the, oh, and OB also sent an NSK.

843
00:58:11,377 --> 00:58:12,037
Oh my gosh.

844
00:58:12,297 --> 00:58:13,457
No wonder it got me all messed up.

845
00:58:13,517 --> 00:58:14,057
There's multiple, you guys.

846
00:58:14,277 --> 00:58:15,117
All right, that's it.

847
00:58:15,177 --> 00:58:17,957
I got to get an official Bitcoin boost sound effect.

848
00:58:18,637 --> 00:58:19,597
Oh, I, ha.

849
00:58:19,937 --> 00:58:21,877
Four score and seven boosts ago.

850
00:58:21,877 --> 00:58:23,177
Not good enough, not good enough.

851
00:58:23,197 --> 00:58:25,257
Keep the change, you filthy animal.

852
00:58:25,457 --> 00:58:28,277
That could be, but it doesn't invoke Bitcoin in my mind.

853
00:58:30,097 --> 00:58:30,997
That's all I don't know.

854
00:58:31,337 --> 00:58:33,157
None of these really invoke Bitcoin to me.

855
00:58:33,877 --> 00:58:34,937
Hmm, but thank you.

856
00:58:35,277 --> 00:58:37,217
OB comes in with 21,000 sat.

857
00:58:37,217 --> 00:58:38,437
Grab a bidaxe, Chris.

858
00:58:38,437 --> 00:58:40,377
It's a cool little art piece for the desk.

859
00:58:40,517 --> 00:58:41,217
He's a good guy.

860
00:58:41,437 --> 00:58:42,397
He's a real good guy.

861
00:58:42,477 --> 00:58:43,037
Thank you for that.

862
00:58:43,417 --> 00:58:44,217
Thank you for that.

863
00:58:44,437 --> 00:58:45,617
All right, I've got to figure it out now.

864
00:58:45,697 --> 00:58:48,397
I don't understand what the heck is going on here.

865
00:58:48,437 --> 00:58:49,017
No, I really do.

866
00:58:49,057 --> 00:58:49,797
I've got to figure it out.

867
00:58:50,157 --> 00:58:50,957
Thank you very much.

868
00:58:51,077 --> 00:58:51,677
Appreciate that, OB.

869
00:58:52,637 --> 00:58:54,837
SK88 came in with 21,000 cents.

870
00:58:54,937 --> 00:58:55,857
I like you.

871
00:58:56,237 --> 00:58:57,277
You're a hot ticket.

872
00:58:58,037 --> 00:58:59,737
I want a suggestion for that sound effect.

873
00:59:00,237 --> 00:59:01,957
SK says, been listening for a long time.

874
00:59:02,017 --> 00:59:03,897
Definitely one of the best Bitcoin podcasts out there.

875
00:59:04,217 --> 00:59:06,877
I tried boosting several times, but Fountain posted an error message.

876
00:59:06,877 --> 00:59:07,497
See, when did you?

877
00:59:07,677 --> 00:59:08,477
Yeah, earlier in the week.

878
00:59:11,917 --> 00:59:13,597
Yeah, yeah.

879
00:59:14,177 --> 00:59:17,137
I think my channels were closed on Wednesday or Thursday of last week,

880
00:59:17,157 --> 00:59:17,917
right after the show.

881
00:59:18,037 --> 00:59:19,257
So I think it bit some of you guys.

882
00:59:19,917 --> 00:59:21,217
So thanks for still trying to get in there.

883
00:59:21,237 --> 00:59:22,817
I really appreciate you sticking with that.

884
00:59:22,897 --> 00:59:23,937
You know, Lightning Network, right?

885
00:59:24,377 --> 00:59:25,117
It's kind of my bad.

886
00:59:25,537 --> 00:59:27,057
I should have some sort of alerting on.

887
00:59:27,137 --> 00:59:29,157
I don't know if you can do that for AlbiHub, but I should do that.

888
00:59:29,557 --> 00:59:31,397
To answer this week's question about hardware wallets,

889
00:59:31,437 --> 00:59:33,497
I recommend Passport by Foundation.

890
00:59:33,617 --> 00:59:35,157
It's open source, air-gapped,

891
00:59:35,157 --> 00:59:37,757
and has an optional view-only app for the iPhone or Android.

892
00:59:38,117 --> 00:59:40,437
And it has a customer-replaceable battery

893
00:59:40,437 --> 00:59:41,377
should you ever need it.

894
00:59:41,697 --> 00:59:42,837
It's extremely easy to use

895
00:59:42,837 --> 00:59:44,937
and owned by another trusted Freedom Tech podcaster,

896
00:59:45,437 --> 00:59:46,417
Young Goverable Misfits.

897
00:59:47,037 --> 00:59:48,857
Okay, here's my question about that, SK.

898
00:59:49,157 --> 00:59:51,617
Could you leave it in your desk with the battery out?

899
00:59:51,737 --> 00:59:53,977
And would it persistently store everything?

900
00:59:54,077 --> 00:59:56,177
I would assume yes, but I'd just be curious.

901
00:59:56,297 --> 00:59:57,537
I love that it's replaceable

902
00:59:57,537 --> 00:59:59,437
because if you're going to have that sit in a drawer

903
00:59:59,437 --> 01:00:01,397
for five years, that battery could expand.

904
01:00:01,497 --> 01:00:02,637
So if you could remove that

905
01:00:02,637 --> 01:00:04,057
and just pop it in when you needed it,

906
01:00:04,057 --> 01:00:05,437
I like that a lot.

907
01:00:05,537 --> 01:00:07,017
Obviously, I like that it's open source, too.

908
01:00:07,077 --> 01:00:07,837
That's pretty great.

909
01:00:08,157 --> 01:00:10,797
But the other thing you said in there that really hit me was view apps.

910
01:00:10,977 --> 01:00:13,057
View-only apps, just to kind of see where things are at,

911
01:00:13,117 --> 01:00:14,237
to see if there's been any transactions.

912
01:00:14,737 --> 01:00:17,617
I think those are underrated, and I really appreciate those.

913
01:00:17,637 --> 01:00:18,857
And there's ways to do that with other wallets,

914
01:00:18,877 --> 01:00:20,037
but it's nice to have that built in.

915
01:00:20,697 --> 01:00:21,177
Thanks, SK.

916
01:00:21,917 --> 01:00:22,397
Good boost.

917
01:00:22,937 --> 01:00:24,177
Thor's here with 3,000 sats.

918
01:00:24,297 --> 01:00:25,637
The traders love the vol.

919
01:00:25,757 --> 01:00:27,077
Ah, he wants some Wes Payne.

920
01:00:27,417 --> 01:00:28,997
Bring the pain, he says.

921
01:00:29,517 --> 01:00:30,417
Heck, yeah.

922
01:00:31,057 --> 01:00:31,517
You know what?

923
01:00:31,637 --> 01:00:32,197
Oh, I'm in.

924
01:00:32,197 --> 01:00:35,537
Well, that's not Wes, but Brent can go sign for Wes on that one.

925
01:00:36,177 --> 01:00:36,597
Thank you, Thor.

926
01:00:36,977 --> 01:00:37,857
I'll pass that along.

927
01:00:38,357 --> 01:00:39,117
I think it would be good.

928
01:00:39,537 --> 01:00:40,897
Ace Ackerman's here with a Rodex.

929
01:00:42,097 --> 01:00:44,397
Ace says, I recently switched from Ledger devices.

930
01:00:44,557 --> 01:00:47,317
I bought before the customer formation breach to a cold card Mark IV.

931
01:00:47,997 --> 01:00:49,637
I've used and liked the Jade as well.

932
01:00:49,937 --> 01:00:52,637
So why not another new Jade, Ace?

933
01:00:52,697 --> 01:00:55,857
You know, they have an update with a better camera and a nicer screen.

934
01:00:57,177 --> 01:01:00,997
I also have Jade, but think I'm going to move to a cold card.

935
01:01:00,997 --> 01:01:03,777
just I really don't want to have any

936
01:01:03,777 --> 01:01:05,657
have to have any connection to Blockstream

937
01:01:05,657 --> 01:01:07,597
for like the virtual element and stuff like that

938
01:01:07,597 --> 01:01:09,817
that's my reason but I'd be curious to hear yours

939
01:01:09,817 --> 01:01:11,437
and thank you very much for the row of ducks

940
01:01:11,437 --> 01:01:13,977
hey hello Gene Bean

941
01:01:13,977 --> 01:01:14,917
Gene Bean's here with

942
01:01:14,917 --> 01:01:17,517
3781 sats

943
01:01:17,517 --> 01:01:19,717
I use the

944
01:01:19,717 --> 01:01:21,797
Jade Plus at the moment and had to get it replaced recently

945
01:01:21,797 --> 01:01:23,477
check out how that went and I did

946
01:01:23,477 --> 01:01:24,937
and it seems like it went really well

947
01:01:24,937 --> 01:01:27,177
I may switch to something else like the BitBox

948
01:01:27,177 --> 01:01:28,837
to Nova but I haven't decided

949
01:01:28,837 --> 01:01:30,017
I do like Bitbox.

950
01:01:30,717 --> 01:01:38,057
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.

951
01:01:38,337 --> 01:01:43,337
I kind of like and simultaneously dislike their simplicity and the lack of a battery.

952
01:01:43,857 --> 01:01:49,277
Yeah, and there is also something, you know, Gene, to a multi-sig using different wallet vendors.

953
01:01:50,057 --> 01:01:54,817
You know, it adds a layer of complexity, obviously, so there's a downside.

954
01:01:54,817 --> 01:01:58,157
But the upside is you're sort of spreading out the risk.

955
01:01:58,457 --> 01:02:06,077
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.

956
01:02:06,397 --> 01:02:07,737
So there is some nicety to that.

957
01:02:07,837 --> 01:02:11,377
And it's a decent excuse to play with multiple wallets.

958
01:02:11,557 --> 01:02:12,437
You just got to pick good ones.

959
01:02:13,157 --> 01:02:13,837
Nice to hear from you, Gene.

960
01:02:14,057 --> 01:02:16,617
Thanks for the boost and the boot.

961
01:02:19,097 --> 01:02:22,757
Blazer4151 is here with 4,321 sats.

962
01:02:23,297 --> 01:02:24,037
This is the way.

963
01:02:24,457 --> 01:02:25,037
Glad you're back.

964
01:02:25,217 --> 01:02:25,917
Well, thank you, Blazer.

965
01:02:26,017 --> 01:02:27,097
Glad to have you boost me.

966
01:02:27,257 --> 01:02:27,917
Appreciate that.

967
01:02:28,137 --> 01:02:32,517
Hey, producer Jeff's here with the Spaceballs Boost, 12,345 sats.

968
01:02:32,517 --> 01:02:36,817
So the culmination is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

969
01:02:36,937 --> 01:02:37,877
Well, here's today's anecdote.

970
01:02:38,037 --> 01:02:40,497
I'm sitting in front of my bank for the third time this week

971
01:02:40,497 --> 01:02:42,717
and attempt to get some of my own cash out.

972
01:02:43,257 --> 01:02:47,577
Not having control over your own store value is frustrating at any amount.

973
01:02:48,057 --> 01:02:50,617
Times like this make me wish I could pay for more things in Bitcoin,

974
01:02:51,077 --> 01:03:06,886
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

975
01:03:06,886 --> 01:03:10,766
money. Okay. Well, why do you want to spend your money? And for how long do you want to spend it?

976
01:03:11,266 --> 01:03:16,006
And I just sit there and just can't wait till you are all out of business. I know what you mean,

977
01:03:16,086 --> 01:03:21,426
PJ. Thank you very much for the boost. I'm feeling you on that one. All right. Our next boosts,

978
01:03:21,426 --> 01:03:22,466
We're starting to round it out now.

979
01:03:22,566 --> 01:03:23,746
It comes from Code 27.

980
01:03:23,986 --> 01:03:25,746
Put some macaroni and cheese on there, too.

981
01:03:26,386 --> 01:03:26,786
Yep.

982
01:03:27,406 --> 01:03:27,806
Yep.

983
01:03:28,326 --> 01:03:28,866
Mm-hmm.

984
01:03:29,026 --> 01:03:30,606
And he says, welcome back.

985
01:03:30,686 --> 01:03:31,726
Well, thank you very much.

986
01:03:31,846 --> 01:03:32,366
Appreciate it.

987
01:03:32,406 --> 01:03:33,066
It's good to be back.

988
01:03:33,526 --> 01:03:36,126
Jim from Batik also comes in, and he's got 2,000 sats.

989
01:03:36,366 --> 01:03:37,746
Give me a holler when this goes south.

990
01:03:38,166 --> 01:03:40,646
Hey, Chris, I finally started mining three weeks ago.

991
01:03:40,646 --> 01:03:44,946
I jumped on the new miner, the Nerd Octax Rev 3,

992
01:03:45,306 --> 01:03:48,126
which is a 12-terahash from Bitronics,

993
01:03:48,666 --> 01:03:50,306
which they released their first batch.

994
01:03:50,306 --> 01:03:52,206
Now they're selling their third batch.

995
01:03:52,306 --> 01:03:54,646
I bought two miners, but didn't want to do solo mining.

996
01:03:54,746 --> 01:03:57,726
I prefer to experiment with brains and later ocean.

997
01:03:58,026 --> 01:04:01,246
You can have a look here and you can buy yours at bitronix.store.

998
01:04:02,006 --> 01:04:06,846
I want to do, I would love to do a mining pool for Twib.

999
01:04:07,126 --> 01:04:12,426
And then maybe like down the road, some sort of, we play around with like a cashew setup.

1000
01:04:12,846 --> 01:04:13,546
You know what I mean?

1001
01:04:13,646 --> 01:04:14,686
Little community thing going.

1002
01:04:14,886 --> 01:04:16,066
Could be really awesome.

1003
01:04:16,226 --> 01:04:17,146
That could be really awesome.

1004
01:04:17,846 --> 01:04:18,806
Thanks for the update, Jen.

1005
01:04:18,846 --> 01:04:19,506
That's fascinating.

1006
01:04:19,506 --> 01:04:21,646
and 12 terahash at home.

1007
01:04:21,906 --> 01:04:22,726
It's nothing to sneeze at.

1008
01:04:23,286 --> 01:04:24,326
It's nothing to sneeze at.

1009
01:04:24,346 --> 01:04:25,586
And those things are cool looking too.

1010
01:04:26,406 --> 01:04:29,046
Sarah Jade's here with 2,222 sets.

1011
01:04:29,166 --> 01:04:30,466
That is a row of ducks.

1012
01:04:31,726 --> 01:04:32,686
She says, love the podcast.

1013
01:04:32,946 --> 01:04:35,086
Thanks for supporting value for value artists too.

1014
01:04:35,466 --> 01:04:37,386
Here's the same shameless self-promotion.

1015
01:04:37,866 --> 01:04:40,806
Check out my new value for value single, Splinters.

1016
01:04:41,546 --> 01:04:43,106
Well, I'll tell you what, Sarah,

1017
01:04:43,226 --> 01:04:45,706
that will be our value for value track this week.

1018
01:04:45,786 --> 01:04:46,686
And it's a banger.

1019
01:04:46,866 --> 01:04:48,406
So stay tuned to the end of the episode, everybody.

1020
01:04:48,406 --> 01:04:50,966
we're going to play Sarah Jane's new track.

1021
01:04:51,346 --> 01:04:52,346
Thank you for the boost, too.

1022
01:04:52,466 --> 01:04:53,246
Great to hear from you.

1023
01:04:53,786 --> 01:04:55,746
And I love that Value for Value music

1024
01:04:55,746 --> 01:04:58,046
might be getting some artists into Bitcoin.

1025
01:04:58,446 --> 01:04:59,566
I hope that's the case for you, too.

1026
01:04:59,926 --> 01:05:01,846
Appreciate the boost and the song.

1027
01:05:02,606 --> 01:05:04,006
Everybody boost in when we play the song

1028
01:05:04,006 --> 01:05:05,166
so we can support Sarah.

1029
01:05:05,646 --> 01:05:09,986
Kiwi Bitcoin Guide is here with 4,567 sats.

1030
01:05:10,506 --> 01:05:12,346
You're doing very well.

1031
01:05:12,646 --> 01:05:13,806
Hey, Chris, keep the value coming.

1032
01:05:14,006 --> 01:05:15,646
I would love to see a podcasting 2.0

1033
01:05:15,646 --> 01:05:17,286
replace the paid advertising model.

1034
01:05:17,286 --> 01:05:22,286
there's nothing worse than listening to a bitcoin podcast shill treasury companies custodial services

1035
01:05:22,286 --> 01:05:28,646
and even telling you not to bother holding your own keys keep it up and may the force be with you

1036
01:05:28,646 --> 01:05:34,446
i know what you mean thank you very much this is the way yeah i honestly could use the revenue from

1037
01:05:34,446 --> 01:05:38,746
advertising on this show and i think we're at a period of time where this would be one of the

1038
01:05:38,746 --> 01:05:43,466
easier shows of the jb lineup to sell to an advertiser because it's a clear market there's

1039
01:05:43,466 --> 01:05:50,346
It's a little underserved in some respects, but it's just so hard to do a new show like this and advertisers.

1040
01:05:50,786 --> 01:06:00,526
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.

1041
01:06:00,926 --> 01:06:03,146
Even if it means one day I have to get another job.

1042
01:06:03,146 --> 01:06:10,086
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.

1043
01:06:10,086 --> 01:06:13,586
then I'd have to pivot for a little while at least until we got things back on track.

1044
01:06:13,786 --> 01:06:18,866
So I really KiwiBitcoin when folks like you boost in and acknowledge that it it means a lot.

1045
01:06:19,166 --> 01:06:21,526
It really does mean a lot. Thank you very much. I mean this is my life.

1046
01:06:22,126 --> 01:06:25,146
This is what I do. This is my full-time job. This is how I support my family.

1047
01:06:25,706 --> 01:06:28,566
And the reason why I've decided to do that is because over the years I've learned

1048
01:06:28,566 --> 01:06:32,366
each show is really a business and you have to focus on it like it deserves it.

1049
01:06:32,366 --> 01:06:34,906
And you've got to work so hard for each podcast.

1050
01:06:35,086 --> 01:06:38,866
And I just don't think I'd be able to have that level of commitment and run a full-time job.

1051
01:06:38,866 --> 01:06:40,706
and it is more than a full-time job.

1052
01:06:40,906 --> 01:06:42,966
You know, I work basically seven days a week.

1053
01:06:43,086 --> 01:06:44,786
Maybe I only work three, four hours on a Saturday.

1054
01:06:45,326 --> 01:06:47,626
So maybe you could say six, six and a half days a week.

1055
01:06:48,206 --> 01:06:49,106
And I'm not complaining.

1056
01:06:49,506 --> 01:06:51,506
I'll keep on doing it as long as you guys keep on supporting

1057
01:06:51,506 --> 01:06:52,646
because this is what I want to do.

1058
01:06:52,986 --> 01:06:53,506
Thank you, Kiwi.

1059
01:06:53,686 --> 01:06:54,366
Appreciate you.

1060
01:06:55,166 --> 01:06:58,286
Galactic Starfish is here with 5,555 sats.

1061
01:06:58,586 --> 01:06:59,826
Live long and prosper.

1062
01:07:00,226 --> 01:07:02,586
People often confuse strategy and tactics.

1063
01:07:02,586 --> 01:07:05,346
In chess, strategy is over the course of the game.

1064
01:07:05,886 --> 01:07:08,126
Tactics are temporal, clever moments.

1065
01:07:08,126 --> 01:07:11,086
like in chess, like in poker, or like in life.

1066
01:07:11,086 --> 01:07:13,686
If you only ever play a static technique,

1067
01:07:14,366 --> 01:07:16,466
well, then you're mistaking tactics for strategy.

1068
01:07:17,186 --> 01:07:19,126
A supposed reliance on the issuance schedule

1069
01:07:19,126 --> 01:07:21,766
admits an ever-changing macroeconomic environment?

1070
01:07:22,106 --> 01:07:24,106
Well, I think a four-year cycle was a blip,

1071
01:07:24,526 --> 01:07:27,626
a clear, clever technique to use Bitcoin's adolescence,

1072
01:07:27,986 --> 01:07:29,926
but not something you should expect to continue.

1073
01:07:30,246 --> 01:07:35,426
Oh, galactic starfish coming in with a great take.

1074
01:07:35,506 --> 01:07:36,346
Thank you very much.

1075
01:07:36,346 --> 01:07:38,106
This is a tasty burger.

1076
01:07:38,386 --> 01:07:39,086
Appreciate that.

1077
01:07:39,346 --> 01:07:40,046
Appreciate the boost.

1078
01:07:40,826 --> 01:07:41,586
Bob is here, or Boba?

1079
01:07:42,106 --> 01:07:44,266
I think it's Boba or Boba with a row of ducks.

1080
01:07:45,846 --> 01:07:47,126
Look at them ducks go by.

1081
01:07:47,646 --> 01:07:52,726
What, in your opinion, would be a valuable next technological step for a stat-sacking pleb newbie?

1082
01:07:52,726 --> 01:07:57,586
Should I invest in a solo miner or should I node up or maybe something else entirely?

1083
01:07:58,346 --> 01:08:02,646
What's the next baby step that benefits a noob and the network, regardless of hardware wallets?

1084
01:08:03,706 --> 01:08:05,986
Oh, I gifted a tangent for a wallet for Christmas.

1085
01:08:06,346 --> 01:08:24,366
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.

1086
01:08:24,366 --> 01:08:25,226
You will learn.

1087
01:08:25,526 --> 01:08:26,806
It's interesting.

1088
01:08:26,966 --> 01:08:28,266
You can go deeper and deeper, right?

1089
01:08:28,406 --> 01:08:30,186
And mining is definitely an area to get to.

1090
01:08:30,486 --> 01:08:34,466
But you want to node up first because that's going to increase your independence, your privacy.

1091
01:08:35,186 --> 01:08:39,786
You become more like your own bank and you are participating in the consensus.

1092
01:08:40,806 --> 01:08:42,246
You're keeping track of the network.

1093
01:08:42,386 --> 01:08:43,886
You're helping other people.

1094
01:08:44,706 --> 01:08:46,486
You will have your own little mempool.

1095
01:08:46,606 --> 01:08:47,406
And that's very nice.

1096
01:08:47,726 --> 01:08:48,746
So I say go for it.

1097
01:08:48,866 --> 01:08:49,726
Do the node thing.

1098
01:08:50,106 --> 01:08:51,986
Then start playing with Lightning and AlbiHub.

1099
01:08:51,986 --> 01:08:57,086
And then when you have that, I think, you know, might be time to scratch that wallet or that mining itch.

1100
01:08:57,186 --> 01:09:00,166
But then you'll have a good setup with a node and all of that.

1101
01:09:00,226 --> 01:09:01,106
You're going to want anyways.

1102
01:09:01,226 --> 01:09:02,506
You're going to want all of that anyways.

1103
01:09:02,926 --> 01:09:03,786
Thank you, Baba or Boba.

1104
01:09:04,486 --> 01:09:06,386
Don't know which one it is, but I appreciate that question.

1105
01:09:06,446 --> 01:09:07,006
That's a good one.

1106
01:09:07,226 --> 01:09:09,966
And probably one that a lot of people have on their minds when they've discovered Bitcoin.

1107
01:09:10,086 --> 01:09:10,986
It's like, where do you go next?

1108
01:09:11,586 --> 01:09:14,606
And my standing advice, node up.

1109
01:09:15,286 --> 01:09:15,866
Node up.

1110
01:09:15,946 --> 01:09:16,826
That's my standing advice.

1111
01:09:16,866 --> 01:09:17,666
And then go from there.

1112
01:09:17,906 --> 01:09:18,606
Let me know how it goes.

1113
01:09:19,046 --> 01:09:20,486
Thank you, everybody who boosted the show,

1114
01:09:20,546 --> 01:09:23,106
even those of you who boosted below the 2,000-sat cutoff.

1115
01:09:23,206 --> 01:09:23,986
I appreciate it.

1116
01:09:24,446 --> 01:09:26,286
Really do appreciate the value and the interaction.

1117
01:09:26,726 --> 01:09:27,846
So let's look at the numbers.

1118
01:09:27,946 --> 01:09:29,606
We had 33 of you stream sats.

1119
01:09:29,666 --> 01:09:30,986
Just set it on stream and listened,

1120
01:09:31,506 --> 01:09:36,086
and you collectively stacked 55,491 sats for the show.

1121
01:09:36,166 --> 01:09:37,166
It's a good little boost right there.

1122
01:09:37,426 --> 01:09:39,326
When you combine that with all of our messengers,

1123
01:09:39,466 --> 01:09:41,526
including our ballers who did a nice heavy lift,

1124
01:09:41,906 --> 01:09:43,826
we had a really great welcome back

1125
01:09:43,826 --> 01:09:45,426
and start to the new year.

1126
01:09:45,426 --> 01:09:53,646
Episode Lucky 88 stacked 854,950 sats.

1127
01:10:09,306 --> 01:10:10,766
That is fantastic.

1128
01:10:10,966 --> 01:10:12,886
Thank you everyone who supports the show.

1129
01:10:13,006 --> 01:10:14,346
It means a tremendous amount.

1130
01:10:14,346 --> 01:10:15,766
It is a value for value podcast.

1131
01:10:15,926 --> 01:10:20,646
We have fountain memberships, which will be enhancing and refining over 2026.

1132
01:10:20,806 --> 01:10:24,586
We have the Jupiter dot party, which gets you access to all the great content on the

1133
01:10:24,586 --> 01:10:25,526
Jupiter broadcasting network.

1134
01:10:25,686 --> 01:10:39,255
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

1135
01:10:39,295 --> 01:10:39,575
All right.

1136
01:10:39,835 --> 01:10:40,315
All right.

1137
01:10:40,455 --> 01:10:41,055
Sure, why not?

1138
01:10:41,555 --> 01:10:42,275
Thanks, Soundboard.

1139
01:10:43,595 --> 01:10:44,295
It's worth it.

1140
01:10:44,915 --> 01:10:46,295
Thank you, everybody, very much.

1141
01:10:47,855 --> 01:10:53,055
You can also grab AlbiHub and any of the new podcast apps at podcastapps.com.

1142
01:10:53,175 --> 01:10:53,595
All right.

1143
01:10:53,615 --> 01:10:57,335
We have some big updates that are going to move things and make a difference.

1144
01:10:57,335 --> 01:10:59,795
So let's shift gears and get right back to it.

1145
01:11:09,915 --> 01:11:17,135
The numbers are in, and corporate Bitcoin buying has outstripped mining supply 3-2-1.

1146
01:11:17,655 --> 01:11:23,255
Public and private companies that have Bitcoin treasuries have expanded by 260,000 Bitcoin

1147
01:11:23,255 --> 01:11:27,375
over the last six months, tripling approximately 82,000 Bitcoins

1148
01:11:27,375 --> 01:11:29,795
produced by the miners during that same timeframe.

1149
01:11:29,795 --> 01:11:33,935
So the private and public companies bought 260,000

1150
01:11:33,935 --> 01:11:37,315
and the miners produced 82,000.

1151
01:11:37,975 --> 01:11:38,415
All right.

1152
01:11:38,795 --> 01:11:42,895
Corporate digital asset treasury balances grew from roughly 854,000 Bitcoin

1153
01:11:42,895 --> 01:11:49,335
to 1.11 million between mid-2025 and January of 2026.

1154
01:11:49,975 --> 01:11:52,655
I bet old Sailor Ruski is a part of that,

1155
01:11:52,655 --> 01:11:53,475
But not all of it.

1156
01:11:54,515 --> 01:11:59,575
The Bitcoin ETFs had their best week since the October flash crash.

1157
01:12:00,095 --> 01:12:04,375
Almost $700 million of ETF inflows have been coming in,

1158
01:12:04,775 --> 01:12:09,215
and BlackRock and Fidelity have been leading those ETF flows,

1159
01:12:09,735 --> 01:12:13,035
suggesting that the boomers are buying Bitcoin once again.

1160
01:12:13,995 --> 01:12:20,775
Now, in a ultimate twist of fate and irony, the Zcash developer team has resigned.

1161
01:12:20,775 --> 01:12:25,675
after a December of quantum FUD that fed the pump for Zcash.

1162
01:12:25,875 --> 01:12:30,215
And everybody said, you need to have an insurance policy against Bitcoin's quantum vulnerability.

1163
01:12:30,595 --> 01:12:33,855
And the numbers went up and up and up as the influencers pumped it.

1164
01:12:34,335 --> 01:12:35,815
Well, developers have quit.

1165
01:12:36,415 --> 01:12:40,975
Yes, the Electric Coin Company's group of developers, ECC, have left amid governance disputes.

1166
01:12:41,215 --> 01:12:44,795
And they say they're forming a new startup that will continue Zcash development.

1167
01:12:45,355 --> 01:12:55,835
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.

1168
01:12:55,835 --> 01:13:02,635
And the only problem is the dev team cannot access the funding until they push a new protocol forward, which requires a protocol upgrade.

1169
01:13:03,055 --> 01:13:06,075
And, of course, this has been stuck in limbo and debate forever.

1170
01:13:06,515 --> 01:13:09,835
And the idea here is, well, Zcash is still changing.

1171
01:13:10,055 --> 01:13:10,915
We're still building it.

1172
01:13:10,975 --> 01:13:12,715
So we're going to have a dev tax.

1173
01:13:12,715 --> 01:13:16,035
and 12% of the mining rewards get locked up.

1174
01:13:16,695 --> 01:13:20,215
12% of all mining rewards get stashed away in a vault

1175
01:13:20,215 --> 01:13:23,655
that freezes the funds until a governance group

1176
01:13:23,655 --> 01:13:26,055
decides on the distribution model.

1177
01:13:26,295 --> 01:13:28,295
But that governance group has failed to agree

1178
01:13:28,295 --> 01:13:29,775
on that distribution model.

1179
01:13:29,955 --> 01:13:31,975
So the dev team basically rage quit

1180
01:13:31,975 --> 01:13:33,995
and they're going to try to spin off their own company

1181
01:13:33,995 --> 01:13:35,255
and build Zcash.

1182
01:13:35,855 --> 01:13:38,435
Boy, and we thought we had problems in Bitcoin.

1183
01:13:39,855 --> 01:13:41,375
Now, this is an interesting one.

1184
01:13:41,375 --> 01:13:46,135
And remember, we were talking about Venezuela rumored to have 600,000 Bitcoin.

1185
01:13:46,815 --> 01:13:51,255
Well, press is trying to get as much information about that as possible.

1186
01:13:51,255 --> 01:13:53,355
And I'm not feeling confident, guys.

1187
01:13:53,355 --> 01:13:57,255
Venezuela has a Bitcoin stash worth about $60 billion.

1188
01:13:57,875 --> 01:14:00,855
The chair of the SEC, Paul Atkins, joins me now.

1189
01:14:01,355 --> 01:14:04,075
Mr. Chairman, what's going to happen to those Bitcoins?

1190
01:14:05,175 --> 01:14:06,815
Oh, well, that remains to be seen.

1191
01:14:06,935 --> 01:14:09,735
I think, you know, this whole operation has been amazing.

1192
01:14:09,735 --> 01:14:16,515
the president and Secretary Rubio and then the brave service people in our armed forces have done

1193
01:14:16,515 --> 01:14:20,795
a really spectacular job. The office of the SEC is definitely not political, though.

1194
01:14:20,795 --> 01:14:26,735
I try to help bring peace and liberty and prosperity to the people of Venezuela,

1195
01:14:27,115 --> 01:14:32,055
and then obviously safety to the American people. Are we trying to take those Bitcoin off them?

1196
01:14:32,815 --> 01:14:39,035
Well, I leave that to others in the administration to deal with that. I'm not involved in that. I'm

1197
01:14:39,035 --> 01:14:44,655
focused really this week is an important week because the Senate's going to be taking up a...

1198
01:14:44,655 --> 01:14:50,235
All right, stop there. So we know that there is a rumored 60 billion-ish, somewhere between,

1199
01:14:50,475 --> 01:14:54,315
well, actually now it'd be a little bit more than that, but somewhere around 60, I'm sorry,

1200
01:14:54,435 --> 01:14:58,895
600,000 Bitcoin. Well, we don't have any confirmation on it and the SEC chair won't make

1201
01:14:58,895 --> 01:15:03,415
any proclamations about it. I think he would probably at least be aware of it,

1202
01:15:03,635 --> 01:15:06,395
even though it wouldn't be under his jurisdiction. I think he'd probably still be aware of it.

1203
01:15:06,395 --> 01:15:10,175
I think it's just a rumor, but I hope I'm wrong because it would be just such a fascinating

1204
01:15:10,175 --> 01:15:14,195
development. And I would love to know how you feel if the U.S. were to seize it.

1205
01:15:15,295 --> 01:15:18,095
I mean, nobody's really brought up the morality of the fact that the U.S. would just

1206
01:15:18,095 --> 01:15:23,795
rock up in Venezuela. And I mean, it's one thing to take out Maduro if, you know, okay,

1207
01:15:23,875 --> 01:15:27,995
it seems both administrations had a target on his head. That was clearly an agenda item for the

1208
01:15:27,995 --> 01:15:32,515
U.S. government. Okay. All right. Let's set that aside for a second. Does that mean they get to

1209
01:15:32,515 --> 01:15:34,135
just take assets, though?

1210
01:15:34,655 --> 01:15:36,435
I guess if they were assets of the administration,

1211
01:15:36,495 --> 01:15:38,495
I don't know. Perhaps you know how that works.

1212
01:15:38,755 --> 01:15:39,915
Because I certainly don't.

1213
01:15:50,675 --> 01:15:52,935
You might just want to watch this whole talk.

1214
01:15:53,615 --> 01:15:55,135
You might just want to watch this whole talk.

1215
01:15:55,515 --> 01:15:57,175
It's from 2016,

1216
01:15:57,415 --> 01:15:58,475
and it's still incredibly relevant.

1217
01:15:58,575 --> 01:15:59,515
It's just so good.

1218
01:15:59,955 --> 01:16:00,995
Especially this week,

1219
01:16:00,995 --> 01:16:05,475
when all of the talk about the trust in the central bank and the institution and all of that.

1220
01:16:06,095 --> 01:16:09,735
Well, Andreas Antonopoulos on September 24th, 2016,

1221
01:16:10,915 --> 01:16:15,275
held a talk that's just one of his classics, just really a fiery talk.

1222
01:16:15,375 --> 01:16:16,455
He's so good at delivering these.

1223
01:16:17,015 --> 01:16:21,695
And he explains that Bitcoin is a platform of trust.

1224
01:16:22,215 --> 01:16:26,015
Think about that in the context of everything going down with the Federal Reserve.

1225
01:16:26,015 --> 01:16:35,855
In the history of money that now spans tens of thousands of years, there have been maybe five major changes.

1226
01:16:35,855 --> 01:16:41,855
From pure barter exchange to the introduction of the first abstraction of value,

1227
01:16:41,855 --> 01:16:52,975
shells, feathers, beads, nuts, stones, and then precious metals, and then paper money,

1228
01:16:52,975 --> 01:16:59,155
Then plastic money, and now network money.

1229
01:16:59,155 --> 01:17:07,475
Bitcoin introduces a platform on which you can run currency as an application on a network...

1230
01:17:07,475 --> 01:17:14,535
without any central points of control, a system completely decentralized like the internet itself.

1231
01:17:14,535 --> 01:17:20,635
It is not money for the internet, but the internet of money.

1232
01:17:20,635 --> 01:17:27,675
What is money? Money is a language. Money is a linguistic abstraction.

1233
01:17:27,675 --> 01:17:35,395
Money is a language that we use to communicate value to each other.

1234
01:17:35,395 --> 01:17:44,075
Money simply allows us to express value. That value may have economic consequences,

1235
01:17:44,075 --> 01:17:47,035
but it also has other consequences.

1236
01:17:47,035 --> 01:18:01,455
We use money to express and create social bonds, relationships, associations, and organization.

1237
01:18:01,455 --> 01:18:20,364
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

1238
01:18:20,364 --> 01:18:27,884
If money is speech, if money is a language, and you disconnect it from all other media,

1239
01:18:27,884 --> 01:18:36,244
and you make it pure speech, pure content, an internet content type, a protocol designation,

1240
01:18:36,244 --> 01:18:45,504
money over IP, it completely separates it from all of these previous notions of nations,

1241
01:18:45,504 --> 01:18:50,444
sovereign issuers, institutions that control.

1242
01:18:50,444 --> 01:18:55,684
So we go from institution-based money to network-based money.

1243
01:18:55,684 --> 01:18:59,824
And of course, everyone will welcome this with open arms.

1244
01:19:00,884 --> 01:19:01,964
Not a chance.

1245
01:19:12,164 --> 01:19:14,624
All right, let's check in on the state of the network.

1246
01:19:14,764 --> 01:19:18,804
I'm wrapping up at block height 932,228.

1247
01:19:19,184 --> 01:19:23,804
The current Bitcoin price to US dollar is $97,410.

1248
01:19:23,804 --> 01:19:27,124
That makes our sats per dollar 1,027.

1249
01:19:27,784 --> 01:19:37,404
We are down 22.8% from our all-time high, which is $126,180, exactly 100 days ago, October 6, 2025.

1250
01:19:38,004 --> 01:19:41,964
Our next retarget date's a little bit out, January 22, 2026.

1251
01:19:42,224 --> 01:19:46,544
Currently an estimated difficulty adjustment downward of 4%.

1252
01:19:46,544 --> 01:19:49,104
We might see that even out as it gets closer.

1253
01:19:49,104 --> 01:19:55,024
and there are a little bit fewer nodes on the network this week, 24,894.

1254
01:19:55,504 --> 01:19:56,464
So maybe that's your homework.

1255
01:19:56,964 --> 01:19:58,244
Go node up if you haven't yet.

1256
01:19:58,364 --> 01:19:59,224
The network needs you.

1257
01:20:00,684 --> 01:20:02,504
It needs your node, actually.

1258
01:20:02,884 --> 01:20:03,724
We're doing fine.

1259
01:20:04,064 --> 01:20:05,024
But, I mean, why not, right?

1260
01:20:05,464 --> 01:20:05,844
Why not?

1261
01:20:06,644 --> 01:20:07,684
This is interesting.

1262
01:20:07,884 --> 01:20:11,324
I was looking at lightning channel age and capacity,

1263
01:20:11,544 --> 01:20:14,204
and the lightning network is growing again.

1264
01:20:15,004 --> 01:20:18,704
It has, after a little bit of a decline, started picking back up,

1265
01:20:18,704 --> 01:20:24,844
and currently the capacity of the Lightning Network is 683.6 Bitcoin.

1266
01:20:25,844 --> 01:20:26,764
How about that?

1267
01:20:27,084 --> 01:20:28,664
That's a lot of liquidity you can move around.

1268
01:20:29,544 --> 01:20:31,824
State of the network is strong and looking real good.

1269
01:20:48,704 --> 01:20:51,184
Well, if you made it this far, you should come say hi.

1270
01:20:51,424 --> 01:20:56,004
I'm going to be at Planet Nix and Scale, the Southern California Linux Expo.

1271
01:20:56,204 --> 01:20:58,944
That's in Pasadena, California, March 5th through the 6th.

1272
01:20:59,864 --> 01:21:00,944
There's a little registration there.

1273
01:21:01,024 --> 01:21:07,004
You can use my promo code UNPLG, U-N-P-L-G, I think it is, and get 40% off.

1274
01:21:07,104 --> 01:21:08,944
We're going to have a little meetup on Friday or Saturday.

1275
01:21:09,084 --> 01:21:10,484
So if you're in the area, come say hi.

1276
01:21:10,984 --> 01:21:11,924
Let's talk some Bitcoin.

1277
01:21:12,464 --> 01:21:15,184
Keep an eye out on meetup.com slash Jupiter Broadcasting.

1278
01:21:15,184 --> 01:21:18,664
As the date gets closer, I'll put the meetup on there.

1279
01:21:18,824 --> 01:21:22,224
I don't have the details yet, but we usually figure something out so you have time to plan.

1280
01:21:22,704 --> 01:21:23,884
I'd love to see if you're in the area.

1281
01:21:24,424 --> 01:21:26,344
And it's a great event, too, Planet Nix and Scale.

1282
01:21:26,444 --> 01:21:27,384
Could be a lot of fun to go to.

1283
01:21:27,724 --> 01:21:29,584
All right, let me know how I did with a boost.

1284
01:21:29,744 --> 01:21:33,824
You know, this show tries to focus on the signal, not get distracted by the emotion,

1285
01:21:33,944 --> 01:21:36,824
so that way you can make the best decisions for yourself, your family, your business.

1286
01:21:37,264 --> 01:21:41,444
And, of course, we have links to everything I talked about this week at thisweekinbitcoin.show,

1287
01:21:41,444 --> 01:21:45,944
Well, you'll also find all of the other episodes and the other great Jupiter broadcasting shows.

1288
01:21:46,264 --> 01:21:46,764
So send me a boost.

1289
01:21:46,824 --> 01:21:48,784
Let me know how I did or let me know what I missed.

1290
01:21:49,084 --> 01:21:52,424
And you can also support our Value for Value artist this week.

1291
01:21:52,604 --> 01:21:54,624
You heard her earlier during the boost segment.

1292
01:21:55,184 --> 01:21:58,404
This is Sarah Jade, and it's her single, Splinters.

1293
01:22:11,444 --> 01:22:12,864
One use

1294
01:22:12,864 --> 01:22:15,264
Laying all right

1295
01:22:15,264 --> 01:22:17,724
Than I've been in 20 years

1296
01:22:17,724 --> 01:22:20,324
Took your fire

1297
01:22:20,324 --> 01:22:21,504
You're in stone

1298
01:22:21,504 --> 01:22:24,044
Acid rain and acetone

1299
01:22:24,044 --> 01:22:25,724
Guess I should've known

1300
01:22:25,724 --> 01:22:27,924
Guess I should've known

1301
01:22:27,924 --> 01:22:29,904
That you slept

1302
01:22:29,904 --> 01:22:31,644
Under my skin

1303
01:22:31,644 --> 01:22:34,164
My skin, my skin

1304
01:22:34,164 --> 01:22:36,764
Slept under my skin

1305
01:22:36,764 --> 01:22:38,584
And left your splinters

1306
01:22:38,584 --> 01:22:44,384
Slept on a mask in, mask in, mask in

1307
01:22:44,384 --> 01:22:49,084
Slept on a mask in and left to splinters

1308
01:22:49,084 --> 01:22:53,624
Out of place in an empty space but no one minds

1309
01:22:53,624 --> 01:22:58,544
If you'd asked I would have said I'm doing fine

1310
01:22:58,544 --> 01:23:02,264
Shape me with your paper sand

1311
01:23:02,264 --> 01:23:04,864
Stain my heart in firebrand

1312
01:23:04,864 --> 01:23:06,344
Is that what you planned?

1313
01:23:06,944 --> 01:23:08,324
Is that what you planned?

1314
01:23:08,584 --> 01:23:15,004
Oh, you slept on my skin, my skin, my skin

1315
01:23:15,004 --> 01:23:19,564
Slept on my skin and left to splinters

1316
01:23:19,564 --> 01:23:25,204
Slept on my skin, my skin, my skin

1317
01:23:25,204 --> 01:23:29,644
Slept on my skin and left to splinters

1318
01:23:29,644 --> 01:23:36,564
I built the high road, you took the last train

1319
01:23:36,564 --> 01:23:41,904
Seeing all the signs now covered in red paint

1320
01:23:41,904 --> 01:23:47,604
Except for my mind, my light's changed

1321
01:23:47,604 --> 01:23:51,344
Over and over again

1322
01:23:51,344 --> 01:23:57,664
Over and over again

1323
01:23:57,664 --> 01:24:03,484
Oh, you slept on my skin, my skin, my skin

1324
01:24:03,484 --> 01:24:06,144
Slept on my skin

1325
01:24:06,564 --> 01:24:08,564
Home

1326
01:24:08,564 --> 01:24:12,564
Home

1327
01:24:12,564 --> 01:24:16,564
Home

1328
01:24:16,564 --> 01:24:18,564
Home

1329
01:24:18,564 --> 01:24:20,564
Home

1330
01:24:20,564 --> 01:24:22,564
Home

1331
01:24:22,564 --> 01:24:24,564
Home

1332
01:24:28,564 --> 01:24:32,564
I am the mast

1333
01:24:32,564 --> 01:24:34,564
I am the casket

1334
01:24:34,564 --> 01:24:36,724
And the pine

1335
01:24:36,724 --> 01:24:41,544
Choking on your splinters

1336
01:24:41,544 --> 01:24:43,564
Until I recognize

1337
01:24:43,564 --> 01:24:50,304
I am fortified by what's left behind

1338
01:24:50,304 --> 01:24:52,204
Guess it should mine

1339
01:24:52,204 --> 01:24:54,684
Guess it should mine

1340
01:24:54,684 --> 01:24:58,364
That you slept under my skin

1341
01:24:58,364 --> 01:25:00,924
My skin, my skin

1342
01:25:00,924 --> 01:25:03,464
Slept under my skin

1343
01:25:03,464 --> 01:25:05,624
And left your splatters

1344
01:25:05,624 --> 01:25:08,644
Slept under my skin

1345
01:25:08,644 --> 01:25:11,084
My skin, my skin

1346
01:25:11,084 --> 01:25:13,664
Slept under my skin

1347
01:25:13,664 --> 01:25:15,944
And left your splatters

1348
01:25:15,944 --> 01:25:16,884
Oh

1349
01:25:16,884 --> 01:25:21,464
Oh

1350
01:25:21,464 --> 01:25:22,464
Oh

1351
01:25:22,464 --> 01:25:26,464
Oh

1352
01:25:26,464 --> 01:25:28,464
Oh

1353
01:25:28,464 --> 01:25:30,464
Oh

1354
01:25:30,464 --> 01:25:32,464
Oh

1355
01:25:32,464 --> 01:25:34,164
Thank you.