Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 82.
My name is Chris, ChrisLAS.com, JupiterBroadcasting.com.
I know some of you are feeling real tired right now, and I get it.
Q4 was supposed to be a big pump.
The coin market cap fear and greed index has been an extreme fear for the longest period ever. Usually it only lasts three days and has reached five days. And I think those are a bit silly, but I do understand there's some pain out there for the newbies, especially if you've bought in since the election. 95% of all Bitcoin in the last 155 days is underwater right now.
And so if you are feeling a little bit of the crunch and you've been listening to the wrong news, well, you might need to go lay down.
Mackenzie Cigalos joins me with a look at the crypto breakdown.
Back.
Hey, John.
So Bitcoin is hitting six-month lows, selling off in concert with the NASDAQ, a reminder that crypto is still trading more like tech than a hedge.
But there are also signs of deeper structural stress emerging.
Spot ETF demand.
One of Bitcoin's biggest supports is slipping, with funds posting a second straight week of net outflows.
Thursday marked the second worst day for the spot Bitcoin ETF since launch as big allocators and treasuries pull back.
Now, at the same time, liquidity is vanishing, leveraged longs are being wiped out, and funding rates have flipped negative, all driving volatility higher.
OK, so let's stop here because I find this to be a really shallow, crappy analysis.
I think they talk about Bitcoin like it's an isolated tech stock onto its own island.
And only what happens to Bitcoin is completely separate from the rest of the market.
It just they just miss the mark.
And Bloomberg tried.
They tried.
They rolled out one of their go to analysts, Mike McGlone, who's been famous for saying Bitcoin is going to go to zero forever.
Embrace yourself.
Mike says your Bitcoin is going to 10,000.
In 2018, I pointed out when Bitcoin was about 10,000, it was going to drop a zero.
I was 70% right, 30% wrong because it went down to 3,000.
I'm saying the same thing now.
Can you be 70% right, 30% wrong?
I think that just means you're wrong, but okay.
All right.
10,000, it was going to drop a zero.
I was 70% right, 30% wrong because it went down to 3,000.
I'm saying the same thing now.
I think it can go back to 10,000.
I mean, that includes everything going lower, unfortunately, means the stock market.
It's just normal. The key difference is from back then, there was only a few thousand cryptocurrencies.
Now there's multi-millions. And we've had that piling from ETFs, the Trump administration kicking in and accelerating it.
And it's classic peak bull market stuff. Remember, seeing in 1999.
So in the previous segment, Paul mentioned the VIX at 25.
You look at that VIX 200-day movement average, it's a bull flag.
Right now it's averaging about 19 and a half.
And a key fact is 120 day realized volatility in S&P 500 is around 10%.
All right, now stick with him here for a second.
He's about to bring it back to Bitcoin.
What he's saying is that we're poised for a volatility increase in the wider market.
And the two things together are going to pull Bitcoin down.
Market being S&P and, of course, Bitcoin.
If we end the year there, not only is it half the VIX, but it'll be the lowest since 2017.
So I'm speccing this Bitcoin plunge to trickle down to the stock market, volatility to pick up, maybe just get to its average around 16%.
And the whole thing tilts lower into the year end.
I don't know what stops it at this point.
Wow.
OK, interesting.
All right.
So that's his key bit right there.
I don't know what stops it at this point.
So he's missing something.
Is there a technical support level in Bitcoin that we should keep our eye on?
I mean, that $100,000 level kind of held there for a while.
But we've obviously down here at $92,000 have blown past that.
Well, that's now key resistance, $100,000.
It was my key inflection point starting in 2020 when I was calling for it.
Yeah, I was early and I was wrong for a little while.
But the key support was right now is around $90,000.
It stuck between $90,000 and $100,000.
I think eventually it broke.
I love these analysts that get to be wrong 90% of the time and right 10% of the time
and still get to be accredited and still get to be considered their chief senior whatever.
He's actually the Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Commodity Strategist is actually what he is.
So he's going to bring it all back.
His big idea is that the volatility, the VIX as they call it, has on average,
which indicates volatility in the market, on average has been pretty low.
It's about to pop back, which would be a return more to normal.
And when doing so, it's going to crash Bitcoin down to 10,000.
He's going to wrap it up.
It's down, it heads towards 50.
On an annual chart, 50 is normal.
The key thing is you get the sharpest rallies in bear markets.
The 200-day moving average has rolled over.
MicroStrategy's 200-day moving average rolled over in August.
And so maybe we'll get a little bounce, maybe get to 100,000.
But I think it's all about responsive sellers.
And the key thing to point out is the Bloomberg Galaxy crypto index, as of yesterday,
was down 14% on the year after rallying about a third.
If the stock market just follows that, which I think it might, all the dominoes trickle
lower.
And a key indication for me for all this is gold grabbing alpha this year.
And when gold's alpha, something's wrong.
So Bitcoin's going to go down to $10,000.
God, I hope he's right.
Wouldn't that be amazing?
Could you imagine?
What would you do knowing what you know now?
What would you do?
I would try to do whatever it takes.
I'd even consider putting it on a credit card.
I really honestly would.
I mean, I know that's crazy.
You shouldn't do that.
Don't do what I would do.
But I mean, I would probably pull out any of the stops to acquire an entire Bitcoin at $10,000.
Oh, my goodness.
But I think he's missing a key bit of, well, reality.
He's missing from his model a key piece of what's stopping all of this from sliding entirely.
Although I do get it because it's not a guarantee.
It's a very complicated thing.
Even Cordano Chuck, long timer in the space, creator of the Cordano cryptocurrency,
He misses the mark with his analysis.
Everybody entered, myself included, 2025 thinking that the Trump administration was going to be this magic net positive for the ecosystem.
Because literally, the U.S. government has become a bag holder.
You know, it's like that's the biggest economy in the world.
And it's gone from trying to kill crypto to embracing crypto.
But sometimes by having the big guy hug you, they hug too hard and they love too much.
And it kind of crushes your ribs.
Kind of like lum from goonies.
So what we're having to contend with is the U.S. government, in a very hand-fisted way, has been some cases a little unhelpful to the industry.
So it created an irrational exuberance, and it interfered with our normal four-year cycle that we have.
And we're trying to sort all that stuff out.
OK, so Chuck is closer to the target than Mike over there at Boomer Blurg, but Chuck's not over the target quite it.
He brings it back at the end there to the four-year cycle. And the implication is, if politics had stayed out of crypto or not hugged so hard, then we would naturally just be working through some sort of innate built-in four-year cycle, which I suppose in this case he's applying to all of crypto, which would really tie back to the halvening cycle for Bitcoin.
And while I do think that's worth discussing, I think he's just missing the major aspect a little bit. And so we switch to somebody maybe a little more qualified.
there's been a lot of debate about this four-year cycle and i want to bring in lynn alden here in
just a moment because i like her analysis on this a lot but first my opinion i think selling right
now because of a four-year cycle is a colossal mistake and a lot of the long-time holders that
have been selling. It's a combination of profit-taking at $100,000, obviously, and a belief
in this four-year cycle, which has played out pretty consistently. In fact, every major crypto
rally did line up with a four-year cycle, 2013, 2017, 2020. It's just that also happens to line
up with liquidity expansion. And every crash happens to line up with liquidity tightening.
and you can see it in the data.
The Institute for Supply Management,
that's the ISM's Manufacturing Purchasing Manager's Index,
that's the PMI, so we have the ISM's PMI, right?
So this institute has an index called the PMI.
So the ISM is the institute, the PMI is the index.
And what you see on there is a very, very tight correlation
with Bitcoin's price.
As the business cycles boom, Bitcoin's price booms.
And as the business cycle has chopped sideways
for this last year, for 2025, so has Bitcoin.
In fact, all three past Bitcoin cycle tops
have aligned with this monthly index.
It might not be a halvening that's driving the market.
It might have always been liquidity all along,
at least to a large factor.
Lynn Alden was on what Bitcoin did recently,
and I like her take.
And also the fact is that this four-year cycle,
real or not does create a narrative it does create a full a self-fulfilling if i could figure out the
word a self-fulfilling prophecy there you go i got it out so in a way it's like the four-year cycle
becomes real because we think it is because it's had this pretty small sample size of of this four
year cycle behavior so it peaked in in quarter four 2021 it peaked in quarter four 2027 uh 2017
there are a lot of people saying, well, it's probably going to peak here in quarter four of
2025, and therefore they sell it preemptively and kind of create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I think that the halving cycles no longer are particularly relevant. I don't think even last
cycle they were particularly relevant. I think they happen to correlate with the liquidity cycle.
I think they certainly were relevant the first, say, three halvings.
I want a nuance here. And the reason why they would be relevant,
more so in the past than they are today
is the issuance difference is diminishing, right?
So in the past, the halving,
you were taking a big amount of supply off the market.
But now we're getting to the point
where the issuance is,
combined with the average ambient demand for purchasing,
it's not a huge difference every time anymore.
It will create a greater scarcity.
So it does have a net effect of reducing supply
and increasing price.
but I just don't know if it has the same massive ramifications it might have had the first or
second or even third time it happened. Periods I think were pretty relevant. I think they've
diminished to the point where it's no longer a factor I particularly concern myself with at all.
It's more about those other factors. And so I think there's a bunch of disillusionment that's
being kind of washed out. And you can have an asset that is a good asset that's sometimes held
for the wrong reasons. And so I think the coins are kind of rotating away from people that held
for the wrong reasons or the wrong expectations and back toward the hands of those that, you know,
have, I think, you know, more conservative expectations while still, of course, being
bullish, which is why they hold it in the first place. Yes. Ultimately, the money flow runs dry.
So the pool of buyers thins out and then you end up with a market that has more sellers than buyers
that drives the price down. And in Bitcoin, that can happen pretty quick because it's a 24-7
globally traded asset, yada, yada, yada. So when the price drops, people who bet that the price
would be going up and not down, well, they start to get screwed. You know, you have people that have
leverage trades, options traders, margin loans, et cetera. They all start to get forced to sell,
sometimes mechanically, not even by choice. That accelerates the price drop and then forces more
selling, obviously, because different liquidation levels get reached. So in this ISM manufacturing
PMI, which measures the U.S. industrial activity, it has remained below the neutral 50 mark for the
last seven consecutive months. That's not normal. And that's a contraction, a lot like we're seeing
in Bitcoin. Now, the reality is we're on the edge of a transition. And I think Bitcoin's figuring
this out, too. In two weeks, quantitative tightening ends. Now, that doesn't mean we
have quantitative easing, but it does mean a liquidity drain is getting removed from the
market. We also have the TGA beginning to spend again. And so how long it takes money to get from
the printer to spot Bitcoin is hard to say. But when it starts to be sniffed, the people are going
to try to front run it and the price will reflect it before it even happens. So that acts ultimately
as a new flow of buyers. That's the backstop. That to me seems to be the backstop. That's why
I don't think it's going to get to $10,000. And if it did, people would absolutely buy like crazy.
The issue is, is that Bitcoin is like a red light on the dashboard telling you we got a liquidity
problem. It's just a dummy light, though, in some senses. It doesn't give you exact details. It just
says, hey, we've got a problem. The common meme you hear is that Bitcoin's a smoke detector.
And in fact, Preston Fish had Luke Groman on his podcast, just like the other day as I record.
And in three minutes, Luke breaks down really all of the recent liquidity issues that have brought
us to this current kind of grinding spot. Furthermore, we're now seeing early signs of
stress in the overnight funding markets. There's a variety of views on that. Mine is that it is
essentially we now 30 months into the U shifting issuance to the front end because there not enough demand at the back end To make clear what he saying much like a bad girl Yellen Scott Besant is issuing a bunch of short term debt because nobody I mean OK that exaggerating
There really isn't a robust market for the U.S.'s long term debt.
essentially the buyers don't want to buy long-term U.S. debt, which means they're not exactly too
confident long-term in the U.S. fiscal situation, but they are willing to buy short-term debt.
But that is a process that obviously gets expensive and requires a lot of shuffling of the money.
That it is essentially, we're now 30 months into the U.S. shifting issuance to the front end
because there's not enough demand at the back end.
And as a result, Besant has a Red Queen or Axel Rose problem, if you will.
I used to do a little, but the little wouldn't do it.
So the little got more and more, or the Red Queen, I got to run faster and faster, stay in the same spot.
There's more and more issuance coming, right?
So 2013, we were rolling about $100 billion of T-bills a week per Secretary of the Treasury, Jack Lew.
Now it's $550 billion per week being rolled per my friend Andy Constan.
And so that requires having a greater level of money in the Treasury General Account or TGA, which Besant is doing, which is in turn putting overnight funding strains on overnight funding markets akin to a little bit like what we saw in 2019.
So you're seeing tightening liquidity there and sort of spot applications of liquidity in terms of standing repo facility being borrowed against in a bigger way than we have seen ever before.
it's back to basically nothing but two weeks ago on halloween it was 50 billion overnight so that's
not a problem it's going to go away and they'll continue to put spot applications of liquidity
you're seeing in japan okay before we get to the japan stuff i think the takeaway there is
the treasury is going to act as a larger vacuum of liquidity than they have in the past and they
have no choice. And perhaps, and I don't know, this is why I defer to Luke on this,
but as the debt situation worsens and the interest payments worsen, that situation where the treasury
is going to need more and more money worsens. And so consistently, the treasury is going to be
sucking more and more liquidity out of the system. And it really is going to depend on how much other
money is flowing in to offset that and how Bitcoin responds to that. And some of that might be getting
worked out right now in the market of standing repo facility being borrowed against in a bigger
way than we have seen ever before it's back to basically nothing but two weeks ago on halloween
it was 50 billion overnight so that's not a problem it's going to go away and they'll continue to put
spot applications of liquidity you're seeing in japan 10-year yields in japan are at the highest
levels in you know a long time and yeah sorry long and and the yen is weakening markedly which
is when your yields are rising and your currency is still weakening, that's like emerging market
type of action, which is very important because if for the last five plus years, if you want to
know where the 10-year treasury yield is going to be in anywhere from a few weeks to a month or two,
just look at the direction of travel of the 10-year JGB. And the reason that is, is those are the two
biggest carry trades funding currencies in the world going back 30 years after 89. The yen became
a carry trade. And then after Bernanke in 2008, the dollar became a carry trade. And we saw in
summer 2024 that anytime the yen gets too strong, the carry trade blows up. And anytime the yen gets
too weak, dollar gets too strong, the dollar carry trade blows up. Now, I talked about that carry
trade blow up in the summer of 2024, which, wow, I can't believe the show's been around that long
even. And in that episode, I predicted to a degree, a prediction's a strong term, I suggested that
this is going to be a slow roll.
Like these types of things
don't just unwind in a couple of weeks
and there's going to be ups and downs for a while.
And Luke is saying, yeah,
yeah, we're still experiencing that.
And it's something that needs to be watched right now.
24, that anytime the yen gets too strong,
the carry trade blows up.
And anytime the yen gets too weak,
dollar gets too strong,
the dollar carry trade blows up.
So you're sort of between Scylla and Charybdis
on that front with Scylla starting to get a little mouthy
in terms of the Japanese 10-year bond yields.
You've got U.S. shale production rolling over and the EIA saying, hey, we need to drill faster just to stay flat with oil at 5960.
We've got the IEA coming out saying, I know we said two years ago that peak oil demand would be here by 27 or 2030.
Oops, it's actually not peaking at all. Demand's rising faster than we thought.
So we've got U.S. shale, which has been 90% of world supply growth over the last 10, 12 years.
Goering and Rosenzweig rolling over while demand that was supposed to be rolling over,
not rolling over. So that is a stress point. You've got the geopolitical where it's becoming
clearer and clearer. We've talked about this in the past. Russia won in Ukraine. They beat NATO.
That is what it is. That has important implications for macro because I don't know how many times in
my career I've been told, but it's more than one, that ultimately the US military backs the dollar.
if we can't credibly project power conventionally
against a major near-peer power.
That has implications for prospective rule changes
to the system.
You've got Bitcoin, which to me still is the best
or the last functioning smoke alarm,
starting to cry shrilly and issue a very shrill warning
of illiquidity.
For giggles, let's layer on AI,
which has gone from funding out of retained earnings
and cash flow to they are now borrowing money
and using very creative financing mechanisms.
Remember what I said recently on the show, if the AI pump stops or even stalls, crypto stalls with it because that's the major source of liquidity. And I'm sorry I keep using the term. It's just the reality of the situation. When you have an apex predator asset, it's a black hole. It's a sinkhole in a whole works of a system. And money flows to that when it's free. And if it isn't free and floating, it can't.
And so that's just the term we use colloquially or whatever is liquidity.
Although I'm going to try to stop saying the word because I'm sick and tired of saying it, but it's all about the liquidity, stupid.
You cry shrilly and issue a very shrill warning of illiquidity.
For giggles, let's layer on AI, which has gone from funding out of retained earnings and cash flow to they are now borrowing money and using very creative financing mechanisms.
and I had a good friend of mine point out
that credit spreads on Oracle debt are starting to rise,
credit default swaps on Oracle are starting to rise sharply.
And the hyperscaler.
The hyperscaler, yeah.
Topping it all off, you have an issue
where the market leaders, the semiconductors,
and in particular NVIDIA,
and I don't have an opinion on NVIDIA one way or another,
all I can say is the useful life of these chips
are said to be anywhere from three to four years
and you can't get an electricity hookup
in some of the most attractive places in the United States for hyperscalers till 2030, I'm hearing.
I left that last bit in there because that is spooking the market a lot this week and last week.
Nobody can get the power they need. It all started with Sochek when he was on a podcast,
and he said that we have all these chips sitting on the shelf. And that started all the investors
spiraling about the power situation and has caused some fear there.
Sometimes you have to reset and figure out the changing landscape.
And I think when Trump came into office, there was an expectation that at the end of the day, he would capitulate to the markets.
The markets would be his ultimate boss.
He would try a policy.
If the markets bucked too hard, he would back off.
That hasn't really been true.
It has been true for the bond market, but not so much the rest.
And I think everybody expected everything would be ripping.
Liquidity would be flowing.
Rates would probably be down.
They might be buying Bitcoin.
And when Trump won the election, those expectations seem to be clearly priced into the Bitcoin price.
It just shot right up.
It ripped after the election.
And so I think now we're sort of resetting and looking at what we really got.
And some of it's been really great for the industry.
And it set up a lot of good tailwinds long term.
But also some of it's been kind of a mixed signal bag.
And I think Jack Mahler says it really well.
He was on a podcast I'll have linked in the show notes.
And he talks about this market repricing that we're seeing and really kind of resetting after some confusion.
So the Trump administration came out, we're going to re-industrialize.
We're going to print a lot of money and make America great again by bringing back.
The way I think about the United States is China has disrupted red America and the Internet has disrupted blue America.
And they both kind of fight these enemies.
And Trump came in and said, we're going to fight China by re-industrializing.
And that implies a lot of money printing, a lot of stimulus.
And that hasn't happened.
And then there was a lot of confusion of, well, how are we going to achieve that if Elon Musk is going to send us into austerity with Doge?
How are we going to achieve that if we can't agree to terms with China?
And so there's been a little bit of confusion of what side are we playing on, put up or shut up?
Are you going to print the money or not?
And that's where the confusion has come from.
At the end of the day, to me, Bitcoin is priced on future expectations of fiat liquidity, period.
Bitcoin is the antithesis of fiat.
Fiat has no supply cap.
Bitcoin is finite. Fiat can be censored. Bitcoin can't. Fiat cannot be audited. Bitcoin can be
audited by anybody. And so Bitcoin is the best expression of fiat. And so if there's tightening
of fiat liquidity, then Bitcoin is going to be the smoke alarm that shows us that. And so I
actually put out a post on X over the weekend where I said, gold making new highs this year
shows us that governments and central banks have to print. But Bitcoin falling from highs right now
shows us that they might have a liquidity crisis before they're forced to.
Now, that's actually semi-brilliant because what he's explaining is why gold is ripping
and Bitcoin is sliding. And it is also, it's a complicated thing because gold
is something that has thousands of years of a reputation as a hedge. It's something that if
the central banks are buying, which is who these buyers are in some cases in large quantities in
bulk, they can only really buy things like dollars and gold and things like that.
And so they're buying knowing what's coming.
And what Bitcoin is saying is before we get to that point, we're going to have an issue.
So before the debasement really begins, before we go to that next gearing, you're going to
have a money problem and you're going to have to turn that printer on sooner than you think.
And this is always how it goes, guys.
It's the central banks are always just a little behind.
Since I have been following this since 2008, they've always been behind.
Around COVID, I would say that was when they were kind of a little preemptive and we got crazy, crazy inflation.
But they're always – because they're so data-driven and the data is collected by things that have already happened and the data doesn't reflect what's currently happening, I believe they're always inherently behind.
And so while they're getting ready, I would imagine for quantitative easing, and they're getting ready to lower the rates a few more times, the truth is they probably have already needed to do it.
Because they've been looking at Wall Street and seen Wall Street just crack off and think everything's okay.
But Main Street's essentially been in a recession since COVID.
And it's been rolling to different areas at stronger times.
But now it seems to have spread quite wide.
A family member of mine lives in a different state than I do, but a state that's been seen, well, it's Florida.
It's been seen a lot of people move in.
And another family member of mine is also in real estate in Austin.
Crazy stories I'm hearing out of there about the wild dips in market demand.
And I think we're seeing that spread out.
Now the average new home buyer has ticked up to 40 years old.
Last time I talked about this, they were 37.
And second time home buyers are all boomers.
This has changed.
You know, when I was in my 20s, maybe my early 30s, I had two homes.
It wasn't an unusual thing.
I bought what they used to call a starter home, a reasonably priced starter home.
And then I turned that into a rental after I lived there for a while.
And I bought another home.
And now I couldn't buy a house here today in Washington.
I used to own two.
It's crazy.
I technically own the studio.
So I technically still own one.
It's really, really been rough for Main Street for really since COVID, with the exception of some house values have really skyrocketed, but even that's starting to slide a little bit.
And even with the rate cuts we have seen from the Fed, it really hasn't helped mortgages much.
So I think what Jack is explaining here is actually semi-brilliant.
Gold's sniffing out where we're going and Bitcoin's saying, before we get there, you're going to have problems.
I think that's it.
I think that's exactly what we're seeing.
year shows us that governments and central banks have to print, but Bitcoin falling from highs right
now shows us that they might have a liquidity crisis before they're forced to. And so I think
the two assets play different roles in that Bitcoin is a very accurate smoke alarm of where
liquidity is today, or the gold market is sniffing out where this is inevitably going, right? We know
QT is ending, QE is going to have to restart, rate cuts are coming, and there's all sorts of
stimulus, whether it's Frannie Mae, Freddie Mac, a housing crisis to be declared in 2026.
So I see this as a buy the dip opportunity. The way to monetize a currency failure is to not bet
that the stock market going to go down 50 like Michael Burry and have your fund shut down The way you do it is by owning a better currency than the dollar which would be something like gold and Bitcoin So this is a buy the dip opportunity for me I think liquidity has to come physically There
is no other option. And this is just a mere reaction to the lack of follow through from
the administration.
I agree that some of the turbulence could be from tariffs, the market digesting what has and hasn't been delivered.
I also think we've had a tremendous amount of tailwind set up and that there really wouldn't be a crypto industry if the election had probably gone a different direction or not much of one.
It's hard to say where Bitcoin would be.
But while everybody's been freaking out, it appears that four countries have bought Bitcoin.
Well, and also the Czech National Bank also purchased Bitcoin for the first time.
But strong rumors are, I have not seen absolute confirmation, but there are strong rumors that the UAE has purchased Bitcoin.
I'm looking for confirmation if anybody sees it.
But Kelly just announced that El Salvador bought more Bitcoin.
Luxembourg bought Bitcoin in this last week.
And yeah, like I mentioned, the Czechs did too.
And really what's been fascinating is individuals that have large amounts of Bitcoin who were the cohorts that were selling over the last couple of months.
have now switched to the cohorts who are stacking.
In fact, Bitcoin wallets that hold more than 1,000 Bitcoin in them already
have been adding Bitcoin at a wild dip.
And of course, your buddy Mikey Saylor is one of them.
Last time our next guest was on CNBC,
he was expecting Bitcoin to be $150,000 by the end of the year.
We want to find out if he's changed his tune since late October,
given the recent move in the crypto space.
You're looking at Bitcoin right now at $94,632.
Michael Saylor is here, strategy founder and executive chairman.
Good morning to you.
What do you think?
150 by the end of the year?
What do you think is happening here?
You know, I think we all want to go to the moon.
But if you want to ride the rocket, you got to be prepared to pull the G's.
Over five years, Bitcoin's had like six brutal drawdowns.
If you roll the clock back 13 months, we were sitting around 68,000.
And then after the Trump election, we had this incredible rally from 68 to 106,000 in five weeks.
If you go back 14 months, we were about 55,000.
And so if you said we're going to go from 55,000 to 94,000 in 14 months, that would have exceeded any reasonable investor's expectations.
Over five years, Bitcoin's up about 50% a year on average for the five years.
Gold and S&P are studying the cost of capital to 14%.
My company's strategy is up 71%, equivalent to NVIDIA.
There's no other stock in the S&P that's done any better.
So I think the volatility comes with the territory.
If you're going to be a Bitcoin investor, you need a four-year time horizon,
and you need to be prepared to handle the volatility in this market.
So when you look at the price right now, and then we'll talk about the implications for strategy,
But when you look at the price right now, what is the upside at this moment look like to you?
And what is the downside in this moment look like to you?
I will say this was, I think, yesterday as I record or around there.
So the price was at $94,000.
So this was, in fact, not the floor.
You know, I feel like we put in a pretty strong base of support around here.
There's an incredible amount of leverage coming out of the system, a lot of liquidation.
And a lot of the OG holders were selling at the $100,000 level.
And so I'm fairly comfortable at this level.
I would think that we'll build from this base and we'll rally from here.
They did not build from this base, and they did not rally from here.
Obviously, it's hard to make a forecast for the end of the year right now,
given what's happened over the past few weeks,
and especially the shift in the macro environment.
but you know as you know my view is bitcoin is going to outperform gold it's going to outperform
the s&p it is digital capital and so if if you're a long-term investor this is the place to be
all right so we that's enough he says strategy is going to do great and if they have a big drawdown
80 90 drawdown they're fine so i i don't really know how far we go from here i mean that's kind
of part of the fun. But to me, feels like 80K is the next kind of floor threshold to watch.
I think that's at least, that would be my guess. I have absolutely no idea.
And that leads me to my question this week. Do you just stick with the DCA strategy when we're
having a dip like this? Or do you go in and try to do like a snipe by, you know, like a smash grab?
I'll tell you mine. I do try to snipe the dip a little bit. Nothing major, usually just enough so
I can say I did it, to be honest with you. But I've learned a trick and I want to I want to share it with you because I think this is some old man wisdom.
Stay a while and listen. What I have learned is the price tends to go down in a choppy sideways fashion.
So it it looks like it's kind of going to stabilize around eighty four thousand, say, and it holds there for a little while and then it legs down again and then it holds there for a little while and then it legs down again.
And so it's really easy to try to buy in when you think, oh, this must be the bottom, essentially, you know, the old cliche of buying a falling knife.
But it doesn't always look like it's falling.
Sometimes Bitcoin dramatically drops, and that's clear.
But other times it chops downwards.
And that's when it can trick you and you can buy in too early, you know.
So say earlier when it was at 94, when Mikey says, well, the floor is, I think the floor is going to be 94,000.
Well, as I record right now, Bitcoin's 88,000.
So that wasn't the floor.
And if you went all in at 94, then you just missed out on a deal.
Now, that's a tricky thing to really measure.
So what I try to do is I try to buy near the bottom.
Now, every now and then I do, for some reason, I just get a real strong gut sense.
And a couple of times I've literally nailed like the bottom.
Like the last time we hit 16K or whatever it was, I got that.
Yeah, I'm 200 bucks worth or whatever, but I bought it.
I just had a sense.
This time, though, it's not so clear.
And so in a time like this when it's not so clear, what I'll do is I'll actually wait for some upward price movement for a little while to see a little sustained upward movement.
Not just like a little couple of days chop, but maybe a few days of upward price, plus some news that might indicate why things have turned around.
That's when you would tune into the show here and I'd be telling you about it.
And then I might buy.
Now, I'm not going to buy the absolute bottom in this approach.
I'm going to pay a little bit more, but I'm still going to pay less than if I would have gone all in earlier and got all dipped out.
You don't want to get dipped out.
You want to try to save some of your powder, as they call it, for when it really does get a lot lower.
And is 88 the bottom?
That's not my sense right now.
That's not my sense.
I think we're sliding at least for a little while until liquidity turns around.
Now, Scott is going to start writing some checks, but that's a slow process.
Quantitative easing comes to an end, but that doesn't mean money printing starts.
And that doesn't mean that liquidity instantly hits Bitcoin either.
Sometimes it takes a little while to get from the printer to the spot price.
So it's not an easy thing to actually guess and nail.
So my advice is don't try to get the absolute bottom.
Get it on the way back up.
I know that just makes you feel like you're a follower, but the reality is you're still getting it at a great price.
But maybe, I don't know, maybe you have a different strategy.
Boost in and share how you buy the dips, or do you just ignore them, stick with the DCA strat?
Or are you taking advantage of River's new Super DCA, where when the price is down on your DCA, they'll increase your purchase based on your settings?
That seems like a pretty cool deal, too.
All right, let me know with a boost.
Well, if you're going to nab some of that dip, you can support the show just by doing what you do.
If you want to buy the sats on River, use my link in the show notes.
Every little dip stack supports the show.
If you are all about self-custody, you don't want a middleman wallet, the Bitcoin well is in the U.S. and Canada, and it's an amazing all-self-custody Bitcoin platform.
You buy and sell from your own wallet.
They don't store your Bitcoin at all.
Now, if you got some Bitcoin, maybe some sats, you want to put them in a Lightning wallet and spend them on something, that gets you.
The Bitcoin company's got you covered.
You can put your sats into a gift card in just minutes all over the Lightning network.
You don't even have to create an account.
You could just use Lightning to log in.
And they only do Bitcoin.
Unlike the other gift card places that do all the different cryptos, the Bitcoin company focuses on Bitcoin.
Now, if you want to stack sats while you're paying bills, another great place to get gift cards.
You want to take advantage of Fold.
That's what is like the go-to method for passive stacking while paying bills, the Fold card.
Last but not least, if you need to get access to your Bitcoin without selling it, a little liquidity yourself, check out Salt Lending.
One of the nice things is they do have a margin call protection program where when things get real dicey,
They can convert your Bitcoin collateral into stable coins, hold it at that value, and then convert it back once the price starts going up.
It's real nice during those kind of dicey moments.
Links to all of that in the show notes.
Well, it is time for the boost.
And now it is time for the boost.
Now, I do have to say we have we have no baller boost this week.
That's OK. That's OK. But we have a good batch of boosts.
And Gene Bing kicks us off with three thousand five hundred and fifty nine sats.
Put some macaroni and cheese on there, too.
Gene says that regarding what I spend my sats at a store with squares, a new terminal.
Absolutely.
But I would do it via the cash side of the strike app where I pay the invoice straight from my checking account.
I do it every time simply to help normalize paying that way.
Yeah, that's a nice feature of the cash app.
Sometimes it just moves things over.
Gene asks, are you staying on knots or core?
If core 30, are you making any changes to the default configuration?
Great question, Gene.
Very much been on my mind.
So I have been deferring on my main, like my main production note.
I've just been deferring the upgrade.
But after today's news, which I'll get to in the updates,
I might eventually go to core 30 with config changes.
I just haven't made up my mind yet.
But I don't think I'm going to be going to knots.
And I'll explain why in the update section.
Good question.
Thank you, Gene.
Paranoid Coder comes in with 2,000 sats.
I've been appreciating your rational take on the filtering debate.
Keep it up.
And thanks for the content, as always.
Thank you, Paranoid.
Yeah, I've been following it this week.
I got a few updates.
And there's been some, you know, I have to say,
there's been changes on both sides that I think are worth talking about,
but it's not as big of an update this week.
Thank you,
paranoid.
Appreciate that.
Ace Ackerman's here with a row of ducks.
2,222 sats.
Ace says,
I can tell you with absolute certainty,
I will never trade sats for a pumpkin spice latte.
It's understandable.
What about a pizza?
Thanks,
Ace.
So hangs here with 2,000 sats.
Hey, Chris, I usually listen to the Linux stuff you make, but I occasionally tune in over here, even though I don't really care about the coin stuff.
You're really just that good of a podcaster.
And so a good podcaster gets sats.
Thank you, sir.
Fun will now commence.
Anyways, the op return drama was so tempting not to check it out for myself.
It's sizzling and fresh off the grill.
The hot take the Bitcoin cash people were right all along.
Give me both SegWit and larger blocks and forget about the whole innovative side of chain apps nonsense.
Oh, that cuts deep.
Thank you, sir.
Even though you don't enjoy the coin crap.
Live long and prosper.
VC Volo comes in with 2,521 sats.
Of course I'm going to spend my sats.
I don't have another choice.
I don't hold dollars.
Whoa, really?
I'd like to hear a little bit more about that.
Have you told me more about that?
Are you doing like credit card for some stuff?
Even when a merchant sees me using a credit card,
I'm paying this and I use it via Bitcoin bill payment via strike.
But for everyone else, they can use the Cash App
to make a Lightning payment from their USD balance
or a linked debit card.
Bitcoin is a new payments rail.
Yeah, I love that Cash App is doing this.
So if you didn't know out there,
Cash App will let you spend your dollar balance
over the Lightning network.
they're just handling it on the back end.
How cool is that?
So you have a credit card.
Okay, so that rings a bell.
Okay, so I'm just curious how that's working
because this, my dream,
and I don't think I'm going to get there this year
because I've just been so busy.
My dream is all my income comes in via SATs
and then either through a line of credit
that is reasonable or through strike bill pay
and I just pay the tax stuff.
I pay what I need,
like a once a month credit card bill or something like that Like that would be the dream is maybe one or two bills I don know I don know I love to I love to just have an update on how that working for you Thank you for the boost Bob is here with a row of ducks Unless Square has an SBR a Bitcoin
reserve, they're likely to just immediately convert to fiat. Keeping every changing asset on the books
would be a nightmare. They're only interested in velocity of transactions and the fees associated
with them. Although I appreciate the novelty and widespread adoption, why would I exchange a hard
asset for a depreciating one, let alone a consumable one. Who wants to go down in this
history as purchasing the most expensive cup of coffee in the world for or pizza? I'll just stack
and huddle. Yeah, I guess maybe because I've spent so much Bitcoin that I've had to come to
terms with this, but I very much still think we are in an age where there needs to be some people
spending Bitcoin in order to help with adoption, help these developers that are creating apps,
build out the network. And so, I mean, I am not exaggerating when I say I've,
I don't even want to say the number.
You guys are going to think I'm so stupid.
I bet you I've spent over 100 Bitcoin in my life.
But you have to understand,
it was at a time when it was worth a lot less.
So it took more Bitcoin to get what you needed.
In fact, I'd bet you it's easily, easily that.
So, you know, you're welcome.
But by the way, Square does have a Bitcoin reserve.
Square slash Block owns approximately 8,584 Bitcoin, which is one of the large-ish of publicly held companies that have a Bitcoin reserve.
We haven't had an update in a little while, but yeah, 8,584.
I don't know how much from these transactions they're keeping, if any, but even just a reduction in cost to operate the network would be a pretty big win.
Thanks, Boba. Appreciate the boost.
One Doll Geeks here with 2,345 sats.
I like you. You're a hot ticket.
Yeah, I'm going to spend those sats when I can.
The tricky part is a way to have my wife spend the sats.
That's going to take some time training for her.
And to be honest, also for me to see what's possible when it comes to shared spending.
Currently, we have a shared credit card.
I'm not sure if they'll do the same thing with Bitcoin or something different.
Hmm.
I was going to suggest Cash App until you said shared.
I wonder if there'd be a way to do this with the Zen wallet.
Or I'm sorry, not Zen wallet, Zeus wallet.
He says, in the meantime, I'm likely going to be spending and replacing sats when I can.
and my wife will use the fiat credit card.
Yeah, that's what I do.
And that's how I kind of do the accounting on it too,
is I keep a pretty small balance
under 100,000 SATs of spending SATs.
And that's what I boost with.
That's what I'd use for
if I was going to use a gift card or something.
And I try to spend those within the month
that I bought them, generally speaking.
And that makes the, when I bought them
and when I sold them, pretty much nothing.
That's not tax advice.
I could get totally screwed on that strategy.
That's my SAT spending strategy though.
And that's a small portion of my overall holding,
But again, it's a savings and checking.
I think probably ultimately the combination to me seems like a fiat credit card where you're getting rewards or points or something paid off with Bitcoin or a line of credit even better based on a Bitcoin collateral.
Complicated, but no more complicated than the rich and the famous do it.
Thanks for the boost, Wendell.
Appreciate it.
OB's here with 6,000 sats.
Reporting in.
And he just says, STEMIs.
Yeah.
All right.
Nuclear launch detected.
Small update on the Stimmies today.
Real small update.
Just because you know that stuff is hitting Bitcoin.
Nakamoto 6102 comes in with 2,121 sats.
Coming in hot with the boom.
All right.
Thanks for the value.
I probably won't spend sats at Square, often due to the potential tax implications.
Yeah, that's understandable.
There may be legislation in the future in different jurisdictions that deal with transactions under $500, $600.
There's been some talk of legislation around that.
there's also perhaps the cash app approach where you're just immediately buying usd and it's sending
it over the lightning network so then you can still actually take advantage of for them on the
merchant side you're still using bitcoin as far as they're concerned that could be a nice middle
ground really and then you know cash pretty good app too also owned by jack torsey so you know there
you go thank you for the boost there appreciate it pj is here with 4 444 sats spending sats for
product feels so weird, but sending sats for killer podcasts feels so right. Yes, yes. Make it
show. I've always felt weird using my phone for a kiosk credit card payments via Google Pay,
but knowing those sats are in my wallet driven by my Fostec, it feels a bit better. I suppose if I
had sats on my mobile wallet and somehow lost my physical wallet, I'd spend some in a pinch.
For now, my spending budget goes to value for value. Got a hodl for that retirement.
I know I've told the story before, but when I was in El Salvador and I used the Zeus wallet
over tail scale connected to my node to buy breakfast for a row of ducks.
Boy, man, that was real.
And it was so fast.
So fast.
So cool.
And that was like, man, it was just the greatest moment.
It was like, wow, here I am in a completely different country.
You know?
It just felt better because I wasn't even in the States.
I was somewhere else entirely.
I don't know why, but it just mattered.
All right.
Thank you, PJ.
Appreciate it.
Thank you for helping us help you help us all.
Next boost comes from Kiwi Bitcoin Guide for $4,000.
567 sats.
Oh my God, this drawer is filled with fruit loops.
Every month, I add a little extra to my regular DCA
and keep it in a mobile wallet for spending.
I want Bitcoin to be money.
So I want to make that a reality.
There aren't too many merchants who accept Bitcoin around me.
Well, but not zero.
I pay for haircuts.
Oh, cool.
And always support cafes and restaurants who accept it.
I find a merchant who accepts sats in a place and I visit them.
I make a point of going there and spending sats.
I also pay for as many online services as I can in sats,
like Proton, Molvad, PPQ.ai.
Those are some examples.
And of course, Boost.
This is how I do it.
Kiwi, you got to figure it out.
I will add one thing I've been doing recently
is when I see that a merchant around here
has a Bitcoin ATM,
I'll go in and just strike up
a quick conversation with them about it.
Just see what their thoughts are on it.
And I have been surprised.
And I took a picture recently.
They're putting the signage
on the outside of the building
that they have a Bitcoin ATM.
They're like advertising
on the outside of the building.
Bitcoin ATM here.
It's fascinating.
Yeah, I too, I think,
especially with this cash app option,
I think I'm going to make an effort
to try to encourage more in my local area
because there is not
in a specific Northwest corridor,
this I-5 corridor.
It's just not enough.
There's a few,
like some bike shops, but not enough.
Thank you, Kiwi.
Appreciate you.
TruGitz is here.
Hey, TruGitz, nice to see you.
And he's got a Spaceballs boost.
One, two, three, four, five sats.
So the combination is
one, two, three, four, five.
Well, surprise, surprise.
I'm still making my way up
to the current episodes.
Lessons for everybody.
Don't ever get behind.
I think I've been catching up
since the Bitcoin dad pod.
It's been a while
since we had a good old fashioned
Chris soapbox.
I enjoy them for no other reason
than you are clearly passionate.
And in this case,
people are actively,
maybe accidentally,
advocating to keep podcasting stagnant.
Keep up the work.
Oh, I think I know
what rant you're talking about.
True Gritz, it's good to hear from you.
And thanks for the time traveler boost.
Appreciate that.
Marius February is here.
I think that's probably it with 10,000 sats.
It's over 9,000!
Thank you for summarizing the events when I don't have much time to stay up to date.
Well, thank you for boosting it.
I think that's your first boost, I believe.
Sorry if it's not, but it's nice to hear from you.
Hey, Ed Brotten's back with a row of ducks.
In anticipation of your deep dive on AlbiHub.
Oh, here we go.
Which is in the works, although it may be after the Thanksgiving holiday, by the way, but it is in the works.
It's something I have to figure out, you know, also Wes's schedule.
But let me say AlbiHub is becoming a growing disappointment for me.
I tried to create a two-hosted Docker AlbiHub instance with the idea that I would experiment with custom channels between the two instances to try to avoid the LSP's baked into AlbiHub.
Wrong.
It seems at every turn AlbiHub hides key technical details, config options from the UI in the name of security and ease of use.
Overriding the default web address for the web admin console with a secure Tailnet IP
seems to break AlbiHub's interaction with the external internet.
AlbiHub is not an experimenter's dream, more of a nightmare.
Well, I don't think that's been my impression.
Although I kind of think, I don't know if I've accessed an AlbiHub over a Tailnet IP.
So what you're trying to say is you're trying to get AlbiHub to listen on the Tailnet IP.
And when you get it to listen on the Tailnet Hub IP, it can't do stuff on the public internet?
Am I following you, Ed?
that probably is a problem if i'm following you there and i don't know if i've tried that
i am a big mesh networking guy i don't know if i've tried to implicitly get the server to just
listen on the tail net ip thanks ed and i would like a little more info on that it's something i
could always bring up to them next time i chat bobby pins here with 10 000 sats woohoo that's a
tasty burger this is a tasty burger you want to know how to raise you want to know how a raise
like a payment and pay raise would get processed by the economy well i'd increase my dca yeah man
that's right i love it dude the traders love the vol also i'd have a bit more for my smash buys
when the price drops yep there's also talks of a 2000 stemmy coming in that should cover the cost
of a Avalon Q and a few months of electricity.
How interesting.
So I guess both of them would get processed
as sets in my wallet.
You know, I have missed out for some,
maybe as a small business owner,
I don't know what it is
because I don't make a ton of money,
but I did not get the last rounds of stimmies,
the COVID round or the Trump round.
But if I did get $2,000,
you know what I would love to do
is get like maybe a bidaxe or something,
spend some of it on that.
That's a great idea.
I've wanted to do that badly.
Just a little, you know, fun miner, you know?
How cool would it be to come on here and give you a little mining updates
from my tiny little stupid pleb miner?
I'd love that.
I like your outlook.
I think that's pretty good, Bobby.
Yeah, up that DCA for a little bit when that stimmy comes in.
I will have a stimmy update for you in just a little bit, just a small one,
coming up in the update section.
Thank you, everybody who boosted.
It was a lighter week.
We had 39 of you stream sats, and you collectively stacked for the streaming,
31,951 sats.
When you combine that with our boosters, we stacked 101,840.
So not a total bust.
Really, a lot of our longtime regulars coming in with regular amounts brought us up to 100,000.
So that feels pretty good.
Thank you, everybody out there who does support the show.
Really do appreciate it, especially these days.
It's a lot of work, but I'm very passionate about the subject matter.
So to have you step up with the value is much appreciated.
If you'd like to boost the show, Fountain FM is making it easier and easier,
and they host the whole infrastructure,
or you can go get AlbiHub
and see if it's a nightmare or a dream.
And you can start at podcastapps.com
for a new podcast app.
All right, well, let's do a few updates.
I'd like to talk about the reduced data temporary soft fork,
aka the proposal formerly known as BIP444,
aka the filter fork, aka the spam filter BIP.
And I do like that they're trying out some new narratives
because they have gotten some pushback on the whole CSAM is the primary concern
because it's been, you know, kind of over-hit.
You know, it's sort of over-focused on.
So the Bitcoin mechanic, who I like, he was on stage recently at an event
and tried to roll out a new narrative of why we need two soft fork.
Like, the users can't delete it. It's a gift.
If I'm some guy scamming someone and I need some old lady to pull some malware from something
and then run it on her computer.
If it's my server she has to download it from,
there's a trail there.
But if I can tell her, yeah,
just reach out to the Bitcoin network
and block 920,000,
download this op return,
and here is the malware, run it locally,
chop off the first few bytes.
It's such a gift for people that want to do scaring
and stuff like that.
Wait, wait, wait, what?
What?
So, okay.
All right.
So we need to potentially soft fork
and lock up people's UTXOs for a year
because some theoretical scammer might get some theoretical granny
to use some sort of new tool that has yet to be created
to go extract malware from some random plebs Bitcoin node
and then granny would then extract it
and then chop off the bits somehow with another tool
and then granny would execute that malware
and have her fortune stolen?
What are we concerned?
that's where soft forking and taking away people's utxos and creating a new way where the federal
government could then filter other transactions to me really is this is this the alternative
narrative i gotta listen again i gotta play that because i'm not sure if i'm maybe i'm not following
this this can't be it and i need to up i need some old lady to pull some malware from something
and then run it on her computer if it's my server she has to download it from this is there's a
trail there. But if I can tell her, yeah, just reach out to the Bitcoin network and block 920,000,
download this op return, and here is the malware, run it locally, chop off the first few bytes.
It's such a gift for people that want to do scamming and stuff like that.
I just don't follow. That doesn't seem like a real risk. That seems like a theoretical
possibility. But the real threat would be turning the entire Bitcoin node network over to knots,
where they would be essentially
under the governance of one developer.
And I think really this test of a new narrative
is because they have a real problem setting in.
And that problem is that Bitcoin Core 30
is seeing rapid adoption.
And if Notts doesn't have a lot of...
large enough share, well, how are they going to get consensus? And so as the network slips from
them, I think they're getting a little more concerned. I don't know if I want to use the
word desperate, but this is Matthew Cratter at Bitcoin University, and he's calling for a soft
fork right now. Today, I want to talk about why we need a soft fork now, and I wanted to put all
this information together in one video so it'd be easy to share. The context for this is we now have
a major crisis on our hands. More and more Bitcoin nodes running Bitcoin Core 30 have been popping up.
Bitcoin Core 30 is a highly contentious node software update. And it's so contentious, in fact,
that the process of trying to force it down Bitcoiners' throats led to 20% of the Bitcoin
network abandoning Bitcoin Core and moving to Bitcoin Noughts. And that's unprecedented
in Bitcoin's history, as we can see here. We're getting a little bit of a pullback in Bitcoin
Notts nodes, but we're still currently at about 18 to 20% of the network. Here's Core30 nodes,
currently at about 11.82% of the network. Bitcoin Notts adoption has been extremely impressive,
but it cannot hide the fact that almost 12% of the Bitcoin network is now actively running
software, namely Bitcoin Core30, that relays large op returns around the network. Large op returns
expose the Bitcoin network to the greatest risks from arbitrary data from... So, okay, we know about
the opportune risk. I think it's interesting that he used the term, it can't hide the fact. That's
an interesting use of the phrasing here. A couple of things that don't make sense to me. And he said
it's kind of a crisis here. Well, first of all, if the rapid adoption of knots was such a strong
signal, then doesn't that make the rapid adoption of core 30 also a strong signal? And then secondly,
and I would say more importantly, if it's such an urgent threat and Bitcoin 30 already is the
largest node version on the network, it has a larger share of the network. Why isn't all this
awful stuff happening right now? Why isn't granny's computer getting taken over with malware from the
blockchain? Why aren't we seeing a lot of CSAM show up? Where's all the spam? The mempools are
absolutely empty. I'm looking at two blocks right now that have 80 transactions in them.
It's one sat per vbyte right now. Where's the spam problem? Where's the malware problem? Where's
the CSAM problem? We don't seem to have a big problem, even when it's nearly free to do so.
broadly though i just i'm still grappling with some of the larger second order effects
that a soft fork like this would involve first of all knots has a tiny contributor base
and that's not a huge issue for me when it's one of multiple node implementation options from
core 30 core 29 ideally other versions of bitcoin node software that i've heard is in the works but
yet to see. Like, that's fine. They can be small. We have thousands of Linux distributions,
and some of them only have a couple of maintainers, but they're one of many implementations.
But when it becomes the largest implementation, or if it were to become the dominant implementation
in a fork, now a tiny team is a big issue. Not just from one person influencing the direction
of Bitcoin knots, but they also become a soft spot for government pressure.
A prominent Bitcoin developer, Luke is a known person, building consensus-based filtering
clearly introduces a degree of regulatory risk.
It's obvious.
They could easily have a slight tweak to the OFAC rules, guidance around existing legal
frameworks that already are there today that would just say adding confirmations is considered
interacting with a prohibited transactions.
And then all they have to do is go knock on Luke's door
and say, hey, these types of transactions are prohibited.
There's only one spot they have to apply pressure.
And additionally, the fork folks are floating the idea
of using Lewis scripts to crawl the blockchain
and detect spam with some sort of arbitrary spam score.
And I'm not sure who sets the spam score.
I'm not sure who updates the spam score database.
I'm not sure who hosts the spam score database.
Maybe it's Luke.
Maybe Luke auto-updates and controls this spam score database.
I don't know.
But if you create Lua scripts that follow a list or a rule base or a database, it's pretty easy for the government to argue you could modify that to exclude other types of transactions.
You're literally building it so they will come.
And on top of all the other implications the stealing of property rights by holding UTXOs up for a year if this fork activates All of it just the second order stuff feels just like ungrabbable to me
And yet there's a fervor for this.
I really feel like if this is a real thing that we want to do, we got to slow down.
These types of changes, they can take a long, like if you're serious about this, this can take years to get right.
And in the meantime, Core 30 is just going to continue to gain adoption. And it seems like the entire case they're making on the fork side gets more and more diminished as Core 30 grows and then 31 comes out.
And they have less and less of a position to argue from if if not fades. I don't know where this goes from here, but again, I'm not so concerned about about.
about, well, I mean, I hate, I hate that I'm kind of, I hate spam and I would, I would prefer to have
a magic wand that just makes Bitcoin a monetary only network, but I'm not a fan of the idea of
Lewis grips crawling the blockchain, not a fan of spam scores. And I'm not a fan of knots becoming
the dominant node. It just, it doesn't, it doesn't have the team it needs. And perhaps it could get
there one day. It absolutely could. And perhaps it will, but it's not there today. It's not ready
for that position. That's, in my opinion, just somebody who's been watching open source for like
24 years and watching how these kinds of projects work. It just doesn't seem like we're there yet.
All right. So I promised I'd talk a little bit about these stimmy checks.
Scott and Trump are perhaps heading towards a conflict because it seems like Scott's tapping
the brakes on a few things and it's frustrating Trump. Number one, Trump wants to take stronger
action against the Fed. Scott's putting the brakes on that. Scott also put the brakes earlier
on the tariffs. And now Trump's out there continuing to say next year, everybody's going to get 2K
stimmy checks. And yet once again, this is just a few hours ago when the Treasury secretary's
asked about it. He kind of says, don't expect it. No, I mean, maybe there's a lot of things we're
going to do for you. Would a $2,000 tariff dividend check going to people be inflationary?
Great question. And I would like to turn this question around to you because he's not going to properly answer it. Spoiler alert. Would it be inflationary? Here's the argument why it would not be. You could argue that it would not be inflationary because it's existing money. The money was collected by the tariffs and then that money is going to move to the people. They're not printing the money and then distributing it to the people.
All right. There's not coming from debt and then being distributed. It's existing money supply that already exists that's being moved, essentially. So is that inflationary? I ask you, because I think this is going to be an interesting divide in where the audience sees and perceives inflation. So boost in with your answer if you do think it's inflationary. I like that Brett asked the question. I wish Scott would have properly answered it.
Would a $2,000 tariff dividend check going to people be inflationary?
Well, there are a lot of things that are going to happen next year.
Is that one of them?
And that could be one of them.
And again, maybe we could persuade Americans to save that because one of the things that's going to happen next year, the Trump accounts,
Every child who was born from January 1st for the next three years is going to get a government account that goes into the stock market.
So every American child born for the next three years, starting January 1st, is going to have that.
They can take it out when they're 18.
They're going to learn the power of compounding.
And there's going to be a lot of financial literacy around that.
I get the idea.
I mean, it seems like a hope.
It just seems like that's something parents should be doing and not really the responsibility of the federal government.
I grant you the parents aren't doing that.
And financial literacy is a major problem.
Obviously, anything that improves that is probably worth it.
It just seems like, I don't know, there's a lot of ways to spend that money.
That's something maybe parents should be doing.
But this is what Scott's been focused on.
And this was his answer last time.
Well, there's a lot of things we're going to be doing.
How about Trump accounts?
Power of compounding and there's going to be a lot of financial literacy around that.
And I think the reason that we saw kind of the disastrous election in New York is young
people don feel like they have a stake in the economy So we want to give them a stake in the economy We know Now there might be something to that I don think their solution is what going to do that But I think if you can buy a house you can afford rent you can afford groceries you don own assets and your paycheck constantly getting debased it probably pretty hard to buy into capitalism
And so if you could give people something that appreciates, that shows them the power of compounding, that shows them something that's worth long-term thinking to change their time preference, it'd make a big difference.
I don't think it's going to be Trump accounts, but I do feel like there's a market need for Bitcoin in that way.
There's there's it's not a philosophy, but there's there's a there's a culture that can start around long term hodling.
That is, I think, a positive one.
And that would be something that I'd love to see spread around the country.
From around the country to the world.
Now, our final clip.
Yes, it's that time of the week.
I have to give some props to Natalie Brunel.
Nobody's perfect.
I'm not putting her up on a pedestal.
But I'm pretty consistently impressed with her ability to go on to mainstream television,
specifically the financial news, when Bitcoin is dipping.
in the like while it's in the process of dipping.
And she goes on there and she nails the sales pitch to normies every single time in the face
of what could be an awkward moment.
And I say that because I've watched a lot of analysts go on these shows and just fumble
these moments.
But Natalie nails it every single time.
That's right.
I think that Bitcoin has the superior properties that make for a great form of money, a great
asset that we can invest in over the long term.
You know, I know you talk about companies in the S&P 500 all the time.
The average lifespan is about 20 to 30 years.
This is the 100-year investment.
And I think for the average person, which is really my target audience, for the average person, it's been so hard to accumulate capital, to have a seat at the table.
We have such an incredible wealth divide.
And Bitcoin allows us to catch up.
It has for me.
It has for all these people that I've met.
It has for Michael Saylor, who found new purpose through Bitcoin.
And I think it will do so for billions of people around the world.
You've always been Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin.
Other digital currencies, digital assets are getting some shine right now.
They're done, you know, there's the new cases out there for Ethereum.
You know, you've got a government that's backing back in crypto.
Are you looking elsewhere?
Are you still it's all still about for you, Bitcoin?
I'm all about Bitcoin.
I see a little bit too much risk elsewhere.
And I think today the average person doesn't want to be a day trader doing tens of dozens of hours of homework into all of these digital equities.
I think Bitcoin actually simplifies savings and I think it's here to stay forever.
So when you have a winner, it sometimes hurts to diversify.
Let's check in on the state of the network as I wrap up at block height 924,329.
One Bitcoin priced in U.S. dollars right now is going for $88,960.
It's been a long time since I've said that.
That puts our sats per dollar back over the 1,000 sats threshold.
1,124 sats to one U.S. dollar.
Ah, price just ticked up to $89,000.
That does put us down 29%.
Welcome to correction territory, my friends.
Our all-time high was $126,180, a long cold 44 days ago on October 6th.
Now our difficulty changes adjust now to negative 1%.
Difficulty is now negative 1%.
Reachable nodes on the network, 23,577.
Core 30 now with the largest share of the Bitcoin node network at 11.8%.
Core 28 coming at number 2 at 10.5%.
Core 29, 8.0.
Now, NOTS is shared across several implementations,
so it's right up there in the 10 area, too.
It's a pretty close second, really.
But Core 30, nearly a 12%.
How about that?
That's been a surprise.
There we have it.
Block height 924, 329.
The network continues to be very strong
me know. And of course, boost in with what I missed or what else you'd like to see from the show.
And of course, I want your answer on how you stack during the dip. And if you think the stimulus
check will be technically inflationary, I'd like to know that as well. Now, as I do, I'm going to
wrap you up with a value for value track. So if you boost in during the song, 95% of your sats go
to the artist and it really makes a difference. They love it. Now, this track I'm going to play
does have some explicit lyrics. So if that is a concern for you, you'll probably want to turn it
once it starts playing.
But once it does play,
send them a boost and tell them thanks.
And this week, I'm going to leave you
with a track by Longy,
and it's called Auto Interwoven Minds.
Send it once, send it twice.
What the fuck is the noise?
Call the police, they wouldn't come.
Said she does this just for fun
because it's Thursday and on Thursdays
I like drinking to the dreams and never come.
Check your lights, refresh page
Check your lights, rearrange
Should I know or should I like
On toe and toe over much
Cause it's Thursday and on Thursday
I like drinking to the dreams
And never all your mobile phones
Turn them off, turn them off
Oh, your TV screens
Turn them off
Oh, turn them off
Sitting here, losing will
Might just take another pill
Numb your senses, make you weak
More about junk but no more about beef
Cause it's Friday, I mean Thursday
I like drinking to the dreams that never come
Check your lights, refresh page
Check your lights, we arrange
Should I know, or should I like
I'm so into open minds
Cause it's Thursday, I know Thursday
I like drinking to the dreams that never are
Your mobile phones
Turn them off
Or your TV screens
Turn them off
Oh, turn them off
Come on.
Let's go.
In this life, you get one chance.
And in this life you lose your mind
In this life you get one chance
In this life you're gonna lose your mind
Oh, your robot phones
Turn them off, turn them off
Oh, your TV screens
Turn them off, oh, turn them off
Thank you.