Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 76.
My name is Chris, ChrisLAS.com, JupiterBroadcasting.com.
As I go on the air, there are 23,651 reachable Bitcoin nodes on the network.
And Bitcoin Noughts stands around 20% of those nodes right now.
Of course, with Bitcoin Core ostensibly accounting for the rest.
Why do I mention that?
Because it's getting ugly out there.
Bitcoin Core 30 is fast approaching, really just days away from the release of this episode.
And the debate has gotten really ugly.
Of course, if you don't recall, the controversy centers around changes to the configuration defaults in Bitcoin Core,
including the op return setting and the data carrier size limit configuration options.
Bitcoin Noughts is keeping the default op return data limit at under 90 bytes as it traditionally
has been, while Bitcoin Core plans to raise the default limit to 100,000 bytes in version 30.
So the debate is getting hot and personal. Attacks are emerging from both sides. It seems
the core side is trying to undermine the Noughts project by essentially undermining faith in its
developers and its contributors. Meanwhile, over on the not side of the debate, they're kind of
going to extremes, claiming that Bitcoin Core will kill Bitcoin when version 30 comes out or that
it'll be used for child porn storage and that everybody that has a node will be liable that
stores this information, really going pretty far and starting to get labeled as Bitcoin doomerism
amongst those in the community. It's been a difficult process to watch. It has been extremely
difficult to watch. And it was nice to see Jimmy Song try to come out and act as a voice of reason
and attempt to de-escalate the situation. Here's what he said. There's a lot of hyperbole flying
around about Core version 30. In this video, I'm going to make the case that we don't need to be
worrying so much. I don't believe the changes related to up return are beneficial for users,
but that does not mean that these changes will kill Bitcoin. As I've opined in the past,
the data carrier size changes will allow for more spam, particularly through the decentralized peer-to-peer network,
and will reduce friction for getting now non-standard transactions into blocks.
But the opposite extreme of stating that it's going to kill Bitcoin is overstating things.
From a legal perspective, the main argument is regarding child porn somehow making it into the blockchain
and then every node runner somehow being liable for it.
This is distinct from, say, an inscription because supposedly inscriptions require software to piece together the various pieces.
So if you're not following, the argument is the increased op return size means that, well, you can store everything you need to directly decode the image now.
So your liability goes up.
As opposed to op return transactions, which can have the material contiguously.
The fact is that you require software separate from your node for both.
And just because data is contiguous, that does not mean that it's now readily accessible.
From a moral perspective, what your node does is verification.
And verification is not aiding and abetting the content.
There's no moral culpability in verifying the transactions in blocks or in your mempool, which is what your node software is doing.
Core version 30 does not display any images or videos or play any audio.
running software that verifies whether a block or transaction is consistent with the rules of
bitcoin does not make you a party to whatever nefarious deeds the transaction concern may be
involved in a bank clerk that clears a check that was used for some evil purpose is not morally
liable neither are you or your node liable for whatever evil purpose a transaction might have
because that's not its role.
This is always how it's worked.
And this is where Jimmy and I agree
and why I think arguing that Core 30 is going to kill Bitcoin
sort of damages your credibility.
But he also offers a critical insight for core developers.
There are real problems on the network,
mining centralization especially.
But overstating the case about the drawbacks
of the data carrier size debate
only discredits the real concerns,
like the lack of technical justification
for increasing to 100,000 bytes and not 160.
Dumerism and FUD only serve to make the issue bigger than it is.
Because this change will probably add more spam,
but spam is still limited by the block size limit.
Yeah, and I think what you can interpret from the adoption of Nots is Signal.
Nots isn't popular because a single developer like Luke Dasher out there
or because a podcaster told people to go install Notts,
which has sort of been Core's interpretation
of why people are installing Notts.
But Notts is gaining traction
because users are unhappy with the decisions of Core,
specifically the push to deprecate the ability
to set data carrier size limits
and just how they went about that change.
They made a change.
It wasn't a popular change.
And they haven't been listening.
And they haven't been communicating very well.
And people are protesting with the migration to Notts.
However, a potential shift may be on the horizon, known as PR 33453.
And it's not a complete change, but it's a minor directional shift from the core team.
This poll request aims to undeprecate the data carrier and data carrier size configuration options.
undeprecate them.
So it reverses the decision to mark these options as deprecated.
And in the PR, they say, look, it's obvious that users want this setting.
It's a direct response to user demand.
Many still use these options to filter non-financial data,
and this PR offers clarity and avoids confusion.
There's clearly high user demand for it,
and the other reality is because these config options already exist,
it's minimal additional maintenance cost to continue to provide them and just clarify the
documentation around them now the main counter argument the main pushback the knacks if you will
in the thread are don't give the users foot guns there's a principle that the core team has is don't
let the user shoot their own foot and it's bad to offer options that could potentially harm users
and the set of core developers think these options are foot guns.
But I think the foot gun argument is kind of weak.
It's not a new feature, but rather just the reversal of a deprecation.
So the impact's pretty low.
But this PR doesn't solve the broader spam debate,
but it does address the user concern of losing configuration options.
I think that's been a role in why people have been choosing Bitcoin Noughts.
But the positive side to this is it actually makes Noughts more viable.
Leaving this configuration option in allows it to be set ahead of time by knots downstream.
And so in a way, while this is a very small change, it ironically is a change that will make knots more viable.
So take that for what you will.
It seems to be a small adjustment, at least from Bitcoin Core.
And I think it's a positive one.
It's just not a complete one.
You might recall, it just doesn't seem like that long ago, that Michael Saylor got in a lot of hot water.
He was asked a question about funding Bitcoin Core.
And the context of this was, I think Bitwise, the ETF, the Bitwise ETF, it might have been another ETF.
Perhaps it was a different ETF.
It might have been BlackRock.
But one of the ETFs re-announced or announced that they were going to be contributing some of their profits to fund Bitcoin development.
Some of that was going to be going to Bitcoin Core.
And this was probably about a year ago or so.
I don't remember.
You might.
Saylor was asked, what do you think about this?
Is MicroStrategy going to kick some money to Bitcoin development to help fund Bitcoin
development?
And Saylor at the time said he wasn't sure if that was a very good idea.
And he got a lot of heat for that statement.
In fact, I think it actually changed the way some people view Michael Saylor after he said
those things.
And what is interesting is I kind of view those comments in a different light after this debate around Bitcoin Core.
And this week, an audience member at Saylor's Bitcoin Treasury's New York conference was, well, I guess it's an unconference technically.
It was an unconference.
And there was a Q&A section where they could ask Michael questions.
And somebody brought up the Oppurtern debate and asked for his position on it.
And so I think protocol proposals, however well-intentioned, can go horribly wrong.
And I think that the late debate, that this debate we see right now over op return limits,
this is actually a second order or maybe even a third order change.
It's not changing the amount of Bitcoin, which of course is an atomic zero order change.
It's not changing the block side, which is the first order change.
It's somewhere in the second and a half to third order.
But the reaction of the community, which is, you know, to reject it, you know, an inflammatory reaction, I thought was a healthy response.
It's healthy to be skeptical of a third order change to the protocol.
Right. Because it might become a second order change and it might be if it's a first order change, it puts everything at risk.
And and the biggest danger is a very talented, well-funded, well-intentioned developer trying to do something good.
That's the danger, right?
And that is fundamentally the issue,
which is a very competent, well-funded,
well-intentioned developer
that wants to upgrade the protocol.
That is the risk.
The risk is, I've said this tongue-in-cheek before
in my long business career,
I don't regret my bad ideas
because no one's stupid enough
to pursue their bad ideas.
I regret all of the good ideas
that I pursued to the detriment of my great idea.
It's the good ideas that actually dilute the product,
dilute the brand, dilute the network,
and destroy the company.
The good ideas will destroy the company.
The good idea for Bitcoin will destroy Bitcoin.
If I want to destroy Bitcoin,
I would just fund infinite developers
who are very talented and tell them to make it better.
All right, so boost in.
Was Saylor right about ossification?
And does his answer sit differently with you right now, given all of this drama that we have just seen around Bitcoin Core and spam?
Was he right all along?
And do you feel differently about his answer now and about ossification?
Boost in and let me know.
Well, let's talk about price, baby. I don't usually do this, but those of you that tune out the macro news have to be wondering right now, why didn't Bitcoin pamp? We got a rate cut. Where's the pamp?
You know, especially considering multiple nations did rate cuts.
If you weren't following the macro news and paying attention to my macro coverage, you might be thinking something's wrong right now.
Shouldn't we be pamping?
Yeah, well, this is why you need to pay attention to the macro news.
You might recall that I've noted recently two short-term price headwinds.
Number one, while yes, the Federal Reserve did cut rates by 25 basis points, they're still doing quantitative tightening.
still doing quantitative tightening. So it's one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake right now
from the Fed. But additionally, you might recall that several weeks ago, I warned you that the U.S.
Treasury was going to be refilling its general account, the TGA as they call it. And that takes
weeks. It takes weeks because they announced they would be sucking over a trillion dollars
out of the market into the TGA. And then on top of that, Bitcoin has been seeing just a ton of
profit-taking in the last few weeks. Wales have been net selling 147,000 Bitcoin since the 21st
of just August. In fact, that makes whale total balances on the fastest decline at a monthly rate
at any cycle recently. August was a barn burner for whales. But no one's really been talking about
this Treasury general account refilling that's been going on. I brought it up in episode 67,
the Treasury vacuum, so about a month ago. And I told you the U.S. Treasury would suck over $1
trillion out of the economy. And we didn't really know at the time what kind of impact that might
have on the market. But Joe Brown over at Heresy Financial, he also speculated about this around
that time. The U.S. Treasury just released a shocking report that they need $1.6 trillion
before the end of the year.
At least on July 28th,
you are looking at from the treasury itself,
their announcement of marketable borrowing estimates
between now and the end of the year.
During the July through September quarter,
the treasury expects to borrow 1.007 trillion
in privately held net marketable debt,
assuming an end of September cash balance of $850 billion.
As of the time of this recording,
in less than two months time,
the Treasury needs to borrow a full trillion dollars.
Actually, just over a full trillion dollars.
But here we are now on the other side of that two months time.
And we do have some good news.
It appears now, again, the reporting on this is very light.
And this is me doing my own digging and researching.
But it would seem that the DGA, the Treasury's general account,
reached the refill goal on September 16th of $850 billion.
That's huge.
And here's what Arthur Hayes said the implications of reaching that refill goal would mean for liquidity in the market.
He says, at that point, the excess cash that was sequestered in the TGA is expected to start flowing back into private markets, increasing liquidity.
This would likely provide a flood of liquidity into financial markets, potentially boosting asset prices and easing credit conditions.
This is one of the things we needed to have wrap up was this TGA refill, because this was a vacuum of mandated purchasing.
When the Treasury comes a knock in, there's certain banking entities, I guess.
I don't know what to call them.
They have to do some buying.
That's where their money's going.
They have to do some buying.
And then on top of all of this you have the will they will they not rate cut anticipation that been happening We got kind of a weak rate cut where they doing gas and brakes at the same time
And we do have a shaky will we or will we not have a recession narrative out there right now.
But I think as this TGA wraps up and the rate cuts and the idea of continued rate cuts begins to set in, I think Bitcoin is going to actually recover pretty well.
It's had a bad few weeks, but I'm feeling pretty good.
at least, you know, as long as nothing surprising comes along. I think things will probably start
turning around now and then eventually heat up and going into probably Christmas, be cooking right
along. I wanted to talk a little bit about the digital euro. If this was happening in the States,
you know I'd be all over it, and it's about to happen in the European market.
Now, it's still in preparation, but their goal is that by October of 2025,
the ECB will have a final vendor list, they'll have full outreach engaged,
and they'll have standards that the market can start building on.
And they already have a billion euro worth of contracts flowing into private firms
that are building out all the software.
It's a total contractor boondockle, and they're all going to write you no horrible software.
And Christine Lagarde, that's the ECB president, she insists you're going to love it.
You are going to love digital cash.
Easy to use, super good privacy, very convenient.
Did I mention easy to use?
In fact, that's really all she can come up with.
She was recently asked about the transition to the digital euro.
And you have to appreciate the context around this.
This is all heating up because the U.S. is getting all on board with stable coins.
But the U.S. stablecoins, those are private entities.
Those are commercial companies that are driving the stablecoins.
But in the EU version, they're going to be essentially CBDCs.
They're going to be centrally managed.
They're going to be bank-run stablecoins.
The difference is going to be quite stark.
And Xi really wants everybody to get on board with their new CBDC and just ignore these American yank stablecoins.
Let me move on to digital assets, because, of course, the ECB and your colleagues in Europe will be dictating or overseeing changes in crypto, changes in digital assets and a digital euro.
What would you like to see?
I'd like to say that we started that process a few years back.
We are moving on very practically because we are now really at the sort of pre-pilot stage,
experimenting with different types of technologies.
And we should be ready to launch in about 18 months.
That's very exciting.
How will this change people's lives?
You know, it's people who have dictated that change.
Because in many, many countries now in the European Union, you see that customers, clients, citizens, whatever their age, they are prepared now to use digital currencies.
Does that ring true at all to you?
Especially when she implies that, you know, older folks are prepared to use digital currency.
They're doing it because the people want a CBDC.
You see, the people are so hyped about digital in general that Christine has been able to suss out that means they're also very excited about digital currency.
While none of them have told her that, they love their iPhones.
And because they love their iPhones, they're probably going to love a digital euro.
It just makes sense, old or young.
You know, it's people who have dictated that change, because in many, many countries now in the European Union, you see that customers, clients, citizens, whatever their age, they are prepared now to use digital currencies.
So the digital euro for me is like digital cash.
Instead of getting the banknotes from the ATM machine, they'll be able to use cash, but in a digital form, whether they use it with their phone or other devices.
But that's exactly the equivalent of cash, but in a digital form.
And it's to help them pay in the way they want and transact in the way they want.
It's more opportunities for them.
She almost said the quiet part out loud when she said instead of getting it from the ATM, they'll get it from it'll be digital form.
And she should have said instead of getting it from the ATM, they'll now get it issued directly from the central bank, which will have a monopoly on the money issuance.
And we're cutting out the middleman.
Now, obviously, when we talk about these kinds of things, that's where my mind goes.
The central bank becomes a tech monopoly.
They do the procurement.
They do the vendor capture.
They also become a central point of failure.
and the cash-like promise seems to ring hollow
because they're constantly restricting the use of encrypted apps
and the use of money-sending apps that support privacy
and they constantly are capping and lowering the cap for cash usage.
So cash-like promises, I'm not really buying.
And the privacy assurance is, by whose standard?
That sounds like PR speak.
The data is going to have to flow through a commercial bank
or the central bank ultimately,
and all of that is going to be subject to state surveillance.
What Christine says is you don't need to worry about privacy, not because it's secure. I mean this. Their message is privacy is all taken care of. You don't need to worry about privacy, not because it's secure, not because they're not going to peak, but because you already lost your privacy years ago. They already have all the data they need.
What do you want to say to critics who say a digital euro risks surveillance?
It risks becoming a tool of financial surveillance and central control.
Not true.
Why not?
Because we are looking at a technology that will actually protect the privacy.
And I think that in peer-to-peer payment, this is already a given.
and for larger payments where, for instance, AML, anti-money laundering rules,
will have to apply because we don't want to support hunky-punky business of a dark nature,
then the rules of scrutiny will be applied by the banks,
which already have access to the transactions and the payments that are made by their clients.
There's not going to be more than that.
And we are not interested in the data.
I mean, the private sector is interested in data.
The banks are interested in data.
And they can monetize that.
But we have no interest and we couldn't do it.
It's not in our business.
So you can reassure people that a central bank digital euro will not undermine people's freedoms.
Correct.
It will give them additional freedom, actually.
Now.
All right.
OK.
If you're in the area where this will touch, you know, Europe, and you're listening to this, I'd love to know how you feel about this.
My read is very suspicious, and I don't, you know, her rings, her talk of privacy rings very hollow to me.
But if you have any insights from the ground that you can share with me, please boost in.
Let me know how you feel about this.
Because when I hear it, it sounds very slimy.
Well, I'm getting on the road again.
traveling down to Texas again.
And I don't have an episode planned again.
Actually, for the next two weeks,
I will have my recording gear with me.
So if something breaks, I might just jump on.
So be sure you're subscribed to the RSS feed.
And if you're in the Austin area,
either come out to Texas Linux Festival
or come say hi at our Saturday lunch.
We have lunch planned for the Unplugged program's 12th birthday
and you're absolutely invited.
It'll be Saturday at noon.
I'll have details linked in the show notes.
Would love it if you came and hung out with me.
Now, you might say, Chris, why are you going to be gone for two weeks?
I'm driving.
Driving there and back from the Pacific Northwest.
And I couldn't tell you why exactly, other than it's a great opportunity to spend time with the boys.
And I feel called to cover Texas Linux Fest.
It's a good little fest.
And these things are unique.
And I'd love to see these kind of things happen more and more in the Bitcoin community.
These fests are community-ran and created by just everyday people that love Linux.
They're not big corporate events.
They're not run by somebody like Bitcoin Magazine or, in this case, the Linux Foundation over on the Linux side.
It is a community thing, and they're special.
The networking there is important.
Like the podfather always says, connection is protection.
You meet people.
You build out relationships.
And I just feel called to get down there and cover it.
In a way, it's like these events for the community, they're so special to Linux and open source.
They happen in a vacuum.
And if nobody covers them, it's like nobody really knows what happened or what went on.
So I do feel called to cover it, even though it means I'll have to take some time away from the show.
I apologize for that.
I hope you'll keep listening.
Maybe catch up in the back catalog.
Send in a boost.
Maybe take the time to set up a node.
And rest assured, if you do stay subscribed, yeah, I'll break in if something major happens.
I think you can pretty much count on that.
I can't help myself.
Well, don't go anywhere.
I got some great booze, some updates you need to know, and a final clip of the week.
But first, I just want to mention, you can support the show by doing what you already
do.
You want to stack some sats on River in the States?
I got a link in the show notes where you can support the show by stacking sats.
you're all about self-custody, the Bitcoin Well, an amazing automatic self-custody Bitcoin platform
to and from your cold storage or Lightning or your hot wallet. They don't host the wallet. You do.
The Bitcoin Company. You got some sats on Lightning. You want to go buy something?
Hundreds of gift cards. You can go from sats to gift card in seconds. You don't even have to
create an account. They offer you a way to log in with Lightning. The Fold Card. I got a link for
this. You want to stack sats while you're paying bills, paying off your bills, doing what you got
to do with your day-to-day life? Fold card. I also have some news about them coming up in a little bit.
Last but not least, Salt Lending. They've been in the business for like six years now of giving
people access to the liquidity without having to sell their Bitcoin. They also offer an automatic
margin protection product. It's fascinating. More details about that when you check out the link
in the show notes. Support the show just by doing what you do's.
Let's get into the boost. OB came in as our baller booster with 50,000 sats.
Hey, rich lobster!
Ha!
Yeah, JB.
Fun will now commence.
OB.
JB OB.
Actually, I kid around because I think this might have been meant for Linux Unplugged,
because the boost is happy birthday, which I say thank you.
But this month, I think TWIB is 1.4 years old, and my birthday is not this month.
But Lops was just around, so I'm going to take that, though, and I'll put that towards
the trip to Texas.
I am financing a significant portion of the trip using sats.
I'm not selling the sats.
I am still using them to fund the trip.
If you'd like to know more, well, boost in and ask, and I'll tell you more.
That's my little tease.
So thank you.
Recent sats, basically, that I've made are going to go towards helping make this trip possible, and I appreciate that.
Bitcoin Lizards here with 50,000 sats.
Hey, rich lobster.
Bitcoin Lizards back.
I don't like the spam, but there's the way things ought to be and the way things are.
Transactions with hop return larger than 83 bytes can be rejected and mined today.
Oh, I'm sorry, can be relayed and mined today without Bitcoin Core 30.
Sort of a consensus change the solution to stop the spam transactions is for them to be priced out of the block space market by financial transactions.
Filtering the relay to stop the spam is futile.
I agree.
I agree because of your main point there. It's already happening today. It's happening right now. And I also think this debate matters a lot more because the fees have been low for a while.
You know, if we had been in an environment where the fees were very high, uncomfortably high, like they were for a little bit a couple of years ago, I don't know if we would have had nearly this debate because it had been obvious that the market would just work this out.
But because we have been in a low fee environment for so long, I think these kinds of debates and fights just have a little bit more venom behind them.
Thank you, Bitcoin Lizard.
Wise.
Hey, Adversary 17's here with 32,768 sats.
I hoard that which your kind covet.
Adversary's rights, Chuckie Noon from the back catalog,
slowly getting caught up.
Nice job.
Still behind, but here's to another great episode.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
It's always nice when people do that.
Thank you, Adversary's.
It's nice to hear from you.
Side for seven's here with 10,101 sats.
Oh my God, this drawer is filled with fruit lobes.
This is one of my favorite JB interviews ever.
Oscar is an excellent speaker with a vision for podcasting to do and a compelling argument.
Both of you are great advocates for Bitcoin as well as open standards and the web as a whole.
Thanks for the great content.
Well, just pump the brakes right there.
That's too nice, Cypher, but I appreciate the value and the boost.
Thank you very much.
And I am genuinely glad you enjoyed the interview.
I wasn't sure how it would go.
And I really enjoyed the talk.
And I'm glad you did too.
Mac Jollers is back with 17,000 sets.
I like you. You're a hot ticket.
I do like you, Mac. Mac writes for 17,000 sataroonies.
Chris, I just want to be honest. I only listened to your show on Spotify, but I totally went and got Fold.
I think he means Fountain to boost your show. You got something special here.
I listened to all and I mean all of the Bitcoin podcast.
And I have paused the JMS mid word to listen to your latest show.
Wow! Thank you, man.
B-O-O-S-T.
You are a real gentleman. That's quite the compliment, and I appreciate it very much.
Thank you, Mack Chalers. It's good to hear from you.
Stop it. Get some help.
No, keep on boosting. Don't listen to him.
Paranoid Coders here with 2,000 sats.
No message just value Appreciate it Galactic Starfisher is here with 4 sets Coming in hot with the boost He says actually the R is for Noster but if you like my handle better with your surname in the mix
by all means, read it that way.
Man, I can't read it any other way.
He says, I appreciate the passion,
so long as this isn't in every episode.
An emphatic take or two is welcome in my eyes.
Yeah, I did get a little worked up.
I felt bad about that.
I really did.
You make me want to be a better man.
Thank you, Galactic.
Dickie also sent some value 2000 sats to our song artist last week.
I really appreciate that too.
Thank you.
It's nice to hear from you.
Right back soon.
Give me Bitcoin guides back with 6,789 sats.
Oh my God, this drawer is filled with fruit loops.
Double boost for this episode and the one with Oscar.
Conversations with people like Oscar who are creating real use cases for Bitcoin are great.
Is there any way to connect my L&D node to Fountain?
No. No, the idea with FountainWrite is to make that process hands-free. In fact, the Lightning infrastructure is actually run by Zebedee for Fountain.
He says, I'd love to connect directly and not have to manually top up my wallet if I could. Keep the signal coming. Thanks.
I'm there with you, Kiwi. What I do is I send 100,000 sats over Lightning from my AlbiHub to my Fountain wallet as needed.
then I blow through that, boosting.
A lot of it goes to the podcasting 2.0 podcast.
Love those guys.
And then, you know, other places.
And then I top it back off.
And I do wish I could just, you know,
link it to my Albi Hub maybe one day,
but it's not in the cards right now
just because of the way the infrastructure is done.
It's really optimized to make it
as simple as possible for people.
But I love that you're asking that.
And there are great apps out there
that you can connect to your own node.
I should mention that.
And Cast-O-Matic is fantastic on iOS, Podverse is cross-platform on the web, too.
And I'm pretty sure TrueFans lets you connect to your own AlbiHub as well.
Not positive on that, but it could be worth checking into.
Thank you, Kiwi.
Nice to hear from you.
Mix is here with a row of ducks.
That's 2,222 sats.
No message, just the value.
And I always appreciate that.
Producer Jeff's here with 6,666 sats.
Tough little ship.
Little.
He says, great chat. I personally don't want any social junk in my podcast player, but I do see the appeal.
It's also very cool to see the direction of Fountain and how they are really solving problems.
I love the passion and the enthusiasm, and I'll continue to happily use it for boosting.
But my ears live on Antenapod.
I do hear a lot of good about Antenapod. I think it's a good app.
My main pushback with Antenapod is they're killing podcasting.
I mean, I say that kind of jokingly, but we are in a life and death struggle against YouTube and Spotify, mostly YouTube.
And YouTube is aggressively pushing forward.
And they already have super chats, which are boosts.
They have live streams.
They support video.
They have a discovery mechanism.
They support comments.
and they're introducing other things that automate and introduce AI to advertising workflow
that some content creators are going to like.
And podcasting needs live streams.
Podcasting needs cross-app comments.
Podcasting needs alternatives like super chats that are open and cross-platform and cross-player.
And everything that Antenapod sits on is an area where YouTube continues to kick our ass.
And so while I love Antenapod and I love apps like Pocket Cast and Overcast, which I think are some of the best out there, they're actually killing the very market that they make an app for.
In part because they've had 20 years where they could just sort of sit back and do nothing but parse an XML file and then download an HTTP enclosure and then play that using likely native libraries on the platform in most cases.
I'm not trying to underplay it, but it was a solved problem.
And now it's a much bigger scope.
But if we're ever going to be competitive with Spotify or YouTube, we have to get this going.
And Antenapod, as an open source player, it's incumbent upon them to also adopt the other open source standards that can keep podcasting viable.
And it literally is a life or death struggle.
I don't think most people see it because they're not living and dying on the bleeding edge of this industry like some of us are.
Some of us are out here taking the arrows every single day.
And some of us have been like the pod father.
He's been doing it for nearly 20 years, right?
I've been doing it for like 18 years.
Others like Todd Cochran, who just passed, also nearly 20 years.
People have been out there taking these arrows, and we have a sense for this kind of stuff
because our very survival is dependent on it.
And if you don't stay in a game like this for nearly 20 years without developing a sense
of this kind of stuff, you get a survival sense, a business sense.
And I can tell you, Antenapod and others unintentionally, like Pocket Casts, like Marco Armit with
overcast are hurting podcasting. Podcasters are as well. They don't know. But podcasters can't
really be expected to take action and use these features until hosting providers and players
have broad support. But I understand using it. I have it installed on my device, but I am all
Fountain. One thing to remember with Fountain, well, two things with Fountain when it comes to
the social feed when you open the app, and then I'll move on. Number one, in Fountain 1.3,
at the top is now a cluster of your most recent episodes right there at the top of the homepage.
So when the app opens, there's going to be four buttons at the top of the screen.
It's your four most recent podcasts.
So you get right to the action if you want.
If you're willing to support Fountain's development and become a member,
there's two perks that I think are really great.
Well, three maybe.
Number one, you can skip the social feed and go right to your library.
It's a weird thing to put behind a paywall considering how many people bounce off of Fountain
for this one thing alone.
I don't know.
Maybe they're not getting the data.
Maybe I should talk to them about this.
But it's the number one thing I get.
I tried Fountain.
I don't like the social feed.
Well, guess what?
If you're a member, you can just turn that off and go right to the library, even though
the social feed is getting better and better.
It's one of the things they're actively working on.
But there's that.
The other thing you get with membership, besides supporting the application development, is
you get no fees or lower fees on your boost and your support and stuff like that.
And then also, I think, I don't know if you get this on the free accounts because I've
been a member forever, I get a lightning fast transcription and I don't have to pay anything
for it.
So if I go to a podcast and they're too lazy and they're too ignorant to have a transcription,
I can hit a button and get a transcription.
So that's nice.
And I get that as part of my membership.
So I think those are all reasons to consider Fountain, but, and I mean a Fountain membership,
but I understand antenna pod's great too.
Jeff also sent in some McDucks over there.
This old duck still got it.
He's laughing at my quote unquote vacation.
He says, what do you call it when you work while on vacation?
What do you call it when you're working while on vacation?
The answer?
Self-employed.
Oh, Jeff.
Fun will now commence.
You're right, though.
You're right about that.
You're absolutely right about that.
Damn it.
Bobby Pink comes in with 5,000 sats.
They're real and they're spectacular.
I have a goal of getting to one Bitcoin.
I have a DCA setup and a hardware wallet.
But as I look more into price targets that people set,
I feel like I need to stack faster than I normally can via DCA.
I feel like I'm going crazy trying to find ways that I can stack faster with mining,
loans, treasury companies, etc.
As someone who's been in Bitcoin for a long time,
do you think I'm focusing too much on an arbitrary goal?
And should I stay humble and stack sats when I can?
I'm 29 for context.
You know, Bobby Penn, I can tell there's wisdom in there.
You already know what the answer is when you wrote that.
But I just, I want to tell you what I have learned over years of being in Bitcoin.
There are always dips.
And there have been many times when I thought, I'm priced out.
I'm priced out.
And then Bitcoin dips and I jump in.
Or what also happens, you adjust.
You know, I have to admit, when Bitcoin got down to $112 yesterday, I bought $100 worth.
Because it seems like a deal now at $112,000.
It seems like a deal now.
So we adjust a bit, you know.
So there's that.
But I want you to also, I want you to reframe the way you're thinking about stacking Bitcoin.
While one Bitcoin is a nice round number, and we humans, we love round numbers,
you have something working in your favor.
And that is the United States federal government, and really, honestly, Bobby,
any government that can print money is going to do so. They can't help it. They always will print
money. So they will always be debasing. That means there's always going to be more dollars created
chasing a scarce amount of Bitcoin. So while one Bitcoin is the number we talk about today,
could be a lot less than that in the future. And so you have to remember that what you're really
doing is saving from debasement. And it'd be nice to get to one Bitcoin, but they're always going to
print more dollars. And so what you're really trying to do is hold less of the thing they're
devaluing and hold more of the thing going up in value. And as long as you're doing that,
you're doing it right. And I do think the DCA, while not necessarily strategic, you know,
you can't dip by necessarily. I think the DCA, the set it and forget it after two years or so
does provide surprising results.
The other thing you could consider, maybe,
is slowly, continue to DCA,
but slowly set up a cash reserve
and prepare for a dip in 2026, 2027.
Eventually, we'll see something probably come around.
And, you know, maybe by that point,
you'll have $5,000 saved up.
You'll have something like that saved up.
And, you know, what a guy could do
is he could have that cash sitting in a river account,
earning 3.8% SATs interest every single month
or whatever it is,
and just essentially earning Bitcoin
while you wait to smash buy.
And then when that dip comes, and it will,
you smash buy a large amount.
And man, is that satisfying.
So I'd say you are probably over-focusing
on an arbitrary goal
because that one Bitcoin is set
by measuring against the fiat system.
That's where we got,
oh, one Bitcoin would be incredible.
But you're really thinking,
you're thinking fiat in that case.
And they're always going to print more fiat.
So, although, I mean, I know we're human, right?
We do like round numbers.
Just stick at it.
I think there's wisdom in your question there.
I think as long as you listen to your gut,
you're going to do great.
You got all the makings you need
to keep on hodling and work through,
and just work through a few more cycles.
It will be difficult.
It does get easier, though.
Yeah, I got answers and I want some questions.
I hope that helps.
And boost back in and let me know how it goes.
MDS is here with 8,000 cents.
I just jumped on the Bitcoin company.
Haven't you heard?
It's not an ad.
It's not.
They don't pay for an ad.
I just plugged the Bitcoin company and the other ones and the other links because they're ones I use and they have affiliate programs.
he says when you flippantly said you can sign in with lightning that flicked a switch in my brain
i didn't know existed i copied the lightning address into my phoenix wallet and i have an
account i dropped my s and i ran into the local supermarket and now i'm paying for a bag of apples
with my gift card no email no kyc and no block time wait if you haven't checked this out drop
what you're doing and go check out the bitcoin company i should have bought some wet wipes
make it so it is great right
and all they do is bitcoin there's other ones out there but they dabble in the other stuff too
thanks mds i like that thank you everybody who boosted and got a few below the 2000s at cutoff
line as well some nice ones including some of the support going to our artist last week
appreciate all of that i do have a 2000s at cutoff just for time but i do read them all
and keep them all in the dock.
I also had 45 of you stream sats
as you listened to the last episode,
stacking 52,224 sats for episode 76.
Thank you, sat streamers.
Appreciate you.
When you combine that with our boosters,
we got a nice 250,439 sataroos.
Fountain FM makes it really easy to boost the show
because they host the lightning infrastructure,
but you can get AlbiHub,
plug it into a podcast app
or the podcast index and boost away.
I do appreciate everybody who also signs up
with the new Fountain membership program.
You get access to special features that way,
support the show directly, get a profile badge and more.
That is in the Fountain app.
And of course, you can also become a Jupiter Party member at Jupiter.party.
Support all the shows on the network.
Don't forget that meetup's coming up.
All right, now we have more stories to get into.
So back to the show we go.
Macadamia wallet for iOS is making a lot of noise this week.
It's pretty cool, pretty slick, and it's the first native iOS wallet for the Cashew eCash protocol.
And Macadamia is a native iOS wallet designed for Cashew.
It's an open source eCash wallet.
And the thing that seems to be getting a lot of excitement, besides the fact that it's got a great UI,
is you can send ostensibly sats using iMessage.
So that's, I mean, to me, for the iOS user base,
a huge breakthrough is being able to send each other sats
using iMessage, using Macadamia.
Massive.
And I do have to wonder,
after watching some of the demonstrations,
if the eCache protocol might have been
or could be a way to go for boosts and even zaps.
it's really really impressive it preserves user privacy it can take advantage of the liquid
network and interface with lightning there's a lot there if you want to see the app and it's a good
one go to macadamia.cash pretty cool domain.cash and you get more information there really looking
good i installed it on my phone and of course one of the first things you have to do is back up your
phrase i wasn't in a good spot to do that so i couldn't push it any further but if anybody out
there has some eCache experience.
Let me know how it's going.
It seems like Cashew enables some really great stuff and they building it right into an easy app with Macadamia And I really excited to watch this and it an area I hope to explore further on the show in the future
This was an interesting moment.
A Solana co-founder, and I guess they have a couple of them, schooled the All In podcast crew, which was notable.
So they have their All In Summit. This just happened last week.
One of the co-founders of Solana was up on stage doing a Q&A.
And Jason Calacanis used this as an opportunity to flaunt how little he understands Bitcoin, despite constantly claiming otherwise.
And I was actually very surprised, impressed, as you might say, with Solana's Antony.
Jeez, I don't know. I'm stumbling all over my words.
I'm going to say it's Anatoly.
It's Anatoly.
I'm not a big Solana guy, so I don't follow all of their co-founders who run the coin.
But I was pleasantly surprised with how well he seems to understand Bitcoin and how easily he was able to school Jason Calacanis.
Bitcoin has turned out to be surprisingly resilient.
But now we're starting to see certain players corner the market on large percentages of it.
And that was never supposed to happen.
So if something like MicroStrategy owns 6%.
I don't know.
I guess maybe Jason is aware of some rules of Bitcoin that I'm not.
Where does it say one entity can't own 6% of the supply?
In fact, where does it even say that's a bad thing?
I would think it seems like a natural part of price discovery for a new asset where an
early entrance to the market soaks up quite a bit, retains that for a long time.
And then through the natural process of the business cycle, inevitably distributes those coins back to the market over a period of time.
But has a very valuable role in keeping the asset very scarce and demonstrating demand early on.
That's how I interpret what MicroStrategy is doing or strategy.
But Jason interprets it as some kind of gaining control of the network simply by holding coins.
Market on large percentages of it.
And that was never supposed to happen.
And so if something like MicroStrategy owns 6%, that's actually maybe 50% more than that because there's so many dead coins out there.
Does that worry you, the centralization of Bitcoin?
And does that mean there's an opportunity to start the game anew?
I don't know where this meme of by somebody holding a lot of Bitcoin, it centralizes the network.
It centralizes some of the coins.
You know, somebody has a lot of UTXOs.
I don't know, like it doesn't centralize governance. It doesn't centralize code development. It doesn't centralize network consensus. It doesn't centralize mining. It doesn't centralize the nodes. It's just somebody has a large bag.
And yet, over and over, these mid-take wits constantly correlated to control of the network because they're thinking like fiat.
They're thinking like Ethereum.
They're thinking proof of stake where large bank holders do have governance over the network.
Does that worry you, the centralization of Bitcoin?
And does that mean there's an opportunity to start the game anew?
I think Bitcoin is resilient to these entities collapsing. Now, it's not going to be without painful risk that in terms of like people that own Bitcoin. But the thing is, it'll survive that. And all the properties of Bitcoin that people value will remain through that transition. So if you really value Bitcoin, you should see that as like an opportunity to own more of it.
So even if somebody were to own 20 or 30 percent, it seems like there are people who actually have this intent.
That's why I'm asking.
Again, this is a total hypothetical question.
Could you imagine the money somebody would have to spend to own 20 percent of the Bitcoin network?
Look at the ETFs.
Look at how hard they've been cranking, sucking in hundreds of millions of dollars when you average it out on the daily.
and they're having a hard time catching up to 6%.
And they're sucking in hundreds of millions of dollars on the daily.
So could you imagine the money you would have to spend
to get to 20% ownership of the remaining big...
I don't even know if you could.
I don't even know if you could do that.
And while you were doing it, the price would be running away from you.
So you'd be constantly buying at a higher and higher price all of the time
because the scarcity effect would be going absolutely nuts.
i i i i cannot understand where this mindset even comes from and this guy claims that his wife bought
a bunch of bitcoin for him a few years ago and he's a big holder or his wife is at least
were to own 20 or 30 percent it seems like there are people who actually have this intent that's
why i'm asking yeah i think as long as it's an open global competition for to acquire bitcoin
and anyone can participate in that
and we don't end up in some kind of regulated nightmare,
you know, like you can't acquire gold
or something like in the 70s,
I think Bitcoin would survive those kinds of shocks.
Is Bitcoin valuable enough now where it makes sense for,
I guess North Korea does this,
but I was just going to generalize and say,
like state-sponsored ways of either trying to penetrate it,
hack it, take individual accounts.
Like, it just seems like there's an emergent trend here of this.
it is its beauty is that it's the simplest protocol you can build because it is focused
on just settlement it's very easy to understand from an engineering point of view and proof of
work is kind of a i don't know it is a brilliant it's master yeah it's a masterpiece in terms of
like elegance and simplicity and it's very robust to i think all sorts of attacks now that doesn't
mean that you know you can't have an attack that could cause you know rollback that's unexpected
But I think it's extremely hard to pull off, very unlikely.
And the internet is so super connected that it can automatically kind of respond and take action.
I actually meant more just like, you know, states targeting accounts that have large Bitcoin holdings and trying to figure out who owns them and then just basically getting them to give them the coins.
Yeah, those kind of state-sponsored wrench attacks.
I think what we should do living in the West is really have strong opinions about property rights and how important they are and how foundational they are to wealth creation in the West and America.
I completely agree with this.
And this is our best defense.
I completely agree with this.
And be hyper transparent who owns the coins.
What?
Because then it's like you can't take away something that everybody knows you own.
What?
I mean, I was on board and then Chamath says, so the Salonico founder says we got to have really good property right laws.
That's, I mean, all of it.
Very sensible take.
These guys have some midwit questions and he's coming in with these really sensible takes.
But then here at the end, Chamath argues that the solution is for everyone to declare how much Bitcoin they have and be transparent about it.
Listen to this.
I completely agree with this.
This is our best defense.
I completely agree with this.
And be hyper transparent who owns the coins.
Because then it's like you can't take away something that everybody knows you own.
But when you try to hide your ownership of it, more likely it's easier for somebody to take it away.
I think privacy is a right.
So it's somebody's right to be able to do that.
But I think our best bet in wealth creation is actually defending these rights and defending the right of somebody to own Bitcoin if they want it.
Yeah.
The transparency thing is so weird.
What we should do to protect your Bitcoin is have everyone KYC and then go put their Bitcoin on a company that reports to the IRS.
Hide nothing, I guess.
I mean, it was just a weird thing to inject in there.
But J. Cal, he's still got questions.
He doesn't understand why nobody's hacked this.
And it's so funny, right, because they're asking these questions during this period of time when Bitcoin was hovering around a Zeta hash of compute power.
and hit about seven days on average of a zeta hash of compute power protecting the bitcoin network
a zeta hash of power verifying the bitcoin network constantly and jacal asks why it hasn't been hacked
yet extraordinary that it hasn't been hacked with so much at stake maybe you could speak to it as
just a an architect yourself and and it is it the reason it hasn't been hacked is because it's so
simple and you know as an engineer you always strive for simplicity to achieve a certain outcome
you can't always always achieve that solana is much more complicated because the outcome we're
striving is hyper performance and it's just hard so like solana is much more complicated as a result
of that but bitcoin is designed for a very simple settlement layer that is i think you know the
coolest thing the coolest piece of software written in the last 20 years is i would say the
Bitcoin, like Nakamoto implementation. I thought it was interesting to hear a Solana co-founder
acknowledge the simplicity is one of its strengths and that the complexity was one of their weaknesses.
Now we have some new details on the Fold credit card. I know this isn't totally interesting to
everybody, but Fold, yes, the one I talk about all the time in the How You Can Help the Show
section, has announced a few more details on their Bitcoin rewards credit card this week.
Fold has announced they're teaming up with Stripe.
They're issuing the infrastructure, the issuing infrastructure.
They're teaming up with Visa, obviously, for the Global Transaction Network.
And together, combined with Fold, you will get 2% back instantly in Bitcoin and sats on every purchase,
up to 3.5% back in sats when tied to a Fold checking account,
and up to 10% in sats back with major brands like Amazon, Target, Starbucks, and Uber.
Sats back on a credit card is a fantastic way to passively stack Bitcoin.
The reality is, and why I like these, I don't like banks.
I don't like the fiat system, but we all have to use it.
And we will have to use it for a long time.
And perhaps one of the better ways, although I don't know what the hell I'm talking about,
to interface with that fiat system is through a credit card
because of certain consumer protections you get with a credit card.
And so if you can earn some sats while you're using this fiat system, that's pretty powerful.
And I've probably stacked over $2,000 in U.S. value, U.S. dollar value of sats, just in rewards on Fold and my Gemini card.
So they have a debit card.
And with BillPay and their gift card program, they're actually processing $3.1 billion in transactions and have distributed $83 million in Bitcoin rewards.
So it's more than just a gimmick.
and it shows how you can weave Bitcoin
into some more mainstream financial rails
so while you're still participating
in the regular normie system,
you can get a little Bitcoin on the back end.
I don't know if I'll be getting one of these cards.
I'm kind of covered in this area,
although I might,
but it's nice to see some details.
This has been rolling out a little slower
than I think a lot of Bitcoiners would like.
I think people were hoping by now
they could actually be getting their Fold cards.
And in the meantime, other companies are spinning their Bitcoin reward cards up. It's a very fascinating category we're seeing here. Credit card with Bitcoin. I don't think it was obvious on its face, but now having had one for a while and like using it in anger, as you might say, on large purchases for, say, car repairs or things like that, there is a bit of sugar with your medicine.
when I'm swiping that card for a large transaction,
there's a bit of me that goes,
at least I'm earning some sats.
Seriously, it helps.
And that brings us to the final clip of the week.
There's been a lot of talk,
both in the financial media
and the Bitcoin quote unquote community,
and the chatter online, that the Bitcoin treasury company play is out of steam.
And with it, so has the Bitcoin price action lost its steam.
And the whole play and trade might just all be over.
Well, Bitwise's CIO thinks differently.
Matt Hogan is back, and he's bullish for Q4.
And joining us, Matt Hogan.
He is CIO of Bitwise Asset Management.
Matt, welcome.
I'm going to quote Matt Hogan to Matt Hogan.
There are now more than 180 public companies that have added Bitcoin to their balance sheet, according to Bitcoin Treasuries.net.
That sounds like a lot.
It's a down payment. I think that number is going up.
You know, some of these companies are so so-called DATs, digital asset treasuries that just buy Bitcoin for their balance sheet.
McKenzie is right that that momentum is somewhat fading.
But on the other side of the balance sheet, you have a broader set of companies that just like individuals want to have five or 10 percent Bitcoin companies like Figma, companies like Block.
I still think that corporate number is going to double over the next year or so.
The amount of Bitcoin on the balance sheets are going to go up.
And I think there's an even bigger story in ETFs where the flows, from my perspective, are set to accelerate strongly into Q4.
So I am still feeling bullish about this market.
I take this pullback as an opportunity and not a setback as we move into Q4.
Let's check in on the state of the network before I get out of here.
Wrapping up at block height 916,235.
Bitcoin's US dollar price right now, one Bitcoin clocking in, 113,620.
We're ticking back up again.
That puts the US sats per dollar at 880 sats to $1.
We're only down 8.7% from our all-time high.
You'd think with the way Bitcoin communities are talking online, we're in a bear market.
8.7% all-time high was 41 days ago.
It's been a long 41 days for those folks.
That was $124,460. That was set August 13th, 2025. I will note just before the Treasury began refilling the general account.
Just putting that out there. Who told you about that? Your boy Chris did.
Retarget date for the Bitcoin difficulty is August. Nope. October. October 1st.
And the estimated difficulty change will be an upward adjustment of 7.5 percent.
Since I started the show, a couple of more nodes have come online, it looks like.
The reachable Bitcoin nodes now clocking in at 24,530.
Nots coming in at 10.4% and 8.5% for the two versions, roughly around 20% with Core holding the remainder.
Overall, it's unbelievable how powerful the Bitcoin network is.
It continues to grow. Nodes are being added.
in real time, miners are being added in real time,
and users are joining the network.
The Bitcoin network is quite strong.
Well, if you made it this far,
links to what I talked about at thisweekinbitcoin.show.
My goal is to create a show that doesn't get distracted
by the emotions around what's happening,
but focuses right in on the signal
that you need to know about
So you can make the best decisions for your Bitcoin, for your future, for your family, for your business.
So let me know how I did with a boost.
Also, I want to remind you, I'm on the road again to Texas, going back down to Austin, Texas.
Would love to see you there at Texas Linux Fest or at our birthday lunch, which you're invited to.
And I'm going to miss you in the meantime.
I love doing this show and I love the interaction with you guys.
So my favorite things is sitting down and getting to those boosts, responding to your questions or when you call me out or when you tell me about something or when you.
tune in because you send me a boost
just because you're enjoying the show.
That stuff, I am going to miss the heck out of that.
Out of all of it.
I may not even be able to stay away.
So just stay subscribed to that RSS feed.
And when I do release something even if it just a little shorty to get you up to date you have it But I will leave you with a value for value track If you boost during this song 95 of your sats go to the artist
It's really, really pretty neat.
And this week, I am leaving you with Better Days by Billy Lee Riff.
Strawberry moon mixed with strawberry daiquiris
No love actually, cause summer's here
Rapidly approaching, no coasting
We're underneath the canopy
That's rounds for the table like a John Wick fantasy
I plan to be kicking with the guys
Till the moretti barrels dry up
Weather like goodbye, early morning sunny side up
Shaking off the cobwebs, gonna get the barbie fired up
Gaston solves the weather cause we're finally here together
Sharing more than just a picture
And a pre-roll zoo, we'll stick to Lemp next year
For now it lightens the mood
Pair with these UV rays, wearing BANs
I'm throwing zero shade with these protective lens
Let me your ears for just a second or a 16
Preaching from the chapel of summer, call it a 16
And that's some gospel that we're all backing
No lacking, keeping it moving till the sun packs it in
Better days, summer haze
Chase another one back with you Yeah the world will spin but we stay in place Got nothing else we need to do Better days summer haze chase another one back with you
Yeah, the world still spins, the world will spin.
Taking it easy, taking our time.
Wasting the daylight, watch it turn into night.
Running on Sarantone and feels like cloud nine
Taking it easy, one step at a time
Taking it easy, I ain't trying to appease the masses
Let's put it to bed like a mattress and raise a chalice for them, one's worth having
Want a better day, summer shade, vodka with the citrus
Talking lemonade, sharing every golden hour escapade
It's something like a sweet escape, these summers are short
Taking a tour of SW4 with me and more
More or less this is my PSA to live a lot
Cause summer's where the best of days are always made
Now Joe go let that tenor play
music music guitar solo
with you. Yeah, the world will spin, but we'll stay in place. Got nothing else we need to do.
Better days, summer haze, chasing all the world back with you. Yeah, the world still spins,
the world will spin. Taking it easy, taking our time, wasting the daylight,
I keep turning tonight
Running on serotonin
Feels like cloud nine
Taking it easy
One step at a time