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Crypto is a scourge. It's not something that you want in your society. It has no utility.

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It's just pure speculation. Remember, there's no balance sheet to crypto.

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There's no financial statements.

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Every single crime you can conceive of is easier to do now because of crypto.

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Music.

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Welcome to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 39.

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My name is Chris. Can you believe we hit 100,000 just like what seemed like

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moments after I published the episode?

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I guess you'd probably assume I'd be over the moon about it,

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that I'd be so thrilled and that that's what we'd be talking about today.

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But no, I'm actually feeling quite salty.

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It seems that Bitcoin hitting 100,000 has really triggered some folks.

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I don't think I can overstate this enough to you. There's really no way I can

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express just how stupid this week has been and just so immensely frustrating

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it has been going through all of this.

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New rounds of attacks from people who speak with such authority designed to

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get their way into normies brains

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and make all the no-coiners even bigger skeptics than they already are.

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Some of whom will be seen at the holidays, no doubt.

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I mean, it really is incredible. The 180 pivot in Bitcoin coverage,

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it has gone to total crap since 100,000.

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Everybody is getting triggered, and the gold bugs seem to be some of the most triggered out there.

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Peter Schiff posted on X, quote, Bitcoin has become a national security threat.

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It was one thing when private citizens voluntarily waste their own money buying

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Bitcoin, but it crosses the line when they bribe government officials to squander

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the public's money buying it.

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Bitcoin is now public enemy number one.

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And of course what really has him upset is that clip

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i played last week when the fed chair said that

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bitcoin was digital gold that's got

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him all worked up he's completely wrong but this is also helping to power bitcoin

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having the chairman of the fed basically bless this plus because bitcoin is now being,

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you know, part of the U.S., right?

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It's part of Trump's plan to make America great again is to make Bitcoin greater again.

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And now we're trying to marry the U.S. to Bitcoin.

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You know, this is another irony of Bitcoin because, you know,

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it's so crazy. I'm going to let him go a little bit more.

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But what's so funny is everything Schiff says generally, you could just replace with gold.

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So when the U.S. set up a strategic reserve of gold, were they marrying themselves to gold, right?

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And also, I think the reason why Peter is triggered by Jerome Powell saying

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that Bitcoin is digital gold is because it does matter.

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Initially, people said, oh, you know, the dollar is going to go down.

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You know, same as me, right? Dollar inflation, budget deficits.

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People, people. You mean people like Peter Schiff who've been saying this for

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25 years? We're going to keep printing dollars.

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Bitcoin is an alternative to the dollar. You need to buy Bitcoin because the

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dollar is going to go down. Oh, see, he's got it. He's figured it out.

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Now they're saying that Bitcoin is the salvation of the dollar.

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You don't have to worry about the dollar anymore because it's going to be backed by Bitcoin.

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So we're going to buy all this Bitcoin in a strategic reserve,

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and that's going to strengthen the dollar.

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He gets so upset, and he's just missing part of the picture.

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Really, he should be listening to This Week in Bitcoin, because last week I

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explained that it's really about stablecoins and the fact that they are going

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to become big old T-bill buyers.

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That's really why when Bitcoin pumps, Tether and stablecoins pump crypto pumps, they buy T-bills.

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That backs the dollar. Peter's just missing that piece.

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He attacks and he attacks, but he never just takes a breath.

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He never just thinks about it.

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But I think the most disappointing hyperbolic coverage this week was a very

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notable pivot from the MSNBC network.

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They have gone all in on attacking Bitcoin. It has become their new obsession.

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Multiple seg, I'm not going to arrow, I'm not going to play all the clips,

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but I've got a couple of choice clips for you.

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They're just, they're really going all in on this. And again,

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it's super bad. So this is Chris Hayes from MSNBC.

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He's trying to frame the strategic Bitcoin reserve proposal as a bailout for

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rich crypto bag holders.

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So for very understandable reasons, Democrats and Democratic regulators have

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worked hard to keep crypto, which has been supremely volatile,

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blocked off from the rest of financial systems that if it crashes,

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it doesn't bring the entire U.S. economy down with it.

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Let's stop here. So first of all, I think one of the things that we're going

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to probably see as a theme in this episode is all of us, like dogs,

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have been trained every time the door rings, every time somebody says volatility, we get scared.

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We all have it ingrained into us that volatility is inherently bad.

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Now, Bitcoiners realize that you don't get gains without volatility. Volatility is life.

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In fact, if you go to the SEC's website and they have all these different things

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on there, what makes a scam, what is a financial scam, what's a Ponzi scheme,

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what's a pyramid scheme?

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One of the reoccurring factors for Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes is that

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the asset continues to appreciate in a stable rate regardless of how the rest

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of the market is performing.

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You see, if Bitcoin were to go just sort of straight up forever,

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regardless of how the market is performing, that would be indicative of manipulation and a scam.

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Its volatility is because it's an open market that trades 24-7 around the world

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and you can cash it out on your phone in just seconds while you're taking a leak.

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Literally i i have been driving up to a taco stand and transferred sats into

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a cash card in like 30 seconds and then bought the taco with a debit card so it's very liquid so it's,

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that's why it can be volatile and of course it's a worldwide market volatility

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is not necessarily bad but then he also makes the claim in just 14 seconds he's

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got these made two mistake number two. He's made two mistakes.

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Mistake number two is that it's been isolated from the financial industry.

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It's been completely walled off until now.

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Is he not aware that BlackRock alone has 50 billion assets under management in their Bitcoin ETF?

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Hello? Are you not aware of the massive play that all of BlackRock and these

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different ETF holders and companies like MicroStrategies and Mara and many others

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that are putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet?

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He doesn't know about any of this. So this this like wall is just made it up.

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It's just something he thinks exists because he thinks he's been following crypto

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for a decade and he thinks he's an expert. I'm not exaggerating.

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It's he actually says this later in the clip.

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He actually thinks he knows this stuff. are in a bailout.

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Some rich people holding a lot of crypto disagree with that strategy.

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They want a bailout, implicit or explicit, if the House of Cards comes crashing down.

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To that end, after Republicans took back the Senate with the help of money from

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the crypto industry, they now have a plan to return the favor.

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And I want you to listen to this part because no one's really talking about

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this, but the elements of the plot are just there in plain sight.

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So before we continue on, his claim is that the crypto industry hired all of

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these Republicans to execute their secret plans to give them a bailout.

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Never mind the fact that it was the Ripple CEO who was behind Fairshake and he gave a lot.

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In fact, I think he gave more money to Kamala than any other candidate alone.

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And other Democrats as well received money from Fairshake. It wasn't just Republicans.

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And that happened because they were under attack. Yeah.

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Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the SEC's approach was the main reason his

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company and two others created the biggest industry super PAC called Fairshake.

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People are like, why did these companies come together and organize and say, this matters?

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And it's a reaction to a war on crypto.

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So if there had been a different SEC chair than Gary Gensler?

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I'm not sure Fairshake would exist. Really?

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Absolutely. So the crypto lobby was a natural reaction to the attack that was

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orchestrated by the Biden administration, the SEC, Elizabeth Warren, people at the FCC.

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It was a response, not some like plan to get a crypto bag bailout.

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But this is how he I don't know why. I don't know what his motivation is,

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but that's how he tries to cast this industry.

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They now have a plan to return the favor. And I want you to listen to this part

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because no one's really talking about this.

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But the elements of the plot are just there in plain sight.

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He's the only one that's figured it out, though. The elements are all there.

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But but just for some reason, nobody but Chris Hayes has figured it out.

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Senate Republicans are working on a bill that would transfer billions and billions

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of dollars of money from the U.S.

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Government, from taxpayers and hand it over to a handful of big crypto holders.

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I don't know why he keeps saying this. This is like a key point of his argument

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that it's a handful of big crypto holders.

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You know, just a few rich people. He'll even do some name drops.

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I just referenced the distribution ownership like last episode.

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Almost 60% of the Bitcoin supply is held by individual plebs with small balances.

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Distributed amongst the people. Because for 14 years or so, we screamed at the

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top of our lungs how awesome Bitcoin was. and nobody listened,

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and so we just continued to stack.

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More Bitcoin has been lost than is in the bags of BlackRock or Michael Saylor, right?

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The next biggest bag holder to the people is governments, world governments.

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So actually, he's completely backwards. It's actually a bailout,

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if you're going to put it in these terms, to the people.

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60% goes to the people. The next biggest his bag holder is world governments,

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the very institutions this man worships.

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Are just there in plain sight.

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Senate Republicans are working on a bill that would transfer billions and billions

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of dollars of money from the U.S.

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Government, from taxpayers, and hand it over to a handful of big crypto holders.

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We got a present for President Donald Trump.

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Here it is. This is the Bitcoin Reserve bill in the Senate of the United States.

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To establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve,

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a network of secure storage vaults,

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purchase programs, and other programs to ensure the transparent management of

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Bitcoin holdings of the federal government. Jeez, that actually sounds pretty good.

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Transparent holdings, even. I have no idea if we have transparent holdings on their gold right now.

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Yes, the Bitcoin Act from Republican Senator Cynthia Loomis of Wyoming,

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it would establish a federal reserve at Bitcoin.

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It's truly one of the most audacious schemes I've ever seen in Congress.

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Well, that's not true. It doesn't establish a federal reserve. That's why.

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Rich folks who own a lot of crypto have- Again, he does this.

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Rich folks who own a lot of crypto.

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Some people who are rich, they saw the way the winds were blowing, right?

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Like some of these people that are rich are good at sussing out markets.

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They're good at sussing out things of value. They're good at figuring out what might be successful.

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That's why they're rich. So when something comes along, like take Jack Dorsey,

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for example, he bought up a bunch of Bitcoin at like nothing.

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Right. He's got God knows how much Bitcoin, because unlike me,

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he realized the value early on. See, I, I didn't.

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I held hundreds of Bitcoin at one point. Hundreds.

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And I blew nearly all of it because I didn't, I was trying to make it the next

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PayPal. I thought we had to spend it to make it the next PayPal.

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That was silly. But others who are savvy, who are more financially literate

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at the time, they recognize what it could be.

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And they were either rich then or became rich.

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So I just don't understand his logic here, why he has to keep doing this.

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Again, 60 percent of the supply is held by the plebs.

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Truly one of the most audacious schemes I've ever seen in Congress. Here's why.

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Rich folks who own a lot of crypto have a problem, right? Cryptocurrency,

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Bitcoin in particular, is a very valuable asset.

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Single Bitcoin worth over 100 grand. OK, so note how he acknowledges that a

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single Bitcoin is very valuable.

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Some very, very wealthy people own hundreds of millions or billions of dollars

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worth of Bitcoin. David Sachs, for instance, has a lot of crypto.

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You know what else David Sachs has a lot of? Real estate. You know what else he has a lot of?

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Staff. That's things rich people buy. They have these things.

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That said, it's not a liquid asset like cash that you can easily spend or invest

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or use for practical purposes. It's not a liquid asset, the guy says.

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I could sell a million dollars worth of Bitcoin while I'm listening to his dumb

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ass tell me it's not a liquid asset. You want to sell a house?

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Okay, well, that's going to take you months if you're lucky.

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Go fix it up. You want to sell an apartment building? That's going to take you a year.

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You want to sell a piece of land? And I know this because I have family that

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has land that's been for sale for two years. It could sit there for years.

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And they're increasing your taxes.

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It continues to cost you money. You have to maintain the property.

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It's it's ridiculous the it's the most liquid asset we have and it trades 24 7.

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That said it's not a liquid asset like cash that you can easily spend or invest

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or use for practical purposes it has no practical use really outside of a few

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gimmicks and it's very useful for criminal cartels.

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So store value I guess is a gimmick

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hard money I guess is a gimmick decentralization I guess, is a gimmick.

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No third party risk like sovereign nation or corporation, I guess, is a gimmick.

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The ability to hold your own coins, I guess, is a gimmick.

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And the first truly digitally scarce asset, I guess that's a gimmick, this guy says.

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All that's a gimmick. Oh, and then by the way, he throws in the cybercrime thing,

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which of course he has no idea, but we'll get to that later.

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It has no practical use really outside of a few gimmicks, and it's very useful for criminal cartels.

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So if you're an investor, you're sitting on this speculative asset.

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You can't actually do anything with it, but it's worth a lot of money.

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What's more, if you try to sell it all off, right, to get rid of it.

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I love the logical loop here of it's an asset that's worth a lot of money,

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but you can't do anything with it and it's not worth anything.

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Speculative asset. You can't actually do anything with it, but it's worth a lot of money.

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What's more, However, if you try to sell it all off, right, to get rid of it,

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the hordes of Bitcoin on the exchanges, that's going to flood the market and tank the price.

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Always say this. They always say this. Even though if you watch Bitcoin,

221
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you'll see massive liquidation events.

222
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Since January of 2024, there has been $277 billion of long-term holder sell

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side volume, while the price has still increased 100%. Do you hear what I am saying?

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People have sold nearly $300 billion worth of long-term coins, just long-term coins.

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And the price still went up 100 percent.

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This conclusively debunks that claim.

227
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Large sellers have been flooding the market. That's what Bitcoin miners have

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00:16:21,615 --> 00:16:23,395
been doing to stay afloat after the having.

229
00:16:23,935 --> 00:16:30,555
Nearly 300 billion dollars worth of long term holders have sold just since January. Do you hear this?

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This disproves this completely.

231
00:16:33,995 --> 00:16:40,355
The price continued to appreciate 100 percent, even during a Fed tightening cycle.

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00:16:40,975 --> 00:16:44,835
OK, like this is none of this actually checks out.

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Speculative asset. You can't actually do anything with it, but it's worth a lot of money.

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What's more, if you try to sell it all off, right, to get rid of it,

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the hordes of Bitcoin on the exchanges, that's going to flood the market and

236
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tank the price. God, I wish.

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I wish. Please do. I would love some cheap Bitcoin.

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So what's the solution? They're going to sell it to the U.S. government.

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Over five years, the United States will assemble one million bitcoin,

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five percent of the world's supply.

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And it will be held for a minimum of 20 years and can be used for one purpose.

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Reduce our debt. Now, it's so funny.

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Like, this is exact opposite of the reality.

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Bitcoin doesn't need the U.S. government. The U.S.

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Government needs Bitcoin because the very politicians that he has been champion

246
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for the last decade have just ran up the debt at an unbelievable,

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unconceivable, un-understandable rate.

248
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And now we are up against a

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wall with a ticking time bomb and a shooting squad

250
00:17:59,643 --> 00:18:02,483
and a nuclear bomb and a laser pointed at our forehead all at

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the same time and so we need really creative solutions

252
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and they don't seem to get how serious the

253
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situation is and so the idea that bitcoin

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needs a bailout from the u.s government is opposite

255
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thinking the u.s government needs bitcoin they

256
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need the price appreciation of bitcoin reduce our

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debt you can't pay the debt down in bitcoin does nobody

258
00:18:25,703 --> 00:18:28,623
understand how assets work that's like

259
00:18:28,623 --> 00:18:32,643
saying well you can't pay the debt down with real estate well no crap but if

260
00:18:32,643 --> 00:18:36,963
i own a bunch of real estate i could sell that at one point and then pay the

261
00:18:36,963 --> 00:18:41,043
debt down with cash couldn't i like if i'm in debt on a credit card i don't

262
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just hand them the real estate i sell the real estate then i make the credit card payment.

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How is it not obvious? You see, it's like there's a please do boosting because

264
00:18:50,942 --> 00:18:52,462
you can tell I'm really struggling with this.

265
00:18:52,922 --> 00:18:55,922
Why do they not see this? It's so obvious.

266
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There must be a motivated reason, but I cannot understand it.

267
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I just don't understand why they wouldn't be motivated to solve this problem.

268
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Bitcoin, are you tracking this?

269
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Are you tracking what's being planned and announced in person here? Right.

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The U.S. government handing billions of dollars into the pockets of rich crypto

271
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holders. And you see how insidious this is.

272
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This is designed to turn public opinion against the Bitcoin strategic reserve. Why?

273
00:19:28,182 --> 00:19:32,822
Why would they want that? This is designed for normies to be listening to this.

274
00:19:32,982 --> 00:19:37,962
And the program they're getting right now is, oh, man, we're these crypto degens,

275
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just like the Sam Bankman fraud guy. We're going to bail these guys out.

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We're just printing more money.

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It's going to wreck us even more. That's what he's trying to get you to conclude.

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The plan is that the Bitcoin Act would have the government sell off some of

279
00:19:49,822 --> 00:19:53,342
its gold reserves, you know, the stuff from Fort Knox, and use the money to

280
00:19:53,342 --> 00:19:58,722
buy a billion Bitcoin at current market value that would cost $100 billion.

281
00:19:59,902 --> 00:20:03,082
Now, the actual price would likely be much higher because that market value

282
00:20:03,082 --> 00:20:08,382
would almost certainly rise as a result when a new buyer enters the market and

283
00:20:08,382 --> 00:20:12,622
boosts the price of the asset the buyer is now legally obligated to buy.

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Sounds like they're going to get a great return.

285
00:20:15,302 --> 00:20:21,242
This is an enormous heist. They're just backing the truck up to the government

286
00:20:21,242 --> 00:20:23,282
in front of all of us. This is so wild.

287
00:20:23,782 --> 00:20:27,962
You know, literally, while we're sending hundreds of billions of dollars to

288
00:20:27,962 --> 00:20:35,382
Ukraine, when that war has no way of wrapping up in anything else than a stalemate

289
00:20:35,382 --> 00:20:37,562
where nobody's happy, right?

290
00:20:37,642 --> 00:20:40,062
We're spending untold amounts on Ukraine.

291
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And this guy claims this is backing up the truck.

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This has got to be motivated reasoning. It's the only thing I can conclude because

293
00:20:48,422 --> 00:20:49,622
it's so opposite thinking.

294
00:20:50,002 --> 00:20:54,462
A massive bailout to the crypto world. The opportunity to turn a speculative

295
00:20:54,462 --> 00:20:57,022
asset into real cash on your dime.

296
00:20:57,702 --> 00:21:01,822
And presumably, David Sachs, as the cryptos are, will help usher that plan through.

297
00:21:02,422 --> 00:21:06,002
And there is a real irony here for a long time, as long as I've been covering

298
00:21:06,002 --> 00:21:07,202
crypto, which is over a decade.

299
00:21:07,822 --> 00:21:11,922
Advocates have sold cryptos as libertarian project, right? We don't need government.

300
00:21:11,922 --> 00:21:14,702
We don't need banks. We don't need financial intermediaries.

301
00:21:14,822 --> 00:21:15,542
We don't need regulation.

302
00:21:16,242 --> 00:21:19,162
Here's Sachs himself making that point on a podcast two years ago.

303
00:21:20,782 --> 00:21:25,122
There is a huge risk of currency debasement when the government is in control,

304
00:21:25,302 --> 00:21:27,242
and particularly when you have the world's reserve currency.

305
00:21:27,522 --> 00:21:32,402
There's just such an enormous temptation to print money to finance your budget

306
00:21:32,402 --> 00:21:36,742
and to rack up loans that become unpayable.

307
00:21:37,022 --> 00:21:42,722
What Bitcoin offers is a different kind of currency where it's not backed by a government.

308
00:21:42,842 --> 00:21:45,182
It's backed by math. It's backed by encryption.

309
00:21:45,382 --> 00:21:50,222
And so you don't have to trust the government. All that lofty rhetoric goes

310
00:21:50,222 --> 00:21:52,962
right out the window, though, when Republicans decide they want the government

311
00:21:52,962 --> 00:21:55,842
to initiate a massive upward transfer of wealth.

312
00:21:56,442 --> 00:22:00,742
This is a cruel framing of this. This is very cruel.

313
00:22:00,922 --> 00:22:05,502
And I will note over his shoulder, there's this cartoonish drawing of Trump

314
00:22:05,502 --> 00:22:08,282
holding Bitcoin with 100K over his head. It's purple.

315
00:22:08,822 --> 00:22:12,162
It's sort of like, you know, second gen AI image generation.

316
00:22:12,322 --> 00:22:17,862
Like the folks at MSNBC got like some sort of AI image generator like a while

317
00:22:17,862 --> 00:22:20,242
ago and they haven't upgraded because it's not a very good AI image.

318
00:22:20,362 --> 00:22:24,742
And below it, it says tap into Fort Knox and bail out the crypto industry.

319
00:22:24,942 --> 00:22:28,822
Yeah, we're going to bail out the crypto industry, which is so desperately in need of a bailout.

320
00:22:29,442 --> 00:22:33,282
The crypto industry gets wiped out every time. The banks are the ones that get

321
00:22:33,282 --> 00:22:38,022
bailed out. The crypto industry has died, and what survives has gotten stronger.

322
00:22:39,482 --> 00:22:48,262
It almost feels cynical and intentional, because that wasn't the only wildly inaccurate coverage.

323
00:22:48,462 --> 00:22:53,482
There was also some horrible coverage that came out just yesterday,

324
00:22:53,482 --> 00:22:55,102
but I'm not going to play that entire clip,

325
00:22:55,242 --> 00:22:59,262
because I only need to play a few seconds for you to understand how confused

326
00:22:59,262 --> 00:23:05,662
these news actors are on MSNBC, where she compares Hoctua buyers to Bitcoiners

327
00:23:05,662 --> 00:23:10,022
or calls Hoctua coin buyers Bitcoiners? I'll let you decide.

328
00:23:10,742 --> 00:23:13,662
Well, I mean, there's no different than people investing in stocks or other

329
00:23:13,662 --> 00:23:17,642
illiquid assets. There really isn't. I mean, if people believe... Hold on a minute.

330
00:23:18,642 --> 00:23:21,922
Beneath that stock are companies that sell products.

331
00:23:22,242 --> 00:23:26,222
Okay, ready? Let's give you the Hoctua girl example. Let's start with the...

332
00:23:26,222 --> 00:23:27,702
Hold on, before she goes further. The stock thing.

333
00:23:28,182 --> 00:23:31,302
The stock thing. stocks to me

334
00:23:31,302 --> 00:23:34,162
are way riskier than Bitcoin because there's

335
00:23:34,162 --> 00:23:38,802
a company underneath them a company that makes mistakes there's a lot of third-party

336
00:23:38,802 --> 00:23:45,242
risk I think MSTR is very interesting but if sailor dies MSTR tanks if tip if

337
00:23:45,242 --> 00:23:49,482
something happens to Tim Cook Apple stock tanks if Apple keeps releasing crappy

338
00:23:49,482 --> 00:23:53,822
products and doesn't figure out the AI stuff their stock does poorly and,

339
00:23:54,460 --> 00:23:58,260
There is a lot of third-party risk with stocks, but they don't even see that.

340
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:01,200
Companies that sell products that you can tell. Okay, ready?

341
00:24:01,420 --> 00:24:04,180
Let's give you the hawk to a girl example, okay?

342
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:09,840
A drunk girl outside a bar who becomes famous for a lewd comment, more power to her. Okay.

343
00:24:10,500 --> 00:24:16,900
Okay. She then launches a coin, is dishonest publicly about action around that coin.

344
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:20,520
The value sinks, and now all these Bitcoin investors want this money.

345
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:25,000
If that isn't like peak subprime. Now all these Bitcoin investors are out.

346
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:26,420
If that isn't peak subprime.

347
00:24:26,540 --> 00:24:28,360
And he says, well, the problem is it needs to be regulated harder.

348
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:29,860
It makes me think I'm watching.

349
00:24:30,860 --> 00:24:35,260
It's unregulated. So that's the point. She called the Hawk to a coin purchasers

350
00:24:35,260 --> 00:24:38,640
Bitcoiners. They don't know what they're talking about. It's embarrassing.

351
00:24:39,420 --> 00:24:43,880
Now, let's get back to the cybercrime thing, because this has all been landing

352
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:45,680
within the last few days since the last episode.

353
00:24:46,420 --> 00:24:52,980
60 Minutes held a piece on Bitcoin. And they brought on former SEC official John Reed Stark.

354
00:24:53,360 --> 00:24:59,020
And he tells 60 Minutes that Bitcoin makes the most horrific crimes in the world easier.

355
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:04,180
And it's just, I played a little bit in the intro. Here's the expanded version of the clip.

356
00:25:04,820 --> 00:25:10,460
Crypto is a scourge. It's not something that you want in your society. It has no utility.

357
00:25:10,780 --> 00:25:14,460
It's just pure speculation. Remember, there's no balance sheet to crypto.

358
00:25:14,460 --> 00:25:17,320
There's no financial statements. You're talking about SEC filings.

359
00:25:17,780 --> 00:25:20,760
There's no balance sheet to crypto. Isn't that funny?

360
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:25,360
Isn't that funny? Because the core of what a blockchain is, is a distributed

361
00:25:25,360 --> 00:25:28,560
balance sheet and a ledger. There's no public disclosure mandate.

362
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:33,660
Exactly. Yeah. Like all open source projects. You know what else has no public

363
00:25:33,660 --> 00:25:34,820
disclosure mandate? Linux.

364
00:25:35,120 --> 00:25:38,200
Nothing. But also there's no audit, inspection, examination,

365
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:39,560
net capital requirements.

366
00:25:40,420 --> 00:25:45,600
It's open. It's audited constantly every 10 minutes. No licensure of the individuals

367
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:47,680
involved. Oh, no, they don't get licensed?

368
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:53,100
You mean they have access to money and finance and banking without somebody's permission? Oh, God.

369
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,640
And there's no transparency into it. The entire thing is transparent.

370
00:25:56,820 --> 00:26:00,680
That creates real systemic risks, not just risk for investors.

371
00:26:00,900 --> 00:26:06,340
But the other part that people don't really talk about enough are the dire externalities

372
00:26:06,340 --> 00:26:08,180
that are enabled by crypto.

373
00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:11,580
What do you mean? Well, like the middle class, they're like pulling themselves

374
00:26:11,580 --> 00:26:15,260
out of poverty and they're protecting themselves against inflation and they're

375
00:26:15,260 --> 00:26:19,560
building generational wealth after we destroyed their small businesses during COVID.

376
00:26:20,060 --> 00:26:24,220
What's that? That's not what he means? Every single crime you can conceive of

377
00:26:24,220 --> 00:26:28,680
is easier to do now because of crypto, especially ransomware,

378
00:26:29,120 --> 00:26:33,180
human sex trafficking, sanctions evasion, money laundering.

379
00:26:33,860 --> 00:26:37,740
North Korea is financing their nuclear weapons program using crypto.

380
00:26:37,740 --> 00:26:42,520
All right, here we go again with this and they always drop in,

381
00:26:42,620 --> 00:26:44,340
you know, somebody's financing a weapons program.

382
00:26:45,341 --> 00:26:48,701
I've linked to data before. According to data that we have this most recent

383
00:26:48,701 --> 00:26:55,181
from 2023, the volume of illicit crypto transactions in 2023 showed a significant

384
00:26:55,181 --> 00:26:56,941
decrease compared to the previous year.

385
00:26:57,121 --> 00:27:00,781
This is according to Chainalysis, who's paid by the federal government to report

386
00:27:00,781 --> 00:27:02,581
things that generally make crypto look bad.

387
00:27:02,741 --> 00:27:07,581
So this is coming from somebody who is typically financially incentivized to

388
00:27:07,581 --> 00:27:08,901
make this look as bad as possible.

389
00:27:09,281 --> 00:27:13,381
They're saying their blockchain analytics reported that the global activity

390
00:27:13,381 --> 00:27:19,081
in 2023 declined $15 billion lower than in 2022. Here's the key findings.

391
00:27:20,081 --> 00:27:28,221
Illicit transactions made up only 0.34% of the total on-chain transaction volume for 2023.

392
00:27:28,841 --> 00:27:36,541
0.34%. It's estimated the total value received by illicit cryptocurrency addresses

393
00:27:36,541 --> 00:27:42,801
was $24.2 billion, which is down from, it used to be $39 the year before.

394
00:27:43,701 --> 00:27:48,021
Transactions involving sanctioned entities accounted for $14.9 billion,

395
00:27:48,261 --> 00:27:51,561
representing 61.5 of all the illicit transactions.

396
00:27:51,881 --> 00:27:58,021
So sanctioned entities, 61.5% of that $24 billion.

397
00:27:58,601 --> 00:28:08,421
Crypto scams and ransomware was 29.2% and 54.3%. So ransomware was the largest portion of that.

398
00:28:09,361 --> 00:28:13,041
Stablecoins accounted for the majority of criminal transactions for the second

399
00:28:13,041 --> 00:28:17,981
consecutive year, aligning with recent increase in stablecoin share of all crypto activity.

400
00:28:19,181 --> 00:28:23,921
So the illicit activity for blockchain-based on-chain transactions,

401
00:28:24,141 --> 00:28:29,901
0.34%. The majority of that is stablecoins, not Bitcoin.

402
00:28:30,201 --> 00:28:34,421
And according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the estimated amount of money

403
00:28:34,421 --> 00:28:40,901
laundered globally in recent years is two to five percent of the entire global GDP.

404
00:28:41,741 --> 00:28:45,861
So two trillion dollars in current U.S. dollars.

405
00:28:46,421 --> 00:28:51,441
The U.S. Treasury estimates about 300 billion is laundered annually in the United States alone.

406
00:28:51,921 --> 00:28:58,981
And guess what? That's using cash. So we have 300 billion illicit transactions

407
00:28:58,981 --> 00:29:05,781
just in the United States, 300 billion in illicit transactions just in the United States alone,

408
00:29:06,161 --> 00:29:07,141
using cash,

409
00:29:07,881 --> 00:29:11,561
all of crypto worldwide is $24 billion.

410
00:29:12,321 --> 00:29:15,801
The two are not comparable. It is, they are not comparable.

411
00:29:17,021 --> 00:29:21,641
The open nature of the blockchain, especially Bitcoin, makes it a horrible place

412
00:29:21,641 --> 00:29:24,021
to do illegal activity. It's just the reality of it.

413
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:33,360
Music.

414
00:29:34,766 --> 00:29:38,686
Well, the 100K attack continues by more FUD.

415
00:29:39,726 --> 00:29:44,786
I've played a clip of Tucker Carlson being a complete moron about Bitcoin before,

416
00:29:44,786 --> 00:29:50,786
and he continues to try to find everybody he can to say negative things about

417
00:29:50,786 --> 00:29:54,906
Bitcoin and doesn't talk to anybody these days that has anything actually intellectually

418
00:29:54,906 --> 00:29:57,126
positive or accurate to say about Bitcoin.

419
00:29:57,506 --> 00:30:02,686
Tucker Carlson this week released a chat with Roger Ver. I talked about Roger

420
00:30:02,686 --> 00:30:05,586
Ver in episode six of This Week in Bitcoin.

421
00:30:05,866 --> 00:30:09,406
The episode was titled Debunking Big Blocker Alternative History.

422
00:30:10,026 --> 00:30:13,306
Roger Ver has a series of conspiracy theories.

423
00:30:13,566 --> 00:30:19,926
He believes the CIA intervened to sabotage the block wars to make Bitcoin stay

424
00:30:19,926 --> 00:30:23,346
with small blocks so that way you couldn't use it to buy your coffee.

425
00:30:23,826 --> 00:30:26,866
He claims exposing this put him into jail.

426
00:30:27,106 --> 00:30:31,626
And he's facing 20 years in federal prison. But not because he exposed the CIA's

427
00:30:31,626 --> 00:30:32,846
plans to sabotage Bitcoin.

428
00:30:33,086 --> 00:30:39,346
It's because he underreported the value of his personal Bitcoin holdings and

429
00:30:39,346 --> 00:30:43,286
those of his companies when he renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014.

430
00:30:43,906 --> 00:30:50,006
He left the country. He exited. He likely underreported the value of his Bitcoin

431
00:30:50,006 --> 00:30:51,706
holdings, at least according to the IRS.

432
00:30:52,126 --> 00:30:57,006
They have multiple counts. Each one of them put together adds up to 20 years

433
00:30:57,006 --> 00:31:01,546
he's facing in federal prison. charges of mail fraud, tax evasion,

434
00:31:01,686 --> 00:31:03,866
and of course, filing false tax returns.

435
00:31:04,126 --> 00:31:08,966
Now, I look at some of these laws and some of this stuff, it really feels pretty

436
00:31:08,966 --> 00:31:10,966
shitty. Like the exit tax stuff, I.

437
00:31:11,934 --> 00:31:16,874
Don't really have any kind of judgment on that. But I do think Roger is a very,

438
00:31:16,994 --> 00:31:21,294
very bad source on Bitcoin history. And it's an incredible disservice to put

439
00:31:21,294 --> 00:31:24,454
his wacko conspiracy theories out on blast.

440
00:31:24,754 --> 00:31:29,554
I'll give you an example of kind of like associative reasoning that Roger employs

441
00:31:29,554 --> 00:31:31,034
all the time to make a point.

442
00:31:31,494 --> 00:31:34,834
And I remember it was in June of 2011.

443
00:31:35,074 --> 00:31:38,394
And in the course of two, maybe three weeks, the price of Bitcoin went from

444
00:31:38,394 --> 00:31:41,334
around $3 a Bitcoin to $30 a Bitcoin.

445
00:31:41,534 --> 00:31:44,934
And that was the first time in the history of Bitcoin up to that point in which

446
00:31:44,934 --> 00:31:46,714
it started to get some worldwide media attention.

447
00:31:46,994 --> 00:31:50,114
Yeah, what do we all know? When the price goes up, it's the best marketing in

448
00:31:50,114 --> 00:31:51,594
the world for Bitcoin. It gets attention.

449
00:31:52,494 --> 00:31:57,014
And what an interesting thing happened. So the main discussion forum where everybody

450
00:31:57,014 --> 00:32:00,474
up to that point was talking about Bitcoin was a website called bitcointalk.org.

451
00:32:00,774 --> 00:32:04,534
And suddenly when it was getting some media attention around the world and international newspapers,

452
00:32:04,894 --> 00:32:07,754
this forum that had worked wonderfully up to that point where people

453
00:32:07,754 --> 00:32:10,794
could discuss things became flooded with bots just posting

454
00:32:10,794 --> 00:32:14,274
comments that were just you know fluff and made literally they they

455
00:32:14,274 --> 00:32:17,254
ddos the forum to the point that it was unusable and anybody

456
00:32:17,254 --> 00:32:20,174
that came there because they heard about bitcoin in the media that week

457
00:32:20,174 --> 00:32:23,214
they they weren't able to learn about it because there's just so many posts

458
00:32:23,214 --> 00:32:27,134
saying you know buy sell oh no and just just saying nothing of any substance

459
00:32:27,134 --> 00:32:31,334
whatsoever you know he he makes two two different points here that would seem

460
00:32:31,334 --> 00:32:36,094
to argue against themselves but yet he makes peace with it number one price

461
00:32:36,094 --> 00:32:37,734
went up it brought a bunch of attention in.

462
00:32:37,914 --> 00:32:41,534
A bunch of newbies came into the forum and started posting a bunch of dumb questions.

463
00:32:41,774 --> 00:32:45,854
I was a member of the Bitcoin talk forum. If I recall, it was based on PHP BB.

464
00:32:46,494 --> 00:32:51,054
I ran PHP BB instances too. It would only take 5,000, 6,000,

465
00:32:51,054 --> 00:32:54,834
7,000 people visiting the forum to overwhelm a PHP BB instance.

466
00:32:55,354 --> 00:32:59,214
It doesn't need to be a bunch of bots. There's no evidence that it was a bunch

467
00:32:59,214 --> 00:33:03,094
of bots. That's Roger's supposition, but he talks about it like it's fact.

468
00:33:04,336 --> 00:33:08,356
Could have just been that people were discovering Bitcoin. That was one of the

469
00:33:08,356 --> 00:33:12,296
most popular places until Reddit came along to talk about Bitcoin in the early days.

470
00:33:12,556 --> 00:33:16,456
And people started going in there and wanting to figure it out or trolling or

471
00:33:16,456 --> 00:33:18,476
whatever it was. It doesn't necessarily have to be bots.

472
00:33:18,836 --> 00:33:23,096
But you find a lot of times when people are on the losing side of an argument,

473
00:33:23,316 --> 00:33:27,116
they'll claim that the reason that they lost the argument is because they were

474
00:33:27,116 --> 00:33:31,116
going to win, but they were overwhelmed by all of the bots.

475
00:33:31,316 --> 00:33:34,596
It was all of the bots. And if you believe that somebody

476
00:33:34,596 --> 00:33:37,696
orchestrated a bunch of bots to attack a phpbb form

477
00:33:37,696 --> 00:33:41,456
and you believe that to be a true fact well then

478
00:33:41,456 --> 00:33:45,476
that could lead to all that could lead to all other kinds of conclusions so somebody

479
00:33:45,476 --> 00:33:50,556
out there literally made the form unusable as early as 2011 and around that

480
00:33:50,556 --> 00:33:53,736
same time we already know that the cia was interested in bitcoin because they're

481
00:33:53,736 --> 00:33:57,216
asking different bitcoin developers to hey can you explain bitcoin to us so

482
00:33:57,216 --> 00:34:02,016
again associations right so because the cia had reached out and said, hey,

483
00:34:02,096 --> 00:34:05,776
can you come in and explain this Bitcoin thing to us? And that kind of freaks Satoshi out.

484
00:34:06,256 --> 00:34:08,236
That's all the piece of history we've talked about before.

485
00:34:08,856 --> 00:34:12,716
That doesn't mean the CIA also created bots to DDoS Bitcoin talk.

486
00:34:12,896 --> 00:34:15,016
He's just associating those two things freely.

487
00:34:15,356 --> 00:34:18,036
And speaking of, and of course, Tucker just nods along. What does Tucker know?

488
00:34:18,196 --> 00:34:20,056
Because they're asking different Bitcoin developers to, hey,

489
00:34:20,196 --> 00:34:21,716
can you explain Bitcoin to us?

490
00:34:21,836 --> 00:34:25,396
So way back when the vast majority of the world hadn't even heard of Bitcoin yet,

491
00:34:25,456 --> 00:34:29,136
the CIA was looking into it and somebody was actively preventing it from spreading

492
00:34:29,136 --> 00:34:32,516
as quickly as it otherwise could of by shutting down the form effectively when

493
00:34:32,516 --> 00:34:35,236
so many new people were coming to Bitcoin to learn about it for the first time.

494
00:34:35,496 --> 00:34:36,836
This is a reoccurring theme.

495
00:34:38,005 --> 00:34:40,945
Blocks and roger would have won and would have been right if

496
00:34:40,945 --> 00:34:44,245
just the right information could have been shared and

497
00:34:44,245 --> 00:34:47,445
this is roger's core attack against bitcoin essentially

498
00:34:47,445 --> 00:34:50,625
in a single clip i'm going to save you from watching the like

499
00:34:50,625 --> 00:34:53,485
hour long or whatever it is thing but then later in

500
00:34:53,485 --> 00:34:59,205
i believe 2012 a person using the name john dylan who claimed to work for intelligence

501
00:34:59,205 --> 00:35:04,305
spent more than ten thousand dollars i forget the exact amount but a significant

502
00:35:04,305 --> 00:35:09,065
sum of money to start producing propaganda to trick people into thinking that

503
00:35:09,065 --> 00:35:13,325
by keeping the blocks on Bitcoin small, it would make it more decentralized.

504
00:35:13,765 --> 00:35:17,365
I appreciate that Roger is trying to keep this simple for his audience.

505
00:35:17,405 --> 00:35:20,265
And so he's leaving out an incredible amount of detail.

506
00:35:20,625 --> 00:35:24,505
We go into that detail in episode six, specifically around what he's talking about.

507
00:35:24,645 --> 00:35:27,785
He's framing that somebody came along, maybe they were associated with the government,

508
00:35:27,905 --> 00:35:30,905
maybe not, and had a feature proposal they were willing to fund.

509
00:35:31,325 --> 00:35:36,125
And then people agreed with that developer or that person requesting the feature

510
00:35:36,125 --> 00:35:37,765
and defended it in the form.

511
00:35:38,085 --> 00:35:42,565
Roger is categorizing that as propaganda, and he never clarifies otherwise.

512
00:35:42,565 --> 00:35:46,785
He just completely comes out and says it's propaganda as if Putin had directed it or something.

513
00:35:46,945 --> 00:35:50,345
And to thinking that by keeping the blocks on Bitcoin small,

514
00:35:50,485 --> 00:35:51,905
it would make it more decentralized.

515
00:35:52,365 --> 00:35:56,685
And literally the exact opposite of the truth, the exact opposite of the way Satoshi Nakamoto,

516
00:35:56,825 --> 00:35:59,725
the creator of Bitcoin, designed it and promoted it, and the exact opposite

517
00:35:59,725 --> 00:36:02,925
of the way that people were using it and not in his opinion in his opinion right

518
00:36:02,925 --> 00:36:06,465
the exact opposite of the way people are using i just told you i was using it

519
00:36:06,465 --> 00:36:08,245
because i thought it should be another paypal.

520
00:36:08,905 --> 00:36:14,465
I i i i thought it should be a means of of buying coffee every day i don't necessarily

521
00:36:14,465 --> 00:36:15,825
think that anymore at least not yet.

522
00:36:17,111 --> 00:36:20,151
Think first we have price discovery and we have store of value to get through.

523
00:36:20,491 --> 00:36:25,351
It's a natural evolution of an asset. We have normal phases we have to get through

524
00:36:25,351 --> 00:36:29,051
before we can buy coffee with it. The logic is simple.

525
00:36:29,451 --> 00:36:35,591
I can't buy a cup of coffee unless we all agree kind of universally for a fairly

526
00:36:35,591 --> 00:36:38,451
solid period of time how much each sat is worth.

527
00:36:38,591 --> 00:36:42,371
Because I can't buy coffee in one shop for 1,000 sats and buy it in another

528
00:36:42,371 --> 00:36:46,131
shop for 2,000 sats and buy another shop for 10,000 sats and another shop for

529
00:36:46,131 --> 00:36:47,831
800. It just doesn't make sense.

530
00:36:47,991 --> 00:36:50,591
We don't know how to price the cup of coffee right now.

531
00:36:51,071 --> 00:36:55,331
We're in the price discovery phase, probably, maybe, for the rest of our lives, at least mine.

532
00:36:56,211 --> 00:37:00,231
Roger just ignores all of that and claims that Bitcoin was ready from day one

533
00:37:00,231 --> 00:37:04,991
to be used as a daily purchase mechanism, which is kind of silly for something

534
00:37:04,991 --> 00:37:07,051
that's limited to 21 million coins, in my opinion.

535
00:37:07,631 --> 00:37:10,191
And everybody knew that, according to Roger. Everybody knew that.

536
00:37:10,371 --> 00:37:14,371
That was just common knowledge, according to Roger. The exact opposite of the

537
00:37:14,371 --> 00:37:18,731
way Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin, designed it and promoted it in

538
00:37:18,731 --> 00:37:21,471
the exact opposite of the way that people were using it. And nobody believed

539
00:37:21,471 --> 00:37:22,451
the propaganda initially.

540
00:37:23,071 --> 00:37:27,911
What's so funny is as time goes on, Roger's kind of naturally been proven wrong,

541
00:37:28,011 --> 00:37:29,311
but still refuses to admit it.

542
00:37:29,391 --> 00:37:31,011
Right. Because layer two solutions

543
00:37:31,011 --> 00:37:34,811
have come along like lightning that make act like when you boost.

544
00:37:35,011 --> 00:37:38,891
I've bought my breakfast and my lunch in El Salvador using the lightning network.

545
00:37:39,351 --> 00:37:44,191
Right. And it's an immediate settlement. It's fantastic. It doesn't matter what the block size is.

546
00:37:44,331 --> 00:37:47,991
So there's that whole element that Roger just ignores. But the other thing that's

547
00:37:47,991 --> 00:37:51,171
kind of proving Roger wrong over time, and I hear it from you,

548
00:37:51,571 --> 00:37:56,811
is as the blockchain size grows, it gets harder and harder for us to store it

549
00:37:56,811 --> 00:37:58,831
on reasonably priced machines.

550
00:37:59,251 --> 00:38:03,491
And we're already kind of outgrowing the Raspberry Pis of the world.

551
00:38:04,131 --> 00:38:06,811
And that's with small blocks, quote unquote.

552
00:38:08,136 --> 00:38:12,856
And it's already pricing people out. It's kind of hard to build a good node

553
00:38:12,856 --> 00:38:16,156
without, I'd say, at least two terabytes of storage these days.

554
00:38:16,176 --> 00:38:17,756
You probably want a few cores.

555
00:38:18,056 --> 00:38:20,356
I'd probably put 32 gigs of RAM in there.

556
00:38:21,436 --> 00:38:24,636
And that's with the small blocks winning.

557
00:38:25,116 --> 00:38:28,496
And it's showing you that as it grows, it is pricing people out.

558
00:38:28,576 --> 00:38:32,016
And when you price people out, there will be fewer nodes on the network.

559
00:38:32,196 --> 00:38:35,096
The network becomes naturally less decentralized.

560
00:38:35,776 --> 00:38:39,096
There is an obvious tradeoff there. Thankfully, we're not there.

561
00:38:39,216 --> 00:38:42,676
You know, hard drive prices are pretty reasonable in comparison.

562
00:38:42,956 --> 00:38:44,616
Two terabytes isn't horribly expensive.

563
00:38:44,936 --> 00:38:48,336
A few cores and some RAM, you know, you can put a machine that's a few years

564
00:38:48,336 --> 00:38:50,856
old still. So we're still in a pretty good spot.

565
00:38:51,396 --> 00:38:54,036
But that's because of decisions that were made a decade ago.

566
00:38:54,416 --> 00:38:57,656
And if we had gone the direction Roger wanted to go, you'd need to be like a

567
00:38:57,656 --> 00:38:59,336
Ethereum node these days to run Bitcoin.

568
00:38:59,596 --> 00:39:02,876
But then later, this giant wave of censorship took place.

569
00:39:03,016 --> 00:39:06,336
Anonymous people that nobody knows their real names managed to get control of

570
00:39:06,336 --> 00:39:07,836
all the main discussion platforms.

571
00:39:08,116 --> 00:39:12,376
So this again goes back to Roger's thesis that his extremely good idea that

572
00:39:12,376 --> 00:39:16,496
was also Satoshi's extremely good idea that is truly the winning idea would

573
00:39:16,496 --> 00:39:19,776
have won if not for information suppression,

574
00:39:19,776 --> 00:39:23,796
which of course is a narrative that Tucker loves because censorship is a big

575
00:39:23,796 --> 00:39:25,156
topic politically right now.

576
00:39:25,856 --> 00:39:31,416
However, you could also argue that perhaps their case just wasn't well articulated.

577
00:39:31,716 --> 00:39:36,096
Other people articulated a better case and substantially, I mean,

578
00:39:36,096 --> 00:39:42,716
And I have to say, I substantially remember big companies like like the biggest

579
00:39:42,716 --> 00:39:44,856
companies in Bitcoin were behind Roger.

580
00:39:45,376 --> 00:39:49,676
I remember most of the quote unquote propaganda being a being pro big block.

581
00:39:49,896 --> 00:39:55,016
That's my recollection. Right. So this just doesn't jive with the history that I remember.

582
00:39:55,256 --> 00:39:58,676
But I don't go around like claiming it's absolute fact.

583
00:39:58,896 --> 00:40:02,996
And I certainly don't do it on a platform like Tucker's. But then later,

584
00:40:03,216 --> 00:40:05,496
this giant wave of censorship took place.

585
00:40:05,636 --> 00:40:08,976
Anonymous people that nobody knows their real names managed to get control of

586
00:40:08,976 --> 00:40:11,596
all the main discussion platforms for Bitcoin.

587
00:40:11,896 --> 00:40:15,416
And then suddenly, one day overnight, nobody was even allowed to advocate for

588
00:40:15,416 --> 00:40:19,596
Bitcoin being used as money. And they censored anybody that tried to do that.

589
00:40:19,836 --> 00:40:23,176
And initially, everybody saw through it. But then everybody that came to Bitcoin

590
00:40:23,176 --> 00:40:26,436
after the censorship began, they just started believing it.

591
00:40:26,436 --> 00:40:29,996
All these folks who do hundreds of hours of research,

592
00:40:30,196 --> 00:40:35,276
who have to fundamentally learn what makes hard money and then have to begin

593
00:40:35,276 --> 00:40:41,076
to understand what is so broken about a system as complex as the Federal Reserve

594
00:40:41,076 --> 00:40:43,736
and just let alone our country and other countries where, you know,

595
00:40:43,816 --> 00:40:45,636
I can only speak to what I had to figure out.

596
00:40:46,056 --> 00:40:51,636
These people are capable of understanding this asset before BlackRock.

597
00:40:52,688 --> 00:40:58,708
Or Wall Street. But they just weren't smart enough to find the data that Roger's

598
00:40:58,708 --> 00:41:02,368
referring to because censorship on bitcointalk.org.

599
00:41:02,428 --> 00:41:04,048
...to anybody that tried to do that.

600
00:41:04,268 --> 00:41:07,568
And initially, everybody saw through it. But then everybody that came to Bitcoin

601
00:41:07,568 --> 00:41:10,868
after the censorship began, they just started believing it.

602
00:41:11,248 --> 00:41:14,448
And today, the main people that are out there promoting Bitcoin,

603
00:41:14,648 --> 00:41:17,228
they literally say, oh, Bitcoin shouldn't compete with the U.S. dollar.

604
00:41:17,768 --> 00:41:20,888
Bitcoin, you shouldn't use it as money. You shouldn't use it to pay for things.

605
00:41:21,048 --> 00:41:24,208
Like, Bitcoin is just a digital asset. you should just hold it is he

606
00:41:24,208 --> 00:41:27,308
like is he basically taking what sailor sometimes says

607
00:41:27,308 --> 00:41:30,368
and then just painting us all with that brush and it's

608
00:41:30,368 --> 00:41:33,588
the exact opposite they've they've through the censorship and the propaganda they've

609
00:41:33,588 --> 00:41:37,548
literally hijacked bitcoin and i literally wrote an entire book about it you

610
00:41:37,548 --> 00:41:40,928
can find more at hijackingbitcoin.com it's available on amazon and everywhere

611
00:41:40,928 --> 00:41:45,528
else and lo and behold just a couple of weeks after the the book is published

612
00:41:45,528 --> 00:41:50,468
i get arrested and now i'm facing 109 years in federal prison for having exposed

613
00:41:50,468 --> 00:41:51,908
the way in which bitcoin was hijacked.

614
00:41:52,048 --> 00:41:56,788
And you can think all day long that the new version of Bitcoin that people are promoting is better.

615
00:41:56,988 --> 00:42:01,268
Okay. But you can't admit that it wasn't hijacked. The new version.

616
00:42:03,468 --> 00:42:08,028
Oh, I forgot about that part of the clip. Oh, he's really in his own world.

617
00:42:08,388 --> 00:42:12,388
And he says 190 years. The research I found said he's facing 20 years.

618
00:42:12,488 --> 00:42:14,028
I don't know which one is true.

619
00:42:14,528 --> 00:42:20,868
Oh, man. So there's that. And unfortunately, I just I just have nothing but negative things to say.

620
00:42:21,288 --> 00:42:24,028
I guess if you're new to the show, go check out episode six.

621
00:42:26,608 --> 00:42:31,688
Oh, man, this is going to be a long one, you guys. I got so much more. OK,

622
00:42:32,088 --> 00:42:37,428
so the other thing that everybody is freaking out about right as we hit 100,000

623
00:42:37,428 --> 00:42:46,328
is that Google is going to crack Bitcoin with their new quantum chip and Fox Business, CNBC,

624
00:42:46,548 --> 00:42:48,888
Bloomberg, they're all saying Bitcoin is doomed.

625
00:42:48,888 --> 00:42:52,868
Now you've got specific applications, scale, error rates and time frame,

626
00:42:52,988 --> 00:42:57,668
but they also say make no mistake that they're on the path to actually being a threat to Bitcoin.

627
00:42:58,068 --> 00:43:01,508
How would this be a threat? Would it be a threat to the encryption? What happens here?

628
00:43:02,627 --> 00:43:05,487
Exactly. It's the encryption. We used to think that, you know,

629
00:43:05,527 --> 00:43:08,687
a few days ago, you know, we thought Satoshi had kind of locked,

630
00:43:09,067 --> 00:43:11,827
you know, all the crypto wallets of the world, made them so secure.

631
00:43:12,007 --> 00:43:13,867
Nobody could ever crack into these things.

632
00:43:14,067 --> 00:43:17,207
Just a few days ago, everything has changed now.

633
00:43:17,447 --> 00:43:21,647
But just a few days ago, we had this false sense of security that Satoshi had

634
00:43:21,647 --> 00:43:24,827
locked everything away, that everything was safe and secure.

635
00:43:25,047 --> 00:43:30,607
But then we woke up today and discovered Google has a quantum computing breakthrough. through.

636
00:43:31,027 --> 00:43:34,527
We used to think that, you know, a few days ago, you know, we thought Satoshi

637
00:43:34,527 --> 00:43:38,747
had kind of locked, you know, all the crypto wallets of the world, made them so secure.

638
00:43:38,967 --> 00:43:41,987
Nobody could ever crack into these things. I thought you guys are always telling

639
00:43:41,987 --> 00:43:44,367
me that people are cracking into these things and stealing people's money.

640
00:43:44,687 --> 00:43:49,467
And that's part of what powered Bitcoin to 100k. But oh, I love this too.

641
00:43:50,067 --> 00:43:54,547
You guys, I could tell I'm a little on edge. I've consumed a lot of media for the show this week.

642
00:43:54,687 --> 00:43:59,827
And one of the memes is, and that's kind of what got Bitcoin up to 100k.

643
00:43:59,827 --> 00:44:02,847
And it could be anything, you know, like anything.

644
00:44:03,047 --> 00:44:06,047
They'll say anything. And that's what brought Bitcoin up to 100K.

645
00:44:06,287 --> 00:44:09,487
And they just throw it in there now. The world made them so secure.

646
00:44:09,707 --> 00:44:14,587
Nobody could ever crack into these things. And that's part of what powered Bitcoin to 100K.

647
00:44:14,907 --> 00:44:19,687
But the power of quantum computing is that, yes, it is actually theoretically.

648
00:44:19,687 --> 00:44:24,247
Possible that in the future, these quantum computers will be able to hack into

649
00:44:24,247 --> 00:44:26,707
all the crypto wallets. Not just that.

650
00:44:27,127 --> 00:44:30,347
And, you know, if that wasn't bad enough. I mean, think about all the governments

651
00:44:30,347 --> 00:44:33,587
with sensitive data, all the companies, all the banks with sensitive data.

652
00:44:34,007 --> 00:44:37,307
You know, the state of the art right now is RSA technology.

653
00:44:37,667 --> 00:44:44,107
These mathematical formulas could be, you know, solved instantaneously and all of that data access.

654
00:44:44,307 --> 00:44:48,127
So it's a big threat. And the fact that Google just dropped this chip out of

655
00:44:48,127 --> 00:44:53,747
the blue yesterday, it sort of signals that this world is moving much faster than we expected.

656
00:44:53,747 --> 00:44:57,967
And therefore, we're going to have to have security in place to protect all

657
00:44:57,967 --> 00:45:00,827
this data and all these billions of Bitcoin around the world.

658
00:45:01,207 --> 00:45:04,327
It's taken 20 years of research to get to around 100 qubits.

659
00:45:05,427 --> 00:45:10,727
I think you start to get concerned about some of the encryption around Bitcoin

660
00:45:10,727 --> 00:45:12,787
around a few million qubits.

661
00:45:13,407 --> 00:45:17,007
And then you get really worried around like 100 million qubits.

662
00:45:17,667 --> 00:45:22,567
So if it took them 20 years to get to 100 and you want over a million to 100

663
00:45:22,567 --> 00:45:26,027
million qubits to crack Bitcoin, how long is that going to take?

664
00:45:26,567 --> 00:45:30,067
And how does this actually work? They probably first get to 30 qubits,

665
00:45:30,247 --> 00:45:31,047
then maybe they get to 50.

666
00:45:31,207 --> 00:45:34,147
Maybe they then get to, you know, 100. Oh, OK. So that's where they're at now.

667
00:45:34,247 --> 00:45:36,267
Big breakthrough, right? Oh, it's a big deal. It just happened overnight,

668
00:45:36,347 --> 00:45:38,307
this guy says. It just happened overnight.

669
00:45:39,107 --> 00:45:43,587
Well, what's next? Do we get to 200 qubits? Do we get to 150?

670
00:45:43,947 --> 00:45:47,167
We don't really know how this grows, but it probably doesn't get to a million

671
00:45:47,167 --> 00:45:51,347
for a very, very long time. It probably doesn't get to 10 million for much longer, if ever.

672
00:45:51,907 --> 00:45:56,787
And there will be signs because things that are easier to crack than Bitcoin will get cracked.

673
00:45:57,207 --> 00:46:02,027
They'll start, you know, banks, people's bank accounts, other forms of weaker

674
00:46:02,027 --> 00:46:03,867
encryption that are employed by governments.

675
00:46:04,427 --> 00:46:07,887
Those types of things will start getting cracked long before Bitcoin gets cracked.

676
00:46:08,127 --> 00:46:12,267
But the reality is you don't need to worry about this at all.

677
00:46:12,487 --> 00:46:14,287
First of all, this has come up many times before.

678
00:46:14,587 --> 00:46:20,567
And the Bitcoin Core team has already worked through prototypes to solve for this.

679
00:46:20,907 --> 00:46:26,087
So we have rough versions of quantum-proof encryption today.

680
00:46:27,501 --> 00:46:30,221
We likely have a long time to figure out how to make it work great.

681
00:46:30,341 --> 00:46:31,481
And it's not just me saying that.

682
00:46:32,261 --> 00:46:35,341
Bitcoin Core Dev, who we played on the show before, Gloria Zhao,

683
00:46:36,141 --> 00:46:38,841
was on Natalie Patel's podcast, Coin Stories.

684
00:46:39,161 --> 00:46:42,981
And Natalie asked her about the quantum computing risk. This was quite a while ago.

685
00:46:43,321 --> 00:46:47,741
Natalie, to her credit, was early on this. Can you talk about any threats that exist with AI?

686
00:46:48,061 --> 00:46:52,701
Some people are worried that these ultra powerful machine learning computers

687
00:46:52,701 --> 00:46:55,881
can kind of crack Bitcoin. Is that possible?

688
00:46:56,101 --> 00:47:00,121
I'm not too worried about the AI kind of angle to this.

689
00:47:00,301 --> 00:47:04,241
I don't think AI is very well suited for these kinds of problems.

690
00:47:04,321 --> 00:47:09,621
If you're trying to break SHA-256, I think people sometimes worry about quantum computers.

691
00:47:09,621 --> 00:47:15,001
And I think that concern is maybe a little bit more interesting on this timescale

692
00:47:15,001 --> 00:47:20,781
of like 30 to 50 years, not like tomorrow. But there are people thinking about this.

693
00:47:21,061 --> 00:47:24,181
If people were more concerned, you would see more about it.

694
00:47:24,421 --> 00:47:29,721
My understanding is like quantum wise, because you're thinking of the threat

695
00:47:29,721 --> 00:47:33,221
as like 30 to 30 to 50 year kind of scale.

696
00:47:33,241 --> 00:47:37,981
And there's a lot of free active research being done, like every year it gets

697
00:47:37,981 --> 00:47:39,641
extreme, like a lot better.

698
00:47:39,801 --> 00:47:44,381
And so I've heard of kind of quantum secure signature schemes being like kind

699
00:47:44,381 --> 00:47:47,921
of POC for Bitcoin, where they're like, yeah, we can do it.

700
00:47:48,061 --> 00:47:51,161
But the signature size is going to be like 1000 something bytes.

701
00:47:51,261 --> 00:47:54,021
Like we were talking about block space, right? Like that kind of sucks.

702
00:47:54,181 --> 00:47:58,101
And if this is only going to be applicable 20 to 30 years or 30 to 50 years

703
00:47:58,101 --> 00:48:03,081
from now, we can benefit from another 20 years worth of research to make this

704
00:48:03,081 --> 00:48:07,081
a lot more optimized and a lot more usable and suitable for our use case.

705
00:48:07,221 --> 00:48:11,761
All I'm trying to say is like the concerns that you've voiced and that,

706
00:48:11,781 --> 00:48:13,401
you know, are probably coming from somewhere.

707
00:48:13,621 --> 00:48:17,441
People think about them, but they have a very like practical and like thoughtful

708
00:48:17,441 --> 00:48:20,161
approach to how to deal with those kinds of concerns.

709
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:30,800
Music.

710
00:48:28,941 --> 00:48:34,221
So you don't need to worry about it. Do not worry about it. I'll keep an eye on it for you.

711
00:48:35,141 --> 00:48:39,301
Also going down is the vote to hold Bitcoin.

712
00:48:39,761 --> 00:48:45,081
Microsoft shareholders voted against holding Bitcoin in their treasury for now.

713
00:48:46,001 --> 00:48:49,941
That's not a forever no, but Microsoft's board, as expected,

714
00:48:50,081 --> 00:48:54,661
opposed the proposal and they cited the volatility as a key concern.

715
00:48:55,501 --> 00:49:00,421
The volatility, once again, noting that management, quote, already carefully considers this topic.

716
00:49:01,101 --> 00:49:04,541
The company reportedly holds $78.4 billion in cash right now.

717
00:49:05,001 --> 00:49:06,921
I don't think anybody was too surprised.

718
00:49:07,541 --> 00:49:11,221
I think Saylor's insight that it's going to be smaller tech companies that are

719
00:49:11,221 --> 00:49:14,561
already more volatile that are going to be the ones that adopt this stuff first.

720
00:49:15,915 --> 00:49:19,875
Been around to watch Microsoft miss a lot of things that they then had to catch

721
00:49:19,875 --> 00:49:23,115
up in a very expensive way. And I think Bitcoin is going to be very similar.

722
00:49:23,595 --> 00:49:28,795
I watched Microsoft laugh at Netscape and then scramble to build Internet Explorer.

723
00:49:29,355 --> 00:49:35,415
And then I watched them scramble to try to build an ISP as AOL and CompuServe became big.

724
00:49:36,035 --> 00:49:40,555
Then I watched them completely miss the boat on smartphones.

725
00:49:40,895 --> 00:49:45,235
What was your first reaction when you saw that? I said, $500?

726
00:49:45,835 --> 00:49:50,595
Fully subsidized with a plan? I said, that is the most expensive phone in the world.

727
00:49:50,815 --> 00:49:53,715
That's Steve Ballmer's reaction to the iPhone. And I got to tell you,

728
00:49:53,775 --> 00:49:56,215
a $500 iPhone sounds real cheap right now.

729
00:49:56,375 --> 00:50:00,235
And it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard,

730
00:50:00,415 --> 00:50:04,455
which makes it not a very good email machine. Now, it may sell very well or not.

731
00:50:05,355 --> 00:50:09,155
We have our strategy. We've got great Windows mobile devices.

732
00:50:09,155 --> 00:50:12,515
Right now, we're selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year.

733
00:50:12,935 --> 00:50:18,515
Apple is selling zero phones a year. In six months, they'll have the most expensive

734
00:50:18,515 --> 00:50:22,975
phone by far ever in the marketplace. And let's see.

735
00:50:24,075 --> 00:50:26,975
What's the expression? Let's see how the competition goes. Yeah, let's see.

736
00:50:27,415 --> 00:50:32,135
Let's see how it goes for Microsoft. I have a sense that other companies will do it ahead of them.

737
00:50:32,535 --> 00:50:36,035
And they'll start kicking Microsoft's ass in terms of performance.

738
00:50:36,655 --> 00:50:41,855
And then maybe later on, companies like Microsoft, Apple and Amazon may buy

739
00:50:41,855 --> 00:50:45,955
Bitcoin because Amazon shareholders have submitted a request for the two point

740
00:50:45,955 --> 00:50:49,995
three trillion dollar company to explore adding Bitcoin to Amazon's treasury.

741
00:50:50,475 --> 00:50:54,455
And here's what the shareholders know. And I've tracked down the group behind

742
00:50:54,455 --> 00:50:59,575
this and I'm doing some investigation. It is the same group that proposed the Microsoft treasury.

743
00:51:00,918 --> 00:51:06,518
Bitcoin proposal to the board. It is the same folks that now have done one for Amazon.

744
00:51:07,058 --> 00:51:10,538
And I have been kind of doing some reading into them so far.

745
00:51:10,638 --> 00:51:13,658
No red flags yet, but I'll share more later on.

746
00:51:14,138 --> 00:51:21,338
In their proposal, this is a quote, they note, though Bitcoin is currently a volatile asset.

747
00:51:23,338 --> 00:51:26,578
As Amazon stock has been at times throughout its history, oh,

748
00:51:26,838 --> 00:51:31,498
zing, corporations have a responsibility to maximize shareholder value over

749
00:51:31,498 --> 00:51:33,938
the long term as well as the short term.

750
00:51:34,718 --> 00:51:40,378
Diversifying the balance sheet by including some Bitcoin solves this problem

751
00:51:40,378 --> 00:51:43,158
without taking on too much volatility. Again, volatility.

752
00:51:43,618 --> 00:51:48,158
They go on to say, at a minimum, Amazon should evaluate the benefits of holding

753
00:51:48,158 --> 00:51:52,838
some, even just 5% of its assets in Bitcoin.

754
00:51:53,398 --> 00:51:57,138
I don't know if I have a date. I think I read somewhere that's mid-April that

755
00:51:57,138 --> 00:52:02,298
this would be going to a vote, But don't hold me to that because I couldn't confirm that.

756
00:52:02,878 --> 00:52:06,918
I will see. You know, I think they're going to keep trying. It feels like they're

757
00:52:06,918 --> 00:52:08,918
shooting too high, in my opinion.

758
00:52:09,058 --> 00:52:12,298
I think there's a lot of other companies out there, especially companies that

759
00:52:12,298 --> 00:52:14,998
are similar to MicroStrategy that were just stagnant for a long time.

760
00:52:15,658 --> 00:52:19,578
These companies like Microsoft and Amazon, they don't think they need Bitcoin

761
00:52:19,578 --> 00:52:20,478
right now. They've got AI.

762
00:52:21,218 --> 00:52:25,838
They're going to ride the AI wave. So I just don't think it's going to happen.

763
00:52:25,838 --> 00:52:29,498
But I would like you to boost it and tell me what company they should pitch

764
00:52:29,498 --> 00:52:32,058
it at, because I think there are companies out there that would be a good fit.

765
00:52:32,560 --> 00:52:42,480
Music.

766
00:52:42,698 --> 00:52:47,858
Well, full disclosure, we're going into overtime. We got a lot more show.

767
00:52:48,618 --> 00:52:55,438
And I want you to boost in. Tell me, are you gifting Bitcoin for the holidays at all?

768
00:52:56,178 --> 00:53:00,238
You know, I was thinking after especially MSNBC has just really freaked out about Bitcoin.

769
00:53:00,978 --> 00:53:04,298
What can we do as individuals to try to keep Bitcoin apolitical?

770
00:53:04,418 --> 00:53:07,038
Because I just think that's a disservice. Bitcoin can benefit everyone.

771
00:53:07,438 --> 00:53:12,578
And I think maybe it is to gift Bitcoin to folks who weren't going to go buy it.

772
00:53:12,978 --> 00:53:16,998
Maybe gift a little bit. Maybe gift just enough, as much as you can afford to

773
00:53:16,998 --> 00:53:18,178
make it worth their holding it.

774
00:53:18,458 --> 00:53:21,778
Because it's amazing once you hold a little Bitcoin how your opinion starts

775
00:53:21,778 --> 00:53:24,158
to change. And we can give it to all types.

776
00:53:24,798 --> 00:53:29,198
So are you gifting Bitcoin or like a wallet or any Bitcoin related hardware?

777
00:53:29,258 --> 00:53:30,838
I mentioned last week that I'll be doing that.

778
00:53:31,458 --> 00:53:34,598
I'd like to hear what your plans are around that. Boost in and tell me.

779
00:53:34,758 --> 00:53:36,398
It's a good way to support the show and share with the.

780
00:53:36,720 --> 00:53:55,280
Music.

781
00:53:55,499 --> 00:53:58,139
All right, well, coming up, your boost, a quick macro update,

782
00:53:58,519 --> 00:54:01,159
huge, huge updates you need to hear about in general in the community,

783
00:54:01,519 --> 00:54:06,299
the state of the network at a Chad-level final clip. This is a huge, oversized show.

784
00:54:07,039 --> 00:54:11,379
So why not support the show? If you want to buy some sats, buy them on river

785
00:54:11,379 --> 00:54:14,279
from the U.S. It's the best way to stack sats in the U.S.

786
00:54:14,839 --> 00:54:20,319
If you use my referral code, when you buy Bitcoin, the show gets a little bit of a kickback.

787
00:54:20,779 --> 00:54:23,499
I think the Bitcoin well is a great contender as well, especially if you're

788
00:54:23,499 --> 00:54:25,039
in Canada. They're a Canadian-based company.

789
00:54:25,499 --> 00:54:28,799
And they support a really slick automatic self-custody platform.

790
00:54:29,119 --> 00:54:30,959
So you can buy it. It goes right to your wallet.

791
00:54:31,339 --> 00:54:34,859
That's the Bitcoin well. I have links to all of this at the top of the show notes.

792
00:54:35,299 --> 00:54:37,819
If you're ready to spend your Bitcoin, like maybe you want to get an Amazon

793
00:54:37,819 --> 00:54:40,679
gift card to buy something for the holidays. Lots of companies,

794
00:54:40,799 --> 00:54:41,999
hundreds of companies, they have gift cards.

795
00:54:42,939 --> 00:54:47,159
The BitcoinCompany.com, promo code Jupiter, or use my link. You get some sats,

796
00:54:47,259 --> 00:54:48,339
the show gets some extra sats.

797
00:54:49,199 --> 00:54:52,799
If you want to stack sats by paying your bills, that's the Fold card. I got a link to that.

798
00:54:53,259 --> 00:54:56,439
And if you want to get access to some of your Bitcoin value without selling

799
00:54:56,439 --> 00:55:00,939
it, my recommendation right now is Salt Lending. And I have a link to that in the show notes as well.

800
00:55:06,619 --> 00:55:10,639
And we do have some boosts to get into. Thank you, everybody who supports the

801
00:55:10,639 --> 00:55:13,339
show by sending a boost in it. Matters a heck of a lot.

802
00:55:14,959 --> 00:55:17,919
And now it is time for the boost.

803
00:55:18,119 --> 00:55:26,499
Four score and seven boosts to go. And our first boost comes in from Treycar with 100,000 sats.

804
00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:36,240
Music.

805
00:55:36,648 --> 00:55:40,128
Thank you very much, sir. It says, always happy to see the latest twib drop.

806
00:55:40,348 --> 00:55:42,448
Cheers from an expat in Tokyo.

807
00:55:43,208 --> 00:55:46,648
Wow, that's amazing. Hello, Tokyo out there. Okay, so, oh, by the way,

808
00:55:46,728 --> 00:55:49,348
it's pronounced Drekar like Trey.

809
00:55:49,828 --> 00:55:52,448
So I think maybe I got it. Oh, Treycar. So it's Treycar?

810
00:55:52,948 --> 00:55:56,488
I think I got close. You let me know. But I really appreciate that boost.

811
00:55:56,788 --> 00:56:01,488
That means a lot. This episode was an emotionally taxing episode.

812
00:56:03,168 --> 00:56:06,108
All the fun I had to go through. What I've shared with you is just like,

813
00:56:06,168 --> 00:56:09,808
you know, some of the cream of the crop, let me tell you. So I really appreciate that baller boost.

814
00:56:10,428 --> 00:56:12,828
It sort of rejuvenated me when I saw that come in. I was like,

815
00:56:12,928 --> 00:56:17,588
OK, it has been worth the effort. Thank you very much. And it's so awesome to hear from Tokyo, too.

816
00:56:18,228 --> 00:56:20,508
I'd love to hear more about the Bitcoin scene out there if you ever want to

817
00:56:20,508 --> 00:56:21,628
boost in again. Appreciate it.

818
00:56:22,408 --> 00:56:27,188
SatSquatch comes in with 66,000 sats. The traders love the ball.

819
00:56:27,408 --> 00:56:29,628
I hoard that which your kind covets.

820
00:56:30,748 --> 00:56:34,988
Using Breeze. The thing I've always loved about Bitcoin is how the incentives

821
00:56:34,988 --> 00:56:37,168
of self-interest align to keep it running.

822
00:56:37,568 --> 00:56:41,688
I can't think of a scenario that permanently curtails Bitcoin's adoption that

823
00:56:41,688 --> 00:56:44,748
isn't eventually defeated by those same incentives.

824
00:56:45,268 --> 00:56:50,408
The way the incentive structure around Bitcoin works for Bitcoin holders,

825
00:56:50,848 --> 00:56:55,088
the miners, node operators, and now even folks like BlackRock,

826
00:56:55,488 --> 00:56:57,208
eventually the federal governments.

827
00:56:57,208 --> 00:57:01,128
It's it's a stunning

828
00:57:01,128 --> 00:57:04,148
stunning insightful it's like

829
00:57:04,148 --> 00:57:06,968
it's i guess what i'm trying to say is it's so

830
00:57:06,968 --> 00:57:09,728
stunningly insightful it's the thing that does make me

831
00:57:09,728 --> 00:57:15,428
wonder if satoshi was multiple people because how could one person how could

832
00:57:15,428 --> 00:57:20,148
one person think not only you know like figure out bringing proof of work together

833
00:57:20,148 --> 00:57:26,228
with the time-based release and the increased difficulty so you have the secured

834
00:57:26,228 --> 00:57:29,228
issuance schedule with all of these incentive structures.

835
00:57:31,202 --> 00:57:35,362
It's mind-boggling that one person was so insightful.

836
00:57:35,722 --> 00:57:41,102
And the way the incentive structures all align throughout Bitcoin is either

837
00:57:41,102 --> 00:57:47,242
it's like somehow order came out of complexity in a way that's unforeseen and

838
00:57:47,242 --> 00:57:49,102
unpredictable, or it was intentional.

839
00:57:49,422 --> 00:57:54,042
And either way, it's incredible. And SatSquatch, I'm glad you gave me an opportunity

840
00:57:54,042 --> 00:57:55,322
to kind of wax on about that.

841
00:57:55,462 --> 00:57:58,022
And thank you for that generous boost, too. I really appreciate it.

842
00:57:58,542 --> 00:58:04,502
Chutoy is in with a big old 22,222 sats.

843
00:58:04,722 --> 00:58:08,242
This old duck still got it. Things are looking up for old duck.

844
00:58:08,742 --> 00:58:12,442
Chutoy says, thanks for all of the content. I'm a small business owner who offers

845
00:58:12,442 --> 00:58:15,882
a 3% match for a 401k plan for my employees.

846
00:58:16,142 --> 00:58:19,302
I've talked about Bitcoin with them, but they don't get it. And I'm not pushy.

847
00:58:19,462 --> 00:58:23,002
Is there a product or PR service that could help me set up a Bitcoin savings

848
00:58:23,002 --> 00:58:29,162
plan for my employees that I could then add match to, similar to the way I match our 401k plan.

849
00:58:29,602 --> 00:58:35,142
Ooh, what a cool idea. I've heard of this before, other people kind of thinking about this.

850
00:58:36,282 --> 00:58:41,742
I, in the past, have thought about recommending Swans products,

851
00:58:41,782 --> 00:58:44,042
but I think I'm pausing on that for a moment until I hear otherwise.

852
00:58:44,582 --> 00:58:47,942
I guess I would be interested in what River offers.

853
00:58:48,042 --> 00:58:53,882
I know they have IRA accounts and other types of offerings, and they do offer

854
00:58:53,882 --> 00:58:54,802
support for businesses.

855
00:58:55,062 --> 00:58:59,602
So I would probably start with River, and then if River doesn't have it,

856
00:58:59,642 --> 00:59:00,802
they could probably tell you who does.

857
00:59:01,342 --> 00:59:05,042
That's a great idea for a company. There's a lot of products out there for individuals

858
00:59:05,042 --> 00:59:10,822
to contribute to like an IRA or something like that, but an employee match would be such a great perk.

859
00:59:10,962 --> 00:59:13,962
So please, Chutoy, if you figure that out, let me know.

860
00:59:14,082 --> 00:59:18,142
I would love to pass that on and maybe even consider it one day here at the

861
00:59:18,142 --> 00:59:19,462
Humble Jupiter Broadcasting.

862
00:59:20,002 --> 00:59:22,582
Hey, Gene Bean's back. Oh, and thank you for the Boost Chew toy.

863
00:59:22,962 --> 00:59:25,282
Gene Bean's back with 3,559 sats.

864
00:59:25,662 --> 00:59:28,862
That's not possible. Nothing can do that. Well, Gene can.

865
00:59:29,242 --> 00:59:31,322
First, he sent in a row of ducks to us.

866
00:59:32,782 --> 00:59:35,642
Have you read or listened to Broken Money by Lynn Alden? If so,

867
00:59:35,762 --> 00:59:38,462
thoughts? I'm listening now and it's fascinating. Yeah, Gene Bean,

868
00:59:38,542 --> 00:59:39,622
that's one of the first books.

869
00:59:40,402 --> 00:59:42,522
That's one of the first books that I recommended on the show.

870
00:59:42,522 --> 00:59:46,122
I think if you have a little time over the holiday and you haven't read Broken

871
00:59:46,122 --> 00:59:48,182
Money yet, I'm going to plus one Gene here.

872
00:59:48,462 --> 00:59:51,622
He says, I started listening last night and I heard you talk about how we're

873
00:59:51,622 --> 00:59:54,482
going to be bumping up $100,000 and get past it soon.

874
00:59:54,582 --> 00:59:58,722
And then I woke up and it was at $102,000. Woo-hoo-hoo! Yeah, Gene.

875
01:00:00,682 --> 01:00:01,942
Yeah, that was fun, wasn't it?

876
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:06,120
Know how I found out I looked down the stupid widget on my phone

877
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:10,360
and I'm like 102 what and

878
01:00:10,360 --> 01:00:13,440
that like this stupid widget that I've had for years that's

879
01:00:13,440 --> 01:00:16,440
always been like yeah I know I was like it's never

880
01:00:16,440 --> 01:00:19,380
been how I discovered what the price was for some reason and except for this

881
01:00:19,380 --> 01:00:23,380
one moment it's always kind of fun and then of course like you know the wife

882
01:00:23,380 --> 01:00:28,040
and the kids start text message oh yeah all right brace probably won't stay

883
01:00:28,040 --> 01:00:32,160
forever you know that's always like okay just to prepare for pain,

884
01:00:32,240 --> 01:00:33,500
too. That is how it goes sometimes.

885
01:00:33,840 --> 01:00:37,120
This is the way. Isn't it? All right. Thank you, Gene. Nice to hear from you.

886
01:00:37,820 --> 01:00:44,080
Northern HODL comes in with 2,121 sats. Everything's under control. Noscout time, 976.

887
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:46,640
Booyah boost. Did I get the booyah boost?

888
01:00:47,220 --> 01:00:50,520
No, but I do have... Because I'm the wind.

889
01:00:51,020 --> 01:00:55,340
So there you go. What happened to the booyah boost? You have to boost in and tell me.

890
01:00:56,820 --> 01:01:00,000
Banks are Ponzi schemes run by morons. Thank you for the boost.

891
01:01:00,520 --> 01:01:02,360
Chewy Mike comes in with a row of ducks.

892
01:01:04,140 --> 01:01:09,060
2,222 sats and just says, Boost! Thank you, Chatty Mike. Not so chatty,

893
01:01:09,140 --> 01:01:10,180
but always nice to hear from you.

894
01:01:10,460 --> 01:01:12,740
Tomato comes in with 9,001 sats.

895
01:01:13,100 --> 01:01:19,260
It's over 9,000! Oh, yes! Smack it! Trying again with the value message in the email. Oh, okay.

896
01:01:19,780 --> 01:01:23,940
What email? The contact form? I didn't get a message. I don't think.

897
01:01:24,360 --> 01:01:26,340
I'll have to make sure that's working. But thank you, Tomato.

898
01:01:26,480 --> 01:01:28,820
It's always great to hear from you. Stay safe, Tomato. him.

899
01:01:29,560 --> 01:01:33,040
Deck Sword comes in with 4,444 sats.

900
01:01:33,700 --> 01:01:37,060
Yeah, that's two rows of ducks. It's a big deck. Boosting because the last show

901
01:01:37,060 --> 01:01:39,660
hit a good sat mark and I wanted to keep the momentum going.

902
01:01:39,940 --> 01:01:45,180
Oh, thank you. That is, as a creator, I think sometimes you worry with a value-for-value

903
01:01:45,180 --> 01:01:49,160
format that you exhaust the audience, but of course, like, you have to keep working.

904
01:01:49,320 --> 01:01:53,560
You want to keep working just as hard. So thank you very much for recognizing that. It's incredible.

905
01:01:54,560 --> 01:01:57,640
I think that's part of why I want to just be as transparent as possible with you guys.

906
01:01:57,880 --> 01:02:01,380
And I tell you the amounts and all of that because I trust that you're smart

907
01:02:01,380 --> 01:02:02,880
and you figured it out, Dex. It's just great.

908
01:02:03,400 --> 01:02:05,640
It says, you're a prominent figure in both Linux and the Bitcoin space.

909
01:02:05,740 --> 01:02:08,880
We need more episodes so Notebook LM uses your voice for Bitcoin topics.

910
01:02:08,980 --> 01:02:10,540
Yeah, it sure does for the Linux topics.

911
01:02:11,500 --> 01:02:17,220
You can try it. If you go to Notebook LM, go create a new topic and for sources, give it nothing.

912
01:02:17,400 --> 01:02:22,040
You can go paste for sources and just tell it no and then ask it to talk about,

913
01:02:22,180 --> 01:02:27,840
tell it a single host talking about open source and Linux and ButterFS and you

914
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:30,600
can say arguing with itself or something like that and generate it a couple

915
01:02:30,600 --> 01:02:32,100
of times and you'll get me.

916
01:02:32,620 --> 01:02:35,420
You'll get a really good version of me. You'll know if it's a couple,

917
01:02:35,540 --> 01:02:38,640
if it generates you like a 13 minute long podcast, it probably,

918
01:02:38,980 --> 01:02:40,320
it's just going to be the regular host.

919
01:02:40,540 --> 01:02:43,500
But if it generates you a couple of minute podcast, it's probably got my voice

920
01:02:43,500 --> 01:02:48,140
in it. It might start with their voice and then transition to my voice at some point in there.

921
01:02:49,387 --> 01:02:53,087
Simple as that. And then if you really know what you're doing,

922
01:02:53,187 --> 01:02:54,547
like Wes does, you can get it to say anything.

923
01:02:56,187 --> 01:02:59,207
It's really, it's quite disturbing. Dex has another question.

924
01:02:59,367 --> 01:03:02,927
Since you're talking about solar farms mining Bitcoin, as a single node,

925
01:03:03,027 --> 01:03:04,307
does it make sense to join a pool?

926
01:03:05,107 --> 01:03:08,267
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I'd love to hear others' opinion on this,

927
01:03:08,327 --> 01:03:10,707
but I think then you get a little more consistent payout. You're not going to

928
01:03:10,707 --> 01:03:12,447
get a lot because it's going to be based on your contribution.

929
01:03:12,707 --> 01:03:16,367
So, you know, you could argue that you're running it to help,

930
01:03:16,367 --> 01:03:17,607
you know, secure the network.

931
01:03:17,907 --> 01:03:21,487
And if you win the lottery and get, you know, a block, that's great, right?

932
01:03:21,587 --> 01:03:24,647
You get every now and then you hear about these, you know, single,

933
01:03:24,687 --> 01:03:27,707
single miners out there, these pleb miners that got like, you know,

934
01:03:28,727 --> 01:03:32,767
one, one miner going and, and, and they make it somehow.

935
01:03:33,287 --> 01:03:36,327
It seems like it'd be nearly impossible because all the hash power in these

936
01:03:36,327 --> 01:03:39,727
pools, but I'd, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on it. I'd say,

937
01:03:39,887 --> 01:03:40,867
yes, you probably want to join.

938
01:03:41,027 --> 01:03:43,127
If you're a single mining node, you probably want to join a pool,

939
01:03:43,187 --> 01:03:45,787
but I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on it.

940
01:03:46,407 --> 01:03:49,747
Nakamoto 6102 comes in with 4,000 sats.

941
01:03:50,587 --> 01:03:54,367
Incoming transmission. Thank you for the podcast. For 2025, ah,

942
01:03:54,507 --> 01:03:59,407
answering my question, I'm bullish on Bitcoin, Nostr, and other open source freedom technologies.

943
01:04:02,127 --> 01:04:06,507
I'll tell you where I'm bullish on Nostr. I'm bullish on Nostr getting adopted

944
01:04:06,507 --> 01:04:09,867
as kind of a comms layer, a distributed transmissions layer,

945
01:04:10,027 --> 01:04:12,367
a lot of the technology, like Nostr Wallet Connect.

946
01:04:12,727 --> 01:04:15,307
I think it solves a lot of problems in a lot of different spaces.

947
01:04:15,427 --> 01:04:21,607
And then when you zoom out, I think the public-private key has always been a

948
01:04:21,607 --> 01:04:24,907
fantastic way to prove identity in different systems.

949
01:04:25,187 --> 01:04:27,747
But we've never had a solid web

950
01:04:27,747 --> 01:04:31,967
of trust exchange. But the social layer on top of NOSTER gives us that.

951
01:04:32,447 --> 01:04:36,207
It gives us a way to naturally form a web of trust.

952
01:04:36,687 --> 01:04:41,307
And I love the idea and I hope and pray that one day I'll be able to have a

953
01:04:41,307 --> 01:04:45,147
NOSTER identity that I take across a lot of the applications I use.

954
01:04:45,427 --> 01:04:49,487
I'm sick and tired of having an account with every app and every vendor, et cetera, et cetera.

955
01:04:49,787 --> 01:04:54,747
And it's such a pleasure when I jump into the Nostra ecosystem and I can just

956
01:04:54,747 --> 01:04:58,347
log in with my Nostra credentials to all this stuff. And it knows who I am,

957
01:04:58,387 --> 01:04:59,467
but has my profile picture.

958
01:04:59,647 --> 01:05:04,407
It's just such a nice user experience. And we need to see that adopted in other places.

959
01:05:04,727 --> 01:05:09,107
And I think people need to get over the whole social network aspect of it and

960
01:05:09,107 --> 01:05:13,427
look at it as a useful component of Nostra, but not as Nostra.

961
01:05:13,427 --> 01:05:17,887
And look at it as a source of open source protocols, means of communication,

962
01:05:17,887 --> 01:05:21,367
and a bunch of code that has a bunch of really talented people,

963
01:05:21,547 --> 01:05:24,827
some of whom now are getting financed by OpenSats and others.

964
01:05:25,387 --> 01:05:29,327
And are going to continue to produce code and continue to produce stuff that is useful.

965
01:05:29,607 --> 01:05:32,567
And it's open source and it should be looked at to solve other problems as well.

966
01:05:33,949 --> 01:05:37,789
My rant. Thank you, Nakamoto, for coming in with that. I agree.

967
01:05:37,889 --> 01:05:40,809
I'm bullish on those things, too. Ace Ackerman's here with a row of tugs.

968
01:05:41,469 --> 01:05:46,349
Oh, man, that's getting worked up again. I don't think Bitcoin is in competition with the U.S.

969
01:05:46,429 --> 01:05:50,949
Dollar because its use case is more of a store of value and less of a means of exchange.

970
01:05:51,409 --> 01:05:56,849
A black swan event could be a reveal that exchange does not hold the Bitcoin they claim to have.

971
01:05:56,969 --> 01:05:59,889
And I could see something like that happening.

972
01:05:59,989 --> 01:06:03,829
You're saying know like with coinbase yeah that would be a major major scandile

973
01:06:03,829 --> 01:06:06,969
i am not as worried about that,

974
01:06:07,489 --> 01:06:12,209
as others you know the incentives kind of line up for maybe a little bit of

975
01:06:12,209 --> 01:06:16,229
games there but inevitably all these players you know the scarcity is a good

976
01:06:16,229 --> 01:06:21,629
thing for them and i think when you look at like coinbase and the banks that

977
01:06:21,629 --> 01:06:24,609
are using coinbase that's a that's a very serious relationship,

978
01:06:25,149 --> 01:06:28,749
that's how you know people end up dead when they mess around with that kind

979
01:06:28,749 --> 01:06:32,469
of stuff thank you for the boost. The immunologist comes in with Rodex.

980
01:06:33,469 --> 01:06:37,669
Some humble support for a great show. If I would have listened earlier and got

981
01:06:37,669 --> 01:06:41,609
more Bitcoin than my strike sats I use for boosting, I'd be very happy now.

982
01:06:42,009 --> 01:06:45,249
Boost more, he'd say too. Yeah, he said I would too. You know, I have two approaches.

983
01:06:45,689 --> 01:06:49,629
I think strike is fantastic for boosting sats. And then I have,

984
01:06:49,809 --> 01:06:53,569
you know, I think there's other ways to strategically save Bitcoin.

985
01:06:54,089 --> 01:06:56,849
Like I mentioned river and Bitcoin well. I'm.

986
01:06:57,859 --> 01:07:01,679
Things I like about River, and this is, again, I have no relationship with them. They don't pay me.

987
01:07:01,939 --> 01:07:06,339
Unless you go buy some Bitcoin, I don't, the show just, you know, the show gets some sets.

988
01:07:07,579 --> 01:07:10,679
They have a pretty decent interest savings account.

989
01:07:11,299 --> 01:07:14,259
And so if you end up with a little bit of cash, you get it a pretty,

990
01:07:14,439 --> 01:07:18,479
and it's interest paid out like a 3.7 or 3.8% in Bitcoin.

991
01:07:19,199 --> 01:07:22,699
So you put your cash in the River savings account and you get interest in Bitcoin.

992
01:07:22,699 --> 01:07:29,079
But I like it because then you have cash that is earning some interest,

993
01:07:29,359 --> 01:07:32,079
probably barely staying above inflation. We'll get to that.

994
01:07:32,439 --> 01:07:34,499
But it's available if you want to buy a dip.

995
01:07:35,139 --> 01:07:39,399
And I think that's a nice combination of strategically buying Bitcoin,

996
01:07:40,019 --> 01:07:42,839
holding it there for a while, and then moving it out over lightning.

997
01:07:43,319 --> 01:07:48,499
I go through liquid before I go to my hardware wallet. But for sats that I am

998
01:07:48,499 --> 01:07:54,119
boosting or zapping on Noster, sending to value-for-value music artists,

999
01:07:54,539 --> 01:07:57,819
I use transcribe.fm for transcriptions.

1000
01:07:58,279 --> 01:08:04,639
All of that, I'm paying sats from what I generally top off with Strike about

1001
01:08:04,639 --> 01:08:09,539
once every couple of months, and I just then shoot it over to my spending lightning

1002
01:08:09,539 --> 01:08:11,659
wallet, which for me is my AlbiHub.

1003
01:08:12,019 --> 01:08:16,059
And that works really well. So that's like the Albi Hub is for spending,

1004
01:08:16,059 --> 01:08:21,099
and then I have my cold storage for savings, and I hope the accounting works

1005
01:08:21,099 --> 01:08:24,559
out because the ones I buy on strike, I essentially end up spending nearly immediately.

1006
01:08:24,559 --> 01:08:28,739
So there's not really any loss or gains typically in there. We'll see.

1007
01:08:29,239 --> 01:08:33,059
I'm sure if something crazy like I discover otherwise, I'll share it on the

1008
01:08:33,059 --> 01:08:35,559
show. But I love your thoughts, immunologist. Thanks for sharing those.

1009
01:08:36,199 --> 01:08:39,319
Silver Chicks here with a row of ducks, 2,222 sets.

1010
01:08:40,359 --> 01:08:44,999
Heck, yeah. Look at all these ducks. Silverchick says, thanks for the Breeze

1011
01:08:44,999 --> 01:08:48,459
recommendation, sent with Breeze. I love how simple it is to boost.

1012
01:08:48,599 --> 01:08:52,379
In a future episode, a deep dive on hardware wallet options would be helpful.

1013
01:08:53,592 --> 01:08:59,612
I have a family member that's receiving the BitKey, and I'm going to help them set that up.

1014
01:08:59,712 --> 01:09:04,012
That's the wallet from Block, and I own multiple cold cards.

1015
01:09:04,612 --> 01:09:09,112
I'm looking for something in between there too. I think the cold card is still

1016
01:09:09,112 --> 01:09:14,412
the gold standard, but the feedback I've heard is that it's just a little intimidating to use.

1017
01:09:14,932 --> 01:09:18,672
So I think I'm looking at BitKey, and I'm going to be looking at others. So stay tuned.

1018
01:09:18,932 --> 01:09:22,092
Thank you for the value. Appreciate that boost, and I'll try to return that

1019
01:09:22,092 --> 01:09:23,012
value in a future episode.

1020
01:09:23,732 --> 01:09:28,452
Adversary 17 comes in with 4,096 sats. Just pump the brakes right there.

1021
01:09:28,572 --> 01:09:31,052
That's right. It's adversaries. Let's hear it good, buddy.

1022
01:09:31,652 --> 01:09:34,952
Newbie corner question, if you're still doing that, what is the difference between

1023
01:09:34,952 --> 01:09:35,992
Bitcoin Core and Ethereum?

1024
01:09:36,672 --> 01:09:39,932
Why would I run one over the other? If I run Bitcoin Core myself,

1025
01:09:40,292 --> 01:09:41,632
should I also run the Electrum server?

1026
01:09:44,252 --> 01:09:47,352
Okay. I wonder if I should save that because this episode's really long.

1027
01:09:47,752 --> 01:09:54,672
Well, Bitcoin Core is the Bitcoin core software from the Bitcoin core team.

1028
01:09:55,412 --> 01:10:01,832
And Ethereum is, oh, Electrum. I misread that. Electrum. That makes a lot more sense.

1029
01:10:03,372 --> 01:10:07,652
Okay. Okay. I thought you were asking the difference between Bitcoin core and Ethereum.

1030
01:10:08,932 --> 01:10:15,392
And I was like, oh boy, how am I going to? Okay. Well, Electrum is a very popular Bitcoin wallet.

1031
01:10:15,972 --> 01:10:19,392
And there are public nodes that you can run your own private node.

1032
01:10:19,592 --> 01:10:26,032
You can go to electrum.org and it's also like available on Start9 and it's available on Umbral.

1033
01:10:26,832 --> 01:10:31,192
And this can be like a backend Electrum server that you can run on a server

1034
01:10:31,192 --> 01:10:34,912
and then a lot of clients talk or speak the Electrum protocols.

1035
01:10:35,772 --> 01:10:39,592
I will try to do more on this in the future. But, you know...

1036
01:10:41,515 --> 01:10:46,995
The quick answer is you can run both. The long answer is they do different things.

1037
01:10:47,135 --> 01:10:48,295
They serve kind of different purposes.

1038
01:10:48,615 --> 01:10:52,035
You don't need, unless you know you need Electrum, don't run it.

1039
01:10:52,135 --> 01:10:55,075
And then when you do need it, install it and start with Bitcoin Core.

1040
01:10:55,235 --> 01:10:58,435
That's the short answer slash longest answer. I hope that helps.

1041
01:10:58,935 --> 01:11:02,715
Sorry I misunderstood at first, adversaries. It's always nice to hear from you.

1042
01:11:03,295 --> 01:11:05,055
Chaka-ka is in with a row of ducks.

1043
01:11:06,635 --> 01:11:09,795
That's probably saying that wrong. Now, what could be a risk?

1044
01:11:09,915 --> 01:11:13,595
Because I was asking you guys this. What could be a risk? And this is our last boost for the episode.

1045
01:11:13,995 --> 01:11:17,595
You've been talking about how there is 14 million Bitcoin within the regular

1046
01:11:17,595 --> 01:11:20,235
folks. I think it's 16 million. I know it's somewhere in that range.

1047
01:11:20,655 --> 01:11:24,915
I goes on to say, and there is the recent ECB report of redistribution of wealth.

1048
01:11:25,135 --> 01:11:28,115
We do not know when the 14 million will be sold at.

1049
01:11:28,415 --> 01:11:32,775
And as we see now, one year and Wall Street has bought up a million Bitcoin.

1050
01:11:33,255 --> 01:11:37,055
What will happen in a few years? Will we still have 14 million hodlers out there?

1051
01:11:37,375 --> 01:11:42,135
How will the distribution look like? Like, what in my mind is the biggest threat

1052
01:11:42,135 --> 01:11:47,975
to Bitcoin is that the maxis do not teach enough so that people now know why it's important to hold.

1053
01:11:48,675 --> 01:11:52,495
Now we just have people that want the number to go up. Any redistribution of

1054
01:11:52,495 --> 01:11:57,315
Bitcoin where the richest are going to buy is probably the best and only option.

1055
01:11:57,315 --> 01:12:00,655
So the question you're essentially trying to pose, if I understand,

1056
01:12:00,935 --> 01:12:05,075
is you're worried that the plebs that have been hodling for a while will start

1057
01:12:05,075 --> 01:12:08,935
dumping as the price goes up and then the banks will snatch all that up.

1058
01:12:09,455 --> 01:12:12,715
Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably going to happen to a degree.

1059
01:12:12,855 --> 01:12:15,655
But I don't think it happens at any one particular price point.

1060
01:12:16,095 --> 01:12:19,515
You know, everybody has their price where they've made enough money and now

1061
01:12:19,515 --> 01:12:21,995
they want to buy a house or they

1062
01:12:21,995 --> 01:12:25,635
need a new leg or they want to buy an airplane or, you know, whatever.

1063
01:12:25,635 --> 01:12:31,755
To me, I think there's a good cohort of Bitcoiners that may never sell,

1064
01:12:32,075 --> 01:12:36,595
especially if you subscribe to my lend before you sell theory.

1065
01:12:36,915 --> 01:12:39,855
And also, what are you selling for?

1066
01:12:40,555 --> 01:12:43,875
You know, what are you buying? You're going to get cash.

1067
01:12:44,375 --> 01:12:49,955
You're going to sell your precious, scarce asset that only goes up in value

1068
01:12:49,955 --> 01:12:54,375
for something they can make an unlimited amount of that only goes down in value.

1069
01:12:55,215 --> 01:12:57,075
There's just some people that are not going to make that trade.

1070
01:12:57,615 --> 01:13:00,435
Ever. I don't want to sell my Bitcoin ever.

1071
01:13:01,335 --> 01:13:04,475
Not, you know, I mean, I should, I mean, maybe there'd be some sort of emergency.

1072
01:13:05,475 --> 01:13:07,175
Or, you know, maybe I get a margin called.

1073
01:13:08,435 --> 01:13:11,955
And I'll tell you, if there's a big dip, I'm buying. You know,

1074
01:13:11,955 --> 01:13:14,895
maybe I can't buy a lot anymore, but I'm never not buying.

1075
01:13:15,415 --> 01:13:18,855
Because it's the form of savings. It's always going to be a form of savings.

1076
01:13:19,015 --> 01:13:20,735
And fiat is always going to be debased.

1077
01:13:21,415 --> 01:13:23,095
It is just a mathematical certainty.

1078
01:13:23,955 --> 01:13:26,635
Inflation's still sticking around the debt's horrible,

1079
01:13:28,269 --> 01:13:31,789
It's just, it's math. But thank you for the boost, Chaka.

1080
01:13:32,049 --> 01:13:33,729
Nice to hear from you. And thanks for those road ducks. Thank you,

1081
01:13:33,809 --> 01:13:38,429
everybody who boosted in. That's all the boosts above the 2,000 sat cutoff, which we do for time.

1082
01:13:38,729 --> 01:13:41,489
But we had 46 of you also stream sats as you listen.

1083
01:13:42,029 --> 01:13:49,409
Collectively, you helped the show stack 82,790 sats. 82,790 sats from the streamers.

1084
01:13:49,869 --> 01:13:55,089
When you combine that with the boosters, we had 63 unique participants in the

1085
01:13:55,089 --> 01:13:56,949
value for value system. Thank you very much.

1086
01:13:57,669 --> 01:14:00,709
Thousands of people will listen, but 63 of you made this episode possible.

1087
01:14:01,049 --> 01:14:06,229
And together, we stacked 310,527 sats.

1088
01:14:09,949 --> 01:14:12,869
Not too bad at all, especially after last week.

1089
01:14:13,269 --> 01:14:17,229
And hopefully, hopefully this episode will get some great support.

1090
01:14:17,229 --> 01:14:20,289
If you'd like to boost the show, Fountain FM probably makes it super easy.

1091
01:14:20,729 --> 01:14:27,809
But if you're even up for a modest challenge, investigate setting up AlbiHub. It's a real treat.

1092
01:14:28,149 --> 01:14:31,849
And pretty soon, I have reason to believe it might just be possible to connect

1093
01:14:31,849 --> 01:14:33,509
it to Fountain one day. Who knows?

1094
01:14:34,529 --> 01:14:37,349
You know, Grapevine, things like that. But it could be worth,

1095
01:14:37,489 --> 01:14:40,149
even if you're a Fountain user, playing around with a little Albi Hub.

1096
01:14:40,269 --> 01:14:43,569
Then you can connect on all kinds of great apps. You can find those at podcastapps.com.

1097
01:14:44,649 --> 01:14:47,149
Or if you don't want to switch apps and you still want to boost,

1098
01:14:47,269 --> 01:14:49,469
just get Breeze. B-R-E-E-Z.

1099
01:14:49,909 --> 01:14:52,749
Top it off with some sats. It gets you going on the Lightning Network super

1100
01:14:52,749 --> 01:14:57,049
easy, super fast. and it makes it, the only downside is it's tiny,

1101
01:14:57,149 --> 01:14:58,409
tiny, tiny boost window.

1102
01:14:58,569 --> 01:15:01,189
It's like a hundred and something characters, but it makes it,

1103
01:15:01,349 --> 01:15:04,569
it's like 150 or something, but it makes it really easy to boost.

1104
01:15:04,709 --> 01:15:08,889
You don't have to switch podcast apps and it's a good little solid app as well.

1105
01:15:09,089 --> 01:15:12,109
And it also ends up being a great lightning bolt for other things too,

1106
01:15:12,329 --> 01:15:15,469
besides just boosting the show. So that's B-R-E-E-Z.

1107
01:15:15,689 --> 01:15:18,889
Thank you everybody who boosts the pot. Really appreciate the support.

1108
01:15:20,880 --> 01:15:32,400
Music.

1109
01:15:32,248 --> 01:15:37,628
Coming in just as expected. The core reading up 3.3% on a year-over-year basis.

1110
01:15:37,748 --> 01:15:40,848
Joining us right now is former Fed Governor Rick Mishkin. He's now a professor

1111
01:15:40,848 --> 01:15:41,908
at Columbia University.

1112
01:15:42,288 --> 01:15:45,928
Rick, it's great to see you. I'll ask you, first of all, just the basic question.

1113
01:15:45,928 --> 01:15:50,608
You look at this number, you put yourself in Jay Powell's brain slash the rest

1114
01:15:50,608 --> 01:15:53,188
of the Fed, and you think to yourself what?

1115
01:15:53,928 --> 01:15:56,688
So I think there's going to be really interesting discussion at the

1116
01:15:56,688 --> 01:15:59,428
upcoming FOMC meeting that that these

1117
01:15:59,428 --> 01:16:02,268
numbers are coming in as people expected but they're not great

1118
01:16:02,268 --> 01:16:05,408
numbers and you see a stalling

1119
01:16:05,408 --> 01:16:08,468
in this path down to two percent and it

1120
01:16:08,468 --> 01:16:12,748
is true that that from point of view of the real interest rate which is the

1121
01:16:12,748 --> 01:16:16,368
interest rates adjusted for inflation which is what really does affect the economy

1122
01:16:16,368 --> 01:16:22,348
this is slight there's some restriction restrictive policy here however we're

1123
01:16:22,348 --> 01:16:25,148
in a situation where there's other elements of the financial markets that are

1124
01:16:25,148 --> 01:16:26,788
very buoyant, particularly the stock market.

1125
01:16:27,168 --> 01:16:31,448
So there's really a situation here where the Fed may not really be restrictive

1126
01:16:31,448 --> 01:16:32,688
enough, given the numbers.

1127
01:16:33,088 --> 01:16:35,248
So they sort of don't want to

1128
01:16:35,248 --> 01:16:38,668
surprise people so that it's likely they're going to cut at this meeting.

1129
01:16:39,048 --> 01:16:42,008
But on the other hand, I think there's going to be a lot of discussion going

1130
01:16:42,008 --> 01:16:47,508
on about whether, in fact, that the numbers are not coming in as good as they'd like them to.

1131
01:16:47,808 --> 01:16:52,548
They don't want to get stalled at 3% and not be on a path to the 2% target.

1132
01:16:52,768 --> 01:16:57,108
And so the likelihood of them actually having to pause in terms of cutting rate

1133
01:16:57,108 --> 01:16:59,488
is now getting a lot, lot higher.

1134
01:16:59,768 --> 01:17:03,268
Yeah, so probably not this next one, but perhaps after that.

1135
01:17:03,628 --> 01:17:07,868
So we're at 2.7%, increasing 0.3% on the month.

1136
01:17:08,388 --> 01:17:17,928
And the CPI, which excludes food and energy costs, was at 3.3%, up 0.3% itself monthly.

1137
01:17:18,548 --> 01:17:21,548
Now, nobody's really panicking. The market isn't reacting.

1138
01:17:21,828 --> 01:17:25,648
You heard Andy there on the beginning of that. It's what we expected.

1139
01:17:25,888 --> 01:17:30,108
We expected things to tick up to 2.7%. Their target is 2%.

1140
01:17:30,948 --> 01:17:35,368
And if that hits three, I think that's going to be a pretty big mental shift

1141
01:17:35,368 --> 01:17:37,168
for the Fed and the market.

1142
01:17:37,968 --> 01:17:40,948
And I wouldn't be surprised if the tightening has to pause for a while.

1143
01:17:41,288 --> 01:17:44,248
I don't know. I could be wrong on that, but it just feels like the right move.

1144
01:17:44,248 --> 01:17:48,328
I know I've kind of hinted this before by the Fed, would be to actually pause

1145
01:17:48,328 --> 01:17:51,268
and hold here for a bit. Inflation is definitely not whipped.

1146
01:17:53,948 --> 01:17:58,708
So we hit 100,000, huh? That's pretty, pretty good. Felt good for a bit there.

1147
01:17:59,028 --> 01:18:02,208
But we haven't seemed to stay there very long. Right now, as I record,

1148
01:18:02,308 --> 01:18:04,008
we're back above 100 again.

1149
01:18:04,828 --> 01:18:09,348
But the thing that is hard to wrap your head around is the way markets tend to work.

1150
01:18:09,488 --> 01:18:14,228
They're a bit paradoxical. The most bullish assets are often the most longed,

1151
01:18:14,348 --> 01:18:16,088
making them the most flushed.

1152
01:18:17,395 --> 01:18:21,115
That makes them hard to push higher. Meanwhile, less bullish assets like long

1153
01:18:21,115 --> 01:18:22,455
interest can pump easily.

1154
01:18:22,755 --> 01:18:27,155
So that's why you'll see meme coins pump real easy. And they're often the most shorted.

1155
01:18:27,515 --> 01:18:33,175
So short squeezes create sudden but temporary spikes and you'll see them pump and then crash.

1156
01:18:33,855 --> 01:18:37,095
And the thing is, is there's over a thousand global exchanges.

1157
01:18:37,355 --> 01:18:40,635
They're all offering perpetual contracts on these assets.

1158
01:18:41,255 --> 01:18:47,975
They run 24-7. They're essentially unregulated casinos. And they offer stupid,

1159
01:18:48,435 --> 01:18:51,255
attractive, cheap leverage.

1160
01:18:51,915 --> 01:18:56,055
So then that lures the DGENs in to bet on price direction.

1161
01:18:56,675 --> 01:19:01,735
Then the exchanges, they can manipulate the price because they have big books

1162
01:19:01,735 --> 01:19:04,375
by buying or selling to flush those people out.

1163
01:19:05,135 --> 01:19:08,835
Suppresses the price. The wealth moves from the gamblers to the house.

1164
01:19:09,275 --> 01:19:11,855
And they just rinse and repeat until they can't do it anymore.

1165
01:19:12,295 --> 01:19:16,555
Remember that little bomb last week that Tom Lee dropped? Logical level, I would imagine.

1166
01:19:16,995 --> 01:19:23,195
Yeah, I think some of this could be, there's a lot of folks who don't want Bitcoin over $100,000,

1167
01:19:23,195 --> 01:19:28,515
and some of it may be the exchanges themselves are concerned because there is

1168
01:19:28,515 --> 01:19:32,595
a pretty low supply of Bitcoin available over the counter.

1169
01:19:32,755 --> 01:19:37,535
So you have a supply shortage, and some of it may be... So you have a supply shortage.

1170
01:19:37,635 --> 01:19:40,415
The exchanges, you know, they're doing their moves.

1171
01:19:40,495 --> 01:19:43,055
The banks, they're doing their moves to just try to flush people out,

1172
01:19:43,575 --> 01:19:45,995
Keep the Bitcoin cheap as long as possible.

1173
01:19:46,275 --> 01:19:48,775
But what you're probably noticing if you do follow the price,

1174
01:19:48,815 --> 01:19:51,835
and you really shouldn't, is that the lows are getting higher.

1175
01:19:51,995 --> 01:19:56,495
In other words, the price is not falling as far and it's recovering faster.

1176
01:19:56,675 --> 01:19:58,515
And that's getting shallower and shallower each time.

1177
01:19:58,895 --> 01:20:01,015
And I think that seems to be where we're at right now.

1178
01:20:01,455 --> 01:20:05,055
So it may be very soon that 100 does become the new floor. It's always hard

1179
01:20:05,055 --> 01:20:09,015
to predict these kinds of things. Then again, you know, anything could happen.

1180
01:20:09,975 --> 01:20:12,295
We have a lot of updates to get to and I need to keep moving.

1181
01:20:12,295 --> 01:20:14,455
But this is just, these are too big to skip this week.

1182
01:20:16,635 --> 01:20:20,755
Russia's MP has proposed a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Yes.

1183
01:20:22,590 --> 01:20:25,950
Strategic Bitcoin reserve discussions have started in Russia a new proposal

1184
01:20:25,950 --> 01:20:32,790
to add Bitcoin to the country's national reserves has reportedly been made from

1185
01:20:32,790 --> 01:20:36,090
a member of the New People Party. Not familiar with Russian politics.

1186
01:20:36,450 --> 01:20:39,790
The initiative aims to find alternatives, traditional financial systems and

1187
01:20:39,790 --> 01:20:41,590
increasing international pressures.

1188
01:20:42,170 --> 01:20:46,950
And I wonder what you think this does to the likelihood that the U.S.

1189
01:20:47,750 --> 01:20:52,290
Gets a Bitcoin strategic reserve. If Russia starts to set one up or even seems

1190
01:20:52,290 --> 01:20:56,930
to be making motions to do so, does that increase or decrease the likelihood

1191
01:20:56,930 --> 01:21:00,230
that the U.S. will do it? I'd like to know what you think. Boost that in.

1192
01:21:00,730 --> 01:21:07,870
Also, I'll link to a Wasabi wallet vulnerability that allows malicious coordinators

1193
01:21:07,870 --> 01:21:10,210
to de-anonymize coin join users.

1194
01:21:10,810 --> 01:21:14,770
It's a vulnerability in the Wasabi protocol that allows a malicious coordinator

1195
01:21:14,770 --> 01:21:20,630
to de-anonymize coins. and it can link them so they know the inputs and the

1196
01:21:20,630 --> 01:21:23,310
outputs, which compromises the privacy of CoinJoin.

1197
01:21:23,590 --> 01:21:27,150
Users are urged to update their instances immediately.

1198
01:21:27,390 --> 01:21:33,730
Wasabi Wallet 2.2.1.0 or earlier are affected, as well as Ginger Wallet 2.0.13

1199
01:21:33,730 --> 01:21:39,850
or earlier, and the BTC Pay CoinJoin plugin version 1.0.1.0.1.0 or earlier.

1200
01:21:40,190 --> 01:21:42,370
In other words, time to pat your ass.

1201
01:21:42,870 --> 01:21:48,030
And one little update for MicroStrategy. It seems very likely that MicroStrategy

1202
01:21:48,030 --> 01:21:52,970
is going to join the NASDAQ 100 index, or the Qs, as people call it.

1203
01:21:53,150 --> 01:21:58,290
Now, this is sort of interesting for Bitcoiners because it would mean the inclusion

1204
01:21:58,290 --> 01:22:03,970
of Bitcoin, a Bitcoin strategy in the NASDAQ 100,

1205
01:22:04,450 --> 01:22:09,410
which that's an exchange-traded fund that just has requirements that a lot of

1206
01:22:09,410 --> 01:22:10,570
different people have to buy into.

1207
01:22:10,570 --> 01:22:17,910
It's an estimated 2.1 billion of MST shares would align with the indexes weighing.

1208
01:22:18,350 --> 01:22:21,690
This is coming from Eric Bauhaus, or however you say his name.

1209
01:22:22,070 --> 01:22:27,810
He says, MSTR is likely to be added to the queues on 12-23, with an announcement coming on 12-13.

1210
01:22:28,690 --> 01:22:34,550
Moderna is likely to get the boot, and below is the best guess of the chances.

1211
01:22:35,710 --> 01:22:38,890
And essentially, it's like 75%, 80%.

1212
01:22:38,890 --> 01:22:41,550
Of course, I'm reading, I'm trying to read this Bloomberg terminal live,

1213
01:22:41,690 --> 01:22:47,490
but it's the chances that MSTR gets added to the index to the 100 NASDAQ index

1214
01:22:47,490 --> 01:22:52,210
is high and remarkable and a huge win for MicroStrategy.

1215
01:22:52,590 --> 01:22:56,970
You know, who knows what it means for MSTR stock, but it essentially means that

1216
01:22:56,970 --> 01:23:00,790
the Bitcoin strategy is in the NASDAQ 100 now, which is really remarkable.

1217
01:23:01,250 --> 01:23:05,170
So let's celebrate by playing a clip of Sailor.

1218
01:23:05,710 --> 01:23:10,770
This is a big one, but this might be why the gold bugs are getting so triggered.

1219
01:23:10,770 --> 01:23:14,810
And it is our final clip of the week from Mikey Saylor.

1220
01:23:15,030 --> 01:23:18,470
What's really going to happen here, my strategy would be.

1221
01:23:20,096 --> 01:23:23,576
I think it's evil genius strategy, right? It's like, it's so good, right?

1222
01:23:23,696 --> 01:23:28,316
That our ally, our enemies would hate us, but our allies would complain too.

1223
01:23:28,596 --> 01:23:32,036
And the US would make a hundred trillion dollars in a heartbeat, right?

1224
01:23:32,436 --> 01:23:36,536
Here's the strategy. You dump gold, demonetize the entire gold network.

1225
01:23:36,536 --> 01:23:42,036
You buy Bitcoin, you buy 5 million or 6 million Bitcoin. You monetize the Bitcoin network.

1226
01:23:42,716 --> 01:23:47,316
All the capital in the world sitting in Siberian real estate or Chinese natural

1227
01:23:47,316 --> 01:23:52,156
gas or every other currency derivative that's held as a long-term store of value.

1228
01:23:52,576 --> 01:23:59,696
Europeans, Africans, South Americans, Asians, they all just dump their crappy

1229
01:23:59,696 --> 01:24:03,236
property and their crappy capital assets and they buy Bitcoin.

1230
01:24:03,576 --> 01:24:08,376
The price of Bitcoin goes to the moon. The US is the big beneficiary.

1231
01:24:08,616 --> 01:24:10,916
US companies are the big beneficiary.

1232
01:24:11,216 --> 01:24:19,136
And while you're doing that, you normalize and support digital currency.

1233
01:24:19,136 --> 01:24:22,536
And you just define digital currency as the U.S. dollar backed by U.S.

1234
01:24:22,816 --> 01:24:28,516
Dollar equivalents in a regulated U.S. custodian that's audited. What happens next?

1235
01:24:29,416 --> 01:24:36,176
$150 billion of stablecoin goes to a trillion, two, four, eight,

1236
01:24:36,316 --> 01:24:40,656
and probably somewhere between eight and $16 trillion.

1237
01:24:41,416 --> 01:24:47,276
And you create $10, $20 trillion of demand for U.S.

1238
01:24:47,416 --> 01:24:50,816
Sovereign debt. And so you're like, while you're taking away a little bit of

1239
01:24:50,816 --> 01:24:54,976
the demand because the capital asset of Bitcoin grows, you're adding back the

1240
01:24:54,976 --> 01:24:56,756
demand to back the stable coin.

1241
01:24:57,016 --> 01:24:59,156
Where does the digital currency go?

1242
01:25:00,552 --> 01:25:05,212
It replaces the CNY, the rubble. It replaces every African currency.

1243
01:25:05,352 --> 01:25:09,592
It replaces every South American currency. It replaces the euro.

1244
01:25:10,232 --> 01:25:13,392
I mean, if you really believe in U.S.

1245
01:25:13,512 --> 01:25:19,812
World Reserve currency and U.S. values, every single currency in the world will

1246
01:25:19,812 --> 01:25:24,412
actually just merge into the U.S. dollar if it was freely available.

1247
01:25:24,592 --> 01:25:29,812
There isn't a stronger currency. No, there isn't. There's only currencies pegged

1248
01:25:29,812 --> 01:25:37,572
to the dollar explicitly, like a DROM or the CNY, literally plagued to the dollar explicitly.

1249
01:25:37,912 --> 01:25:40,912
Then there's implicitly pegged to the dollar, like the euro.

1250
01:25:41,652 --> 01:25:45,292
And then there's currencies collapsing against the dollar. And like,

1251
01:25:45,572 --> 01:25:51,092
you know, so what were we on, you know, after World War II, during World War

1252
01:25:51,092 --> 01:25:52,592
I? We're on the dollar standard.

1253
01:25:52,832 --> 01:25:56,392
After World War I, the dollar standard. Treaty of Genoa, the dollar standard.

1254
01:25:56,392 --> 01:25:58,172
Bretton Woods, the dollar standard.

1255
01:25:58,552 --> 01:26:01,692
And it's like, we're like, oh, we just discovered the dollar standard in 1971.

1256
01:26:01,892 --> 01:26:07,672
We've been on the dollar standard since we financed World War I for the Brits, right?

1257
01:26:07,772 --> 01:26:10,312
And we took over the world financial system since then.

1258
01:26:10,712 --> 01:26:15,512
You wanna stay on the dollar standard? You really need to release $10 trillion

1259
01:26:15,512 --> 01:26:20,452
of digital currency, and then you'll be on the dollar standard.

1260
01:26:20,852 --> 01:26:26,912
But what I just described basically replaces every currency in the world with

1261
01:26:26,912 --> 01:26:28,492
the dollar, which the U.S.

1262
01:26:28,632 --> 01:26:35,212
Controls, and it siphons off hundreds of trillions of dollars of 20th century

1263
01:26:35,212 --> 01:26:40,252
capital assets and half of the capital in the rest of the world.

1264
01:26:40,832 --> 01:26:47,492
And most, 75% of the capital of our enemies gets siphoned into Bitcoin.

1265
01:26:47,972 --> 01:26:52,952
And the big beneficiary is the U.S. government. And after that, every U.S.

1266
01:26:53,112 --> 01:26:57,912
Company, because we're the ones that own and run it. And so what I'm describing

1267
01:26:57,912 --> 01:26:59,972
there, you can do for free.

1268
01:27:01,768 --> 01:27:07,348
Your fingers. All you got to do is make the observation, the gold failed as

1269
01:27:07,348 --> 01:27:11,608
a money and a monetary network in the 16th century for the Spanish.

1270
01:27:11,988 --> 01:27:14,248
Like you're not going to save it. Yeah.

1271
01:27:14,928 --> 01:27:17,808
And given the fact it's failed, let's just eliminate the fiction,

1272
01:27:19,308 --> 01:27:26,368
demonetize it, go to digital gold, sell the past, own the future. Easy.

1273
01:27:27,760 --> 01:27:39,600
Music.

1274
01:27:37,828 --> 01:27:41,208
I know that was long, but I wanted to let him cook. I think that might be interesting

1275
01:27:41,208 --> 01:27:44,708
to revisit in a couple of years. So will the state of the network?

1276
01:27:45,128 --> 01:27:50,628
As I record, the Bitcoin price is at 100,660 U.S. dollars.

1277
01:27:51,568 --> 01:27:53,868
Sats per dollar is now under 1,000.

1278
01:27:55,108 --> 01:28:00,288
993 sats to one U.S. dollar. We're up 4.6% since last episode.

1279
01:28:00,768 --> 01:28:05,288
We're still down 3% from the all-time high, but I'm not complaining at all.

1280
01:28:06,388 --> 01:28:12,288
There are 20,348 reachable nodes on the network right now.

1281
01:28:13,168 --> 01:28:20,328
And this episode wrapped up at block height, 874,287.

1282
01:28:20,508 --> 01:28:23,468
My friends, the state of the Bitcoin network is very strong.

1283
01:28:23,968 --> 01:28:26,948
Thank you so much for joining me on this long episode. If you liked it,

1284
01:28:27,068 --> 01:28:30,628
let me know. Shoot a boost in and tell me what you thought. If it was too long,

1285
01:28:30,648 --> 01:28:31,428
I'd like to hear that, too.

1286
01:28:32,428 --> 01:28:36,868
Links to what I talked about are at thisweekinbitcoin.show. Go check it out.

1287
01:28:36,948 --> 01:28:40,088
There's lots of stuff over there, some stuff that doesn't even make it into the show.

1288
01:28:40,308 --> 01:28:43,468
And please consider sharing the show with somebody who might be Bitcoin curious.

1289
01:28:43,848 --> 01:28:46,008
There's a lot going on, especially a lot of FUD.

1290
01:28:46,508 --> 01:28:48,868
And the first half of this episode could be really helpful for them.

1291
01:28:49,148 --> 01:28:52,528
Now, of course, I want to leave you with a value for value track.

1292
01:28:52,828 --> 01:28:59,068
This one is from Theo Katzman. It's 5 Watt Rock. The 5 Watt Rock game.

1293
01:28:58,960 --> 01:32:06,312
Music.