Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, Episode 70.
My name is Chris, chrislas.com, jupyterbroadcasting.com.
Now, not to start with price, but we'll get to why.
If there was one person we could point our finger at and say,
You're the reason the Bitcoin price has been going down for the last couple of weeks.
You're the reason.
It wouldn't be Jerome Powell.
It wouldn't be Donald Trump.
No, no.
It would be U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant.
Or Scott Besant.
Not only is the Treasury sucking liquidity out of the market still, but Scott personally went out and freaked everyone out when he went on Fox Business and said this.
We've also started to get into the 21st century a Bitcoin strategic reserve.
We're not going to be buying that, but we are going to use confiscated assets and continue to build that up.
We're going to stop selling that.
I believe that Bitcoin reserve at today's prices is somewhere between 15 and 20 billion.
A couple of things in here.
So he says we're going to stop selling, which does kind of maybe imply there had been selling by the previous administration.
And he says 15 to 20 billion.
Going to use confiscated assets and continue to build that up.
We're going to stop selling that.
You know, I believe that Bitcoin reserve at today's prices is somewhere between 15 and 20 billion.
But the thing that seemed to really freak people out is Scott said we're not going to be buying.
We're going to be using the confiscated funds.
we're not going to be buying Bitcoin.
I heard that statement and I thought, well, that makes sense.
Nothing new there.
They're going to keep doing what they say they've been planning to do since January,
even though we haven't really seen any action on that.
But a lot of people took it as a walkback on a promise to buy a bunch of Bitcoin by the federal government.
I watched the polymarket odds jump and then crash.
They were kind of ticking back up to about 35%.
65% and Scott goes on Fox Business, boom, down to 16% odds that we'll see a Bitcoin reserve in 2025.
So a few hours later, when the Bitcoin price was going down more,
polymarket odds were changing, the talking heads were responding.
Scott took to X.
He clarified by saying, quote, Bitcoin that has been finally forfeited to the federal government
will be the foundation of the strategic Bitcoin reserve that President Trump established in his
March executive order. In addition, Treasury is committed to exploring budget-neutral pathways to
acquire more Bitcoin to expand the reserve and to execute on the president's promise to make the
United States, quote, the Bitcoin superpower of the world. End quote. So Scott tried to do a little
bit of cleanup there later on X, but again, none of this was really new. We kind of always knew they
weren't going to be directly buying it. They were going to try to find, quote, budget-neutral ways to
do it. And they were going to just steal more Bitcoin as they could, assuming they can go
through all the legal loopholes. And I find it funny that these quote unquote investors out there
even have the federal government buying Bitcoin in their base case. And if you're one of them,
I'd like to know what you're thinking. Why would you do that? Well, any large single buyer,
why would you ever factor them into your base case for an investment? It's just silly,
right? You should, I guess it's a bonus if the federal government bought a bunch of Bitcoin,
But you shouldn't plan on it. I wouldn't plan on anything like that. But I guess a lot of people did. I think there's just that combined with a lot of other big things going on right now. It's not just Scott scaring people.
I'm pretty sure Scott would like to see the Bitcoin price go up.
I actually would make that bet.
But this might even be a small example of the dramatic fiscal situation in the United States and that the Treasury Secretary faces.
because essentially the situation has gotten to the point
where government actors have to execute conflicting strategies.
And for example, while the White House has been celebrating about tariff revenue
and how it's seemingly had no impact on inflation,
we this week got new PPI numbers.
Now that's the producer inflation number,
the people that actually make the stuff that the consumers buy,
which impacts the CPI.
And this was not a good report.
we saw a 0.9% month over month increase in July.
Now that's a stinker.
That's nearly a full percentage.
It might as well be 1% increase.
And that is the largest increase that we have seen since June of 2022,
much larger than expected.
So that's got everybody spooked as well.
It's not necessarily Scott's fault.
I think that's one of the things there's a clock that we'll get to
that they're racing against, time they're racing against.
But a hot PPI means we're going to have spooked investors.
And it also means we could see a hotter CPI a little bit down the road.
So what are the real implications of this hotter than expected PPI report?
So CPI, it was a bit mixed.
Headline was better than expected, but core was a bit hotter.
And people said, well, it was just better than feared.
This one's a lot worse than feared.
Does this take a 25 basis point cut off the table?
Does it officially eliminate the idea of a 50 basis point cut?
Oh, and here we are.
it always comes back to the Fed rate cut because the entire system is so cooked.
It's so based on cheap money.
It is so absolutely hooked and dependent on it, like that famous clip from Robin Williams.
Just give me a little liquidity, man.
And so that's immediately where the conversation goes.
And the reality is a hotter than expected PPI and CPI that isn't going down at the rate they'd like it to go down has even gone up a little bit.
does mean the Fed would typically be less inclined to cut rates, all other factors being neutral.
That became kind of a whisper conversation going on as well.
Look, I think a 50 basis point cut was never really that much on the table, and certainly this removes it.
I think a 25 basis point cut now is even odds at best.
The market is priced in much more than that.
But we have a data-dependent Fed, and these numbers do not give comfort that inflation is cooling.
if anything, inflation seems stuck and possibly going higher. So I think this reduces the odds of
even a 25 basis point cut in September. And of course, we have to digest that news.
Now, that was Roger Ferguson. He's a former Federal Reserve vice chairman. So he might know
what he's talking about. And you can see why some people would be freaked out on that. But I think
we should also take a moment to recognize the broader situation that's not just impacting us
here in the States. Let's zoom out. There's a whole macroeconomic situation that's going to
impact all of the West. It starts here in the States, but it'll impact everybody. Recently,
the U.S. officially hit $37 trillion in debt. That's according to the Treasury's own number.
We hit the big 3-7. 20% of our tax revenue in total now goes to just paying interest.
We're paying like a trillion in interest now. And that is a massive problem that we're going
to circle back to. But if you look down into the numbers and you really dig in, the situation's
even worse at the business and individual level. In the United States, we saw 446 large bankruptcy
filings in 2025 so far. That's up 12% from the 2020 pandemic highs and on track to approach a
2010 crisis level that we saw. There were 71 filings in July alone. That's the highest monthly
total since July of 2020 during COVID lockdowns when businesses were collapsing. It's been ramping
up since April alone of this year. 371 bankruptcy, large bankruptcy filings, what the government
categorizes as large bankruptcy filings, 371 in the first half of the year, 63 in June,
officially passed the 2020 totals right there in June. We're seeing like Forever 21, Joann's,
Rite Aid, Party City, Claire's, others. It's particularly hitting the retail sector,
which would indicate that the consumer is tapped out.
And these businesses, a lot of them,
have been just barely getting by for the last two-plus years
with these high rates.
Debt trick after debt trick to survive.
And they're kind of out of options now.
They're kind of out of ideas.
So they're in a bad spot.
Their interest rates are not like, you know,
they're not crazier higher than ours.
They're on average around 9.1%.
But they're rising.
They're still rising.
And the numbers are bad across the U.S. economy. 43% of the Russell 2000 firms are unprofitable
as of late 2024, which is worse than it was in 2008. It's worse. It does also seem like,
you know, the producer inflation is up, suggesting that there is some trade war impact here.
If you average out the tariff rates, the average tariff rate is 17.3%. That's the highest since
1935 in the United States. And then you see big firms like Apple and NVIDIA and AMD,
they're getting special deals straight from the White House. But small electronics firms,
like I have some listeners who run electronic shops that reflash things so that way they have
no cloud dependency, they're going to get smashed. And that's just beginning to roll out.
Small businesses are citing poor sales as one of their top issues right now. 11% cited that in July,
the highest since July of 2020. I'm concerned too about the job numbers. All of this is
to lay the groundwork for what I would describe as a very desperate situation, both at the top
and when you look down through the economy. I could keep on going, right? I could keep on going,
especially if you look at youth. Unemployment for the 20 to 24-year-old, unemployment for them
on average is 8.1%. That's the highest it's been in four years. That's where we got during the 2008
collapse. So depending on where you want to look in the economy, things are real bad.
Some areas are not so bad, like medical. When you look over at medical, things are looking okay. In
fact, they're the biggest growth in jobs right now in the economy. Where we have, I think, a
consolidation likely to happen is these smaller companies are not going to be able to survive
these conditions. And large companies that are getting special deals from the White House
will be able to weather this inflation and these tariffs because they're getting their deals.
They'll be able to re-roll a loan or whatever they have to do. They'll be able to ride
unemployment spikes, and they'll soak up more and more market share. And so these large corporations
and the U.S. federal government's incentives will align more and more. That's when it becomes
the rest of the world's problem.
I'm going to play a clip that some are saying is just absolutely unbelievable.
You see, this isn't a Republican thing.
This isn't a Democrat thing.
You need to stack sats because the U.S. and its corporations,
their back is up against the wall.
And if you're a citizen in the U.S. or you're outside the U.S.,
especially outside the U.S.,
Ironically, you need to stack sats the hardest because there is no stopping this train.
The lever you have pulled breaks is not in service.
And what?
Please make a note of it.
I would consider a twisted irony of history, reminiscent of historical colonial practices where wealth extraction from colonies was justified because of military protection.
the United States is going to leverage its power and its trade position and its tariffs and its dollar to extract the money it needs from its allies, from its friends, because everybody else is tapped out.
And so they're coming for everyone else around them.
And this is the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, just saying the quiet part out loud.
We have these agreements in place where the Japanese, the Koreans, and to some extent the Europeans will invest in companies and industries that we direct them largely at the president's discretion.
So the president of the United States is going to tell companies and countries where to direct their money.
Like he's their CEO.
He's going to tell them where to invest their surplus money, their surplus trade money in the United States.
And how does that work?
I mean, it's almost like an offshore appropriation.
I'm not sure we've ever had anything like that in the States before.
It is absolutely an offshore appropriation.
We are absolutely appropriating their money and telling them where to spend it.
Essentially, it's our money.
Have you consulted with, I don't know, the Senate Finance Committee or the House Ways and Means Committee or what?
He is literally saying they're going to tell European companies where and how they can spend their money in the United States.
And if they don't do it, they're going to punish them with the trade agreements they now have in place,
which might explain why they had to rush these trade agreements into place.
I don't know, the Senate Finance Committee or the House Ways and Means Committee or what?
Well, Larry, I think a good framing of that is other countries, in essence, are providing us with a sovereign wealth fund.
So they're going to buy our goods.
That's essentially what's going on.
Wait, let me step back.
They're going to build our factories.
They're going to help us to build new factories, which Mr. Trump loves.
Exactly.
So the way to think about it.
You see, we're not appropriating their money.
They're going to help us.
They're going to help us by spending their money where we tell them to and build the things we tell them to for the factories we tell them to.
And they're going to help us.
They're going to help us to build new factories, which Mr. Trump loves.
Exactly.
So the way to think about it is these huge surpluses accumulated offshore.
Let's take Japan.
We're going to have $550 billion.
and they will be reinvesting that back into the U.S. economy
and we will be able to direct them as we reshore these critical industries.
We are trying to de-risk the U.S. economy from what we saw during COVID.
What a win-win, right?
So not only do we get to tell you how you can spend your money,
where you can spend your money,
but also we're going to use that money to make us less dependent on you.
So eventually you're going to be irrelevant anyways.
What a deal.
Reshore these critical industries.
We are trying to de-risk the U.S. economy from what we saw during COVID.
President loves new factories.
He'll take rehabbed old factories, but he loves new factories.
That is truly remarkable There a pattern here you see because the U sort of tapped out on the winning the wars and running that war machine and it just an endless spend cycle and it
gotten us to where we're at. We can't really tap the population anymore. We're inflating the money
faster than the population can really sustain, and so we must turn inward and go after our so-called
allies, and these allies have no choice because they depend on Washington for military protection.
They depend on access to the American market, especially if the American market's going to be printing money.
So it essentially leaves them defenseless against American wealth extraction, a lot like how it worked in the 19th century, ironically.
But there's more leverage that can be applied.
And to understand how that leverage can be applied and truly, truly be applied, you have to understand where stable coins fit in.
I frankly don't really love talking about stablecoins, but the strategic implication here,
wow, it's huge. I really think Arthur Hayes has cracked it. I've been covering Arthur Hayes
since the beginning of the show, and he is focused on an essay right now in preparation
for a presentation he's going to be giving. I think you'll see the essay come out in the next
week or so. And it's about stable coins and how they fit into everything we've just been talking
about. And I think I now understand the why behind the Trump White House rushing to move so fast on
these trade deals and on these tariffs and on some of the crypto regulation and policy. You know,
you might remember earlier this year in the show, I was confused, like, why are they doing this?
This is not the order of operation. You should do these things. You're doing it very hard. And I
thought, well, maybe it's, you're doing it the hard way is what I thought. And I thought maybe
they're doing it the hard way because, you know, it's the first hundred days. They got to ram this
thing through while power is at its peak. And that might've been a factor, but I think I was
missing the bigger picture. And that's where Arthur Hayes comes in. So let's look at that
bigger picture and see how all of this snaps together and how this may actually be a play
when we bring together the fiscal situation, the dominance that creates for the U.S. Treasury
Department and the resistance by the Federal Reserve to cut rates and the fact that we
need to extract maximum wealth from all of the U.S. allies as possible, especially Japan
and the EU.
How does it all snap together?
Well, ironically, it is stable coins.
And Arthur lays it out right here for us.
And I thought his insights were pretty relevant.
There's two pools of money, which I think best sent via monetary policy and aggressive
use of terrorizing sanctions can make people onboard into stable coins. Before he gets into
this, because it's a brilliant explanation, I will link to the entire podcast in the show notes if
you want to watch it. I thought this was the most relevant for our discussion. There's two pools of
money, which I think best sent via monetary policy and aggressive use of terrorizing sanctions can
make people onboard into stable coins. The first is the Eurodollar market, right? So,
So, you know, 1950s and 60s, Eurodollar market was created because of all the regulations and prohibitions around interest payments and trade flows that the U.S. monetary authorities were putting on commercial banks.
And so you have these foreign branches of U.S. banks and foreign banks saying, hey, I'll take your dollars outside of U.S. control.
And so we have this $10 to $13 trillion market, which nobody has any control over, oftentimes influences Fed and Treasury policy in terms of when dollars become expensive and cheap in the Eurodollar market.
And you can probably trace almost every financial crisis outside of the United States to Eurodollar market flows.
And these flows are not doing what Bessett wants them to do.
He can't control them.
He doesn't know where they are.
He can't make them buy what he wants, which is Treasury bills.
So my idea, and maybe he'll do this or maybe he won't, I don't know, is right now, why do you feel comfortable in a Eurodollar?
Because every time your banking institution has gotten into trouble, the Fed, the Treasury bails you out, even if technically they shouldn't be doing it.
So because you're not a member of the discount window, don't follow U.S. regulations.
But we can point to many, many, even 2008, the Fed secretly bailed out all these foreign
branches of banks for all their bad trading policies to make sure the euro dollar depositor
was sweet.
So the first thing President should do is say, hey, guess what?
If you don't have your money in a US branch of a bank or a US bank inside of America,
you do not have a guarantee any longer.
We will not come and save you anymore.
So all of a sudden, these dollars are like, oh, OK, well, there isn't this blanket government
guarantee from the Fed and the Treasury for these trillions of dollars that I have deposited on
these banks. But I could put my money into a stable coin. And a stable coin means that the
dollars are either a deposit at a US branch of a bank in America, or they're holding treasury bills.
So if you don't feel safe in your Deutsche Bank account in Switzerland or wherever, just talk to
your authorized participant and move these deposits over to a stable coin. And now you have access to
year dollars. You have the blanket guarantee of the U S government. And guess what? You might earn
a bit of a yield on, on your money. Cause we probably don't get much of a yield in a Euro
dollar deposit outside of America. Cause the banks don't actually need your money and they have to
pay capital charges to the Basel three and blah, blah, blah. Right. All the, all the bad things
about why banks don't like large deposits. And so now you have, you know, a 10 to $13 trillion
TAM of money that could flow into stable coins from abroad. And what's during a stable coin
Besson has full control. He knows where you are, you know, which bank he, you know, he knows where
you're clearing your treasuries. And the best part is he can offer you a yield that's lower than Fed
funds. So if Fed funds is four and a half, he can say, Oh, guess what? I'll give you two on a six
month T bill. And you say, well, I can't really do anything about that because I'm not going to go
into a U S bank bank deposit. The banks don't even pay you anywhere close to Fed funds. So fuck it.
I'll just buy the 2% that Besson offers.
So Besson can, and one fell stroke, completely new to the Fed, and no longer does the Fed
have any control over Fed funds because Besson can offer the Treasury bill at whatever price
he wants, unconstrained by what Powell, whoever his successor does.
Besson's got to sell that debt.
He's got to sell that debt.
That's his number one job is to sell that debt.
And he has found a way to make a product that is more attractive than what the Fed can offer.
He's found a way around the Fed.
Now, that's interesting, but that's only part of the strategy.
You see, the situation's gotten far too serious to let the Fed mess around with it.
And we have to make sure that not only do we take control from the Fed,
But the stupid, petty local governments don't disrupt the dollarization of the world because if the treasury is the new ruler, the ruler is going to want total world dominance.
And how would they possibly convince world governments to allow their citizens to transact or even maybe save in stable coins?
Well, Arthur gets into that too.
The U.S. has ways.
You have a lot of retail around the world in developed and developing countries.
I live in Asia, and basically the entire investment game out here in Asia is how do we get local currency into dollars so that they can buy higher yielding assets and equities?
That's literally all of finance in Asia.
And then every so often, the regulators come after people, and they basically put the young guy in jail, and the boss stays sweet, as they do.
And that is the game.
So Bessa could say, okay, guess what? We're going to deputize Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and give them protection to go and offer a stablecoin bank account through their WhatsApp, your Instagram, your X account. And we don't care if a foreign regulator, whether banking or internet regulator-
It's interesting, I'll interrupt you just for a second, that he mentions Elon Musk. At first I thought, no, that's silly. But then it makes total sense. X has been working so hard to become a money transmitter platform. They've been getting licensed in every state. They've been talking about it since Elon took over. It's part of the renamed X. Of course they'd love to get in on the stablecoin game. And then if you had it on the X platform and you had it on the meta platforms, it would be all over the world in seconds.
account. And we don't care if a foreign regulator, whether banking or internet regulators says,
we don't like this. We don't like that you're basically giving a dollar bank account to our
entire underclass or anyone who's not a wealthy individual. And they don't care because they're
sitting in Hawaii and Austin, Texas, and Trump is protecting them. And if you go and you try to
remove access to Facebook or X, guess what? Sanctions, just like what Trump threatened with
Europe when they had their Digital Information Act or whatever it is. And then furthermore,
Besson finally has a sanctions weapon, right? So if you're in Asia or a lot of developing world,
all the elites essentially steal from their people and put their money in US banks in some way,
shape or form. And so guess what, president or prime minister or parliamentarian,
if you don't allow Western social media companies to bank all of your people with dollars,
I'm going to sanction you and you're going to lose access to the billions of dollars that you stole
from your people. And so guess what's going to happen? Nothing. And so I think that is how
you're going to get, you know, sort of like 20, 25 trillion dollar TAM of money that could flow
into dollar stable coins. And I think they're hinting at this already in terms of, you know,
you have the major social media companies saying, oh, we're investigating stable coins and this,
that and the other thing. And, you know, Besson's very pro on them. And then basically what's the
stable coin do? They're going to buy treasury bills and they'll buy it. Whatever yield Besson
offers, he can completely destroy the fed. He can put, you know, short-term rates wherever he wants
it. And now he's got a sink of tens of trillions of dollars that he can essentially fund the U S
government with until they do some sort of yield curve control to bring down the long end.
So I think that's, that's what I would do if I was Besson. Now, I think they're on the path,
whether or not they get there, who knows.
Now, they're not just going to take it.
World governments are going to respond because you can stop the bleeding.
You can isolate some of the damage if you move fast enough and if you sell it right.
And you have to lock down as many of the exits and entrances as you possibly can to the existing system.
And one might wonder if we don't see a couple of those efforts underway right now that could very easily come for Bitcoiners.
Man, this next one.
So the Bank of International Settlements has released a paper that proposes an incentive structure that essentially makes everyone self-KYC, even for non-custodial wallets.
It's a framework aimed at enforcing anti-money laundering, of course, because we have to worry about that.
And they're so clever, they've come up with a way to even get those that have cold wallets or cold storage to also KYC.
So their proposal is a system where each crypto asset gets an AML compliance score based on its entire transaction history.
Of course.
low scored assets, those that have touched non-KYC wallets, would be rejected by exchanges
and off-ramps. Yep. So it gets implemented at the off-ramps, mostly by exchanges. A wallet will
have a score from zero to 100. 100 is from allow listed KYC verified wallets. You're good to go.
Zero is you've been touched by a denied listed no KYC wallet. Dun, dun, dun. And you know,
if you've touched a few in there, I would presume your number will range from zero to 100.
And regulated platforms would only accept coins above a certain score threshold, which the
regulators, I presume, could adjust. Even if you've never used an exchange, you've never used KYC,
but you want to sell to a KYC, well, then you're going to have to create a duty of care. And this
is where they think the incentives will work in because users are eventually going to want to sell
their coin to buy a house or to get some cash. And so it shifts, they say, the duty of care culture
from the institution to the individual. You see, because the off-ramps will only accept tokens from
approved wallets and wallet providers like services of, you know, people out there that
offer wallet services will have to block unverified wallets. And they even think that
depending on the chain, some of the compliance scores could probably be embedded in the coins
if they have like a little extra data they could put in there.
They think this approach will create a self-policing culture,
self-policing, self-policing, self-policing culture
for non-custodial wallets.
Now, this is fascinating because if you look at
the White House's digital assets report,
it calls for tools that hide coin origins as,
it calls those as, quote,
a primary money laundering concern.
So it calls tools to try to obscure your money,
the origin of your money,
which I suppose in this case,
could be a flip to the liquid network and back, a swap back and forth. They consider that, quote,
a primary laundering concern. So that's how you do it, right? You get it at the exits of the
entrances. And then I think you have to turn up the ancillary things around it too. It's a whole
net. It's not just as simple as the exchange on-ramps and off-ramps because that gets you a
lot, but that doesn't get you everything. But what if you could age gate? And I see this trend
of age verification. And I think if they're willing to age gate something like a VPN,
a privacy tool like a VPN, who says they won't age gate Bitcoin services and commercial wallets
or download links for wallets in the future.
Verification.
Yeah, but people who want to can see it now by...
Verification.
Yeah, but people who want to can see it now by using a VPN.
Do you want to bring age verification in on a VPN?
This is the Children's Commissioner for England.
Two things in answer to that.
One, most children see it on social media.
But I'm asking about VPN because time is tight.
You might even risk making the news if you want.
Of course we need age verification on VPNs.
It's absolutely a loophole that needs closing.
And that's one of my major recommendations.
Of course we need age verification on crypto wallets.
That's one of the areas where miners can get around the protections we put in place for them with credit card payment processors and with the VPNs and with porn.
And this is one more area where we have a loophole.
We have to address this loophole.
It's a pretty easy argument to make.
I don't like it, but I think it's a pretty easy argument to make.
So here's my question.
I'd like you to boost in, support the show.
would you be willing to self KYC
say you have some coins that are non just that way you could spend your Bitcoin legally Like I talked to an individual who bought a house they cashed out their Bitcoin to buy a house and the bank still wanted this was a few
years ago, the bank wanted a complete paper trail all the way back to the individual paychecks that
were used to finance the purchase of the Bitcoin at the time. And so the KYC thing, if you really
want your money, like if you've been sitting on this for 20 years and you got a million dollars
and you want access to that,
are you willing to KYC in order to spend it?
And at that point, why wouldn't you, I suppose?
That's the other question.
And I think because of that,
the natural incentive is to sort of just comply with this
because at the end of the day,
you want to be able to spend it.
I don't know, man.
I'd like to know what you would do.
I'm not so sure I follow that logic myself.
I think I would rather try to use it as collateral
and never have to spend it,
but they probably would still want to know
what its score rating was.
This thing's really going to be a scourge.
I'll link to this BIS proposal, more like BS proposal, so you can read through it if you want.
Well, maybe make a ruckus.
well you could support the show by doing what you do you want to stack some sats on river one of the
best places in the united states of america well i got a link to river in the show notes you use
that link it supports the show. If you're all about that self custody, you're in
Canada or in America, the Bitcoin whale is an amazing automatic self custody
Bitcoin platform. You ready to spend some of those sats? You're on the Lightning
Network? The Bitcoin company go from sats to hundreds of different gift cards in
like, I don't know, 10 seconds? You know how fast the Lightning Network is. I don't
need to tell you. All they do is Bitcoin. You can log in with your Lightning
credentials if you'd like, no account required, or you can make one too. I'm not
your dad. If you want to stack sats when you're paying bills, using your debit card, buying your
gas, doing the things you got to do to live your life in this system, the Fold Card can help you
passively stack sats. I got a link to that in the show notes. If it's time to get access to liquidity
without selling your Bitcoin, Salt Lending takes care of that. They got some cool services coming
too. Salt's going for it. Like a no getting margin called insurance policy type thing. That sounds
pretty cool. Links to them, no official relationship other than I use them, I like them, I trust them.
and you can support the show by using them.
It is time for the boost.
And now, as the French say, it is time for le boost.
And J-Cube 3 is our baller booster this week, coming in with a generous 55,000 cents.
J-Cube writes, I missed boosting last week.
The only thing I trust in a news organization to do is to push a slanted narrative that suits them.
Bitcoin is truth. Spread the truth.
it is nice that bitcoin you know everything's out there it always comes back like i always say it
always reverts to the mean you know what you got to do right with the with the situation with the
media these days honestly it's been wrecked by commercialization but the situation i think if
you're up for it is you have to take it all in and use your best judgment and experience and and
your your memory use your mind to uh sort it all out but i suppose that not everybody's up for that
and it doesn't work out great for everybody.
Or, you know, you go out and find trusted value for value voices
where you know their incentive aligns to super serve you.
I mean, that's the way all media really should be.
It drives me crazy that it's not.
And that if people worked in the industry
and they saw the other side of it,
they would understand why it works me up so much.
Thank you, JQ.
Appreciate you.
Hey, there's Adversary 17.
Gene.
Coming in with 24,576 sets.
Coming in hot with the boost.
He says, keep the bonus episodes coming.
That media production did irk me like it did you.
Great episode, though I'm a little behind.
He's catching up.
Well, thank you.
Thanks for the check-in.
Appreciate that, adversaries.
Gene Bean's here with 4,444 sets.
That's fine.
I think when the ETH crowd tanks,
Bitcoin will continue trucking, and the big names in Bitcoin will go straight up.
And they'll say, I told you crypto wasn't the same as Bitcoin.
Ha!
Told you so!
That will be delicious.
I agree.
I'm curious if you have any opinions on Canon's Avalon Nano S3, or the mini S3, for home Bitcoin mining.
I've only kind of, you know, drooled at them, Gene.
I like the price point.
I like the price point, at least of the Nano S3.
but if I, you know, right now
I would have to really compare it
I would have to do a fair comparison of the BitX
and I don't think I'm prepared to do that
because I think that's where it's competing against, right?
Would you agree?
Because the BitX is kind of its main competitor there
and it's got a pretty good community around it
but I will keep an eye out
Avalon Mini 3 and the Avalon Nano 3S
if anybody out there has experience with those devices
educate me, would you?
Educate me and help answer Gene's question
and he's a good frequent supporter of the show.
I'd like the community to help him out if they can.
Thank you, Gene.
Nice to hear from you.
Scuffed also came in with 4,404 fans.
That's a big old duck.
What are you talking about?
Quack-a-wack-a, it's a treasure.
Yippee!
He says, regarding home network security for your node.
Oh, yes, we were talking about if it's worth trying to proxy the ports
or just open them up on your home internet.
Scuffed writes, I run Noughts on Start 9,
and everything's routed through Tor by default.
No open ports.
Works quite well.
Yeah, you know what, Scuffed?
I run one of my nodes that way too.
I wouldn't say it's no problem,
but I'd say it's a fair trade to not have open ports.
I think if you're dealing with a lot of Lightning,
eh, I don't know.
You know, I think my ClearNet nodes
have been a little easier
to get established on the Lightning network,
but it is possible with the Tor nodes,
so I shouldn't speak badly of it.
That's a great point,
is you could just totally run it on tour.
And that's what I do with one of mine.
Producer Jeff's here with 2,222 sats.
Oh, and I should say, of course, thank you, Scuffed.
PJ writes, I've gone a little more blind
from how hard my eyes rolled listening to Miss Fitcher.
Yeah.
And she worked at the SEC, dude,
as the right-hand guy to Gary.
He says, I'd like to push back a little bit
on the 120% K growth comparison.
It sounded good,
but as something that starts at zero from birth,
you can only really grow.
whereas other assets started at some inherent value given by their company or their market.
I think it's more powerful to highlight that Bitcoin started at zero
and due to its hard value, it is what it is today.
Then use a time-based comparison against something else from birth to other asset.
I agree. I was just going to say that.
I think that's actually really fun.
Thanks for another killer show.
Time to top up my fountain wallet.
Thank you, PJ. Appreciate that.
BTC is my 401k
comes in with
12,042 sats
he said 1500 sats to our artist
appreciate that and he says here's over
9,000 sats for the hilarious line she spells
Fisher with a C which is disgusting
I know it is
it is gross it is gross
not needed not needed
he says
great episode well thank you
Thank you, BTZ is my 401k.
You and me both, buddy.
Appreciate the boost.
Hello there, he's here with a row of ducks.
No message, just the value.
But I appreciate that value.
Thank you.
Everything is Satoshi is here with 4,200 sets.
Live long and prosper.
It's obvious Tom Lee has taken thousands of Bitcoin to shill Ethereum,
because the disingenuous comments are truly laughable.
I feel you, Tom.
Anything to stack as hard as Daddy Fink.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Run Noughts. Run Albiehub. Yes. Owen Danum. All right. Now, here's the thing. What if Tom Lee really believes it? See, I think these guys, they really believe it because they don't fully understand it. Like he admitted he didn't fully understand Bitcoin. He doesn't fully understand ETH. He probably doesn't understand.
Like if you're going to try to bet on ETH, I think it's incumbent upon you to understand something like Sol or Sui or some of the other alternatives and appreciate and understand why they're not a threat or if they are indeed a threat to Ethereum.
And unless you can tell me in a simple three or four word sentence, you know, not three or four words, but three or four sentences, I don't think you understand it.
And I would bet you Tom Lee doesn't understand those dynamics there.
But he's taking a bet because he sees JP Morgan and others saying they're going to launch a stablecoin on Ethereum, which they probably will for a little while until they need more control, more safety, more competitive pricing and speed.
And then they'll just roll it on a SQL database probably.
Thanks, everything, Satoshi.
Sometimes I'm so salty, but I appreciate your boost.
MJVC is here with 3,222 sats.
I like you.
You're a hot ticket.
No message, just the value, which I appreciate.
Thank you very much.
Drekar is here with 12,200 sats.
Oh my God, this drawer is filled with fruit lobes.
Boy, they are doing a lot with mayo these days.
He says, always the best.
Thank you.
Appreciate the value.
Ace Ackerman's here with a row of ducks.
He says, chase for stablecoin dominance is in a race to the bottom, similar to the ICO boom bust era.
Tom Lee is a loon.
I know it's really a shame
because he was so early on Bitcoin
on CNBC
I wanted to like the guy
I know
Bitcoin will show us all our heroes
that's what it does
that's why I
just don't want to get into that game at all
because it's just the ultimate humbling experience
I imagine
thank you for the boost
appreciate it
next boost comes from
OB and it is $19,000.
Put some macaroni and cheese on there.
One day maybe. $19,000.
Not sleeping is catching up to me.
OB writes two opinions. Number one,
Natalie is an excellent
communicator and meets people where they are
and educates them by steering the conversation.
Number two, if people are
baffled by captured media pretending not to
understand Bitcoin, this will continue while they
attempt the slow adoption for their donors.
Yes. Yeah.
The donors,
The owners.
Not the donors, the owners.
For their owners.
Because it's their owners that are stacking, right, that own these large banks and all of that.
That's a good solid point, OB.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Odyssey Westra is here.
And he's bringing in 3,333 cents.
Thank you for helping us help you help us all.
Sending some love to Ollie for our track this week.
Thank you.
Appreciate that, Odyssey.
Kung Fu Hoddle is here with a row of ducks.
2,222 cents.
He says, great show.
What movie does the clip from your boost?
He's a good guy and he's a great guy.
He's a real good guy come from.
He's a good guy.
He's a real good guy.
No, he's a great guy.
That is actually a comedy show called Letterkenny.
And it's good.
Let's hear it good, buddy.
But it's unique.
So you may not be up for it, but I love it.
Why you got to put numbers and letters together?
Why can't you just go f*** yourself?
So check out Letterkenny.
Yeah.
It's a special kind of taste, though.
Thank you, everybody who supported the show.
46 of you stream sats as you listen to the show.
Check this one out.
Not too bad at all.
You stacked 104,881 sats.
When you combine that with our boosters, we got to 260,404 sats this episode.
Appreciate it.
This is a value for value podcast.
I put it out there for free.
If you get some value from it, if it helps you understand the Bitcoin world,
with a world that impacts and shapes Bitcoin,
consider sending some value back with a boost.
The easiest way to do it is with Fountain FM
or your own self-hosted node.
These days too, if you're a Fountain FM user,
you can support us directly in the app
with their new member service where I'm releasing bonus content,
and I'm working out a system to also get it to our Jupiter.party members.
Thank you, everybody, who supports the show with a boost or a subscription.
What do you say we get into some updates?
So we know what happened to Bo Hines.
Remember last week I covered that the former college football player
who has twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress in North Carolina and is only 29 years old.
He resigned.
He was tasked with helping the president early in the second term of his to deliver
on the promise of making the U.S. the crypto capital of the world.
Bo made it about 28 weeks in the White House and then he resigned.
We presumed for a new job and boy, did he get it.
Next, stablecoin issuer Tether just hired Bo Hines to lead its U.S. digital asset strategy.
Tether said the former executive director for the White House Crypto Council
will start immediately to, quote,
directly engage and coordinate Tether's U.S. strategy and expansion.
Tether CEO Paolo Arduino also said in the press release that the appointment of Hines
is part of the company's commitment to build a strong U.S. presence.
For his part, Hines also shared the news on X,
saying he was excited to help build an ecosystem that empowers U.S. consumers and reshapes the financial system.
Hines left the Trump administration earlier this month and at the time thanked White House AI and crypto czar David Sachs,
adding that together they had positioned the United States as the world's crypto capital.
You know, I'm a little disappointed in myself now that I think about it.
I should have looked it up.
My gut tells me Bo Hines' family is really well connected.
Do you get that sense?
Because he's trying to run for Congress twice and he's in his 20s.
I mean, wow.
And then he gets into the White House.
Plus, I think he was backed by Trump when he did try to run for Congress.
So he's had a connection to Trump for years.
Then he gets this sweet position in the White House that's just kind of made for him.
It's just sort of created for him under David Sachs.
And then he gets a line into Tether where they're going to be printing money.
And he's no doubt going to get a super sweet payoff.
There's got to be more to that story there, I would think.
I don't know, but if you do, boost in and tell me.
I thought this story was interesting and should be on your radar.
The FBI used of Bitcoin priced in USD worth of Bitcoin to track down a alleged serial corporate hacker So this guy went by the name of Intel Broker and I think it was involved in like
ransomware and whatnot. He's 25 year old British national. His name was Kai West or is Kai West,
but he went by Intel Broker. He's accused of stealing over $25 million worth of, well,
he got $25 million in ransom. I think he hacked 40 companies and essentially netted a pretty good
profit. And typically he only used Monero, but an undercover agent offered him Bitcoin instead of
Monero because they essentially posed as a victim company. And the FBI said, well, bro, what if,
what if instead we use Bitcoin? I've got that. I don't know how to swap to Monero. Well, you just
take the Bitcoin. West accepted the Bitcoin. It's just $250 too, which is pretty low price.
That tiny transaction gave investigators the thread they needed to follow, linking his wallets
and his email accounts, all that jazz. And then he was arrested in France in February and is now
facing extradition to the US where he's being charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, and computer
intrusions. So this guy stacks up $25 million. I don't know if he's hitting everybody for $250
payments. That seems pretty small. This guy managed to stack up $250 million worth of
crypto via victims paying him in Monero. The FBI figures, let's switch him over to the Bitcoin
network. And because they have the off-ramps all locked down, they got him. So this is why
controlling the on-ramps and off-ramps of the system is so important. And like I talked about
last week, Bitcoin is the last currency you want to do this kind of crime in. So when people
and I just saw several,
I could have played clips this week, you guys.
I could have played clips of people this week
saying the only valid use of Bitcoin
is for criminal and money laundering.
Criminal activity, money laundering.
Oh, and sometimes they throw in gambling,
but I didn't hear that this time.
But this right here shows you
why you wouldn't want to do that.
The FBI, in fact, it's so good,
the FBI tricks them to using Bitcoin.
I mean, that's just remarkable.
Anyways, $250 and they take this guy down
for $25 million worth of scams.
It's fascinating.
Citigroup considers custodying and even getting to the stablecoin game and letting you buy and
sell crypto ETFs inside their platform. They're gearing up their various sales pitches. They want
your Bitcoin. How quickly they go from calling it a toxic asset to trying to get you to put your
coins into their system. Okay, let's talk about the top stories for the week. Citigroup is looking
to offer crypto-related services. Now, the bank's CEO did say in last month's earnings call that
Citi was considering the issuance of a stablecoin. Now, an executive from the firm says it could go
beyond that. Responding to a Reuters report that the bank was looking into more crypto services,
Citi's global head of partnerships and innovations, Biswarp Chatterjee, told CNBC,
quote, as part of our commitment to meeting the evolving needs of our clients,
we are actively exploring custodial solutions, as well as other stablecoin initiatives,
such as reserve management and the potential issuance of our own external token or coin,
with safety and soundness top of mind.
A digital asset custody platform would put Citi in competition with firms like Coinbase and BitGo,
and the issuance of a stablecoin could turbocharge payments for the bank.
Currently, the bank operates Citi Token Services, which offers 24-7 instant payments,
but only to certain city branches.
Since President Trump signed the Genius Act stablecoin regulation bill into law last month,
Wall Street has ramped up plans to operate in the crypto space.
Bank of America has also expressed interest in launching a stablecoin.
And even J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, a staunch critic of cryptocurrencies,
said last month in an earnings call that his firm will be involved in stablecoins.
Speaking of crypto, we seem to be facing a bit of an unstakening.
The unstaking approaches over 3.3 billion-ish,
somewhere around there worth of Ethereum is queued up to exit the system,
which is the longest and deepest queue we've seen in a long time.
So here's a funny thing.
You might not know if you're a Bitcoiner.
On the Ethereum network, when you stake your ETH,
which you kind of be silly not to do, I suppose,
because otherwise you're getting eaten by inflation,
you have to queue it if you want to unstake it.
You have to queue it to stake it, and you have to queue it to unstake it.
So if you want to get your ETH back, say you want to spend it or you want to sell it because ETH is just pumped after the first time in like three years,
you have to go into the unstaking queue, which dynamically adjusts with the unstaking demand.
So when there's a lot of demand to unstake ETH, like right now, the queue grows and grows and grows, and you can't get your ETH out.
when I just checked a bit ago. The wait time to get your ETH out when you want to unstake it right
now is 15 days and 14 hours. That's a lifetime in the ETH price action. There are currently almost
900,000 ETH pending to be unleashed onto the market. And in the meantime, while they're all
waiting for their ETH to get out, the price has been sliding. And the whole ETH treasury narrative
has gone completely silent this week.
Completely silent.
No one's talking about it.
Completely radio silent.
So you literally cannot time the top or the bottom with ETH
if you stake your ETH,
which is why ConsenSys and some of the others
hold on to unstaked ETH so they can strategically dump.
That's why they do that, even though they could be making money.
What's that tell you?
All right.
Now, here's a great story.
A group is pitching, taking Bitcoin mining,
and using it to warm a town's pool, which would save them money and potentially even earn them some money.
An idea to heat Kitsilano pool using Bitcoin mining was discussed at a conference in Vancouver today,
an event Mayor Ken Sim also attended and spoke at.
This afternoon's panel was part of the Learning Bitcoin conference this weekend at the Vancouver Convention Centre.
The participants discussed how Bitcoin miners are essentially computers and the heat generated from them could be used to heat Kit's pool for use all year round, adding it could even make the city money.
Mining for Bitcoin would not only pay for the energy used to heat the pool, but there would be extra Bitcoin that could be then additionally sold to pay for services, to pay for lifeguards, to pay for more operational hours, to pay for swimming lessons.
In fact, it would be the case that the Bitcoin mining facility at Kitts Pool would probably make the city maybe a million dollars a year in profit.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim is a fan of the idea.
He was in the audience and spoke later in the day about his push to integrate Bitcoin into the city of Vancouver's finances.
A motion passed by council last year directed staff to explore how the city could accept taxes and fees in the cryptocurrency and even convert some of the city's reserves into it.
That report is due back sometime in the fall.
I really like the idea of using Bitcoin mining to heat a pool.
I love the idea, too, of maybe at home, like if I could have a hot water tank heated by Bitcoin mining.
But I think, too, if using Bitcoin like this can be helpful for a city pool in Vancouver, where else is this going to be useful?
We are just so at the beginning of businesses and groups and even quasi-government groups figuring out how to leverage Bitcoin to make what they do a little more sustainable or maybe completely sustainable.
And it just takes a little bit of outside-of-the-box thinking.
And you were seeing it at these little local levels more and more and more.
It's building and building and building.
So cool to watch.
All right, last thing.
Speaking of things that are pretty darn neat, it was August 18th, 2008.
So this week, 17 years ago, Satoshi launched Bitcoin.org.
Wow, what?
No, that cannot be.
I wrote 17 years.
Well, Bitcoin.org had a birthday.
How about that?
Let's just go with that because anything else makes me feel absolutely bonkers crazy that
can't be true. Speaking of things that happened a while ago, in 2016, Andreas Antonopoulos held a
talk titled Currency Wars and Bitcoin Neutrality. And Andreas saw what is happening today almost
nine years ago. He talks about the why the governments are closing the exits and how they
will use the controls of their financial system. And it's really insightful considering what we
just covered in the show. He talks about it from the point of what had just recently happened in
Turkey. And he starts really by saying, right as I'm coming into the clip, he starts really by saying
how the currency wars will force governments to manipulate these exits and these entrances to the
system. But there is another currency war going on, and this is an international currency war.
This is where nation is pitted against nation using its flag money, its national currency,
as a trade war instrument in order to tip the trade balance and erode the national debt
in countries that are suffering from enormous debt loads.
They have no hope of ever paying back.
And so if you are a government and you have debt measured
in the billions or trillions of dollars,
how do you best pay back that debt?
By increasing standards of living and productivity
until you can grow yourself out of it?
Or by confiscating the savings of retirees
in the middle class, destroying a generation of workers,
and having them pay through a shadow tax the debt through inflation.
Now, we know which side countries are choosing,
because we're seeing it play out again and again and again.
Of course, that's not how they sell it.
They don't say, our plan to exit the debt
is to destroy pensioners and the middle class,
and create a system of shadow taxation and confiscation
to bail out the banks and bail out the government debt.
What they say instead is, this will eradicate black money,
this will permanently end corruption,
and we will win the war on crime.
And everybody says, hey, that sounds like a great idea.
Let's go for it.
This promise is almost always wrapped in popular nationalism.
The great scourge of the emerging 21st century is the resurgence of populist nationalism.
Fascism is rising.
Just like the politicians wrap themselves in the flag, they also create these associations with their national flag money
to wrap their money in the veil of nationalism, to wrap the policies of wealth destruction and confiscation
in the veil of nationalism.
If you disagree with the idea that pensioners should pay for the national debt and to bail out the banks,
If you disagree with the idea that a whole generation of young people should find themselves
permanently unemployed, or underemployed, or working in McJobs,
then you are a traitor to the nationalist ideal of solving crime, black money, and corruption.
You probably have some corrupt money hidden, don't you?
That's what motivates you.
That is exactly the tone of discussion that is happening right now in places like Turkey,
where Erdogan announced that it was everybody's duty as a Turkish citizen to sell their dollars
and buy lira and gold in order to prop up the nationalist pride.
Modi in India used the same exact rationale to get everyone to suffer just a little bit,
The people suffering the most have no voice. They are invisible, especially in India.
The middle class that suffers a bit can wrap itself in the flag and go for these nationalist ideals.
In these currency wars, there is one force that stands neutral as a safe haven,
as an exit strategy, as an opportunity for people to say,
you know what, you go ahead, I'm gonna opt out.
And that's Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is now standing at the precipice
of becoming the safe haven asset
for billions of people around the world,
who for the first time will have the opportunity to say,
I see where you're going,
I don't believe in your nationalist bullshit,
I see the exit sign.
I'm going to go this way and leave and opt out from these experiments.
Let's check in on the state of the network before I get out of here.
Wrapping up at block height 910,930.
Current price in U.S. dollars is 114,200.
Sats per dollar, 876 sats to one U.S. dollar.
So that means right now we're down 8.2% from our all-time high.
The all-time high was $124,460, which if you can believe it, that was only six days ago.
If you go by the sentiment online, you'd think we've been in a bear market for like three months.
It was just on August 13th, 2025.
Now we've got a retarget date coming up on August 22nd.
Estimated difficulty change at this time, a downward adjustment of 0.3%.
Check this out, though.
Reachable nodes on the network, 23,020.
Bitcoin knots coming in at 16.6%.
Depending on where you look, some charts put it at 17%.
That's remarkable.
Remarkable.
It'll be interesting to see how 30 does when it comes out shortly.
Bitcoin network hums right along.
Things are moving.
Fees are here and there.
They're up a little bit earlier.
Bitcoin network is strong.
Let's see if we can't get those Bitcoin nodes up a little more.
23,020 is our number this week.
Can it get to 30?
Thank you for listening to this week's episode of This Week in Bitcoin.
If you made it this far, links to what I talk about, generally I put them all over at thisweekinbitcoin.show.
That's the page over at Jupiter Broadcasting that has all of the previous episodes and the show notes.
My goal is to give you a show that doesn't get distracted by emotions, just focuses on the signal,
figuring out what's going on with our Bitcoin and happening around it.
Let me know how I did with a boost or if you think there's something I missed that should have been in the show.
I always like to hear that.
And also requests for future content are also appreciated as well.
I'm going to leave you with a value for value track this week.
If you boost during the song, 95% of the stats go to the artist.
It's pretty cool.
It's such a cool technology, really.
And this week, it is Junkyard of Dreams by Jawbone.
I'm off to the city
The city of my dreams
I'm leaving the country
All this clean living's too much for me
Some say it's too gritty
Too greedy for a man like me
But looks are deceiving Inside I feeling like breaking free To throw me on the bone yard And I find you beating hard
Throw me on the scrap yard
And I'll get you working
But there's something better
No matter how bad the deal
Throw me on the junkyard of dreams
And I'll find you something real
I'm riding the fast train
It's the last train that I'll ride
I'm trading my silence
For the sound of the city's cry
A life in the slow lane
Is where folks say I should be
As I get nearer
My mind is clearer
It's what I need
So throw me in the phone yard
And I'll find you a beating heart
Throw me on the scrap yard
And I'll get you a-working part
There's something better
No matter how rapid you hear
Throw me in the junkyard of dreams And I find you something free
guitar solo
I went to the city, the city of my dream. With each passing day now, I'm more awake than I've ever been.
So throw me in the boneyard
And I'll find you a beating heart
Throw me on the scrapyard
And I'll find you a walking pop
There's something better
No matter how bad the deal Throw me on the junkyard of dreams Gotta find you something
Free
I'm finding something real
guitar solo
Thank you.