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Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 87.

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My name is Chris, chrislas.com and jupiterbroadcasting.com.

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It's good to be back from break.

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And it is no overstatement to say that 2025 was a transformational year for Bitcoin.

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What a year to do a weekly Bitcoin news podcast.

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But looking at just some of the numbers, and thanks to James Lopp for collecting these,

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Bitcoin's network hash rate over 2025 increased by 32% from 802 exahash to over a zeta hash,

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which I guess sticking with the numbers here would be 1,060 exahash per second now.

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That's monstrous.

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That's one of my favorite numbers of the year.

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Bitcoin Core commits, which is just a small increasement by 1% year over year, now to 2,541 commits.

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And the number of up-to-date merchants accepting Bitcoin on the Bitcoin map surged by 53% in 2025, which a big chunk of that is likely Square enabling Bitcoin payments.

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But the Bitcoin map project on X said that, quote, Square was a big contributor, but we've seen growth across the board.

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And then after consolidating and dropping over most of 2025, the Lightning Network's total capacity quietly served to an all-time high of 5,805 Bitcoin in 2025.

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But maybe, just maybe, the most exciting change in Bitcoin when you're just looking at mechanics and culture and cycles is 2025 may have been the death of the four-year cycle, at least according to Bitwise.

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Happy New Year, Stephen.

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Yes, I think definitively we can say the four-year cycle is broken.

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And for those who are not familiar with this four-year cycle, since the inception of Bitcoin,

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every four years we've had three up years.

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And then in the fourth year, we've had a down year.

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And that's repeated itself again and again.

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That's the key bit here, is the four-year cycle requires 2025 to have been an up year.

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And it requires 2026 to be a down year.

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years. And then in the fourth year, we've had a down year. And that's repeated itself again and

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again. And people have attributed that behavior to, amongst other things, the halving where Bitcoin,

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the rewards, the block rewards given to miners is halved and programmed to halve every four years.

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But what we saw 2025 was meant to be the third year in the cycle. So it should have been an up

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year. And what we had, in fact, was overall for the year minus 4% for Bitcoin. It doesn't mean it

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was a bad year. As you mentioned, we did have those highs of over 126,000, all-time highs over

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126,000 in October. But what happened was, and Jordi Visser called this the Bitcoin silent IPO,

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is that a lot of the early holders on reaching these new all-time highs decided to take profits

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and sold into those all-time highs.

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And actually, that brought the price down significantly

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from which levels it didn't actually recover.

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It has, as you mentioned, this year so far,

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2026 Bitcoin has risen 7%.

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And we actually, you know, we were expecting good things in 2026.

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Ah, Bitwise is bullish.

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Now, I really just can't harp on this enough.

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If this four-year cycle is really changing,

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And I think it could be because I could imagine the four-year cycle being a phenomenon when liquidity is mostly driven by retail and insiders that get Bitcoin, they understand the process, the happening.

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But as institutional buys that have mandated buys that come in, they're not paying attention to that kind of stuff.

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And that really, I think, is what's going to drive it.

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It's an area, though, that as a long-timer, I still can't quite accept.

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And I don't know if I'm going to continue to obsess about it on the show, but as a long-timer for me, it just feels so deeply ingrained that I can't believe it.

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And Bitcoin often has a way of humbling people that decide new narratives are the way things are.

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But the data is the data.

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It's kind of an area I'd like more input from the audience on.

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What do you think about the four-year cycle?

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And do you care?

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And do you understand why it would be such a big deal if it is over?

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Well, things do seem to have so far turned around for 2026. And the coverage of it is a bit mixed.

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And I don't normally do this anymore, but I want to dip into this because, like I mentioned, I don't really think retail is driving this anymore.

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I think it's more institutional. It's going to be larger bets.

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And this is part of the cycle of moving Bitcoin from the 80 percent that hold it, you know, the long timers out into the populace and the populace themselves.

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They've been too dumb to buy it until now.

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They just haven't gotten it.

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They need somebody to wrap it up in a suit and sell it to them.

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They really honestly do.

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That's why these institutions exist.

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You know, that's why they've come along.

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And that's the stage we're entering now.

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And so as we navigate this, how we discuss, and that's why I've brought it before, if it's a good thing or a bad thing to equate Bitcoin to digital gold because while that is a narrative people understand and it seems like a natural inflation debasement and it's easy to say it's gold 2.0, Bitcoin is so much more than what gold can do.

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And so you're really minimizing Bitcoin's overall impact if you just refer to it as gold.

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And I think we've seen positive and negative ramifications of that classification.

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And so we're entering into a much more confusing period might be now where people are trying to sort all of this out.

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And honestly, it's kind of unfortunate in a way that Gary Gensler and the Biden administration couldn't crack down on crypto for a little bit longer.

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Now, hear me out. Hear me out. I think Bitcoin was always going to survive that.

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And I have to be honest with you, I think I would live through another two or four year bear market in order to flush out what we're about to experience.

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It's been a dicey few months for crypto, which is getting a bounce today, along with other risk assets.

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Mackenzie Sigalo is tracking that action for us.

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Hey, Mac.

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Hey, Scott.

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So Bitcoin pushing toward 95K, but it's actually altcoin XRP that is the real standout surging.

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So we didn't even get 10 seconds before we start talking about XRP.

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One of these is a hard asset that is scarce and a true innovation.

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And one of these is created by a guy that just can print these on demand and a whole company.

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The two are completely different jobs.

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It's kind of comparing real estate to movie ticket sales.

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I don't know.

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It's like they're very odd comparisons, but they don't understand this.

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And so that's why I was saying I almost wish we could have had Gary just continue to crack down.

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and really squash these pure scam coins like XRP

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because they're just going to run these boomers and other new investors to the washers.

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More than 26% in the past week, now the third biggest token by market cap.

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Crypto-linked equities also rebounding after months of sluggish moves.

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Another one, you know, buying the stocks instead of buying the assets.

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Digital asset treasury names like Strategy and Bitmine Immersion,

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Tom Lee's Ether Treasury are trading higher.

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And Coinbase is rallying after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock from neutral to buy and lifted its price target to $303.

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That's 20% above current levels.

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That comes after the exchange launched prediction markets and equities trading.

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Isn't that interesting?

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Coinbase is up 8% because they've launched a prediction market and equities trading stocks and whatnot, not crypto.

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Now, analysts, they are chalking the overall crypto market run up, at least in part, to the Venezuela headlines.

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We'll come back to this.

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We'll stop here.

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This is an interesting narrative that's developing.

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You know, before these CNBC anchors could even really lock into one particular reason why this coin's pumping or that coin's pumping or why Bitcoin's coming back after they proclaimed it done.

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You know, we all woke up to the shocking news of the capture of the Venezuelan president Maduro.

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And since then, surely that's been the reason Bitcoin's pumping, right?

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I don't buy it.

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I'm not so sure about that.

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and neither is Coinbase's head of institutional strategy.

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And I've played him before,

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not the biggest Coinbase guy ever,

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don't really recommend Coinbase,

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but I have to say,

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I think their head of strategy is a sharp thinker.

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And I liked his take on this,

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Venezuela is the reason Bitcoin's pumping narrative.

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Strong start for the year in crypto.

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Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

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as well on the rise following the capture.

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Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro,

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joining us right now,

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Coinbase institutional head of strategy.

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John D'Agostino, good morning to you.

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We were debating,

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I don't know if you saw this. We were having a conversation about Bitcoin, given how prevalent it is in Venezuela.

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And the question is, does this actually move the or change the game for Bitcoin more broadly?

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Because people say, oh, look at look at how it's working so well in a place that's in a place that's not working so well.

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Or do you say if if Venezuela is going to become a sort of dollarized country at some point, does that change things in the opposite direction?

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So I understand the temptation to apply some of the recent bull run in Bitcoin to what's happening in Venezuela.

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It's a massive geopolitical event.

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That narrative certainly holds as a long term thesis that proof of Bitcoin as a temporary currency to replace a destabilized currency.

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That's fine. I also hear the argument that we're probably going to have lower oil prices.

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Historically, the Fed has eased during lower oil price conditions.

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However, usually that's a demand issue versus this to be a supply issue.

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I got to be honest, Andrew, I don't see any direct evidence that what's happening in Venezuela is directly applicable.

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What we're seeing in Bitcoin, since I was on last time, the doldrums, where I gave that sort of tortured analogy of wanting to buy apples when they're cheap.

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Well, apples look pretty good right now.

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But what we're seeing is a couple of things.

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We're seeing a gradual rebuilding from this liquidity event we had on October 10th.

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The market makers are getting more comfortable with their risk parameters, adding risk back into the market.

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We're seeing retail sentiment catch up to what we've known on the institutional side.

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So retail sentiment catching up to institutional momentum.

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And really, we're just seeing the mean reversion trade I talked about.

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Bitcoin's outperforming gold this year.

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And together between gold and Bitcoin, you have this wonderful store of value trade that is really, really important.

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because if you've held gold for the last 10 years, you've done pretty well, about 260%.

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You held the S&P, you're up about 300.

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But the dollar has decreased in purchasing value by over a third.

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If you've held Bitcoin for that period of time, you're up over 11,000%.

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So that juice is really, really important if you want to beat inflation over the long term.

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There have also been rumors floating around that Venezuela has a 600,000 Bitcoin shadow reserve.

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However, that isn't necessarily bared out by evidence that is on chain so far.

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I mean, it is supposed to be a shadow reserve, so maybe it's hidden.

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But what the public has come up with so far in terms of on chain proof is around 240 Bitcoin.

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So the rumors are 600,000 and on chain we can see 240.

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But, you know, yeah, I mean, maybe there's more.

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And then, of course, there's been conversations.

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Well, if they do, is the U.S. going to seize that?

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Is that part of the strategic reserve, et cetera, et cetera?

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All of that is far too early to say.

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But we do need to update our macro model while we're on the subject, because this is going to have an impact on Bitcoin, both negatively and positively.

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So let's start with the bad news.

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We do have some breaking news on the Venezuela oil numbers.

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Brian Sullivan joined us for more on that.

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Brian, good morning.

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Yeah, good morning.

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Here we are at the Goldman Sachs Energy, Clean Tech and Utilities Conference in Miami, Florida.

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And I've got some breaking news from sources close to the White House.

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You saw the news maybe last night that the president put out on his social media that Venezuela would sell the United States 30 to 50 million barrels of oil.

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Well, I'm here to report that is only the first tranche that it will continue indefinitely.

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So oil sales from Venezuela to the U.S. and the Western world will be more than 50 million barrels of oil.

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That was not a one time thing. That was not a one time announcement that the sales from Venezuela to the United States and other Western nations will continue indefinitely.

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All right. So, yes, good for the day-to-day pocketbook and long-term if they're successful.

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And they have a smooth political transition followed by large-scale foreign investment that could eventually bring Venezuela's production back towards its pre-collapse level.

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And that would represent a meaningful supply shock to the oil market, which would probably result in lowering global oil prices by several percentage points over time.

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And you're seeing the futures market already price that in.

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Such an outcome like that would benefit refineries in the U.S. specifically because they're configured for heavy crude and they have the proximity.

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And it would put downward pressure on higher cost producers elsewhere in the world.

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If all of that happens, it would be deflationary to at least some extent for a period of time.

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And in pure Bitcoin adoption terms it does reduce one of the narratives one of the demands as an inflation hedge because people won be feeling the inflation They won be feeling the debasement By how much Well I come back to that

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But I think it's important to mention that just because the cost of goods might stabilize,

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things like RV sales and other high energy consumers might return and turn around,

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which is in the tanks right now,

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it doesn't mean the money still isn't being debased.

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Just kind of a similar analogy, not the same thing,

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But as we offshored, we kept the cost of goods low.

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But the purchasing power was continuing to be weakened.

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The money continued to be debased.

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But your computer didn't cost more necessarily or your microwave because it was being manufactured in China now.

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And so it's a way to enjoy debasement while not suffering the cost increase.

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And, of course, the enjoyment comes from the government's part.

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Now, historically, the Fed also tends to run a more dovish monetary policy when oil prices are low for a period of time because, well, they know.

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They know they can get away with printing money.

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Low energy means the price of goods are cheaper to move, manufacture, all of that.

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It also means the economy has a bit more room to run hot without hitting that oil price wall that I've been warning about.

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And so while that maybe is a disincentive for some to buy Bitcoin because they don't feel the inflation,

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Long term, it is actually going to be good news for Bitcoin.

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Because if that optimistic scenario all goes through, which is based on fragile assumptions,

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well, debasement is going to be going hot.

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And people that are in the know will be looking for a hedge.

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Bitcoin is going to be the scarcest asset they can pile into.

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But the reality is it is a very optimistic assumption.

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They can say, oh, we're going to have X amount of barrels.

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But oil production is not simply just a matter of drilling the holes again.

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There has to be some stability in the area.

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There has to be institutional stability.

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where businesses can operate.

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They have to have these things called property rights.

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They have to have these people called laborers

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that have skills.

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They need to have functioning infrastructure

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to move the oil.

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And of course, they have to have contracts

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that can be enforced and they can rely upon.

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So Venezuela's oil didn't collapse because of geology, right?

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They didn't have an earthquake or something.

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It was decades of malpractice, of state intervention,

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00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:04,280
of politicized management, of capital flight,

214
00:16:04,840 --> 00:16:07,180
businesses leaving, and then of course seizing.

215
00:16:07,180 --> 00:16:08,680
the government seizing property.

216
00:16:09,140 --> 00:16:11,880
Reversing damage like that is massive.

217
00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:14,180
It's not just a matter of going and building some wells.

218
00:16:14,500 --> 00:16:19,400
And it's going to need constant governance and babysitting, likely by the U.S.

219
00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:21,720
And the U.S. just really hasn't mastered that yet.

220
00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:26,220
So it's an optimistic scenario that that much oil comes onto the market.

221
00:16:26,660 --> 00:16:29,520
Realistically, though, there probably will be an increase in oil supply.

222
00:16:29,740 --> 00:16:32,240
And that will keep oil prices down lower for a bit.

223
00:16:32,620 --> 00:16:36,600
That will be interesting to see with the overall agenda of the Trump administration,

224
00:16:36,600 --> 00:16:41,800
especially during a period of fiscal dominance, which we will get to in just a moment.

225
00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:56,360
But first, some security news you can use. We've got to get to this.

226
00:16:57,280 --> 00:16:59,860
Well, it's not really the top of the show anymore, but near the start of the show.

227
00:17:01,340 --> 00:17:05,120
Bitcoin Core version 30 has a bug you should probably know about.

228
00:17:05,120 --> 00:17:16,980
Bitcoin Core developers warned users on Monday of this week that a wallet migration bug in versions 30 and 30.1 can delete files and result in a loss of funds.

229
00:17:16,980 --> 00:17:24,280
The issue occurs under a specific condition and affects migrations from old Bitcoin Core wallets that were never renamed or upgraded.

230
00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:35,020
The bug is triggered when the software attempts to migrate an unnamed legacy wallet.dat file stored in a custom wallet directory, often defined using the wallet dir setting.

231
00:17:35,120 --> 00:17:37,460
when pruning is still enabled.

232
00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:40,720
In these cases, when you meet all of those situations,

233
00:17:40,860 --> 00:17:44,100
like old wallet, different directory, custom wallet directory,

234
00:17:44,520 --> 00:17:47,340
using the wallet DIR setting with pruning enabled,

235
00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:51,360
in those cases, the migration can appear to complete successfully,

236
00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:56,260
but the cleanup logic will mistakenly delete the entire wallet directory.

237
00:17:56,800 --> 00:17:58,760
And if a user does not have an external backup,

238
00:17:59,460 --> 00:18:01,400
loss, quote, this is the quote from the developers,

239
00:18:01,640 --> 00:18:04,040
quote, loss of access to funds is effectively guaranteed

240
00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:06,760
because all local wallet files are removed, end quote.

241
00:18:07,540 --> 00:18:09,440
The bug impacts very old wallet setups

242
00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:12,680
and users that have hardware wallets or modern wallets

243
00:18:12,680 --> 00:18:13,880
probably are just fine.

244
00:18:14,600 --> 00:18:15,880
The issue is compounded by the fact

245
00:18:15,880 --> 00:18:17,720
that the current client no longer supports

246
00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:19,680
the old 2022 default wallet type.

247
00:18:20,340 --> 00:18:21,500
And so you had to migrate.

248
00:18:22,460 --> 00:18:23,400
So it's a double whammy.

249
00:18:24,040 --> 00:18:26,280
Bitcoin Core, of course, currently accounts for 78%

250
00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:27,660
of the reachable Bitcoin nodes.

251
00:18:28,380 --> 00:18:31,900
Other implementations such as nots make up almost 22%.

252
00:18:31,900 --> 00:18:34,420
So that is issue one I want you to know about.

253
00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:40,380
Issue two I want you to know about, if you're a Ledger user, you're going to need to be vigilant.

254
00:18:41,140 --> 00:18:47,620
Ledger users are being hit by a brand new, actually pretty clever phishing scam after a Global E data breach.

255
00:18:47,720 --> 00:18:49,600
Global E being a marketing partner of Ledger.

256
00:18:50,120 --> 00:18:53,000
Ledger users are being targeted with this new phishing campaign.

257
00:18:53,660 --> 00:18:57,840
The third-party e-commerce provider, Global E, had their database leaked.

258
00:18:58,300 --> 00:18:59,940
And of course, Ledger was one of their clients.

259
00:19:00,340 --> 00:19:09,260
Attackers are using the stolen order information to send personalized scam emails that impersonate Ledger and promote false claims of a merger with Trezor.

260
00:19:09,620 --> 00:19:19,680
They set up a fake website with all of the Ledger branding, and they ask the user for a 24-word recovery phrase so that way they can help them migrate to the new wallet setup.

261
00:19:20,060 --> 00:19:23,080
I think there's implication of even like a time window in which they have to do it.

262
00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:32,120
They have you go to a website that looks like you should, like an official website, and this is all about, well, we're merging companies and so you need to merge wallets.

263
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:36,800
Now, this is pretty bad because this follows other incidents in the past involving Ledger.

264
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:43,800
In 2020, a major data breach exposed personal information belonging to hundreds and thousands of users, including email address, phone numbers, and home addresses.

265
00:19:44,460 --> 00:19:47,160
Many affected customers later reported phishing attempts and threats.

266
00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:56,620
Now, Ledger's responses emphasize this incident was confined to a third-party payment processor, although you could make your own decision if you're comfortable with them even doing that.

267
00:19:56,900 --> 00:19:58,260
But I want you to consider this.

268
00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:03,960
With modern LLMs, analyzing data leaks like this is going to just get easier and easier.

269
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:06,340
And these old breaches will stack.

270
00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:11,620
If you have multiple breaches, then you can look at data over a period of time.

271
00:20:11,620 --> 00:20:17,180
And if somebody shows up on that list multiple times, well, then a narrative starts to form.

272
00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:21,680
They stayed, they survived, they probably made some money, and they probably still have some of it.

273
00:20:22,420 --> 00:20:25,820
And then the $25 wrench attack becomes a very feasible approach.

274
00:20:25,900 --> 00:20:31,760
So you have to think about these risk profiles when you're buying a hardware wallet.

275
00:20:32,380 --> 00:20:36,680
And I believe CoinKite has a policy of retaining customer information for 90 days,

276
00:20:36,680 --> 00:20:41,360
and they don't share it with anyone else, even for marketing purposes.

277
00:20:41,620 --> 00:20:43,760
However, I think they may retain email addresses.

278
00:20:43,900 --> 00:20:45,480
I'm not positive about that.

279
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:51,640
So this is where I got to say, let's do a 2026 hardware wallet check-in.

280
00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:53,520
Did you switch hardware wallets?

281
00:20:53,660 --> 00:20:55,780
And which hardware wallet do you recommend?

282
00:20:56,400 --> 00:20:57,140
Boost into the show.

283
00:20:57,320 --> 00:20:59,020
Let's get people going down the right path.

284
00:20:59,380 --> 00:21:03,900
I'll share some of my updates as well, including one of my wallets just had a big security update

285
00:21:03,900 --> 00:21:06,220
itself that I could talk about as well.

286
00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:09,660
So Boost in 2026 hardware wallet check-in.

287
00:21:09,660 --> 00:21:12,360
Let me know what's your recommended hardware wallet.

288
00:21:12,460 --> 00:21:15,540
And also let me know if you ended up switching wallets for some reason.

289
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:39,640
Well, we have a lot more show still coming up, but I want to mention you can support the show just by doing what you might already want.

290
00:21:39,660 --> 00:21:44,060
to do you want to buy some sats on river if it's time to sign up i have the link in the show notes

291
00:21:44,060 --> 00:21:48,540
one of the best ways to stack sats in the us you support the show if you're all about self-custody

292
00:21:48,540 --> 00:21:53,580
and you're in the us or canada the bitcoin well is an amazing automatic self-custody platform

293
00:21:53,580 --> 00:21:58,460
straight to and from your wallet they don't host the wallet if it's time to spend some of your sats

294
00:21:58,460 --> 00:22:03,100
i turn to the bitcoin company hundreds of gift cards in just seconds over the lightning network

295
00:22:03,100 --> 00:22:06,300
you can even just log in with the lightning network you don't have to create an account

296
00:22:06,300 --> 00:22:09,700
If you want to stack stats passively, like paying bills, doing things like that,

297
00:22:10,120 --> 00:22:10,820
fold card.

298
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:11,980
The audience loves it.

299
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:13,580
It's a great way to passively stack stats.

300
00:22:14,160 --> 00:22:17,440
And then if it's time to get access to your Bitcoin value without selling it,

301
00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:18,760
I turn to Salt Lending.

302
00:22:19,120 --> 00:22:20,980
They're available in places the others aren't,

303
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:24,800
and they have a few features like loan stabilization I really appreciate.

304
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:25,840
So that's it.

305
00:22:25,900 --> 00:22:27,320
All the links in the show notes.

306
00:22:27,980 --> 00:22:30,940
You can support the show just by doing what you do.

307
00:22:36,300 --> 00:22:43,520
Four score and seven boosts to go.

308
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:45,980
Well, we do have some boosts to get to here.

309
00:22:46,100 --> 00:22:47,580
Our first boost of the new year.

310
00:22:47,660 --> 00:22:50,920
A lot of these came in as 2025 was wrapping up.

311
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:56,380
And OB, you're our baller booster this week with 55,555 sats.

312
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:01,540
That's not possible.

313
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:02,720
Nothing can do that.

314
00:23:02,900 --> 00:23:04,420
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

315
00:23:04,420 --> 00:23:06,840
Quantum reminds me of the scene from Batman Begins.

316
00:23:06,940 --> 00:23:10,860
The crime boss tells Bruce Wayne, you always fear, which you don't understand.

317
00:23:11,380 --> 00:23:12,560
Isn't that true, Obi?

318
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:18,620
Yeah, it's like, I guess, or put another way, Obi, people don't have enough to worry about in Bitcoin.

319
00:23:19,260 --> 00:23:20,640
You know, it's ironic, too.

320
00:23:20,700 --> 00:23:24,540
If they wanted something to worry about, go pay attention to these bips that want to seize people's coins.

321
00:23:25,540 --> 00:23:27,700
You want something to be concerned about.

322
00:23:28,120 --> 00:23:29,260
I got it right there.

323
00:23:29,380 --> 00:23:30,160
Go look at that.

324
00:23:30,740 --> 00:23:33,800
We'll worry about quantum in 5 to 10, 15 years, okay?

325
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:42,120
And don't worry, when it's time to worry about quantum, I'll have a very succinct, researched, rational take as to the reasons we need to take action.

326
00:23:42,360 --> 00:23:44,080
I will be the first guy, right?

327
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:45,160
I will be the first guy.

328
00:23:45,220 --> 00:23:45,860
I've got a podcast.

329
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:47,900
I follow the news obsessively.

330
00:23:48,060 --> 00:23:49,120
And I got a bag.

331
00:23:49,260 --> 00:23:51,660
Like, I want to protect my own bag, you know?

332
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:53,920
So, like, that's not the concern.

333
00:23:54,800 --> 00:23:57,340
Bips that want to seize coins, much more concerning.

334
00:23:57,600 --> 00:23:58,580
Great boost, Obi.

335
00:23:58,660 --> 00:23:59,560
And thanks for being our baller.

336
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:00,700
And happy holidays to you.

337
00:24:00,940 --> 00:24:02,200
Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

338
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,520
User 47 also came in with 55,555 sats.

339
00:24:06,700 --> 00:24:09,200
I hoard that which your kind covet.

340
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:11,000
Love the show.

341
00:24:11,060 --> 00:24:14,120
It's my go-to for Bitcoin news every week.

342
00:24:14,700 --> 00:24:16,300
Well, thank you, User 47.

343
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,040
If you want to set your username and boost back in, I'd love to know who you are.

344
00:24:19,460 --> 00:24:20,220
And thanks for listening.

345
00:24:20,380 --> 00:24:21,380
Appreciate you being a baller.

346
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:24,100
Producer Jeff comes in with a row of McDucks.

347
00:24:24,100 --> 00:24:26,320
Things are looking up for all McDucks.

348
00:24:26,360 --> 00:24:28,680
That's 22,222 sats.

349
00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:30,540
This old duck still got it.

350
00:24:30,660 --> 00:24:31,640
Love me some FUD busting.

351
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:33,380
best wishes through the holiday downtime.

352
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:34,460
Thank you, PJ.

353
00:24:35,120 --> 00:24:35,900
Appreciate that.

354
00:24:36,460 --> 00:24:38,000
Coming in towards the end of the year there too.

355
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:41,220
MDS comes in with 21,000 sats.

356
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:43,600
Oh, we need a Bitcoin blockchain.

357
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:46,060
We need like a, dang it.

358
00:24:46,340 --> 00:24:48,480
Ah, that ain't blockchain.

359
00:24:49,140 --> 00:24:50,100
That ain't good enough.

360
00:24:50,180 --> 00:24:50,920
That ain't good enough.

361
00:24:51,340 --> 00:24:53,820
We need a really good one for 21,000 sats.

362
00:24:54,180 --> 00:24:55,860
This is, why have I not?

363
00:24:56,460 --> 00:24:56,900
Ah.

364
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:03,420
MDS comes in with 21,000 sats.

365
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:04,940
Thanks for your coverage this year, Chris.

366
00:25:05,100 --> 00:25:07,220
You provide a great value and seem to have fun doing it.

367
00:25:07,360 --> 00:25:11,600
It's been a slog, but hopefully listeners are here to the value for value principles that underpin this platform.

368
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:13,500
The best kind, in my opinion.

369
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:14,300
Take a break.

370
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:15,120
Thank you.

371
00:25:15,180 --> 00:25:15,840
I did enjoy the break.

372
00:25:15,860 --> 00:25:17,580
Well, I enjoyed the break-ish.

373
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:19,420
You know, I was always sort of like, should I come back?

374
00:25:19,580 --> 00:25:20,240
Should I come back now?

375
00:25:20,300 --> 00:25:21,420
But I stuck to it.

376
00:25:21,780 --> 00:25:22,520
And it was good, too.

377
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:24,620
It gave me time to take the family on a holiday trip.

378
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:27,100
And when we came back, I was able to take care of some other family stuff.

379
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:29,820
So I used the time wisely.

380
00:25:29,820 --> 00:25:33,460
And now this year, I really have to figure out revenue.

381
00:25:33,740 --> 00:25:41,980
So I really do appreciate you acknowledging the value for value model because it's a constant source of concern and stress and pressure for a podcast network.

382
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:46,360
Odyssey Wester is back with 5,100 sats.

383
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:48,580
Love Long.

384
00:25:49,060 --> 00:25:49,780
Love Longy.

385
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:50,540
Is that the song?

386
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:50,900
I forget.

387
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:51,820
Definitely check out the interview.

388
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:52,540
Oh, okay.

389
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,060
Yeah, he had on Phantom Power Music Hour.

390
00:25:54,120 --> 00:25:55,040
Yep, episode 26.

391
00:25:55,180 --> 00:25:57,200
Phantom Power Music Hour, episode 26.

392
00:25:57,620 --> 00:25:59,960
It's a year old, but still a good listen.

393
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:01,180
Thanks, Odyssey.

394
00:26:01,260 --> 00:26:02,060
I appreciate that.

395
00:26:02,360 --> 00:26:03,620
A little love to our artists, too.

396
00:26:04,420 --> 00:26:08,000
Gene Bean's back with 2,267 sats.

397
00:26:09,140 --> 00:26:13,560
Suits me if some deep-pocketed types are toying with people doing high-leverage stuff against Bitcoin.

398
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,420
Yeah, the people that are wiping out the DGens.

399
00:26:17,900 --> 00:26:20,740
That mess seems to be artificially distort the actual market value of Bitcoin.

400
00:26:21,060 --> 00:26:22,560
Or that's my layman's impression, at least.

401
00:26:23,180 --> 00:26:25,720
Yeah, I mean, when you zoom out, not so much, right?

402
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,180
But the day-to-day chop, yeah, it does feel like that.

403
00:26:28,780 --> 00:26:30,800
Or it feels like, you know, whenever you see it pumping recently,

404
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,200
you know they're going to come in and chop the knees up from underneath.

405
00:26:33,360 --> 00:26:34,980
It's hard to get all that excited.

406
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:40,360
But in a way, it's like the pain continues until the degen behavior stops, right?

407
00:26:40,620 --> 00:26:41,120
Thanks, Gene.

408
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:41,760
I think you're right.

409
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:44,160
Let them use their pocketbooks to wash it out.

410
00:26:44,460 --> 00:26:46,240
I think you're onto something there.

411
00:26:47,940 --> 00:26:48,920
All right, here we go.

412
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,120
Blazer 4151 is here with 2,500 sats.

413
00:26:53,120 --> 00:26:55,560
Oh, my God, this drawer is filled with fruit loops.

414
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:57,840
Hey, I just wanted to see if you had a read on Foldcard

415
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:00,040
as there's a new KYC restrictions in some cases.

416
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,660
I haven't delved in at all, just hoping for a quick Twib hit.

417
00:27:03,060 --> 00:27:04,300
I do love getting the boost on air.

418
00:27:04,460 --> 00:27:06,480
Just a heads up, it's, oh, Blazar.

419
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:07,380
Thank you, Blazar.

420
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:09,220
As in the giant black hole.

421
00:27:09,360 --> 00:27:10,320
Oh, oh, okay.

422
00:27:10,620 --> 00:27:13,400
Okay, so the Fold thing, yeah, they switched custodians.

423
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:14,740
And I was surprised by this

424
00:27:14,740 --> 00:27:17,240
because they just have disabled the Bitcoin feature in my app.

425
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:19,320
I just had no Bitcoin functionality.

426
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:23,280
I could still do the spin, but I couldn't buy or sell.

427
00:27:23,420 --> 00:27:24,960
I could withdraw my Bitcoin.

428
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:25,960
So I appreciated that.

429
00:27:26,740 --> 00:27:27,520
And yeah,

430
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:29,360
it's the same one that I think it's bit wise.

431
00:27:29,460 --> 00:27:30,380
It's one I've read before.

432
00:27:30,540 --> 00:27:31,560
I don't love it.

433
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:44,400
It not necessarily new It it just a transfer The previous custodian also had a very similar KYC EULA thing I can remember what was Bitwise for sure but they have a new Bitcoin custodian that I think

434
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:49,140
has the proper licenses they needed everywhere and all that jazz. I wish they were a little more

435
00:27:49,140 --> 00:27:55,600
transparent on the process. I'll tell you, it gave me a bit of pause for a bit that they weren't

436
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:59,700
telling me more and that my Bitcoin buying and selling was disabled for as long as it was.

437
00:27:59,700 --> 00:28:05,020
I missed some dips. I had a little bit extra cash in that account and I would have liked it

438
00:28:05,020 --> 00:28:09,360
to gone towards the dip. And they essentially restored the Bitcoin functionality

439
00:28:09,360 --> 00:28:15,860
after the dip was over. So that's a disappointment too. But that's so far the only real mark I have

440
00:28:15,860 --> 00:28:21,280
against them. And sometimes those things are outside their control. I hope that's one of the

441
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:24,600
things that gets better as time goes forward. Thank you for the boost. Nice to hear from you.

442
00:28:24,980 --> 00:28:29,420
Chuto is here with 2000 sats. No message, just value.

443
00:28:29,700 --> 00:28:31,500
Ace Ackerman's here with a row of ducks.

444
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:34,320
And by the way, no message is fine.

445
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:34,920
Appreciate the value.

446
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:38,000
Ace Ackerman says, Luke Grumman's a Bitcoin to a wrist.

447
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:40,060
Enjoy your holidays and thanks for the great podcast.

448
00:28:40,180 --> 00:28:43,200
Looking forward to another year of incredible growth of the Bitcoin virus.

449
00:28:43,300 --> 00:28:44,600
Yeah, I think it's going to be a good year, Ace.

450
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:47,880
I don't know about Luke.

451
00:28:47,980 --> 00:28:49,920
You know, I don't hear him saying much right now.

452
00:28:50,500 --> 00:28:53,940
And I think it's kind of silly that Luke bought into the four-year cycle.

453
00:28:53,940 --> 00:28:59,760
So I saw he did a follow-up trying to respond to some of the criticisms.

454
00:29:00,300 --> 00:29:03,600
But even that didn't really make sense to me.

455
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:09,700
I think ultimately, if I were to boil it down to one thing, he's bullish on gold.

456
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:12,220
And he doesn't really need a second bet.

457
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,060
And he might be right, especially if he's already rich, right?

458
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:21,140
If he's already rich and he mostly just wants to preserve wealth with some growth in that wealth, then gold's fine.

459
00:29:21,140 --> 00:29:25,720
for those of us that are trying to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and dig our way up through

460
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:31,240
the increasingly longer ladder of the lower ranks of the economy don't really have the luxury of

461
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:35,060
going to spend a hundred thousand dollars two hundred thousand dollars on something that's

462
00:29:35,060 --> 00:29:40,360
going to appreciate 20 in two years like that's just not no but nobody is playing that game right

463
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:45,420
now that isn't already rich so i but i think luke doesn't have that problem and so that's the lens

464
00:29:45,420 --> 00:29:50,840
in which he views the world thank you ace nice to hear from you bug-eyed stormtroopers here with

465
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:56,860
5,000 sets. This is the way. If investing the future is a form of hope, then Bitcoin is not

466
00:29:56,860 --> 00:30:01,540
fear, but rather a hope in response to a fading imperial legacy system that offers little hope.

467
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:07,760
Now, if you excuse me, there's a droid I'm looking for that way. I know you're referring to Larry

468
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:14,540
Fink's argument that Bitcoin is an asset of fear. It's dumb. It's so contrived. It feels like he

469
00:30:14,540 --> 00:30:20,700
must need to frame it that way in order to cushion and couch a bit so that way he isn't

470
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:26,260
looked at as a loon? I don't know. You know, like, it feels like he's couching it pretty strongly.

471
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:31,180
It's such a stretched, stupid analogy, too. It's just not very smart. And it just makes it look

472
00:30:31,180 --> 00:30:35,960
like he hasn't learned. But I like your point. You're completely right, Stormtrooper. Thank you

473
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:42,280
for the boost. Northern Hoddle's back with 5,115 sets. The traders love the vol. Happy holidays and

474
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:43,180
a great finish to the year.

475
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:44,200
Gotta say, Luke Grumman selling

476
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:44,960
most of his stack

477
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:46,440
is super bullish to me.

478
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:48,380
A bit like the Kramer signal.

479
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:52,320
You know what?

480
00:30:52,460 --> 00:30:54,320
I like that idea a lot.

481
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:55,240
Yes, sir.

482
00:30:55,380 --> 00:30:56,620
Sirty, sir, sir, sir.

483
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:58,240
I mean, what happens though

484
00:30:58,240 --> 00:30:59,000
when he buys back in?

485
00:30:59,080 --> 00:30:59,720
You gotta tell me

486
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:00,560
what that signal means.

487
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:01,880
Is that just capitulation

488
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:02,940
or is that a reverse signal?

489
00:31:04,660 --> 00:31:05,300
Thanks, Northern.

490
00:31:05,540 --> 00:31:06,160
Good to hear from you.

491
00:31:07,140 --> 00:31:08,040
Hadahal is here

492
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:09,560
with a Spaceballs boost.

493
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,580
that's 12,345 sats.

494
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:13,920
So the combination is

495
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,860
one, two, three, four, five.

496
00:31:17,620 --> 00:31:18,180
I love it.

497
00:31:18,260 --> 00:31:18,800
Thank you, sir.

498
00:31:18,900 --> 00:31:19,900
He says long time lurker,

499
00:31:20,060 --> 00:31:21,260
first time booster

500
00:31:21,260 --> 00:31:22,220
and a sat streamer.

501
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:22,580
Yes.

502
00:31:22,700 --> 00:31:23,280
That's amazing.

503
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:24,340
I've got the same combination

504
00:31:24,340 --> 00:31:25,040
on my luggage.

505
00:31:25,220 --> 00:31:25,660
That's great.

506
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:26,120
Thank you.

507
00:31:26,300 --> 00:31:26,960
Thank you very much.

508
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:27,840
Thanks for all the value

509
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:28,380
over the year.

510
00:31:28,500 --> 00:31:29,340
I think QuantumFUD

511
00:31:29,340 --> 00:31:30,580
is overhyped in the short term,

512
00:31:30,820 --> 00:31:31,780
but should be increasingly

513
00:31:31,780 --> 00:31:32,640
a conversation

514
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:33,440
in the Bitcoin community

515
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:34,020
over time.

516
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:35,820
Yeah, that seems reasonable, right?

517
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:37,460
That's probably the exact approach.

518
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:38,360
It's like, okay,

519
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:40,720
we're at the stage where we need to be aware of it

520
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:42,300
and we need to be open to the conversation

521
00:31:42,300 --> 00:31:43,940
and then we should progress

522
00:31:43,940 --> 00:31:46,220
that's brilliant right there

523
00:31:46,220 --> 00:31:47,320
thank you all

524
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:49,860
he says it'd be great if you could cover the quantum

525
00:31:49,860 --> 00:31:51,720
oh boy I can't even say it

526
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:54,420
resident mathematics like the lattice based cryptography

527
00:31:54,420 --> 00:31:55,320
or other approaches

528
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:56,320
this is where I'm going to bring Wes on

529
00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:58,020
I'll bring Wes on for that

530
00:31:58,020 --> 00:31:59,860
God knows it's going to take a long time

531
00:31:59,860 --> 00:32:01,820
to get this community of left curve types

532
00:32:01,820 --> 00:32:03,920
to get some kind of post quantum consensus

533
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,160
keep up the good work

534
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:06,900
and happy new year

535
00:32:06,900 --> 00:32:08,720
Thank you.

536
00:32:09,180 --> 00:32:10,740
Ottawa, that's a great boost.

537
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:13,180
And thank you for saying hi.

538
00:32:13,820 --> 00:32:15,540
I actually am not joking, really.

539
00:32:15,580 --> 00:32:17,360
I really should get Wes's take on that stuff.

540
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:18,860
He loves that math stuff.

541
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:19,640
You know that Wes Payne?

542
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:21,460
Thank you very much.

543
00:32:22,260 --> 00:32:24,660
Cosnow is here with 2,500 sats.

544
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:25,800
Let's hear it, good buddy.

545
00:32:26,060 --> 00:32:27,180
He says thanks for the great show.

546
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:28,660
Well, thank you for the boost.

547
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:29,420
He's a good guy.

548
00:32:29,660 --> 00:32:30,620
He's a real good guy.

549
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:31,460
No, he's a great guy.

550
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:35,080
Kiwi Bitcoin Guide's back, and he's coming in with 10,000 sats.

551
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:37,080
It's over 9,000!

552
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:39,080
I have a serious question for you.

553
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:45,360
I recently listened to an interview with a Samurai Wallet developer who has been sentenced to five-year in prison for writing open-source software.

554
00:32:45,860 --> 00:32:50,540
In the interview, he talked about how his constitutional rights were not respected and how hostile the judge was.

555
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:55,160
They had no evidence of an actual crime being committed, so the charges are for conspiracy to commit crimes.

556
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:59,980
Basically, they were aware that their software could be used for illegal purposes, so they're guilty.

557
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:04,120
I think your question got cut off, but yeah, that's a case I've been following.

558
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,960
I'm also covering it from time to time in the show as things develop.

559
00:33:08,740 --> 00:33:11,820
I really am concerned about the precedent it says for open source software.

560
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,000
I think that's my primary concern.

561
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:19,680
And I think it's unfortunate that a pro-crypto administration can't be bothered to look a little bit into this.

562
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:22,780
What is David Sachs too busy on X to pay attention?

563
00:33:22,860 --> 00:33:23,400
What's going on here?

564
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:26,580
But I will keep my eye on it and try to report more.

565
00:33:27,780 --> 00:33:30,660
And if you want to finish with the question, I think Fountain cut you off, Kiwi.

566
00:33:31,340 --> 00:33:32,180
Please do follow up.

567
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:32,900
Nice to hear from you.

568
00:33:33,580 --> 00:33:35,020
And by the way, when that happens to you,

569
00:33:35,540 --> 00:33:37,900
your second boost doesn't have to be above 2,000.

570
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:40,260
If one of your boosts is above the 2,000-sat cutoff,

571
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:42,300
we'll automatically include your next boost.

572
00:33:42,700 --> 00:33:43,400
Now, don't be cheap.

573
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:46,020
But just so you know, like, if you miss something,

574
00:33:46,100 --> 00:33:47,440
you don't have to spend another 2,000 sats

575
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:48,980
if you just need to follow up.

576
00:33:49,420 --> 00:33:50,860
Because we include the total amount

577
00:33:50,860 --> 00:33:51,940
that you boosted for that episode.

578
00:33:52,660 --> 00:33:55,440
Marius is here with 12,240 sats.

579
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:57,280
That's almost a Spaceballs boost.

580
00:33:57,860 --> 00:33:58,260
Almost.

581
00:33:59,920 --> 00:34:00,900
Happy New Year, he says.

582
00:34:00,980 --> 00:34:02,480
Well, Happy New Year to you, too.

583
00:34:02,980 --> 00:34:05,220
Bobby Pins here with 5,000 sats.

584
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:05,960
Tough little ship.

585
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:07,100
Little.

586
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:08,600
Happy New Year.

587
00:34:08,660 --> 00:34:12,760
My goals for 2026 are to fill the gaps of my knowledge when it comes to self-custody and mining.

588
00:34:13,240 --> 00:34:16,740
I also plan to hit the one petahash milestone between home miners and hosted.

589
00:34:16,940 --> 00:34:17,160
Ha!

590
00:34:17,980 --> 00:34:18,400
Nice.

591
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:19,720
That is awesome.

592
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:23,020
So I have been thinking about this a lot, you guys.

593
00:34:23,020 --> 00:34:29,440
And Bobby Pins, I'm glad you boosted this in because I think step one is to get my act together on a node special, which includes AlbiHub.

594
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:35,020
And then I think step two is to dip my toes into mining personally, something I did a long time ago.

595
00:34:35,100 --> 00:34:36,280
It's how I started in Bitcoin.

596
00:34:36,860 --> 00:34:38,460
And I think it's time to get back to it.

597
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:44,900
And I would also like to, yet I have not, but still very much like to establish some relationships with people in the mining industry.

598
00:34:45,380 --> 00:34:51,440
Because I think I could do a lot better in understanding and reporting on that because from which all the rest, everything comes.

599
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:54,600
So that is on my goal list of 2026 as well.

600
00:34:54,820 --> 00:34:55,920
And I hope to be mining soon.

601
00:34:55,920 --> 00:35:00,840
I put together an old S9 that I have that is adapted to work at 120 volts.

602
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:04,240
But even at full power, the thing's only like 14 terahash.

603
00:35:04,780 --> 00:35:08,000
And I have to imagine at 120 volts, it's not even going to, you know, what is it going to be?

604
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:09,400
Seven, six terahash?

605
00:35:09,980 --> 00:35:12,280
And I'm pulling 1200 watts to do that.

606
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:14,340
I could, you know, I could do a lot better.

607
00:35:14,620 --> 00:35:16,580
So I, that's why I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

608
00:35:16,820 --> 00:35:18,260
I'd like to get something more efficient.

609
00:35:18,820 --> 00:35:22,480
But then, you know, it's hard to spend money on that when you could just buy a Bitcoin.

610
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:23,640
So it's a cycle I go through.

611
00:35:23,780 --> 00:35:25,220
Bobby Pin, thank you very much for the boost.

612
00:35:25,220 --> 00:35:29,580
Thank you, everybody who boosted, all of you who boosted, not just those above the 2,000

613
00:35:29,580 --> 00:35:31,640
SAT cutoff, but absolutely everybody.

614
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:34,760
I really do appreciate it, including the SAT streamers as well.

615
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:40,900
45 of you streamed those SATs, stacking a collective 74,024 SATs.

616
00:35:41,020 --> 00:35:42,220
Not too bad at all.

617
00:35:42,420 --> 00:35:43,120
Not too bad.

618
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:49,940
And when you combine that with our message boosters, we stacked a grand total of 397,794

619
00:35:49,940 --> 00:35:50,500
SATs.

620
00:35:55,220 --> 00:35:56,760
That ain't too bad.

621
00:35:56,980 --> 00:35:58,960
And of course, it does represent a couple of weeks there.

622
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:00,900
So I'd love some support for the next episode.

623
00:36:01,060 --> 00:36:02,700
So we start the new year real strong.

624
00:36:02,860 --> 00:36:07,300
If you'd like to boost the show, you can do it a lot of different ways.

625
00:36:07,300 --> 00:36:15,060
Fountain FM is making it easier and easier with the hosted Lightning infrastructure or now with Noster Wallet Connect, making Fiat OnRamp simpler.

626
00:36:15,240 --> 00:36:16,680
And of course, you could be a member as well.

627
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:22,060
But there's a lot of self-hosted, self-sovereign ways to do it, starting with AlbiHub and many more.

628
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,140
Get started really with a podcast app and build it out from there.

629
00:36:25,220 --> 00:36:30,700
podcastapps.com. That's my recommendation. So many good podcast apps, including a new version

630
00:36:30,700 --> 00:36:34,080
of Podverse getting worked on. There's some really good stuff in the podcasting too.

631
00:36:34,700 --> 00:36:41,620
And another thing that may happen, it may happen in 2026 is a live show. I would like to tie it to

632
00:36:41,620 --> 00:36:48,360
an event in the year, a Bitcoin event, maybe a holiday, a Bitcoin quote unquote holiday or an

633
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:51,800
event. If you have any suggestions, boost those in too, because we could do something special,

634
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:54,360
a very special live this week in Bitcoin,

635
00:36:54,740 --> 00:36:56,480
and they would be streamed to your podcasting

636
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:58,400
in 2.0 apps and at jblive.fm.

637
00:36:58,700 --> 00:36:59,520
That's it for the boost.

638
00:36:59,580 --> 00:37:00,820
Thank you, everybody who supports the show

639
00:37:00,820 --> 00:37:01,940
with a Jupiter Party membership,

640
00:37:02,420 --> 00:37:03,620
boost, or a Fountain membership.

641
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:04,980
That's why I'm here.

642
00:37:05,240 --> 00:37:06,700
It's the only thing fueling the show.

643
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:31,260
Well, we're getting word that U.S. Marshals appear to have sold the Bitcoin they received from the Samurai developers as part of their plea deal,

644
00:37:31,260 --> 00:37:38,340
despite Executive Order 14233 requiring forfeited Bitcoin to be held in the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

645
00:37:38,900 --> 00:37:47,700
Court records showed that 57.5 Bitcoin from the Samurai case was sent to Coinbase Prime and sold on November 3rd, 2025.

646
00:37:47,700 --> 00:37:54,820
This is not the first time that the marshals have diverged from this executive order.

647
00:37:55,240 --> 00:38:01,980
We believe this is actually the second time they have sold Bitcoin since executive order 14233 say that they must hold it.

648
00:38:02,380 --> 00:38:06,160
I don't know what's going on there, but maybe somebody should look into that.

649
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:07,720
Wouldn't that be good?

650
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:14,260
Now we have some good news for strategy fans and Bitcoin asset holders.

651
00:38:14,260 --> 00:38:25,140
MSCI, the equity index I told you about, that was considering dropping Strategy and other Bitcoin holders from their investment index lists.

652
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:35,260
They have decided they'll be keeping Strategy and other digital asset treasury firms in the list for now, but announced a new rule that could make it harder for them to buy Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

653
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:41,680
MSCI said it won't count new shares issued by strategy or other digital asset treasury firms,

654
00:38:42,020 --> 00:38:45,960
keeping their index weightings from growing as they issue more shares to buy Bitcoin.

655
00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:51,040
MSCI signaled that the exclusion of strategy and similar firms could still happen.

656
00:38:51,260 --> 00:38:52,100
It's still on the table.

657
00:38:52,900 --> 00:38:56,480
However, the index operator said that it needs more time to determine the right criteria

658
00:38:56,480 --> 00:39:00,820
for keeping companies out that aren't operating companies, but primarily investment-oriented.

659
00:39:01,660 --> 00:39:02,060
Perhaps.

660
00:39:02,060 --> 00:39:10,120
A lot of this is being spun as bad news, but the good news really is here, and that is simply that they didn't get kicked out.

661
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,420
And it's a signal to the market and other indexes.

662
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:16,100
I mean, it's not even the biggest index out there, but it's an important index.

663
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:19,780
So it does matter, and its strategy lives to fight for another day.

664
00:39:20,580 --> 00:39:25,200
Well, this next story was maybe not surprising, but it's definitely noticeable.

665
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:35,900
While I was on holiday break, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said something kind of wild, something that would never be said out loud even a year ago.

666
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:39,120
I mean, honestly, I'm really shocked it's even being said out loud now.

667
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:44,980
And the guy is working this and refining this message into a clippable soundbite.

668
00:39:44,980 --> 00:39:55,660
And while being interviewed by the All In podcast, Besant says that the distorted, awful, evil, two-tier economy that we find ourselves in now, well, that's not the fault of the government.

669
00:39:55,780 --> 00:39:56,200
No, no.

670
00:39:56,580 --> 00:39:58,540
That's the fault of the Federal Reserve.

671
00:39:59,100 --> 00:40:08,140
So as I play this clip, listen to the Treasury Secretary and ask yourself, why would somebody at the highest levels of the federal government say this?

672
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:10,020
Why is he putting this out there?

673
00:40:10,260 --> 00:40:14,020
And why is he refining this into a tighter and tighter message over time?

674
00:40:14,020 --> 00:40:20,800
The Fed began what we call QE or large-scale asset purchases. They went in the market,

675
00:40:21,020 --> 00:40:26,460
started buying long bonds. And the theory of the case there is you create liquidity,

676
00:40:27,180 --> 00:40:33,260
you take safe assets out of the market, long-duration safe assets, and then the people

677
00:40:33,260 --> 00:40:42,400
who receive that money would buy more risky assets. Ben Bernanke famously said when he was

678
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:47,400
ask what's the purpose of QE? He told everyone, go buy equities. Well, not everyone could buy

679
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:54,700
equities. So we ended up... By the way, this is the Treasury Secretary telling you that buying

680
00:40:54,700 --> 00:40:59,040
Bitcoin was the safe play. I don't know if you're catching that, but while everybody was thinking

681
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:03,420
it was so crazy, I mean, this was the natural state of the market. He told everyone, go buy

682
00:41:03,420 --> 00:41:12,380
equities. Well, not everyone could buy equities. So we ended up with this two-tier economy where

683
00:41:12,380 --> 00:41:16,540
either you were an asset holder or you weren't.

684
00:41:16,540 --> 00:41:34,780
And the Fed definitely kept QE going for too long And I called the Fed the engine of inequality And someone said to me would you believe that the Fed is responsible for economic equality in the system And I said

685
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:39,960
absolutely not. That is not one of their mandates, but they shouldn't be exacerbating it.

686
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:46,960
And it's ironic to me because I think Scott would be totally in favor of aggressive quantitative

687
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:52,660
of easing right now. I think he would be all for that. And, you know, this is sort of a chicken

688
00:41:52,660 --> 00:41:57,540
in the egg. The Federal Reserve is responding to monetary policies of the federal government.

689
00:41:58,180 --> 00:42:03,400
Federal government is enabled by the Federal Reserve. And I think this is just wild to be

690
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:09,260
said out loud because they're trying to transfer blame, right? What we have here is a regime shift

691
00:42:09,260 --> 00:42:15,560
being done out in the public, openly stated fiscal dominance. The old model, the way it used to be,

692
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:16,900
was the Fed was first.

693
00:42:17,020 --> 00:42:18,920
Fed legitimacy was the number one thing.

694
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:21,780
Policy wasn't even their biggest tool.

695
00:42:21,900 --> 00:42:23,340
Rate change isn't their biggest tool.

696
00:42:23,780 --> 00:42:24,980
It was what they said.

697
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:26,060
It was their reputation.

698
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:28,860
And anything the Fed said, that was the way it was.

699
00:42:29,020 --> 00:42:30,040
You don't bite the Fed.

700
00:42:30,140 --> 00:42:31,120
The Treasury adapts.

701
00:42:31,400 --> 00:42:34,660
The market price, the policy restraint, whatever the policy might be,

702
00:42:34,940 --> 00:42:37,280
the market prices it in and tries their best to boom.

703
00:42:37,940 --> 00:42:40,380
Now, the new model that the Trump administration is pushing

704
00:42:40,380 --> 00:42:43,100
is just blatant fiscal dominance.

705
00:42:43,100 --> 00:42:50,180
growth first the treasury runs the market markets absorb volatility the fed follows the political

706
00:42:50,180 --> 00:42:55,840
mandate a total flip and it's fiscal dominance without any of the gloss without any of the

707
00:42:55,840 --> 00:43:01,220
treatment without any of the bs it's just out there and if the trump's team is successful and

708
00:43:01,220 --> 00:43:06,840
i suspect they might be because it's the physics of the thing this is what happens next we get

709
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:11,480
higher inflation tolerance in other words we don't really have to be at two percent we get

710
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:15,480
higher equity volatility because the market's constantly dealing with different things that

711
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:20,880
are changing, not the stable hand of the Fed. You get steeper yield curves and weaker long

712
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:25,260
and bond credibility because who's going to want to buy this crazy company's long-term debt?

713
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:30,680
And you get stronger hard assets like Bitcoin, gold, and really anything tied to growth,

714
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:34,880
which right now is AI stocks, right? The Bitcoin and the gold, those are the long-term things.

715
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:39,780
And then you have the growth stuff like AI right now. That's what pumps. We're already in it. It's

716
00:43:39,780 --> 00:43:44,080
just now it's out there outwardly and it's coming from the top of the administration.

717
00:43:44,420 --> 00:43:47,720
They were just blatantly saying, oh, it's their fault and all of that.

718
00:43:47,980 --> 00:43:52,020
It's a complete undermining of the Fed that would have never even been considered a year

719
00:43:52,020 --> 00:43:52,300
ago.

720
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:58,460
And it's just, it's really something to watch it unfold in real time and to watch him refine

721
00:43:58,460 --> 00:44:03,480
that message, write the articles and really try to nail this point and say, the reason

722
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:09,860
you're poor is because the Fed's policy meant the rich got richer and the poor got poorer,

723
00:44:09,940 --> 00:44:14,560
is essentially what he said. The Treasury Secretary, are you understanding this?

724
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:20,240
Well, I'm pleased to say that quantum FUD seems to have gone from about a 10

725
00:44:20,240 --> 00:44:27,060
to about a 4 over the holidays. Of course, that didn't stop CNBC from poking Sailor about it

726
00:44:27,060 --> 00:44:33,100
when he stopped by. Quantum computing at some point could break the algorithm for

727
00:44:33,100 --> 00:44:33,560
for Bitcoin?

728
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:35,300
Break the algorithm.

729
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:37,580
First of all,

730
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:40,740
algorithm isn't even the right use of the term.

731
00:44:41,240 --> 00:44:43,800
And we've already covered this.

732
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:45,720
Bitcoin consensus is not vulnerable

733
00:44:45,720 --> 00:44:47,140
to quantum attacks.

734
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:49,660
It's older wallets would be,

735
00:44:49,980 --> 00:44:51,800
Satoshi era wallets would be

736
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:53,560
the most vulnerable to quantum attacks.

737
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:55,780
And I just don't understand.

738
00:44:56,020 --> 00:44:57,000
I mean, they cover this stuff

739
00:44:57,000 --> 00:44:57,880
day in and day out.

740
00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:00,300
Literally every single business day,

741
00:45:00,420 --> 00:45:01,540
they cover this stuff

742
00:45:01,540 --> 00:45:02,780
and they still can't grasp

743
00:45:02,780 --> 00:45:06,780
the most basics. It's got to be because they just read it from a screen. Quantum computing

744
00:45:06,780 --> 00:45:13,100
at some point could break the algorithm for Bitcoin. Are there countermeasures that they

745
00:45:13,100 --> 00:45:16,880
could be put in? You probably understand what I'm asking you. Do you worry about that?

746
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:17,700
People throw this out.

747
00:45:18,220 --> 00:45:21,560
You look like you slept okay. You look like you slept okay last night.

748
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:27,000
It's mainly marketing by people that want to sell you the next quantum yo-yo token.

749
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:32,100
But look, Google and Microsoft aren't going to sell you a quantum computer that cracks modern

750
00:45:32,100 --> 00:45:36,400
cryptography because it would destroy Google and Microsoft and the US government and the banking

751
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:41,940
system. And at some point, I don't think it's this year, next year, and the next five years,

752
00:45:41,940 --> 00:45:47,860
but sometime 10, 20 years out, if there's a hyper-powerful computer that threatens modern

753
00:45:47,860 --> 00:45:53,460
cryptography, the answer is Bitcoin network hardware upgrades, Bitcoin network software

754
00:45:53,460 --> 00:45:58,160
upgrades, just like Microsoft, Google, the US government upgrade all their messaging and

755
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:03,220
banking applications. The key for everybody is Bitcoin's a protocol like the English language

756
00:46:03,220 --> 00:46:08,640
and base 10 math. When the quantum computer breaks your calculator and breaks your messaging app,

757
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:12,740
you're not learning base 16 math and you're not going to switch to a different language.

758
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:17,320
You're just going to upgrade your software. And Bitcoin's a monetary protocol. We're just

759
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:27,260
going to upgrade the software, Joe. Wow. Wow. Good job, Joe. Okay. Now, if you will,

760
00:46:27,260 --> 00:46:32,120
allow me to indulge just for a moment while I'm complaining about how bad they are at their job,

761
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:36,460
I would like to play this clip for you. Okay. Think about what we've just talked about

762
00:46:36,460 --> 00:46:43,420
with the monetary policy, the oil supply increase that's likely going to allow the Fed to

763
00:46:43,420 --> 00:46:48,280
debase money at a higher rate without the people even noticing, right? Like the existential

764
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:54,340
monetary crises that face us, you can't even count them all on your hands. There's more than

765
00:46:54,340 --> 00:47:01,580
you have fingers. And they over at CNBC, the money network, are completely missing the signal from

766
00:47:01,580 --> 00:47:07,820
the noise. And you'll just, because I have to suffer through 10 times this for you, I would

767
00:47:07,820 --> 00:47:13,260
like to just go through a little bit with you. The hottest crypto trade of the year is not Bitcoin.

768
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:20,140
It is not Ether. It is XRP. Can you believe this? The coin formerly known as Ripple.

769
00:47:20,420 --> 00:47:22,160
Can you believe this?

770
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:26,800
More than 20% this year, becoming the third largest cryptocurrency out there.

771
00:47:26,900 --> 00:47:28,720
And there's big money behind this trade.

772
00:47:29,060 --> 00:47:31,020
Yeah, maybe that should be an indication.

773
00:47:31,540 --> 00:47:34,380
Mackenzie Sigalos joins us now with that XRP trade.

774
00:47:34,500 --> 00:47:38,420
And what Mac is driving all of this interest in XRP?

775
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:43,840
You know, somebody should play that back for me and boost in how many times he said XRP or Ripple.

776
00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:47,840
Because my God, just right there, it seems like a native ad.

777
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:56,240
Now, what I'm really playing this for is listen to how they fall all over themselves trying to explain the differences between these different shit coins.

778
00:47:56,240 --> 00:48:06,440
Well, what's actually been interesting is that during the doldrums of Q4, you actually saw a lot of people piling into those XRP ETFs, which is the exact opposite of what happens with the spot.

779
00:48:06,540 --> 00:48:11,640
Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, where people really move in tandem with the price of the coin.

780
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:15,720
But it was the fact that it is a way to have a higher percentage jump.

781
00:48:15,720 --> 00:48:21,780
So people were buying the dip with XRP in Q4, thinking this is a less crowded trade than Bitcoin or Ether.

782
00:48:22,280 --> 00:48:25,800
And then that proved out to be true just in the first six trading days of January.

783
00:48:26,380 --> 00:48:33,240
We've also talked a lot about the blockchains and the ecosystems that are being built around many of these systems.

784
00:48:33,720 --> 00:48:36,960
We know kind of what they are with regard to Bitcoin.

785
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:40,180
We certainly these days know what it is around Ethereum.

786
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:43,160
What? We kind of know. OK, I've got to go back.

787
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:45,500
We kind of know what these are around Bitcoin.

788
00:48:45,500 --> 00:48:47,420
We certainly know what they are around Ethereum.

789
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:53,080
About the blockchains and the ecosystems that are being built around many of these systems.

790
00:48:53,240 --> 00:48:54,500
All right, name a single ecosystem.

791
00:48:55,380 --> 00:48:55,680
Name one.

792
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:00,940
We know kind of what they are with regard to Bitcoin.

793
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:02,660
What? Which one? What ecosystem?

794
00:49:02,900 --> 00:49:03,780
What are you talking about?

795
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:05,060
What are you talking about?

796
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:06,060
It's money.

797
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:09,840
Certainly these days know what it is around Ethereum and Ether.

798
00:49:10,220 --> 00:49:10,620
You do?

799
00:49:10,980 --> 00:49:14,020
You certainly know what they are around Ethereum and Ether,

800
00:49:14,020 --> 00:49:15,440
which, by the way, are the same thing.

801
00:49:15,500 --> 00:49:19,140
What exactly is the big use case or driver?

802
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:21,300
What's the practicality for XRP?

803
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:26,620
Well, with XRP and Solana, those are the two very popular altcoins right now where you're seeing a lot more interest.

804
00:49:26,740 --> 00:49:27,500
And with Solana...

805
00:49:27,500 --> 00:49:28,660
Where did Solana come from?

806
00:49:28,700 --> 00:49:29,780
He was asking about XRP.

807
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:33,420
So he asked you to explain the value of XRP and she starts talking about Solana.

808
00:49:33,500 --> 00:49:34,700
Again, all over the place.

809
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:37,220
Because, you know, in their minds, ooh, Solana, Solana fast.

810
00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:39,440
A lot of these different forms of tokenization.

811
00:49:39,580 --> 00:49:43,040
So we talk about tokenized dollars all the time in the context of stable coins.

812
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:46,820
But now we're seeing a lot of people move into tokenizing money market funds.

813
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:50,360
And Solana has become a blockchain use case for that.

814
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:53,380
And XRP made its name in terms of cross-border payments.

815
00:49:53,860 --> 00:49:57,820
I love the idea that you need a specific crypto to do cross-border payments, right?

816
00:49:59,920 --> 00:50:03,300
Like the other cryptos, they're not so good for cross-border payments.

817
00:50:03,740 --> 00:50:08,260
You know, the only one of the cryptos is optimized to use the TCP IP network.

818
00:50:08,580 --> 00:50:10,840
A blockchain use case for that.

819
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:13,900
And XRP made its name in terms of cross-border payments.

820
00:50:14,300 --> 00:50:23,700
But what's been fascinating is even just this morning, Morgan Stanley, which has been especially progressive in terms of having their financial advisors suggest that clients get into the spot Bitcoin ETFs.

821
00:50:23,740 --> 00:50:24,760
They were the first bank to do that.

822
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:31,520
They're now, just this morning, filing an S1 to launch their own Bitcoin and Solana ETFs because there is an appetite there.

823
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:33,940
Yeah, that's also kind of ridiculous.

824
00:50:34,340 --> 00:50:35,840
I mean, they're just all over the place.

825
00:50:35,900 --> 00:50:36,940
But let's talk about this.

826
00:50:36,940 --> 00:50:41,080
So Morgan Stanley is filed for a Bitcoin ETF and a Solana ETF.

827
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:48,200
Now, their filing date is January 6th, Tuesday, and they have two products, the Bitcoin Trust and the Solana Trust.

828
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:52,380
They both track the spot price and hold the asset directly.

829
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:56,020
Now, in the case of the Solana, they're also allocating a portion for staking.

830
00:50:56,840 --> 00:50:58,080
However the hell that works, I don't know.

831
00:50:58,780 --> 00:51:04,480
An ETF analyst at Morningstar noted that it's, quote, interesting to see Morgan Stanley move into commoditized market.

832
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:13,780
And I suspect it means they want to move clients that invest in Bitcoin into ETFs, into their ETFs, which could give them a faster start despite their late interest.

833
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:25,760
And Reuters noted that, quote, in the two years since the SEC approved the first U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETF, a wide variety of financial institutions, mostly asset managers, have stepped up to issue such funds.

834
00:51:26,620 --> 00:51:36,020
U.S. banks, which have mostly only acted as custodians of client investments, are looking to evolve from cautious facilitators to active advisors.

835
00:51:36,680 --> 00:51:37,940
So that's the news there.

836
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:42,360
This big, and I guess, well, I'll let them explain it, but it's a big deal.

837
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:44,800
It's, you know, BlackRock, well, yeah, that's an investment firm.

838
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:48,220
But Morgan Stanley, well, they're a bank.

839
00:51:48,220 --> 00:51:56,160
I think that Morgan Stanley being the first big U.S. bank to take this step to file, to launch its own ETFs, is a huge endorsement.

840
00:51:56,240 --> 00:52:00,620
So we've started to see this comeback of institutional cash just in the first few trading days of the year.

841
00:52:01,020 --> 00:52:05,740
Finally, the surge in spot Bitcoin ETFs, which were net outflows for the last few months of 2025.

842
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:09,740
And what this really signals is that Morgan Stanley, for one, has been the most progressive.

843
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:10,220
They put out their...

844
00:52:14,900 --> 00:52:15,740
Okay, maybe so.

845
00:52:15,740 --> 00:52:22,960
I guess it's, you know, now we know it's something to watch and will increase the buy pressure.

846
00:52:23,140 --> 00:52:25,280
And of course, there's only so many Bitcoin made a day.

847
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:29,380
And I think we're already into 2026 going to be buying more than what's made a day.

848
00:52:29,500 --> 00:52:32,160
So it's going to be interesting to see that develop.

849
00:52:32,620 --> 00:52:33,220
Here we are.

850
00:52:33,340 --> 00:52:37,660
We've arrived at our final clip of the week for the first episode of 2026.

851
00:52:37,980 --> 00:52:43,520
And even though it's the final clip of this week, it actually originally aired in 2023.

852
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:45,360
But it got shared a lot this week.

853
00:52:45,740 --> 00:52:46,920
And for good reason.

854
00:52:47,220 --> 00:52:53,120
I think it's a good signal to remember that Bitcoin mining can have an impact in a lot of ways.

855
00:52:53,120 --> 00:53:03,560
And this is a 60 Minutes report on how a Bitcoin mine operation in Wyoming is catching what was otherwise just off-gast methane going into the atmosphere.

856
00:53:03,980 --> 00:53:08,960
One thing I can share is that it's a state that's very welcoming to innovators in the energy space.

857
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:13,740
Cully Kavnis is co-founder of a company called Crusoe Energy Systems.

858
00:53:14,340 --> 00:53:18,660
About five years ago, it decided to tackle the problem of flaring

859
00:53:18,660 --> 00:53:23,080
when gas produced at oil wells is simply burned into the atmosphere.

860
00:53:23,460 --> 00:53:26,520
If you could capture it all, it would power about two-thirds of Europe's electricity.

861
00:53:26,900 --> 00:53:28,720
It's a very large amount of waste.

862
00:53:28,860 --> 00:53:29,900
And we're just burning it off.

863
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:31,680
We're burning it off because there's no pipeline there.

864
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:36,120
Kavniss and his colleagues came up with the unconventional idea

865
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:39,560
of putting a small electricity-generating power plant

866
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:42,700
right where that gas was being flared and wasted.

867
00:53:43,740 --> 00:53:45,660
What we do is we tap into that gas line.

868
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:48,640
We bring the gas over to a power generation system,

869
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:50,340
and then that generates electricity,

870
00:53:50,740 --> 00:53:53,700
and we take that electricity directly into our on-site data center

871
00:53:53,700 --> 00:53:56,660
to power hundreds or thousands of computers,

872
00:53:57,180 --> 00:53:59,360
and then we network the computers to the outside world

873
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:02,400
with fiber or satellite internet to get it off-site.

874
00:54:02,720 --> 00:54:07,300
So you take a data center and just basically put it on top of the wellhead.

875
00:54:07,900 --> 00:54:12,600
Exactly. It's a modern data center in every way when you're standing inside of it.

876
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:15,840
and then you step out the door and you're in an oil field.

877
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:21,740
Crusoe Energy first used those electricity-gobbling data centers to mine Bitcoin.

878
00:54:22,500 --> 00:54:27,660
Now, most of that computer power is being used by artificial intelligence companies.

879
00:54:28,180 --> 00:54:32,620
The first place to let them try this in 2018 was Wyoming.

880
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:37,160
That's not necessarily an idea that everyone's going to embrace automatically right off the bat

881
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:39,020
before it's been done before. Wyoming was.

882
00:54:39,020 --> 00:54:41,260
They invited us to come do it for the first time here.

883
00:54:41,740 --> 00:54:42,940
We did it at a small scale.

884
00:54:43,060 --> 00:54:44,100
We proved that it could work.

885
00:54:44,660 --> 00:54:50,020
And that helped us attract the funding and the other projects that have helped us scale to where we are today.

886
00:54:50,300 --> 00:54:53,640
How many of these centers do you have up and running currently?

887
00:54:54,180 --> 00:54:56,260
We're approaching 200 by the end of the year.

888
00:54:56,320 --> 00:55:01,300
We'll have about 200 of our modular data centers deployed throughout the United States and now internationally.

889
00:55:01,900 --> 00:55:05,360
So how do you assess your environmental impact?

890
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:09,940
So today we're operating at a scale of more than 20 million cubic feet of gas per day

891
00:55:09,940 --> 00:55:11,860
that would have otherwise been flared and wasted.

892
00:55:11,860 --> 00:55:15,140
We're preventing that flaring. It's on the order of several hundred thousand

893
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:19,820
and cars per year being taken off the road in terms of the avoided emissions impact.

894
00:55:20,620 --> 00:55:26,460
Are you trying to send out a message to the rest of the country and even the rest of the world?

895
00:55:26,460 --> 00:55:34,840
If you have a renewable or a climate-friendly idea, bring it here. Bring it to Wyoming.

896
00:55:35,060 --> 00:55:38,380
Love to. We want to be part of this solution.

897
00:55:38,380 --> 00:55:54,440
There are some really remarkable things that if we stop talking about what we shouldn't do and start talking about what we can do and how we can embrace that future, that's what we're dedicated to here in Wyoming.

898
00:55:54,440 --> 00:56:10,060
All right, I'm wrapping up at block height 931,306.

899
00:56:10,380 --> 00:56:15,500
Bitcoin's USD price right now, one Bitcoin, 90,760 US dollars.

900
00:56:15,820 --> 00:56:20,260
That makes the sats per dollar 1,102 sats to one US greenback.

901
00:56:20,260 --> 00:56:46,683
But right now we down 28 from our all high which was a long 93 days ago But you know what I doing just fine This 93 days feels like nothing Our all high date was infamously October 6 2025 Our retarget date for the difficulty is January 8 2026 coming up tomorrow as I record

902
00:56:47,363 --> 00:56:51,683
Estimated difficulty change of a downward adjustment of 1.7%.

903
00:56:51,683 --> 00:56:56,903
We have 25,029 Bitcoin nodes reachable on the network right now.

904
00:56:57,383 --> 00:56:57,923
Very nice.

905
00:56:58,083 --> 00:56:59,063
Let's get a few more on there.

906
00:56:59,063 --> 00:57:01,883
Come on, you can do it. You can make a difference.

907
00:57:01,963 --> 00:57:05,103
the Bitcoin network chugs right along.

908
00:57:05,603 --> 00:57:07,503
The state of the network is fantastic.

909
00:57:19,983 --> 00:57:24,543
If you made it this far, links to what I talked about are over at thisweekinbitcoin.show.

910
00:57:24,903 --> 00:57:28,123
Nice back catalog there and a bunch of other JB shows you might want to check out.

911
00:57:28,603 --> 00:57:29,343
Let me know how I did.

912
00:57:29,343 --> 00:57:32,123
And my goal is to give you a show that doesn't get distracted by the emotions,

913
00:57:32,763 --> 00:57:35,963
but focuses on the signal, lets you know how to invest for yourself,

914
00:57:36,063 --> 00:57:38,003
your family, your business, and your community.

915
00:57:38,323 --> 00:57:39,603
So let me know how I did with the boost,

916
00:57:39,703 --> 00:57:43,803
and let me know what your hardware wallet of 2026 recommendation is.

917
00:57:44,523 --> 00:57:48,143
And of course, boost in with anything you feel like I missed from the show this week.

918
00:57:48,203 --> 00:57:49,263
That's always great signal too.

919
00:57:49,323 --> 00:57:50,523
Maybe there's something I should be covering.

920
00:57:50,943 --> 00:57:52,143
I always appreciate that.

921
00:57:52,143 --> 00:58:05,827
Now I going to leave you with a value for value track And you guys it has been way too long since I played a Bitcoin song And where else where better than a Bitcoin podcast to play a Bitcoin value for value track So if you

922
00:58:05,827 --> 00:58:11,947
boost while this track plays, 95% of the sats will go to the artist. And this week, it's Tokyo

923
00:58:11,947 --> 00:58:18,027
Citadel Remix by Real Richard. See you next week. We are getting reports that man like Quakes has

924
00:58:18,027 --> 00:58:23,727
left Tanzania. Authorities believe he is starting a citadel on a different continent. He is still

925
00:58:23,727 --> 00:58:26,927
at large for owning his private keys.

926
00:58:48,027 --> 00:58:50,787
Konichiwa, white flag red dot GTI

927
00:58:50,787 --> 00:58:53,787
DCA to BTC, stack and status manager

928
00:58:53,787 --> 00:58:57,267
Konichiwa, white flag red dot GTI

929
00:58:57,267 --> 00:59:00,247
DCA to BTC, stack and status manager

930
00:59:00,247 --> 00:59:03,487
TikTok, next block, this is a major epoch

931
00:59:03,487 --> 00:59:06,647
My C phrase, I keep locked, don't worry about what we got

932
00:59:06,647 --> 00:59:09,827
TikTok, next block, TikTok, next block

933
00:59:09,827 --> 00:59:12,227
TikTok, next block, TikTok, next block

934
00:59:12,227 --> 00:59:13,827
TikTok, next block, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok

935
00:59:18,027 --> 00:59:39,250
TikTok next next This is a major EPOP

936
00:59:45,490 --> 00:59:52,770
up next block this is a major epop tick tick tock next block don't worry about what we

937
00:59:52,770 --> 01:00:11,690
Oh, wonderful

938
01:00:11,690 --> 01:00:14,690
.

939
01:00:14,690 --> 01:00:34,450
The whereabouts of manlike quakes is still unknown.

940
01:00:34,950 --> 01:00:36,830
Authorities are still unsure of his motives

941
01:00:36,830 --> 01:00:40,210
for promoting banned words such as self-custody and sovereignty.