Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 87.
My name is Chris, chrislas.com and jupiterbroadcasting.com.
It's good to be back from break.
And it is no overstatement to say that 2025 was a transformational year for Bitcoin.
What a year to do a weekly Bitcoin news podcast.
But looking at just some of the numbers, and thanks to James Lopp for collecting these,
Bitcoin's network hash rate over 2025 increased by 32% from 802 exahash to over a zeta hash,
which I guess sticking with the numbers here would be 1,060 exahash per second now.
That's monstrous.
That's one of my favorite numbers of the year.
Bitcoin Core commits, which is just a small increasement by 1% year over year, now to 2,541 commits.
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.
But the Bitcoin map project on X said that, quote, Square was a big contributor, but we've seen growth across the board.
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.
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.
Happy New Year, Stephen.
Yes, I think definitively we can say the four-year cycle is broken.
And for those who are not familiar with this four-year cycle, since the inception of Bitcoin,
every four years we've had three up years.
And then in the fourth year, we've had a down year.
And that's repeated itself again and again.
That's the key bit here, is the four-year cycle requires 2025 to have been an up year.
And it requires 2026 to be a down year.
years. And then in the fourth year, we've had a down year. And that's repeated itself again and
again. And people have attributed that behavior to, amongst other things, the halving where Bitcoin,
the rewards, the block rewards given to miners is halved and programmed to halve every four years.
But what we saw 2025 was meant to be the third year in the cycle. So it should have been an up
year. And what we had, in fact, was overall for the year minus 4% for Bitcoin. It doesn't mean it
was a bad year. As you mentioned, we did have those highs of over 126,000, all-time highs over
126,000 in October. But what happened was, and Jordi Visser called this the Bitcoin silent IPO,
is that a lot of the early holders on reaching these new all-time highs decided to take profits
and sold into those all-time highs.
And actually, that brought the price down significantly
from which levels it didn't actually recover.
It has, as you mentioned, this year so far,
2026 Bitcoin has risen 7%.
And we actually, you know, we were expecting good things in 2026.
Ah, Bitwise is bullish.
Now, I really just can't harp on this enough.
If this four-year cycle is really changing,
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.
But as institutional buys that have mandated buys that come in, they're not paying attention to that kind of stuff.
And that really, I think, is what's going to drive it.
It's an area, though, that as a long-timer, I still can't quite accept.
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.
And Bitcoin often has a way of humbling people that decide new narratives are the way things are.
But the data is the data.
It's kind of an area I'd like more input from the audience on.
What do you think about the four-year cycle?
And do you care?
And do you understand why it would be such a big deal if it is over?
Well, things do seem to have so far turned around for 2026. And the coverage of it is a bit mixed.
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.
I think it's more institutional. It's going to be larger bets.
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.
They've been too dumb to buy it until now.
They just haven't gotten it.
They need somebody to wrap it up in a suit and sell it to them.
They really honestly do.
That's why these institutions exist.
You know, that's why they've come along.
And that's the stage we're entering now.
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.
And so you're really minimizing Bitcoin's overall impact if you just refer to it as gold.
And I think we've seen positive and negative ramifications of that classification.
And so we're entering into a much more confusing period might be now where people are trying to sort all of this out.
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.
Now, hear me out. Hear me out. I think Bitcoin was always going to survive that.
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.
It's been a dicey few months for crypto, which is getting a bounce today, along with other risk assets.
Mackenzie Sigalo is tracking that action for us.
Hey, Mac.
Hey, Scott.
So Bitcoin pushing toward 95K, but it's actually altcoin XRP that is the real standout surging.
So we didn't even get 10 seconds before we start talking about XRP.
One of these is a hard asset that is scarce and a true innovation.
And one of these is created by a guy that just can print these on demand and a whole company.
The two are completely different jobs.
It's kind of comparing real estate to movie ticket sales.
I don't know.
It's like they're very odd comparisons, but they don't understand this.
And so that's why I was saying I almost wish we could have had Gary just continue to crack down.
and really squash these pure scam coins like XRP
because they're just going to run these boomers and other new investors to the washers.
More than 26% in the past week, now the third biggest token by market cap.
Crypto-linked equities also rebounding after months of sluggish moves.
Another one, you know, buying the stocks instead of buying the assets.
Digital asset treasury names like Strategy and Bitmine Immersion,
Tom Lee's Ether Treasury are trading higher.
And Coinbase is rallying after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock from neutral to buy and lifted its price target to $303.
That's 20% above current levels.
That comes after the exchange launched prediction markets and equities trading.
Isn't that interesting?
Coinbase is up 8% because they've launched a prediction market and equities trading stocks and whatnot, not crypto.
Now, analysts, they are chalking the overall crypto market run up, at least in part, to the Venezuela headlines.
We'll come back to this.
We'll stop here.
This is an interesting narrative that's developing.
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.
You know, we all woke up to the shocking news of the capture of the Venezuelan president Maduro.
And since then, surely that's been the reason Bitcoin's pumping, right?
I don't buy it.
I'm not so sure about that.
and neither is Coinbase's head of institutional strategy.
And I've played him before,
not the biggest Coinbase guy ever,
don't really recommend Coinbase,
but I have to say,
I think their head of strategy is a sharp thinker.
And I liked his take on this,
Venezuela is the reason Bitcoin's pumping narrative.
Strong start for the year in crypto.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
as well on the rise following the capture.
Venezuela's leader, Nicolas Maduro,
joining us right now,
Coinbase institutional head of strategy.
John D'Agostino, good morning to you.
We were debating,
I don't know if you saw this. We were having a conversation about Bitcoin, given how prevalent it is in Venezuela.
And the question is, does this actually move the or change the game for Bitcoin more broadly?
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.
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?
So I understand the temptation to apply some of the recent bull run in Bitcoin to what's happening in Venezuela.
It's a massive geopolitical event.
That narrative certainly holds as a long term thesis that proof of Bitcoin as a temporary currency to replace a destabilized currency.
That's fine. I also hear the argument that we're probably going to have lower oil prices.
Historically, the Fed has eased during lower oil price conditions.
However, usually that's a demand issue versus this to be a supply issue.
I got to be honest, Andrew, I don't see any direct evidence that what's happening in Venezuela is directly applicable.
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.
Well, apples look pretty good right now.
But what we're seeing is a couple of things.
We're seeing a gradual rebuilding from this liquidity event we had on October 10th.
The market makers are getting more comfortable with their risk parameters, adding risk back into the market.
We're seeing retail sentiment catch up to what we've known on the institutional side.
So retail sentiment catching up to institutional momentum.
And really, we're just seeing the mean reversion trade I talked about.
Bitcoin's outperforming gold this year.
And together between gold and Bitcoin, you have this wonderful store of value trade that is really, really important.
because if you've held gold for the last 10 years, you've done pretty well, about 260%.
You held the S&P, you're up about 300.
But the dollar has decreased in purchasing value by over a third.
If you've held Bitcoin for that period of time, you're up over 11,000%.
So that juice is really, really important if you want to beat inflation over the long term.
There have also been rumors floating around that Venezuela has a 600,000 Bitcoin shadow reserve.
However, that isn't necessarily bared out by evidence that is on chain so far.
I mean, it is supposed to be a shadow reserve, so maybe it's hidden.
But what the public has come up with so far in terms of on chain proof is around 240 Bitcoin.
So the rumors are 600,000 and on chain we can see 240.
But, you know, yeah, I mean, maybe there's more.
And then, of course, there's been conversations.
Well, if they do, is the U.S. going to seize that?
Is that part of the strategic reserve, et cetera, et cetera?
All of that is far too early to say.
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.
So let's start with the bad news.
We do have some breaking news on the Venezuela oil numbers.
Brian Sullivan joined us for more on that.
Brian, good morning.
Yeah, good morning.
Here we are at the Goldman Sachs Energy, Clean Tech and Utilities Conference in Miami, Florida.
And I've got some breaking news from sources close to the White House.
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.
Well, I'm here to report that is only the first tranche that it will continue indefinitely.
So oil sales from Venezuela to the U.S. and the Western world will be more than 50 million barrels of oil.
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.
All right. So, yes, good for the day-to-day pocketbook and long-term if they're successful.
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.
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.
And you're seeing the futures market already price that in.
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.
And it would put downward pressure on higher cost producers elsewhere in the world.
If all of that happens, it would be deflationary to at least some extent for a period of time.
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
But I think it's important to mention that just because the cost of goods might stabilize,
things like RV sales and other high energy consumers might return and turn around,
which is in the tanks right now,
it doesn't mean the money still isn't being debased.
Just kind of a similar analogy, not the same thing,
But as we offshored, we kept the cost of goods low.
But the purchasing power was continuing to be weakened.
The money continued to be debased.
But your computer didn't cost more necessarily or your microwave because it was being manufactured in China now.
And so it's a way to enjoy debasement while not suffering the cost increase.
And, of course, the enjoyment comes from the government's part.
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.
They know they can get away with printing money.
Low energy means the price of goods are cheaper to move, manufacture, all of that.
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.
And so while that maybe is a disincentive for some to buy Bitcoin because they don't feel the inflation,
Long term, it is actually going to be good news for Bitcoin.
Because if that optimistic scenario all goes through, which is based on fragile assumptions,
well, debasement is going to be going hot.
And people that are in the know will be looking for a hedge.
Bitcoin is going to be the scarcest asset they can pile into.
But the reality is it is a very optimistic assumption.
They can say, oh, we're going to have X amount of barrels.
But oil production is not simply just a matter of drilling the holes again.
There has to be some stability in the area.
There has to be institutional stability.
where businesses can operate.
They have to have these things called property rights.
They have to have these people called laborers
that have skills.
They need to have functioning infrastructure
to move the oil.
And of course, they have to have contracts
that can be enforced and they can rely upon.
So Venezuela's oil didn't collapse because of geology, right?
They didn't have an earthquake or something.
It was decades of malpractice, of state intervention,
of politicized management, of capital flight,
businesses leaving, and then of course seizing.
the government seizing property.
Reversing damage like that is massive.
It's not just a matter of going and building some wells.
And it's going to need constant governance and babysitting, likely by the U.S.
And the U.S. just really hasn't mastered that yet.
So it's an optimistic scenario that that much oil comes onto the market.
Realistically, though, there probably will be an increase in oil supply.
And that will keep oil prices down lower for a bit.
That will be interesting to see with the overall agenda of the Trump administration,
especially during a period of fiscal dominance, which we will get to in just a moment.
But first, some security news you can use. We've got to get to this.
Well, it's not really the top of the show anymore, but near the start of the show.
Bitcoin Core version 30 has a bug you should probably know about.
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.
The issue occurs under a specific condition and affects migrations from old Bitcoin Core wallets that were never renamed or upgraded.
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.
when pruning is still enabled.
In these cases, when you meet all of those situations,
like old wallet, different directory, custom wallet directory,
using the wallet DIR setting with pruning enabled,
in those cases, the migration can appear to complete successfully,
but the cleanup logic will mistakenly delete the entire wallet directory.
And if a user does not have an external backup,
loss, quote, this is the quote from the developers,
quote, loss of access to funds is effectively guaranteed
because all local wallet files are removed, end quote.
The bug impacts very old wallet setups
and users that have hardware wallets or modern wallets
probably are just fine.
The issue is compounded by the fact
that the current client no longer supports
the old 2022 default wallet type.
And so you had to migrate.
So it's a double whammy.
Bitcoin Core, of course, currently accounts for 78%
of the reachable Bitcoin nodes.
Other implementations such as nots make up almost 22%.
So that is issue one I want you to know about.
Issue two I want you to know about, if you're a Ledger user, you're going to need to be vigilant.
Ledger users are being hit by a brand new, actually pretty clever phishing scam after a Global E data breach.
Global E being a marketing partner of Ledger.
Ledger users are being targeted with this new phishing campaign.
The third-party e-commerce provider, Global E, had their database leaked.
And of course, Ledger was one of their clients.
Attackers are using the stolen order information to send personalized scam emails that impersonate Ledger and promote false claims of a merger with Trezor.
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.
I think there's implication of even like a time window in which they have to do it.
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.
Now, this is pretty bad because this follows other incidents in the past involving Ledger.
In 2020, a major data breach exposed personal information belonging to hundreds and thousands of users, including email address, phone numbers, and home addresses.
Many affected customers later reported phishing attempts and threats.
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.
But I want you to consider this.
With modern LLMs, analyzing data leaks like this is going to just get easier and easier.
And these old breaches will stack.
If you have multiple breaches, then you can look at data over a period of time.
And if somebody shows up on that list multiple times, well, then a narrative starts to form.
They stayed, they survived, they probably made some money, and they probably still have some of it.
And then the $25 wrench attack becomes a very feasible approach.
So you have to think about these risk profiles when you're buying a hardware wallet.
And I believe CoinKite has a policy of retaining customer information for 90 days,
and they don't share it with anyone else, even for marketing purposes.
However, I think they may retain email addresses.
I'm not positive about that.
So this is where I got to say, let's do a 2026 hardware wallet check-in.
Did you switch hardware wallets?
And which hardware wallet do you recommend?
Boost into the show.
Let's get people going down the right path.
I'll share some of my updates as well, including one of my wallets just had a big security update
itself that I could talk about as well.
So Boost in 2026 hardware wallet check-in.
Let me know what's your recommended hardware wallet.
And also let me know if you ended up switching wallets for some reason.
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.
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
one of the best ways to stack sats in the us you support the show if you're all about self-custody
and you're in the us or canada the bitcoin well is an amazing automatic self-custody platform
straight to and from your wallet they don't host the wallet if it's time to spend some of your sats
i turn to the bitcoin company hundreds of gift cards in just seconds over the lightning network
you can even just log in with the lightning network you don't have to create an account
If you want to stack stats passively, like paying bills, doing things like that,
fold card.
The audience loves it.
It's a great way to passively stack stats.
And then if it's time to get access to your Bitcoin value without selling it,
I turn to Salt Lending.
They're available in places the others aren't,
and they have a few features like loan stabilization I really appreciate.
So that's it.
All the links in the show notes.
You can support the show just by doing what you do.
Four score and seven boosts to go.
Well, we do have some boosts to get to here.
Our first boost of the new year.
A lot of these came in as 2025 was wrapping up.
And OB, you're our baller booster this week with 55,555 sats.
That's not possible.
Nothing can do that.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Quantum reminds me of the scene from Batman Begins.
The crime boss tells Bruce Wayne, you always fear, which you don't understand.
Isn't that true, Obi?
Yeah, it's like, I guess, or put another way, Obi, people don't have enough to worry about in Bitcoin.
You know, it's ironic, too.
If they wanted something to worry about, go pay attention to these bips that want to seize people's coins.
You want something to be concerned about.
I got it right there.
Go look at that.
We'll worry about quantum in 5 to 10, 15 years, okay?
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.
I will be the first guy, right?
I will be the first guy.
I've got a podcast.
I follow the news obsessively.
And I got a bag.
Like, I want to protect my own bag, you know?
So, like, that's not the concern.
Bips that want to seize coins, much more concerning.
Great boost, Obi.
And thanks for being our baller.
And happy holidays to you.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
User 47 also came in with 55,555 sats.
I hoard that which your kind covet.
Love the show.
It's my go-to for Bitcoin news every week.
Well, thank you, User 47.
If you want to set your username and boost back in, I'd love to know who you are.
And thanks for listening.
Appreciate you being a baller.
Producer Jeff comes in with a row of McDucks.
Things are looking up for all McDucks.
That's 22,222 sats.
This old duck still got it.
Love me some FUD busting.
best wishes through the holiday downtime.
Thank you, PJ.
Appreciate that.
Coming in towards the end of the year there too.
MDS comes in with 21,000 sats.
Oh, we need a Bitcoin blockchain.
We need like a, dang it.
Ah, that ain't blockchain.
That ain't good enough.
We need a really good one for 21,000 sats.
This is, why have I not?
Ah.
MDS comes in with 21,000 sats.
Thanks for your coverage this year, Chris.
You provide a great value and seem to have fun doing it.
It's been a slog, but hopefully listeners are here to the value for value principles that underpin this platform.
The best kind, in my opinion.
Take a break.
Thank you.
I did enjoy the break.
Well, I enjoyed the break-ish.
You know, I was always sort of like, should I come back?
Should I come back now?
But I stuck to it.
And it was good, too.
It gave me time to take the family on a holiday trip.
And when we came back, I was able to take care of some other family stuff.
So I used the time wisely.
And now this year, I really have to figure out revenue.
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.
Odyssey Wester is back with 5,100 sats.
Love Long.
Love Longy.
Is that the song?
I forget.
Definitely check out the interview.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, he had on Phantom Power Music Hour.
Yep, episode 26.
Phantom Power Music Hour, episode 26.
It's a year old, but still a good listen.
Thanks, Odyssey.
I appreciate that.
A little love to our artists, too.
Gene Bean's back with 2,267 sats.
Suits me if some deep-pocketed types are toying with people doing high-leverage stuff against Bitcoin.
Yeah, the people that are wiping out the DGens.
That mess seems to be artificially distort the actual market value of Bitcoin.
Or that's my layman's impression, at least.
Yeah, I mean, when you zoom out, not so much, right?
But the day-to-day chop, yeah, it does feel like that.
Or it feels like, you know, whenever you see it pumping recently,
you know they're going to come in and chop the knees up from underneath.
It's hard to get all that excited.
But in a way, it's like the pain continues until the degen behavior stops, right?
Thanks, Gene.
I think you're right.
Let them use their pocketbooks to wash it out.
I think you're onto something there.
All right, here we go.
Blazer 4151 is here with 2,500 sats.
Oh, my God, this drawer is filled with fruit loops.
Hey, I just wanted to see if you had a read on Foldcard
as there's a new KYC restrictions in some cases.
I haven't delved in at all, just hoping for a quick Twib hit.
I do love getting the boost on air.
Just a heads up, it's, oh, Blazar.
Thank you, Blazar.
As in the giant black hole.
Oh, oh, okay.
Okay, so the Fold thing, yeah, they switched custodians.
And I was surprised by this
because they just have disabled the Bitcoin feature in my app.
I just had no Bitcoin functionality.
I could still do the spin, but I couldn't buy or sell.
I could withdraw my Bitcoin.
So I appreciated that.
And yeah,
it's the same one that I think it's bit wise.
It's one I've read before.
I don't love it.
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
has the proper licenses they needed everywhere and all that jazz. I wish they were a little more
transparent on the process. I'll tell you, it gave me a bit of pause for a bit that they weren't
telling me more and that my Bitcoin buying and selling was disabled for as long as it was.
I missed some dips. I had a little bit extra cash in that account and I would have liked it
to gone towards the dip. And they essentially restored the Bitcoin functionality
after the dip was over. So that's a disappointment too. But that's so far the only real mark I have
against them. And sometimes those things are outside their control. I hope that's one of the
things that gets better as time goes forward. Thank you for the boost. Nice to hear from you.
Chuto is here with 2000 sats. No message, just value.
Ace Ackerman's here with a row of ducks.
And by the way, no message is fine.
Appreciate the value.
Ace Ackerman says, Luke Grumman's a Bitcoin to a wrist.
Enjoy your holidays and thanks for the great podcast.
Looking forward to another year of incredible growth of the Bitcoin virus.
Yeah, I think it's going to be a good year, Ace.
I don't know about Luke.
You know, I don't hear him saying much right now.
And I think it's kind of silly that Luke bought into the four-year cycle.
So I saw he did a follow-up trying to respond to some of the criticisms.
But even that didn't really make sense to me.
I think ultimately, if I were to boil it down to one thing, he's bullish on gold.
And he doesn't really need a second bet.
And he might be right, especially if he's already rich, right?
If he's already rich and he mostly just wants to preserve wealth with some growth in that wealth, then gold's fine.
for those of us that are trying to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and dig our way up through
the increasingly longer ladder of the lower ranks of the economy don't really have the luxury of
going to spend a hundred thousand dollars two hundred thousand dollars on something that's
going to appreciate 20 in two years like that's just not no but nobody is playing that game right
now that isn't already rich so i but i think luke doesn't have that problem and so that's the lens
in which he views the world thank you ace nice to hear from you bug-eyed stormtroopers here with
5,000 sets. This is the way. If investing the future is a form of hope, then Bitcoin is not
fear, but rather a hope in response to a fading imperial legacy system that offers little hope.
Now, if you excuse me, there's a droid I'm looking for that way. I know you're referring to Larry
Fink's argument that Bitcoin is an asset of fear. It's dumb. It's so contrived. It feels like he
must need to frame it that way in order to cushion and couch a bit so that way he isn't
looked at as a loon? I don't know. You know, like, it feels like he's couching it pretty strongly.
It's such a stretched, stupid analogy, too. It's just not very smart. And it just makes it look
like he hasn't learned. But I like your point. You're completely right, Stormtrooper. Thank you
for the boost. Northern Hoddle's back with 5,115 sets. The traders love the vol. Happy holidays and
a great finish to the year.
Gotta say, Luke Grumman selling
most of his stack
is super bullish to me.
A bit like the Kramer signal.
You know what?
I like that idea a lot.
Yes, sir.
Sirty, sir, sir, sir.
I mean, what happens though
when he buys back in?
You gotta tell me
what that signal means.
Is that just capitulation
or is that a reverse signal?
Thanks, Northern.
Good to hear from you.
Hadahal is here
with a Spaceballs boost.
that's 12,345 sats.
So the combination is
one, two, three, four, five.
I love it.
Thank you, sir.
He says long time lurker,
first time booster
and a sat streamer.
Yes.
That's amazing.
I've got the same combination
on my luggage.
That's great.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for all the value
over the year.
I think QuantumFUD
is overhyped in the short term,
but should be increasingly
a conversation
in the Bitcoin community
over time.
Yeah, that seems reasonable, right?
That's probably the exact approach.
It's like, okay,
we're at the stage where we need to be aware of it
and we need to be open to the conversation
and then we should progress
that's brilliant right there
thank you all
he says it'd be great if you could cover the quantum
oh boy I can't even say it
resident mathematics like the lattice based cryptography
or other approaches
this is where I'm going to bring Wes on
I'll bring Wes on for that
God knows it's going to take a long time
to get this community of left curve types
to get some kind of post quantum consensus
keep up the good work
and happy new year
Thank you.
Ottawa, that's a great boost.
And thank you for saying hi.
I actually am not joking, really.
I really should get Wes's take on that stuff.
He loves that math stuff.
You know that Wes Payne?
Thank you very much.
Cosnow is here with 2,500 sats.
Let's hear it, good buddy.
He says thanks for the great show.
Well, thank you for the boost.
He's a good guy.
He's a real good guy.
No, he's a great guy.
Kiwi Bitcoin Guide's back, and he's coming in with 10,000 sats.
It's over 9,000!
I have a serious question for you.
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.
In the interview, he talked about how his constitutional rights were not respected and how hostile the judge was.
They had no evidence of an actual crime being committed, so the charges are for conspiracy to commit crimes.
Basically, they were aware that their software could be used for illegal purposes, so they're guilty.
I think your question got cut off, but yeah, that's a case I've been following.
I'm also covering it from time to time in the show as things develop.
I really am concerned about the precedent it says for open source software.
I think that's my primary concern.
And I think it's unfortunate that a pro-crypto administration can't be bothered to look a little bit into this.
What is David Sachs too busy on X to pay attention?
What's going on here?
But I will keep my eye on it and try to report more.
And if you want to finish with the question, I think Fountain cut you off, Kiwi.
Please do follow up.
Nice to hear from you.
And by the way, when that happens to you,
your second boost doesn't have to be above 2,000.
If one of your boosts is above the 2,000-sat cutoff,
we'll automatically include your next boost.
Now, don't be cheap.
But just so you know, like, if you miss something,
you don't have to spend another 2,000 sats
if you just need to follow up.
Because we include the total amount
that you boosted for that episode.
Marius is here with 12,240 sats.
That's almost a Spaceballs boost.
Almost.
Happy New Year, he says.
Well, Happy New Year to you, too.
Bobby Pins here with 5,000 sats.
Tough little ship.
Little.
Happy New Year.
My goals for 2026 are to fill the gaps of my knowledge when it comes to self-custody and mining.
I also plan to hit the one petahash milestone between home miners and hosted.
Ha!
Nice.
That is awesome.
So I have been thinking about this a lot, you guys.
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.
And then I think step two is to dip my toes into mining personally, something I did a long time ago.
It's how I started in Bitcoin.
And I think it's time to get back to it.
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.
Because I think I could do a lot better in understanding and reporting on that because from which all the rest, everything comes.
So that is on my goal list of 2026 as well.
And I hope to be mining soon.
I put together an old S9 that I have that is adapted to work at 120 volts.
But even at full power, the thing's only like 14 terahash.
And I have to imagine at 120 volts, it's not even going to, you know, what is it going to be?
Seven, six terahash?
And I'm pulling 1200 watts to do that.
I could, you know, I could do a lot better.
So I, that's why I haven't pulled the trigger yet.
I'd like to get something more efficient.
But then, you know, it's hard to spend money on that when you could just buy a Bitcoin.
So it's a cycle I go through.
Bobby Pin, thank you very much for the boost.
Thank you, everybody who boosted, all of you who boosted, not just those above the 2,000
SAT cutoff, but absolutely everybody.
I really do appreciate it, including the SAT streamers as well.
45 of you streamed those SATs, stacking a collective 74,024 SATs.
Not too bad at all.
Not too bad.
And when you combine that with our message boosters, we stacked a grand total of 397,794
SATs.
That ain't too bad.
And of course, it does represent a couple of weeks there.
So I'd love some support for the next episode.
So we start the new year real strong.
If you'd like to boost the show, you can do it a lot of different ways.
Fountain FM is making it easier and easier with the hosted Lightning infrastructure or now with Noster Wallet Connect, making Fiat OnRamp simpler.
And of course, you could be a member as well.
But there's a lot of self-hosted, self-sovereign ways to do it, starting with AlbiHub and many more.
Get started really with a podcast app and build it out from there.
podcastapps.com. That's my recommendation. So many good podcast apps, including a new version
of Podverse getting worked on. There's some really good stuff in the podcasting too.
And another thing that may happen, it may happen in 2026 is a live show. I would like to tie it to
an event in the year, a Bitcoin event, maybe a holiday, a Bitcoin quote unquote holiday or an
event. If you have any suggestions, boost those in too, because we could do something special,
a very special live this week in Bitcoin,
and they would be streamed to your podcasting
in 2.0 apps and at jblive.fm.
That's it for the boost.
Thank you, everybody who supports the show
with a Jupiter Party membership,
boost, or a Fountain membership.
That's why I'm here.
It's the only thing fueling the show.
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,
despite Executive Order 14233 requiring forfeited Bitcoin to be held in the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Court records showed that 57.5 Bitcoin from the Samurai case was sent to Coinbase Prime and sold on November 3rd, 2025.
This is not the first time that the marshals have diverged from this executive order.
We believe this is actually the second time they have sold Bitcoin since executive order 14233 say that they must hold it.
I don't know what's going on there, but maybe somebody should look into that.
Wouldn't that be good?
Now we have some good news for strategy fans and Bitcoin asset holders.
MSCI, the equity index I told you about, that was considering dropping Strategy and other Bitcoin holders from their investment index lists.
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.
MSCI said it won't count new shares issued by strategy or other digital asset treasury firms,
keeping their index weightings from growing as they issue more shares to buy Bitcoin.
MSCI signaled that the exclusion of strategy and similar firms could still happen.
It's still on the table.
However, the index operator said that it needs more time to determine the right criteria
for keeping companies out that aren't operating companies, but primarily investment-oriented.
Perhaps.
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.
And it's a signal to the market and other indexes.
I mean, it's not even the biggest index out there, but it's an important index.
So it does matter, and its strategy lives to fight for another day.
Well, this next story was maybe not surprising, but it's definitely noticeable.
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.
I mean, honestly, I'm really shocked it's even being said out loud now.
And the guy is working this and refining this message into a clippable soundbite.
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.
No, no.
That's the fault of the Federal Reserve.
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?
Why is he putting this out there?
And why is he refining this into a tighter and tighter message over time?
The Fed began what we call QE or large-scale asset purchases. They went in the market,
started buying long bonds. And the theory of the case there is you create liquidity,
you take safe assets out of the market, long-duration safe assets, and then the people
who receive that money would buy more risky assets. Ben Bernanke famously said when he was
ask what's the purpose of QE? He told everyone, go buy equities. Well, not everyone could buy
equities. So we ended up... By the way, this is the Treasury Secretary telling you that buying
Bitcoin was the safe play. I don't know if you're catching that, but while everybody was thinking
it was so crazy, I mean, this was the natural state of the market. He told everyone, go buy
equities. Well, not everyone could buy equities. So we ended up with this two-tier economy where
either you were an asset holder or you weren't.
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
absolutely not. That is not one of their mandates, but they shouldn't be exacerbating it.
And it's ironic to me because I think Scott would be totally in favor of aggressive quantitative
of easing right now. I think he would be all for that. And, you know, this is sort of a chicken
in the egg. The Federal Reserve is responding to monetary policies of the federal government.
Federal government is enabled by the Federal Reserve. And I think this is just wild to be
said out loud because they're trying to transfer blame, right? What we have here is a regime shift
being done out in the public, openly stated fiscal dominance. The old model, the way it used to be,
was the Fed was first.
Fed legitimacy was the number one thing.
Policy wasn't even their biggest tool.
Rate change isn't their biggest tool.
It was what they said.
It was their reputation.
And anything the Fed said, that was the way it was.
You don't bite the Fed.
The Treasury adapts.
The market price, the policy restraint, whatever the policy might be,
the market prices it in and tries their best to boom.
Now, the new model that the Trump administration is pushing
is just blatant fiscal dominance.
growth first the treasury runs the market markets absorb volatility the fed follows the political
mandate a total flip and it's fiscal dominance without any of the gloss without any of the
treatment without any of the bs it's just out there and if the trump's team is successful and
i suspect they might be because it's the physics of the thing this is what happens next we get
higher inflation tolerance in other words we don't really have to be at two percent we get
higher equity volatility because the market's constantly dealing with different things that
are changing, not the stable hand of the Fed. You get steeper yield curves and weaker long
and bond credibility because who's going to want to buy this crazy company's long-term debt?
And you get stronger hard assets like Bitcoin, gold, and really anything tied to growth,
which right now is AI stocks, right? The Bitcoin and the gold, those are the long-term things.
And then you have the growth stuff like AI right now. That's what pumps. We're already in it. It's
just now it's out there outwardly and it's coming from the top of the administration.
They were just blatantly saying, oh, it's their fault and all of that.
It's a complete undermining of the Fed that would have never even been considered a year
ago.
And it's just, it's really something to watch it unfold in real time and to watch him refine
that message, write the articles and really try to nail this point and say, the reason
you're poor is because the Fed's policy meant the rich got richer and the poor got poorer,
is essentially what he said. The Treasury Secretary, are you understanding this?
Well, I'm pleased to say that quantum FUD seems to have gone from about a 10
to about a 4 over the holidays. Of course, that didn't stop CNBC from poking Sailor about it
when he stopped by. Quantum computing at some point could break the algorithm for
for Bitcoin?
Break the algorithm.
First of all,
algorithm isn't even the right use of the term.
And we've already covered this.
Bitcoin consensus is not vulnerable
to quantum attacks.
It's older wallets would be,
Satoshi era wallets would be
the most vulnerable to quantum attacks.
And I just don't understand.
I mean, they cover this stuff
day in and day out.
Literally every single business day,
they cover this stuff
and they still can't grasp
the most basics. It's got to be because they just read it from a screen. Quantum computing
at some point could break the algorithm for Bitcoin. Are there countermeasures that they
could be put in? You probably understand what I'm asking you. Do you worry about that?
People throw this out.
You look like you slept okay. You look like you slept okay last night.
It's mainly marketing by people that want to sell you the next quantum yo-yo token.
But look, Google and Microsoft aren't going to sell you a quantum computer that cracks modern
cryptography because it would destroy Google and Microsoft and the US government and the banking
system. And at some point, I don't think it's this year, next year, and the next five years,
but sometime 10, 20 years out, if there's a hyper-powerful computer that threatens modern
cryptography, the answer is Bitcoin network hardware upgrades, Bitcoin network software
upgrades, just like Microsoft, Google, the US government upgrade all their messaging and
banking applications. The key for everybody is Bitcoin's a protocol like the English language
and base 10 math. When the quantum computer breaks your calculator and breaks your messaging app,
you're not learning base 16 math and you're not going to switch to a different language.
You're just going to upgrade your software. And Bitcoin's a monetary protocol. We're just
going to upgrade the software, Joe. Wow. Wow. Good job, Joe. Okay. Now, if you will,
allow me to indulge just for a moment while I'm complaining about how bad they are at their job,
I would like to play this clip for you. Okay. Think about what we've just talked about
with the monetary policy, the oil supply increase that's likely going to allow the Fed to
debase money at a higher rate without the people even noticing, right? Like the existential
monetary crises that face us, you can't even count them all on your hands. There's more than
you have fingers. And they over at CNBC, the money network, are completely missing the signal from
the noise. And you'll just, because I have to suffer through 10 times this for you, I would
like to just go through a little bit with you. The hottest crypto trade of the year is not Bitcoin.
It is not Ether. It is XRP. Can you believe this? The coin formerly known as Ripple.
Can you believe this?
More than 20% this year, becoming the third largest cryptocurrency out there.
And there's big money behind this trade.
Yeah, maybe that should be an indication.
Mackenzie Sigalos joins us now with that XRP trade.
And what Mac is driving all of this interest in XRP?
You know, somebody should play that back for me and boost in how many times he said XRP or Ripple.
Because my God, just right there, it seems like a native ad.
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.
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.
Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, where people really move in tandem with the price of the coin.
But it was the fact that it is a way to have a higher percentage jump.
So people were buying the dip with XRP in Q4, thinking this is a less crowded trade than Bitcoin or Ether.
And then that proved out to be true just in the first six trading days of January.
We've also talked a lot about the blockchains and the ecosystems that are being built around many of these systems.
We know kind of what they are with regard to Bitcoin.
We certainly these days know what it is around Ethereum.
What? We kind of know. OK, I've got to go back.
We kind of know what these are around Bitcoin.
We certainly know what they are around Ethereum.
About the blockchains and the ecosystems that are being built around many of these systems.
All right, name a single ecosystem.
Name one.
We know kind of what they are with regard to Bitcoin.
What? Which one? What ecosystem?
What are you talking about?
It's money.
Certainly these days know what it is around Ethereum and Ether.
You do?
You certainly know what they are around Ethereum and Ether,
which, by the way, are the same thing.
What exactly is the big use case or driver?
What's the practicality for XRP?
Well, with XRP and Solana, those are the two very popular altcoins right now where you're seeing a lot more interest.
And with Solana...
Where did Solana come from?
He was asking about XRP.
So he asked you to explain the value of XRP and she starts talking about Solana.
Again, all over the place.
Because, you know, in their minds, ooh, Solana, Solana fast.
A lot of these different forms of tokenization.
So we talk about tokenized dollars all the time in the context of stable coins.
But now we're seeing a lot of people move into tokenizing money market funds.
And Solana has become a blockchain use case for that.
And XRP made its name in terms of cross-border payments.
I love the idea that you need a specific crypto to do cross-border payments, right?
Like the other cryptos, they're not so good for cross-border payments.
You know, the only one of the cryptos is optimized to use the TCP IP network.
A blockchain use case for that.
And XRP made its name in terms of cross-border payments.
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.
They were the first bank to do that.
They're now, just this morning, filing an S1 to launch their own Bitcoin and Solana ETFs because there is an appetite there.
Yeah, that's also kind of ridiculous.
I mean, they're just all over the place.
But let's talk about this.
So Morgan Stanley is filed for a Bitcoin ETF and a Solana ETF.
Now, their filing date is January 6th, Tuesday, and they have two products, the Bitcoin Trust and the Solana Trust.
They both track the spot price and hold the asset directly.
Now, in the case of the Solana, they're also allocating a portion for staking.
However the hell that works, I don't know.
An ETF analyst at Morningstar noted that it's, quote, interesting to see Morgan Stanley move into commoditized market.
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.
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.
U.S. banks, which have mostly only acted as custodians of client investments, are looking to evolve from cautious facilitators to active advisors.
So that's the news there.
This big, and I guess, well, I'll let them explain it, but it's a big deal.
It's, you know, BlackRock, well, yeah, that's an investment firm.
But Morgan Stanley, well, they're a bank.
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.
So we've started to see this comeback of institutional cash just in the first few trading days of the year.
Finally, the surge in spot Bitcoin ETFs, which were net outflows for the last few months of 2025.
And what this really signals is that Morgan Stanley, for one, has been the most progressive.
They put out their...
Okay, maybe so.
I guess it's, you know, now we know it's something to watch and will increase the buy pressure.
And of course, there's only so many Bitcoin made a day.
And I think we're already into 2026 going to be buying more than what's made a day.
So it's going to be interesting to see that develop.
Here we are.
We've arrived at our final clip of the week for the first episode of 2026.
And even though it's the final clip of this week, it actually originally aired in 2023.
But it got shared a lot this week.
And for good reason.
I think it's a good signal to remember that Bitcoin mining can have an impact in a lot of ways.
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.
One thing I can share is that it's a state that's very welcoming to innovators in the energy space.
Cully Kavnis is co-founder of a company called Crusoe Energy Systems.
About five years ago, it decided to tackle the problem of flaring
when gas produced at oil wells is simply burned into the atmosphere.
If you could capture it all, it would power about two-thirds of Europe's electricity.
It's a very large amount of waste.
And we're just burning it off.
We're burning it off because there's no pipeline there.
Kavniss and his colleagues came up with the unconventional idea
of putting a small electricity-generating power plant
right where that gas was being flared and wasted.
What we do is we tap into that gas line.
We bring the gas over to a power generation system,
and then that generates electricity,
and we take that electricity directly into our on-site data center
to power hundreds or thousands of computers,
and then we network the computers to the outside world
with fiber or satellite internet to get it off-site.
So you take a data center and just basically put it on top of the wellhead.
Exactly. It's a modern data center in every way when you're standing inside of it.
and then you step out the door and you're in an oil field.
Crusoe Energy first used those electricity-gobbling data centers to mine Bitcoin.
Now, most of that computer power is being used by artificial intelligence companies.
The first place to let them try this in 2018 was Wyoming.
That's not necessarily an idea that everyone's going to embrace automatically right off the bat
before it's been done before. Wyoming was.
They invited us to come do it for the first time here.
We did it at a small scale.
We proved that it could work.
And that helped us attract the funding and the other projects that have helped us scale to where we are today.
How many of these centers do you have up and running currently?
We're approaching 200 by the end of the year.
We'll have about 200 of our modular data centers deployed throughout the United States and now internationally.
So how do you assess your environmental impact?
So today we're operating at a scale of more than 20 million cubic feet of gas per day
that would have otherwise been flared and wasted.
We're preventing that flaring. It's on the order of several hundred thousand
and cars per year being taken off the road in terms of the avoided emissions impact.
Are you trying to send out a message to the rest of the country and even the rest of the world?
If you have a renewable or a climate-friendly idea, bring it here. Bring it to Wyoming.
Love to. We want to be part of this solution.
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.
All right, I'm wrapping up at block height 931,306.
Bitcoin's USD price right now, one Bitcoin, 90,760 US dollars.
That makes the sats per dollar 1,102 sats to one US greenback.
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
Estimated difficulty change of a downward adjustment of 1.7%.
We have 25,029 Bitcoin nodes reachable on the network right now.
Very nice.
Let's get a few more on there.
Come on, you can do it. You can make a difference.
the Bitcoin network chugs right along.
The state of the network is fantastic.
If you made it this far, links to what I talked about are over at thisweekinbitcoin.show.
Nice back catalog there and a bunch of other JB shows you might want to check out.
Let me know how I did.
And my goal is to give you a show that doesn't get distracted by the emotions,
but focuses on the signal, lets you know how to invest for yourself,
your family, your business, and your community.
So let me know how I did with the boost,
and let me know what your hardware wallet of 2026 recommendation is.
And of course, boost in with anything you feel like I missed from the show this week.
That's always great signal too.
Maybe there's something I should be covering.
I always appreciate that.
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
boost while this track plays, 95% of the sats will go to the artist. And this week, it's Tokyo
Citadel Remix by Real Richard. See you next week. We are getting reports that man like Quakes has
left Tanzania. Authorities believe he is starting a citadel on a different continent. He is still
at large for owning his private keys.
Konichiwa, white flag red dot GTI
DCA to BTC, stack and status manager
Konichiwa, white flag red dot GTI
DCA to BTC, stack and status manager
TikTok, next block, this is a major epoch
My C phrase, I keep locked, don't worry about what we got
TikTok, next block, TikTok, next block
TikTok, next block, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok
TikTok next next This is a major EPOP
up next block this is a major epop tick tick tock next block don't worry about what we
Oh, wonderful
.
The whereabouts of manlike quakes is still unknown.
Authorities are still unsure of his motives
for promoting banned words such as self-custody and sovereignty.