Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, Episode 17. My name is Chris.
There's a lot to get into this week, and I feel like the best thing to do would
be to knock out some of the short-term stuff right off the top.
Let's just get it out of the way.
To give you a snapshot of where we're at in Bitcoin's timeline,
I'm recording this at block height 850,579.
We're around 1,673 sats to one U.S. greenback.
We're about 5.03% through the current epoch.
And the reason why all that matters is because around this same time,
we've also entered into Q3 2024.
That doesn't really matter to Bitcoin, but it sure matters to the world around
Bitcoin and those who interact with the Bitcoin network.
This week, U.S. debt hit a new milestone. The rally of debt increases resumed
after taking a little pause, probably for the election.
The U.S. government debt jumped by $109 billion in one day this week.
That's the biggest one-day increase since October of 2023.
We're now sitting at a record $34.831 trillion.
$34.8 trillion.
And that's pretty scary because even to just kind of keep moving with that sort
of debt, you need a really healthy economy.
And some of the really rather important economic indicators that we go by are starting to drop.
Viewer people are buying homes in the u.s that's
according to the latest report from the commerce department sales of
new single-family homes dropped unexpectedly by 11.3 percent in may that's a
six-month low the national association of realtors says home contract signings
have also hit a record low oh oh i mean what are you gonna expect right rates
what they're at inventory is what they're at.
Younger generation that can't afford current house prices. An older generation
that's held these houses for a long time and expects great returns now and needs
those great returns. It's a pretty crappy situation.
And it's happening right as the macro picture for the second half of the year
is really just starting to form.
There's some bullish signals, some bearish signals out there.
And Fed chair Jerome Powell, or J-Pow, as I call him, was at an event this week.
He was at an event and one of CNBC's hosts was there asking questions.
You know, we just know fiscal policy is a job for elected people.
We're not elected people, so we don't comment on it, and particularly in advance
of a presidential election, we're not commenting on anyone's particular policies one way or the other.
He was asked, what do you think about if a President Trump was elected,
if President Trump is elected, looking at his economic policies,
they look fairly inflationary. Are you concerned about a party sweep coming
in and that party spending a bunch of money?
Well, you just heard his answer. Oh, we're not going to comment.
We're not going to comment on that.
But then he continued kind of generically and for a central banker.
He kind of talked tough. I mean, this is what they consider talking tough.
But you don't generally hear the central bankers talk about this kind of stuff
until it's almost an emergency. I'll let him explain.
I will say more broadly, though, the United States is running a very large deficit
at a time when we're at full employment.
And it just is the level of debt that we have is not unsustainable.
The path that we're on is unsustainable. That's completely non-controversial.
I would have thought that this is something that should be a top-level issue.
And you do hear this from a lot of elected officials, but it should be a real
focus going forward is how do we get back to a sustainable path because you
can't run these kinds of deficits in really good economic times for very long.
I mean, I wouldn't say I can't really speak to the time, but in the longer run,
we'll have to do something sooner or later, and sooner will be better than later.
Yeah, you can't just do this wartime spending, this emergency spending during
non-wartime emergencies, is what he's saying. Maybe it is an emergency.
But you heard him in there talk about inflation and how he's surprised it's
not one of the top issues of the election.
I also am amazed that these politicians have managed to make the conversation
more about these two old men than they have about the issues facing the people.
And inflation affects everyone. one. So you think it'd be the number one topic
for both campaigns and what they're going to do about the deficit and what's causing inflation.
Instead, it's not even brought up. We hear more about their golf than we do
about their inflation policies.
But speaking of inflation, Jay Powell and Christine Lagarde,
who is the president of the ECB, that's the central bank of the euro,
was asked about where they think inflation will be in a year from now.
So I thought, let's get them on the record for our own reference.
Maybe if any of you are listening back to this in a year, you can hear this
clip and see if they got it right.
Those who famously called it transitory are now predicting where inflation will
be in one year. Do you think what they're going to say is a shocker?
No. In fact, central bankers try never to shock anyone ever.
If we're sitting here on stage in one year from now, which we hopefully are,
the inflation rate in the U.S. will be, you know, mid to low twos.
That's kind of where mid Mid twos now.
Yeah. Well, we have one month at 2.6.
Mid to low twos. What do you think? So Jay Powell takes a, you know,
he has got a little victory.
You know, everybody was telling us to cut and we weren't ready to cut and we didn't cut.
And then inflation spiked back up for a bit. We were right. He took a little victory lap in this.
Maybe they're right. Maybe they got lucky. Do you think inflation is going to be around 2% in a year?
And if it's a 2%, why is it there? Mid twos now.
Yeah. Well, we have one month at 2.6. And, you know, we had a brief visit to
the low twos at the end of, I mean, sustainably, durably underlying inflation
between two and two and a half is what I would say.
That would be a great outcome. Headline PCE. Yeah.
President Lagarde, one year from now? One year from now, I would say low twos.
We are at 2.5, latest reading, and as I said, bumpy on the way ahead.
But yeah, low twos. All right, low twos, you heard.
Both in the U.S. and in the Eurozone, low twos.
We'll see. But back to Bitcoin. The U.S. and the German government continue
to sell off Bitcoin this week.
It's ironic that they're trading a hard, scarce asset for something that gets
printed, for fiat that gets printed.
A lot of the selling is coming from the German Federal Criminal Office,
or Criminal Police Office, I think is actually the name.
I believe they go by the BKA over there. And they have tens of thousands of
Bitcoin that they've seized.
The German government has recently moved millions of dollars in seized Bitcoin
to major exchanges signaling an intent to sell.
Well, blockchain analysis firm Akram reported these transactions originated
from a wallet linked to the German Federal Criminal Police Office,
which is also called the BKA.
BKA seized nearly 50,000 Bitcoin in 2013 from a firm piracy website.
According to reports, over $425 million has been moved in the past week.
Although the German government still retains the majority of the seized Bitcoin,
these transfers suggest a potential liquidation of some assets. Yeah, 50,000 Bitcoin.
They're moving them, you know, in 1500 chunks to various crypto exchanges like
Bitstamp, Coinbase and Kraken.
Of course, these actions are similar to moves that were made by the U.S.
Because they're selling off Mt. Gox approximately.
They're going to not sell off, but transfer back 950,000 Bitcoin or something
like that. It's a horrible amount.
30 of those or so are mine. And then, you know, some of those people will hodl,
some of those people will sell. We don't know.
Also in the news, and shout out to NoBSBitcoin for finding this one,
Coinbase has officially partnered with the U.S. Marshal Service as part of the
U.S. Department of Justice's division that is responsible for managing seized and forfeited assets.
The agreement seems to revolve around safeguarding and trading so-called Class
1 large-cap digital assets. So the SEC is suing Coinbase and the U.S.
Marshal Service is using Coinbase. It's pretty funny.
Music.
For better, for worse, new rules, everyone. Yay, from the IRS.
The Treasury and the IRS have issued what they call final regulations that require
brokers to report the sales and exchange of digital assets.
So this has been in the works for a bit. The IRS seems to be kind of leaving
non-custodial solutions alone. So that's the good news.
They're leaving non-custodial solutions alone. They're going to have other guidance
at some point for that and DeFi.
But in here, they seem to kind of indicate to that even forcing the developers
of non-custodial wallet solutions to do this reporting would be a violation
of the developer's First Amendment rights.
So that's a good sign. These rules, and I'm going to get into some of these
details, are going to go into effect in 2025.
So that's your timeline here. and I'm going to play some audio from a tax attorney
and a CPA. His name is Andrew Gordon.
He's got a firm and he kind of goes, he'll go over some of the details with us.
So for the last decade or so, or since the dawn of cryptocurrency,
the burden has been on the investors or the taxpayers to report all of their
activity on their taxes.
And so what has happened over time is there's a massive tax gap or the difference
between what people actually need to report and pay and what the IRS is collecting.
And that's in part because it's been a disaster to report your crypto taxes.
If you're a crypto investor, you need to get data from a variety of different sources.
You need to piece it together and report your gains or losses.
And that's something that's very unique to crypto versus something like the stock market.
And what this legislation had done and now these new broker regulations puts
into effect is that the brokers or the crypto exchanges now are required to
report to both the taxpayers or the investors and the IRS the individual's cost
basis or what they purchased it for,
as well as the sales price and the gain and loss that accompanies it.
Right. So this is for crypto traders that are buying and selling.
They're buying, holding for a bit, selling at a profit or at a loss.
And there's going to be a new form. It's like a 1099 type form that they're
going to produce for you and for the IRS. They're going to send it to both of you.
What that means, and something Andrew points out, is the IRS is about to get
just a fire hose of trade information.
So as I mentioned, there's been this massive tax gap, right?
Billions of dollars, maybe even more, that the IRS should have been collecting from crypto investors.
But because they haven't had this information, they haven't been able to effectively do so.
So I would expect that there will be a massive increase in audits,
a massive increase in criminal investigations based on this information,
and more attempts to decrease this tax gap and collect more money from crypto investors.
Yeah, well, that's part of the IRS's mandate is to get more money in there.
And so you probably always should be assuming...
That any crypto at all, but including Bitcoin, that you buy from a KYC account,
so one that's made you go through identification, they're going to be tracking
how much and when you bought.
Now, you should also be assuming that they're going to be sending that to the
IRS automatically. I would assume some of them like Coinbase already do.
And they're probably going to start doing this sooner than later.
They don't have to do like the profit and loss stuff, I don't think, until 2025.
The actual trades, I think they're probably going to just start doing almost immediately.
This is where I think KYC can be really risky because something that wasn't
happening a couple of years ago when you bought KYC Bitcoin,
and it really screws long timers because long timers were taking a massive bet on this.
OG Bitcoiners that had to use KYC solutions were taking this super long bet
on this thing that the government kept telling us was worth nothing and that
all of the experts were telling us was worth nothing and that a lot of people
were telling us is only for drug dealers or Or for whatever.
And then all of a sudden, the banks get interested, the ETFs get launched,
and now we're starting to get regulatory clarity.
And now everybody wants in your pocket. Well, Bitcoiners weren't necessarily
planning for that 14 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, when they bought
this incredibly risky asset at the time.
So I think it's time to get your house in order if you have bought Bitcoin with KYC.
Now, you really need to be more concerned if you've been selling Bitcoin on KYC platforms.
Now is the time to get into compliance. Talk to a tax professional and get your records in order.
Assess filing an amended return.
Or even if not doing that, have your cost basis information ready so that as
you file future years and as the IRS gets all this information,
that you can report fully and consistently.
This is one of the areas where I think HODLing by default makes a lot of sense
because then there's not a sale there or using things like Strike,
acquiring the Bitcoin and shooting the Bitcoin around as payments.
Like I think, too, there's going to be something about like a it's going to
be probably something in here that talks about eventually about like six hundred
dollars and below or not really.
It's something we need to be tracked and all this kind of stuff.
So there's going to be more also regulatory clarity, as they put it, for self-hosted stuff.
But it's still something I think everybody should be aware of in the space simply
because the IRS is going to have easier access to KYC platforms information soon.
Again, if you don't sell, it's not really a big issue there.
Or if you're buying and sending it away and it's an immediate transaction,
I think that's a different kind of tax impact as well.
But if you're holding it for a period of time and then selling it at a profit
or at a loss, this probably applies to you.
So I'll try to put some links in the notes but you know this isn't probably
the best place to get tax advice there's probably more experts in fact,
I'm always looking for a CPA who is Bitcoin savvy I think we should have a little
community list of them because the difference this day and age between a CPA
that understands this stuff,
or a tax attorney that understands this stuff and a CPA or a tax attorney that
doesn't is going to be huge soon so if you know any boost them in.
The SEC, speaking of enforcement, is going after ConsenSys. This is interesting.
The SEC has charged ConsenSys software with engaging an unregistered offer and
sale of securities through MetaMask staking.
And they've also charged them separately as operating as an unregistered broker.
The US SEC sued ConsenSys on Friday over its MetaMask service,
alleging that MetaMask acted as an unregistered securities broker and that its
staking service violated securities laws.
The suit also targeted Ethereum staking service Lido and Rocketpool,
the third-party platforms MetaMask uses to power its staking feature.
Consensus previously sued the SEC seeking a court order declaring Ether to not
be a security and to end the SEC's investigation into the firm.
You got to wonder what this will do, you know, impact-wise on staking long term.
Does it, I mean, this just seems like we're going after Lido,
you know, the new ETFs, they all restrict and forbid staking.
The ones that they're filing for the ETH ETFs.
Staking and that kind of stuff seems to be the issue. And you know what?
There is a lot of management there, isn't there?
You know, Lido, you could argue, ConsenSys, they're doing central management of this stuff.
So it'll be very fascinating to see where this goes. Before we go any further,
though, I have a question for you.
Have you ever alt-coined? I know Bitcoiners don't like talking about this,
but do you even currently alt-coin? Would you consider doing it again?
Do you hold some altcoins like Ethereum or Salooner or I don't know?
I would really like to get a temperature from the This Week in Bitcoin audience on this.
You know, like how maxi is the audience?
That may reflect how maxi the show should be, I suppose. Yeah.
Music.
All right, well, coming up on this show, we got your boosts,
some mining updates that are pretty great, some hot goss that is pretty funny,
and some great project updates.
So I want to take a moment and thank Podhome.fm, the sponsor of This Week in
Bitcoin, and my podcasting 2.0 hosting platform of choice with unlimited shows
and episodes with unlimited Podhome AI.
Use the promo code TWIB. That's my promo code TWIB.
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Also shout out to thebitcoincompany.com. If you've got some sats in Lightning
that you'd like to spend, And you can go from lightning to gift card in just seconds.
And get some sats back. Use the promo code JUPITER over there at the Bitcoin company.
Ask not what your podcast can boost for you, but what you can boost for your podcast.
Oh, we have some great boosts. And Gross Philosophy comes in with a baller boost
right off the top 100,000 sats. Hey, Rich Lobster!
Thank you, sir. Wow, that's going to make it a banger episode right there.
I really appreciate that.
Regarding your statements about Yahoo, you're right. They are idiots over there,
although that shouldn't surprise you.
By the way, my point was part of the problem with financial literacy is that
the actual financial media coverage is so bad. And I played a clip last week.
That's what he's responding to.
Also, it's not just the media and the bureaucrats. Colleges have been teaching
2% inflation and MMT in economic classes for decades.
FYI, I listen to all your shows, Chris, but this one is the best one. Oh, boom.
Here, now this is spot on. Well, thank you. He says, check out the documentary
Finding the Money. I think that is on my top documentary list right now.
Finding the Money. I will add a plus one to that. Thank you very much,
Gross. I really appreciate that. That's fantastic support.
Nunji also comes in with some fantastic support.
90,000 sats. I hoard that which your kind covet. He says, oh,
no, we can't have a show this good only get 40,000 sats.
I hope I'm not the lobster. You're very close. You know what?
I feel like you get partial lobster status. I'd like to express my thanks for
the review of software stacks for acquitting, for acquiring probably,
Bitcoin and welcome future discussion on hardware wallets.
Very good. And also, I think, along with that, I'm definitely looking to collect
feedback right now, Fetament and eCash and Cashew, along with Liquid,
you know, but Liquid, I think, is a good solution today.
Day and I'm kind of looking forward to see what we might be able to use to consolidate
UTXOs in a safe way before we transfer to cold storage.
They go on to say, I have allowed my electric company to adjust my thermostat
for a few years now. We got. OK, great. Thank you.
It's no big deal. We hardly notice it. We can override it any time. Ah.
Oh, well, that seems the key thing. But if we don't, we get discounts on the
bill. I don't really see the problem.
Thank you, Nunji. It's or Nunj. Nunj. I really appreciate that perspective.
Like initially, I had a very visceral, like gross. I would never let them touch my thermostat.
At but i don't know if i had the context i'd let you adjust it
i think i would bet we have more hell
knows out there but how much money are
we talking you know i mean can you stack a few more stats with the savings like
what are we what are we talking about here let's let's talk business i also
i wish i wish and maybe yours isn't i wish it didn't have to be the nest you
know because then there's that whole google tie-in it has a lot of sensors i
think i'd prefer it be something Something less tied to Google.
I'm curious how you feel about that. Bitcoin Lizard comes in with 50,000 sats. Pew, pew, pew.
Hell yeah. I appreciate the time and effort you put into this production.
I don't always boost, but my sat streaming is always enabled.
Right on. Thank you very much for that.
Everything's under control. We really appreciate that.
When I say we, I mean me and that soundboard guy.
Thank you, Bitcoin Lizard.
Lazy Locks comes in with 20,000 sats. Coming in hot with the booms.
Thanks for bringing us the Bitcoin news. Lazy Locks, thanks for bringing the.
Value. Really appreciate that. Hmm.
Jim Mahole? B-O-O-S-T. Ju-hu-imile.
No, it's probably not. Imile. How about that? 20,000 sats. No message.
But I want to shout out. We got a few nice boosts, but no message.
Thank you, everybody, this week. I really appreciate that.
Golf Winch comes in with 6,777 sats. Fun will now commence.
Love the podcast. Please donate or boost whatever you can to help this benevolent
gentleman. Ah, thank you for the visibility.
Yes, when you boost in, it helps us on the fountain charts, and we did really great this week.
I think this last episode, I think, got to number one on the fountain charts
because of your support, which means a lot more people found us,
including some folks out in the industry I really respect, I believe,
found the show this week.
So it's really kind of awesome. Some people that I follow for their analysis
and their takes are now listening to the show to hear my analysis and my take.
And I think they found the show because of your support in the boost getting this up on the charts.
I mean, it's just so awesome. So great.
Ready One, take four, comes in with 10,000 sats.
That's not possible. Nothing can do that. It's right there. It's right there.
And he just writes, boost.
Thank you, Ready One, take four.
Appreciate it. Chao Wing Wang comes in with Herodux.
2,222 sats. Just saying thanks. Cheers.
Mr. Pibb comes in with a Jar Jar Boost, 5,000 sats. You're so boost.
Thanks, Chris. Keep them coming.
Thank you, Mr. Pibb. Thank you for that value. Really appreciate it.
Oppie1984 comes in with 4,000 sats. Coming in hot with the boost.
The issue with the, quote, oh, I was asking about the range of mesh networks.
He says, the issue with what is the range, it depends on several factors.
Judging range of devices, you have terrain, obstructions, and of course the
decibels of the antenna, the height of the antenna, etc.
From what I've seen, roof-mounted antenna on average on a two-story home can
get somewhere between three to five miles in a relatively level urban environment.
Oh, it's anything but level.
And lots of trees, too. This area of the Pacific Northwest has hills and trees everywhere.
But other nodes can relay messages at higher-placed nodes.
Ah, they get much better range. A stream reports of getting around 100 miles
using mountaintop nodes. So anything is possible. Google is your friend on this.
Now, we might have some mountaintop nodes. That could be a thing. Or some hilltop nodes.
All right. I am very excited about this idea of creating some sort of backup
communications network between, like, home, the studio, and where my kids are.
Which is kind of like this, I don't know, 40-mile, 35, 45-mile,
I don't know what it is, stretch of I-5 kind of corridor. corridor in the slightly
east or west of that corridor, that would be, that'd be really great.
You know, it's just something like we're prone to earthquakes and volcanoes.
I know. I know. It sounds, sounds like a great place to live.
Podhome, our show sponsor comes in with 11,000 sats. The traders love the vol.
Validation boost. Ah ha ha.
Thank you, Barry. Appreciate that.
Gene Bean comes in with a whole bunch of ducks.
It's across four different booths. He says, as always, I appreciate the info and the coverage.
If you want off-grid communications options, you really need to think about
becoming a ham operator.
I know. I know. I don't want to get licensed, man. I don't want to have to be
tested, man. I don't want the man telling me, man.
Is that stupid or what? But it's true. That's partially it.
It like if i could just pick it up and start playing with it for a year and then go take a test,
and like validate that i can make it work and that i like it that it's worth
it and that my family will use it then i'd be like heck yeah i'll go get my
ham license but i don't even know if that's all going to be the case if i got
my ham license he links me to a honeywell he might like uh thank you very much
i'll put a link to that in the notes too it's an affiliate link for uh gene bean but,
he's a great supporter of the show kick a little value back i'll put his he's
got a honeywell and And I won't read the model number, but I will link to this
in the show notes that he recommends because he owns.
And he thinks, given the show length, how much in streaming stats would you
feel is providing sustainable sponsorship to keep the show going?
He says, unlike last week, I don't always have something to say,
but I listen and get great value. You know, this week we had several folks boost in with no message.
I don't always call those out just for time, but still really appreciate it.
It's still nice to see you.
It's hard to say on the streaming stats. I feel like it's such a personal judgment thing.
Hmm. I wonder. I'd be curious to know what people think about that.
What is the standard streaming SAT amount?
That's a great question. BTC Realist comes in with 5,000 SATs. You're supposed.
Jeff in California pointed me here. Ask him about his ASIC. What?
Listener Jeff has an ASIC? What?
Nice work. I think that must be the Jeff he's talking about.
There's clearly only one Jeff in California.
Green everett comes in with 3,333 sats
hey look at that let's give it a make it so make it so i just did a major price
shakeout we haven't seen a real cycle dip yet we usually get a 30 dip or three
on the way to a new cycle high too early to make this call what call did i make what call did i make,
I think, you know, every time I kind of glance towards like,
hey, these are some things that are impacting the Bitcoin price right now.
I generally never call out what price I think we're going to be at because how the hell would I know?
What I usually say is it looks like whatever is going on, we're either just
beginning, we're midway through, or we're almost through.
It's hard to say how far we're through on the German government selling thousands
and tens of thousands of coins and the Mt.
Gox trickle feeding everybody until October.
It's really hard to say how long that's going to go. So it just puts downward pressure on the price.
If you think about it, it's for every seller, there's a buyer.
So we need to just maintain a certain price pressure.
And other buying could come in that does that. We won't know.
I think if a Fed rate cut in September becomes more and more likely,
you'll probably start seeing the price pre-pump regardless of these sell-offs.
But this kind of stuff are these are overhangs
these this stuff needed to be cleared out it was always going
to be cleared out and doesn't change any of the fundamentals about
bitcoin it's just simply excess supply on the market right now and that's just
how a free market works we want it to work this way this is a good thing right
and you could look at it as there's more sats available for you right now because
if there's going to be a point where we'll dream of the day it was under $100,000.
So I don't look at this stuff in a one-week time slice very often.
What I look at is the things that are either breaking, accumulating,
or changing within the week that are kind of bending the future direction of Bitcoin.
And you can sometimes get some price, I think, estimates based on what that
might be, but not always.
So I generally don't, never really make price calls because how the hell would I know?
If I had it my way, it'd be $5,000, be $100, you know?
I found pictures this week where I was mining in 2011 where the block reward was 50 at a time.
So sometimes I wish I had a time machine. Oh, more ducks!
Hey, Sockerman's back again with Value for Value episode 15 boost.
Thank you, sir. Appreciate that.
Listener Jeff comes in with a Spaceballs boost, $12,345. So the culmination is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
See, now, Jeff, he's on the other side of this thermostat issue.
He says, I would never let the utility control anything in my home.
They don't know what temp my thermostat needs to be set actually to cool my
home so I can comfortably sleep.
Power sovereignty is something we should be all deeply considering as well.
It is not easy, but the utility grid should be our backup.
I'll say that part again. He says, the utility grid should be our backup.
Your Venstar reset. Yeah. Yeah, my Venstar, which is my kind of like nest alternative.
It's a Venstar thermostat that reset on me.
Oh, here's, he says, yes, I got my hands on a miner. Thanks for another listener
and a local friend. I'll report back when I get it running. All right.
There we go. We closed the loop on that one right there. So listener,
that was, he was talking about listener Jeff, and we will hear more about his miner.
So Jeff's point about power sovereignty is an interesting one,
and it's one that made me realize I actually am an EV customer.
I'm just not an EV customer right now. None of the current EVs really appeal
to me. I want a really basic model.
Like if they had an EV out there that had roll-up windows and just like a crank
fan knob like you used to have back in the 90s or the 80s with a really crappy
stereo and an aux in and an analog dash, I would buy that EV.
I don't want all the creepy tracking stuff and I don't want all the tech touch
button stuff that's going to fail one day or no longer get updates.
I just want something that I can charge myself because I have got solar on my
rig and at certain points of the day, I've got excess energy and I could just
dump that into a car battery for free.
And nobody could ever take that away from me, but they could disable my debit
card and I wouldn't be able to buy fuel.
So if I ever had to escape Washington, you know, you think I'm joking,
but like, what if, like, what if lockdowns came back? and you decided you didn't
want to stay in the state that was going to go really extreme.
Something like that could happen. Bird flu goes crazy.
Lockdowns get issued. I decide I'm taking the family to Idaho.
I'm going to load up the RV, pull up the jacks, bring in the slides. We're driving to Idaho.
Except for I can't because my debit card no longer works because I'm using it
at a fuel station and I'm not supposed to be out on the road right now.
That sounds like a crazy sci-fi horrible future.
And it also sounds like a story I could tell you that's happening in China right now.
So it's not that far-fetched, especially in a CBDC future. So power sovereignty,
I think, is actually a big topic.
I just, I don't know if it fits within the context of this show,
but it's one I strongly agree with.
Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate that boost.
Dexor comes in with 4,567 sats. Heck yeah.
Everything's under control. And also, why not a... This is the way. Why not?
He says, I agree with the other booster. This is definitely a top-tier podcast, if a bit too short.
Oh, wow. Wow, if anything, I've been thinking it's been going too long recently.
Maybe that means it's just right. I appreciate the boost.
Adversary 17's back, 16,348 sats. There's coffee in that nebula.
Thank you, 17, says another great episode. I wanted to pull a couple of the below 2,000.
I appreciate all the boosts, so you are welcome to boost whatever amount you want.
I do a 2,000-sat cutoff mostly just for time's sake, right? But I wanted to
pull a couple forward this week because I do read them all.
Southern Fried Sassafras comes in and wanted to boost for Signal and says,
if I have any thoughts on the Chevron deference decision impact on the crypto
business and Bitcoin specifically.
I have just a very rough early take. And so I would really appreciate anyone else's opinion.
But to me, it seems like a net positive here. A lot of this was regulatory.
I don't want to overreach feels like the cliche term, but, you know,
an interpretation in their most empowering way, I suppose,
and they're able to use that to essentially wield regulation through enforcement,
feels like that role is really going to slow now.
Could be wrong there, because the reality is, in most cases,
the judges are still going to just decide to go with whatever the regulatory
agency believes the interpretation is.
It's not like that's going to completely stop. There's still precedent to do that.
It means the judge has more leeway now.
And they have more options now when interpreting a decision,
but it doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to change what they ultimately
do, which is side with their other government buddies.
I know, three branches and all that. But I think it is a net positive,
but maybe not as big of a positive development as a Bitcoin social might have you believe.
And then also, I wanted to just give a shout out to Abel James. This is so awesome.
If the name Abel James rings a bell, Well, that was a value for value song that
we featured on the show last week or the week before, I believe.
And it's live while I'm alive. And it's now number one on the charts after getting
it kicked off here on this week in Bitcoin.
So thank you, everybody, who also boosts during the music playback.
You're making not only a difference for the show's discovery, but you also put a new.
Well, I don't know if they're new, but you put a value for value music artist,
the number one on the number one track on Fountain for the week as well.
Pretty damn good week. And why is it? Because we had 28 boosters across 33 boosts
in total, and we stacked 383,520 sats.
Music.
Thank you, everybody. Really appreciate that. It's a lot of ducks.
If you'd like to boost, you can get a new podcast app. There's a lot of great apps.
Fountain FM is crushing it. Cast-O-Matic is like the Cadillac on iOS.
And Podverse is the GPL app that's cross-platform, including the web.
You can also boost from the Fountain FM website if you just find This Week in Bitcoin on there.
Thank you, everybody who does that. Really appreciate it. That was a great turnout.
Some great conversations. conversations, I feel like I get some of the most
thought-provoking boosts here, too.
Makes me think about stuff that I have to roll in my head for like the rest
of the week in a good way, not complaining at all.
Music.
Thank you. Appreciate it. Helps the show a lot.
And I'd love to hear from you next week, too.
All right, I have some quick mining updates for you.
Australia-based Bitcoin miner Iris Energy announced a $413 million raise through
stock offerings since mid-May. They're expanding, expanding, expanding.
They are a Bitcoin and energy technology firm now.
And then CleanSpark, which we've talked about, I believe, once on the show,
has acquired Grid. We've mentioned this before.
But the company announced it has achieved a hash rate of 20.4 exahash post-merger, I believe.
That's amazing now, combining all of their exahash together.
So I think if they're already making that claim, I take that as things are moving right along.
And then Riot. Riot had a banger of a month in June.
They deployed more hash in one month than I think any miner in history.
And they released a celebratory video.
It's, you know, it is what it is, but I want to play it for you.
Hi, my name is Jason Less. and today I'm extremely proud to report that not
only has Riot successfully hit its second quarter growth target of 21.4 exahash,
but we've exceeded it now with 22 exahash online and operational.
Riot deployed an astounding 7.3 exahash during the month of June.
That's an approximately 50% increase in deployed hash rate in a single month.
This is more hash rate than has ever been deployed by a publicly traded miner in a single month.
Even more impressive, most of this hash rate was deployed in just the last few days.
All 7.3x hash deployed is now online and operational.
What this means is that in the past few months, we've deployed 10x a hash of
latest generation miners and almost doubled our deployed hash rate so far this year.
Music.
This new hashrate was deployed at locations across our two facilities,
specifically the completion of Building A1 at our Corsicana facility,
the near completion of Building A2 at our Corsicana facility,
the deployment of miners in new capacity at our Rockdale facility,
and the redeployment of new miners also at our Rockdale facilities.
We are incredibly proud of what we've accomplished this month.
Reaching this monumental milestone for Riot is only possible thanks to the incredibly
hardworking teams we have working around the clock to get Hashrate energized and online.
Riot has the most experienced team in the industry when it comes to developing
and deploying industrial scale Bitcoin mining facilities.
Facilities i'm immensely grateful for their dedication and
hard work and i know you are as well you know i find it
kind of funny like um they are in this weird position of
very much being in an exahash race and
wanting to brag about it while also not drawing too much attention to how much
power they're using but their facilities are gorgeous riots video oh man oh
if i can find a link to the video online i will post for you because just the
facilities they look like they're They're data centers from the future.
And I'm sure they're showing us their best stuff. But, oh, boy, they look so good.
It's really cool to see that in a Bitcoin data center, you know?
It just looks sharp. You know, people there doing work in a clean environment, good jobs.
You'll love to see it. I got some hot goss for you.
This is kind of silly, but everybody's talking about who a new mysterious buyer might be.
And Mikey Saylor is no longer the big Mike in the Bitcoin community.
We all have a new Mike that we're much more excited about.
Michael Dell put out a tweet. He put out a poll.
Did you hear about this? And in this poll, he asked, what is the most important
thing to you in your life?
Is it Bitcoin? Is it AI?
Is it love and relationships or none of the above? uh 43 said
bitcoin 39 said love and
relationships but i mean clearly a lot of bitcoin
aficionados like michael saylor dropped in and probably
punched that up but you've got michael dell as a multi-billionaire and
then you've got people who are just regular folks yeah michael dell's been on
twitter tweet tweeting posting uh about bitcoin for a few weeks now trying to
stir everybody up and uh he did a poll and everybody said bitcoin was the most
important thing over love and happiness or something like that.
I'm sure it's people just, you know, engagement farming with him.
Sony also seems to be getting ready to launch a Bitcoin and quote crypto exchange
in Japan. Yeah, Sony, that Sony.
They bought a exchange called Amber. And I guess maybe they're tweaking the name.
They're going to have an app and Sony is going to have an exchange that they're going to run.
That's one of the other things that people are gossiping about in the Bitcoin community right now.
Whatever. I think it's going to be Japan only, so I probably won't have much
more information on it for you. Oh, there it is. There's the Rust.
Project updates for you. And the first one is a Rust app.
I think it's pronounced Lampo, L-A-M-P-O, and it is a high-performance Bolt
12-supporting lightning node.
Yes, a new lightning node written in Rust. I know what you're thinking.
Why another Lightning node? Well, they address that in their documentation.
They say, quote, while there are already well-known Lightning implementations
like CoreLightning, LND, and Eclair, none are open-source implementations of the node using LDK.
That is the super-fast Rust implementation.
They go on to say, moreover, there currently exists no true Bitcoin Core equivalent
in the Lightning domain.
That is because all existing implementations are company-driven.
Often shaped by specific business requirements. So I'll give that a little bit of a ding.
So this is new, but it has a plug-in system, kind of like some of the others
do, but it looks like a pretty well-designed one.
It is extremely performant. It has a lot of nice features. I'll link to it in
the notes if you're curious.
It's early, but I wanted to just bring it to your attention. Lampo, L-A-M-P-O.
Probably saying it wrong. Have you ever heard anybody say it out loud?
Because I haven't, so I don't know how you say it. But it looks like it could
be a killer, lightweight, fast, run-on-your-own-node Lightning implementation.
You know, like it could see L&D works great for service providers,
liquidity providers, etc.
There's several options. But I could see something like Lambo working really
well for those of us that want something lean, mean with Bolt 12 support.
We're going to talk more about Bolt 12 in a moment. But I also wanted to bring
Harbor to your attention.
Harbor is something on the other side of Lightning. It's an e-cash management
tool by the folks that make the Mutiny Wallet for the desktop,
though. Harbor is an e-cash desktop wallet.
They write, you can use this tool to interact with e-cash mints,
moving money in and out using existing Bitcoin wallets.
As you use mints, you may be able to increase the privacy of your money.
Harbor also aims to demystify e-cash mints for users and make them easier to use.
So it's Harbor e-cash management tool.
It is not yet released as a binary because it is early days.
But if you would like to play with it, maybe help them test,
there are build instructions on their GitHub.
And of course, one day, no doubt, they will have binaries available for your
operating system of choice.
All right, so Bolt 12. Bolt 12 is a upgrade, I guess, proposal to the Lightning
Network that is starting to see more and more adoption, specifically this week.
The new website, bolt12.org, got a lot of promotion this week.
It's beautiful, explains very simply what Bolt 12 is, but I'll give it a shot.
I think that for users for users, things like reusable payments,
you can generate one QR code, a business code or a tip jar, or on your website
and users can use that QR code over and over again because they have reusable payments. That's.
Better privacy for end users in here with Bolt 12's route blinding.
You can accept payments discreetly, securely. You don't have to reveal the sender's identity.
And then there's another feature because you know how I always tell you,
if you are going to DCA on a KYC platform, you got to use one that has lightning support.
That gives you optionality and some privacy.
Well, Bolt 12 has an auto-withdrawal type feature, which is really slick, right?
When you combine reusable addresses on lightning and auto-withdrawal,
You could go to a platform like, say, Swan or River or Strike and say,
when my balance gets to XYZ number, whatever, automatically withdraw it.
And that's built in and really nice. But on the other side, you need application support.
So Bolt 12 adds these things. There's some controversy to everything,
but this is how end users are going to perceive it.
Then you need the application. So things like Zeus version 0.9 are going to have Bolt 12 support.
And they'll be taking advantage of another feature in Bolt 12.
They write, we'll be providing Bolt 12 lightning addresses in-app for free,
courtesy of our friends at 12.cash.
And 12.cash is another one of these sites slash services that's working with Bolt 12.
And they let you choose a username. And then you have a username at 12.cash.
And when people send money to that username, it goes to an actual Bitcoin payment address.
So you're going to be able to have friendly names for lightning addresses now.
Yeah. And Phoenix Wallet also has a new major release coming out.
They're supporting the non-expiring payment requests. They're supporting the
contact list stuff and attaching messages to payments, which is a big deal.
You can see how Boost could benefit from that too.
So Bolt 12, it's kind of a big deal for Lightning.
It's being positioned as like the next big upgrade for end users.
And you can see why there's a lot of stuff in here that's appealing to end users.
And this new site, bolt12.org, real easy to read. So they're doing a fantastic job.
I don't have a strong opinion on Bolt 12.
Because I've kind of cooled a little bit on Lightning. I still find Lightning
to be very useful, but more as a backend infrastructure.
This could help with some of that, though. So, you know, I suppose things can change.
All right, I wanted to do a little follow-up, because I just said something
off the top of my head last week, and I wanted to actually come back and have the data this week.
I don't mean to do it, but sometimes, you know, I get talking.
So I said something about the amount of Bitcoin required to buy a house last
week. I don't know if you recall.
And I went and found out what the median house prices in Bitcoin are over the
years and got the numbers for you.
So in 2012, the median US house cost 50,616 Bitcoin, 50,000.6 Bitcoin.
In 2013, that came down to 19.
Then in 2014, that dropped to 351. That was a really good year.
In 2015, it was 901. So we went back up, we're quite a little more Bitcoin.
But as you move forward, some years it requires a little more Bitcoin,
other years a little bit less.
You know, 2018, 24 Bitcoin to buy a house. But then, that was 2018.
But then in 2019, it costs you more, 84 Bitcoin, right? Kind of goes up and down.
But overall, the trend line starts to get better. In 2021, it costs 10 Bitcoin.
2022, it costs 20 Bitcoin. All right, oh, that's a doubling.
But if you go back five years, right, it was 600. And in 2024,
it now cost seven Bitcoin to buy the average U.S. house.
And that's while house prices are going crazy.
Going well i mean you know okay they slowed a little bit but you
know like in the last since the pandemic they went bonkers in 2022
20 bitcoin 2023 14 bitcoin 2024 7 bitcoin do you understand what's happening
here that's hard money in 2012 50 000 bitcoin in 2024 7 bitcoin the trend is clear,
and when you measure it in something like a house i just think that that lands
differently than when you measure it in fiat directly okay all right all right
i think did i make my point i just find that to be really fascinating if you
have other sat stats sat stats like that send them in to me.
Let me know i i find that stuff fascinating there's some website i used to use
too that could that show you like hey if you bought a playstation well you would
you'd have this much money if you would have bought bitcoin instead there's
like websites that used to do that i I don't know if they're still out there,
but it just helps me think, helps me keep my perspective,
think a little bit longer term, more than just six months, a couple of quarters,
and I think more like six years.
And it's really obvious. Okay, I have one last clip for you.
I'm going to apologize ahead of time. This one's a little obnoxious.
This is about as obnoxious as I get, but I want you inside the mind of a crypto predator. editor.
If we were to get a Fed-induced mania, if they start lowering the rates and
M2 supply continues to go up and that starts to work its way through the system,
the scam coins are going to be just ridiculous this time around.
Ridiculous. And it clearly seems to be celebrity scam coins.
Those are the really big ones.
Well, Andrew Tate gives us a master class on altcoin pump and dumps.
Listen to this and tell me this isn't going
to suck in at least a few suckers now regarding
the real world token i'm going to do a full white paper on that and
explain it all but i want you guys to understand the utility of this token
this token is going to be backed by the profits of the real world uh
real world i believe is his education uh platform where
i guess he educates you on the real world i couldn't tell you
i will give him credit um this is a video that i'm listening to and he's sitting
in the video with his shirt off and he's getting a massage while he's telling
you about his altcoin that is powered by profits from his training platform
because he's so generous.
He's just going to put all the money from something that makes money. Oh!
In fact, this is why I wanted you to hear this. Listen to the logic.
This is going to be a huge thing with real world assets as well.
See, this is something that's based in the real world, something that really makes money.
That's why it has value, right? This fiat thinking. Listen to the fiat thinking
where he tries to explain to you why it's worth something.
The real world as an entity generates around $20 million a month probably profit.
Probably. It's all going to be pushed back into the token. So depending how
much of the token you own depends how much of the real world you own.
If you own 1% of the token supply, you own 1% of the real world.
If you own 10%, you own 10% of the real world, which is $2 million a month.
So you're going to be able to stake it based on the profit the real world generates.
So it's effectively being able to purchase and get control of a percentage of
the largest online educational platform in history.
And I'm doing this because I'm doing this as a lesson.
Because Tristan just said something fantastic there. even with
prior warning that you will have a chance to
own a company which is revolutionizing the educational space university.com
join the real world.com game over matrix.com we
have the best domains with the largest online school in
history come on guys you're not going to miss out an opportunity with the best
domains are you come on he's warning you it's such a
great opportunity you see you see how they get in
your head here and obviously we're coming with shields
up so we know what to expect that somebody who
follows him you know somebody's already kind of sucked into his
platform all you have to do is pick up rocks and wait for
them to turn into diamonds we have warned you in advance to pick up rocks we
told you to pick them up you didn't listen now we're telling you they're going
to turn into diamonds it is more important than ever you get your power level
up it's extremely important gotta get your power level up guys it's like super
important right now andrew says your power level is going to directly reflect
the amount you're You're rewarded in the airdrop,
and daddy will be stakeable so that you can get more inside of the real-world token airdrop.
Okay, so you got to have good power level, so that way you get the airdrop.
That's what makes it fair.
And then, you know, how much daddy you got does something.
Rewarded in the airdrop, and daddy will be stakeable so that you can get more
inside of the real-world token airdrop.
And then you'll be able to own a percentage of the largest online school in the world.
So if you get rocks and turn them into diamonds when he's telling you to,
and then, you know, you do something with your power-ups, then you get the airdrop,
that makes it fair, and then if you stake your daddy,
somehow you're gonna get, oh, I see, the daddy's stake is paid by the profits of real world.
Which is his training platform that has the best domains. It doesn't matter about crypto.
Crypto could blow up tomorrow. They could make some ridiculous legislation,
which won't happen. Crypto is here to stay.
It could blow up tomorrow. They could make some ridiculous legislation,
but it won't happen. My point is, once you own a percentage of a real cash generating business.
Ah, based on something real, you see.
Ah, the fiat thinking. You're rich forever.
That's it. It's done. You own 10% of the largest university in the world. You're rich forever.
Oh, you're going to, if you get it, guys, Guys, if you pick up these rocks before
they turn into diamonds and then get your power up so that way you get the airdrop,
which makes it fair, so that way you can stake your daddy token,
so that way you get rewards in the terms of staking percentages,
I guess, you'll be rich forever. It's finished.
So that's why when I release this white paper in 72 hours. Oh,
he's going to. OK, so he's going to have the. He's just so excited.
He had to get on the air while he's getting a massage and tell you about this
before he had a chance to write the white paper. But, you know,
he's going to bang that thing out.
Largest university in the world. You're rich forever. It's finished.
So that's why when I release this white paper in 72 hours, I do not want any
of my students crying or complaining that they weren't warned and didn't have an unfair advantage.
There you go. You better get on the bandwagon, guys. I warned you about the rocks.
It's going to be the season of celebrity scams. You know, it's going to,
you know, they're all going to turn
into shit coin scammers at some point because it's like, I don't know.
They're not making, I don't know if his, if his thing's making so much money,
then why does he need to do this? He's making 20 million. I don't know.
Just that that part's never made sense to me.
I'll try to put links to everything I can inside everything I can in the show
notes. You can find those at this week in Bitcoin show.
And please do boost and it supports the show. It helps discovery.
And also, I just love getting your feedback in here. You could also share the show with somebody.
You know, why not share it with somebody who might be interested in this stuff?
That also is a great way to help.
I do want to warn you, I'm planning a summer break.
Everything going is planned. I should be back next week. I say should because
we're packing, you know, it's getting crazy.
And then I'm going to be off for two weeks in July, taking the family to Montana.
I will have some recording gear. So I suppose if something real crazy went down,
I might bust out like an emergency episode.
But otherwise, I'm planning to take a couple of weeks off after next week.
So I should be back next week.
And we'll do one more episode together before I go on a summer break.
When I head out to Montana, I'm going to hold a meetup. So if you're in the
Spokane area, Saturday, July 13th, come hang out at the Nolai Brewery at 4 p.m.
I have details at meetup.com slash jupiterbroadcasting. And I'd love to see you there.
I'm gonna leave you with a Value for Value track. You know I love to do it,
and there's so many great songs out in the Valueverse.
And one of my favorite artists out there has a song that I think you're gonna
love. It's Charlie by Curtis Drums, and I'll see you right back here next week.
Music.