Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 75.
My name is Chris, ChrisLAS.com, JupiterBroadcasting.com.
Okay, I'm not really here this week, and this isn't a real episode because I'm on vacation.
Clearly.
But as the author of the Bitcoin standard put it, it is Fiat Bingo Day again.
Really, it's Fiat Bingo Week because today we have a U.S. rate decision and we have Canada's rate decision today as well.
And then tomorrow, or perhaps as you're listening to this, the U.K. and Japan are set to announce their rate cut decisions.
Canada's kicking us off.
They lowered their key interest rate by, you're never going to guess it, 25 basis points.
And they announced that just a bit before Jay Pau took the stage this afternoon.
Considerable uncertainty remains, but with a weaker economy and less upside risk to inflation,
governing council judged that a reduction in the policy rate was appropriate to better balance the risks going forward.
That was the governor of the Bank of Canada announcing the rate cut.
They also note that their job market has softened.
Inflation has eased, but not in energy pricing.
And the federal government's removal of retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. has reduced some upside risk to future inflation.
So with jobs getting a little weak and the upside risk to future inflation low, it's time to cut, Canada says.
And so they're coming down 25 basis points.
And whenever we're facing one of these cuts, every community that's impacted by this begins to speculate.
Bitcoiners wonder if the Bitcoin price will pump or if people will sell the news.
And obviously, every day, people wonder if it's going to impact maybe their credit card, interest rates, mortgage rates, things like that.
Now to some news that could really impact your wallet and your family budget.
Yeah, today, the Federal Reserve is meeting where they'll decide if they're going to lower interest rates.
Let's check in with KPRC2 News anchor Brittany Jeffers with what we should expect today.
Good morning, Brittany.
Good morning to you, ladies.
And over the past few hours, I've been going over different reports on what experts think could play out today.
And what I'm seeing from a lot of different analysts is that they believe the Federal Reserve leaders will vote to cut interest rates today.
Keep in mind, this would be the first time in nine months, and it can potentially affect everything from your mortgage rate, your car loan, even credit cards.
So let's go ahead and dive into the numbers and see what's on the table here.
Analysts expect that the Fed could cut the key rate by a quarter point.
And this would bring the target federal funds rate to between 4 and 4.25 percent.
And this is impactful because a cut like this usually makes it cheaper to borrow money.
Mounting signs of labor market weakness are a key reason that the Fed is expected to lower borrowing costs for the first time since December.
Analysts say there's also a growing belief among central bankers that tariff inflation may be short-lived.
Now, I looked at a report from FICO. It shows Americans' credit scores are falling at the fastest rate since the Great Recession more than 15 years ago.
The analytics company found that borrowers are behind on credit card and car payments as well as other loans.
Now, as far as what we can expect to see happen today.
We'll get to that. There's also no denying that the buildup to today's rate meeting has been extremely political.
Today, members of the Federal Reserve begin their meeting to decide interest rate cuts on if they should make interest rate cuts with renewed pressure from President Trump.
The president posting on social media this message to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, quote, too late, must cut interest rates now and bigger than he had in mind.
Housing will soar.
Well, I think he's probably going to be disappointed in that.
And not all cuts are good cuts.
some asset holders are going to benefit in the long term, but there are some asset holders
that are going to have to take it in their bags. Let's assume for the moment that the Fed funds
futures are correct and there's a 100 percent chance the Fed will cut rates tomorrow by at
least a quarter of a point to four and four and a quarter percent. We've talked a lot about which
stocks and sectors stand to benefit from a Fed easing, but which could stumble? Today,
Today, Barron's put a fine point on one name in particular, and it may surprise you.
In an article entitled Berkshire Hathaway could see a big hit if the Fed slashes rates.
Here's how much.
Barron says because Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway parks a huge amount of its cash in short term T-bills,
if the Fed goes on a rate cutting cycle through the end of next year,
Berkshire could take a three billion dollar hit to the annual interest income he normally gets from those T-bills.
Oh, shit about some of that rat poison. And I hate to say it, but I think that's exactly what is going to happen. If you bet on the most safest investment you could possibly make, which that's what Berkshire does. That's what they're known for. You will be the end up the one getting screwed.
And I think that is just so quintessentially encapsulates the time we are in is the holders of the safe assets, supposedly the quote unquote safe assets are the ones that will end up being the bag holder, like the empty bag, I suppose, to complete the analogy.
so the way this works is the fomc committee gets together they dot their plots and then
just before the next day just before jay powell comes out on stage jerome powell the chair of the
federal reserve jay powell as i affectionately recall him comes out on stage they pre-announce
the rate cut. So when he enters the room to talk about the rate cut, everybody knows the news ahead
of time. And that gives the press a little bit of time to formulate their questions. You can also
start to watch the market digest the news and then continue to digest the news as Jay Powell speaks.
So he enters the room and he kicks things off like a classic Jerome Powell press conference.
Good afternoon. My colleagues and I remain squarely focused on achieving our dual mandate
goals of maximum employment and stable prices for the benefit of the American people.
While the unemployment rate remains low, it has edged up.
Job gains have slowed and downside risks to employment have risen.
I'd say his tone is a little more somber.
This is a very highly anticipated rate cut, very closely watched and likely one to be
echoed around Western governments.
So this just to me seems like a big moment in history because this is the start of what
could very likely be an ongoing series of rate cuts. We'll get more into that.
At the same time, inflation has risen recently and remains somewhat elevated.
In support of our goals and in light of the shift in the balance of risks,
today the Federal Open Market Committee decided to lower our policy interest rate by a quarter
percentage point. A shift in the balance of risks. You got to love the way these guys talk.
Like I told you last week, this bad job revision that we got that shows that really we've been
taken in the pants with jobs, which, by the way, a strong jobs market was like the key thing holding
up the rates as far as he was saying, oh, yeah, well, look at the strong jobs market. We don't
need to lower rates. No, we're fine. Look at all these jobs. Look at all these jobs. And then this
revision comes out. The Fed, and I'll make my case later in the show, the Fed was always going to
lower interest rates today. Spoiler alert. They were always going to lower rates. This jobs
revision gives them the political cover they need to do it. I'll try to make my case later,
but here he is. The balance of risk has changed. In support of our goals and in light of the shift
in the balance of risks, today the Federal Open Market Committee decided to lower our policy
interest rate by a quarter percentage point. We also decided to continue to reduce our securities
holdings. I'll have more to say about monetary policy after briefly reviewing economic developments.
Continuing to reduce their security holdings is banker code for quantitative tightening remains.
So this isn't a barn burner money printing meme that everybody's going to be posting online.
It is bullish, but if they were to also begin quantitative easing, in other words, they were to start purchasing assets, that would really flood the market with liquidity.
Instead, they're going to continue their runoff process, which is a tightening process.
by a quarter percentage point. We also decided to continue to reduce our securities holdings.
I'll have more to say about monetary policy after briefly reviewing economic developments.
Recent indicators suggest that growth of economic activity has moderated. GDP growth,
GDP rose at a pace of around one and a half percent in the first half of the year, down from
2.5 percent last year. The moderation in growth largely reflects a slowdown in consumer spending.
In contrast, business investment in equipment and intangibles has picked up from last year's pace.
Activity in the housing sector remains weak.
In our summary of economic projections, the median participant projects GDP to rise 1.6% this year and 1.8% next year, a touch stronger than projected in June.
I'd love it if one of you out there kept track of those numbers.
I kept that in the clip, so that way maybe we could return to that in a year or so and see if he was right.
So let's talk about this rate cut.
Our monetary policy actions are guided by our dual mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices for the American people.
At today's meeting, the committee decided to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by a quarter percentage point to four to four and a quarter percent and to continue reducing the size of our balance sheet.
So we are officially in a cutting environment now.
The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by 25 basis points.
That's a 0.25% cut.
That's the first cut since December.
A narrow majority of Federal Reserve officials have now penciled in a total of three cuts this year.
Now, it doesn't mean it will happen.
They're forecasting that.
That's implying an additional 50 basis point rate cut in 2025 and 25 basis point rate cuts in 2026 and another 25 basis point in 2027.
Not a lot of cuts, slower amount of cuts, but a continued regime of lowering the rate.
Now, they have very carefully crafted their messaging, removed certain phrases about the labor market and phrases they used before to justify their existing monetary policy.
And one of the wrinkles, one of the things that's in the background of this FOMC meeting is this ginormous revisions to the jobs report and how that's all of a sudden changed the outlook, how the Fed can pivot.
And that's one of the things that the press is just going to pepper him with questions like, how can you so quickly pivot on this?
And one of the very early questions gets J-POW into a line of answering I didn't expect.
When they talk about the jobs market, he says one of the things that's having an impact right now is we've kicked out a lot of illegals and we have less migration coming into the country.
And so, therefore, there's just lower participation in the jobs market.
I would say if you're looking at why employment is doing what it's doing, that's much more about the change in immigration.
So the supply of workers has obviously come way down There very little growth if any in the supply of workers And at the same time demand for workers has also come down quite sharply
And to the point where we see what I've called a curious balance.
It's, you know, typically when we say things are in balance, that sounds good.
But in this case, the balance is because both supply and demand have come down quite sharply.
Now demand coming down a little more sharply because we see, we now see the unemployment rate edging up.
I thought that was just remarkable to hear the federal chair say out loud is, well, yeah, there's less immigration, so there's less jobs.
But also he's saying that they sort of came down in sync.
Perhaps the demand for jobs came down a little bit harder.
So with the shift in jobs, this gave them the cover to move to an easing policy, even though the risk of inflation is still there.
I think if you go back to April and now look at the revised job creation numbers for May, June, July and August, I can no longer say that.
So what that means is that the risks were clearly tilted toward inflation.
I would say they're moving toward equality.
Maybe they're not quite out of equality.
We don't need to know that.
But we do know that they've moved meaningfully.
By equality, he means the risk between their dual mandate to maintain price stability and maintain the labor market. They're about equal risk right now is what he's actually saying. If you listen to the words the man is saying, they're both equally at risk.
I would say they're moving toward toward equality. Maybe they're not quite out of quality. We don't need to know that. But we got it. We do know that they've moved meaningfully toward greater equality, the risks between the two goals. And that suggests that we should be moving in the direction of neutral. And that's what we did today.
So there you go. It's like we were we have this revised number. We have to do it. We have to do it. In fact, he comes back to it again and again during the press conference. It's the revised jobs report. It's the reason.
Colby Smith of the New York Times.
Should we be viewing today's cut as the committee taking out some insurance against the possibility
that the labor market is at risk of weakening?
Or is it the committee's view that the dynamics of a downturn are already in place?
I guess I'm just trying to square the shift in the rate forecast in the SEP towards more
cuts than just three months ago with the fact that the forecast for unemployment didn't
change.
Yeah, I think you could think of this in a way as a risk management cut.
because if you look at the SEP, actually the projections for growth this year and next
actually ticked up just a little bit, and inflation and unemployment didn't really move
once.
So what's different now?
What's different now is that you see a very different picture of the risks to the labor
market.
You've seen, you know, we were looking at 150,000 jobs a month at the time of the last
meeting, and now we see the revisions and we see the new numbers.
And I don't want to put too much emphasis on payroll job creation, but it's just one
of the things that suggest that the labor market is really cooling off. And that tells you that it's
time to take that into account in our policy. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. So isn't it interesting that
what he's essentially saying here is that for the last year, they've been making their decisions
based on bogus data. That doesn't sound very good when you break it down. Now, here's the question
I came to during all of this. If unemployment is on the rise because migration is down and
illegal immigrants are out, then how does a rate cut help us at all? How does a rate cut
solve that particular problem? Well, one of the reporters actually asked that question.
Michael McKee from Bloomberg Radio and Television. I'm a little confused by your explanation of what
the Fed cutting rates because of unemployment, if you think that most of what's happening in the
employment area is related to immigration, which your rate cuts wouldn't address, how do you see
that as more important than inflation, which has remained almost a full percentage point above your
target? Well, I was saying that what's happening in the labor market has more to do with immigration
than it has to do with tariffs. That was the question I was answering. So I wouldn't say that
all of what's happening in the labor market is due to tariffs.
I mean, you clearly have a slowing in due to immigration.
You clearly have a slowing in demand,
which is now perhaps more than that in supply.
And we know that because the unemployment rate has ticked up.
So that's what I meant by that.
Does that make sense to you?
Boost in if you're buying this narrative.
To me, it's pretty thin,
even when you listen to J-PAL's explanations that,
well, we had to cut because of these revised job numbers, because A, that's admitting that they were being led by bogus data.
And B, how do they know the new data isn't bogus?
Like, well, so when inflation was transitory, was that also bogus data?
Like, this seems to keep happening.
And then they're cutting rates because the employment market is suffering, but it's mostly suffering because immigration and immigrants are out.
But at the same time, they're going to cut rates.
I'm like, does this make sense to you?
Boost in and tell me if this makes any sense to you, if you're clicking like what you think is really going on here. And this next clip, I think, gives us some insights. They have no path forward. They were always going to have to cut rates because there is no good answer.
It's like a lot of people out there in the real world find themselves now trapped between debt and cost of living and inflation going up and a bad housing market.
There's just no good answers anymore for the people and for the Federal Reserve.
It is such an unusual situation.
Ordinarily, when the labor market is weak, inflation is low.
And when the labor market is really strong, that's when you've got to be careful about inflation.
So we have a situation where we have two-sided risk, and that means there's no risk-free path.
And so it's quite a difficult situation for policymakers.
And it's not at all surprising to me that you have a range of views.
It's not so much about having different views for the path of the economy, but it's partly that.
But it's also partly about what's the right thing to do in light of the tension between the two goals.
How do you weight them? How worried are you about one versus the other?
So it's natural. I think it would actually be surprising if you didn't have a pretty wide range of views based, you know, in this kind of highly unusual situation, and we do.
So, but, you know, we get together, we discuss, we have a great discussion, and then we decide what to do and we act.
But you're right there that it's a wide dispersion of views, and I think that's understandable and natural in the current situation.
There's a bit of context and background to his answer.
See, there's a bit of contention right now as Stephen Moran, who came from the White House, still has his position at the White House, just joined the Federal Reserve's board of governors.
And during his confirmation hearings, I guess he was quoted as talking about a secret third mandate for the Fed.
Of course, we're familiar with their price stability and maximum employment mandate.
He talks about it all the time.
But Stephen says there's a third mandate to pursue moderate long-term interest rates.
And essentially, he points to the fact that any time the bond market really starts to have issue, the Fed steps in.
And this mention of a third mandate sparked debate amongst all kind of analysts and people on Twitter and Bitcoiners freaking out.
Oh, a third mandate.
And of course, this guy is Trump's potential pick to replace J-PAL.
So it got a lot of attention.
And there was speculation.
Would he address it?
Would he talk about it?
And depending on his answer, some speculated it might cause the market to race or crash.
Well, he was asked about it.
Well, I'll let you decide.
But to me, it sort of seems like a non-issue.
And at his recent confirmation hearing, Stephen Myron brought up that the Fed actually has
three mandates from Congress, not just jobs in stable crisis, but also moderate long-term
interest rates.
So what does Congress mean by moderate long-term interest rates?
How should we understand that when we see the 10-year Treasury moving?
And how do you think about this part of the mandate when policy choices like rate cuts
or balance sheet reductions affect the long end of the yield curve?
So we always think of it as the dual mandate, maximum employment and price stability for a long
time because we think moderate long-term interest rates are something that will result from stable
inflation, low and stable inflation, and maximum employment. So we haven't thought about that
for a very long time as a third mandate that requires independent action.
So that's where that is.
And there's no thought of, as far as I'm concerned,
there's no thought of considering that, you know,
considering that we somehow incorporate that in as something in a different way.
There you go. There's no third mandate.
What are you talking about?
All right, coming up on the show, I'll make my case why I think they had no choice.
This was coming anyways.
And I also, I want to get to your boosts.
I know it's a shorter episode, but I've already got an episode in the can from Oscars chat
with some boosts.
So I want to catch up.
But first, I want to mention, you can support the show just by doing what you already do,
stacking sats.
You want to buy some sats on River, one of the best places in the U.S. to stack sats?
I got a link in the show notes.
You support the show while you do it.
Now, if you're all about self-custody,
if you're in Canada or the U.S.,
the Bitcoin Well is an amazing automatic self-custody platform
to and from your own wallet.
All your own wallets, Lightning and on-chain.
If you're ready to spend some sats via Lightning,
the Bitcoin company goes from sats to gift card in just moments.
All they do is Bitcoin.
You can sign in via Lightning.
FoldCard lets you pay bills, stack sats, things like that.
your day-to-day expenses, stack stats.
Salt Lending lets you get access to your Bitcoin value without selling it.
That's pretty great, too.
Link in the show notes for all of that.
Support the show by just doing what you do.
Ask not what your podcast can boost for you, but what you can boost for your podcast.
And we got some direct support into the show via booze, and Satsquatch comes in as our baller booster with 88,000 sats.
Hey, rich lobster!
Yeah!
That's a spicy meatball!
Satsquatch writes, Chris, I stacked and DCA'd corn throughout the summer just like the rest of the year.
Fiat inflation is forever and won't go down, in my opinion.
Hope this rate cut pumps our bags, but who the heck knows anymore.
Have fun in Texas.
Love it down there.
Yes, thank you, SatSquatch. Thank you. And I had a boy, DCA away.
I will be traveling down to Texas for Texas Linux Fest at the end of the month.
And then Texas Linux Fest itself kicks off in October.
So if you are in the Austin area and want to come say hi, Texas Linux Festival is one of the good ones.
Because it's a smallish crowd, high signal, low noise, good hang.
And it's October 3rd through the 4th in Austin, Texas at the Commons Conference Center, I believe.
But you can find out more if you just Google up Texas Linux Fest or Bing it up, whatever it might be.
Thank you, SatSquatch. Appreciate that.
Hey, look, producer Jeff's here with 50,000 sats.
Live long and prosper.
Yes, hi.
Hello Enjoy your time off and happy birthday to H Yes the wife and I are celebrating a birthday I on vacation right now I not doing a show I not doing a show because I on vacation
This is all AI.
Yeah, that's it.
This is all AI.
All systems are functional.
Thank you, PJ.
J-Cube's here with 30,000 sats.
I don't understand what the heck is going on here.
Keep it up, Chris.
My wife and I listen to your show regularly for the news.
You take Andrew it.
Oh, that's great.
I like you.
You're a hot ticket.
You know, a couple that listens together stays together.
Thank you, JQ.
Appreciate the boost.
Hello there is here with 6,666 cents.
Yes, sir.
Sirty, sir, sir, sir.
It was actually some ducks.
He says, I thought I had done really well, smash buying on the dips, but strike shows that my average price via DCA did better.
I was actually pretty surprised.
Interesting.
Hello there.
And I really like the platforms that let you keep track of your average cost.
That's a really good little bit of measurement you can do there.
Thank you for sending that in.
That's some good feedback.
Galactic Starfish is here with 3,333 sats.
I DCA'd a set weekly amount.
I put some towards a project car, a.k.a. my money pit.
And whenever I had left that I didn't spend, I used that to smash buy.
I like that.
Yeah, there have been times, too, where I've been like, I'll put a little money into Bitcoin and be like, in two years, I'm going to come back to that and see where it's at and then decide if I want to still do the thing.
And I often just want to keep the Bitcoin.
Maybe two years, one year.
You know, it's like it depends on the time frame.
But it's interesting.
Like, after I give the decision some space, I come back.
I actually still prefer the Bitcoin more.
But I think, you know, that's my thinking is if you got spare cash, you put it into Bitcoin.
You could put it in your savings account, I suppose.
Yes.
What are you going to do?
You don't let it sit there and melt?
That's weird.
That sounds more risky to me.
Thank you, Galactic Starfish.
Fisher?
I suppose it's Fisher, huh?
Although you're missing neither.
Appreciate you.
Block 7 is here with 7,777 sats.
I don't understand what the heck is going on here.
Heck.
Poor Hank, he's so confused, right?
Put some macaroni and cheese on there, too.
Although he gets that part right.
Block 7 writes, with 7,777 sats, do the start 9, then school's on the upgrade that is looming.
I like that idea so much.
I saw that boost come in live.
Well, or at least I saw it in the morning.
I don't know if I saw it come in live because I think it came in like at 2 a.m.
But I saw it in the morning when I got up and I thought to myself, that's exactly what I should do.
That's what I should do is I should set up a start nine now and then go through the upgrade process.
Boy, they are doing a lot with mayo these days.
Because that can be painful.
So I think I will get on that.
Thank you, Block7.
Great suggestion.
Paranoid Coders here with 2,000 sets.
Coming in hot with the boost.
I wanted to give you another resource to get some info on Spark.
Instead of issuing separate Bitcoin-based coins,
the whole system is built on pre-signed exit transactions
that get updated for every Spark transaction.
This allows users to unilaterally exit from the base chain at any time.
I know you consume a lot of content, though, so no worries if you can't get to it,
but I truly think it might be useful.
And one of the best scaling solutions that stays true to Bitcoin's ethos,
and it includes a fountain link.
All right, I will check that out. Thank you, Paranoid Coder.
Spark seems interesting.
don't honestly know much about it. So I think it's an area I need to learn more about. So I will.
So that way I can have an informed opinion. Because right now, you know me, I'm pretty much
just Bitcoin on chain lightning with a little bit of liquid here and there. And that's about as
fancy as I get. I could see playing around with eCash and some of that stuff. But for right now,
it's just as fancy as I need. And it works really well for me. And I really like, you know,
consolidating small transactions and liquid and moving it out in one large transaction.
but the idea that the system is built on pre-signed exit transactions that all right you got my
attention there thanks for the boost paranoid loomer comes in with 5 000 sats the traders love
the vol appreciate the macro takes p.s inscriptions already enabled c sam we don't have to bring it up
that's not possible nothing can do that yeah i agree can't be true can't be true thank you
Bloomer. Appreciate the boost. Ace Ackerman's here with a Rowanux. Great episode. Enjoy your time off.
Totally. Thank you. And I am completely taking the week off. Totally doing that, Ace. Thank you very much.
Jordan Bravo comes in with a Rowanux. What? Give him a good one. Give him a good one. There you go.
Sometimes you get a soundboard misfire. My sat stacking has slowed to a trickle these past few
months as monthly expenses for him and my family. Don't leave much left over for anything else.
Inflation sucks, but this is why we buy Bitcoin. Jordan, I think you are in a position where a lot
of folks are. They're tapped out, is how I say it. They're tapped out. I think what you look for
are moments to sneak a little bit into Bitcoin here and there. $100, $20, $10, $5. As you can,
you sneak a little bit in, and that can be a new form of DC gain. Not so much daily, though,
right? But that is the downside of things getting tight. And I think one of the key things to do in
these scenarios is reduce expensive debt like credit card debt and look for edge cases where
you can stack a little bit feeling you though buddy feeling you so much i'm gonna go ahead and
hit my microphone in your honor thank you a train's here with 15 000 sets i feel like a train
that's a reference to something this is the way thank you for the boost thanks for the economic
overview and the heads up on the npm attack no worries here sparrow and coldwall user myself i
tried the jump to using Fold as a primary bank account,
but I was really disappointed with the transfer out limits,
maybe in the future.
He says, I snipe by and keeping the average low.
Have fun and enjoy the trip.
Use knots.
So I'm not aware of limits on outbound,
but maybe I don't do large ones.
Sometimes we pay like, you know,
a couple times a year,
we pay a pretty large auto insurance bill
and things like that,
but I don't have huge transfers coming out.
But I do appreciate that boost.
Hey, look, it's Wine Eagle with 9,000 one sats.
It's over 9,000!
Boosting the best Bitcoin show out there.
And shout out to the Podfather.
Live long and prosper.
Shout out to the Podfather, indeed.
Thank you, Wine Eagle.
Brewer Seth is here with 2,000 sats.
No message, just the value.
Thank you, Brewer.
Nice to hear from you.
Hey, look, it's Gene Bean.
You make me want to be a better man.
And he's here with 5,781 sats.
Yes, I've been de-same for a while,
but I also did a little bit of buying the dip.
Hope you enjoy your week off.
Thank you, Gene.
Totally taking the week off.
For me, the choice to run NONTS
ended up being nothing about spam,
but about how the core team
crammed this operaturn change through.
Their actions made me concerned about
there only being one common node implementation.
Such a underrepresented take, Gene.
An underrepresented take.
I think a lot of people are just like,
you're clearly not following consensus.
There's a lot of concern here.
Why are you pushing this through?
Why couldn't this wait a little bit longer
while we hash this out?
especially after they've seen the reaction
and the increase in knots usage,
no course correction.
That itself is a red flag.
Despite all of the other stuff,
that's what I've come to is
I'm not really as concerned about
all the other stuff that sorts itself out
with fees and whatnot.
And we see this kind of thing
in free software all the time.
Gene continues to,
regarding a guide,
I have to admit,
I don't know much about Start9.
I'm interested in your experiences.
If you try it,
I looked at how they package things a while back
and was sort of perplexed by their choices.
That's when I went with Umbral.
Things might be different now, though.
Yeah, I agree.
I kind of took a long time ago, I took a similar look and kind of preferred the umbral architecture,
but I think that's dramatically changing in the new Start 9.
And that transition has got to be a fascinating one.
One of the things I kind of want to clock and see how it goes.
You know, you think about it, that could be really rough, but done right, smooth, you know, could be fantastic.
Thank you, Gene.
Scuffed is here with 5,555 sats.
there's coffee in that nebula i dca'd every day all summer using the big four strike river and
bitcoin will enfold and i diversify in these cases because well if one platform has issues
then i sweep into self-custody after a few months of stacking hope you had a good week off totally
took the week off that's a interesting scuff it makes it a little harder to track but i also tend
to try out just over the years different platforms as well so i think you're probably right there
with most of us. You know, something new comes along, you want to try it.
Chad F's here with 2,034 sats across. Get ready for this. Nine boos.
Okay, so I think these are probably in chronological order, so we'll go through some of this. I think
he's probably responding to my chat with Oscar. Chad F writes, if LN dress is so easy to add,
where's the other podcasting apps being built on Lightning then? The spec supports LN address now.
Podcast app devs aren't lightning experts,
so we need some help from the Bitcoin community as well.
Yeah.
None of this is a new problem.
It's an open spec after all.
Where is the Nostra podcasting apps if it's so easy?
I don't know where this is coming from, Chad.
This is awfully hostile.
I think the point that we're making in the chat with Oscar
is that Keysend isn't seeing adoption outside of three or four apps.
And L and address is only part of the boosting spec.
Like LN address is how you resolve the recipient.
But LN address doesn't have accommodations for metadata like what was the total amount?
What is the message?
What is the person's name?
And additionally, it really falls down if you have anyone in the splits.
They won't get any of that information.
They'll see like 10 sats show up in their wallet.
They won't even necessarily know who it's from.
And they won't know that there was a message.
And they won't know what the total boost amount actually was.
So that's, you know, so yes, LN address is technically supported, but with some tradeoffs.
I really appreciate you, Chad, because you are a great advocate for podcasting 2.0 and value for value music. And I'm telling you, KeySend is dying, unfortunately, and LN address is not a complete spec. Here's what I wrote to the Fountain team. I've never posted this publicly. This is what I wrote to the Fountain team when I moved this week in Bitcoin over to LN address for one week.
This is what I wrote to the team to let them know why we had to move back to Keysend.
I wrote, so far we have identified multiple issues.
Some of them are seemingly transition issues, like clients that don't support LN address,
but some of them are big game stoppers.
One of the biggest being metadata loss, depending on what features the client supports.
Metadata beyond the boost message and the per split payment amounts would no longer be available
from clients supporting only LN address.
No total amount, no username, no message, depending on the client and the server.
Right now, Fountain is the only setup that works fully.
Even AlbiHub is mostly busted with only supporting the bare basic receiver of the sats.
That's all they support.
This is my writing.
This is pure 100% death to the boost in podcasts.
And even if Fountain clients send some of that metadata via Noster, that's not a podcasting solution.
That's a Fountain solution.
I'm not really interested in this reduction of functionality.
And I'm way more inclined to just build my own tool that lets people boost me directly via my website and bypass all the apps together.
I get that Keysend needs replaced.
And we cannot force apps to support Noster for metadata.
But the boosts via LN address are not even a partial replacement.
I don't know what about that you're not getting, Chad.
I don't know what part.
Yes, LN address is supported.
It's a 20% implementation.
Yes, zip code is a better deal.
KeySend is a better deal.
It truly is.
And I'm not just saying that.
But nobody outside of a tiny handful of apps, like three or four apps, is supporting it.
And the entire Nostra ecosystem, in the meantime, has built a solution, post-fact, that is modern, built around L and address, and solves the metadata issue.
Because they came along later when this technology stack existed.
And it's like, you've got to get your head around this, Chad, because you're out there involved in every conversation.
you're sending boost to the podcasting 2.0 podcast,
sending them down the wrong path,
which is extremely dangerous You doing it out of advocacy for the very system that you will actually crush if you don wrap your head around this problem And if you going to continue to
advocate like this, it's incumbent upon you to understand the issue. The problem isn't that
LN Address is not supported. The problem is it is supported currently, but it is a 20% solution.
And the only 100% solution where it works is Fountain. And if we continue down this path,
Fountain will be the only place where we have full, complete boost metadata.
it. Well, God bless them, because they're the ones doing the hard work, and that's the way it's going
to be. All right. Okay. Not doing a show, taking the week off. Moving on. Axelrod comes in with
2,001 sat. Just pump the brakes right there. Says, I love the mission of the Fountain App.
Supporting the economic development around Bitcoin. Great show. Keep it coming. I agree.
It's like proving the haters wrong every day when people are out there using the boosting and sending
sats or zapping. Proving them wrong. User 13 comes in with a row of ducks. Bullish on podcasting
2-0 and Noster. Thanks everyone who builds. Yes, I should double that since I just went on that
whole rant. Very grateful. Just very stressed out. Thor comes in with a row of ducks. I love the
episode. Thanks for the explanation of Keysend versus Bolt 11 and Noster. This episode made me
for more open web built on more open protocols.
I need to noodle around with some Nostra code now.
I do think that's where we end up, Thor, ultimately.
Something more widely adopted based on open standards.
And ideally something that is not a massive overhead
for podcast app developers.
Like I love the Cast-O-Matic model
because it's a great app
and they don't really have to run
a lot of backend infrastructure.
I think there's like one little thing they run now
for lit support.
that's really how it should be.
And I'd love to see something that would work
across all the different app models.
Great boost. Thank you, Thor.
Good to hear from you.
Thank you, everybody who supports the show directly with a boost
or through a Fountain membership or a Jupyter.party membership.
44 of you stream sats.
We stacked 76,282 sats collectively.
Thank you very much.
Boy, they are doing a lot with mayo these days.
And when you combine that with our boosters, we stacked a nice 323,259 sets.
That is across the last two episodes, of course, but it's a nice number.
I appreciate it either way and was a very robust conversation this week that went on a lot longer than I expected,
considering I'm not doing a show this week.
I'm not even here.
Send a boost. Why are they still work?
Fountain FM makes it real easy because they host everything for you,
but there's a lot of options if you want to go the Albie Hub route.
It's essentially your two paths.
There's also the Breeze app, B-R-E-E-Z-E.
And with that, that concludes all the ways you can possibly boost this show.
But with Albie, you can pick from a suite of great apps,
and of course, truefans.fm as well.
Thank you, everybody. Appreciate your support. Now on with the show.
All right. Now, I don't have a full update for you or that because I am trying to keep it a little tight.
But I wanted to get back on course and talk about this position of no good choices, a lot of risk, and the Fed had to cut regardless of a revised jobs report or anything like that.
And our final clip of the week is a chat between Luke Groman and Natalie Brunel, which I think is her most recent episode.
I'll link to it in the show notes.
And he really gets into the structural reasons why the rate cut was always going to be baked in.
I think the markets have begun playing by a new set of rules, which is we have seen five or six different times in the last five years that nothing will be allowed to hurt the treasury market.
Treasury market starts to dysfunction.
More liquidity comes like that, either by a weaker dollar from the treasury or action from the Fed.
And I think they're doing the math around true interest expense, which is like, okay, we need to cut something, right?
You know, Doge.
The failure of Doge, I think, is not given enough contextual importance, which is, you know, something that we've talked about before.
Something I was harping on over and over earlier this year, which is, look, here's what the U.S. government spends its money on.
It's spending 80% of all-time high receipts on entitlements to boomers and silent generation.
Sorry, excuse me, 70%.
it's been in 25% gross interest. It's spending 20%, 15%. No. Yeah. A trillion on, yeah, 20%
on defense. What are you going to cut? You can't cut entitlements. And if you think you can cut
entitlements, I would encourage people to look at the tragedy last week and revisit your view.
And I think that's, from an economic standpoint, maybe the biggest takeaway of last week, which is
if you thought there was a tail chance that entitlements could be restructured in any
reasonable time horizon, like last week marked it to zero. So there is no chance entitlements
are going to get marked down. Defense is only going up. All there is is cut rates. So I think
markets are beginning to play by this new set of rules, which is bad news is good news. Good news
is good news on a nominal base. I think you look at a chart of the S&P 500 over TLP,
you look at the long bond ETF, you look at a chart of gold over ETLT, you look at a chart of Bitcoin
over TLT. It's all the same chart with gold has the least volatility, S&P has the second least
volatility, and Bitcoin has the most volatility, as you'd expect. But they are all up and to the
right. They're hockey sticks. And I think we're just seeing more and more investors, markets
playing by the new rule, which is I just can't own bonds. Not only can I not own bonds,
but they're going to run this thing so hot because they don't have a choice.
You know, the Fed is not being preempted because, you know, Trump's an idiot.
It's being preempted because he's, they came in and was like, well, we're going to cut.
And then they looked and they did the math like, oh God, what did I get myself into?
All we can cut is rates.
So, you know, some of those things I say, I don't say lightly, but I do think that what
we're seeing in markets is the discounting of that we're past a tipping point of this sort of just
get me into something that's going to hold purchasing power when they do what they have to do.
okay let's check in on the state of the network block height 915 146 as i wrap up the u.s
bitcoin price to dollar ratio coming in right now at 115 760 i was just delaying there because it
was adjusting. That makes our sats per dollar at $864. We're down 7% from our all-time high of
$124,460 just a short 34 days ago, August 13th, 2025, Bitcoin summer. Difficulty retarget date is
set for September 18th with a target difficulty adjustment change of an increase of 4.4%.
More on that in a moment. Reachable nodes down, 23,972.
Noughts, though, both versions coming collectively together at over 20% of the network.
Noughts now around 21%. The majority of the nodes on the network are now officially Bitcoin Noughts nodes.
What a remarkable development. We'll see, though, as Core 30 comes out, if that begins to change.
Now, one of the remarkable milestones we hit this week, speaking of the state of the network,
Bitcoin's hash rate blasted past one zeta hash per second.
That's more calculations every second than the grains of sand on Earth,
making it the most secure network ever built.
It got very little recognition, but it has peaked above a zeta hash multiple times this week,
which is an unbelievable milestone, making Bitcoin the most secure computing network
ever created. The state of the network is quite strong.
I hope you enjoyed this non-episode, taking a quick look at the Fed rate cut
and the beginning of what is likely an ongoing rate cut regime. Links to what I talked about
this week at thisweekinbitcoin.show. That'll take you to the Jupiter Broadcasting page,
where you can also find some of the other great shows over there. Let me know
if you enjoyed this, try to focus in on the signal.
Of course, when I got to the boost, I got a little worked up.
You can tell me about that too. Give me feedback. Tell me
never do it again. A little real sink in it.
Also,
I'd love to know what else you'd like to see covered on the show.
Any other ideas you have, boost those in as
well. Always really appreciate it.
That concludes episode 75.
We are now officially around the horn
making our way to episode 80,
if you can believe it. Absolutely
remarkable. So I'm going to leave you this
week with a value for value
classic artist, one of my all-time favorites.
It's Ollie, and this is his
new track, This, That.
I built this all about the mud,
you know this, that. Shop ain't finished
till it done, cut the chit-chat.
I really been through what I've done, and no
mismatch. Daddies don't
make them anymore like me. I came to
far to care what he said or she said.
Time can heal a lot of wounds, never
regret. Some nights I need that
now they poof, gotta reset.
Daddies don't make them anymore
like me. I built this all about the mud.
You know this step
Job ain't finished, tell it done
Cut the chit chat
I really been through what I saw
And I'm mismatched
Ladies don't make them anymore like me
I came too far to care what he said
And she said
Time heal a lot of wounds, never regret
Some nights I leave that, now they poof
Got a reset
Ladies don't make them anymore like me
Everything these days cheap, nothing made to last
Only love you for the moment, put it fading fast
Circle just like blood, never question that
Yeah, just like blood
Mm-hmm
Small town kids still the same
Coming up, had to prove a lie
Everybody else fitting in
Can't pretend to be the thing I'm not
I remember way back then
And them long nights, I'll pray to God
2 a.m. these friends here
Unplugged in, my soul tugged
And it's like, whoa, whoa
I got way too much on my mind these days
Like, whoa, whoa
Gotta move along through the plane
I built this all up after mud
You know this, that
Drop ain't finished, till it done
Cut the chit chat
I really been through what I've done
And no mismatch
Daddies don't make them anymore like me
I came too far to care what he said and she said
Time can heal a lot of wounds, never regret
Some nights I need that, now they proof
Gotta reset
Daddies don't make them anymore like me
I put this all up out the mud, you know this, that
Job ain't finished, tell it done
Cut the chit chat
I really been through what I've done
And no mismatch
Daddies don't make them anymore like me
I came too far to care what he said and she said
Time can heal a lot of wounds, never regret
Some nights I need that, now they proof, gotta reset
Badish don't make them anymore like me