what's up oh we're good we're live yeah we are awesome hey guys uh this is a special episode
cedric and i had a really rough week in amsterdam we are in prison uh but right now they're uh
allowing us to smuggle some of this equipment in we're gonna get this show out to you live
uh if we're shut down or uh something happens we are not suicidal live from alligator
help your tricks uh yeah welcome to the bitcoin center podcast we're in between uber shifts with
everything's sweet we're at the garage we're into the car to be gassed up better than mcdonald's i
guess so they weren't hiring there this kind of yeah this kind of reminds me of this show taxi
right if taxi had podcasts that'd be amazing that would be awesome dude so you went to bitcoin
amsterdam yeah and i think it's cool just i want to hear what it was like boots on the ground
because i think you know get together with some other bitcoiners and it's real real world stuff
even what people talking about on stage or what like what was it like um i mean the the conferences
are all fairly similar but i think the like it's it's nice because it was it was smaller like a
few thousand people so more intimate uh you know you got more time to talk to people and find out
what they're up to a highlight the highlight for me was african bitcoin corporation
these got like africa is jumping to the future that like so you can imagine right here in the
west we're constantly like oh you can't do that oh we have to do this reg we have to make sure we've
got this license and this regulation and we're going to get in trouble if we don't do it just
right and in africa this the sense i got from from their talk was that the population is so oppressed
they have no banking they've been basically banking themselves with cash and you know human
atms and and and and ladies you know building like their home little fortresses in their homes to
bank themselves and and so when they got bitcoin they just they jumped right to it so they just
jumped to the future regardless of regulation they don't really care what the government says they
don't care what enforcement says because they're already super oppressed so like this is a better
way to do it this is better for our population and they're just there they're just they're already
there everything's peer-to-peer everything's priced in sats and i mean i was just so
so excited to hear this like how what we always envisioned bitcoin would do which would change
humanity and it is happening in africa rapidly uh one other account this is yeah this year's
amsterdam was the worst conference event i've ever been to nothing but suits and chick oh yeah yeah
They didn't have one fruitful conversation with a pleb
with someone they didn't already know.
Heard quote,
I don't actually own Bitcoin a million times.
Will never attend another Bitcoin magazine event.
David Bailey responded,
obviously I don't agree,
but there was a time
when having people attend a Bitcoin conference
you don't actually own Bitcoin was the entire point.
This is my comment on that.
These conferences are geared towards
educating people that don't know about Bitcoin
it used to be retail it used to be plebs it used to be anarchist and libertarians now
it's trad fi people yeah now it's wealthy people in suits now it's business owners
so yeah that's who's in the audience now and they want to learn about i get what you're saying about
the audience completely but i do think that there's maybe a lack of focus at the bitcoin
magazine conference events uh it's not i mean you know it's just a shame i get messages like this
from well-known maxis i couldn't make amsterdam this year i did see a video edit of some treasury
bloke recommending zcash yeah i heard i didn't see that but i heard about that right so you know
what i mean like it's not it's one thing to say hey we got non-bitcoiners in the audience yeah
another thing to be like we're putting non-bitcoiners or people just really focusing maybe
unstable coins yeah i didn't i didn't see those but i mean of course i didn't see every talk right
you can't you can't attend them all and the best part is not and i'm selecting the ones that yeah
i want to hear from which is great there should be a menu and yeah i do believe that we should have
um open dialogue and debate ideas yeah you know but i did it is interesting i did attend uh the
bitcoin for corporations day um and that was interesting because here you have a bunch of
either like well-known bitcoin treasury companies and up-and-comers guys that are maybe just getting
started like bike federal and other smaller companies and the entire hour and a half was
about what are you going to be doing with your treasury how are you going to acquire more bitcoin
with your treasury how are your strategies yeah not yeah it's digital assets it's kind of like okay
sailor's doing his thing yeah there might be there'll be another strategy in these other
jurisdictions but what are you going to do to set yourself apart and it it's all about you know well
maybe i use my treasury as a as a desk to trade to generate yield on my bitcoin maybe i'm using my
treasury to lend uh to borrow dollars that i then lend in the community which is african bitcoin
corporation is doing that um they're they're borrowing dollars against their treasury to
lend it to small and medium enterprises inside africa um and uh and others right like what kind
of like by federal like we're building a circular economy around our bitcoin stack so can we're
moving bitcoin in and out and taking spreads whether we're selling the bitcoin or buying
the cash flows yep whether they're denominated no and that's the thing or in dollars and that's a
shake you know has cash flows and good point i've started a bit it's all that's it's all about uh
yeah what are you going to do with your treasury to earn more bitcoin and then what is your is your
operating business synergistic with the treasury sure so that was uh i thought that was really cool
um because it's not just about financialization anymore yeah but it's not about privacy
and um decentralization and there were issues with mining pools maybe of course i selected
that panel i went to that panel but there were that's tough right because as much as
no no no no it was packed i'm saying those other topics might not sell what i'm getting at was
the content coming across the stage like if you want privacy if you want sovereignty on bitcoin
you need to go peer to peer that's where it's at if you're going to interact with the greater
financial system you're not going to be private there's there's until you get to the position
like africa until your economy fully collapses everybody's out of the banking system right the
largest part of their economy is unbanked in africa so yeah they're fully peer-to-peer
sovereign private nobody knows what they're doing but it was like that with cash before right so
um you know i think the west at large is going to have a harder time obtaining crypto sovereignty
and obtaining that peer-to-peer freedom network that we all wish for because we have such an
advanced financial system um and and so you know it's going to be these smaller countries that
jump into the future and show us the way yeah thank you all right well i think we should get
into it let's do it show coming up this is bitcoin center brought to you by bite federal
go bank yourself we got the crypto wallet we got the point of sale and the bitcoin atms
boom
Let's be real, right?
Praising Telegram for launching a Bitcoin wallet.
I've always felt like with Kayleigh.
Bitcoin, this digital currency that's out there that people say, oh, it might be the next big thing.
What do you think?
I think it's rat poison.
Bitcoin.
You never heard them a few weeks ago?
Now everybody's talking about them.
But is it a currency?
I don't know.
Or is it more like a stock?
Or is it a tulip bowl?
Or is it just stupid?
To me, it smells like Ponzi scheme and the greater pool theory, right?
Do like five minutes of freaking research.
Well, thanks for coming to my set talk.
Yes.
Don't buy shit, Clint.
Oh, man, I didn't get that wrong.
All right.
Bitcoin's recent rally.
Do you agree?
Is crypto finally dead?
Go to the next one.
Matter of fact, they're kind of in the Ethernet.
What are they?
Some rumors that it's a Japanese guy, but they know that he's a fake name.
It was a pseudonym.
You're literally putting real money onto a system that we don't even know who created it.
it will come to a bad ending is this the most exciting full run ever not for me no it's not
welcome to bitcoin center the fast-paced show where the debate is the story
dang dude we're gonna have to change our our spaceman suits for orange jumpsuits
Yes, for McDonald's.
All right.
I think first of all, this is a great topic.
Lawrence Lapard, he was opining on cash's optionality.
The big print author tweets that holding cash in a crash is worth something, even with negative real yields.
Wisdom or short-term bearish on Bitcoin?
That's wisdom.
Yeah.
As far as I'm concerned.
I mean, I've always thought that you want to have...
Well, look, I'll just tell you, most of my savings are in Bitcoin.
then physical gold buried in the backyard and then physical cash buried in the backyard and it's it's
just the resilience factor of it right so it's like what what do you do if the uh i mean the
bitcoin is the long play the gold is the uh i can preserve wealth and if there's no internet and no
banks i mean i can do something with it right and then and then paper cash is it immediate
currency crisis you need to get stuff done with somebody but also maybe if there's a crash in
prices as prices and you could scoop up some real deals what he's really hinting at here yeah i think
so yeah you're probably right i i guess i'm a little bit more of a what's the word i'm a little
bit more of a prepper i think they got the prepper perspective on that one yeah i i think he's uh
he's you know gold and metals are up a lot this year part of the subtweet was you know he sold
some i think gold miners or some gold fund that is um you know two to five x this year or something
like that i could be off these numbers but so he was moving to cash and then you know because he's
yeah whatever so i think um i mean look at bear markets happen they happen they happen frequently
so yeah all right let's move on to the next one uh yeah all right so this is about the fourth
turning yeah and tyler durden uh warns that we're already deep in the fourth turning and uh the essay
argued that the us's deep fourth turning crisis marked by institutional collapse rising global
rivals and accelerating fragmentation a major reset looms by the early 2030s with bitcoin emerging
as a parallel escape valve as trust and state money erodes so should bitcoin holders lock up
for war or is this just high leverage doom talk i think there's i think bitcoiners and preppers
have a lot in common uh look i think this was a great summary of you know the fourth turning thesis
but this talks about this fourth turning is different fundamentally from all previous ones
because of technology's role and the covert 19 accelerated this technological authoritarianism
by decades. And, you know, so consider that central bank digital currency's agenda that
that's advancing globally while most people remain just unaware. And we see that every time we talk
on the show, crypto and stable coins all around the world in each country, in each region.
And every fourth turning includes a monetary reset. So they kind of prognosticate on what
could happen. There's three or four different outcomes that they kind of go over, but they
really look at sort of the united states splitting apart yeah uh china and russia coming together
yeah so this is i think it's a great piece really interesting and they talk about the moral
bankruptcy sort of accelerates the fourth turnings institutional collapse yeah so no every everything
i read about uh in this article i agree with um i i mean i run in my mind constantly run different
scenarios about how this plays out so i'm going to sort of mentally prepared for every possibility
but I agree with a lot
of what they said. One thing I would
say is that I don't think we're
going to have World War III
I think we're going to have lots of
wars all over the world
lots of smaller
regional wars
as we restructure the monetary system and trading partners and some people are getting left out or are being devalued and and trying to repartner so i think you going to see a lot of chaos
a lot of different a lot of small pockets of volatility i think the larger war
we're already experiencing the larger war is social media yeah it's messaging and the difference
between what's on your wall and my wall your feed and my feed that that fifth generation warfare that
that information warfare that's been ongoing and it's designed to create the fragmentation right
and so um you know i think people are going to i i i think they're totally right i think the u.s
does end up splitting up and becoming different regions um i don't know if they're perfectly
accurate with the way it gets divided but um i mean this is why right this is why in the previous
comment it was bitcoin gold and cash because you need uh you need optionality and that kind of chaos
so let's talk about four turnings are generational psycho dramas where every archetype plays it's you
know destined role but something's different this time the actors seem to be forgetting their line
so the boomers are supposed to be sort of like the wisdom and they're supposed to be like hey
everyone like let's fucking settle down and figure this out let's stop problems but they're just
like me me me me me and then uh i think it's gen x that's probably us or just like how how do we
deal with this yeah and just go homestead go home school bitcoin i know i was reading this i was
like yeah you nailed my generation how do i just go off and solve this every man's an island yeah
and then but the millennials the millennials are what worried them or the author he goes on saying
half of them want socialism without understanding that socialism requires a social cohesion yeah so
whether he's not even saying it works or doesn't work just kind of have to have a cause though
and remember this generation doesn't really have the younger generations don't have something
to unify or fight against right this pro the problem might be that you know it's too the
crisis is abstract you know like covet was scary but not scary enough i mean at a 99 survival rate
okay it's not like bro harbour but this is i think this is true of millennials in the west
i don't think this is true of millennials around the world around the world meaning like so you
take millennials in latin america yeah totally different mindset i work with some of them
millennials from uh africa largest fastest growing population totally different mindset
so what so that millennial generation may be the savior of the future like you know they could be
the uh what is it the next uh uh great generation or i forget which which one they match up with
but um they could really lead us into a prosperous future but they may not be the millennials of the
west because yeah because they're they really got the millennials of the west really got
the wrong end of the deal here i mean they were like promises just ripped out from under them
left and right yeah the american dream gone buying a home gone get a 250 000 college education and
you'll be paid high gone right let's take it like they really got screwed hard and i can understand
the nihilism i think some of them are finding bitcoin and finding hope um i talked to bram
kranstein about that today on on our podcast by federal and uh yeah i think it's divided right
There are some nihilistic groups and there's some hopeful groups.
So it's just going to be less cohesive here in the West, I think.
Yeah. All eyes on Taiwan.
All right. Let's move on to the next one.
All right.
Consumer spending can't grow mathematically unless stocks rise.
And we highlighted that at the time. It was very controversial.
My point is it's not controversial anymore.
Everybody knows that everybody knows that A, the stock market is effectively the economy.
B, they need it to fund the treasury market.
and see, therefore, any dips are to be bought because you take stocks down 20%, 25%, which
earlier in our careers was like, okay, it's kind of a nasty correction, but so what?
Now, if stocks drop 20%, 25% and stay there for long enough, receipts are going to drop
15% to 20% within three to four months, and we won't be able to afford to pay the entitlements
plus the interest.
Forget about defense.
Forget about national parks, education, labor, all the other.
We won't be able to pay entitlements and interest if your stocks fall 20%, 25% and stay there for a few months.
So my point here is that everybody knows that everybody knows stocks can't fall long.
And I think it's rapidly being understood.
And we know mechanically the plumbing is in place or being put in place to keep this going and ameliorate any sell-offs.
So to me, I think what stops it is more inflation and politics, political instability.
And we're starting to see that, but it's not quite there enough.
But I think the everybody knows, everybody knows portion of this is a dangerous point in time because it just means more and more the bar market's going to sell itself faster and faster to the Fed.
And that's really good for gold.
It's really good for Bitcoin.
it's, it's, um, you know, I think it's great for the stock market in dollars. I think stocks will
keep falling in gold terms and Bitcoin terms over time, but you know, what do you think he's
describing there? Well, I follow Luke. So that that's not new messaging for Luke. Um, and I think
secularly totally correct, like long-term totally correct. Uh, but I, I do feel like,
you know don't put a line in the sand at 25 and buy it like i think that could also be translated to
deeper sharper faster corrections um and i mean there's no better way to unite politicians there's
no better way to get everybody aligned with uh the central bank than a good crisis right
if you need to refinance nine trillion dollars next year you need interest you need to fix or
make housing more affordable you need to uh get the democrats and the republicans to all of a
agree on something nothing better than i'm than down 40 i mean covid was a great example of that
right um and it and it doesn't have to be a covid like event it could just be the end of the business
cycle. This is what Larry's getting at.
I mean, he's waiting for the big print, but we could get a big
crash first. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and the optionality there and survival is
going to be important in liquidity. Yes,
100%. So
Luke says this over and over and over again.
Don't take leverage.
Just be
long-term accumulating gold and Bitcoin.
Right. Good advice.
Yeah. All right. This one's juicy.
Let's go.
If you knew who owned Bitcoin
or who started Bitcoin,
and you had Bitcoin, you couldn't sleep at night.
I know.
100%.
And when the real founder of Bitcoin comes out,
it is my humble opinion, and there's nothing humble about me,
Bitcoin will go to fucking zero.
One day.
And a microsecond.
I mean, obviously the conflation there is that Epstein is Satoshi.
Do you think so?
No, I don't think so.
But I think also, you know, but I think the conflation meaning with the latest news.
I don't know what that guy's.
Yeah, I don't know what he's talking about.
I mean, that clip is not directly related to.
No, it's not directly related.
It's just conflated.
Sure.
It's being recycled, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
but i think the epstein thing you know i i think here this is more slander and sort of like um a
boogeyman and there's nothing in the epstein files there's nothing in it no are we still talking about
well there's interest here there isn't why are we talking epstein in bitcoin no but it's like look
epstein drinks water and breathes air doesn't mean that those things are bad i just made a smart ass
no i get it but what what it does for me though what i want to explore is you know do you think
that wait do we even explain that this is because no jeffrey epstein's emails suggest that some of
his money financed bitcoin core and there's a notion of either it was like 850 000 or around
seven and a half million and some of it might have went through leon black going to mit but in the
emails it's clear mit is trying to um fund core developers doesn't seem nefarious on on top right
and of course mit is at the cutting edge of technology they got the mit license which is
open source right but what i do think it's interesting and i'm sure and epstein fund funded
lots of scientific projects but he was very clever about yes sure i mean he was interested in some
obscure cutting edge technology yep so um and i think he was also involved in probably high-end
money laundering schemes and tax evasion which all crypto can help but what i think is interesting is
did he one is the comments about gavin so gavin is clever so in my mind gavin's captured
and they like what gavin's doing gavin goes on to other projects he's a big blocker so i think that
they did it seems like nefarious interests want bigger blocks in my mind yeah right that's what
i get from this right and then you would also think that they'd want to steer it towards lack
of privacy right public blockchain right so if you think if the government started it to well
to bridge their way to stable coins in a panopticon i think that's a reach i think it is a reach but
i think that's a reach i'm not saying that they start because i do i do agree that like the
government is playing the government started it right i do believe that like the people within
the dod darpa started as much as they can but i also believe that it got out it got open sourced
and through that open sourcing process i don't yeah but i think that's a real like oh let's open
source us so we get stable coins that argument has never i think the argument there i'm not trying to
make the argument that these are mine i'm trying to yeah no no i get it i know i know that it was
open source yeah you're playing devil's advocate uh so that the community can be built around it
they could iron out the kinks they could kind of build a fervor i mean stay making here anarcho
libertarianism but stable coins are so like like this is not an ushering in of stable coins because
stable coins are so much different and then then bitcoin it's a totally different i agree with you
i don't think they're similar stable coins are e-cash i mean stable coins are but but and they're
there with Panopticon, but you need, well, I think now stable coins rely on the narrative
of Bitcoin existing and not failing.
So I think if Bitcoin goes to zero, I don't think the stable coin.
Oh, no, stable coins will be around.
Even if Bitcoin goes to zero.
Oh, 100%.
Sure.
At this point, but I mean, I'm thinking that it kind of helped bridge the idea of crypto,
even though stable coins are not actual crypto currencies.
and i think the only connection i see there is that people start using you know the lightning
network for cheap fast remittances and payments and they say boy gee it would be great if we could
do this without paying capital gains tax right right can we have all the benefits of the speed
and the settlement and non-private yes right and you d and you centralize it as much as possible
around bitcoin lightning is not even bitcoin right i mean it's it's not main chain bitcoin
so it's totally different and and so i think it's it's it's i'm saying if i was the government i
created this thing and it got out or i let it out then i would do everything i could around it to
go back to chombs e-cash right let's say e-cash wasn't shut down because it was living on one
server and because it threatened the government if e-cash came out in 1986 or whenever and
everyone went like whoa hey the government likes this thing we can now send dollars digitally through
through the internet instant settlement for free right people would have been like yeah let's
do that so to me it it shows you that the government came into stable coins after the
cat had been let out of the bag and they had no other option but like we got to go with this
we're dying the debt-based dollar system is dying this is a way for us to sell treasuries
right so instead of fighting it let's just adopt it that and and so i i look at this as like the
cat got out of the bag people start using it countries start adopting it individuals are
getting wealthy with it now we got to try and get some of the sausage back in the casing
so that we don't completely die
and we don't get completely replaced,
meaning the government and the institutions.
And you pile that on top of the pressure
of the fourth turning,
collapsing the value of these institutions,
they're desperate to get the sausage back in, right?
Like, holy smokes, this shit's out there.
And then you see what Africa's doing
and El Salvador's doing
and the Czech Republic now saying,
well, you know, I mean,
we going to test a little of this Bitcoin stuff To me this uh but getting back to the epstein thing epstein financing a bunch of stuff that they thought you know that we gotta be on top of all this and maybe
get in and control it i'm not saying epstein financed bitcoin right i'm saying he tried to
steer development yeah and that towards bigger blocks possibly and whatever would be beneficial
to people who don't sure so they could control it they from money yeah right or just a control
aspects of it or try to right not even succeed and this is the thing about the way bitcoin is
constructed if we ever get to that point there will be a hard fork to a more sovereign network
again fair enough right but we need something that that is used as money right not just savings
yeah i mean it could be store value first but it has to be used as money it started as black
market money we have to improve it could go back to black market money and yeah and you know that's
why we have zcash oh shut up let's move on hit like and subscribe this bitcoin center brought
you by bite federal bitcoin atms uh self-custody uh run a node and stamp your seed phrase uh jack
is this number five jack mallor yeah it's bitcoin as the system's liquidity smoke alarm
jack argues gold's breakout shows fiat is failing while bitcoin's sell-off reveals deeper cracks
does bitcoin's volatility truly expose hidden stresses that legacy markets can or won't reflect
what's your thoughts i think he nailed it with that comment absolutely nailed it this is why
you've seen such a discrepancy between gold and Bitcoin right now.
Because when central banks are understanding
the reset is coming, fiat is dying,
and they're going to move money to an asset that they can control
and that they understand.
That they know is going to be the collateral
for the restructuring of global trade.
Now, so that's why we're seeing such a massive boom in gold.
while simultaneously Bitcoin, which is tied to global liquidity,
is saying, yo, liquidity is drying up.
Repo market's blowing, starting to boil over.
The business cycle's rolling over.
Unemployment, deflation could be coming.
This is not good for global liquidity.
And Bitcoin's going like, yeah, we're not going there
because this is not looking good.
Bitcoin is that canary in the coal mine that the only free market that tells you what's really happening in the economy long before it hits the stock market.
So I think that was so much wisdom in two or three lines that he wrote.
This is like, well done.
So that's my opinion.
All right.
Jack, sometimes spot on.
Let's move on to the lightning round.
This is Bitcoin.
Bitcoin says what?
all right kenya legalizes crypto payments with kenya's parliament passing a virtual
asset service provider has africa's fintech frontier finally legalized bitcoin and commerce
or will heavy regulation snuff out innovation uh by both uh i i think that this is just
Just everyone around the world is paving the way for crypto payments.
Again, I think this has very little to do with Bitcoin
and more to just regulatory headwinds kind of knocked down and clearing the path.
I don't think we should spend a lot of time on this.
No, we don't need to.
I think we've talked about Africa a lot.
I think this is Kenya's parliament getting on the program
with whatever other nation is doing.
But I don't think their people give a shit.
No, I don't think.
Next.
all right cash app enables bitcoin payments can blocks cash app turn bitcoin into everyday money
by letting users pay merchants with bitcoin over the lightning network i mean they're pushing it
hard man they got the advertising going they're they're they're telling you know trying to get
um capital gains out of the payment processing of bitcoin paying cash no no not the stable coin
stuff that they implemented i believe that oh you all explain it but i thought i yeah no i mean
there's two things they're doing you're right right so they're implementing they're going to
allow stable coins on their platform which you know so they're going to pay in bitcoin by using
cash yourself and they'll convert it to bitcoin for you pay the merchant bitcoin oh they will
that's what i i heard okay i saw on a tweet okay i didn't see that part interesting that isn't
you're not using your bitcoin that's interesting that's very right so the if yeah and it makes
sense so you could pay in dollars and the merchant could choose to accept bitcoin and it lets you
know the merchants request so you're you're not you don't have a capital gain and the merchant
doesn't either right that's smart yeah i didn't know that they were doing that's really cool
think that's all they would allow because i think right now by allowing people to and i don't know
what they're allowed exactly allowing and how it's treated i mean you can use their platform to i mean
i use it to pay i used it in amsterdam to buy got it so let's say you went on it uh your cash app
five years ago right and bought ten dollars in bitcoin and it's now worth a hundred bucks
and you go buy the coffee.
Yeah.
Or you buy two sweatshirts in Amsterdam for $100.
Do you own $90?
Do you have $90 in capital gains?
Yeah.
I mean, yes.
Are you going to get a 10-9?
They are going to give you the 10-9.
Well, if you bought it on their platform, right?
Or either way, you'll get it with zero cost basis.
So you'll pay them probably 100%.
Yeah, you'll have to show your cost basis, right?
If you sent them, you're big.
So I think they're, in my opinion,
it sounds like they're walking a lot of people into a nightmare.
Well, yes and no, except that if you use it properly, right?
Like the way I use Bitcoin payments on any wallet is I buy it on the wallet, spend it on the wallet, and refill.
No, I get what you're saying.
So you kind of have like this wallet has...
I keep it in a walled garden.
I get what you mean.
Yeah.
I just don't know if everyone's doing that and they don't know what the implications are.
Well, if you're not doing it, you should do it that way.
To me, it's very interesting that Cash App's rolling this out.
Yeah.
Kind of nonchalantly like that.
Because does it speak to them knowing that the government's not going to tax all this?
Yeah, I don't know.
Or are they going to be like, we're going to try to manage all this back-end nightmare of the boarding?
Well, 1099DA or DE, 1099Ds are coming.
No, I get that they're coming.
Yeah.
But now we're encouraging much more.
like a lot of people are going to be i didn't know i'm going to owe this much tax yeah i bought a
couple sweatshirts i i have the same yeah i have the same intuition or same question when i heard
and it'll be interesting when people start buying this jack did jack know that like this is coming
yeah that's what i'm getting at right but at the same time right he's he's running a massive
advertising campaign uh trying to get people on it and they're no to try and tell the government
to stop taxing crypto payments.
So I don't know if that's all PR.
Which to me is the holy grail.
Oh, that'd be amazing.
Yeah.
Yes.
All right, let's move on to the next one here.
Lean miners.
So Marathon CEO warns,
next halving will only allow miners
with subsidized power or ownership stakes to survive.
Is mining now a capital intensive club
that undermines decentralization
or a Darwinian filter that leaves only the fittest?
oh man it's darwinian mining sucks i mine it's darwinian it's hard man and but this kind of
way the market's been the sideways it's hard but the hash rate rising dramatically
it's hard if you were going to make a business out of it yeah for an individual for an individual
to get the 100 uh expense sure yeah the depreciation in in the same year yeah that's a win
and then you get your Bitcoin over time.
You get that money back over time.
And that's pretty...
There are ways to work.
That kind of supports mining decentralization.
That really incentivized me to buy some miners for myself.
But margins are slim if you're looking to do it
on sort of a profit margin basis.
And I also think...
Yes, trying to make a business out of it.
I think that's what he's saying.
I think I agree 100%.
I think in the future,
it's going to be...
Everyone's going to be mining at a loss
and it's going to be strategic.
like countries
we're mining at a loss
or a negligible gain because we want to guarantee
that our transactions get fooled
I fully anticipate that countries will subsidize
the power in order to be able to
transact freely on the network
when and how they want
yeah it's all coming
yeah I've talked to a couple organizations
that are building that
let's move on to the next one
alright last gasp liquidity
credit bubble bulletin warns markets are in a liquidity
fueled froth
If Bitcoin ETFs rode that tide, will a Fed pivot send them crashing?
A Fed pivot send them crashing?
Yeah.
What's a Fed pivot?
Higher rates?
Lower rates, I guess.
I mean, credit bubble bath, bubble bulletin warns markets are in liquidity, fueled Roth Roth.
Yes, yes.
Agreed.
I guess pivot maybe to higher.
Sure.
Okay.
So yeah, this is, I think there's really nothing new here
other than the fact that we've got a crunch in liquidity.
You're seeing it in the repo markets.
You're seeing hints that we're going to stop quantitative tightening.
But it's like, is the loosening of credit, is the lowering of rates,
is the increase in liquidity going to come fast enough to prevent a crash?
I don't think so.
I think the crash is coming.
I don't know.
I think the crash is exactly what the powers that be need.
It gets two things.
They get to buy your Bitcoin cheap because you'll panic and sell it.
they get to when the financial system breaks and they lower interest rates and they pump liquidity
they all of a sudden unite all these people that hate the administration or angry with the
democrats or angry with the republicans go we're all getting money now and then they get to you
know knock people out of their houses knock people out of their cars create this financial drama
which says big daddy government like help me please that's exactly what they want yeah right
and and peak anti-government right even a lot of the republicans that were
hardcore mager are now going like oh my god like what did i do right and this kind of peak chaos
there's nothing better than a than a crisis for for more control and more power and to get
everybody back on your side right if if the markets are down 40 and people are losing their
jobs do you think they're going to be talking about the epstein list do you think the epstein
list is uh a nothing burger no i think it's an everything no i mean from trump's perspective
like i mean trump that there's nothing in these latest uh files that are gonna kind of or do you
think it's something like they want to get trump out so they can install advance uh do you know
mean like is this the take is this really going to take down trump that i mean is this something
that's going to take him down by christmas or you know midterms that's and then get an on-elect
advance in get a few years in so that he could run with a lot more credibility and and there's
some saying some are speculating like maybe they're not getting everything they want out of
trump maybe they're getting a lot or some but like maybe and maybe he's just not with it on some of
the more technological things they want to do around surveillance.
Okay, yeah, I hadn't thought about that.
That does make some sense to me.
It absolutely makes sense to me.
But I think the Epstein list, documents, emails, et cetera,
will take out most of the government.
I don't think you get into that.
I think it's a very small percentage of the people that get to that level
of the government without being uh compromised captured and corrupt yeah i agree so the there
it's good it would be detrimental to the entire political sphere and there'd be a massive vacuum
to fill and that yeah jd vance and peter teal and elon about that yeah all right let's move on
all right regulatory gridlock the u.s government shutdown has frozen crypto legislation
and sec actions could this involuntary pause be a blessing delaying harsh rules or will the
backlog unleash a fire hose of regulation once congress returns yeah i mean who knows what they're
gonna do i think it's a blessing and when they can't get things done i'm happier right so uh i
I think they want to pave the way for a lot of things.
It sounds like they're going to be running out of time
to do everything they wanted to do in this session
because of the shutdown.
But I don't know if it's bad or good.
Most of it's usually bad.
How much of it is good?
Yeah.
Let's move on to the next one.
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Go bank yourself.
Bitcoin risk on correlation Is this a bad sign Again Bitcoin has crashed in lockstep with stocks if cryptos correlation to equities remains near like near 1 can it still claim to be digital
gold or merely the latest high beta gadget of the bull market is this really what we want to see um
it's i don't think there's any way to get around that when you have institutionalized bitcoin
because i think the people that have been buying bitcoin the corporations that have been
buying the high net worth individuals the etf holders etc the treasury company buyers they're
they're not diamond hands right so so yes we are going to correlate with the overall market
but what you have to understand as is a real bitcoiner holding their own coins you hold
something that is a bearer instrument that is nobody is not nobody has an iou on it you have
custody of it so if the financial system went to zero bitcoin would have greater purchasing power
and that invite it might go down to be worth one dollar a coin it would still have greater
purchasing power over financialized assets that you don't it might make sense like yeah you're
like you're going to maintain the spread yeah right so like bitcoin at a hundred thousand
eighty nine thousand whatever it got there because it's priced in dollars if the dollar went to zero
bitcoin is still one to zero like you're still maintaining extreme purchasing power because it's
It's a scarce asset and you have custody of it.
And it's no one's IOU.
You put it in an ETF, you put it in a treasury company,
you give custody to Coinbase, it's going to zero.
But if you have self-custody, you have the one,
they have the zero.
So it is digital gold.
It is true value.
And it is uncorrelated in regards to the way
real assets work in the world.
but it's priced in fiat, so it's going to correlate.
This is like therapy.
Cool. I'm glad I could help.
I mean, it's going to help me.
All right. Let's go on to the next one.
I think you're asking me.
Oh, sorry.
No, it's not good.
Hodler sell-off.
Okay, long-term hodlers dumped a record of 815,000 BTC in 30 days.
That's why we need therapy, man.
It's called dumping.
Could this be the first time the OGs cause a bear market?
I don't think so.
And I don't think this is anything different than what we've seen in the past.
I think the multiples are higher because there's more inflation and the dollar has been more debased.
I think it's about the same amount of people probably exiting out of the same amount of coins.
And along the same amount of time frame.
Something comes to mind to me in Amsterdam.
Carrot.
Oh, gosh.
I'm going to forget the names of the other.
I'm sorry, guys.
There were three great.
It's hard to forget Carrot, right?
holding the sign in front of his face but there are three great on-chain analysts and they were
showing uh you know charts and data sure and in previous cycles like we've all we've sold off
similar amounts of coins in all the cycles but in previous cycles they came like all at once
like they burned the top yeah right and just crushed it yeah this cycle it's just been a
is consistent just drip on top of the market more professional liquidation might be distribution and
strategic yeah and it's probably in some ways right they're not they're not moving it to this
like binance and just fat fingering it right because they're like oh i've got
100 million in coins i'm gonna hire an otc desk to bleed this into the market
um and you could just see it in the chart of sellers and it was like oh wow like here you have
this bull market that's chopping and you have this this selling this chopping right underneath it
and i'd also be curious it was really illustrated that even distribution is from singular wallets
meaning this wallet is spitting out a steady stream versus its coins are being stalled steady
yeah and it's more like people are just reaching their natural life events and breaking points
through this cycle you know yeah organically right and people just independently coming to
the same conclusion that it's time for them to diversify but this is the best thing for bitcoin
i agree for these coins to move to the next set of diamond hands yeah i agree so yep and people
grow up and move on and i don't mean grow up meaning they they lose the cause but they they
have their life changes yeah this has always been off and you know this has been a uh critique of
bitcoin for a long time that there was a small group of people that hold a held a ton of coins
well that is that that critique i wonder how much yeah slowly i wonder how much further we are
on that curve yeah it's hard to say i don't know somebody could do that analysis i guess but you
know just sort of looking at the average size of wallets totally now compared right some sort of
distribution from now to the past yeah see how much we've changed sure lightning network growth
lightning usage is surging with monthly transactions up 266 year over year and fees
are plunging is lightning network finally proving it can scale for bitcoin for everyday payments
yes i don't agree i agree i don't i think so you think so yeah um you don't think there
lightning is not going to be b2b still and more like oh i'm not saying it's like i think i don't
yeah well i mean there are some interesting i don't think it's the final there's interesting
decentralized lightning i don't know if protocol is the right word but software that i've seen in
communicating with the other vendors um but yeah right so right now it is it is mostly centralized
the big nodes are doing lots of volume there was a bitcoin treasury company on a panel that i spoke
at that um was generating about a 14 yield canadian annually canadian uh god i don't know
i think we did a quick review on that yeah company they've run a test experiment over like 60 days
on their lightning node they put in like 300 coins yeah i'm sorry i'm not remembering the
specific name of the company but it was it was very interesting they're they're they're doing a
lot of volume they're they're generating a great return um what do you think the increase in demand
for all these volumes.
Where do you think this volume is coming from?
Is it coming from because Cash App is now using...
I mean, yeah.
So for instance,
I bought Bitcoin today on the dip.
Every one of those transactions
was a lightning transaction.
Tell me how.
How is that a lightning transaction?
Because it was a small payment instantly.
No, but where did you use?
A ByteWallet.
Okay, the ByteWallet.
Because you know that...
Yeah, I mean, I know that's the lightning, right?
And I just bang, bang, instant.
Got it.
Very cool.
Strike is lightning.
Cash app has got lightning.
I mean, our ATMs has got lightning.
Like, lightning's everywhere because, I mean, our POS system's got lightning.
Everything's got lightning because it's just fast, efficient, low cost.
Right.
I don't think lightning's going to be like Visa in this example.
I still think it's going to be like...
I think Visa is going to adopt.
Lightning.
I think you'll even see stable coins running over Lightning.
Right, but people are going to use some other layer on top of Lightning
to interact with that credit card or that thing.
That card's not going to run directly on Lightning.
Your credit, the credit that MasterCard or Visa gives you
is going to move stable coins over Lightning.
because that way it can reach everybody in the world
yeah okay is that your brain ticking yeah
the coin the coin's clicking all right the swiss stable going law
switzerland's uh government just launched a consultation to add a add crypto to financial
laws especially stable coins does this reaffirm switzerland's crypto friendly stance or show that
even crypto haven regulators are tightening the screws both i mean again stable coins are i don't
know how friendly they're gonna be or how private uh privacy friendly stuff is gonna be in spanish
but they're they're gonna approach the days of the swiss bank accounts died a long time ago
private bank accounts died a long time ago bitcoin is the real swiss space it's on you can't stop the
transaction but i wouldn't say it's private and that's what we need to improve yes i think yeah so
So stable coins in Switzerland, stable coins are going to be everywhere.
And if you're going to have to, if you're Switzerland and you have to do payment processing
with the rest of the world, you have to do exchange with the rest of the world.
It's like, okay, I guess we're moving to stable coins.
If we're going to do stable coins, I guess we need a regulation and a law around it.
So this is just one of those, right?
It's just everybody catching up.
Same with Kenya, right?
Russia is going to do it.
China's going to come up with the Yuan stablecoin.
Some will be CBDCs.
Some will be stablecoins.
They'll be exchangeable.
Do you know Aaron Day?
Have you heard of Aaron Day?
We'll be talking to him soon.
He's sort of a technologist.
He kind of looks at sort of, you know,
how AI is impacting the future.
But he's also, I think he's kind of a Roger Ver
sort of disciple or, I don't know if disciple's the word,
but supporter.
I don't think it's a bad thing,
but also maybe a big blocker.
But it'll be interesting.
I'm kind of curious to kind of have that conversation again,
just for kind of making sure that I'm not missing anything.
Maybe, you know, I just thought of something.
Maybe Roger really is pro small blocks,
but pushed the big block in order to be able to liquidate,
because he's spending all his Bitcoin cash to be able to liquidate the big blockers
while he holds on to his small block Bitcoin.
I don't know.
I think that he really believed that big blocks were better for making
Bitcoin money.
Yeah.
And I think that there's something to,
I'm not saying he's right,
but I think that there's.
Do you think he sold Bitcoin?
All of it?
No,
not at all.
I don't.
I think he held it and just spent Bitcoin cash because it was cheaper to
spend.
I think he spent some Bitcoin probably finance.
I mean,
if he had a hundred thousand coins,
he could have.
I mean,
he just,
I mean,
50,000 coins and still have 50,000 coins.
And he could have done that over 10 years.
I wish he'd come back.
He's back.
No, I mean like.
I would talk to Roger.
I would love to talk to him.
Yeah.
I want to hear more.
I mean, Roger was one of the best orange pillars ever.
Yeah.
The Bitcoin Jesus.
So I really want to.
I want to understand if it's megalomania.
I mean, I was like.
And sort of always off the reserve.
All in.
Or what the genuine belief is.
And maybe big blocks are still wrong, but maybe there's some.
I want to hear about the money.
The Bitcoin is money.
Yeah.
Bitcoin as medium exchange.
Yeah, and he really understood Bitcoin very well
from the perspective of how it would impact governments,
impact humanity, stop the forever wars.
I mean, I really learned a lot from him.
I've never seen anyone try to use Bitcoin.
It just went off the rails so rapidly with the big block deal.
And at the end of the day, I got rid of all my Bcash
and went all in on Bitcoin.
and um i wasn't around early enough like started started uh believing in in just bitcoin and that
that i the big blocks were wrong because of this centralization impact um with mining so
um but we haven't but bitcoin hasn't gotten everything right since yeah yeah right i mean
we can't segue it and tackle i know where so so i think there's things to kind of read the tea
leaves there and try to yep see what we're not seeing yeah 100 all right moving on micro strategy
faces mnap drop with micro strategies mnap slipping low one and fears of forced liquidation rising
even as taylor doubles down and buying more bitcoin does this mark the first real stress test
of the leveraged bitcoin treasury model in a volatile market yeah it does i i don't i don't
think i don't think i put i don't think they went through a lot of stress in 2020 yeah yeah exactly
yeah but this is a much um under a much bigger microscope so i think the the bigger
while calling a lot more attention to themselves i think strategy is the peg the other day
strategy i think is going to be fine okay but i think whatever this pullback slash recession is
that we're in in bitcoin you will know it's over when you start to see second tier third tier
bitcoin treasury companies going private getting bought at a deep discount um collapsing you name
it right probably everything is second tier like you can't you cannot build companies that are
dependent on bitcoin price going up so do you think the days of like later than m1 mnav are over
forever do you think 1.8 or two or no i think you're going to see companies to develop can
Can you make the argument, do you make,
what about the argument that these Bitcoin treasury companies
of course should be worth less
an ETF because you have management risk.
You have execution risk.
Yeah, they should trade like a close.
If they have no business model,
they have no business.
You have marketing, stock options, executives.
If their only business model is holding Bitcoin,
then they are tied to the price of Bitcoin.
Period.
And so then they're going to trade
like a closed-end Bitcoin ETF, like GBTC,
that I think at one time had like a 70% discount.
Is that right?
don't know if it got that deep at least 50. at least yeah it was a pretty significant discount
it went from a positive premium so maybe it was maybe it was a when you include the premium negative
like but it was up like 30 40 right so maybe that's what i remembered was like a 70 drop
that that fund was designed yeah so so i think you're gonna see you know i think that will be
really the what will ring the bell on the end of this uh pullback yeah all right well that our show for tonight this is brought to you by uh Bitcoin Center number 29 Tuesdays at 8 p at Like and Subscribe Maybe we have some questions or comments in the chat
Please.
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Bueller.
All right.
Send your letters to Alligator Alcatraz.
Hopefully we'll receive them.
You get to make one phone call a day.
We'll get out of our prison here and back into a studio shortly.
And again, Cedric is not suicidal.
Good to know.
Yeah, it's good to know.
Thanks for letting me know what I'm thinking.
All right.
This is Bitcoin Center.
My name is Cedric Youngelman.
I'm Paul Tarantino.
Good night.
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