This is the game, man, that's being played over and over and over again.
It's always about the money.
There's nothing else that incentivizes this level of evil and corruption other than pure, pure greed.
I don't know how many times you would have to hit me over the head with a crowbar to keep $30,000 worth of USDC on a ledger.
I don't even know where to begin with this.
When you're in a situation like this person described here, the fact that Bitcoin is permissionless gives him a chance to survive.
And I think we should be focused on that quite a bit more.
You've been lied to, you've been duped, and you've been separated from your coins.
When you sold, it didn't just vanish into the ether.
There were players absorbing your coins at a massive, massive discount and laughing at you.
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Bitcoin Banter.
I have Greer and Tony with me.
Guys, let's jump right in.
We're going to start by watching a video here.
Unfortunately, I am spiraling and I have put on my tinfoil hat and I am going to present a hypothesis.
I do not think that this is about the Epstein files.
Hear me out before you get angry.
On January 3rd, 2026, when we invaded Venezuela and captured Maduro, we took temporary control of Venezuela's oil exports and commerce.
Venezuela has the largest oil reserve in the world.
At first, this did not make complete sense because we cannot necessarily use Venezuela's oils because of the crudeness of it.
but technically we do control their oil sales right now. The largest beneficiaries of Venezuelan
oil is China, Russia, and Cuba. The other country that China currently gets a majority of their oil
reserves from is Iran. Besides Iranian leadership under this current regime, we are currently
targeting Iranian naval bases. Why? Because Iranian naval bases are currently attempting to defend
the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz is a key shipping lane to be able to get oil to China.
China knew that this was going to happen because they have been stockpiling oil reserves since January when the US invaded Venezuela.
They currently have enough oil to last them for approximately 100 days.
But what happens when that 100 days winds down?
Their manufacturing completely stalls.
But that's not where this stops.
Look at the Q3-Q4 GDP report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis which is released by this administration.
On page 2 of both reports, you will see that the Q3-Q4 GDP is currently being propped up by increased defense spending.
Now, who is currently the biggest beneficiary of U.S. production of defense systems?
It is not Israel. It is Saudi Arabia.
Which country is currently trying to backfill China's oil reserve depletion?
Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is currently the biggest beneficiary of us invading Venezuela and capturing Maduro and also us invading Iran.
Our biggest customer of the export that is currently propping up our economy is simultaneously the only country that is currently supplying China with oil.
Now, why is the U.S. currently engaging in hypocrisy by propping up Saudi Arabia?
$1 billion in two Trump towers in Jeddah and Riyadh.
$2 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund into Jared Kushner's private equity fund.
$2 billion into Trump's stablecoin, a $5.5 billion Trump golf course developed by a Saudi Arabia developer.
Follow the fucking money.
All righty.
So follow the money, everyone.
It's an interesting thesis and certainly something I'd be open-minded to.
I don't know that I have a real hard stance on why we're doing what we're doing here in the United States.
But obviously, it's all insanity.
Tony, I would love to hear your take on this.
What's the difference between a politician and a prostitute?
Not much, right?
Say nothing.
There's a difference?
Well, this is the game, man, that's being played over and over and over again.
It's always about the money.
There is nothing else that incentivizes this level of evil and corruption other than pure, pure greed.
Right. And so if you want to go down the rabbit hole, I mean, you can just, you know, take the story and just rewind, you know, many, many years.
And you'll see that the script has always been similar.
The narratives that they push out, you know, onto the public are the farthest thing away from what's actually going on.
but you know again this is all part of the same same script and it's all related to that same
broken money and so now at least you know there's an opportunity for the world to move away from
this but clearly it's not going to happen overnight because you know people are slow people are
ignorant people just you know live within their own their own shadows and you know often refuse
to look you know outside the box but you know now we have an option you know the sound money that
It puts an end to all of these corrupt games.
But it's going to take some time before enough people move away so that it actually makes a difference and impacts real change in the world.
This whole Iran thing, I don't think is going to last very long because clearly it's just a deal, right?
And so they have to let it play out just so that it looks a certain way.
And then before you know it, something else will be announced and people will forget about this overnight.
Yeah, I think that's probably right. The other, I guess maybe the other comment I would have is
when it comes to my open mindedness about could this just be a financial play for Trump?
I think the it's important for people to understand, like my worldview is that the
depths of human depravity are very hard to comprehend. And so for you to imagine that a
guy would say yes to bombing Iran because of financial interests he has in a particular
country. It might sound crazy. I don't think it is. I'm not saying it's necessarily my base case,
but it adds up. Greer, you think this passes the smell test? I was thinking the exact phrase. I was
I was thinking this kind of does pass the smell test, you know, a president being bribed in order
to attack another country. But it also helps one of his allies. You know, they probably look at this
and think there's a lot in the win column. And I hope, you know, for everyone's sake that it ends
quickly. But my fear is that this actually does drag out longer than anticipated. I think that'd
be the bad news for the US. But ultimately, you know, Bitcoin defunds wars. And one of the things
that Bitcoiners say is, you know, if we move to a Bitcoin standard, war will become unaffordable.
And I think that's true. Another thing is that Bitcoin forces everyone to play by the same rules.
Imagine going to your people and saying, hey, you have to give us your Bitcoin so that we can produce missiles at a million dollars a pop.
I don't see a world where that happens.
So I think when we're looking at what Bitcoin can do for humanity, it it outroots all of these things that are exist in in today's world that are that are just so untenable.
So, you know, to me, like Bitcoin being the answer to a lot of our problems is just plain to see right now.
War would become unaffordable.
And so hopefully over time we get to that.
But, you know, I think at the end of the day, we hopefully this this war won't last very long.
Unfortunately, I think it might.
Yeah, absolutely.
And in the meantime our prayers go out to the people tangled up in this whole mess Alrighty Oh one other comment Tony we talked about this on our live stream yesterday I think this is really fascinating
And Greer, you sort of touched on this, but this is a post from 2019 that someone had said,
there's not anything you can do with Bitcoin for, you know, like Apple Pay can't do better.
And this Iranians spoke up and said, well, actually, no, I can't use Apple Pay, PayPal, Visa, any of these things.
I can use Bitcoin.
So what do you have to say to that?
And I think that's an important point is that this is the sort of max pain, I think, that we talk about a lot that is required of people to understand that there could be a solution and to go find it in Bitcoin.
So either you can chime in on that, but just wanted to make that comment before we move past the war.
Yeah, man, there's going to be a crash course for folks to understand the difference between having access and having ownership. In a country where, you know, your cards, you know, still work for the most part, you know, gives you the impression that you own your funds until the day comes where, you know, the rules change for whatever reason.
and then you are no different than an Iranian who can't buy anything.
And so you don't want to leave yourself susceptible to a product
that is abused or can be abused by a handful of people
on any given moment in time.
Bitcoin is the neutral ground here.
Nobody controls it, nobody can corrupt it,
and nobody can stop you from transacting in it.
And you don't need anybody's permission or blessing to use it.
You simply need to understand that this is money and learn what the steps are in order to transact from point A to point B.
So, you know, those delusional people that are still living in places where things still work, those are the ones that, in my opinion, are going to wake up to a very violent reality that they think simply stop.
And believe me, that day is coming.
you just look back to last weekend if you had asked you know people living in dubai if they
ever dreamt of a day where you know they'd have missiles flying over their heads they'd laugh at
you i promise you no one is laughing anymore and so the same thing is going to happen when the money
gets restricted because it will that entire system is dead it's on borrowed time and it's just a
matter of time when something very unsophisticated is going to happen and then that light switch is
going to go off. So brace yourselves. Yeah, I think one of the strongest features of Bitcoin
is that it's permissionless. You don't need permission from Visa, MasterCard, your bank
account. You don't need permission from anyone to save or transact in it. And we don't highlight
that enough. But when you're in a situation like this person described here, the fact that Bitcoin
is permissionless gives him a chance to survive. And I think we should be focused on that quite a
bit more. I completely agree. Enough of the number go up, hopium, and let's talk more about those
attributes of Bitcoin. All righty, up next, we have California law is going to require Linux and
Windows to implement age verification by January of 2027. It says that this law signed by Governor
by Governor Gavin Newsom
requires all operating systems
from Mac to FreeBSD
to implement age verification
at the system level this year.
Tony, would you like to give everyone
a crash course on open source technology?
Jesus Christ, man.
Like how do you get a donkey
to speak publicly?
You know, just listen to this guy.
The only maybe that might work
in his retarded plan
is if Microsoft and Apple go along with this.
But if he thinks the open source world
is going to allow or adopt this,
he is way more delusional
than I ever thought possible.
It's just not going to work.
So if they do implement this stupidity
on macOS and the Windows,
first of all, I suspect these companies
are going to lose a tremendous number of sales.
So from a business standpoint, I don't think that's a very smart decision, considering it's only California that's, you know, suggesting these brilliant ideas.
It will not work, in my opinion, and it will certainly fail on the open source ecosystem.
Yeah, all you need is a handful of rebellious, anarchist type of cypherpunks to say, no, we're just going to you're going to have to play whack-a-mole with us and try catching us.
you know, and they have the tools and the privacy considerations and inclinations to,
I think, make it incredibly difficult on the state. Greer, what's your take?
Yeah, this is him getting ready for his 2028 presidential campaign, in my opinion. You know,
if he runs, this is what's going to come to the rest of America. I could only see this driving
users to go purchase their computers out of state. You know, it looks like it would only be in
California. And if that's true, you know, goodbye to every Apple and Windows, whatever, Microsoft
store, because I don't I don't think people are going to put up with this. But this is the type
of power that is absolutely corrosive to freedom. And I think, yes, open source tools are an option
here. Hopefully those would work and they don't take it to the next step of trying to ID the
entire web. But really, the push to do this is just so anti-freedom. I'm hoping that we hear a
lot of voices push back on this. Just an absolutely awful idea. The internet was so valuable because
it was unrestricted freedom where you could learn and develop communities and find your hobbies.
And it's become something quite darker. And I hope this fails. We'll have yet to see what happens.
But I think if he if he does look towards a presidential term, you know, expect this to be in this type of thing to be part of his administration.
I think he'll lose also. But I'm just saying, like, this is a shot across the bow.
Yeah, I don't I don't really much care for any politicians, obviously, but he would be a particularly large train wreck.
So we'll see what happens. All right, guys, TFTC reported that institutional adoption is accelerating fast.
They highlight 60% of top US banks are building Bitcoin products.
90% of Barron's top 50 RIA firms have Bitcoin allocation.
And over half of the top 25 hedge funds have a Bitcoin allocation.
Again, not something we get particularly excited about, but I think it's telling.
It's a signal amongst all the noise that the people who have a lot to gain and a lot to lose are beginning to bet more and more on Bitcoin.
Tony.
Yeah, man.
And I mean, for all of those that were running scared over the last few weeks, selling their Bitcoin, thinking that the world's going to end.
This is, you know, this is your wake up call.
You've been lied to, you've been duped and you've been separated from your coins because when you sold, it didn't just, you know, vanish into the ether.
There were players absorbing your coins at us at a massive, massive discount and laughing at you.
And these are these players.
The institutions know what Bitcoin is.
They understand what it represents. So what their play is, is to accumulate as much of it as possible, not to control it, but to build like an ecosystem of custodied services over it.
So that the majority of the people remain dependent on these services rather than having them go out and buy Bitcoin themselves and truly you know experiencing what financial freedom and generational wealth looks like So that is the result of mass ignorance And of course you know
emotional roller coasters founded on lack of substance for, you know, so to speak. And these
games are going to continue to happen. It's literally like taking candy from a child. And I'm
hoping more people you know snap out of uh of this of of this of this like retarded you know
play that they've been repeating cycle after cycle um and finally understand that the future of money
is uh is bitcoin and it's full ownership you don't need the institutions anymore you know that entire
world became optional as of 2009 it just requires you to understand how it works and no one is too
dumb to learn a few new steps. Yeah, I know it sounds self-serving, but I would encourage
everyone to have your Bitcoin podcasts on 24-7. If your level of conviction was such that you were
selling the last couple of months because the price was dipping, you and Greer, I'll let you
run with this because I know this is a big topic for you, but I think there are a lot of people who
don't realize you're running out of time. And if you can streamline your education to get the sort
of conviction that we have in Bitcoin. So you're not selling at 60,000. Your whole life is going to
be so much better for it, in my opinion. Greer, what are your thoughts? Yeah. Bitcoin is a pie
with 21 million slices and we're in the midst of a pie eating contest. So, you know, you got to go
out there and get one slice and go back for seconds. Because once if you miss the opportunity,
then it's going to be gone. You know, Bitcoin, where's it going to be five years from now,
10 years from now? Do you think it'll be where it is today? Answer is no. Yes, we'll have dips,
We'll have buying opportunities. I think the lesson is don't over leverage yourself. Don't get don't have anxiety for the amount of Bitcoin you have. Just diligently stack every single week whenever you're able to forget about it, put it away and use it as your savings account.
You know, I think if you look at the American way of life, we're all living paycheck to paycheck.
There's too much credit card debt, too much debt in general.
You know, Bitcoin introduces or reintroduces savings, savings that can't be confiscated.
And wouldn't that be a wonderful thing if Americans said, you know what, I'm going to start a savings account on Bitcoin and I'm going to save whatever your goal is, a thousand dollars a year, five thousand a year.
Just put it in Bitcoin. And this is the opportunity to do it.
Forget about getting to a certain number.
Just start stacking.
Well said.
Okay.
The Anthropics CEO, Dario Amode, he says that the government is buying data on Americans
and analyzing it with AI.
That actually isn't illegal.
It was just never useful before the era of AI.
Domestic mass surveillance is getting ahead of the law.
No shit.
I think we've known this for a while, though.
I mean, I know AI makes it a lot easier for them, but we had the whole NSA thing under Obama and all like this has been going on for forever.
The Patriot Act under Bush. Greer, what do you think of this?
Yeah, this is this is just bad news. Remember when I think it was AT&T, but I could be wrong.
They said they were handing over metadata and it's not your personal information. It's just metadata.
Well, of course, now with the advances in AI, they can make sense of any data, no matter what it looks like.
And so, yeah, this should send chills down your spine. I think the biggest thing that I'm thinking about now is how important it is just to get a privacy phone, you know, get Graphene OS installed onto a Pixel or another type of phone and get off the grid. You know, they don't have a right to surveil you. You have a right to privacy, but you have to take ownership of it. You know, it's never been more important than ever.
We talk about how dangerous doom scrolling is watching short form videos.
You know, they they lower your intelligence.
And I think just we need to completely reset.
You know, the mobile experiment has been damaging.
It's time to communicate in a way that's private.
So for me, that is that's the thing I'm thinking about most.
Well said, Tony, what do you think?
I mean, this this just highlights that there is no judicial system.
There are no laws.
Because, you know, it can't be more crystal clear now that, you know, we've been living a lie for, you know, for the longest time.
You have a criminal cartel that is in charge of pretty much everything around you.
And the world has been duped to believe that that system is what we should listen to and adhere to and follow along with.
So when you read posts like this, what does it tell you?
To me, it tells me like it's almost as ridiculous as, you know, assuming a serial killer will write a law that makes murder illegal.
Right?
It's never going to happen.
So when you understand who's making these laws, then a lot of things just fall into place.
To rewind a little bit back a couple of days with this whole Jane Street, you know, price manipulation thing.
What they did is also not illegal because, you know, they've been granted legal exemptions, something that's been handed over to maybe four companies.
So again, rules for some people and not for the majority.
So when you keep giving credibility to the system that is just writing bullshit to ensure that whatever they do succeeds and whatever you do fails, what do you expect to happen?
So since you can't fight that giant octopus, the only thing you can do is leave it, like opt out of their ecosystem.
And again, as of 2009, that option is available because the one thing that they can control that affects every individual is the money. If you no longer use their money, they have nothing on you. Right. This is where circular economies become extremely valuable. People, communities become very valuable. People bonding, people, you know, helping one another.
that separate parallel world is going to become a bigger and bigger thing as more and more people
understand the realities of the world we are in. There's never been a judicial system.
It's always been rules that are written for pushing narratives and to serving a certain
percentage of the population who are close to these rules. And so all it takes is for enough
people to wake up to this and then things really start to change but as long as people blindly
follow this nonsense and assume that you know this is just how things are and whether we get
screwed or not it doesn't matter because that's the law well then you know then then you almost
lose the right to complain right so uh to me this is you know very infuriating to read that there's
no there's not much more global pushback against this you know that people are simply talking about
it and then you know okay where's the next barbecue you know this this is this is why nothing changes
absolutely all righty guys so uh this guy reported a an unauthorized withdrawal of approximately 30
000 usdc from his ledger secured wallet secured is maybe not the word i would use uh in this
particular case but he goes on to explain uh he a hundred percent certain that the recovery phrase was never exposed No transactions were manually confirmed by him No one had physical access to the Ledger device The MacBook he used was not used for any other crypto related activity outside of Ledger
So something's off here.
My first reaction is like, I wonder, I don't know how many times you would have to hit me over the head with a crowbar to keep $30,000 worth of USDC on a Ledger.
like to me that is just like i don't even know where to begin with this however this guy seems
to have lost it we've talked about ledger a lot on this show uh not not the hardware wallet we
recommend guys uh but tony why don't you give your thoughts protected by ledger man that's like a
contradiction in and of itself it's like saying i live in a paper house but i locked the door so i'm
I'm not sure, you know, why somebody broke in so easily.
Right.
So either there's something missing in this guy's story or, you know, this is a terrible, terrible product.
First of all, it's closed source.
So I wouldn't trust it if you paid me.
And God knows what's happening behind the scenes.
So if he generally did not, you know, do anything irresponsible, then there, you know, that confirms the existence of a backdoor.
Right.
But again, you know, nobody's investigating all the details here.
We're just speculating on two possible scenarios.
Either way, stay away from these products.
These are not good for any meaningful amount of Bitcoin, you know, especially if that's
going to become your generational wealth.
There are way, way, way better and more thorough solutions out there.
And of course, you know, this is what we do here at the Bitcoin Way to complete your knowledge
of that entire ecosystem.
So please don't take risks with your money. Don't assume that you know it all if you really don't. And absolutely do not take shortcuts with something that is that significant.
Yeah, absolutely. He would be much better served just swapping that for Bitcoin.
Bitcoin self-custody, yeah, all that. For me, the really remarkable part of the story is the fact that he bought USDC and he took self-custody of it.
Like that was like, it's like, OK, what are you doing with this stuff?
I would love to know what his use case was for his USDC, but I digress. Greer?
Yeah, those are great questions. It makes me fearful for the stablecoin future where mom and dad are forced to use stablecoins and then they're constantly getting hacked. There's just no security that you can trust when it comes to crypto, the entire crypto world. And Bitcoin is different. You get a hardware wallet that's air gap and never touches the internet. You write down your seed phrase, stamp them into metal, hide it away.
Make sure you're in a room with no camera, no listening devices, and you're good.
You won't have to ever worry about a hack.
But for the rest of the world that chooses not to do that, which is a very simple but
narrow path, you know, Max Payne is in store for you.
You know, I feel for the guy, you know, losing any kind of money to a hack is devastating.
But I think when you use products that are known to be security deficient, you're just
asking for it.
So, you know, have fun staying poor.
Good luck and good night.
I agree.
All righty, guys.
Last up here, we have Mark Karpelis, the former Mt. Gox CEO,
has proposed a Bitcoin hard fork so he can recover the nearly 80,000 Bitcoin
from a dormant address tied to the exchange's 2011 hack.
You guys going to be signaling for his hard fork?
Absolutely not.
I think the comments on this post speak for themselves.
It's a high goal and he can go, you know, GFI.
Yeah.
Greer, you said interesting request.
Absolutely not in life and in Bitcoin.
You cannot change the past.
And that's what makes Bitcoin so powerful.
You know, it is an immutable ledger.
You can't undo the blockchain.
It's the whole reason it exists in the first place.
There are countless people who have lost coins.
There was the guy in the UK that lost 10,000 Bitcoin or whatever by throwing away the laptop
and then spent nine years digging in the mud to go find it, which I don't think he ever did.
So, you know, this is the tragic part of a Bitcoin story. It's when people do not control
their keys safely. You might think you have self-custody, but there could be something you're
missing, you know, and I just think that this idea of rolling back the chain or doing a hard fork so
he can, you know, recoup what he was hacked, what was hacked by him, you know, by his website,
Like, it's just laughable.
You know, get out.
Pouncing.
To touch back on the guy who went searching for nine years in the trash, it turned out that he actually didn't have Bitcoin.
He had Bitcoin cash.
Oh, man.
I did not know that.
The trash thing, you know, was a very fitting location for it.
I didn't know that.
I thought he actually had Bitcoin.
Imagine thinking you had Bitcoin and then it ends up, you find it.
Yeah.
Yeah, and so now you end up in real debt, you know, considering how much you've spent trying to chase fake money only to realize that, oh, shit, now I'm in trouble.
Yeah.
You can almost start over in Bitcoin.
You lose your whole stack, fine.
Start over the next day.
Yeah.
And also, don't let these stories to our listeners, don't let these stories concern you.
Especially nowadays, like in the early days of Bitcoin, it was a lot harder to secure it.
There weren't, you know, myriad open source, air-gapped only wallet options.
Now there are, and it's not that complicated.
Just go to the link in the show description, schedule a call with our team.
We can talk you through how we can help educate you, train you to do it the right way.
No counterparty risk.
You don't share a key with us.
We don't KYC you.
None of the nonsense that you see most other places.
So I would encourage everyone to not be afraid because of stories like this.
You just got to do it right the first time.
So all righty, guys, I think that's a good place to wrap up for everyone who tuned in.
Stick around for another minute.
You can learn a bit about the Bitcoin way, how we can help you.
Greer and Tony, always a blast chatting with you.
We will catch up again in a few days.
Thanks, Michael.
Thanks.
Cheers.
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