BTC Sessions - Bitcoin Bank APPROVED! Avanti Obtains Banking Charter EP111

Episode Date: October 29, 2020

SHOW RESOURCES: Caitlin Long successful in obtaining banking charter for crypto bank Avanti in Wyoming https://www.coindesk.com/avanti-financial-joins-kraken-as-a-wyoming-approved-crypto-bank Mastercard CEO clueless in comments on Bitcoin’s inability to help the unbanked https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-can-t-help-bank-the-unbanked-claims-mastercard-ceo Mempool Viewer https://mempool.space/ Clark Moody Dashboard https://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/dashboard/ Breez Lightning Wallet Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcBsn8e-oQ4 Raoul Pal “Bitcoin is eating the world” thread https://twitter.com/RaoulGMI/status/1321176880477884422 SUPPORT THE SHOW: LEDN offers Bitcoin backed loans – Sign up and get $50 free https://bit.ly/3oBI1QV Get Wasabi wallet and enjoy your Bitcoin privacy https://wasabiwallet.io/ Buy a Cobo Vault to secure your Bitcoin! https://bit.ly/2GgMFlH Cobo Vault Tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnRjvZKulrA Crypto Cloaks: Get the BEST Bitcoin swag out there (code “btcsessions” gets you 5% off) https://www.cryptocloaks.com/shop/ If you value my work and would like to send me a tip, they are always appreciated! LIGHTNING tips: https://tippin.me/@BTCsessions Join my Telegram channel! https://t.me/btc_sessions

Wasabi wallet and fairly private. What is up, everyone? I'm Ben with the BTC sessions. Today I am joined by my good friend Adam O'Brien over at Bitcoin Well. And we dive into a number of different news stories. We check out Avanti becoming the second chartered Bitcoin Bank out of Wyoming. We touch on MasterCard's dismissal of Bitcoin and its ability to help the unbanked. We also dive into the backed up mempool, the skyrocketing Bitcoin fees, and how to mitigate that and whether or not it's a good or bad thing.

And finally, we just get super bullish on the crazy price movement that we've seen lately, and we touch on a killer thread from Ronald Paul about how bullish Bitcoin really is. I'm Ben with the BTC sessions, and this is your daily session. Before we dive into the news, of course, I've got to give a shout out. to sponsors of the show, ledden.io. This is where you can use your Bitcoin for a variety of different services. They've of course got their Bitcoin back loans that I have used in the past. I've saved me on more than one occasion. This is where you can use your Bitcoin as collateral to get a Canadian or U.S. dollar loan.

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and this has become one of my regularly used hardware wallets. And I really like it because it's air-gapped, meaning you never plug it into an internet-connected device. Everything is kept offline and done via QR code, which is great for security. Of course, secure element, open-source firmware, Bitcoin-only firmware, if you so choose. And it works with all my favorite wallace, Bitcoin Core, Electrum, Wasabia on desktop, blue on mobile. All-around, excellent experience. I use the Kobo Vault Pro, if you're curious. that one has the fingerprint scanner and the rechargeable battery.

Be sure to check them out. Head over to cobo.com. And there's a link in the show notes down below if you do want to grab one that will help out the show in the process. And with that, let's dive into the news. We're live. How you doing, man? I'm great, man. How are you?

Pretty good, pretty good. So obviously, I will have recorded an intro of you prior, but welcome, everybody. This is Adam O'Brien. He's a good buddy of mine. when do we we've known each other since 2014, 2015? Yeah, certainly like I'd say early to mid 2014 or maybe even what was it around when we deployed our first ATM in Calgary when we would have met? I think so.

Yeah, something like that. It's a little ways back. But yeah, how are things with you, man? Dude, things have been good. It's been a fun year. I mean, the last few weeks and certainly even last few months, like how. If you're in the Bitcoin space, how are you not having fun right now? It's a stark contrast to like the, the sadness of 2018.

I mean, like, if you've been around for long enough, then you're just kind of like, well, it's just the way it goes. But anybody that kind of dove it in the 2017, they've really had to weather a storm for a while. Seriously, man. Every bear market for somebody is rough. Oh, yeah. I mean, even like, I mean, you got in, you've been in the space for a long time. I've been in the space for a long time.

And even like just reading like Bitcoin Twitter is like, you know, such a sentiment to what the market is. And it's like the more bearish Bitcoin Twitter is, like just the harsher it is on everyone's moods and like mental anxiety. And it's pretty comical. Yeah. Yeah. it gets it gets rough out there you learn to kind of like just navigate it the best you can but uh yeah i'm i'm this year has been solid and not without its bumps like march what i was not expecting that kind of a massive dump but like dude i know you're you're around long enough you start to treat those as

opportunities yeah and this is actually this is the first kind of like major dip that i treated appropriately I think, I just put in my bids and I let them fill and I didn't panic. And then, you know, like it went lower than what my bids were. And I was like, ooh, you know, you got a gut check. You got to kind of check yourself. And then here we are six months later. And like even all the fud still surrounding that March dip where it's like, oh, Bitcoin's not immune. And and it's such a, such a funny kind of paradigm to see where it's gone and like how much we've recovered. and even like blown through all the resistance, you know, from there. It's just crazy.

Yeah. And I mean, we'll dive into like our extreme bullishness to one of the last topics we're going to touch on here. But again, thanks for, thanks for joining me for a new show. I'd love to have you on on a regular basis. It's always nice to like bounce things off of somebody else is still sitting, sitting solitude and lonely here. So yeah.

And I mean, I mean, obviously it's a, it's great to be here. It's been, it's been awesome to see what you've done, kind of like building the audience that you've built and being that kind of like, you know, Bitcoin strong hand kind of news source. It's, it's nice that there's a reliable place to go to. So it's an honor to be here. Well, thanks, man. And again, kudos to you on everything. I mean, you've been, you've been providing a place for people.

to stack sats for years now. You've got ATMs and online and everything. And actually, I guess before we dive into news, um, just do you want to just do like a one minute, uh, TLDR on, on you? Yeah, sure. So, um, we, uh, so Bitcoin Solutions is the company that I founded on the president's CEO. We're rebranding that to be Bitcoin well. we kind of go through and are becoming the world's first publicly traded Bitcoin ATM company. So that's kind of on the docket for the next few months for us. And we're super, super excited to kind of be there. Basically, we are a non-custodial shop.

And that's kind of being a big part of our brand. And what we do is like the safest and fastest way to buy Bitcoin is through an ATM. And like, you know, you can knock the fees. You can knock. There's, you know, there's a certain degree of, of, of cost. to an ATM. But at the end of the day, I don't know how many people I've talked to that were like, oh, yeah, you know, I only use exchanges for buying and I take the coins right off. But if you're, if you're caught in that seven to 14 day window where money's being transferred, the trade is

happening, the coins being withdrawal and you get caught during a, you know, massive Mount Gawks or you know, Einstein or Quadriga or like, you know, any of the other number of exchanges that have gone down in the last six years, that's terrifying. And so non-custodial is a big part of kind of what we do. And it's a big thing on me is how to make it faster and safer to buy Bitcoin anywhere. Yeah. Well, that's awesome, man. I'm stoked.

And I'm sure, you know, we're going to be working together a bunch in the future. So I hope so for sure. I guess we'll touch on that as it comes. But let's dive into some of these news stories because there's some interesting. stuff going on the last little bit. Let me just pull it up here. Tell me when you got me. Got it.

Okay, perfect. So, yeah, I'm going to, I'll read a little bit from the article, and then we can just bounce, bounce our thoughts off. So title here from Coin Desk, Avanti Financial joins Cracken as a Wyoming-approved Crypto Bank. So it says here that blockchain pioneer, Caitlin Long, is now the CEO of her own special purpose depository institution, or SPD. in Wyoming. Avanti's financial banking charter was approved unanimously by a Wyoming state

banking board on Wednesday, becoming the second newly chartered bank in the state in 2020 after Cracken Financial earned approval last night. Avanti, like Cracken, has to jump through a few hoops like raising more capital before it can be granted a certificate of authority to operate. So I'll jump a little bit ahead here. Along with the charter approval, the bank for the banking board of Prudavanti's future issuance of AVit. I think that's how you say it. A programmable electronic digital currency that's redeemable at par with U.S. dollar.

It's not considered a security token, meaning it's not a representation of an investment. And Aveet, this stable coin, will initially be issued on the Bitcoin side chain, liquid, and then on Ethereum. So, yeah, interesting to see kind of like that, that, almost like initial like banks were we hate everything about this and now you see Bitcoiners creating banks. Yeah. It's, I mean, when we saw the Crackin announcement,

I think we knew like Crackin Financial wasn't going to be the only bank. And I think that Wyoming has just become Bitcoinsers new favorite spot. you know, certainly think people are going to flock there. And Cracken probably did a lot of legwork. I think without question, the like compliance documents and even probably the application from Avanti looks or Avanti looks pretty similar to what Crackens did. I think that Cracken kind of set that template. But like this is obviously incredible for the industry.

Gives it like a load of legitimacy and kind of shows, I think, that traditional industry that crypto, Bitcoin is kind of here to stay. But I wonder, like, I just, I just kind of wonder long term what this means. Like, it's obviously going to be, you know, a custody kind of area, which is going to be something that people are going to have to deal with. And, you know, in thinking about this, how much is a traditional bank really necessary? Like, if you think about what we use bank for, it's because, like, you and I as individuals aren't going to outlive inflation with.

with cash under our mattress, for example. So you put it, you know, into someone else's custody who can do that better. Well, Bitcoin check, it solves that. You and I, you know, you're like hundreds of kilometers or hundreds of miles away from me. And so if I want to buy you lunch, you know, I got to zap you an e-transfer here in Canada. Well, you know, we need a third. Well, Bitcoin solves that too. So I just wonder how much use is there to a bank in this kind of like,

we have this new technology, this new financial, financial freedom is a horribly plagued word, in my opinion, but we'll call it that for lack of a better term. Like, what do you think? What's how much use is a is a, is a crypto bank compared to, you know, the flip of just holding your own crypto? I honestly, not much. I think you, you pegged it with, uh, just the term legitimacy. I, in my eyes, it kind of serves that.

initial hurdle of people seeing it and going, oh, okay. Right. It's fairly safe. Yeah, yeah. They, a lot of kind of like either skeptical millennials or like boomers or kind of like even like an older and beyond may look at this and say, oh, okay, so the establishment approves in some way, shape, or form. And it's maybe almost like a Trojan horse into traditional finance.

But you're right. Like it's it is traditional finance. And with that, you get a scarce, the world's first scarce digital asset where there's no such thing as a bailout. And then you're placing it in the custody of a bank. Now, I know that they covered some laws on. on things like re-hypublication. I know Caitlin Long has kind of done a focus on

she didn't want that kind of stuff to exist, but will it elsewhere? Yes, very, very certainly so. So to your point, like self-custody is so important. And so in general, like, again, positive. Will I use it? Will I use it? No. Yeah, no, I, you know, even just building off that,

like the first you know if if you replace the word crypto with gold that's kind of that was kind of like a big what was it 1930s 1940s and all the way through the 60s and 70s and then eventually the governments came and said oh yeah by by the way we're taking all that gold like I wonder if this doesn't lead to that in like 2080 or 21 20 if if we kind of see you know state or the establishment maybe coming in and anyways that's kind of conspiracy theory. but what do you think about the stable coin? Like for me, that kind of jumped out because Cracken didn't do that. You know, I don't know how much like obviously we benefit from the liquid network and stable coins have a place in the industry. I don't know if I would like is that kind of like a related party transaction or is that a good thing? Is it just makes sense? Like do we want to be using an RBC coin and a Scotia bank coin?

I don't. Yeah, yeah. To me, I mean, like, there's, with fiat currency in general, it seems there's already like third party risk in that the central bank can just inflate it. And then you add in commercial banks that can further inflate it through, through. And so, like a giant Ponzi on top of a Ponzi. So why not just throw in another trusted third party on top of that? Inflate it from there. Like, it's like inflation upon inflation upon potentially more inflation. So, I mean, like, does it degrade the trustworthiness of the underlying asset that much more when it's already been eroded to almost nothing anyways? I guess not.

I mean, I like that they're doing it on liquid first. I guess that's a positive for me in general that it's kind of like built atop or into. tangent with Bitcoin to, I mean, it's funny. So why not use Lightning? Yeah, I guess, I guess lightning has the volatility of Bitcoin. I guess that's what they're kind of, you know, running away from is they want to, want to keep it, well, it's laughable that no one thinks the US dollar is volatile. But, but interesting to see, like, how many more stable coins are going to be,

be kind of coming in. Yeah. It'll be interesting. And, and what they get used for. And, you know, if it's on an off ramp, then that makes a lot of sense. But if we start like, it's going to be interesting to see kind of where,

where commerce and where merchants go with these stable coins. Yeah. Because it's kind of like gift cards at this point, like my Canadian tire points and my, you know, wife's Sephora points and all the rest of it, it's, it's interesting to see these stable coins are kind of turning into gift cards. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. That's how I would look at it. It would be like a rapidly, degrading gift card that I need to exchange for stats as quickly as possible. Yeah. So if they make, you know, what was it called a VIT? If they have a VIT that's able to be, to be, you know, transferred for lightning or done in a unique way where you can, you know, transfer that into like a more sovereign crypto

asset, as they call it, that would be a huge benefit. Yeah. But then why not just give me US dollars that I can transfer into Bitcoin? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. Well, let's jump into the next one. You and I are both going to have so much to say about this.

Mostly just because of the gall on this guy. Anyways, this guy's my hero. This is great. So this is from Coin Telegraph, Bitcoin can't help bank the unbanked claims MasterCard CEO. So let's, I won't read the entire thing, but his quotes are pretty much gold. So the CEO of MasterCard believes Bitcoin is too volatile and opaque to drive financial inclusion.

However, central bank digital currencies are a different story. So his quotes, this was at, where was he at, Tuesday's Fortune Global Forum Conference. And so the CEO of MasterCard said the following things, I am not a believer in the volatility or, for that matter, the absence of transparency in who is the person who is involved with that currency. So that's why central bank digital currencies were believers in. Even just that quote, that's just bad English. It is.

It is. It is. It's bad. And like, okay, so let's let's just spend a little bit at, I'll read the other quotes and then we'll spend a little bit of time on each one. So the other one, he said, he's talking about volatility. And he's like, can, and this, it's such a weird kind of way that he talks about it. But anyways, can you imagine someone who is.

financially excluded trading in a way to get included through a currency that could cost the equivalent of two Coca-Cola bottles today and about 21 tomorrow, that's not a way to get them included. That's a way to make them scared of the financial system. And previously, again, he's had kind of strong views against. He said he called non-government mandated cryptocurrency junk in 2017, and he compared them to snakes in 2018 and said that they don't deserve to be considered a medium for exchange. Now, they did get involved in Libra in 2019,

but then bailed as soon as the government even looked at it. And then this was like the icing on the cake at the end. He's like, today, we're one of the largest patent holders in the space of central bank digital currencies. So he's like got a vest. interest in no cryptocurrencies and only CBDCs. But anyway, he's like, I hate everything that is, you know, non-central bank.

And I'm poised to benefit quite substantially off everything that is. Yeah, yeah. So let's, okay, the first quote here, he's talking about the volatility. But then he goes into the absence of transparency in who is the person who's involved in that cryptocurrency. And then he talks about how central bank digital currencies they believe in. But the funny thing is he talks about transparency and the person who's involved in that. Meanwhile, it's completely irrelevant who made it.

It's the fact that you can literally see under the hood, see all of the rules and know beyond a shadow of a doubt how it will function even a hundred years from now. Whereas with a central bank, there's literally no, it's like, I wonder what? what they're going to say today. I guess we'll find out. Yeah. And where this gets me is, is like the majority of people don't know where, like, who invented the internet. And yet we have, we all have no problem using, we're using the internet right now. Anyone watching this is using the internet. Like, we have no problem using the internet. Same thing with, you know, cars are, are one example, but like, who created asphalt? Like, I, I personally don't know who created asphalt.

yet I use it every day when I walk and when I drive. And so for someone to say that they need to know who invented the product in order to use it is just ridiculous. And then to your point about transparency, like you can audit the Bitcoin blockchain. Can you audit the central bank? Can you audit like what they've done? How many dollars exist currently? Totally. You literally cannot answer that question.

Even at the at the like depository level. Like if I put $100. into a bank, that just goes into a giant slush fund. And then when I request $100 back, like, you know, $100 probably comes back to me, but it won't be the $100 that I put in. Whereas you can track individual Satoshis on the blockchain. You can know exactly where they go. So like, you know, this guy is clearly biased towards control

and towards a type of currency or a type of monetary policy that, you know, is limiting. And his comments about the unbanked is just stupid. The, like, bank banking and the existing way that we have is privileged. So you have to, without question, have an address in order to get a bank account. There's like, there's just no way around that. So if I'm homeless, I cannot participate in the banking system. How messed up is that? Like, how is that in any way inclusive?

How is that in any way something that can be seen as positive? And chances are it is that demographic of people, you know, that are. the unbanked because of the privilege and the permissions that are required in order to participate in our existing banking system. So for him to say that an open, you know, clearly transparent digital commodity like Bitcoin is not helping the unbanked. Like you can get a $20 smartphone and a SIM card and have access to money. That is unprecedented by any government at any level when it comes to money. So I think this guy's a quack. It certainly doesn't bode well for Mike for or for Mastercard, like, who's at the helm?

This is like, this is Blockbuster calling Netflix dumb. Yeah, yeah. The other thing that he, so he's talking about volatility. And yes, volatility in terms of, of dollars, absolutely. But again, to your point earlier, you were alluding to anybody who thinks that the US dollar isn't volatile. Right. is it's so i mean the u.s dollar or any fiat currency really is it is it's it's volatile to the downside um it's it's a little bit smoother like bitcoin has more bumps and troughs and and

spikes and stuff like that but the the difference being when i hold bitcoin i hold the property rights to a certain percentage of the global issuance of a global currency. And I am 100% sure that the percentage of the total currency that I hold at that point, at any point in the future, will remain the same. And when he talks about financial inclusion of individuals that are somehow underserved by banking and buy regular currencies. If you're holding any other currency, you are eroding the fruits of your labor over time,

and you don't even know at what pace. And so, you know, what is more inclusive than saying, hey, if you hold this money, you will always hold the same percentage of the global wealth of this particular currency. Totally. Well, I mean, like one incentivizes spending and one incentivizes saving or holding.

So if you have an asset and somebody said, hey, just so you know, your two assets are going to be worth one asset next year. You're going to spend those two assets because they're going to be worth less so you better get as much as you can now. But even his comment around like, oh, this is so dangerous.

What's worth two today could be worth 21 tomorrow. You're like, you're like, good thing? Like, don't you want that? You know, this asset is so volatile. It could appreciate so much. I don't know. Something could be worth, this could be worth 10 times what it is today.

I just want no part of that. It's like, you know, and obviously Microsoft or Microsoft MasterCard is heavily incentivized on people's spending and spending more than than what they can afford or what they should be spending. So it makes sense his comments there like from his, from his bias and from what's going to benefit him. But even just that comment, like if I was trying to, you know, debase or or make it seem like, like it was less valuable, I wouldn't want to, you know, tell the fact that it appreciates year over year. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think like nine of the last 10 years, Bitcoin has been the best performing asset on the planet. So, you know, the U.S. dollar, like, actually, I think, Ben, did you not tweet the other day something about the inflation and how, how the, like,

what they value inflation on is like, oh, well, don't worry, you know, organic carrots have gone down in price. So your money's safe. I'm like, yeah, but what about heat? What about, you know, my house? What about gas? Well, yeah, exactly. The measure of how they actually assume inflation is totally broken. The CPI or the consumer price index is the way they measure it is ridiculous. They don't include fuel and food and housing. And even further beyond that, like they present it as if they need to achieve a certain level of inflation when omitting these super important things that we use every day. Like just in Canada the other day, they, stats Canada came out and said,

yo, inflation has only been 0.5% for the past few years. And I don't know about you, but I know like inherently just from surviving on groceries, that's total shit. It's not true. percent. I don't know. Even even if you grade like the fast food prices, like I, this has just happened this week. So more often than not, I will shamefully say that I roll through a Tim Horton's drive-thru, I get a steep tea and a bagel. And it costs $4.20 for ever. And then just last week, I had like my tunie and like, I had it already my hand. She's like, that's $4.55. And I was like, whoa, what do you mean? It's $4.55. We had to scramble and get another couple of coins put together. But But even just that alone, that's like, what is that, a 3% increase in the, and I know it's a

pretty small sample size and whatever, but I would really encourage, like, anyone listening, like, do an audit. Look at your power bill last year compared to your power bill this year. What did Christmas lights cost last year to remember this year? How about a box? Like, I bought a box of candy. We've already long gone through our first and second box of Halloween candy. So I'm on number three already.

But like, it's like 18 bucks for, you know, a box of assorted mini chocolate bars and candies. And it's like, wow, like, I don't think it was that much last year. So I would really, like, it'd be an interesting exercise to go through a year of spending. You know, what did November 2020 compared to November 2019 look like? It would be really, really curious to see what happened. And then his comment, I'm reading it here, his comment about patents is just like, just hilarious. It's like so directly incentivized to say exactly what he's saying. Well, and not only that, but like, it's a well-known fact that patents just stupt.

full innovation. Like if if I own the rights to a certain, you know, intellectual property that no one else can use, that no one can build on my idea. So if I have an idea, that's the best idea in the world, and I'm the only one I'm going to have blinders on immediately because I got my bias as to what it was used for. So him saying this is like saying, well, if I don't control it, I don't like it. And if I don't like it, it's got to be bad. Yeah. He's just, I don't know. It's just reminds me wholeheartedly of like the Netflix blockbuster hilarity that that, that, it's just, I don't know. It's just reminds me wholeheartedly of, that that ensued six years ago, whenever it was. This is just the same thing.

He's going to be eating crow. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We'll revisit MasterCard in a few years. A few months, man. Well, yeah, constantly. Okay, I'm going to jump to the next thing that we were going to talk. So the, let me just pull it up here. There's my desktop.

So the Mempool is crazy right now. now. So right now, and let me just refresh to make, I mean by the time this airs, it'll be probably a little bit different. But yeah, it's like 104 megabytes deep or about 79, 80 something blocks in waiting. Transaction fees are like the next, to get in the next block, it's looking like 3002, 322 sats per byte. They are, it is ramped up. And, uh, it, it is ramped up. And, uh, Yeah, if you want to be getting through relatively quickly, it's expensive. It's definitely not cheap. You don't want to be sending no, like, $10 transactions.

No, I'm soon. So I thought what we could maybe touch on here is, by the way, anybody that's watching this on YouTube, this website, mempool. That space is great. What it shows you is previously confirmed blocks of transactions and kind of like the the transaction fee, the average transaction fee to get through. And then it shows a line of assumed next blocks of transactions that could go through and the size of those blocks.

And the transaction fee is being attached to them. Very interesting website. So be sure to check it out. And the other one that I had up is the Clark Moody dashboard, which just has like a wealth of knowledge on like the blockchain, Bitcoin blockchain and like the size of it and transaction fees and upcoming blocks. And it's, yeah, it's got a lot of data there. So highly recommend.

But I guess I'll stop screen sharing here and we can just kind of chat. Like, so personally myself, I don't, it's, it's, I'm, I'm kind of like in this weird spot where most of my, I'd say 90% of my income now is Bitcoin. So I'm like, I'm all in. when I say I'm all in, I'm like all in. And when I get dollars, I'm like, oh, spend it on bills. And so like, and then at some point, so I was worried about making this transition because I was like, oh, God, am I going to normalize spending the soundest money

the world has ever seen? But what has happened is the absolute inverse, where I am just like the stingiest motherfucker. And I'm like, I'm like, oh, God. do I want to buy, like I'm going to have to convert Bitcoin to do this. And so because of that, I am like a power saver now. I'm saving way more Bitcoin. And it kind of beckons to the fact that Bitcoin incentivizes people to be more thoughtful about where they put their resources.

But I digress because we're talking about kind of spending and sending transactions and the fees associated. So I've done a couple things for like day to day that helped me with this. Number one is I make sure I'm using a wallet with Segwit, which is like the most efficient when it comes to fees. I also use RBF, which is replaced by fee, so you can bump the fee. What wallet do you use for that? So I use blue wallet on mobile.

And Blockstream Green has that as well. But I found it super easy. You can just like tap on a transaction and bump the fee if you're in a rush. But you can set a low fee. you're not in a rush and just kind of wait for it to process. And then at a later date, if you decide like, hey, I've got to, I got to get this through suddenly, then you can just bump the fee and get through relatively quick. What have you found?

Well, so I spend very little Bitcoin. And when I do, I spend them in batches. So I like you, you know, my income is heavily weighted towards Bitcoin. And so, you know, not to self, self-promote here, self-toat, but I, I, like, pay my, my visa bill off with, with Bitcoin. So instead of spending, you know, 18 bucks, 118 bucks here or there, I'll spend, you know, $2,000 kind of all at once, which, which makes that, you know, that fee. Now, it's the same dollar cost, but it's, it's, it's one time. It's a lot more palatable. You know, to your point, it definitely, like I said earlier, too, two, it incentivizes saving. Bitcoin just hands down incentivizes saving. But I kind of see this as a

good thing. I see it as a way that if you don't want to spend the fees, you don't have to. And there will just be, this is the free market deciding, you know, kind of what's important. With the current banking environment, it is like, if you want to send money, you send it, and it cost the same. And it's going to get there in like four or five to 50 days. And it will reach finality in like 10 years. And with Bitcoin, what the mempool it does and what it's doing is it's allowing us to say, hey, you know what, this is super important that this reaches finality in the next like 10 minutes. So I'm going to, I'm going to increase my spend. This is how important it is to me versus like, oh, I don't really need finality for this for a day.

So, you know, I'm going to save money. And that's how I think people like the price of Bitcoin in comparison to Fiat is volatile. Just like the cost associated with sending Bitcoin. can be volatile based on how many people are using it. But I think that's really the beauty of it. That's the beauty of the free market. Is it still, was it last week, like a billion dollars was sent for like three bucks? Yeah.

And reach finality, like in a hit finality like in 10 minutes. Like where does that happen? And so like in terms of actual tips and tricks, like obviously lightning as it becomes more adopted is going to be something using side chains is going to be, you know, a massive instrument to that. But I don't know how much we want to get away from the, like, if, if the mempool was quiet, it would ultimately be a bad thing for, for Bitcoin. I think this is Bitcoin working properly, not Bitcoin being broken. Well, yeah. And looking forward, the Mempool and transaction fees will be will be the only incentive for miners in very short order.

Like, I mean, the block reward doesn't go away for a long time, but that block reward starts to diminish very, very quick. It already has diminished very, very quickly. And sure, the upside value of Bitcoin itself has, and purchasing power of Bitcoin itself has been well subsidizing miners, but that block reward is getting reduced. Like right now, we're at six and a quarter and, you know, four years. less three and a half years out, we've got another halving, right? And we've got three. And then, and then we're down to one in a bit. And then we're down to less than one. So like in inside of a decade, it's less than a Bitcoin for a block reward. And so crazy to think about that.

Hey? Yeah. It's crazy. And, and, and so then you've got to grapple with the fact that transaction fees have to subsidize miners. And if they do not, then then that goes away. And so does the security of network. So the fact that block subsidy is now being a good portion of it is being commanded by fees is inherently good for the security of the network and people are going to have to build solutions that allow you to minimize exposure to on-chain fees, which I'm sure are like I use lightning quite regularly now. I'd say every day, every two days, I'm using my, I'm using my my lightning wallet. Part of it is people are nice enough to,

to drop some sats via tips, and so I'll clear those off into my own custody. I bought, and again, like, because I'm living on Bitcoin, I have to utilize those solutions, you know, like things like gift cards, you know, if I need to purchase certain things. And even like some merchants are now, saying like, listen, I only accept Bitcoin.

And so at that point, it becomes like, do I want this product or service? And so like in the instance of, I don't know if you've read it before, but Citadel 21 is like this great online magazine. But they started doing print copies. And I like having some, some, you know, Bitcoin memorabilia. So I subscribed to the magazine and I had to pay in sets and I used Lightning. So, yeah, I mean, really, you can. do a single transaction and get money onto lightning. Let's say you're even dropping like a $10, $20 transaction fee.

All of a sudden, once you get those funds onto the Lightning Network, that turns into hundreds, if not thousands of independent transactions. And so that 10 or $20 fee that you just dropped is now socialized across all those hundreds of transactions with your spending money, and it becomes much less onerous. And I think we're going to see a lot more of that. I think we're going to see a lot more options of just directly onboarding into lightning. And I think many people in the future may not necessarily transact on chain like years from now.

Even in the coming years, there's going to be a lot more like secondary solutions because you don't need your coffee immutably transcribed onto the world, the global blockchain. That's right. Honestly, man. And like, you know, again, it incentivizes saving, which is something that our entire. higher system needs a revamp in. But also, like, I mean, we're used to the concept of checking in savings accounts. I mean, even like Bitcoin is a savings account, right? I don't know about you, but like, you know, you have a savings account and it's like, oh, if you even look at your debit card, it's going to cost you five bucks. And it's like, oh, you know, that's kind of the same thing here where you can do it if you want, but it's opt in. And that's, I think the key here is, you know, lightning creates, pardon me, lightning creates that kind of like that secondary

layer like you're talking about, which allows people to have that transaction and do that and you transfer your spending money over and that's what you stick to. I think honestly, I think this benefits society and it furthers the narrative of people becoming more financially sovereign, which is truly, I think, like the underlying goal of what I think Bitcoin is and what it could be to society is making people and trying to get them to understand financial sovereignty. So yeah, this is a feature, not a bug. in my opinion. 100%.

So those of you are watching, if you're trying to figure out how to navigate the fees and stuff like this and you want an easy on-ramp to utilize something like Lightning, I literally just made a tutorial on using Breeze Wallet, which is non-custodial,

and you can send a regular Bitcoin transaction to it, and you'll be on Lightning immediately. So check that out. It'll get you started. And even just like trying small amounts, you'll be able to play around quite easily. So, dude, I wanted to get into some bullish, some bullish stuff for the end here. Yes.

Because that's the fun part, right? So here, hold on. I'm going to. So this is, this is Bitcoin right now. It's been a wild, it's, it's, it's been a wild year, we're going to say. How far down did it actually drop? I think it dropped as low as $4,000, wasn't it, in March? Absolutely.

Right here, there's that bottom 4K. I mean, this is, what is this? This is BitFenex. So it might have even been below 4K on like that. I think even some exchanges probably had it lower too, which is crazy. But I mean, as a market, to say that we've gone from $4,000 to $13,000 U.S. dollars is just like three and a half X in six months. It's absolutely wild. Yeah, it's, it's crazy. Like it's, and it, again, we're just before we jumped on, we were saying, like, I'm definitely getting flashbacks to 2016. Yeah, big time. It's

furthering that, that four-year price cycle, right? Like, the price cycle just follows the mining cycle. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's, I think it's funny because every, every bear market, people assume it's going to be different. And every bull market, people assume it's going to be different. It doesn't matter which direction. It's just different people. And so people are like, no, no, no, no, the bottom's dropping out of this thing and it's all over. Or when we get into a mania, people are like, no, no, no, no, this is it.

This is hyper-Bitconization. No more bear markets. And inevitably, there will never be another bear market. Bitcoin is only going up from here. Yeah. And so you get these mentalities where it gets to extremes. and, you know, everybody always assumes this time is going to be different, but more often than not, history rhymes.

Yeah, it's the same thing over and over. It's like, honestly, it's what Bitcoin is. It's just math and science. Like, it's textbook, clockwork, you know, just as a secondhand goes around the clock in 60 seconds, Bitcoin seems to want to follow. And, you know, granted, we have a pretty small sample size, right? we have, what are we, three and a half mining cycles, not even. So we certainly don't have this like incredible sample size that our great grandkids are

going to have. But it's, it's Bitcoin doing Bitcoin things. And like, I think that's why, you know, I'm comfortable. Like, I mean, let's, let's be honest. It took me, took me seven years to get comfortable buying, you know, serious months of Bitcoin during the dip. because it, you know, you just don't learn. Yeah, exactly. It only comes to you, like, look at this.

Like, this is, this is insane. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's been absolutely wild. And it's funny because I saw, I saw something, oh, I can't remember what site it was on. But it was, it was something like the markets only anticipate a 6% chance of us revisiting all-time highs before the end of the year. And I was like, that that possibility is severely discounted.

it in my opinion. Yeah, big time. I think, you know, I, I, for quite some time, have been, have been saying people, because I don't know what you're like, but like all my like, you know, we'll call them normie friends or, or whatever you want to call them, the first question, what's Bitcoin going to do? What's it doing? And I have been saying six figures by the end of 2021. That's what, that's what I've been kind of, and when I was getting asked this in 2015, I said 10,000 bucks by the end of 2017. That was kind of what I was saying. People are like, you're crazy, never going to happen.

And it turns out I was just hyper conservative in my... Yeah. That's the thing people don't get with absolute scarcity. The thing that I'm curious this round is 2017 was very much a bull run driven by retail, by individuals buying Bitcoin. And so if that remained true, and it was only retail buying up this, this cycle, then, yes, you wouldn't see those crazy multiples because so much more capital is needed to bolster that.

But we're seeing companies trading their reserves. Yeah. And so we've got companies that are saying we've got hundreds of millions of dollars that are effectively eroding from us. Our purchasing power is disappearing. we need to put this money somewhere. Stocks are near all-time highs. We don't know what to do with it.

And now there's this thing where we can get a percentage of something that cannot be diluted in any way. And they're recognized, well, some are recognizing it. And so when you get a market cycle and a bull run driven by capital that is no longer just retail, it now encompasses major companies doing it, you have square, you have micro strategy, you have all these people kind of piling in larger, Paul Tudor Jones, people like this, I think that we could see similar percentage gains potentially more than what we saw in the previous run. And what I'm wondering is, I tweeted about this the other day, right now there's all these companies that are starting to put obscene amounts of money into Bitcoin that

that like no individual would be able to do nowadays, but early individuals that were like some of the first mining and using Bitcoin will have more than some of these companies. And when you, when you go down that line of thought and you think, what about next cycle? And what about when, when nation states and world governments start to seriously look at this and say, hey, we need some in reserves, but they're not able to stack the same amount of Bitcoin that companies were able to stack in previous years. It's like this weird inversion where suddenly individual people could potentially have more Bitcoin than world governments. Dude, I haven't thought about it that way. That is mind-blowing. And there's there's really been no other opportunity, no other asset class

that has presented that kind of opportunity. So I think that's a really interesting way to look at it, that you look at the likes of these early, early adopters. It's just fascinating to think about it's level the playing field, right? For so long, we've been, we've been, you know, there's been a hierarchy to money without question. And Bitcoin presents an opportunity to level that playing field, which I think is truly, like truly amazing. Yeah. And people often, when I say stuff like this, They worry that, well, how is it fair that somebody has that much money? I mean, one, I'm a very, I ascribe to the idea that that person took the risk early on and they deserve the reward necessary with that. But on top of that, just having Bitcoin doesn't guarantee you more Bitcoin.

You've got a specific amount. People that have that much Bitcoin from the early days would never be able to purchase that much now. And so in order to enjoy the purchasing power of that Bitcoin, they have to spend it. So it will gradually dilute and it will go towards, especially given how Bitcoin affects the way you look at money and how you spend it, it will go towards people that create the most value. And so you kind of see this weird inversion where like individuals who probably were never that great with money came into just stupid amounts of money. And some of them might learn very quickly and conserve some of it and put it in good places. And others will spend it stupidly because they haven't taken time to understand how to deal with that well. And that's all part of the process.

Some people get lucky. But I mean, it's just like you see lottery winners that are broke years later if they don't smart up. Yeah. But the thing that you touched on earlier, which is really fascinating, is true and absolute scarcity. That's something that our world has truly never seen. Like, even with gold, there's a certain number of gold, but there's a chance that some gold miner is just like, oh, wow, you know, if I dig for this many kilometers deep under Africa, it's all gold.

And the price of gold will all, it just plummet because there would be so much of it introduced into the market at one time. Bitcoin is not like that. It is, it is provably scarce. And scarcity is something that I think. that like as a society I was playing you play hungry hippos with your kid you ever play that yeah yeah there's the there's the one yellow ball and the way my son my son's four the way that we played is all the balls are worth like yellow there's one yellow and like 16 red and they're all

worth the same thing but every time he gets the yellow ball he is stoked like he stops playing big fist pump like he just then it's because it's scarce he understands like from a young age I didn't teach him that from a young age we understand what scarcity is and and we use you know, Bitcoin presents that, that scarce, that level of scarcity that is unparalleled in this world today. I think it's, yeah, the next five years, like, the amount of bullish that I am, I cannot put that into words. Yeah, I know. And speaking of bullish, I figured let's, let's end on this, because this thread from Rao Powell is, it's great. So I'll read a little bit of it. There's, There's a lot here, so I'll just kind of like give everybody the gist.

But the first... I'll open line though. Like, what a... No. So I'll read through a little bit. So he tweeted, Bitcoin is eating the world. It has become a super massive black hole that is sucking in everything around it and

destroying it. The narrative is only going to grow over the next 18 months. You see, gold is breaking down versus Bitcoin. and gold investors will flip to BTC. He goes on, he says, and NASDAQ is next. Retail specs are going to flip Bitcoin as it eats techs lunch. And he goes through all of these assets. He goes through banks.

He goes through bonds. He goes through commodities, G4, central bank balance sheet, silver, Amazon, Apple, all of it. And then at the end, he says, Bitcoin's performance is so dominant and so all-encompassing. that it is going to suck in every single asset narrative dry and spit it out. Never before in my career have I seen a trade so dominant that holding any other assets makes almost no sense. The macro flows, technology, demography, and societal strains have all converged to this moment in time. And the definite answer from markets is Bitcoin.

I get this sounds a little evangelical, but I'm struggling to see it any of. other way right now. The super massive black hole is going to suck in everything. Again, this is the best trade or investment and future opportunity I have ever found and it has the power to give the little guy a chance to grab their share of wealth creation before Wall Street does. Grab it. What a powerful thread. That is just, that is mind blowing. Yeah. It's crazy. Like, I'm, I'm having these discussions right now with, with, you know, friends, the price goes up.

Everyone always asks, what are you going to do? You're going to sell. When are you selling? And my answer is always like, what would I do? Like, like, you know, okay, you want to buy a house. You sell some coins to buy your house. You want to treat yourself, whatever. You buy your, you sell some coins to buy your treat. but frankly, like, what can you do with Fiat money? Anything short of Bitcoin, in my opinion, is irresponsible. Like if you're looking 5, 10, 30, 50 years out, like even, you know, in some people, well, what my company matches my RSP is once to one. It's like one to one, we're three X this year.

Like, how are you going? What's your RSP doing? Let alone the tax consequences down the road, the unknown tax consequences. down the road, like Bitcoin is an insurance that that increases and ultimately lets the user decide where the money goes. And I think that's like, this is the purest form of supply and demand economics and beauty. It's, it's mind boggling. Like, again, I look at everything else and I'm like, what? What would I possibly feel more comfortable having my, my time and wealth put into.

I just, it's, it's funny because so many people that aren't, aren't in this world, they, they look and think, well, it's irresponsible to have like a large allocation into Bitcoin. I'm like, I can't responsibly put money into, like, elsewhere, other than, like, you know, I have my home and I have, I have certain assets that I need, need for, but I'm, I look and I'm like, how, you know, everything else just seems like you're losing value. Totally. You're irresponsible.

Even like, you know, I've made other investments in small business and in even like stocks and trying to play that game. And it's like, like, oh, yeah, you know, it did well. Like we, you know, 30, 40 percent. This is great. But like Bitcoin did 600. So, you know, I feel like we're getting incredible. returns and it's like, yeah.

Should it just stack stats. Yeah. And part of it is that everybody looks and says Bitcoin is volatile, but it's really, the world is just slowly being priced in Bitcoin because it's going to be the most stable measuring stick. That's all money is. It's a measurement of people's creation. Right? So people say there's a limited, let's break it down to like a smaller way to think of it.

Imagine a town of a hundred people. Those hundred people can only create so many goods and offer so many services with the limited resources available to them. And whatever money exists in that, in that small town, let's say they have their own central bank. The money is just a measuring stick for the existing goods, services and resources. And the value factor. Exactly. And so whatever value people are creating is just simply measured by the money there. And when that money measuring stick is broken and constantly growing, you have no measure of value. Bitcoin, it's impossible to break the measurement.

It's the most true measurement we've ever had for value. And the world is just waking up to figure out what that measurement is. Yeah, man. I mean, preach it, brother. You're saying it, dude. It's shocking. People, people say Bitcoin is volatile constantly. And they, it's those same people that say, oh, I got to buy a house because, because

housing prices are increasing and I got to get in now because in 30 years, look at what, look at what housing is going to do. Look at what it did 30 years ago. Look at what's going to happen now. And my response to them is, well, why aren't you buying Bitcoin? It's a way too volatile. Yeah, you literally, Bitcoin is volatile in the same way. that your beloved housing is, but it doesn't come with the upkeep and the maintenance and the,

you know, the property, you know, year over year taxes. Like in 30 years, there's a good chance your property taxes will equate to, what, 50% of your house's value over 30 years, which is when you think about it that way, there's no cost to ownership of Bitcoin. You can take it, self-custody, and there's no one charging you to hold it yourself. Not every, but lots of other assets that you you you're buying kind of they have incurring costs along the way of that ownership Bitcoin you just buy it and you hold it and you're good to go and it's like yeah it's totally radically changed and it's given it's given consumers and it's given the you know the retail market or the individual more power than I think we've ever had as an individual yeah most other

assets on the planet have a like well they are assets they also have a degree varying degrees of liability associated with them. Big time. I mean, houses, I've, for years, I've changed my stance on house ownership. Um, there are liabilities, man. They're not liquid in any way, shape, or form. You're locked. You're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, like, I'm in Edmonton. I'm not going to sell my house in Edmonton to someone from like, you know, Wyoming. Like, it's not going to happen unless they're moving here, which is like, so your, your buyer pool is so small. Uh, there's just, there's, there's, there's, Bitcoin has just changed the way I've looked at things. Uh, and it's taken, um, and it's taken.

me, you know, seven years to kind of get to look at things this way. But, but it's been exciting. I think that we as a people should constantly be questioning and constantly looking for better opportunities. And that's when innovation, I'm very bullish on people and very bullish on this industry. It's, it's been a wild ride. And I think we're only just getting started. I think that's a solid way to wrap this up because that was an excellent kind of like journey of awakening story that we have there. Go buy Bitcoin. Yeah, 100%.

Well, this was awesome. Thanks for coming and shooting the shit with me and talking about the goings on and getting bullish at the end. It's fun, again, bouncing ideas off somebody else as I parse through the news. So let's do this again. Big time, man. I appreciate you having me on. This is a lot of fun.

I'm looking forward to the next one. Also, where can people, people find you. Yeah, sure. So I'm on Twitter at hi Adam OB. Adam O'Brien's my name. Hi, Adam O'B. And then our website, BitcoinSolutions.ca, rebranding to Bitcoinwell or Bitcoinwell.com. So, you know, head over there, check out what we do. Like I said, you know, Bitcoin Solutions, we are focused on just making sure people have a fast and safe way to buy Bitcoin. I think that's the most important thing and it will ultimately become the most important thing kind of moving forward. So definitely looking forward. If anyone has any questions or wants to kind of dive in and pick apart what I'm saying,

please feel free to add me on Twitter and let's dive into it. Dude, again, loved having you on. Great combo. Go check out Adam. Links will be in the description along with all the stories that we talked about. And we're out. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, guys.

Thank you guys so much for watching and or listening. As always, if you're here on YouTube, please do hit like, subscribe, and share. All of those things really do help and they help bump up this. get in front of more eyeballs. So if you value the content, please do those things. Also, if you want to help with the show in another way, you can hit the sponsors I mentioned down below. That was Leden, Crypto Cloaks, and Kobo Vault. And finally, if you really loved what you saw it, you can draw me a lightning network tip at my tipin.me page. That is t-i-p-p-p-in. Dot me slash at BTC Sessions. With that, I'm out. Have yourselves a wonderful evening,

a wonderful day wherever you may be, and I'll see you next time for your daily session.