BTC Sessions - BTC Sessions Christmas HODLiday Special 2024 ep461

Episode Date: December 21, 2024

🎄Join The BIGGEST Bitcoin Names in a Crypto Wonderland!🎄 ’Twas the end of the year, and all through the chain, The HODLers were smiling, no need to explain. Satoshi Claus brought gifts of green candles and cheer, As Bitcoiners gathered to wrap up the year. With Elf Economists and Merry Miners in sight, And Freedom Fighters spreading the light, We’ll look back on triumphs, ahead to the new, With insights and wisdom from the Bitcoin crew. Jeff Booth, Larry Lepard, and Preston Pysh too, Alex Gladstein, Peter Rizzo, and many more for you! So join us this season, let’s celebrate right, In the spirit of Bitcoin, to all a good night! GUEST LINE UP: • Larry Lepard: https://x.com/LawrenceLepard • Peter St Onge: https://x.com/profstonge • Parker Lewis: https://x.com/parkeralewis • Max Hillebrand: [e-mail] • Jeff Booth: https://x.com/JeffBooth • Rockstar Dev: https://x.com/r0ckstardev • Matthew Kratter: https://x.com/mattkratter • Bitcoin Mechanic: https://x.com/GrassFedBitcoin • Preston Pysh: https://x.com/PrestonPysh • Alex Gladstein: https://x.com/gladstein • CK Snarks: https://x.com/ck_SNARKs • Efrat Fennigson: https://x.com/efenigson___ • Peter Rizzo: https://x.com/pete_rizzo_ • Mike Germano: https://x.com/mikegermano • Matthew Lysiak: https://x.com/Matthewlysiak • TC • Zuby: https://x.com/ZubyMusic • Katie Plan B: https://x.com/PlanBpassport • Matt Hill: https://x.com/_MattHill_ • Takota Coen: https://x.com/CoenTakota • MADEX: https://x.com/SPACEBULL • American HODL: https://x.com/americanhodl8 • Harry Sudock: https://x.com/harry_sudock • Dom Bei: https://x.com/Beiwatch_1 • Yellow: https://x.com/ICOffenderII • Tselly: https://x.com/Don_Tsell • Nico: https://x.com/BITVOLT • Greg Zaj: https://x.com/gregzaj1 • Tatum Turn Up: https://x.com/tatumturnup • Bekka: https://x.com/GhostOfBekka • Rusty: https://x.com/WorldofRusty • Nathan Fitzsimmons: https://x.com/theBTCmentor • Gary Mahmoud: https://x.com/GaryLeeNYC BOOK private one-on-one sessions with BITCOIN MENTOR! Learn self custody, hardware, multisig, lightning, privacy, running a node, and plenty more - all from a team of top notch educators that I've personally vetted. https://bitcoinmentor.io/ JOIN OUR AFFILIATE PROGRAM, EARN BITCOIN FOR REFERRALS! https://bitcoinmentor.io/affiliate-registration/ —------------------------------ FOLLOW Simply Bitcoin & BTC Sessions on other channels: Simply Bitcoin on Youtube: youtube.com/@SimplyBitcoin Simply Bitcoin on X: x.com/simplybitcointv Nico on X: x.com/bitvolt BTC Sessions on X: x.com/BTCsessions —------------------------------ 💪 SUPPORT THE SHOW: BITCOIN WELL My favorite self custody bitcoin platform in Canada and USA! They offer KYC free accounts, 1% spread, no on-chain fees and tons of other incredible features. Check them out at bitcoinwell.com/btcsessions https://bitcoinwell.com/btcsessions COINKITE offers the BEST Bitcoin hardware on the market. Use this link to get 5% off anything in their store: https://store.coinkite.com/promo/BTCSessions HODLHODL is a NON-CUSTODIAL, ANONYMOUS solution to stack sats peer to peer! Buy and sell Bitcoin while maintaining privacy. Sign up and try it out today! https://hodlhodl.com/join/BTCSESSION Speedwallet - your one wallet to send, receive, shop & earn. Simple, fast and convenient! Download now, use code BTCSESSIONS10 via this link & get 5,000 SATs on your first transaction. https://speedbtcwallet.onelink.me/cGph/ssbtcsession DEBIFI is a non-custodial Bitcoin backed lending platform with institutional grade liquidity providers and no rehypothecation of your funds. Find them at: https://debifi.com/ #bitcoin #crypto #btc #money

generations. I really can't save them. Lazy millennial, maybe you should work harder. Taking debt to my grave. In the end, we're all dead. Kinsey in economics. I wish I knew how to print like hell. The national debt is a worry. We'll pay it off. What's the worry? Prices are all up at the store. The green corporations are making you poor. Your logic is a little blurry. Just trust me, don't worry. Wrake in taxes when they just print more. Well, we need to pay for the war. Your purchasing power shrinks. Baby, it's programmed that way. Most people don't think...

And honestly, thank God or there would be riots. I think that it's time to end the Fed. The last guy who tried that ended up dead. It's not even constitutional. Conspiracy theorist. Causing booms and busts all the time. Animal spirits at the market. I really can't save.

Too bad. Baby is how to land time. Oh, no, don't tell me you're one of those Bitcoin people. Bitcoin people, you mean people who are sick and tired of their hard-earned money buy them less and less each year? Yes, those. Your savings will grow. Until Bitcoin crashes and dies. The history says no.

Well, it's hard to argue with that. The people deserve a better money. By people, you mean criminals, right, honey. The real criminals are the bankers. Okay, but it's hurting the planet. The data shows that's a lie. Well, that's quite a surprise. They've added it to state pennies.

Who state pension? What, which state? Even countries have created stockpiles. Okay, who opened my eyes? The system's unfair. Yeah, how do they just print money out of thin air? But you need not despair. All right, I'll bite.

Just 21 million coins, no one can make more. I don't want to have fun staying poor. It doesn't matter who you are. I can send it near or far. I want to get some in case it catches on. I'm done being the Fed's pawn. Get ready to save. BORAYB. Baby, let's hold.

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When you sign up, you can, of course, buy Bitcoin within the app. You can send and receive Bitcoin transactions via the Lightning Network, and you can also send, receive, hold, and swap between stablecoins, aka EUSDT, via the Lightning Network. They baked in a ton of other great features as well, where you're able to earn Bitcoin. This can include referring your friends, shopping your favorite gift cards,

or playing fun games via the Speed Arcade. I encourage you to sign up today. There's a QR code on the screen to do so, or you can hit the link in the show notes down below. And when you do, you will earn 5,000 sats as you create your first day. Welcome, welcome, everyone. It is time for the fourth annual, can you believe it? Fourth annual BTC Sessions Christmas special.

And man, we've got a doozy today. We have rotating 30-minute panels with just incredible guests. lots of different topics. And this is a marathon. We're going to be hitting these chats well throughout the day. I'm anticipating between five and six hours worth of stuff, but it's going to be an absolute blast. Thank you guys for joining me. Of course, make sure you are liking, subscribing, sharing.

Let's get this out. Let's get tons of eyeballs in the room. And we've got also an absolute plethora of giveaways today. So make sure you stay tuned because in between the panels, there's going to be giveaways and great stuff. We've got a lot to give away quite a bit today, actually, quite a lot. And so I'm going to get us started with our first giveaway.

At every on the hour, we're going to be doing through Bitcoin well, we're going to be doing a chance to win sats. And so I'm going to kick us off with the first one. I'm over here on Bitcoin well. And again, if you do want to check them out, I'll have a QR code, Buh, ready for them over on the side as well. Just get that out of the way there. The way this works is if you sign up, if you buy Bitcoin, if you refer friends, you're

in points. And then those points can be used to throw into the Bitcoin wishing well, giving you a chance to win between 500 and a million sets. If you don't have an account, you can sign up today. And just for today again, it will end up giving you five chances to win a million SATs upon sign up. But I'm going to, well, all you need to have is a lightning wallet. I'm going to throw a coin in the well.

And whoever scans it first is going to be able to redeem whatever the prize is. So we'll see here, we've got 500 sats. So you can scan that, the one to the left, and redeem 500 sats. Whoever gets it will receive the sets and snip them from the rest of you. best of luck. And this isn't the only giveaway they're doing today. One other quick video here for a giveaway for a chance to win $100 into a Bitcoin Well account. So I'll play that. And then we're going to get started with our first panel. All right, all right. It is giveaway time. This one, courtesy of our good friends over at Bitcoin Well, the best place in Canada and the

US to be stacking sats. And we're going to do a giveaway. of three account credits of $100 with which, of course, you can stack some cold hard sats. So what are you going to need to do in order to enter to win the $100? Well, of course, you're going to have to have a Bitcoin Well account, and you're going to want to include your Well tag, which is like your username on Bitcoin Well. If you don't have a Well account, you can sign up for one right now, if you like. again, Bitcoinwell.com slash BTC sessions. And in creating an account, of course, we're doing giveaways all evening through Bitcoin Well with a lightning LN URL vouchers. If you sign up tonight

with that, just for today, you will get five chances to win up to a million sats with their toss a coin in the Bitcoin wishing well deal there. So that's just for today, just with that link. So check it out. But on to the actual prize that we're given away here. So again, three chances to win $100 to buy Bitcoin with in your Bitcoin well account. What you're going to need to do is, of course, tag myself at BTC Sessions, tag at the Bitcoin well, and then also hashtag Sessions XMIS 24. And we want your best meme of why it's dangerous to let someone else hold your Bitcoin for you. Why are custodians so dangerous? So some good memes in and around that. Of course, please do include your well tags that we know which accounts with the funniest

memes to credit and we'll peruse those after the show and in the coming days. And best of luck and a very merry Christmas. All right, we are back in. It's time to bring in our first panel. And man, what a way to kick this thing off. I'm just going to get them all on stage right now. I want to welcome to the stage, Lawrence Lepard, Peter St. Ange, and Parker Lewis. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me. Merry Christmas. How are you guys doing? Great. Merry Christmas, Ben. Nice to see Parker. Yeah. Good to see you all. Awesome. Well, this is a hell of a way to kick off the show. I'm nervous, you guys.

I got a shake every year. This is such a, this show is a bit of an undertaking. So I'm super glad you guys can join me for it. But I'll kick us off here. This is the, I guess, in honor of yellow, the macro, macro, macro panel. And so I just want to kind of get your guy's general feel to start about, I guess, some of the most recent things that have happened. And the most recent, just the other day, we had Jerome Powell seemingly signaling that there's going to be less rate cuts than anticipated next year. And I'm curious if any of you guys have a take on this and whether that is actually true or is, I don't know, what are your thoughts there?

You guys go first. I got a lot to say. I'll jump in. So inflation's been choppy, growth has been choppy. It's kind of Heisenberg's stagflation. One of the big debates at this point is, you know, can Trump get growth going again fast enough to head off what I think a lot of us have been expecting, which is a sort of Biden recession, even if he can get that going, you know, if you stimulate the economy. in the near term, it tends to raise inflation. And the long run, it lowers inflation, because you have more stuff for money to chase.

But in the short run, it can raise it. And so I think the Fed is, on the one hand, it's looking at recent inflation numbers that I've been coming up, on the other hand, it's concerned that whether it's tariffs or whether it's just Trump's pro-growth policies, that those could at least temporarily raise inflation. So they're trying to keep their powder dry.

You know, kind of the big picture here, I think over the past couple of years, been that Jerome Powell has been very candid that he has no idea what the hell's happening. You know, he had a line about navigating by Star on cloudless nights. He had another one in 2023 where he said, well, you know, we've discovered how little we know about inflation. So at some point, like, why is this guy still in a job? But there we are. So as always, dear, in the headlights. Yeah, my view is I focus less on the short term of what they're going to do with short-term interest rates, it is a moral certainty.

They're going to have to print more money. The Fed's been in the process for the last couple of years of actually draining base money from the system, which functionally relevers the system because the total debt in the system continues to grow. It's over $101 trillion now. And at the time of the financial crisis, it was $52 trillion. So, you know, the way I think about it and plan is as an unavoidable fact, whether it's a month from now, six months from now, 12 months from now, they're going to have to print many,

many trillions of dollars. And there's no way out because there's far too much debt in the U.S. system and far too few dollars. So it's kind of, you know, my view personally is that he's going to have to lower interest rates faster than he thinks he's going to and he's going to have to print money faster than he thinks he has to. But regardless of when it has, it's a matter of when, not if. Yeah, these guys are both stolen my thunder. I mean, I think Peter, He said it very well when he said, I think Jerome Powell is a, he has no idea what he's doing. And he's about to experience a real deer in the headline moments where he just realizes how completely trapped and screwed he is. And, you know, he can say, I mean, obviously he has to try and get a little bit tougher because his inflation taming chops are, you know, it's not really working when you've got, you know, the market at record highs and et cetera, et cetera, doge coin going berserk and all that stuff.

And so, you know, he had to do what he had to do. But he can, as we know, he can turn on a dime. And, you know, watch the market, watch the stock market go down 30% or watch the long bond take out, the 10-year take out 5% like it did in September of 2023. And they're going to do exactly what Parker described. And, you know, my book's just been announced. I mean, I call it the big print.

They're going to have to print until they're eye. And when the inevitable crackup occurs, because mathematically, as Parker pointed out, you just can't continue to grow the debt level without growing the underlying money supply. Eventually something gives. And, you know, I'm with Parker. It's hard to know. It could be in a month. It could be in a year. But it's common.

And it does, you know, Bitcoin goes to, you know, half a million and gold goes to 5,000. So they're trapped. Yeah. Yeah. Also, congrats. I saw the announcement. on Twitter about the book is finished. When's that dropping?

Well, it'll be on Amazon in early February, all things going correctly. It's written. I'm now in the getting it laid out by a professional stage. So it could take, it might even be up earlier than February, but I don't want to promise it because I want to make sure it's good before I, you know, before it's. That's fair.

That's fair. I wanted to bring up another topic that I've been seeing today in and around the budget and the debt ceiling. And you're gonna have to excuse my ignorance because I'm up in Canada and I have no idea what the hell is going out down with you guys. But it seems that every couple of years, there's things are under threat of being shut down

or are shut down. And there's, it's like a facade where like, they're not eventually gonna just raise the debt ceiling anyway. So what has happened just now because Elon, Musk is also involved in in the dashing of some of these plans what the hell is going on um i'll tell you i mean it nobody really knows right i mean is Elon president and his Trump vice president i mean that that'll piss Trump off enormously there's no there's no quicker way for Elon to become scaramucci than if he outshines Trump you know it's the whole

debt charade is it's just that it's a charade it really doesn't matter of course they'll pass to CR, get it all done. But and the only thing I would add that I've said in other podcast, but I think it's important for people to recognize this notion that Elon and Vevac can come in and can balance the budget. It's just a fantasy. I mean, 80% of the budget is non-discretionary and, you know, social, Medicare, interest expense and the defense is discretionary, but frankly, it's pretty locked in.

So, you know, even if they go crazy on cutting the fat, and there is fat, they're not going be able to balance the budget and you know the data point that shocked me and most people probably saw it was that the deficit for the first two months of this year this fiscal year because it's fiscal ends in september October november was i think it was like 656 billion dollars and you know much larger than any other october november period so you know things are you know it's it's it's it's lens point you know that nothing the train isn't stopping so yeah i i'll gentleman if you want to dive in on that anything else that you got feel free yeah I'm actually a little bit more optimistic I think that Doge can change things and I think that

the main reason for that is that as Larry said traditionally the debt limit has been a kibuki sort of been a play fight and both sides knew the outcome you know they would pretend to play chicken so that they could get their wars fed and they could get their welfare Fed. And I think what's changed fundamentally is the news media. Specifically that that battle, it worked that way traditionally because Republicans lived in fear that if the government actually shut down, it was going to be portrayed by the legacy media or the leftover media. Like, it was going to be portrayed as their fault, right, that they're serving billionaires and just whatever horrible spin you can possibly put on it. And so this is why, for example, Republicans would

run as right wingers and then once they got in office they would all fall in line with the uniparty line which fundamentally everything the uniparty believes in is what the legacy media believes in right like they are the pied piper and i think that what we just saw with this last selection i mean they they pulled out every last top right they had the austrian corporal references every day of the week i mean you know they went out there and so my question of this point is I think that the media has shown itself to be toothless. If you look at online polls, something like 97% of Republican voters want them to hold the line, want them to burn it all down, want them to shut it down.

We have had shutdowns before. It's not the end of the world. And so in the past, I think most Republicans folded because they were almost knee-jerk serving that legacy media. Now I think it's possible that the world has changed. The other aspect of it is money, right? That's the second aspect. So a lot of these guys, they go into Congress.

Fundamentally, they spend all day raising money. They don't actually serve the voters. Elon has a war chest so large, right? He can outbid Raytheon and J.P. Morgan for sport. It is massive. So to the extent that he cares about these things, traditionally we think of Washington as being owned variously by bankers or military contractors. These guys are small potatoes compared to what.

Elon, and it's not this Elon, right? You've got guys like Mark Andreessen, you've got a bunch of guys in Silicon Valley who they command tens, if not hundreds of billions, and they're very concerned about what's happening. You put, you know, Citibank and Raytheon against them. I'm not sure that's a foregone outcome. And so Congress at this point has to take seriously threats from not just Elon, but people in a circle to turn the money the other direction on them. So I think it is possible that we might actually see. movement this time what would i'd add is just more of a commentary about how you know from light is the greatest disinfectant that you know every whatever six months or 12 months when they do it historically everybody knew that the government wasn't going to get shut down or if it was it was it was only going to be for 15 days or 30 days and and then a massive spending bill and a massive raise of the debt ceiling would ultimately be pushed through. And then when they put out this piece of legislation and everyone actually, you know, got 24 hours to look at it and the internet sleuths did their magic, they started finding things like bio labs being funded. And there was another one where it was,

you know, that the house could reject subpoenas, you know, things, nothing to do with funding the government. And so I think that, you know, in this circumstance, all bets could be off. Like they actually could shut it down and it could stay shut down until post-Trump. I presume that it will still release some massively increasing, you know, a large budget that doesn't do anything to in the short term reduce the deficit. But if for some reason the government does shut down for a longer, I love the crocodile tears about how, you know, oh, but you don't care about all the government employees. Imagine every company in the private sector and individual in the private sector as they're running out of money if they could just

draft some legislation to grant themselves more money to continue funding and and then and then have all the congress people go out you know on television and shame wealthy people for you know not caring about the government workers so it is rich that this happens every time and that you know i think that there's a more likely scenario that the government is shut down for an extended period i'm one of those people that says shut it down. Like we will be able to make do. And the irony of it is we'll probably accelerate the printing of money because the government expansion of debt is the primary thing that's causing the credit system to continue to be

inflationary or, you know, relaxing financial conditions. And if it were to shut down and if it weren't able to create the debt that it is or the deficits that is in the short term, that it could induce credit. crisis in the next few months, which then accelerates the need for the Fed to print money. I saw something recently. I think it was, was it Spain that had there, they had like no effective government. Like their, their government was non-existent for a period of time. And all of the numbers looked amazing. The country was doing great. Spain, Belgium as well. Belgium hadn't had a government in years and years and they were doing just fine. So it does beg the question.

honestly I feel safer when the federal government shut down like you know I can pick up in the morning and breathe easy that they're not going to come up with some new restriction on me my NSA agents take the day off yeah it was actually great I don't know if you guys saw this but there was a video of a congressman that was talking about he's like we had an agreement and then there was a tweet you know it's just it's just a great you know commentary on the day that we live in with the media you know being on Twitter now or X that yeah you guys had your plan and we just threw or you know Elon threw a grenade and and now the whole country is looking at what your agreement was quote and quote out and now they got to go back to the drawing bird but

hopefully they take a few days off and let us breathe well and that's the key right so he's saying it was a tweet of course it wasn't the tweet itself it was the reaction to the tweet right it was the millions and millions of Republican voters who are so pissed off at this and I've worked with congressional offices where, you know, we try to work stuff out. If it doesn't work, then I go public and I put it in a video or something. They get so angry. They act like that's not fair play. They'll be like, I got constituents calling me as if I've done something outrageous.

And I'm like, this is your job, fellas. Like, you're supposed to welcome the fact that voters are actually involved in this. But so from their point of view, they're going to see Elon like any of that sort of appeal to the Republican voters. They're going to see that as completely unfair. It looks like we lost Ben. So I guess it's just us, Gary. Yeah, I'm going to say, you take it over. I was like, let me try and stretch that point for seven more minutes.

Well, the other thing I was going to say, you brought this up, the unit party. What this is making clear, which I think a lot of people were on to, is that the establishment of the Republican Party is just as bad as the Democrats. And the people that elected Trump have clear eyes about this. And it's just making that more and more clear, that when Republicans go out and say, Elon's not helping things. It's like you had an agreement, you know, uniparty to unipart, Democrat establishment to Republican establishment. That's not what the American people want. And the American people are who Congress ultimately answered to. And whenever they start

getting phone calls, they seemingly hate it. They want to be able to do their business amongst themselves and not answer to the American people. And hopefully that day has passed. Yeah, absolutely. It's a very important point. Yeah, they're all, They're becoming irrelevant. And in this fourth turning, they will become completely irrelevant. I mean, it's such a beautiful thing. All right. So, Larry, where are we in the fourth turning now with Trump's victory?

Yeah. Yeah, so I marked the beginning as 2008, right? The GFC was really the kickoff. And these things typically last 20, 25, 30 years. So we ought to be done by the 2030 range. And I think we're going to have very high inflation. and arguably possibly hyperinflation, you know, late this decade, in the 27, 28, 29 timeframe.

So it's, you know, and it's hard to tell, right? Nobody really knows how this will play out. But it's inevitable that they've got problems, you know. Do you think Trump coming in accelerates it or slows it down? And second question, Elon Doge, does any of that help? Does any of it hurt? Well, I think it helps. cutting government spending certainly helps, but he's really in a pickle.

And I think Luke Grumman's done the best work on analyzing this. And what we need is a government debt reset. They need to do a debt restructuring. Because if they don't do that and they try and cut expenses, they're going to basically make the deficit bigger, which is going to push the dollar higher, which is going to push interest rates higher, which is going to just accelerate the doom loop,

which is then going to lead to the big print. And so, you know, the only way out of this without really kind of blowing up the monetary system or blowing up the economy, I mean, if we keep in mind, if they worry, let's just say hypothetically, they could cut $2 trillion. Don't you think that would create a recession, which would then take tax? I mean, I mean, what's amazing to me, the most amazing data point here is that here we are with a healthy economy, ostensibly a healthy economy, a stock market near-rector record highs and yet we're running 6 to 7% GDP deficits.

I apologize, gentlemen. Did the stream keep going? Everything was still going. We were good. We voted you all to the island. This is now the Peter St. On Show and we might have you back. We might not though. We might not.

It looks like it's frozen again. It's a great free screen though. Yeah. One thing you said that I thought about earlier, which is that it doesn't really matter what they do. Raising interest rates, lowering interest rates, printing money, not printing money, all of it makes making things harder. So each time I go and buy food, I think if people aren't buying food thinking that the dollar's hyperinflating, then they're not paying attention. It's like going to the grocery store, buying basic things. And so it's like whether they cut spending or not.

the dollar is in this vicious cycle. And what you just mentioned, what I think is that at some point, and it might be hard for the government entity to do is to admit that they're bankrupt, to say, we have too much debt. We're never going to pay it off. And we have to restructure. And this is how we're going to do it. Like I often think about how people are talking about the strategic preserve,

but it's difficult to think about the problem in totality. But if you make it smaller where you think about Social Security, Social Security fund is owed something like $2.4 trillion U.S. treasuries. If we could swap that for some Bitcoin, you know, like cancel the $2.4 trillion of debt, capitalize the Social Security fund with some, you know, probably not, you know, haircut, but some amount of Bitcoin and then figure out how you're going to distribute. Bitcoin could defuse the debt. I mean, that, you know, one of the things I think is interesting we should discuss,

and I'm sure Parker, I'm sure both of you guys have picked up on this. I was in Abu Dhabi at the Bitcoin Mina. and saw Manafort and Trump speak. I mean, it strikes me that, and we've heard from Jack, you know, Mahler's and others, it strikes me there's a very high probability that on day one or two, Trump is going to do an executive order, strategic Bitcoin Reserve. You know, that it doesn't have to be a Luma's take it through Congress. I mean, you look at Kennedy and you look at FDR, you know,

they did monetary things through executive action. And so there's a precedent for that. I don't know how big it's going to be. I think the million coins that Cynthia is pushing, I think that's unrealistic. I mean, I think it's probably going to be limited by the amount of money they have in the exchange stabilization fund. But just the game theory of the U.S. announcing that they are going to try to put Bitcoin on their balance sheet, that's a big deal. I mean, to me, that's a really big deal. It's a massive deal.

And betting markets agree. Betting markets are saying roughly two-thirds odds. Is that right? Yeah. I'm not even sure most Bitcoiners realize that the odds. odds on this are very, very high. Trump pays back people who support him

for better or for worse. I'm so sorry, gentlemen. The power in my entire house went out and I blew a gas. I'm like I think it's extreme. Canada has so much renewable energy. How did that happen then?

You need to sell some sets and buy a generator there. I do not, I do not understand, but luckily, I think the carbon tax will help this. I think that'll fix it. So yeah, it is what it is. But thanks, Jens.

I'm sure I missed a whole bunch of excellent conversation here. Is there anything that I should know? We talked about the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. I think Peter and I certainly think it's going to happen. Parker didn't weigh in yet. Yeah, I think it will happen as well. I think something to the tune of converting what's currently held. to a strategic reserve that is likely i think it might be more optically challenging to figure

out how you're going to fund purchasing more but i do think just that would be a a massive shift and a very significant event how soon do you guys think that this is going to play it like do you think this is going to be some sort of like an executive thing that comes in or is this we think i think i think executive order like first five days i think bang he just does it Yeah, I mean, the confidence level, I mean, Eric Trump was walking around Mina saying the stuff's going, when you see what we're going to do, okay, this thing's going to a million bucks. I mean, I, you know, and Jack Muller's has heard, I mean, it feels to me like it's going to happen. I'll be disappointed if it doesn't. I think it will.

Wow. I did not know that this sentiment was, was there, especially amongst people that I would consider to be. you know, realistic about things. I didn't, I didn't. I mean, again, I'm north of the ice wall. News gets here slowly. I don't know what's going on. But yeah, you are in the 51st state, though. So you'll be more including. Governor Trudeau in the great state of Canada. I prefer, actually, if Alberta could just become a state of, become a U.S. state, or its own sovereign nation would probably even be better. and then we could do our own deal. We've got lots of oil.

We can partner up. Yeah, well, Larry was making the point that, you know, the biggest monetary changes really of the past century have all been executive order. Like at this point, we have a precedent in the U.S. that Congress doesn't get the vote on anything important when it comes to money. It's just the president who can pull it out of his rolydex.

And so, you know, you've got Nixon, you've got FDR, you got gold conversion, seizing gold, which is on the face of it pretty unconstitutional. So, you know, they made the precedent, so may as well use it. So, I mean, do you, okay, let's say, let's say this does happen. Let's say the U.S. goes forward with an executive order and gets a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve going. What is the knee-jerk reaction of the rest of the world here? Like is there who who reacts in kind?

Who reacts negatively? Like what are we expecting if something like that happens? And it's got to wake up a lot of people. Yeah, I would guess that Europe dismisses it as a populist gimmick. Some sort of medium-sized countries start sort of exploring it. I mean, in the near term, there will be sort of Niger, costility towards it, particularly from left-wing governments, but it puts it very squarely into the Overton window so that we might not see immediate imitation, but for sure, I think, you know,

you can more or less put that on the schedule now where countries around the world are going to start copying it. One of the things that we saw during COVID and is how dominant U.S. policy is on policymakers all over the world. And Americans don't realize that America is the 800-pound gorilla in the world. Whatever America does on policy, whether it's the Federal Reserve, the FDA, everything in between, every country on earth will sit down and start considering. They'll do pros and cons, power points, white papers, the whole nine yards. So I'm not sure that we'll see imitation in the short run, but I think for sure that

puts us on an inevitable path that other countries are going to imitate. Yeah, and probably the immediate thing that happens is there's going to be a meme of Steve Mnuchin from five or six years ago with the curb your enthusiasm music where you're not going to be talking about Bitcoin in five or six years ending with Trump signing an executive order to convert 200,000 Bitcoin to a permanent public diversity. It sounds a lot an awful lot like you've created that and you've got it just ready to tweet. How did I just know that the Bitcoiners will? You know, that's not my, that's my, not my mean genre. I'm not very good at creating videos and overlaying, but I'm confident that within

an hour that would drop. Yeah. Now, I've got a quick, I again, I could talk about all this for hours and I'm, I would have if I was present. But I do want to queue this up with kind of a final, you know, we're on the topic of the Bitcoin strategic reserve and there's a lot of response from Bitcoiners going like, do we want this in the first place? And so, like, there's this conflict between the self-sovereign Bitcoiners, and it's kind of like the separation of money in state, and then you've got the state potentially also adopting it. Now, I know that there's a difference between those two things,

but I'm curious if any of you gentlemen want to quickly weigh in and are... I've thought a lot about that, Peter Schiff in New Orleans. and said, hey, you know, if you want to Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, you're a statist. And, and I kind of agree. I mean, I get the point, you know, I mean, if you want to just see Bitcoin wreck, you know, the federal government and see the federal government fail, you know, then we don't want a strategic reserve. On the other hand, if you want to see Bitcoin widely adopted, the price higher, and you care about the United States' position vis-a-vis China and Russia and other countries that are not quite as up, you know, as free or as good as, in my opinion, as good as we,

are then you do want to see the United States get ahead. So it's, I'm a, I'm very much of two minds here on it because I'm not a statist and there's a part of me that just wants to see the currency fail and the government to, you know, disappear. But that's not entirely realistic. And so as an interim step, I guess I'd probably prefer to see my government leapfrog, the Chinese, the Indians, you know, the Russians and the people in the Middle East who have all made a big bet on gold. And so in my view, we're kind of, and I don't think we have the 261 million ounces we say we have. So we're really playing from, and we've got an enormous debt,

an enormous negative net international investment position, and IIP, it's just, it's huge. And so with those things, you know, I'd like to see the United States maintain its stature in the world if we can just kill the military industrial complex at the same time. And of course, the two are not, you know, they're related. But, and so I would prefer to see us bet on Bitcoin. I guess is the bottom line.

But it's a great point. And I wrestle with it as well. You know, it isn't, you know, if you believe in separation of money and state, you shouldn't watch your state buying, you know, the best money. Yeah. I mean, they're in a unique position where they can, they can print their toilet paper to buy the, that's right. That's what Sailor said.

And what they should do is they should print their, I mean, that'll ruin the dollar quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, gents, just to wrap around. out here can we take a poll on on on on the betting odds here of strategic reserve within say the first month in office or or some major shift towards it what what who's going to take the over under on that major move yes uh first year i think better than even odds okay i'll rate it higher

I think it's 80, 20 that Trump does it in the first 30 days. Wow. Parker, what about you? Yeah, I think maybe first half of the first year and that it would be converting that current holding to a permanent holding. And then, you know, I think that it's a lower probability that in the first year or second year that they're acquiring more.

Wild. All right. Well, jents, I'm going to end it on that. I know this is a short panel. It's tough to these ones hurt my soul because we could just keep going. But I appreciate all of you. Thank you so much for joining me for the Christmas special. And have a very Merry Christmas to all of you. Merry Christmas too as well.

Hey, Ben, if you need somebody else to pull in, just ping us in case the power goes down. That's good. Sounds good. You can stand by. I'm sure my Canadian power will hold up. All right. See you guys. Take care.

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. And everybody, we are on to it. our next panel here. And we go. That's great. Tatum's in the background. I think that was me.

I'm pretty sure that's my fault. But say, hey, Tatum. Hey, guys. Yeah, I didn't do anything. I'm just going to do this and just bother you from time to damn. But I'm going to pull off the stage now. But we're going to bring in our next panel. And we're going to be talking about freedom technology.

So I want to welcome to the stage, Mr. Jeff Booth, Mr. Max Hillebrand. the legend the man the myth the legend rockstar dev gentlemen welcome how are you merry christmas buddy good to see you merry christmas ben merry christmas max merry christmas jeff yes yes max do we have you as well can i hear you we may not there's there's a setting there's a setting wheel oh wait no there's a second max there's two maxes something is happening here I will bring in Max as soon as his stuff is working. But we're going to get rolling again, gentlemen, thank you. I appreciate you joining in.

And everybody that's been watching so far, give this a share. Hopefully my ultra-reliable Canadian power doesn't crap out on me again. I'd like to be present for the panel. And I see Max down below. Max, good to see you. How you doing, man? Hey, Ben. Very happy to be back.

Excited for yet another successful year that we passed. So happy to look back on what we've accomplished and hope that we get better in the next year. Hell yes. Well, gentlemen, welcome this panel. I loosely named it freedom technology. And I wanted to talk a little bit about kind of how Bitcoin and the tangential technologies around it are being used to thrust forward individual sovereignty and freedom and how it's being used around. around the world. So I'm going to give you guys a bit of an open question to start, but what items in and around Bitcoin and maybe even protocols that are tangential to it, do you find most exciting

right now? Like, what is top of mind for you guys in terms of, I'm so happy that this is happening or available or on the cusp of hitting the circuit so that people can use it. So where are you guys at? Maybe I'll start with Jeff. Jeff, what's top of line for you? I think just the protocol in general, how the base layer is decentralized, secure and bounded by energy. And then the other layers are adding the functionality of privacy, scalability, in a way that everything is going to reside on Bitcoin and reprice the entire world. That's my, nooster is a part of that, Fedomint is part of that, e-cash is a part of that, lightning liquid, they're all parts of that.

And those together become freedom technologies. In fact, what's happening? I don't know if people realize this. Most people don't realize this. Freedom is becoming very profitable. Because you have a control system that's bought, a law freedom, and first the cypherpunks figured this out. And by trying to solve that problem,

they created what was scarce, freedom was scarce. And so they created, through that, all of the different tries to be able to solve that problem and create this protocol. And then Satoshi taking all of the failures and designing something that was truly decentralized, secure, bounded by energy, meant all of that work landed in a place

that all of our work is now on top of. And the number of people that are understanding this, it's still a tiny, tiny fraction of the world. tiny fraction of the world. But the people that are living in this world are truly free and they're living in the first global free market ever. And it's profitable. It's massively profitable because just like in a free market, the scarcity creates the abundance.

And so what we're doing, we're just kind of leading that charge and everybody denominating their value in that and building more value on top of that as part of that. a part of that network that's just going to change the entire world. I'm awesome. Awesome. Max, I'm going to toss it down to you if you want to tag onto what Jeff said or also dive into areas of Bitcoin that you're finding particularly exciting right now. Yeah, I can just echo what Jeff said.

Freedom is profitable and freedom is fun and extremely productive. Probably the most exciting thing or one of the greatly exciting things that happened this year was the sovereign engineering cohort. Because this was just a couple guys, on the lonely island in the middle of the Atlantic, deciding to get a couple builders to stop by at their place and just hang out for two months. They did this three times this year.

And the number of world-changing projects that came out of this is staggeringly high. I mean, let's just quickly browse through a short list. That's not even everything. But we have Blossom, right? So finally, we have a. Noster-like architecture for arbitrary files like videos, MP3s, APKs, whatever. We have ZAP Store, which is like the first properly censorship-resistant app store

with a distributed signing of applications and a web of trust, which blows up an entirely new design space for how can we ship and deliver software. But beautiful. We have things like Tollgate, now you can have a Wi-Fi route. that accepts e-cash such that the user then gets access to the internet, and all of a sudden people who are not online at the moment can pay for the internet such that they can get online later. You can make offline payments to get online. That's absolutely wild.

And we have, for example, Natsack, right? This is a way that you can keep your e-cash notes hidden in Noster relays. And I mean, we can just keep going for another 30 minutes to just talk about the crazy ideas that came on of this small group of individuals getting together and living free and unashamed and working on the freedom tools that we so desperately need. The blossom thing really speaks to me because one of the, I mean, we're here. This is being broadcast on, obviously on YouTube, on X. It is going to Noster.

But I don't have yet an easy way to have a place where I can have my, you know, my, my, tutorials and things like that in a you know put somewhere in an easily indexable and censorship resistant way and when i'm reading about blossom i'm like oh this seems like it could be starting to solve that problem for me over time and so like this is you know every every creator every person that that makes uh some type of content unless they're they're very much being cautious and uh you know bending to the whims of whatever platform that on, they're always going to encounter this, oh, I did something wrong. Somebody's going to take down my stuff.

And, you know, Nico over at Simply Bitcoin, they had their channel down for a couple of weeks, I think. And the only reason they got it back is because they had enough sway to get people to bug the right people in charge. I've heard of Bitcoin contract creators on the other side of the globe or in Eastern Europe. There was a guy. And his channel is just gone. Well, tough.

it's done. And like, you know, we're talking about Bitcoin content creation, but like any type of content creation, we saw plenty of censorship in the past few years. It's by no way exclusive to just stuff we're doing. It's anybody anywhere that's on the wrong side of a particular narrative based on who's running the platform. So yeah, that tool is very, very interesting to me. I do want to jump to Rockstar as well. Rockstar, if you want to tag in additional thoughts, and outline any of the stuff that you find particular exciting, that would be great. I mean, I can add on what you're saying as well,

is because when I look at the future, I see that the biggest problem will be that is like these big government entities and corporations and even some individuals like Elon, as they become more powerful, it's not that you will be like a victim when someone intentionally targets you, But rather you will be a victim of unintentional injustice.

Like you mentioned Nico and simply Bitcoin. It's just there is ever increasing complexity. And unless we build these protocols, we build freedom technology, like we'll just, like all of us will become just bigger and bigger victims. Jeff talks in his book, like The Price of Tomorrow, how this system that was built on,

infinite growth on inflation. Like if we do not dismantle this system that was useful before, but if we do not dismantle it in near future, it's just going to consume us. You can't have individuals like Keelon, like Sam Altman, like Zuckerberg. Even if I think they're well-intentioned, they're still humans, they can't manage that level of complexity. And this is where I do look at the history and work of cypherpunks. And it's just beautiful that saying of like cypherpunk future is now. Like it is. If you do have no KOC Bitcoin, if you use Noster, if like you code on stuff you like,

you're absolutely free. You're outside of the system. But the way like I look at it is that my work also needs to help liberate this many people as possible. And you were mentioning like what's what's the thing I'm most excited? Last few days I was helping students for Liberty onboard some people on Oster their members. And it's just beautiful that someone can create an Oster account. They tie their lightning wallet. And then I zapped them like 10 Ksats. And there is no intermediary in between. There is no like, oh, they need to open an account, past K.WIC is just like, no, these individuals with their

identities are coming online, and you can transmit value between you without trusted third party. So I'm just excited for that. And like even what I see in the audience, like we have some great comments, you know, calling me out, am I AI or what? But no, excited for the future. and then the fact we're building it all together, it's just amazing. Yeah. Can I just jump in because I want to fade back on something Max said and Rockstar just said. If you're not part of this, if you're still measuring the existing world by the world and you're yelling at it all the time, this is actually why then you're still trapped within it.

And you're probably measuring Bitcoin and US dollars and you can't wait for it to go up. But what Max described, I was part of creating that conference in Madeira. When we first did the conference, and this was only in March, there were 26 businesses that took Bitcoin. When I went back in October to see sovereign engineering and some of the stuff that's building, from somebody, Andre, just deciding to move his time into this open network. and then Gigi and others moving there and spending their time contributing to this. Now there's 136 businesses, or there was probably more than that now. That was in-150 now.

Yeah, exactly. So that was at the end of October. And then some of what Max is saying on what's coming, that most people have no idea that's coming that's actually already there. It might be early, but these things completely change. the scope of what people are measuring through today and they have no idea it's coming. And so it's hard to describe how much is coming and how much is building on top of each,

and as more people invest their time into this, that's why I say essentially it's making freedom profitable because these people are driving a new way of, every single person is contributing to a network in service of everyone else. Well, most of eight billion people on this planet have no idea it's coming. But the beautiful thing is that it is available to anyone who really wants to grab it up.

And the crazy thing is probably the biggest advice we would all give to our future selves is to get more radical early on, right? To go even harder all in. Not just in buying Bitcoin, but in living the Bitcoin lifestyle, because it's just such a world-changing, mindset-changing thing that doing it sooner is just rewarded on an exponential level. Yeah. You get to meet people like you guys and other people that are that are doing the same. And you know that people that have gone down that far and understanding on what they chose to leave behind to choose where to spend their time. You know there's a deep alignment. Yeah.

I had a webinar with the Human Rights Foundation a couple weeks ago now. And so we've been doing these quarterly things where we're educating, you know, political distance and human rights defenders on how to use some of these tools. And we basically filled up the last 101 that we did. Like we had a, the account that we were on for the webinar, we had it at capacity. Like we had to bump up to be able to do that many people in a room, which was super bullish. But then because of that interest, some people were. curious about additional skills. And one of the cool things was we just kind of did a pilot program

for like a 201. And one of the topics that I had the pleasure of teaching some of these human rights defenders about was, hey, let's create you all a Nostra account. And so now we may be starting to see a number of human rights defenders begin interacting on Nostr, which is just such a cool cohort of people to have in there and be interacting with Bitcoiners and developers and others that have discovered Noster. That's going to be like that mix. And Rockstar, you, you were down in Nashville for the Global Bitcoin Summit. But like, there is fireworks when you get a bunch of bitcoinsers and developers and human rights defenders in a room. Would you echo that? Oh, absolutely. And I mean, this is where my whole Students for Liberty campaign originated,

like we met in Nashville, and then agreed that once they have a cohort of human rights activists, that I will zap them as it was a welcome the monaster. And I can do the same for you, Ben. I mean, we could do it together if I join one of the cohorts. But for me, that's what it's all about is like human rights activists are probably the best group to do this with because they are working on increasing individual freedom of them and the others on the ground. And that's where I look at, you know, government, society, technologies that we're. used it's all built to like it was accepted because it allowed individual to like advance faster like that's why we actually have these things but we are now at the point of complexity where these

big governments big corporations they're not helping and facilitating our individual freedom Rather, they're focused on their survival and like, oh, you know, we need to be part of the future. While it's obviously can't be part of the future. So, yeah, the work HRF is doing Gladstein, like you've been, then Jeff and Max as well, in their own ways. Like, we are connecting like this, like social layer of Bitcoin that started like it's becoming social layer of Noster, social layer of all the freedom technologies. and it's a better system, more organic, and can't wait to see others join us, especially. This is just one of the streams where we encourage people to join.

Now, I want to, this channel and the stuff that I try to focus on here is, you know, the discussions are great, but I really love it when we can give kind of actionable advice to people. And so I think there's two ways or two cohorts of people that we should kind of maybe focus on here. And so my first question is for the people that would be watching a show like this, that are already Bitcoiners, they're already understanding. Okay, Bitcoin's important. I have like a degree of understanding. Maybe I'm, you know, self-custing and stuff like that.

What are the new things that most Bitcoiners are still sleeping? on that they really need to be investigating and starting to learn about. So let's start with that. Maybe Jeff, I'll go to you first. What do you think the average Bitcoiner that has their basics down understands Bitcoin's important, but what should they be looking at, at least be curious about right now and starting to learn? I actually still think most are confused that this is a protocol, that will do everything.

and it is imposing a new set of rules on society. And if you're measuring Bitcoin price in a derivative instrument, like the US dollar, you are part of the centralization of Bitcoin. Because these are two competing systems. The natural state of the market is free market is deflation. Bitcoin, by being a neutral currency, allows the natural state of free market to work. And it's the only time, the first time in global history that we've had a global free

market. But most people are pricing that global free market from a derivative instrument. And by doing that and spending more of their time worried about that price and everything else, they're taking that time away from seeing what Max is talking about and Rockstar is talking about. You're taking your time away from actively participating. So then if you're seeing that, you're probably still spending most of your time on Twitter. You're probably spending most of your time trying to drive that. You're probably yelling at other people in that and you're thinking more of a trader. When does Bitcoin go to a million or two million dollars so I can trade it for something else? When you spend your time in the in the honest system, you see all of the other

opportunities like Fetamint, eCash, Blossom, all of these other things, Noster. And you also realize that some of these things are very early because protocols come and they, the, it's the they merge and then they harden and they get better and better in time. So you understand that you're part of the building of the protocols and you discount, and you're not worried about that they're not perfect today because they're going to get better through that free market for. So I would say the biggest challenge that I see is most people are using their time unwisely by feeding the system that they hate.

Yes, I see a lot of that in my data. And I'm guilty of it sometimes, too. Like, I think we all can get sucked into yelling at what was instead of working towards. Yeah, I can build up on that, especially because Jeff and me recently we had a podcast with Walker, where we talk in more detail about this. And through my conversations with Jeff, also he helped me realize. that it's all about not feeding that Fiat system. It's about focusing on like what is your calling in Bitcoin?

And that's what you say, people that are already in Bitcoin, how do you take next step? The way I see it is like you don't make it about yourself, but rather what is it that you can do? I always encourage people to find the individual or group or project, within Bitcoin that speaks to them and then start contributing there. You know, use your skills to contribute.

And if you can start your own project, great. If you can't, which I think, you know, majority of people can, they would benefit more by collaborating with someone. Then, you know, does Max's work with sovereign engineering speak to you? I know Max, you and Eric Ksen are also talking about? and they're also talking about stuff. That speaks to me. I would love to join one cohort and just be there as a developer that went from,

you know, being born in third world country, needed to immigrate to U.S. and then accomplish American dream. I would love to see who are the developers that are on that journey and help that journey. Or what a server, it's more, I just loved what. Nicholas was doing. So one developer, like, why not join B plus one? So that's what I would encourage everyone to, like, who is already in Bitcoin, but I was like, what's the next step? My uncle's recommendation is that's the next step. Awesome. Max. Yeah, I think there's probably two big misunderstandings or underestimations. And one is the quality and size of our adversary. We're up

against some very powerful ideas and powerful people and powerful institutions. And they punch hard and they don't play fair. So it is extremely advisable to be cautious and be careful and play things smart. And the upside to this though is that we have the strongest network of heroic and courageous individuals that are there to have your back. And even though when times get tough, especially when times get tough, tough, Bitcoin and its anti-fragile network get stronger, extremely stronger. So prepare for the worst, but then ensure that you have the network and the surrounding

to actually get the best out of even tough situations. I love it. I love it. And I'm going to throw my hat in the ring for this one as well. you know hopefully everybody watching this will be far enough down the rabbit hole that they've gotten self-custasy of their bitcoin and you know they're they're securing it well um you know i think just in terms of like practical tools to take the best advantage of uh of freedom technology um a lot of people that watch a show are running nodes and things like that which is awesome um taking

starting to dive into privacy tools and things like eCash atop Bitcoin is cool on chain privacy obviously can be important and is still attainable there's tools that are available and then again I think so many people are sleeping on Noster. This is being streamed to Zapp. Dot stream right now and there's I see the Nostrches in the chat they're you know leaving comments they're zapping the the stream, I'm seeing them pop up. So like the magic that is happening in this very moment of people tuning into a stream on a platform on on a, through a social, I guess, not platform.

What's the word? I'm looking for a social protocol that is censorship resistant. And then being able to send value, which is actually landing on my, which side, my node over here, my own lightning node, that is incredibly bullish to be seeing that play out live here on this stream. So if you're not on Noster, highly recommend. If you're just looking for quick, simple onboarding, go download Primal. It's a great easy way to just become familiar with, hey, this is familiar for me, kind of,

you know, your Twitter layout. but then so much more beyond that and then start exploring the tangential tools that you can use. So gentlemen, we're coming down to our time. This was not nearly enough time. It never is, but such is life when it comes to the big. Can I just pitch one more tool? CoinOS, the wallet. And then if watching the stream, like if you get PTC base a race,

instance, message uncle, I'll be starting to work more with, yeah, just message me anywhere, Telegram, Twitter. Let's build more. Yeah. And I, on the, on the same line as Coinoss, I've got to give a shout out to Cole because he's been, that guy is a warrior and he's been pounding the pavement, just getting businesses in and around Vancouver to accept Bitcoin like nobody else. Like that 90% of the Bitcoin success in that city is one dude just pounded the pavement. And if we could all exude a little bit of coal, the whole world would be accepting Bitcoin. But with that, maybe this is really one of the takeaways. Like I get somewhat weird deja vu because I remember the block size wars and the Seqw debate and and me being like a,

you know, a newcomer to Bitcoin, not really active in the space. And, and listening to these crazy smart geniuses on the show talking about nuances of how Bitcoin works, right? And this is what ultimately got me into Bitcoin. Like these guys are so passionate and they can really make a huge difference, right? And now when I look back at my contributions to the space and that of others likewise, it's absolutely unbelievable the power of a single individual with a dedication and a fire in his heart, It is breathtaking what we can achieve.

So go out there and build something beautiful. Absolutely. Well, gentlemen, we're at our time. I'm going to round it out here, but I want to say thank you all for joining and have a very, very, very Merry Christmas. You too, Ben. See you guys.

Merry Christmas. Cheers, Merry Christmas, guys. Awesome. And everybody, please do stick around. We've got more panels coming up. And we're doing a giveaway. As soon as we come back, break, but during the break, you're going to learn about the next giveaway. So make sure you'll watch.

Don't take breaks. Just stick around the whole time. So I will be back in a moment, but you can learn about the next giveaway as we do. Actually, and before I even do that, I'm going to do, we're going to throw a coin in the well again. So once again, I'm over here on Bitcoin well. I'll bring up a QR code. If you don't have a well account, you can, you can sign up with the QR code to the right. But I'm going to toss a coin in the well. Get your lightning wall. Get your lightning wall. Whoever scans the QR code first will be able to redeem whatever the amount is. It can be anywhere from 500 to a million sats. So here we go.

Coin goes off in the well. And if you do win, let us know in the chat, comments, wherever you're watching this, 500 sats. So I'll leave that up for a few seconds here. Congrats to whoever grabs it. And again, if you don't have a Bitcoin well account scan a QR code to the right, you can sign up. And only today that will give you five chances to win a million sats. if you sign up.

With that, we'll stop that share. Congrats to whoever grabbed those sats. And we'll be back after this next giveaway. Okay, everyone, we have a hell of a giveaway here, courtesy of our good friends over at CEDOR, your most robust option to back up your seed phrase into solid steel. Now, what we've got here is, of course, a full CED or starter set that gives you everything that you need

to stamp your seed into steel and get it secure. We also have a set of Bitcoin stamps so you can take your filthy fiat coins and stamp the sign of sound money upon them, if you please. I think that's illegal, but you know, so don't go doing that. But nonetheless, if you do, I'll just look the other way. And then finally, we have a couple of BIP 39 water bottles in metal. and this is a water bottle that features the entire BIP 39 word list for seed phrases. So we will divvy these up accordingly.

What do you have to do to win? Well, you got a tweet out. You have to tag myself at BTC sessions. You have to, of course, follow and tag Cidor underscore I.O. And you need to hashtag Sessions XMIS 24 and include your best Bitcoin self-reephy. custody meme. If you're unfamiliar, Chris from Cedore is a prolific meamer and we're going to see if you guys can outdo them. So again, follow those instructions carefully. Follow and tag everyone involved, include that hashtag. We'll sort through the entries and notify winners in the coming

days. Best of luck to you all and all. All right, welcome back everybody. Best of luck on the giveaway there. We're back in to our panels. We are going to be bringing in an excellent panel here. Very, very excited for this. We're going to be chatting. A little bit about home mining. Have you guys been doing that? I've got many things to chat about here. But let's get in our panel. Also, I'll preface this by saying a couple returns to the show and a first-time guest to the show who I've had the pleasure of being on a panel with a couple a couple years ago in LA. But either way, let's welcome them all up to the stage.

So I want to welcome Mr. Preston Pish, Bitcoin Mechanic, and Matt Cratter. Good to see you, gentlemen. Thank you for being here. Good to see you. Yes, welcome. Preston, I hope to see. You need to come to Calgary again. Just as long as it's not in the winter.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think I might have a little bit of an echo from one of you guys. guys here. That might be me. Hopefully it's not. Let me double check. I'll play around. But if need be,

I may just get you guys when you're not actively talking. But either way, let me see here. One sec. Test, test, test. Okay, yeah. Mechanic, it was you.

But I think. But anyways, we're going to dive in. Um, uh, while mechanics getting his, uh, me, I muted you while you're getting your headphone, uh, situation going. Uh, but gentlemen, thank you for being here. And Matt, I want to say, thank you for coming on the show. I know you don't often dive on to other shows. Uh, and I, I felt it was an opportune time to twist your arm into doing it. Oh, it's a, it's a pleasure. It's quite a lot. Thank you for coming. I appreciate it. But gentlemen, we're here. We're talking about, uh, Bitcoin mining.

in particular, enabling the plebs to do so and normalizing home mining and all the tangential issues that come with this. So the way I want to kind of queue up this conversation first, and I think this might be, this might end up being in Mechanics' wheelhouse first. Mechanic, can you hear me, by the way? Can you hear me all right? No echo. No echo. You sound beautiful. Thanks, man. Yeah. Thanks for being here, by the way, too. So I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm I can you mechanic up with the first question here in and around the risks that we're currently facing with the mining industry as it exists today. So what should people be concerned about first and foremost?

Right. So the risks that had kind of built up was that miners were just, we had a massive trend of certain aspects of mining towards centralization. that was just unacceptable. That's why Ocean came around to prevent it. So there's the hashing component of mining, which is really, really very decentralized, which is awesome. But that's not the only part of mining because you can hash without having any say in what goes in the blockchain or any custody of what comes out of it. And given that the latter two things there have become insanely centralized with basically two companies making all the decisions around what goes in and what comes out, that wasn't good enough.

that was shitcoin-esque. And we just, well, yeah, we have to make hashers able to actually be full-on miners again rather than just hashes because otherwise we're just wide open to censorship attacks. So primarily that was the issue, the systemic thing that was going on. The ecosystem, it just isn't what it was back in 2015, where miners were all just really Bitcoiners. Nowadays, a lot of miners are giant companies that don't really have anything to do with Bitcoin. they're sort of interested in AI and crypto and they're publicly traded and none of their investors have ever heard of it but they don't want to buy Bitcoin. They sort of have this portfolio that has

5% in some stock that's to do with the publicly traded Bitcoin miner and they don't know anything about it. Right. So they're not cypherpunks. They're not going to see like OFAC compliance as something that's just unacceptable and doesn't have the values of Bitcoin and then all move pool if that happens. They probably wouldn't even notice. In fact, they probably think it was a good thing. So all of that was kind of a degradation of the, you know, the cypherpun ethos behind Bitcoin. And we had to put a stop to that quickly and make it so that miners start making their own blocks again. And just to round off this point, as it is always the case in Bitcoin, if you do what's good for it, you end up making a lot more money, which was something no one expected. But ocean miners have been earning way more than they have on the sort of corporate, you know, government-approved approaches to mining, which is not really that's.

surprising when you think about it, if you cut all the middlemen out of the equation, you do get a lot more money, typically. But no one expected that. I didn't. And here we are. So miners have been sort of slowly taking on more responsibility, taking custody of their coins when blocks get found, making decisions around what goes in the blockchain and getting a bigger slice of all the blocks that come out of it. So it's been a lot of fun this year. I just want to echo what mechanic just said, because I've talked to three different people that have, One of them has an affiliation with Ocean, but the other two don't. And they've told me the exact same thing that they're making more. It's a little bit lumpier because of the amount of hash rate that Ocean has.

But if you look at the pure numbers, they're making more through that pool than other pools, which I think surprised a whole lot of people. A mechanic, you said that it's due to cutting out the middleman. I don't know if Ben wants to go in that direction. But I think it's a really interesting point that few are really understanding about what service oceans providing and how it benefits the miner actually. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we can dive.

I want to maybe just hop to Matt really quick before we go a little bit deeper in there. But Matt, like you actually kind of came to me on this topic first. You're pretty passionate about it. So I'm just wondering what kind of drew you into this specific realm of Bitcoin? like why why the passion and what did you see that you were liking that that you wanted to kind of get out there and make people aware of well i think a lot of the work that um at ocean and um mechanic has done over various podcasts i wasn't i wasn't really aware of the mining uh the centralization problem until relatively recently and um it's actually amusing to be on a a panel about mining

because it's probably, it has been historically my weakest, weakest area. So there was that. But then just discovering the Bidax, discovering watching Ocean launch, watching datum launch, and then doing my own little setup, trying to do my own little setup with Bidax. So Start 9, running Bitcoin knots, running datum connecting to Ocean, and running my little bit-ax supra, I realized that this was strange that I hadn't done this before because I've been running a node for many years.

And the more I studied the history and realized what mechanic was just talking about, that this used to be something that Bitcoiners did. That's sort of when the vision dawned. And obviously, Ocean has had this vision even before me. But that's why that was one of the reasons I contacted you about this, as I thought that might be, if we can mobilize enough people through our various audiences and get maybe brainstorm.

So the setup I did was right at the edge of my technical capabilities. But if we can move towards, and I think we are moving towards one, more of a plug-in-play mining setup where the plebs, where solo miners can all contribute to the hash, the dream here or the fantasy would be to take on some of the bigger mining pools. And I think this is, you know, you do the back of the envelope math. If I did it right, you need about, I think, about 5 million future bits to equal Mara. Something like that. But obviously, as more and more people get into Bitcoin and as the, obviously, the hash rate is probably going to keep going to keep going up.

So it is kind of a race here. But that would be the goal to obviously get more people running nodes and get more people either doing solo mining, lottery mining, or maybe pointing their hash to ocean, or just giving people the tools, which all the more technical people are doing. Yeah. Awesome. Well, so the way I think that we should address this and get people to be the most proactive around this is offer them up, you know, actionable items. that they can do and make them aware of the tools that are already there that are just at their fingertips. And so, mechanic, I want to toss it to you first. For people that are already actively mining, regardless of what they're mining with, what are things that they can do to help decentralize mining and not further this kind of like centralization of block templates and all that kind of stuff. What can the average existing minor do right now?

So the average existing minor can become a minor as opposed to just hash rate rental. That's all. So if you're a full-on Bitcoin miner, you need to have a direct relationship with the Bitcoin network without a permissioned entity sitting between you and the thing. So this is standard in Bitcoin, like not your keys, not your coins, don't trust, verify. Those mantras, it's kind interesting what Matthew just said is very revealing when he said, you know, mining has typically been my weakest area. And this is like exactly what my finding has been since I started working at Ocean, which is that you have Bitcoin and you have mining and the two things just completely diverge, which is why you don't have not your keys, not your coins, and don't trust, verify,

just not a thing in the mining space. Because no one there would like got the memo, right? That's a thing in the hoddle space, as I call it, where you run a node and you have a cold card or whatever, like you take responsibility for all these things that you don't trust, you verify. That didn't happen in mining. So miners are just doing work handed to them by Bitmain on closed source firmware. Like the entire mining ecosystem runs on closed source firmware. Even the jailbreak stuff is all closed source. Like imagine if everyone had to run a closed source client and there was no Bitcoin core or not.

It would just be unacceptable because the cultures didn't. cross-pollinate properly. So we're trying to bring those values of it to mining. So what you want to do as a miner is take responsibility for what you're mining. That means you have to generate your own work, which has to be generated for you by your own node, which has synced up to the network and has its own, it has verified for itself that what it's doing is true and accurate. So it's not complicated, but the software really just didn't exist. So you need to run a node and you need that node to issue the work for you, and then that work will be something that you consider valid, right? And if and when you find blocks,

you publish them directly to the network, you don't ask a pool to do it for you because they might not approve of it, right? So all that means is mine has become sovereign again. And it's not difficult. All they have to do is run a node and then they have to run data on top of that node, which is what asks the node for templates. then makes work for the mining hardware attached to them and then just distributes it. And amazingly, this functions as something which helps miners out a lot. Again, it's not like an ideological sacrifice where you might earn less or it might make things a bit more clunky. It improves everything. So just like if you cut out the middlemen in the

mining space, you make more money. There's additionally, if you want to make your own templates and have a direct relationship with the Bitcoin network, you basically get a proxy for free. And a proxy is like, there's never been a good one in the space. And they're essential because as a giant miner, you have this situation that's just really rare in networking where people don't understand it. They come from, like you get experts and pros from like that used to work for Amazon or Netflix or something like that. And they're used to running like very, very data intensive things. But without that many devices and then they come and deal with a network that has like 20,000 ant, ant miners on it. They buy all the top spec equipment for it and they have endless networking

issues because they don't understand how to work with that properly. And they also have the unfortunate thing where you have miners like to go where there's stranded energy. And where there's stranded energy, there's terrible internet usually. And if you have terrible internet and no proxy, that means you have 10,000 ASICs all trying to connect to a pool, make 10,000 individual connections all trying to get work. And this is why the empty block speed up is a thing, because you need to make the amount of data you send, like every byte matters.

And so miners get this datum server. It runs locally, so there's no latency to speak of. It generates all the work locally, and it has barely any communication between the pool and itself. So suddenly you've turned 10,000 connections into one connection. So that has been a thing that miners have wanted forever. You get it for free if you decide to start making your own templates. And that helps the Bitcoin network.

So suddenly you're just going to have all the problems of latency just kind of disappear in that regard. So again, it just makes your life better and happier as a miner. So do that is my answer to your question. Run a node, run datum and mine on ocean, because you'll make more money and you'll also just be more efficient with your operation. And this is all stuff I've seen. You can just run this on like a start nine, right? Yeah. Yeah.

We already have guys with tens of petahash running the start nine version. of it which I advised against it because start nine is obviously more experimental than like a rock solid Linux distro like debion or something but there's been no issues so far so I would definitely recommend people just do that it works on umbral as well and I've seen plenty of people do it most of the people running start nines and umbrals are just bit x guys but like I said I've seen guys with tens of petash now run on start nine and it's really good there's a few hacks you have to do to get it to work on a local area network, but it's all very well explained in the instructions. And so far, no one's tripped over themselves doing it. Nice. I love it. Preston, I want to go up to you and maybe if you wanted to touch on a couple of the items that we've seen in around very basic entry level, I'm going to try mining at home devices that we've seen. And, and, maybe touch on for those unfamiliar some of the big headlines that we saw around those devices

earlier in the year like the exciting and around people like mining and getting a nice little surprise just solo mining. Do you want to touch on that? So like Matt, this is my weakest area by far. And I mean, I've had some interviews with Heatbit, which Alex came on the show. And I mean, he's trying to make home mining by taking the heat that you're already kicking off and, you know, mining with that, which is really exciting. We could go into the challenges and difficulties of that. But I think people are just kind of approaching it from all different types of vantage points. And what I find really exciting is ocean. And I know we keep coming back to this idea of block templates.

You can have everybody in their kid sister mining from their house. but if they're tapping into a pool that's highly centralized and they're providing the block template, are we really making mining more decentralized? And I would argue we're maybe not because that's the critical variable that's not making it more decentralized. So I think the pool topic and conversation is vital. And I think them kind of demonstrating that to the space is really important. And I think that, you know, this datum protocol that was recently, launched by them is vital, vital for this to continue to remain decentralized and for people

to, I think that's the thing that's upstream of people mining at their house is you're really not getting that decentralized benefit unless these types of tools are there for the market to use. So that would be the thing that I would hit on that I think is really important for anybody listening is we have to continue to support Ocean and the efforts that they have going on. I'm more curious than to talk and pontificate on what my opinions are on this about the Bitax. I keep hearing about this. I want to do it myself. I'm kind of busy and just really haven't got around to it.

It seems like Matthew has done this. I've gone to the BitX website and it immediately takes me to GitHub. And for anybody that's not a coder, right, it's almost like just being slapped in the face because it's just really intimidating. Like you just show up to the GitHub and there's like a million files and you're like quickly, you know, surfing through it. And you're like, okay, so like, where in the, how do I start with this? I want to do it, but I don't want to just buy a bunch of random things and get all these

components and then have no idea what to do. So Matt, did you, can you talk us through like? And I'm also curious BTC sessions. I'm assuming you probably have made a video about this, have you? I've done some stuff. Okay. I want to hear Matt's. First and foremost, let's all make sure that we, if we're going to try this, he has a video.

Matt, talk us through what this was like, because I truly want to do this. So, like, tell me, you know, what I need to do and whether it was worth it and blah, blah, blah. It was definitely worth it. What I did is being fairly non-technical. I sort of triangulated between some of Ben's videos, his one in particular from a couple months ago. And then Mechanic on the Ocean X account did a couple tutorials that were quite good. And so I have a Start 9 server. Is it the server one, the cheaper version?

Yeah. And so for me, that was an opportunity. I'd been running Bitcoin Core on that. So the first thing I wanted to do was to move over to Bitcoin Notts. and I can't remember how I did. I think Mechanic talks about that in one of his tutorials. So that was the first thing. And the nice thing about that, they make it very easy.

You don't have to redownload the whole blockchain. You can just sort of sub in knots in there. And then, I mean, the only way to do this, in my opinion, at least for someone at my level, would be using Start 9 or using Umbrell. So I'm using Start 9 with that server. And then basically once you get Bitcoin knots up and running, it's a little bit a little bit janky there because of some updates that I think after Start 9 does another update to their operating system. This is going to get a lot easier. But basically got Bitcoin knots running, then got Datum running, then got because I'm just a tiny miner, I got I had to set up core lightning through Start 9.

so I could receive the mining rewards, which are probably like 20 sats, every once in a while at this point. And so that was even setting up some lightning channels and funding them and playing around with that. I knew theoretically how to do it. And then I'll show you the... Nice. We get showing telling me what the Bidax looks like.

But this is the Bidax Supra. I just, I bought it from Amazon. You can go to the BidX website. They've got lots of resellers. It wasn't like buying a hardware wallet, so I was a little more comfortable buying it from. I can't even remember who I bought it from on Amazon. It was about $180, including taxes and shipping. That was so much easier than I was expecting.

Yeah, so basically, the thing is that the bidax comes with its own firmware that then directs you to, probably mechanic knows it's better than me, but there seem to be some other pool that bidax, Bidaxes are configured to run on automatically. So then I had to just sort of change that and point it to ocean and then get the blocks, the block construction through data. That's my layman's explanation. The thing about the bid X, fairly inexpensive compared to A6, very, very quiet and runs very little, obviously consumes very little electricity.

So the vision here, if we get enough people doing this, is you get more ideologically minded people who are doing it. I, like most people in the U.S., have very high residential electricity costs. That's another reason I'd sort of steer it away from this because I didn't want to get a full ASIC and be burning maybe thousands of dollars of electricity per month. But it seems that this is one way that we can not consume a lot of electricity and help to defend freedom money by contributing our tiny.

tiny little hash. So it was fairly, you know, it was a weekend project. But this is this is something that all of us can can work on together and make better tutorial videos. At this point, it's definitely not for it's for dedicated bit corners. I think it's a really fun weekend project. But if you give this to someone who just has the Bitcoin ETF, not good. Are you telling me that Bitcoin ETF holders are not going to want to home mine? We'll get them there eventually. Can I touch on Bix real quick? Yes. I'm a real big fan of the project.

Scott 9,000 came to the ocean launch and he's behind the whole thing. It's open source, which I don't know if we even mentioned that yet. And that is in stark contrast to everything else. So even like the aftermarket firmware stuff, like Brains OS and stuff that people will get excited about, it's still all closed source and it's still all phoning home and doing things that you really don't want anything to do with Bitcoin in your life doing. It's just basic opsec as you don't. want stuff like that happening so a firmware bitax is basically the only thing out there with open source firmware that you can actually run so that's great um and one of the really exciting things about

it that i'm doing and you can do with datum is custom thresholds for lottery mining so this is like i'm i find this amazing most people are not that blown away about it but it's just a basic quirk of psychology right now if you want to if you want to mine a block yourself without pooling rewards with anyone else. If you're using a Bitaxe, the network difficulty means it's going to take you 26,000 years roughly to find a block. So that's a ridiculous threshold for a lottery, right? Or you can go standard pool mode where you make, let me just look at a bitX user here, 35 sats a day, which is just boring and it's never going to pay for your return on investment, right? So you can actually set your own custom threshold as a difficulty that you like. So the network difficulty is $108 trillion

right now. If you meet that, congrats, you actually mine a block and you get three Bitcoins plus whatever. And if you can't do that, you have to go all the way down to just mining on a pool like standard. But because of ocean and datum, you can set your own difficulty threshold. And that can be, I want to mine a block every year. You can set it to that threshold. And that means you can check your bit acts every day or every week or whatever. And if you find a share that day, you just got a year's worth of rewards. So you might get lucky and find that on the first day. And this is what I mean by custom lotto, right? You can say, I want to find a share every 10 years. And then you get 10 years worth of 35 sats a day on that particular instant. So I don't know,

I find that kind of interesting. Like if you could buy a lottery ticket that wasn't one in a billion of winning or something, it was one in 100,000, but, you know, it was proportionally less payout, maybe that satisfies the way you like to gamble, right? So, I mean, it is just ultimately when it comes to getting Bitcoin, you're never going to get 150 bucks worth of Bitcoin or the amount of sats mined from a bitaxe if you just mine in a normal day-to-day way. You might get it if you gamble with going with the network difficulty, but it's one in 26,000 year chance.

So you're not going to do it that way either. If you want to roll the dice, go for it. someone did mine a block with the bit ax already, which is astounding. That actually happened. But if you don't want to roll a dice with 26,000 sides, maybe you just want to roll one with 5,000 sides. You can actually do that. And I'm doing that now, and it's really fun. Every time I find a share, I find like one a week, I get hundreds of stats instead of 10. And I'm going to broaden that out to be like, you know, I find one a month. And if it's a lucky day, I find two that month, you know. I just find it fun. I don't know if you guys do, but I found it fun.

That's awesome. I'm going to need to book some time with you and figure out how to set that up. Again, like my own personal experience in around this, I played with the Nerdax. I have done, I've got a space heater that is just like a retrofitted start, not S9, which crypto cloaks. They did like a written explanation, just like swapping out the fans and then ramping down the the wattage and that thing works great it's cold here so i get good use out of it like six months a year and uh and um yeah i've got i've got a couple bit axes sitting off to the side and i do have a future bit as well i if i'm not mistaken this year i'm pretty sure we saw two times that bit axes hit blocks and one time that a future bit hit a block which is wild um so like somebody

with a you know like the odds are slim like it is You know, very slim. But at the same time, we've got people running these devices that cost like a couple hundred bucks. And they're that have hit a block. So they spent a couple hundred bucks and, and, and, uh, rolled the dice and ended up getting 3.125 Bitcoin plus fees, which is pretty sweet. Um, so if you're, if you're, the way I like to think of it, if you're solo mining like that is, um, if you already are buying a lotto tickets, stop doing that.

And then just go grab yourself a bitax or a nerd axe or whatever and use it as, think of it as a learning tool and a fun weekend project to acquaint yourself with it. Don't expect to return. Just expect that you're going to participate and you're going to be a part of the ecosystem and just kind of begin to understand it better. But then if you happen to hit a block, which again is unlikely, it's just a fun thing. Or, again, as Matt did, you can point it to your own lightened node and kind of make it a bigger project and be mining, you know, a minimal amounts of stats. But it's kind of fun to see those come in as you're actually actively mining as part of a pool if you choose to do so. So I think it's cool. I think it's something that there's clearly interest in.

like that NERNX video that I threw up got, I don't know, like tens of thousands of views on it. And those are all people that are curious about trying it out. And that's bullish as hell. That's because I watched it five times. I think that's the case. I think I'd say, you know, 80% of my views are second or third rounds. I mean it as a compliment. I couldn't have done it without it.

Can I just correct something I said, actually? So BitX isn't the only open source miner out there, and you just mentioned it, Future Bit Apollo, big shout out to John Stephanopoulos, who's the guy behind that project, and they did find a block this year as well. And that's kind of a contained solution, which is a little different, right?

Like a Future Bit will go and solo mine for you as a plug-and-play thing, as opposed to a Bit-X, which is just the miner, and then you have to, well, just the ASIC, right, and a little ESP, whatever, chip on it. and then you have to still hook up a stratum server and point your minor to it. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's kind of like it's just like an all in one. It sorts that stuff for you without having to. Okay. Yeah. So that's sitting on my desk over here. That's going to be a video soon. The bid ax, I've got to do a video on soon.

But I guess with the bitax, I want to go through the whole, you know, running datum and connecting and all that with Bitcoin knots. I think that's in the cards for the new year. So I've got my work cut out for me, I think. Let's do a datum video because I can show you how to do custom thresholds. It's one variable you change in the config, and it needs to be a power of two, and that's it. Then your custom lotto mining at that point.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I love it. I love it. Well, gentlemen, these panels are never long enough, but we are up on our time, and I do got to do a rotation here. So I guess I'll just say I'll be seeing you guys in the new year and we'll all have our variations of minors. Preston, I'm going to hold you to it. I want to see you running.

I need to get busy. Yeah, I want to see you running a bid X in the new year. And a big hat tip again to Scott 9,000 for that project too and John Stephanopoulos for the future bit project and even Rick from Cloaks for putting together the original walkthrough for just getting me with my with my space heater but uh again mechanic at preston thank you guys so much for being here have yourselves a very very merry christmas thank you ben thanks for having us see you guys cheers all right and everybody stick around we've got the next panel coming up right now right now uh and i want to welcome to the stage uh first of

off, I want to welcome to the stage. My co-host with the most, Nico. I may have surprised in there. Nico, Nico, really, again, like the next couple gentlemen we're going to be welcoming to the stage with us are just, they're doing such incredible work, and I'm so proud to be a part of them. And Nico, I know we've had a lot of talk, you know, backstage about all this kind of stuff that I've been doing with the Human Rights Foundation. You've been infinitely curious. And also, you know, coming, hailing from Venezuela yourself, recognize kind of the unique value proposition that the Human Rights Foundation is offering here. So I thought it was, I think it's a good idea that we kind of riff on it all together.

But I want to welcome to the stage. Also, right now, the wonderful, the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Alex Gladstein. And, of course, his partner in crime, C.K. Snarks, welcome, gentlemen. Merry Christmas. How's everybody doing? Merry Christmas. Happy Christmas. Happy holiday. Merry Christmas. Yeah, gentlemen, thank you for being here.

This is, I'm partway through the marathon. This panel, by the end of it, will mark the halfway point. But it's been a blast already. And I thought it only appropriate having kind of upped my involvement with the HRF and all the wonderful things you guys are doing this year to bring you guys on and chat a little bit about human rights and how Bitcoin is a tool in the tool belt of human rights defenders everywhere.

So I guess to cue it up, and Nico, I'm going to kind of go back and forth between us because I'm sure you're going to have some questions and things that you'd like to ask of Alex and CK as well. But I guess I'm aware of this, but I'll let Alex take this one. How is the Human Rights Foundation currently leveraging Bitcoin to support human rights initiatives around the globe? Well, first of all, thanks for having us. You guys do killer work.

Ben, in particular, your tireless dedication to educating the masses about how to be free is very humbling and inspiring to us. and it's so cool to work together to the Orange Bill folks. And we can talk about that. We're doing a bunch of different things now. We've got a team of about eight people at the Human Rights Foundation, you know, working on financial freedom. And, you know, there's this fun little cartoon that Spiral made of H-RF, which I think is kind of our ethos at the moment is that, you know,

Bitcoin can use HRF to help break chains, is the idea. So we're just serving to Bitcoin here. Nice, there it is. A bunch of different things going on. I'll just highlight them very quickly so you can get a grasp of kind of what are we actually doing besides, you know, hanging out at events and being on social media, right? Okay. So we created a prize last year called the Finney Freedom Prize, which I'm pretty stoked about. Basically, there isn't really a prize in Bitcoin.

And you know, maybe that's fine. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that's good for the nature of Bitcoin. Stay humble, stack sets, right? But there was an opportunity presented to us to work with the Finney family to do something at Howe's honor and to help people remember Hal for a long time and also to help other people be like Howe

and to inspire people to be like How. So long story short, we launched the Finney Freedom Prize and the idea is like there's going to be a person or up to two people for every block era starting at zero. And roughly in human time every what four years or so. But that'll change over time. But essentially every 210,000 blocks marks a new era, right? So for each of these eras until the very last Bitcoin is mined, their very last single SAT will be the, very last block subsidy in, I don't know, somewhere, it keeps changing, but you can look at the Clark Moody's dashboard, but it's like 2136 or something, right? So between 2009 when Satoshi

launched the software until the very last sat is mined, there's 33 different block, let's say, euros, okay, and the final one will go from one sat to zero. So that's the end of the Bitcoin issuance, right? So the idea is to create a prize that's limited in scope and scarce. and there's prize for each of the 33 euros. We earmarked 33 BTC for this, which is locked up. And you can go to finnyprice.org and you can look at the block explorer. We've distributed one of those coins already. The first winner from 2009 to 2012 was Hal.

We thought he did the most in that era for Bitcoin. So howl wins it. That was given, it was actually directed to the ALS Research Foundation and they created a fund in Hal's honor to do cutting-edge research on ALS which is pretty cool and then we're gonna find out the winner of the essentially 210,000 to 420,000 which is basically 2012 to 2016 era in a couple weeks on January 10th so look out for that morning we're gonna have a nice announcement and we're gonna be informing you all who the next laureate is

and that's that's determined by an independent committee that you can look up on the website. There's seven people, very different backgrounds in Bitcoin, philanthropists, activists, investors, core developers, different people involved in Bitcoin educators. So they make the decision and they what they do is they submit to HRF and the Finney family a ranked list of five. You know, they do sort of rank choice voting. And and then we decide. But you know, the short list will be public. The idea is give the committee more power, give some accountability there. That way it's like if Finney family and H.R.F. choose like the fifth person on the list or some head scratching. Okay, why did they do that? So anyway, you'll see the short list

and the winners then, which is pretty exciting. So I like that and I like the odds of us being the largest cash prize in the world in like 40 years for sure. So I think it'll be fitting to memorialize Hal in this way and hopefully it ensures that in 100 years he's as known as he should be. We've got the Bitcoin Development Fund, which we're growing, which now we have Femi and Alex working on as well as the rest of us, but they're like full-time working on this and broadening it and building the pipeline. We just announced our Q4 grants yesterday, 700 million SATs going out to 20 different projects around the world. You can look at that. Some of it was around decentralizing mining. Some of it was core development. Some of it was education. It's an interesting mix and we're

super proud of it and I think they're kicking ass there. And our general hope is to get closer to a to a billion sats per quarter next year, although of course we, you know, the exchange rate will determine that, I suppose. But in general, that would be fun. You can track that on Bitcoin mag. We started to do long-term support. It's not like a thing that's hugely public and the grantees are not public, but we've been able to with the support of some.

owners do some like longer term support for people who are doing Bitcoin activism, which is really fun. We have the newsletter, the Financial Freedom Report.org. You can check it out, hits your inbox every Thursday morning, and it's like a laundry list of like things happening in the world with regard to financial repression and things happening with open source software technology. So it's an awesome asset. The team with Ilan and Zach, they're killing it with it. Really, it's live on Noster. It's on email. I would check it out. It's such a great quality. quality resource. So we're building that. We're doing a lot of media stuff. So doing a lot of mainstream media work in educating people about Bitcoin conferences, events. We're doing some research.

We help support a research initiative at Cornell that's looking at Bitcoin and Stablecoin adoption globally. It's coming out next summer. They're looking at like 20 plus countries. It's going to be very interesting. So we're going to get some raw data on like who's actually using Bitcoin. And I don't mean crypto. Like the reason we did Bitcoin and stablecoins is so that the university and their staff could be highly specific in the questions they ask. So we're basically not tracking, you know, trading Shiba, you know, we're tracking these things. And then I guess by logic, you could sort of deduct and figure out who's just trading

chip coins. But the point is we're looking at usage in these two areas. We are pushing the CBDC tracker forward. So we've got this public resource. We've seen the status of central bank of currencies all around the world. We're doing a lot more than Noster and e-cash. We view these as, you know, complementary technologies to Bitcoin. We're doing a lot more grants, a lot more events around these things.

You'll see that cook up and heat up next year. The Bitcoin Bountys is winding down. We started this two years ago. We put out 11 bounties based on what activists wanted. And 10 of them are either fully or partially claimed. So pretty exciting there. So folks can look more into that. Pretty cool.

I mean, we saw a lot of interesting stuff get claimed in terms of wallets that people actually use adopting features that activists wanted. So that was neat. And yeah, just trying to be out there in events to connect, to learn, and figure out how we can help. I don't know. That's my quick TLDR. I'm sure CK has his own comments on that as well. Yeah, CK, I'll toss it your way as well.

And maybe if you want to, I mean, I'm sure you have things that stand out to you in some of the initiatives that you guys are undertaking that you've got. you know, special feelings towards and everything. But I was also wondering if you wanted to maybe touch on a little bit of the, the webinar that's been going on. I mean, I left that out intentionally for CK. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll let CK. Take that one up and, you know, I'll give some color commentary on that being a part of it. But CK., what have you been seeing from the webinar this year. Yeah, so, yeah, Alex summarized a lot of what we're doing. We're doing a lot of stuff. So eight people punching way above our weight, I think, and that doesn't even capture, you know,

a lot of the other kind of like small tasks and things that have to happen to make the whole machine work. But one of the new initiatives we rolled out this year is one-on-one webinars that are focused specifically for nonprofits and activists. And the idea here, is okay Bitcoin has given HRF kind of like superpowers and us getting you know active in Bitcoin I saw in the chat Dr. Jeff Ross says one of the best things happening in the space thank you you know it's been a powerful force like how do we get more organizations that are working in philanthropy to pick up on this tech so HRF which is really high tech you know picked up on that early now we're trying to teach other

NGOs and other activists and other people who are operating in potentially difficult circumstances, how to use Bitcoin, and we try to make it really approachable. So Anna Chekiewicz has joined our team. She used to run finances for the ACF, which is the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which pushed back on Putin and is the primary opposition to Putin. and they have been needing to use Bitcoin and operate on Bitcoin for a long time. And Anna has been using Bitcoin in that role. So she is like hands-on expert.

I told her she's probably the most qualified person in the world to be teaching this to other nonprofits. And so she joined her team and she's been pioneering this webinar and other hands-on kind of education efforts to show these nonprofits and these activists how to use Bitcoin. And BTC session has kind of been our expert who's coming on board and really showing people how to use the tech, how to use the wallets, how to use the P2P markets. And I think this type of 101 is really, really unique. And I think then you can kind of talk to that. But we're really honing in on just exactly what these activists and these organizations need. and we're skipping kind of everything else. And we're giving them homework, people are engaged.

They're getting free self-custody devices. It's a really cool initiative. Yeah, man. It's been wild being able to be a part of this. And we've had a couple actually webinars in the past month or so here. One of them, of course, was the Bitcoin 101, the most recent one. We packed the room to the point where we didn't have a large enough Zoom subscription, so we capped out at 100 and quickly had to rectify that the next day.

Not a bad problem to have, absolutely. But then we started a pilot just this past week. My days are mashing together. It's Christmas time. But we did some tangential topics and some more advanced topics this last one. And one of the coolest things about that recent one is I got to teach a bunch of human rights activists how to onboard to Noster, which is super cool. And so we were talking in the previous panel or a couple panels ago. Rockstar was on and he, of course, was there for the Global Bitcoin Summit in Nashville back in October.

But again, like how exciting is it when we've seen in person what it's like, Matt, together bitcoins and developers and human rights defenders altogether and the fruit that that bears. But now to starting to sprinkle in human rights defenders even more so into the Noster ecosystem in a way where people can communicate in a censorship-resistant way. I'm just so excited to see that the tools that come forth from the interactions of these people that seemingly wouldn't typically kind of run into each other. It's going to be incredible. It's worth reflecting on the gestation period of this

because we talked about a year ago, Ben, about doing more. And it was around this time, like I think it was right around Christmas when we were like, hey, let's do something formal. Let's actually make it happen. And we were like, okay, let's do a webinar. And we like didn't really know what we were doing. And, you know, the first one, I mean, of course, they're all great. but we were able to get some feedback by some very interesting people who've had a lot of experience

doing education more broadly, including Sergei Popovich, who runs Canvas. He peacefully toppled the dictator in Serbia as a younger person. He created a movement that overthrew a government without a shot fired. So he understands how to galvanize and mobilize people and topple a fascist dictator, you know, in a very effective way. So he parlayed that into a career, helping movements get strong, and more effective around the world. So he sat in on that webinar and really helped us improve it and, you know, have Anna really, you know, really be, you know, a leader in the space and use her educational background and her experience to help activists and nonprofit leaders relate to why you might want to use

this thing. And it's been growing and the last one had over 100 people join and had more than 65 finish. And part of the evolution of it over the year was realizing it needs to be a little bit more trim, a little bit more concise, have more visuals, you know, different things we learned. And the goal for next year is to onboard a thousand organizations to Bitcoin. So we want to do 250 a quarter and we're going to have, you know, the basic 101 course, which is basically two and a half, it's two and a half sessions now. We'll see where it goes in the future. And then people who want to keep diving in can do an advanced module, right? and that's where you can cover things like Nostr, e-cash, privacy tech, et cetera, et cetera.

So for us, it's like rubber hits the road in terms of adoption because, you know, a lot of these people who are just like sitting in the webinar with you, they're like part of a movement of a million people, like in some country. So it's like this is how you do grassroots expansion and education on this topic. And we couldn't be more thrilled that it's free, that it's open. And then we're doing it with you, man. It's really exciting. It is, it is. Nikol, I want to toss it to you. I'm sure you have thoughts and questions and everything.

You know, what are you taking in and what do you want to know here? Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, great to see you, CK. Great to see you as well, Alex. And, you know, one of the most impactful things to me was, Alex, your books. I mean, I texted you like randomly what I was getting on a plane. I was like, it was the check your financial privilege. And that books, you know, came out a couple years ago. And I remember it was very impactful to me for a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm originally from Venezuela. I live in Miami. It's very close by. And the stories, I think, are the most impact. The stories are the most. impactful in my opinion and I guess that's my question to you Alex like are there any specific examples that you can give to the audience about individuals using Bitcoin under oppressive governments because you know one thing is talking about the Human Rights Foundation all the work that you guys are doing but perhaps some of the viewers that are watching right now aren't familiar with your work and for me what really impacted me as an individual

the most is hearing the stories of how people are using Bitcoin to escape this oppression. So just the individual examples are the hardest hitting. I mean, it's interesting. I wouldn't say I avoided Venezuela in that book, but at the time, it was like, people kept using Venezuela as like a, like almost like a trope. It was kind of like, did I say, did I say that we, that you avoided it? I don't think I said. No, no, no, but I'm just referencing the fact that at the time, it was like, it was the one example that everybody used. And, um, you know, at times it was exaggerated, right? And, you know, a lot of like alt-cointers came in and Dash was like,

people would just come to me and be like, hey, we want to help in Venezuela. And I'm like, no, you don't. You just want to get rich. Like, you're not actually interested in helping somebody. So I actually tried to go out of my way to find other, to look at other countries that people hadn't been talking about with respect to Bitcoin. And that led me to like, like, Togo and, you know, Senegal and Palestine and Cuba and all these other places.

But, you know, I think a really interesting one, you know, and all of these places, it continues to be highly relevant. I mean, look at Lebanon. And I think that's where I would focus on the Global Bitcoin Summit, which I didn't mention. I mean, we have all these different events that we do. The biggest one, of course, is the Asla Freedom Forum, which is broader. It's not about Bitcoin, but it's about freedom. And Bitcoin's part of that, right? That's like a 1,500 person festival.

It goes all the way down to small little retreats and gatherings. And then in the middle is our summit. And that's a global Bitcoin summit. We do it at Bitcoin Park in October every year. And it's about 120 people. We try to get 50, 60, 70 countries. So we really try to get Bitcoiners from all over. Someone who came the first year, his name is Marco, and he helped found Bitcoin

Duban in Lebanon. And he was supposed to come this year. and then, you know, Israel basically invaded, started attacking, you know, his hometown. He had to flee overnight. And he wrote us this email being like, I can't come, flights are canceled. We're like, dude, like, take care of your family. Like, it's fine. And then he was like, but we were like, hey, if you want to leave a video statement, go for it.

But no pressure. So he sent us this like, first of all, he sent us this beautiful email explaining why, you know, how powerful Bitcoin is. I would like to find it. I'd like to read it. Give me a second. It's pretty amazing. Here it is.

So he says, Dear all, unfortunately, due to constant air strikes and safety concerns from my family, all flights out of Lebanon have been canceled and I won't be able to attend the Global Bitcoin Summit. My family had to evacuate from the south of Lebanon where parts of my village were leveled by the strikes. I'm currently displaced trying to navigate the situation.

I wish you could attend. But with the current events, it's impossible. I can't leave my family. I have experienced firsthand the impact of hyperinflation and how Bitcoin protected my wealth during that time. Now in the unfortunate context of a war, Bitcoin once again proved invaluable by allowing me to carry and secure my wealth, even the circumstances force me to leave my home.

So the point is, like, what a use case. And then he sent us a video. It's like him with an air mattress behind him somewhere, you know, on the move. And he's talking about how, and you would experience, expect him to be bummed out, right? But he gets on the camera and we play this to everybody. And he's like fired up. He's got so much energy. And he's just like, I'm so grateful for Bitcoin. This is so exciting. He's like being displaced and he's like fired up. And he's like, listen, I had no time. We had to leave in the middle of the night with like an hour warning. And it was okay. I was able to bring my wealth with us because of Bitcoin. And we are we are safe. You know, our future is safe. And we're going to go somewhere else and we're going to be fine. And he's just talking about what a technological development that is that other people lacked and don't have because they don't know about it or they were born before it. And it's pretty amazing that we're born with this technology. And to see him do that and to live that is extraordinary.

And you just wish that like a hundred million more people knew about it. But, you know, that's why the work we're doing is so important is because if you don't know, you can't use it. But people like him are absolutely so inspiring. And, you know, that is, that is the use case. It is freedom money, even in the darkest environments, right? Yeah, absolutely. And that's an extremely powerful, you know, you just read the email. You read it from the on the ground and you feel the emotion of that, you know, said individual typing that.

And, you know, that's something that I've experienced myself. You know, it's not so much anymore, but a couple of years ago, you know, one of the only ways to send money to my family in Venezuela was Bitcoin, right? one of the most effective ways. So, yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting. And what I'll say, too, for you, for you, C.K., you know, you recently joined Alex or somewhat recently, how have you, you know, like, how have you changed? Like, how has your, has your world changed? Has your perspective changed since you've joined?

I know it's been, it hasn't been relatively recently, but, you know, it has been a new experience for you. Yeah, no. So I think when you, when I was previously a Bitcoin magazine and you kind of get in this bubble of like the the Bitcoin Eco Center or Eco Chamber. And you know, really what Bitcoin Magazine was doing is like tapping into that echo chamber as much as possible. And then when you go to HRF, you actually have to like you have to do the opposite. You have to make Bitcoin serious and you have to make Bitcoin as relatable as possible to, People who are kind of in the current paradigm. You know, they're not focused on this story of what the world could be like.

They're just living their life right now today and they have real money problems. Sometimes it's like obvious to them that Bitcoin is a solution and sometimes it's not so obvious. You know, there's people like Frida Naborama, who is a lifelong activist and she, She almost didn't make it because of money issues in Africa. And now she created the Africa Bitcoin Conference, uses Bitcoin, teaches people about Bitcoin alongside her activism. So there's people like that. And then on the flip side, you know, there's a lot of people who it's not natural to them at all. So when we work with Bitcoin at HRF, it's really about talking about financial repression,

talking about freedom and talking about supporting people's rights. And it's a very different kind of angle. So it's been a learning curve. I learned a lot from Alex. You know, it's awesome. I get to work with this man every single day. He has an amazing vision. And a lot of times, I just like, you know, help him make it happen.

And, you know, I think if you look at what was happening at HRF before I joined in Bitcoin and then after I joined, you know, it was already accelerating, but it was already accelerating, but definitely accelerated a lot more. So I definitely think that, you know, I've helped Alex scale a lot. And I learned a lot of that at Bitcoin Magazine. But generally speaking, you know, if we want Bitcoin and continue to become more and more mainstream, we need to continue like doing this work and talking about Bitcoin as a tool, right, rather than Bitcoin as anything else, even though Bitcoin is a lot of things. Like, that's what we're focused on. Yeah. Look, it's proof of work. I mean, before we had CK, we had a couple things going. It was cool. And now we have

like eight strong programs that are happening and making an impact every day. So he's been able to help us professionalize and really get to the world-class status. We need to be for doing this work. The thing I was just going to say, Ben, to just wrap and conclude. And thanks again for having us. Just something about the focus of Bitcoin, right? So we're doing this education. People coming onto these webinars, people coming into the space, they don't, they also want

dollars, right? The fiat system is for such that like, you know, not many people get dollar access. They get screwed. Dollar, as we know, inflates, but everything else inflates faster, right? And, you know, so it's understandable that they want the stable coins, right? And we saw that. I just went to Argentina. It's just like they're everywhere.

You know, but like I think it's important to remember that that's a different use case. That's a different struggle. Trying to get people access to stable coins, I understand the humanitarian, piece of that. Like, people want dollars. That's only fair. We live in the dollar world. I think it's only fair that everybody has the best Pia out, right? But like, you know, I think it's important that we, that's not part of our, we're not teaching people how to get stable coins. We're teaching people how to be free. Yeah. You know, teaching people how to get stable coins is a short-term humanitarian benefit, yes, in many cases. But it also deepens the current system

and it reinforces the current system at a global structural level. That's kind of scary. So I sympathize with why people want them. You know, we can absolutely show people if they requested how to swap Bitcoin into them without KYC. Totally good. That's a nice tool to have. But like, it's got to be Bitcoin education. We'll stop. So, you know, we're constantly coming up against that stuff in the field. So I just thought it's important to say, you know, tip our hat to that, acknowledge that it's happening. But like, we're focused on on separating money from state, not from like, you know, extending dollar hegemony. You know what I mean? So and I realize I can say that. as someone who's distant from a lot of these struggles.

And I use the dollar all the time. But, you know, and I know people in Argentina and Turkey and Lebanon and Nigeria and so many other places need dollars. I get it. But, like, they would also have to at some point acknowledge that the reason the system is broken is because of that. So we need to make a new system. Absolutely. Just to clarify on that. Yeah.

Well, I'll say that the HRF work that I've been lucky enough to be involved in has been the most rewarding of anything I've done in Bitcoin thus far. And I can't wait to continue the relationship into the new year and beyond. And yeah, I'll be seeing you guys in person at various things over the next year. And let's keep the word going. So Alex, CK.A. Go, thank you guys so much. This was a long.

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Thank you, Ben, and Nico and Ben, in particular, for your tireless, tireless work. You are a legend. It's so awesome to work with you. So we'll see you guys soon. Thanks, guys. Happy holidays.

Merry Christmas. Cheers. All right. Everybody, stick around. We've got a giveaway to do here. And then we're going to be hitting our next panel in about five minutes time. But first, let's pull up the screen. Let's give away some stats again.

So I hope you're quick on the lightning wallets. I hope you're ready to do a quick scan here. So I'm going to, let's get my screen up here. All right, there's my Bitcoin well there. And I'll get that. Again, if you don't have an account and you do want five chances to win a million sats, you can sign up with the QR code to the right. But let's just give some stats outright.

So get your lightning wallets ready. First person to scan will snip the sats from everybody else. I'm going to throw a coin in the Bitcoin wishing well. and whoever scans first. We'll grab them. Let's see how much it's for. There's 500 sats for whoever scans at first. Let me know if you do get the sats in the chat or comments, wherever you're watching this.

And there we go. And that's not the only thing we're giving away. We're about to give away a, well, Rick from Cloaks had an interesting entry into this giveaway. So we're going to jump there. We'll do the giveaway. We'll be back in just a few minutes with our next. killer panel so we'll see you guys very very soon okay everyone we have a hell of a giveaway here courtesy of our good friends over at seed ore your most robust option to back up your seed phrase into solid

steel now what we've got here is of course a full seed or starter set that gives you everything that you need to stamp your seed into steel and get it secure we also have a set of bitcoin stamps so you can take your filthy fiat coins and stamp the sign of sound money upon them, if you please. I think that's illegal, but you know, so don't go doing that. But nonetheless, if you do, I'll just look the other way. And then finally, we have a couple of BIP 39 water bottles in metal. And this is a water bottle that features the entire BIP 39 word list for seed phrases. So we will divvied these up accordingly. What do you have to do to win?

Well, you got to tweet out. You have to tag myself at BTC sessions. You have to, of course, follow and tag Cidor underscore I.O. And you need to hashtag Sessions XMIS 24 and include your best Bitcoin self-custody meme. If you're unfamiliar, Chris from Cedor is a prolific meme. and we're going to see if you guys can outdo them. So again, follow those instructions carefully. Follow and tag everyone involved, include that hashtag.

We'll sort through the entries and notify winners in the coming days. Best of luck to you all. All right, everybody, we are back. Best of luck on the giveaways. We've got more to go. There's going to be some exciting ones coming up. And my bad, I thought it was going to be the CryptoCloaks giveaway there, but of course, Cedore badass as well.

So hopefully one of you is very, very happy, or a couple of you are very, very happy with some of the prizes given away there. But we're going to be bringing in our next panel here. So I want to welcome to the stage, Pete Rizzo from Bitcoin Magazine. Good to see you, man. How are you? So it's actually my debut, I think, on this. It is. We've been trying to rope this together for some time here.

Yeah, I'm a hard 5 p.m. Eastern stop, got a little kid. So I don't know. We never, time never works out. But obviously, big fan, happy to be here. And, you know, Merry Christmas. Happy holidays, right? Merry Christmas.

Happy all time highs, though it's, you know, a bit in the rear view. It's all over now. It's Dickwin's dead. We're going to welcome in our other guests as well. Frat, good to see you. How are you? I'm good. How are you?

I'm good. Oh, your mic is so crispy clean. I love it. Oh, good. You sound great. And I see our other guests backstage here as well. Mr. Mike Germano, good to see, man. He managed to get in from the bar.

Hello, everyone. Good to see you. Here, dude. Yeah, I would join you in a beverage, but I've still got a number of panels ahead of me. And I've got to time that perfectly, because if I start now, then the last couple panels won't look so good. So you need you need one drunk uncle for any Christmas party and I'm happy to play that role. So I understand. Perfect.

Perfect. I love it. Well, thank you all for joining. I really appreciate you coming to hang out for this annual tradition of mine. It's always it's my favorite thing to do. This is the fourth one, fourth year that I've done this and just the caliber of people that show up to this. I'm always humbled by. So thank you all for being here.

This conversation that we're going to be partaking in is it's kind of a loose kind of topic here, but it's in and around Bitcoin inflection points, some of the ones that we've seen over the course of this past year and where we think these ones are leading. What are the next inflection points that we may see in Bitcoin? So obviously we were chatting about in a previous panel, we were talking about the idea of the, you know, Bitcoin Strategic Reserve being floated and all of that happening. There's been plenty of stuff in and around the corporate treasury perspective. And, you know, even from when it comes to individual states or individual cities, we've got Vancouver here in Canada that's exploring that. We have other nation states that are exploring it.

And then we've got obviously also the non-state level and the tools that are becoming available. So I guess I'm going to open with just a very general question. In the past year, for each of you, whoever wants to take a crack first, what do you think was the single biggest thing that happened in Bitcoin? Well, I'm going to take this. Go ahead. It was doing a podcast, a Bitcoin podcast under a missile attack from Iran. Oh, wow.

And having the missiles right next to my house. And Walker's face was all white. And him going, are you sure you want to keep going? And I'm like, dude, if it's my day to go, it's my day to go. Let's do it. And we kept on podcasting under missiles. So I think this is the highlight for me this year. Well, and it's interesting for you in that perspective, in that, you know,

you're trying to cover this thing that is, you know, we just finished a panel on human rights and freedoms and Bitcoin being used in that, in the context. But there's also all of these geopolitical things that play in the background as we're talking about this. And it doesn't fix everything out the gate, right? There's still very real things to be dealt with day to day. But, you know, how does that make you feel in that backdrop talking about Bitcoin? Yeah, well, it's super complicated and hard to be out there in the front where I come from a country that is not doing good things these days. I get it from both directions. So when I'm at home, the criticism that I have on my country and the government is not being met with.

with sympathy, so people don't like it because, you know, war propaganda is really brainwashing everyone. And there's a lot of hate, there's a lot of violence, where I live. So that's quite difficult. And on the other hand, when I go overseas, I'm being hated because I'm Israeli. And people don't really bother to check what my views are and where I stand. And so it's not easy. However, I think the example I am setting for people is that when you start seeking sovereignty and you take responsibility for your life, then you don't have to be defined by different labels of your ethnicity, your religion, your country, your state. You can be just a human being who you are. And I always try to speak to people on the humane level and I show them that you can still remain a

human being, even when there's so much conflict around you, so much war around you, and you should always seek for internal peace and internal, just like trying to make your life livable in a very hard situation. Now, I'm privileged because I'm in Israel and not on the other side where people are suffering a lot more, but everywhere people are suffering, whether it's mental or physical. And being in a war zone is very complicated. I think that when I show people that there are other ways and there are alternatives and that they can get, even if they don't become wealthy or take them out of a really shitty war situation by having Bitcoin, it still teaches them really valuable lessons about how they can be more sovereign, more responsible.

and that trickles down to other areas in their lives. So just speaking about those values and speaking about the, I think, basic principles of Bitcoin really triggers a lot of other room or space for conversation about those principles in people's lives. And that's what I try to do with the work I do on Bitcoin. Cool. I want to juxtapose kind of that personal reflection. and kind of the push towards individual self-sovereignty to some of the big, I will say, geopolitical moves that we've seen in and around Bitcoin as well and how those things kind of

parse together. So Pete, I'm going to go to you here, and I'm going to kind of get your thoughts here on, you know, we've seen talks of Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, We've seen also Bitcoin used as a tool for human rights and freedom. And, you know, there's kind of two mindsets there. Some people are talking like, why are we getting the state into Bitcoin? If we want, don't we want a separation of money in state? And the other hand, there's also the Bitcoin is for everyone.

And, you know, there's a quote from Jeff Booth where he says, like, he was asked, what's the worst thing about Bitcoin or what's the hardest thing to grapple with Bitcoin? And one of those things is that the person whose ideas and values you hate are them using Bitcoin makes it better and stronger for you. And so I'm just curious what you think, where we're at with all the things coming, what do you think on the opposite side of the spectrum is the biggest thing currently happening right now? And is it good? That's a heck of a question. I will say, you know, my moment of the year was definitely tonally different than F-RATs. Mine, for me, is always going to be in Nashville at Bitcoin, 2024, being in my little Bitcoin studio booth,

doing the interviews of, you know, kind of the celebrities and people coming on stage. And then, you know, all of a sudden out walks Donald Trump, the orange man, and he just starts dancing. And he starts, there's this music plan. There's a 70s music plan. And I remember I looked at Matt O'Dell, who was like right next to me. And it was like, you know, I was like, where are we? Like, what is this? It was almost like we went in the Willy Wonka tunnel, you know, the kaleidoscope of it just being, you know,

or have we entered pure madness and just we blacked out and transcended to another realm? Because, you know, I've been doing Bitcoin conferences since they were UFO conferences, right? There was 12 people in a room and then somebody going about the state, you know, somewhere. So yeah, for me, that that was probably the moment this year where it was, you know, Bitcoin really, I think, at least in the United States, you know, has entered kind of like a mainstream conversation at a level that, you know, we haven't really seen before. I think to your second question was, is that good? Is it something we as Bitcoiners should want? You know, yeah, that's a whole other question, right? I'm definitely super sympathetic to the kind of wing within Bitcoin that is resistant to this, that is raising the alarm and saying, you know, we should push back.

against some of these things that, you know, we probably don't want a U.S. government that's, like, actively using the crypto-stable coin apparatus, like, in a perverse way, sort of like Alex Gladstein was talking about, you know, which I think they almost certainly will be doing. We heard a little bit about that in Bitcoin Mina as well out in the Middle East, right? There was a number of people from the Trump administration kind of talking about using crypto to expand the dollar, obviously super concerning. And then, you know, just in terms of Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset, right, Bitcoin kind of becoming within the mainstream within America is something that isn't associated with the things that f right is talking about where you know it is a humanitarian tool and people are using it you know to escape the dollar regime uh you know but i think a little on you know as appreciative as i am about some of those concerns um you know i think it was uh

alex b on twitter the other day he was he said it you know it was it was all that it took for for bitcoin to fail was governments to use it you know that probably was that super robust right so there's a bit of a trade off right i do think that um you know, Bitcoin is for everyone, as you said, and everyone includes governments, right? And it's going to include governments using it for their kind of own opportunistic ends. Nick Carter has a great piece on Bitcoin magazine today, going against the strategic Bitcoin Reserve, kind of arguing all the reasons he doesn't think it's going to happen. I think it's an healthy debate, right? I just don't think that there's going to be, I think I would just draw an attention, a delineation between, you know, there's Bitcoin that technology.

This technology we know is robust enough to withstand significant social attacks from large members and constituents within its own ecosystem. And now it's going to be kind of used by the Black Rocks and the U.S. governments of the world. And yeah, we should be concerned. We should talk about those issues. But I think we should know at the end of the day that the Bitcoin technology, from what we know, seems pretty resilient to some of the stuff. And it's going to retain these properties. It's not like we put Bitcoin in a strategic reserve. of and then all of a sudden, you know, people in Nigeria can't use it anymore to send lighting transactions, right?

Like that doesn't happen. So I think, you know, you just got to keep things in mind, right? And then kind of promote what you want. So that's why I liked whatever I was saying is, you know, just kind of focusing on what she wants, you know, to change Bitcoin to bring as. I think that's really all you can do. But yeah, it's going to get wild. I don't know. I think next year is really, I think you're going to see Bitcoin on Good Morning America.

You're going to see the Bitcoin game show on CBS. You're going to see, you know, I'm giving Mike the free ideas. here. These are gold. These are bold ideas right now. Yeah, you're going to, you're going to see stuff, you know, that you really probably, you know, all living in the thought would ever occur because I think, you know, you know, well, the last market was Jimmy Kimmel with, you know, Paris Hilton with their Nats. He's where you're going to see something crazy like that in terms of how mainstream this is going to get. But. Yeah. We know when Katie Perry hits the market with her with her with her coin nails that it's all over. So like her. Well, she's called the top successfully twice now, right? She's 17. She had the crypto nails, the crypto clause. And then in 2021, she went to that party with the FTX guys and was dancing there.

Oh, man. She's got the last two. So she can go three for three. Is Katie Perry just Jim Kramer in disguise? Is this what's happening here? I don't know. He's the ultimate top signal right now. All I'm saying is if you've got eyes on Katie Perry, you've got inside of the market.

Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just going to toss it to Mike here and I kind of follow up in the same vein. Like, what do you perceive as one of the biggest things, if not the biggest thing, that happened this past year? And how do you think that translates into 2025? Here's the problem. The hurricane that is Donald Trump is always going to be the biggest thing, right?

The fact that he said, have fun with your bitcoins and your other things. And then the guy got elected. and the truth is whether you like it or not, he is the circus that everyone follows. I'm here at Pubkey right now, right? Pubkey where Donald Trump showed up, bought a bunch of burgers, not beer, because he doesn't drink, bought a bunch of burgers using Bitcoin's first Bitcoin transaction.

He got everyone excited people. We're talking about it. There was more press, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, more people that have never cared about Bitcoin that were there because this is something that Trump likes. Right? from something that Trump said. I hate it. I want to separate state for money. I'm not excited about this the Bitcoin strategic reserve. I'm not. I don't want more countries that Bitcoin,

but guess what's going to happen? It's going to happen. We were out in Mina and we're talking to all these countries. They have unlimited money. Literally, a law from the ground gave them an ATM that gets the money and they're like, oh, I'll transfer this to Bitcoin. Cool. Like every other country's like, we'll just tax our communist people for Bitcoin. This is what is going to happen. I don't want it to happen, but it's going to happen, right? So guess what? That's going to happen. Then we have Michael Saylor all day who, you know, I mean, like Michael Saylor might be too big to fail or whatever, right?

But like Michael Saylor doing his whole micro strategy gig, right? Is this good food? Sorry. Pubkey has a good gentleman. That's one point. Great Christmas food here. Thank you, thank you, Thomas. But micro strategy, right, too big to fail is trying to get everyone on this Bitcoin for corporations.

That's going to happen. Sure it's good for your Bitcoin price, right? But something that I think my good friend, Pete Rizzo, my brother from another mother, brought up, was that, you know, with all this that's going to happen, I looked through the chat, all these are the people who care about Bitcoin. It's been here for years who want to have a conversation of Bitcoin for human rights, everything else at that. Bitcoin is going to enter the world of now being part of mainstream culture.

And the issue is all the people that are willing to be on this live stream right now are not mainstream culture. We are the, like we said before, when Rizzo was. Mr. UFO. You were the ones saying you were in a UFO conference with Bitcoin. Like Rizzo is, you know, you know, this is not- You're saying UFOs are not mainstream culture. We're going to get Matt Pines on here. I'm from New Jersey.

I've had a lot of, you know, drones coming over my head. So like I'm, you know, Mr. Pro. I get, I, for one, welcome our new overlords. But I would say that, you know, when when you look at what's happening, the mainstream culture part is going to be interesting for how we all react, right? There's some of us that are just allergic to mainstream culture. They're allergic to their favorite band becoming the mainstream band. They're like, I liked it before it was anything else.

And they're going to fight to make sure that this is not what Bitcoin's meant for. But the other question is, you know, who's going to start adopting and helping embrace Bitcoin be part of the normal narrative, right? Like whether you like it or not, people are talking about Bitcoin because Donald Trump is. And who's going to be the one who gets to had the conversation of why Bitcoin's important? What does Bitcoin really mean? cool countries have it, cool corporations have it, but this is why you need to have a little bit of it, right? And we are now going to be part of that conversation,

whether we like it or not. I mean, if you look at the comments of people who are talking about Bitcoin now versus two years ago, well, we just had the Fed say, well, we don't know any Bitcoin yet, right? It's being in a conversation by every world leader. This is a conversation that's happening. And I would say, one, you should celebrate and enjoy this moment for all those people, and it's important to do that.

But but but but secondary is It's gonna be interesting the voices that come out of this right That come out to try to support it or not support it And that's the part maybe I'm a little bit scared about To be honest and I think I hope I'm excited to see where how Bitcoin Becomes part of mainstream culture and who you know who gets to be part of it because you know It would really suck if Pomp was the main voice for Bitcoin and mainstream culture so I can't see who that is Yeah I mean we are the weirdos in the room for sure like we're we're we're the the

first ones here. And there's been this interesting kind of evolution where you get the, you know, the cyphurunks and the libertarians and the sound money people. And then it now like human rights and you're getting all of these different groups coming in. And now you're, you also kind of have this dynamic where people at each end of the spectrum when it comes to financial privilege are also kind of realizing it and it's working its way in. And what I mean is, the people that have no access to bank accounts and really nothing to lose, they're going to be, you know, more likely to experiment and not worry about trying something new out. And then you've got people whose number one job is to preserve large amounts of capital also starting to realize,

huh, this is useful as well. And then we've got the weirdos in the middle that kind of figured this out early. And I think the gap is closing in where it's, it will be just your your average Joe kind of like coming. in. And I'm curious, again, like it's going to be tough because every one of those use cases and people will continue to be able to use Bitcoin in that way, in a self-sovereign way, if they want to. But Mike, what you're saying, does ring true. I see a lot of people unable to part. It's Bitcoin the brand. It's Bitcoin the brand. We all know what Bitcoin can do. We all know the technology. We all know what's capable of doing.

That's going to continue. What about Bitcoin the brand, Bitcoin the story? Who's going to write that narrative? That's what's currently changing right now that I don't know. Once again, no one has control over that. That's the part that maybe I'm a little bit worried about to see who takes the helm of it. You know, Rizzo more than anyone else tells us how quickly it is for someone to take control of the conversation for Bitcoin. He's always pushed that. And once again, Rizzo's much smarter than me. So he's always good at talking about this stuff. But, you know, who's going to have control what that Bitcoin narrative is? You look at the Bitcoin conference. What?

They became big in 21, right? Anyone called themselves a Bitcoin conference, but they were able to say, we're the Bitcoin conference. Everyone thought that was the voice. And now you have president speaking at that conference, right? That's very open for anyone to talk about. So once again, there's a conversation. I mean, the worst is you have people like Dennis Porter, you know, who's going to sit there

and try to pass bills and say things on Bitcoin, right? And so you had things like that, which are negative, that maybe are hurt. the ecosystem and you have people like frett who are doing unbelievable things and you have people like the hrf that are doing unbelievable things talk about the human rights of bitcoin so once again i think everyone should be fearful who's going to take this conversation no one cared about this conversation the past because we were so small now that's what comes so big everyone's going to try to jump on it so i love that mike like added the spice i'm i just want to add there the next year 2025 is going to be full of a lot of arguments.

From when I entered the Bitcoin community, one thing I noticed is that people are so opinionated and they have an opinion about everything. They have to fight over it on Twitter, preferably. And so it's like all public because, I don't know, Bitcoin's open source, so everyone's like having their fights over Twitter. And I think that 2025 is going to be even worse because people are going to comment about every mainstream thing that they see about Bitcoin and getting upset over it. And there's nothing they can do to control it.

And so to what Mike's saying, if you want to handle the narrative or you want to at least try to influence the trajectory and try to bring more emphasis in the places where you think it's important, you have to step up. You have to put yourself in the front and start creating content and start speaking in conferences and start, I don't know, like doing your podcast. or whatever. And there is room. There is a lot of room for more media, more content creators, and more conferences. But otherwise, people will just be bitching and moaning all day on Twitter. I can see it in 2025.

Yeah. The saltiness comes in spurts during the dips, especially. Like even during that, you can't escape the saltiness, even during the bull runs because those dips, they're so stark. It's just like, It's a pump of adrenaline through the system, and we got to get it out somehow. It's very, I feel bipolar during bull runs because it's just euphoria followed by like, fuck everyone, what kind of thing. But such is life living with Bitcoin. And to a degree, I'd say that the strong opinions are important. And one parallel I would draw is the people that are absolute purist in like the tools that you use.

Oh, everything must be open source air-gapped. You can't rely on anyone and verify everything. You have to run a node. Otherwise, you're not a Bitcoin and all that kind of stuff where like there's value in that. But also if the first thing that you advise the average person of is you got to run a node, then that person is going to be turning around. around walking out the door. And so I, but I don't, I don't dislike when people are very hardline about like self-custody and nodes and stuff like that.

Because what it does is it kind of shifts that Overton window further towards self-sovereignty. And so I think there's, there's value in all of those kind of strong opinions because it helps us kind of find a center. And so I think that's a positive thing. As long as you know how to navigate it and not be internalize when somebody calls you a shit coiner because you don't currently run a node or something, I think there are some positives to that. And, you know, in the end, we'll all figure it out, I suppose. But I want to keep an eye to next year. And I'm curious in and around the realm of the sailors of the world and the, uh,

we'll say the hopeful sailors, the people that are trying to exude what he's done with micro strategy. Is that a real thing this time around compared to the expectation that was last cycle? So 2021, we saw El Salvador adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. The year prior to that, we saw Michael Saylor, you know, you use it as his reserve. But then it was everybody thought, okay, this is the domino that starts at all. But throughout the rest of that cycle, we didn't really see much else in either realm. Is this the cycle where that finally comes to fruition on both fronts?

I'll let whoever wants to dive into that. Go ahead. Go, Rezo. Yeah, I mean, that's something I think about a lot, right? I think the narrative around Bitcoin has changed a lot, as you alluded to. This is certainly something I've been thinking about a lot about recently, and I don't have a firm conclusion on it. But I can say that it does seem like every Bitcoin cycle has been different, and there's sort of some kind of big, you know, a surgent narrative. And then, you know, it doesn't materialize.

But this one seems like it's stuck around. So it's kind of interesting, right? So when I go back to 2013, it was all about merchant adoptions, all about being the next, you know, PayPal, it was all about Internet commerce. You know, the kind of figures who were big in Bitcoin, we're talking about that. 2017, it was all sort of everything would settle on a blockchain, you know, blockchain for all the things. was the biggest blockchain. So there was a different flavor to each of those. Now we have 2021, 2022, as you alluded to, it's like nation state adoption, corporate adoption.

And it seems like that is repeating now. I think my initial kind of thesis was that that probably would be displaced. But it seems like it has staying power, right? Like that seems to be the thing that's clicking. And so I think that gives me hope. I think we're getting better understanding of what Bitcoin is and how to use it, I would say. Like, right, that's a good sign.

We actually should want to progress towards like things that are. are recurring behaviors, right? We had this idea three years ago and it's still around. It's still useful. So that seems good. But yeah, I don't have a great feel for that, to be honest, because I think, as you said, I think in some ways, Michael Staler's still super out there. I mean, he has, even if you look at the Bitcoin treasuries, I mean, go look at.

There's 600,000 Bitcoin in all of the Bitcoin treasuries, but 450,000 of those are micro-sailers. You know, you can say that there's this big trend, right? Like there's a big trend there. But is there, right? If you take him out of the picture, you know, there's maybe not so much. Obviously, there's, you know, companies that are doing it. And it seems to be catching on them that way.

Well, Relay bought $1.3 million of Bitcoin today. Right. Huge deal. Well, how about $1 million worth of Bitcoin. Oh, whoa, whoa. That's super bullish, right? It's funny because either of those things, I know we're saying in jest right now, but like you go back, you know, a cycle or two, like, yeah, it's like, wow, front page news.

Guys, look, country, countries buying Bitcoin, I hate to say, and I hate this. I hate this as a fact. Countries buying Bitcoin is what's going to happen this next year. 2025, countries buying Bitcoin. And the micro strategy is the tiniest little country compared to what everyone else is going to do. And the problem is how to we survive that. It's going to be, it's going to be everyone propositioning you shouldn't look like it. I'm because the Bitcoin promise for every country is no is it's a strategic reserve.

It's a, uh, they're going to argue it's military, but it showcases that they're hip and they're cool and it's what their voters want. The one thing we actually showed was that Bitcoin voters want to support this, right? So the issue you now face is that all these politicians are just going to buy this to appease the base. Think about all the money they spend to appease all their other. dumb basis, right? So that's actually, I think, a big problem for us in Bitcoin is because it's going to get in. It's going to price this out. It increases more Wall Street. So I actually, like, I think the adoption is happening too fast and is actually going to hurt us. And the question is, like, what does that actually do for, you know, once can price seem so high that people don't want to

get in, right? We've never had the conversation to explain to people why a $100,000 Bitcoin doesn't matter. Well, I am pro the BIP 21Q. I don't know if you've seen that. that. What is this? You don't see this? This is the John Carvolo's. Oh, yes. Rename Bitcoin's, you know, just the one unit. I unfortunately have created a local circular economy event called the Sat Market. So it looks like I'm just going to have to rename it. If that BIP gets through, what am I to do? I don't know. Well, we can, I'm saying is we can change some of these rules, right? If it's too expensive, you can always make Bitcoin's cheaper, right?

Tatum's backstage booing you right now. So I have, okay, so we've got one minute left and I just want to get like a yay or nay from you guys on this one question. Clearly we've got interest from corporates. We've, as Mike is posturing here, we've got... Drunkenly saying, drunkenly saying, drunkenly asserting that Countries will be buying Bitcoin. Now, previously in Bull Runs, when we have retail piling in, people are emotional, and,

you know, they buy when a number goes up. And if that's the only reason they bought, then they sell when number goes down. But countries, governments, corporations, all of that stuff, while there are some checks and balances, they're also run by people who have emotions. So do we see the same type of knee-jerk reactions on the way down from corporations and countries? Do we see it at all? Do we see some of it? Or do we see it en masse when we see dips or when we ask the governments will panic sell?

Is that? Yes. Everybody panic sells the first time, right? I mean, that's except for Saylor, right? I see the first confirmed non-panic seller. Yeah. Mike panic's old, right? I listen to Rizzo every time I ever bought Bitcoin.

It's been the worst thing ever did. But I will say this. Here's my point. The best thing about government's bias is they're so stupid and slow that they can't panic sell in the right time. So the best thing about it's going to sit there and they will never admit that they made a wrong decision. So they'll hold on to it until the next cycle.

Unlike Germany, who, you know, has always made some bad decisions, if you ask me, the U.S. or whoever else is going to hold on to it. We'll hold on to it and if it goes down, they don't even know how to panic sales. So that's the best part. They won't panic sell. No, they'll keep holding on to it. So the best buyer, they're dumb, they're dumb money. So that's what government is.

Yeah, and that will help with the education of store value, Bitcoin and store value for the mainstream population. Well, I think I think just throwing it out there. I think we're going to get another educational moment hopefully coming up. And that's the freedom of Ross Oldbricks. Like if Trump comes through on this part in, you know, I do think, it's going to be a pretty mainstream story that their boss is freed. And I think telling that story, you know, through the press and through different things, I think, you know, this is going to be a moment where, you know, we can maybe go back to some of these other kind of ideas and values that we have,

right? So, you know, I think it's like using opportunities, as Mike said, right? There's all these people who want to co-opt and shift the narrative. And, you know, there are going to be some moments, right? And the Ross thing is one where I think, like, that's going to be on magazines. That's got to be on magazines. It's got to be on the Bitcoin magazine. Is that going to be the only one? I don't even know because I think the Ross story is huge. It's like a generational story. It's an internet story. And just having him being an advocate, like if he chooses to do that when he's free and tell his story there, or even just the story around that, right? Like what's the picture going to be of Ross getting free? What's it going to mean that like Bitcoin is like we freed our political

prisoner? Like what's that going to mean, you know, telling that story to the world? So there are, you know, I don't think it's all doom and gloom, you know, as much as the black rocks and governments, I think there's going to be some educational moments, whereas Mike was saying, you know, I think we can potentially seize them. And last one, I think I'm not, I don't think I'm ready for that one. I think it's going to be like the Trump, you know, that it's going to, I think it's going to be a lot more emotional that people think. Yeah. I think I think that Ross is going to introduce Trump at the next pickler conference. That's my call. Wow.

Oh, what's true. Yeah. Yeah, and last thing I would say, Ben, is just that I think 2025, alongside the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, will bring more CBDC bullshit and national stablecoin bullshit, which also will give us an excuse to continue pushing Bitcoin as an antidote. Beautiful. All right. We are down to the wire here. I will say this was a fun conversation. I pause it to Mike that next time you show up equally fast.

but I would love you to be you you you mentioned that you could dress as Santa but I would be in full Santa mode next year I would proposition that you dress as Uncle Eddie from National Lampoon's family vacation that would be even better with the flaps on the ears and everything that'd be safe just getting rid of all the shit coins and the shitter totally agree perfect perfect shitter was full all right Thank you guys so much. I had a blast. Have a very Merry Christmas, all of you. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

Thank you all. All right. And everybody, we're going to dive right into our next panel. We've got an awesome one. I'm very excited to welcome all of these gentlemen to the stage. So I want to welcome in T.C. Zubi and Matthew, author of Fiat Food. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Merry Christmas.

How are you guys? I'm great. Merry Christmas. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Welcome. Zubi, good to see you. First time on the show.

Thank you for being here as well. Yeah, first time, man. Back in the UK for a little bit. And Merry Christmas to everybody in advance. Awesome. Thank you. And T.C. How you've been doing, man?

I got a barking dog in the background. I'm doing great. That's awesome. Glad to have you. Good to see you again, man. Gentlemen, welcome. I am getting through. I'm about, we'll say around the halfway point of this marathon of a Christmas show.

So I appreciate all of you joining in. And we're on a panel. We're going to be chatting a little bit about the intersection of Bitcoin and Fiat food and kind of this odd cross-section of people that have discovered Bitcoin. the idea of low time preference and thinking for the long term and health that has seems to coalesce together. And, you know, we have Matthew here who wrote Fiat Food, which was, it's just an excellent book. Anybody that hasn't read it, really, really cool about kind of our food system and how it's been corrupted over time. I mean, Zubi, you're a super fig guy.

You're always in the gym, smashing records on both sides of the gender spectrum. And TC, I wanted to have you on because we've had some really interesting conversations in and around. We both read Fiat food and made some changes and have reaped the benefits of a more healthy lifestyle as well. So gentlemen, I'm going to kick this off. I want to toss, maybe I'll cue this conversation up first with Matthew. And Matthew, again, thank you for being here. But I would love for you to kind of just give like a CliffsNotes version of how you came to write your book Fiat Food. And in the research and doing so, just some of the surprising things that you discovered.

And then we'll just kind of go from there. I thanks for having me man this is this is a total Christmas extravaganza for hours and I'm just shocked at your stamina I like a lot of people COVID changed me I used to be a like a very mainstream journalist I you know we do my hits on MSNBC Fox News CNN I worked at the New York Daily News which at the time I was there was the fifth biggest paper in a country so when I was used to corruption in government but when COVID hit It shifted me dramatically in the sense that I had an inherent trust. I think like a lot of people in a lot of the institutions in America. Not that they were always honest, but just that they weren't necessarily like vile and trying to mislead us. It was more like their lives were always in context of just simply maintaining power. But COVID was a big shift in my ability to, I think, see a lot of the corruption with more clarity. And it led me down a rabbit hole, which eventually landed me on the Bitcoin standard by Safe Adina

Moose, the Bitcoin OG. But it was really his next book, The Fiat Standard, and the chapter he had on Fiat food, which opened my eyes because I've always respected the shit out of safe. I mean, I don't think it's hyperbole to say that he's probably one of the top five economic minds in a world right now. And so I was a bit shocked when he had this very small chapter called Fiat Food, where he alleged this bizarre conspiracy between a religious group, corporations, nutrition science. But it was all kind of weaponized by the federal government and the degradation of the currency to author of our, food supply. But I began fact-checking it. And what I learned was shocking to me. Not only at SAFE, was he right, but he had understated his case. So I became kind of obsessed and I approached

Safe. I'm an author. I published with every mainstream publishing how it's like scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins. I knew none of them would take this, this book. I knew, I couldn't even send it to my agent. So luckily, Safe decided to start his own publishing house. I was his first author. And we launched Fiat Food, which in a thumbnail sketch is, it sounds kind of hysterical, but it really outlines what amounts to a 55-year sci-op to hide the consequences of monetary inflation through the degradation of the currency through the food supply by making it appear like we're living

in this era of abundance in food while in reality the nutrition that we've depended on for generations and generations has become cost prohibitive yeah yeah it's i mean it's it's uh one of the things that struck me uh was in part of the book you mentioned how um People will put up with a lot of bullshit. They'll put up with a lot of degradations and quality of life. But the number one thing that would almost instantaneously cause uprisings was if people couldn't get access to food. And so when you experience hyperinflation, that obviously happens.

And so there was able to be this obfuscation of access to food. people felt full and you could just feed them slop and and I got I got a ton of government documents that did a million FOIA requests and most of them were rejected but what you see is like Nixon appointed somebody named Earl Butt's to head his Department of Agriculture and he would constantly say you know the housewife buys a new sofa maybe once every 10 years but they go to the grocery store a few times a week we have to make food prices appear lower and the crazy see siop really what it's a just break it down is that you know instead of coming clean with the

american people and saying look we're going on off of the gold standard we're going to have a fiat currency this is going to cause some pain in terms of of of costs food is going to rise in price they just changed the entire food supply so where in the past in 1970 americans yet on average 155 pounds of red meat a year that's gotten cut in half and that isn't a coincidence And by 2010, it was around 75 pounds of meat a year. And I mean, if you're only, I have four daughters. If I'm only feeding them cereal, food appears cheap, you know? Like I could feed them four boxes of cereal.

Everybody's happy. But they're going to look like the average person in line at Walmart today. And that's, I'm not making a dig. It's sad. I mean, people are very, very sick. And we wonder why. It's because we've ruined our money, which caused us to ruin our food. Yeah, yeah. Now, I want to, I'm going to quasi, not fully shift gears here, but it's tangential. And Zubi, I want to go to you and see your take on this. But for the past, I don't know how long, it's been very, very stark this past few years where there's this movement of rather than personal responsibility and health, it's been a system of just excuses, a culture of excuses, rather than.

Like you are not in control of your body. There's nothing that you can do. And like the body, we'll say the body positivity movement. And, you know, naturally, obviously, everybody's going to be a little bit different. But you can tell the difference between my frame is a little bit different versus I'm morbidly obese. And that has kind of been normalized, accepted, and then glorified even. And we've seen this through.

And then we've also seen plenty of hack pieces about how being healthy and going to the gym is, is quote unquote, far right. And just these silly articles that almost villainize taking care of yourself and glorify just having zero personal responsibility. But that does seem to be shifting. So my question to you is, are you noticing that as well? And what do you think is behind it? What do you think was the linchpin that was pulled that began to make that shift if that's what you're seeing? Yeah, sure thing.

So look, for the past decade in particular, and we could extend it far back, we've pretty much been living in the age of victimhood. We've been living in the age of identity politics, the age of hyper political correctness, an age where the greatest sin that somebody can commit is hurting somebody's feelings. If that means you need to deny objective reality in order to accommodate people's feelings, then we've essentially been running under a cultural assumption that that is better than telling the truth. If the truth is potentially going to upset somebody out there, then you can't do it. And this naturally impacts health. This impacts talking about exercise and nutrition. Again, anything that can make somebody uncomfortable, anything that even merely suggests to someone,

one that they may not be perfect and beautiful and stunning and wonderful and brave exactly how they are or even more offensive the idea that they are personally responsible and accountable for their own behaviors and choices and decisions. All of these things essentially became anathema over the course of several decades, but it really came to a head. I'd say the Western world started to get got really goofy from about 2014, I'd say from like 2014 to 2022. That was sort of the peak of what we now sort of collectively call wokeness. And this is one small branch of it. And when you're not allowed to tell the truth or when people are punished for telling the truth or when people are shamed or worried about losing their job or getting banned from social media, whatever the case may be,

We saw this all throughout COVID. We've seen it with the sort of trans issues and all of these types of things. What happens is there's a chilling effect. And over the course of time, most people just start lying. And if they are not explicitly lying, they're tacitly going along with a lot of lies because they don't want to rock the boat. And ultimately, this harms people. Because if you're not able to honestly talk about an issue, you can't diagnose it properly. let alone find a potential solution.

So if we are so collectively as a society, if people are so afraid to step on any toes or afraid to hurt any feelings that you can't honestly talk about something like obesity, right? You can't have a serious conversation about the obesity rate in the USA being over 40%, over 30% in the UK, over 70% of adults in America being overweight or obese.

If you're not meant to talk about that, then it's just going to continue, it's just going to continue getting worse. And I think in the last couple of years, people are fed up with this. People are fed up with a lot of the stuff that I've been talking about as it pertains to, gosh, like all of these things, man. I don't want to make it too sort of like political here. But people are just, people are fatigued by it. You know, people are fatigued by it. we've been beaten over the head with sci-ups for pretty much a decade, nonstop. And to maintain these narratives, you need to be able to censor people. And that's really been the primary tool that's been

used over the last seven or eight years in so-called liberal democracy, so-called free countries. Majority of people are afraid to speak up. And I think that a big shift is, if I'm being totally honest, I think that Elon Musk buying Twitter, which is now X, has been a massive change, not just for that platform, but because it's been like a, it's been a crack in the dam, essentially. If you look at where the USA is now compared to where it was in 2021 or 2020 or 2016, 2017, like any time in that frame, it's changed massively. People are much, the Overton window has shifted and people are willing to speak up. and the tolerance for an ability for people to speak up regardless of their positions and their

ideas is it's more tolerated in the true sense. Now, does that mean, you know, some people take it a little too far? Yeah, of course, but that's one of the consequences of free speech. So I think that with this sort of greater awakening, more consciousness around health, around nutrition, around fitness, all this stuff that's been, you know, it's been important for all of humanity, but I think that it's just cracking through a little bit more. And people are more willing to talk about personal responsibility and accountability. And I think that health is just one sliver of everything that that impacts. I'm seeing a complete vibe shift for lack of a better

term that is going on. And it's going to be very intriguing to see where we go in the next few years. Yeah, I love that. So I want to send it over to T.C. here. to comment on this, but I want to kind of cue you up with a couple of things. It makes sense how unhealthy, in particular, the country in the U.S. has been given the fact that what you've both been speaking about, Matthew and Zubi, in and around, one, the information that people had access to is just absolutely borked. You've got the government putting out reports that say that, like, lucky charms are healthier than ground beef and and and and doing it with a straight face and so like it's it's gotten to the point where

it's it's so ridiculous that nobody would look at that and be like oh i'm gonna i'll get my lucky charms today because that's the right thing to do for my body it's it's just so out to lunch that it's it's pretty blatant but prior you know you get the food pyramid and you're you've you have no alternative means of you know parsing this type of information and that's just kind of what you got and so maybe you've made decisions based upon that so you've got you've got bad information and a and a system that is feeding us just trash worse and worse quality food over time and then on top of that you've got this the and this i think this added to the snowball effect is this culture of like you're not allowed to insult uh or well it's not and not an insult but you're not allowed to just

speak freely and and realistically about the implicated implications of proper health and that people can actually take control over it because that might indicate that it's actually uh it is difficult in terms of uh the cost the prohibitive cost of actually eating healthy uh would be that much more uh clear to people so you've got like the the expense you've got the incorrect information and then you've also got this culture that disallows you from speaking about that freely and so you've got the the expense you've got the incorrect information and So in that shift, in that change of, okay, we're starting to see that we can speak more freely. And, you know, it's nice that Elon bought X, but we're also seeing protocols that are allowing for that too.

Shout out to everybody watching on Nostra right now. We have people realizing, like, how broken the system is, and that the information that we've been getting is incorrect. And it's become so blatant that people are now disavowing the guidance given by the government to tell us what's healthy and what's not. And they're starting to test and figure out things for themselves. We're starting to question and actually do our own research. And so, T.C, I want to cue it up to you by saying, you have made leaps and bounds in and around your personal health in the past, I think, calendar year or more. and we spoke about this previously, but given the panel, I was wondering if you could kind of outline how you came to where you are today and what changes you made, what discoveries

you made, why and what has come to fruition since. Yeah, thanks, Ben. It's awesome to be here. This has been really cool to watch all day so far. And I am beyond thrilled to be on this panel with Matthew. I really just have benefited so much from reading your book. To me, this all comes down to issues about truth and issues about scarcity, actually. You know, we all align on the Bitcoin thing, and I think that pulls this initial thread

where you realize something is broken with the money. And then that leads to such sort of profound realizations around all the implications of human behavior that come from the incentives that are corrupted because of fiat money. And the food thing is just profound because health is sort of just one way to think about the most scarce asset, which is your time alive. And, you know, I'm at a phase of my life. I'm, you know, I'm a parent. I've got a family and all these issues of longevity.

And, you know, now I want to, I really want to see my kids. kids grow up. I want to be there for that. And the issues of health that are going to allow you to actually stay alive and have a quality of life are paramount. So for me, I just real quick, I was actually pursuing fitness to the point that I busted a couple of discs in my back. I ended up having back surgery. This is about five, six years ago. And in the recovery from that, I got quite out of shape. And I kind of was making excuses for myself. I kind of was trying to figure out how I was going to turn a corner.

I'm in this Bitcoin scene and I'm talking to all these bitcoinsers. And I hear a lot of discussion about carnivore diet. And it came to a point where I actually felt like I should just give it a try. And I initially just wanted to do like a 30-day test and see if I could actually be. strict enough to follow through on the carnivore thing. And now we are about 15 months later. And I haven't really stopped. Honestly, it's been an absolute revelation. I lost about 65 pounds. I'm in better shape now than I've been my entire adult life. And it's something that is just shocking because I can now think back over my entire life how many times I've heard all of these

sort of mantras that you get from your family and the society at large. You know, don't eat too much butter and stay away from red meat and, and eggs are bad for you. You know, I actually read Matthew's book about three months into my carnivore diet. So I was already doing this altered behavior. And then I read the book, which was amazing. It's such a good book. It's written so succinctly and it's so easy to consume. And it hits me hard because I think as an American, so many of these historical things that occurred and these changes in the culture's guidance on nutrition and food are things that you'll remember. If you've lived for 30, 40 years, you've heard these things before. You've heard the downstream kind of narratives that come from

these points of view. And it's so touches on every issue that that Bitcoin highlights about, you know, people taking personal responsibility and just even pursuit of the truth. And the truth is just so surprising and shocking from the point of view of sort of Normie land where all of this guidance and all of these narratives are just basically upside down. You know, I've realized that I have eaten so much sugar and vegetable and seed oils and refined grains. and there's just no nutritional value there. And it really basically was a strong sort of ceiling on my potential in terms of health. And to remove all of those things from my diet and actually be, like, take a stand to say,

I don't want to put unhealthy things into this biological machine that I have to operate within. You know, I need to actually put in the ingredients that are going to help me grow and heal and have a quality of life. That is, it's a game changer when you actually pull this thread. You know, there's, there's so many different issues that I think Bitcoin perspectives help you find truth on. This one I think is just absolutely universal. Every single one of us can benefit from just understanding where corruption in the past

led to outright lies. And people have been basically poisoning themselves. And we've allowed this food industry to evolve into basically all. basically a whole system of toxicity that we're feeding our kids and we just totally take for granted and then seeing all these people just blown out and inflamed and obese and dying young and all this diabetes and heart disease it's crazy anyways enough said but that's uh that's where i'm coming from and uh once again i'm i'm incredibly grateful for that book matthew i've uh I've recommended it to a lot of people.

Awesome. I'll toss it to, I'll toss it back to Matthew, and then I want to get Zubi's take on something as well here. But Matthew, I wonder, so we're kind of running down on time here. We've got a few minutes, but I'm wondering if you can kind of draw kind of like the link or the lineage of how the, how Bitcoin, can relate to the food system in as if we had like a constrained money. What does that kind of downstream fix where it's not like the silver bullet where we're using Bitcoin.

We're all healthy. But like what what inefficiencies or what obfuscations does that kind of fix for us? And then Zubi, I'm going to ask you afterwards what other systemic things. this could be done to get people back on track as a society. So Matthew, I'll go to you first. Yeah, thanks, man. TC, dude, congrats. Like, that's a fucking fantastic story.

I just love hearing that because my experience was the same. When I didn't know, you know, and, you know, something Zubi said and that T.C. touched on about self-autonomy and personal responsibility really struck with me because Just I know we're short on time, just to outline a little scenario that occurs, and this has been occurring for 70 years, but go back to January of 2023, the Tufts Food Compass came out, which you were referring to. That's the study that revealed that fruit loops were actually healthier than red meat. It also revealed that chocolate flavored almond milk was healthier than whole milk, and that cinnamon toast crunched cereal bars are healthier than eggs fried in butter. So this is what we were told. That same exact month, though, January of 2023, 60 Minutes had a show hosted by renowned journalist Leslie Stahl, where she had Dr. Fatima Stanford on. And this is what we're up against. This woman, very articulate, bright, beautiful white coat comes on and says the newest science reveals that we are no longer in control of our health, that obesity in particular, our metabolic health, is a genetic brain disease. So she's funded by OZempec. She was a paid consultant for the parent company Novo Nordic. The only person interviewed was also funded by Novo Nordisk named Carolyn Prophy.

The show was sponsored by Novo Nordisk. And the solution in the show to why people are no longer in control of their health was they need to go to these injectable weight loss drugs. Same exact month, January of 2023, the American Pediatric Association changes their guidelines for for the first time in 15 years to say that kids as young as 15 should be not told to diet. They should be getting these weight loss drugs. So I looked. I couldn't find a smoking gun where they got gathered, but I'd be a little naive to think that it was just a coincidence. And it goes back to what Zubi was saying. I can't think of anything more vile than this woman, Dr. Fatima Stanford. Because what's the worse to do to somebody than to tell them

they're not in control of the most fundamental aspect of their own nature, their ability to control their health. And while somebody like Zubi is explaining to people, you know, and I follow you on Twitter, personal responsibility that you do like personal empowerment, you are in control. You don't need to follow you on Twitter. You don't need to buy my book. Like we've known what to eat for thousands and thousands of years. And this siop is real. How Bitcoin fixes this briefly. It's Bitcoin in and of its, it's Bitcoin in and of itself does not fix diet. But what it does do is that it ends the distortion created by the Federal Reserve. I know there's debate in this among the Bitcoin community. I do not believe that Bitcoin and the Federal Reserve can coexist for very long. I don't have a date, but

what Bitcoin does is every time you take Fiat and buy a little bit of Bitcoin, you're taking a jab at the Federal Reserve. And the Federal Reserve, when if there is no information, inflation. If we end soft money, fake money, fiat money, if we end this, what happens is there's no, we pull away the incentive to obfuscate the food supply. There's no, the government isn't looking to make us sick. We're just a means to an ends. But when you remove the incentive to hide the degradation of the currency and they're doing that in our money in our food supply, there's, they wouldn't be doing it anymore. and you end all these distortions and then reality would reassert itself so i i know you're short on time but buying bitcoin i also believe that like really health presupposes personal autonomy

and if you're unhealthy i don't know how you guys are if i have a toothache i can't function well but the metabolic destruction in america has led to the inability to really see reality clearly often i mean any public school in america which is is government is government by the dietary food guidelines, which tell us to eat between 8 to 11 serving of grains a day, you come out of that addicted, you come out of that compromised, and you have to work like TC and myself for months and months and months of our lives to try to restore health. So it's real, but I think there's hope. I think it comes in Bitcoin because it ends the distortionary mechanism inherent in fiat yeah and and and the the never-ending money money that's capable of subsidizing all

of this bullshit in the first place but but uh zubi i'm going to give you the final word here if you could give people one piece of actionable advice to take more responsibility and move in the right direction for their personal health today where do you think people should start sure thing well i want to say a tc congrats on your weight loss progress man that's that's fantastic i'd love to hear about people getting in better shape and matthew i'm definitely going to have to check out your book i have not read it yet but it's uh these recommendations sound great so i will definitely be getting a copy okay one piece of advice can i can i give one thing that's mindset and one thing that's practical yeah yeah of course yeah mindset wise i just want to remind everybody and i say this often i want to remind everybody

that you only get one body you get one body and it has to let you let's to let you let's last you your entire life. As soon as it has a major malfunction, you get sick and or die. So it's crazy to me that people treat their material possessions better than they treat their body. The typical person treats their car, their house, their shoes. They treat them better and with more care than they treat their own body, which is completely insane. So just always remember that you only have one and it's got to last you, you know, until you're an old man or woman. and that's it. So take care of it. In terms of practical, I would say if you do not already do strength training, resistance training, aka lifting weights, you must. There is no substitute for it.

Cardio is good. I'm a fan of walking. You know, running is cool, but you have to do resistance training. And in fact, the older you are, the more important that becomes. I think when people think of strength training and lifting weights for whatever reason for decades, people just associate it with, you know, bodybuilders and power lifters. And it's like, oh, well, I don't want to be superject. I don't need to lift weights. It's like it's nonsensical. It's nonsensical. After the age of about 30, I mean, every single year, if you're not lifting weights, you are losing lean body mess. You are reducing your ability for your body to. to react to insulin properly.

You are increasing, like lifting weights decreases the risk of certain types of cancer. It helps to reduce blood pressure. It helps to reduce the risk of osteoporosis, particularly in women. There are so many benefits to strength training. It increases your insulin sensitivity, meaning that when you do eat carbohydrates in particular,

that your body tends to shuffle it into your muscles rather than just leaving it to sit in your bloodstream and develop diabetes or shuttle and get into fat. It has so many, countless benefits. So if you do not already regularly do resistance training, do it. Young, old, man, woman, every single person should be lifting weights in some way, shape, or form. So if you're not already doing it, let that be a wake-up call. Walking isn't good enough, running isn't good enough, swimming isn't good enough. Do those in addition, but you need to be weight training. Every

single human being should be weight training. Awesome. Awesome. I love it. Well, gentlemen, we are at time. We're beyond time, but it was a good conversation. So thank you guys so much for being here. I really appreciate all of your time. And yeah, guys, have a very, very Merry Christmas and a wonderful end of the year. Thanks, man. You too. Thank you, everybody.

Merry Christmas, nice. Take care. Merry Christmas. All right. And we are going to be diving into our next panel momentarily, but we're going to do really quickly. We're going to do our next giveaway before we get in there. So, of course, pull up your lightning wallets. We're going to do, we'll jump over to Bitcoin Well here.

And again, I'll get that QR code on the screen for you guys. If you don't have a Bitcoin Well account, you can scan that QR code and sign up and you'll get five chances to win a million sats when you create a new account today only. But let's just give away some stats live. So get those lightning wallets ready. I'm going to toss a coin in the Bitcoin wishing well. First person to scan it with their lightning wallet will claim this. sats and it is for 500 sats so whoever scans that first we'll snipe it from everyone else.

Congrats whoever wins. Let us know in the comments or wherever you are watching this. And with that, we're going to do our next giveaway, which heading into the next panel, actually one of the panelists. It's courtesy of them. So I'll pull up the clip here and we will be right into our panel shortly there after so we'll see you guys in just a minute here. We have an excellent giveaway here, courtesy of our friends over at Start9 Labs. And this one is a Start 9 server 1, 2 terabyte hard drive 16 gigabytes of RAM. And this is an absolute excellent device to be hosting your sovereign digital Bitcoin setup on. In fact, this is the same company with which I run my node infrastructure. I love

Start 9 and everything that they're doing. So what do you need to do to enter to win one of these devices? Well, you're of course going to have to tag myself at BTC Sessions. You're going to have to follow and tag at Start 9 Labs, 9, the number 9. And then you're going to have to hashtag Sessions Xmas 24. And then in there, I want you to include. your best one-liner about why it's so important for Bitcorners to run a node. I look forward to hearing your creative entries, and we'll be perusing through the entries in the coming days and notifying a single winner that they are a proud new owner of a Start 9 server 1.

So best of luck to you all and a very merry crew. All right, we are back, and best of luck to everybody who is. enters the giveaway there. But we're going to bring in our next panel. And I'm very excited to have everybody from this panel on. Let me get them up here. So I want to welcome to the stage. Matt Hill, Dakota Cohen, and Katie from Plan B passports.

Welcome, everybody. Thank you for being here. And a very Merry Christmas to you guys. How are you doing? Great, man. Pleasure to be here. Awesome. Hey, Matt.

You're on the road, Matt. You're on the road, Matt. I'm in the middle of nowhere. So if the service gets a little spotty, that's why. That's totally okay. That's totally okay. And Katie, it's good to see you. Can I, can I spoiler alert that you've been chatting to somebody I know?

Is that okay? Absolutely. If you're okay with that, I'm okay. I am. Katie has been assisting Mrs. sessions in obtaining her Irish passport as of late. So I've been able to peek in on some video calls between Lisa and Katie, which has been awesome to see. So much appreciated. But I want to welcome you all.

And this panel, there's a reason that I pieced all of us together here. And it's because each one of you is spearheading an initiative that has to do with sovereignty in some way, but in very different ways. So Matt, of course, with Start 9, you guys are focusing on digital sovereignty and being able to self-host. Dakota, you're focusing on helping people kind of level up their skills in homesteading and being able to grow your own food and being self-sufficient in your skill set. And Katie, you're helping people with sovereignty in terms of locality and being able to be different places if you need to be if it doesn't work out where you're at. And so I thought it was kind of a cool idea to bring us together. We'll see how the conversation progresses. But I kind of want to go down the line with each of your perspective expertise sets

and kind of ask what is important about your realm of expertise in and around sovereignty and how somebody can level up with that. So, Matt, I'm going to toss it to you first and simply just ask, for those unfamiliar, what the goal of start nine is and why it's so important to individual sovereignty. Can you hear me? Yeah, I got you loud and clear. Awesome. So, you know, this is the dawn of humanity's information age.

You know, we've been in the analog age for a couple thousand years. and we've had a lot of time to become accustomed to the rules of the game there. There's been many cycles of tyranny and revolution and waves of individualism and collectivism. And even still, we don't understand and continue to fail at these. But now we have this rapid exponential advancement of information technology. And so the ground is being rubbed right out from under us. and the rules are changing in real time. And so we are doing our best to try to stay ahead of the despots and dictators

who would use these new tools and rules against individuals in order to rule and suppress. So, you know, in the last 20 years or so, computing technology, in particular cloud computing technology, namely the practice of conducting your digital life through intermediaries and custodians has become commonplace. And we see this as a disaster in the making. We think that it is one of the biggest mistakes humanity as a whole individuals one by one have ever made. And that there's a reckoning coming and that we are trying to prepare the lifeboats and teach people how to exist in the information age as sovereign individuals and not, you know,

dependence of states and corporations, which will eventually be used as it always is against them. So it's early days, and we're figuring it out as we go, but we're trying to help others, and we build technology that enables people to exist outside of the matrix. Awesome, awesome. Love that summary. And again, like the tools that you are aggregating

and allowing people to kind of easy. run at home are invaluable and you know a lot of people swear by by their by their start nines and and again just the idea that you don't have to rely on somebody else to host your data to host your passwords to host whatever it may be your pictures your files all all that kind of stuff having a home server it's it's something that I think is is it's about to see its day in the sun. Like it's been kind of a niche thing,

but I think in a world of rampant censorship, it makes sense that people kind of level up and learn this skill set, and it's becoming easier as well. So I appreciate that. I do want to jump to Dakota here and talk a little bit about what he's focused on in terms of self-sovereignty. And Dakota, maybe you can just kind of queue up

by letting people know, again, who you are, what you do, and then kind of how that can help somebody become more self-solu. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Ben. So, yeah, I was born and raised on a 250-acre mixed organic farm in Central Alberta, Canada. I was basically born on the shire. I had an incredible life growing up. It was just amazing. And, yeah, once I graduated high school, I realized that not everyone else grew up in the shire.

most people grew up in Mordor and you know, the or spreading and shit was getting bad. And I kind of realized that, you know, agriculture and a lot of the skills that I learned were, you know, really the core piece of civilization. And, you know, one of the early authors and visionaries that I studied under, it was Bill Mollison. He gave this beautiful quote that was, hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens and who depend on the very system they attack and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter. And so for me, the, you know, my goal with in my team at our company, building your homestead.com is we are trying to help people buy design, develop, and land, by design, develop, and manage land anywhere in the world for freedom

and abundance. So it's essentially a revolution disguises homesteading. I love it. And, and just so people know, Dakota has. has been at the local market that we've been creating our circular Bitcoin market a number of times. And he was here just this past weekend prior. And what an awesome dude. And we've, I've gone out to the farm there and seen the land and seen the animals and everything and got to taste some of the stuff that is being made there. And yeah, you do great work.

So I'm glad to have you on and have a conversation. And I want to jump over to Katie so she can give a little bit of an explanation how what she's doing can play into a plan for anybody. Whether or not shit is going well where you currently are, maybe just hedging or maybe just actively looking to get out depending on where on the globe you are. So Katie, maybe you can touch on that. Yeah. I feel like we're all just a paragraph taken out of the sovereign individual book. So my paragraph is the end of nation states. So my second rabbit hole that I'm deeply into is dual nationality, flag theory,

jurisdictional arbitrage and things like this. I was born and raised in Russia. So I had extremely weak passport. I could not travel anywhere. I had my visas rejected so many times. I just realized that this piece of paper that was given to me by my home country is not really as useful as your piece of papers. So once I immigrated

to the U.S., I realized that there's this game of jurisdictional arbitrage where you can pick and choose whatever state provider services you utilize and that kind of evolved into me finding this concept of flag theory, where my definition

of flag theory is limit your dependency on any one particular state by obtaining second citizenship, residencies, etc., etc. So, So that's what we do at Plan B passport. We help Bitcoiners all over the world to obtain second citizenship residency for their benefit. We originally started as investment migration company.

So you invest and on the investment basis obtain a citizenship. But as you mentioned, man, we've been helping people claim their citizenship based on their ancestral lineage, like citizenship by descent, as it's called. So we all have grandparents who immigrated from somewhere or sometimes a little further down the line. So you have a claim for this. That's what we've been doing too. And right now, most of my clients are not willing to relocate anywhere.

They built a life where they are at. Their kids go into school. They have their communities, their village. But they want to have this insurance policy, aka Plan B passport, to fall on to, case shit hits the fan. So that's what we've been doing. And yeah. Awesome. I love that not for first of all perfect perfect statement there each one of you is a paragraph from the sovereign individual. Absolutely. And I'm going to I'm going to tag in my own little

addition here because I briefly mentioned it but in and around this. So we've got digital Sovereignty, we've got sovereignty through skill sets and being self-sufficient. We've got sovereignty of location. But also, I think another part of it in and around the Bitcoin realm is building a strong community wherever you are so that even with top-down pressures, it's very, very difficult to prevent you from interacting and transacting with the people you want to and getting the things that you need for day-to-day life. you know, some people may not have access to purchase a track of land or something like that.

But in those cases, you can still operate in a way where, as we've built here in Calgary, where we have incredible people from around the province and actually that have come in from out of town from a lot of different places. We have farmers, we have tradesmen, we have artists, we have physiotherapists, personal trainers. We have all kinds of different people that have come together to create this market where we're using sovereign freedom money and we're interacting with each other and creating a bit of a database where we can lean on each other and get most of the things we need in day-to-day life and we can pay for it in Bitcoin. And I think that's an incredibly important way to remain

resilient into the future and I want to see more of it. So that's that's kind of my little piece here. But I love that all the things you mentioned aren't mutually exclusive. No matter where you are like, let's go to Katie's thing, you know, if you do need to move to a different place, you're still going to want the skill set of being able to host your digital identity online and host all that stuff. You're still going to want a skill set where you can be as self-sufficient as possible in a practical sense too.

And so I think all of you guys kind of play together quite well. And so I guess for each of your perspective kind of skill sets, I'm going to ask, what do you think is the lowest hanging fruit? The first things that an individual can do for each of your topics or your specialties to move themselves in the right direction or meaningfully kind of tick the dial up. And maybe Matt will go to you first. Sure, yeah. So, you know, most of the people who come to us and who use our products so far are Bitcoiners. They come from the Bitcoin world. And so they come in with a degree of, you know, preparation. They've sort of been primed, you know, and they already have ideas of holding their own keys. They already have taken steps towards, you know, securing their financial independence and are ready to. And they already have taken steps towards, you know, securing their financial independence and are ready to. to expand that now to their broader digital lives. So we don't have to necessarily say, hold your own keys. So I would say that's the first thing in the digital world that I would recommend to anyone

is don't custody anything of value, any digital value in particular Bitcoin with a third party custodian. Now that said, like I said, when people get to us, they've already kind of done that and they want to know what the next thing is. So I'll answer your question as the next step beyond holding your own keys, which is to, you know, I've been joking lately, we didn't do this on purpose, but, you know, start nine is called start, not finish, right? Like, you don't have to totally conquer your entire digital realm and do everything. And it becomes addictive. It's like getting

that first tattoo or something and you just like need more after that. Or having your first kid and now, you know, you got your third on the way all of a sudden. So it's get a server, right? And that doesn't mean from us. You can scrounge up some old laptop from your closet and flash and, you know, bare bones, Linux if you want to do what we produce. Doesn't matter. Get something installed. Host your own software, store your own data, practice accessing it from various points around the world. And you'll realize very quickly, especially if you're using tools such as the ones we build, that it's a lot easier than you think. And the reward is, is, is, very visceral, right? So we get a lot of stories of people saying, hey, I hooked it up,

I installed the password manager, you know, because I always recommend that being the first thing that you should install on your own server and take total control over your passwords, because those are the keys to everything else in your digital life. So it should be the first thing that you secure. And they get it done, and it's easier than they thought. And then they say, you know, I sort of slept better. There was this, this coziness, and And even in the early days, one of our founders who's no longer with the company, told us that he was sleeping and looking across the room at his server, just thinking about how it was like his vault of all his digital life and his access point from anywhere in the world.

And he was like, he's like, I felt like, Ghalam. I was just like, oh, it's so precious. Like, I just, I love it, you know? I had to do the Lord of the Rings thing. Sorry, Dakota. You started it. And so bringing it full circle. But yeah, it's a wonderful, warm feeling to know that you.

hold your own values and control your own information and it becomes addictive and you want to do more so that my my advice in short that was the long version is just start do something get a server self-host something it'll feel good you'll want to do more of it i love that that's great and and yeah you're right it's it's a lot less daunting once you take your first step you you you get the thing in front of you you access the dashboard and you go okay i'll do this first thing i'll do the as you suggest So I'll do the passwords and just go from there and take it one step at a time. Again, you don't need to tackle it all at once. Dakota, I'm going to shift to you.

Same question. Somebody is curious and is thinking of land, is thinking of kind of establishing themselves. What is top of mind? What is the first thing they're looking at and considering? Yeah. So I strongly recommend that not everyone should be a farmer or try to make their living, you know, producing food and selling it to other people. I think the division of labor is an incredible insight that humanity had that led to civilization.

I don't think, you know, guys like Matt should stop producing incredible technology that they they have. However, I would say that everyone should be a gardener. So not everyone should be a farmer, but everyone should be a gardener where, you know, trying to produce at least one salad a year at a minimum, I would say, where you can look down at your plate and be like everything on this plate is, you know, I grew, whether it was just, you know, some herbs and maybe some fresh, you know, berries and just a couple.

It's not hard. You can do this, whether you're in a, you know, a balcony in an apartment building or if you've got a small backyard, there's so much you can do, even if you aren't going to move out of the city and get a big piece of land. But if that is a goal for you, like a lot of our clients, they come to us with the vision of, you know, they want to raise their kids the way, you know, the founding fathers of the Americas were, where, you know, it was, you know, philosophy and, you know, Latin and just like high level education, you know, during the evenings. But then all day they were outside, you know, getting physical hands on skills, learning how to fix things, how to make things, how to make things, how to, how to. how to harvest animals ethically and hunt and forage. So if that's your goal, then a big strategy that a lot of people don't think about is that you can keep your current Fiat job or whatever it is and turn your current tax liability

into the budget for building your small farm business. And you basically build one for free with money that would have otherwise been stolen from you. And so that's been, you know, our major strategy and our farm is, you know, my parents started this and they've built just, like, the shire is the best example. Like our farm is, like it's out of a storybook. And, you know, we've, we've never been rich in terms of fiat money, but we are, I think, some of the wealthiest people in the world. And yet we've never paid a cent in taxes. And we've done everything legally, you know, it's all through the books. The CRA could audit us at any time.

but we are using that to build essentially our own citadel. And so yeah, kind of wherever you are on that standpoint, whether you're still in a balcony, just start to develop those skill sets. And eventually you're going to get to the point where if you want to, you can exit and get out to the countryside and build your own citadel. Awesome. I need a citadel. I can visit yours at least.

It's not too far. I want to shift over to Katie as well. And same kind of question. Somebody's coming into this. They're looking and they're saying, I don't know how hot things are looking in my current jurisdiction. I want to start looking at other places. What's the mindset?

What's the series of items they want to consider as they start diving into the idea of potentially pursuing a second passport? Yeah, absolutely. just like you don't jump from Coinbase to three out of five multi-sig you usually don't jump from like not wanting a second document at all to like buying multiple passports

and I understand that like quarter million entry point is kind of crazy not for everybody but lately I just can't shut up about citizenship by dissent because it is a $15,000 average check and anybody who qualifies just must pursue that simply because maybe you don't want to move to the jurisdiction where your grandparents

were born and raised but keep this nationality running for your kids for your grandkids because now you can pass it down for multiple generations and just keep this optionality in the family so they don't have to pay quarter million dollars later on so anybody who qualifies for citizenship by descent should definitely pursue that now if you don't consider other options such as financial solvency residency programs right in Latin America almost every country will give you financial solvency temporary or permanent residency where you don't invest money you don't donate money you just have to prove to them that you have assets once you get that you have to keep it for five years and after

that you just go through a naturalization process so there are definitely options for different pockets and different needs yeah first things just schedule a call with us. Awesome. I love it. Now, can I proposition you guys with an idea? Katie finds the jurisdiction. Dakota plans and sets up the Citadel, and Matt does the digital infrastructure.

And we create the finest citadel the world has ever known. I think that might be a, all set up the market. I'm in for it. I love it. This has come up a lot over the years, what you just said, not between the three of us, but like just in, I hear this all the time. It's so difficult to pull off. It's actually find great people in the world.

Now they're mostly bit pointers and I happen to have met a bunch of them at this point. But it's very, very difficult to then have any kind of practical living situation. where you buy a huge citadel and everyone's got a house on the other side of the hill and your kids can ride bikes to each other's houses and somebody you know manages the gardens and I set up that the automated drones that are patrolling the property and all that stuff like it's awesome in theory almost impossible in practice um I don't know if we need conferences built exactly around that to like try to help people set that up who most people end up you know moving to the middle of nowhere and living with their atomic family and visiting friends when they can which is sort of the default state. And it's kind of a shame. I wish that there was more practical roadmaps to doing these kinds of building communities with great people. It sounds like there's almost a market for that. I feel like.

Matt is right. A lot of it is in details. Like we all have the same values and principles, but then some of us want to be closer to grandparents. So we can't move to in the middle of nowhere. Others want kids to go play tennis at the local school. So all these little things prevent us from building that. But I think, Ben, we discussed it before. Like, this is, this must be built like a Bitcoin network where you become a node.

And then you connect to similar nodes building this human network. And then you disconnect from malicious nodes who don't run the same principles and values. But yeah, those villages popping up here in this. there in more of a Bitcoin friendly places. Like there's definitely community in Calgary, right? Seems like you guys have a nice village. Mm-hmm. We have a burgeoning, well, it'll be generous to call it a village, but it's definitely,

it's definitely growing. And I will say that the mindset in Alberta is primed towards freedom and in sovereignty. So it's an easy sell if we can get in front of people. And that's beginning to happen. So I'm quite excited about it. I'm going to open this to the room. One final, we were kind of down to the wire. I wish this was longer because all of you

have so many different awesome points that we can touch on here. But if you have one quick piece of advice to give somebody, what would it be? And it can be anything from your wheelhouse or just general in and around the topics we've been discussing. Whoever wants to jump on it first, feel free, but just like a quick tidbit, something for somebody to check out, something for somebody to actively do.

Go ahead. Eat great natural foods, exercise every day, and sleep seven to eight hours every night, and you'll be nice. Consider home birth. Oh, nice. I see Lisa always, she wasn't in any group chats, and now she's all about the Bitcoin mom's group chat. and she's like right in there. So, Dakota,

how about yourself? Any little tidbits of wisdom for people? Yeah, I think it's just to have fun. Like, there's so much doom and gloom in the world and fun. And my motto is no one wants to join your revolution if it sucks. So that's the best thing we can do is just have a blast.

And I just, I love what you're doing with this Christmas, just event. I've been watching it all day. Just, yeah, you're leading the way, man. Oh, well, thanks, guys. And again, Matt, Katie, Dakota, thank you for being on. This panel should have been, you know, a couple hours easy,

but such as life when you're running a marathon. So thank you all. We'll all be chatting and seeing each other in the coming year. So thank you all. Have a very merry Christmas. Well, thanks for having us. And Katie, great to see you again. See you guys.

Hope the kids are well. And everybody, stick around. We're diving right in to the next panel. And this panel, I think, is a little, you know, it's obtained legendary status. Low key, I started my whiskey, the panel before so that I was primed for this one. This panel consistently now is my favorite. favorite panel to do. And I feel like if there's a Christmas show moving forward that doesn't include this one, Christmas is ruined. And I'm going to hold everybody on this panel to that. Don't ruin Christmas. So with that, I would like to welcome to the stage, American Honol, Harry Settick, and the once vacant chair of Maidex, who's now there. Gentlemen, welcome. Merry Christmas. How the fuck are you?

Great. Fucking great. Awesome. It's been a total overload of great news lately for people in this line of life. It has. Otto, are you? Are you? Can you hear me now? I can hear you now.

How are you? Mike was fucked up. All right. I'm good, man. Merry Christmas, gentlemen. It's good to see you. And Harry. How are you? No bad days. I love. Okay, I'm going to start off the hop here.

The other day, we had the sat market here in Calgary. And before that, we went up to the Canadian Rockies and Madex was there. And he offered a toast to everybody. He stood up. And what did you say, Maynex? Congratulations. You were fucking right, which is the message we've been broadcasting hard at Bull over the last few weeks. So I guess my first question to everybody on the panel is how does it feel to be so fucking right so fucking often?

It feels fucking. It feels great. It feels great. It really, you know, 100K really is this. This culmination of a lot of years of us taking a lot of shit from a lot of people who told us that we were wrong. We were stupid. We were ignorant. We were naive.

Oh, this is a tulip mania. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, Jesus Christ. And, you know, that chatter, that noise that you're hearing all around you, it just fades into silence, beautiful, glorious silence. And you guys, all the haters just have to shut the fuck up. There's nothing you can say. It's $100,000 of Bitcoin. I mean, just under, but like, you know, you get it.

$100,000 per Bitcoin. I saw the gold chart today, the gold ETFs look like this. 30 years, 30 years it takes them to go whoop-do-woop-do-woop like that. Okay. Bitcoin comes along one year. Bam! Straight the fuck up! Like that.

To the sky. Orange Dildo, to the sky, motherfucker. Orange Dildo versus just limb-picking it for decades. Your kingdom crumbles, Peter Schiff. You're wrecked, old man. Fuck you. Can I use this opportunity to pull out my framed tweet? This is, I'm,

Of course, the frame is gold. But I'm going to recite this tweet, and I'm going to continue reciting this tweet until it bears all the fruit it can bear, which is, you know, I don't think that I have that long, but I first frame this in 2020, knowing that I would experience many waves of euphoria looking upon it.

So this is a framed tweet from Peter Schiff, and it reads, by the way, this tweet was January 6th of 2020. The tweet reads, for those Bitcoin bugs excited about Bitcoin's 4% rally in 2020, think about this. Hashtag gold is also up by about the same percentage this year, only with significantly less downside risk. If this is the best rally Bitcoin can muster, how will it ever, ever hit 50k, let alone a million dollars?

And so I'm just excited for the like to to experience the full round of emotions that comes with a million and having this tweet on my on my shelf for the entire time. Yeah, there's no exciting numbers until. million anymore. It's just going to be fucking boring. And the normie mind cannot comprehend that. Like $500,000 per coin. I'm not even going to open champagne. I'm not even going to restock champagne until like 920,000. That's very true because again, like 10k was very meaningful. Any like any any any leap above like a previous all time high from a cycle is exciting. But I But outside of that, like 100K was kind of like, yes, let's let's pop a new bottle.

Let's celebrate a little bit. And then it's kind of just like 105, 10, 10, 110, 120, 1, 5. Like, who fuck cares? Like, I'm looking at, and the Canadian price is ridiculous. Like, it's because the Canadian dollar is such shit. We hit, I think, 155 the other day. Like, that's how bad our dollar is. And it's just like, well, I mean, the numbers are meaningless at that point.

And it's just kind of you get to bask in it a little bit. But like 100K was the I told you so. And then it's just, well, I mean, look at it. Look at it. What are you going to say? Yeah. Yeah. I think that Bitcoin creates a series of portals.

And the way that a portal works is that once you go through it, you actually can't go back. And so there's the, the, I like, I like this idea that, that society, um, as it stands today does not have a working vocabulary to deal with the will that the collective's Bitcoin hive mind is exerting upon it on an ongoing basis. So we are here. And the possibility of this thing existing at this level is no longer in question. The arrival point has been breached. The hull is open. The soldiers are flowing through and your ship will be taken. And that's where we find our sex now.

Alia Ayakta as the dye is cast. There's no reverse on this. By the way, it's not us. We're not the ones doing it to you. Okay. It's the Bitcoin blockchain that's doing it to you. Because it is the most consistent, you know, man-made invention in human history. There's nothing like it.

And it enforces upon everybody. We're just disciples of all we are. There's a model of God, which is that it's God as the watchmaker. And so the divine power's job is to put all of the gears together, to close the case, to wind the watch, and to release the watch into the world. And upon which he has no further ability to influence what happens, but the gears continue to turn unbeknownst to him and unbeknownst to us. And that's really the model that I use for Bitcoin, which is that the monetary policy was, was set. The difficulty adjustment was set. The self-referential components were introduced. And now we just see what an intransigent technology, an unchanging technology can exert upon what is

ultimately a shockingly fragile system. And so the same way that you can reach this psychological threshold, there's also an inevitability to whatever is going to happen will happen because of the way the mechanics were designed and the way that the mechanics grind forward. Yeah. Well, it's the idea that, I mean, you see it in price charts versus the U.S. dollar. Well, people say, oh, Bitcoin isn't volatile. The U.S. dollars volatile.

But, like, in that framing, Bitcoin is the most stable thing on earth. and it's just humans are incredibly volatile trying to grapple with what it is. And we're trying to adjust our lifestyles and our mannerisms around it. And we haven't quite navigated that yet. I mean, most a society hasn't quite navigate, even myself. Like, I still find myself falling back to those fiat tendencies and those things that have been instilled in me since birth because it's all I've ever known. And it's hard to break away from some of those things where you're just, you're so used to doing it that even, I try to say like, oh, ever since I got into Bitcoin, but I got into Bitcoin, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing or what was wrong really. And like, it takes years to understand and grapple with that. And, you know, with us that have kind of been in and around Bitcoin for a number of years now, still grappling with that, like the rest of society that has.

hasn't been sick like actually exposed to it yet is just going to have a hell of a time. And I don't think they're trying for it either. I totally disagree. Really? I'll tell you why. We were bitcoins before we found Bitcoin. We knew we knew that we were waiting for a, for a crystal to be able to refract the energy and the observations that we made about the world around us before we found this thing.

Bitcoin was the crystallizing force, but it did not change the fact that we had all of the impulses and the observations that we needed prior to finding Bitcoin. It just became a focusing tool to be able to exert our will into the present and projected across the future. Yeah. Our principles were not changed. They just aligned with the principles that were created by Bitcoin. And everybody who's been involved in that has that, it seems like everyone I've ever spoken to who is early has a similar sort of alignment in terms of their beliefs and their core values that made them susceptible to really kind of seeing it. Because the whole Bitcoin brand as itself is like a very cutesy like silly B with a silly name. And it's all by fucking design to protect what it actually is. because if it was branded for what it will actually do to the world that we're in right now,

I don't think it would have had so much success. So I think that that's like a big barrier for a lot of people who aren't already primed to be seeking something that is truthful and that is really the first thing we've ever had in all our history that is that is truth, that is incorruptible truth. And I think that when we kind of look into ourselves and all the bit corners that I've met to date, the center is truth. And every piece of it just comes back to that. And to have something that is a true record just kind of aligns with every other form of output that we can invest our time in. And it's the first time we've ever had real truth that we fucking, we know it's true.

And I think that that that's just new and also just aligns with what is written into our genetic code as the men and the people that we are. I, so I'm going to on this kind of line of thought, Harry, I just want to go back to you saying, you know, we, we're in a way, like, primed to, to discover this and everything. And I'm going to pull a fucking Uno reverse card on you. Because I am the, I am the, if that's the rule, I'm the exception to the rule, because before Bitcoin, I was a fucking commie status cuck. And it took Bitcoin to open my eyes to that. And so, like, I was the douche that was trumpeting all of, like, Justin Trudeau's talking points and the 2015 election being like, this is the guy. We got to get the other guy out. And like, I was all about all of the current things. And I loved current things. I fully supported them. And then I got into Bitcoin for nothing other than the cuckery of trying to, like, gamble. in hopes of like getting an extra buck so I could buy whatever like consumerist bullshit that I wanted

because I had blown my entire paycheck on some other consumerist bullshit two weeks prior. And in discovering Bitcoin, I started discovering why it was working, why money was broken, all of the shit wrong with society. And it completely changed everything I knew about everything, or rather, it educated me to how wrong I was about fucking everything. And through that, I was able to kind of come to Bitcoin. So maybe in a way, like underlying, I was primed. I was going to say, Ben, what were you like as a kid? Yeah.

Udo reverse card again. Like, you were already fucking primed from the start because the reason you believed all that socialist fucking crap is because that's the exact people it preys on. People who are kind-hearted, people who care about their neighbor, care about their community. It prays on that. Yeah. I think maybe here the lens, it's not either or. It's not mutually exclusive.

Like the lens does both things. So if you come to Bitcoin with the correct worldview and principles like Harry did, the lens just sharpens and focuses it immediately and allows you to use it as a tool to inflict max change on the world, right? If you come to it like a commie Canadian status cuck like Ben did, then maybe what the lens does is there's a period of time where it reorients your vision. And then once you have the correct, you know, you're in correct alignment with reality, you can then harness and focus and use it as a tool to change the world. By the way, I think I said this on one of our last panels in a joking manner.

I was like, we're going to annex Canada. Trump is saying it now. We're going to actually do it. We're going to actually fucking annex you guys. Honestly, that shit is so funny looking at the, like, the, I think the funniest thing is you guys might not know that we're not joking. You're actually not joking. We'll do it. If anything, I would, my preference would be that Alberta just becomes the free, the free, you know, state of Alberta.

Like, it becomes its own, you know, sovereign nation. And then we, we, uh, strike some deals with the U.S. for all our oil. Uh, that'd be, that'd be ideal. And you guys won't have guns. You're too gay to give yourself guns. We're going to give you guns. You're going to be a state. You're welcome. I think if Fidel Bordo was its own thing, it would, we would have guns. Oh, nice, nice. Uh, gentlemen, so I've got a question for you. We're, we're coming around the corner, 2025. Um, I'm curious, and I'm just using this for all the like, all the fun kind of bullshit talk here. And two things.

Um, do you get the feeling that this is, I've got my own opinions here, but like, is this feeling like 20,1 to you or more like a, a, the craziness of 17? because I'm getting certain vibes here and I'm just curious if you guys would echo my sentiments and I'm not going to say what they are yet but I don't know. How are you guys feeling? Is it going to, is it like?

Yeah, I'll go first. Yeah, go ahead. Bitcoin, people are saying Bitcoin's never going to hit a million dollars. We're 100K. It's 10x away. It's 10x away from a million dollars. We did it 20X in 2017. All right.

If the diminished returns hypothesis gets taken out, if we go to 200K and there's a cell, off because a bunch of weak-handed pussies decided to sell their Bitcoin, then what's going to happen is we're going to have a dip correction, and then it's going to continue climbing way past 200 where they sold off and people that sold, they're going to go, oh, my God, I need to get back in. I'm totally under-exposed. This thing is going to a million dollars. It's real. And when that happens, you know, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, like Satoshi said, you might want to have some. You might want to have some just in case, you know? That's my thoughts. Yeah. Harry, what about you? Are you thinking,

like euphoria and insanity of 17 or like kind of stunted top like 21? I mean if you force me to pick between the two, it's pretty easy 17. But I think that I'll give you a few other reasons why I don't know that either model is particularly attributable. The first is there's no preference. that I'm not willing to buy Bitcoin. Like, if you quoted me a market price of $10 million a coin tomorrow, I still want to own more saps at the end of the week than I started the week with. And so there's just a changing in the collective behavior around Bitcoin,

which is not I'm trying to time when I own Bitcoin to, you know, make sure that I own it at the best price possible. There's just an indiscriminate community of acquirers of SATs. And when you apply that type of behavioral model to a fixed supply asset, the diminishing return or the diminishing upside case doesn't really make any sense from an econ 101 perspective because there isn't that much Bitcoin. There's certainly not enough. And so you take a fully inelastic supply side good, and then you apply an indiscriminate bid against a finite resource.

It goes up more, not less. And you make it available in a bunch of new venues, whether that's new countries, new funds that are able to buy it, new households that came into wealth, you know, via inheritance or some other mechanism. I don't see how there aren't more units of fiat looking to acquire more units of Bitcoin over time. And the way that that market works is it goes higher fast, faster, not higher, slower. So I don't really understand the reason why you would enter into a 21 style type of price expansion. I think it's going to look a lot more like 17 potentially and potentially significantly more aggressive than that. Yeah. Yeah.

It's been that staircase sort of model for so long, which is kind of like the spike and then a drop and a little bit of a plateau and spike. And that's just new people entering that take it seriously and put in the time to really understand what the fuck it is. And so every time there's a price bump, like no matter all the work that we do, we're not as good of a marketer as, for example, hitting the 100K. And every time we hit these high levels, there's a whole new wave of people that come in and look at it. And a lot of them are fiaters and paper traders and fucking around and they are treating it like a casino. But within that, there's a great deal of people who fucking get it. And that the amount of people who fucking get it is compounding like crazy because of the work that all of us are doing. All the podcasts, all the authors, all the art, all the different companies reaching, all the marketing, all the efforts of us as individuals that are, we're contributing to Bitcoin makes it really that much easier for people entering the space to figure it the fuck out.

So every time we have these boosts, we just have a new layer of people that fucking take it seriously and get it. And at any price, I think acquiring Bitcoin is just for exactly what you're talking about, Harry, like that's the key thing that I think is like the peak understanding of Bitcoin is just this is the way it's going. And even accounting for inflation alone, like forget about all the innovation. that's happening, all of the marketing, everything that's going on with it, just on the government printing fucking money alone, the price is fucking going to continue to go up. So as long as you're in a position where, and I said this for a long time, that as long as you're focused on your production and your work and your contribution to this world and receiving an exchange of capital, for that. And that's your primary focus, not the number go up, but the actual improvement

of your skills, the improvement of your business, the improvement of wherever you are in this, that you're having capital coming in constantly. There is no, there's no price that doesn't make sense to buy. I think that like people are are so hooked onto the past and the past prices and the coulda, shoulda, woulda's with Bitcoin that they don't see the fucking opportunity that's right in front of you, like right fucking now. And really all it takes is that you improve yourself, improve your skills, improve your reach and improve your production of capital so that you never have to, you're never in a position to sell unless you choose to for some reason like, you know, a milestone that you want to celebrate or something to do with

family or or something that fucking actually matters. And then the rest of the time, you're using, your Fiat earnings to kind of get through life until we get to this swap. So it's like people figuring out new people entering the space and figuring out how fucking serious we are about all of this and how fucking solid this thing is. And then applying themselves to generate with a whole new audacity, the will to acquire capital and produce value and produce wealth in order to build a savings and a future for yourself and your family. I think those are the two pieces that I think the stage could not be better fucking prime

for right now. And regardless, I mean, for us, we've been here fucking a long time. And no matter what happens, it's the same fucking stories over and over again about I'm late, I missed it. I'm late. I missed it. Those fucking stories are at a dollar. They're at 100.

They're at 1,000, 10,000. Now at 100,000, we're still fucking hearing the same stuff. And no one has a fucking grip on how. how fucking early we are, even now, even still. And the stage is primed perfectly for anyone who wants to come into Bitcoin and like fucking sell their wares and make a fucking place in history for themselves. Absolutely. So speaking of which, again, Madex was the, it was the dealer for Alberta Hoddle at the

sat market this weekend. This is the best jerky you will ever eat. It's probably also the most expensive jerky you will ever eat, but I still bought it with sats. Harry, I want to go back to something you said where it's like you will buy Bitcoin at any price. It's because you, I mean, you just don't want the dollars. And I'm definitely at this point where like I live on Bitcoin. I don't want dollars. And if somebody wants to pay me in dollars, I charge you. I charge you. a 20, 20, 20% premium on that because I don't want to fucking deal with it. I just want the Bitcoin. And so, and same thing.

Like we've got our, my company that I co-founded Bitcoin mentor where we do like one-on-ones with people, we charge a 15% premium on Fiat. And that's even for people that have never used Bitcoin. Like, to a degree, it's like, okay, great. Figure it out. Yeah, this is the cost. Figure it the fuck out. Come in the door, like, we will help you out for a 15% premium.

And then once you learn Bitcoin, then it's going to be cheaper for you because it's way better. And so, like, I think this is where we're headed where it's like, you're very right in there's, in a way like where there's no price I wouldn't buy Bitcoin at because I'm accepting Bitcoin and that's what I want. And I don't want the dollars. And I'm insulated enough where like, yeah, sure, it's fucking fluctuates all over the place, whatever. like I'll deal with it like I'll pay my bills at the beginning of the month deal with them be fiscally responsible in that sense and my savings I don't give a shit if they ping pong back and forth in an upward trend who gives a shit right like just provide value for others spend less than you earn and saving money nobody can print and you're you're fucking good like that's it you know

it's making me laugh is like I'm doing pretty well in life I'm like air quotes retired or whatever right the amount of times that my card gets declined, my wife calls me and says, there's no money in the account. That is, is it five times a week? It's a lot. You know what? I'm getting to that realm too,

because I'm like, I don't want to pay this right now. You get to the point where you're like, let's see how far I can push it. And even like sometimes you catch the shit end of that, but the general trend is it's like, oh, sweet, good thing I waited to pay that. I waited until people started bothering me to pay that credit card bill or whatever. Like that's by and large over extended periods of time, even though there's going to be times where it's like, fuck, should have paid my credit card bill last week. Most of the time, you'll be like, nice.

it's pretty bad it's it's just the the fundamental problem for most people is that there is not a shortcut yeah bitcoin is get rich slow technology yeah and most people don't like to do that yeah and and i i empathize but they don't have a better alternative so you know i to American Hoddle's point of view, you know, my job is to create a life that is in most close alignment with reality. And so how do I align most closely with reality? I generate productive labor on a minute to minute basis. I take the fruits of those labors and I store them in a currency that I'm able to hold myself and that I'm able to have clear visibility into the dilution over the coming 10,000 years. And that not, that not only secures my lifetime, it secures all of, you know, this is, this is the great, and this is a bit of a side angle to come at it from, but this is why inheritance is the greatest gift in the entire world that you can give. You are literally passing down your time across generations. I spent, you know, let's just say I worked for 100,000 hours in my lifetime, and those 100,000 hours appreciate

into a hundred million hours worth of purchasing power. I'm then able to hand 100 million hours to future generations for them to benefit from and thinking of it in terms of the productivity of your of your literal time and projecting your time and life force across the future into the forward years of the universe is the most powerful highest form of productivity that you can possibly imagine. and the ability that I have to do that because of Bitcoin is to take my time, multiply the purchasing power of it, and pass it forward is a profound gift to the universe. Amen.

The other thing here is your mistakes and your triumphs are going to live on chain forever, or at least for a couple thousand years until something better replaces Bitcoin. And so if you do have Bitcoin now, you can see yourself on chain. Your descendants will be able to see where you sold their birthright. We'll go back and pinpoint the moment in time that you, the individual who's alive now, fucked it up. And they are poor now and live in some sort of slave system. You know what I mean?

Because you didn't have conviction. Yeah. When- When people are, uh, make the comments about like missing it or, you know, that they wish they were earlier, I, um, one of my favorites is like, imagine how the people who aren't even born yet feel. Like, they're like, what the fuck? Like, I should have been born in fucking 2030. And then I would have been able to buy Bitcoin. This is fucked. Instead it's, you know, 3,000. And I'm

fucked and you know if i trace my lineage back hopefully somewhere in that was smart enough to pick it up i think at some point like everybody will swap over but yeah yeah so so if you're beating yourself up about like buying bitcoin for the first time at 100k like well at least uh you know you're not out 50 more years yeah imagine imagine imagine looking at your great great grandfather's trade history and he lost like a city's worth of wealth on a fucking scalp trade on Shiba Inu. Yeah. Hawk to a coin got him. And that your family, sorry.

Yeah. Get rich slowly. Imagine explaining that story to you like to like great, great grandchild and be like, yeah, well, grand, grandpappy Stevens, uh, well, he, he had a bunch of Bitcoin. And then there was a 21 year old, uh, a girl that was a meme

Nashville that talked about spitting on dicks and she put out a coin so he squandered an entire city's worth of wealth on her coin. Yeah, man, it's like it's really fucking simple. Like just just shut the fuck

up and be fucking patient. Just shut the fuck up and be patient. We're all fucking flailing around doing whatever. Just like respect the fucking bitcoins you have. Respect them. With take off the fucking fiat denomination entirely and just fucking respect them for what they are. Fucking Bitcoin.

And if you don't fucking respect those fucking coins, they will be taken from you either voluntarily or you will lose them in some fucking way. Treat them with the fucking respect they deserve or you will be humbled. Absolutely. I think also, by the way, this makes me hopeful because, you know, Bitcoin's a bearer. instrument similar to gold, the digital gold. We all know it's a thousand times better than gold. And so it should be valued a thousand times more highly than gold. Okay, all that's true. But also, I think, you know, people have continually created these inflationary systems on top of bare instruments like gold in the past. And they're going to do so in the future with Bitcoin.

There's nothing we can do to stop that. That's just human nature, right? But I hope that the lessons learned are enshrined on chain forever. And people will be able to go back and look at them. And so they won't fall into this generational 80 years, you know, fourth turning gap where suddenly like the lessons that were learned during the Great Depression are now not prescient for Gen Z. And somehow the scar tissue that was built up during these monetary collapses goes away because we will have this, you know, multi thousand year run of the Bitcoin blockchain that will be enforcing those lessons all along the path. And you'll be able to look back through history and see and pinpoint where and why and how things went wrong. You know, I think that, I think that enforcement mechanism, hopefully will drive change for our descendants. Yeah. Gentlemen, we're running up on time here, but I want to give you guys one last, one last little thing to throw out there.

And this will just be whatever you decide to come up with here. But I've got, I've got a double-ended question here. Number one, next year, jump into 2025. Craziest positive news item that comes out that is, I mean, we'll say price positive news item that comes out because a lot of bullshit can catapult the price higher. So like specifically something that's going to pump it whether or not is bullshit or not. And then secondly, peak retard shit coin scam that implodes. what like what what what what what what is this year's this cycle's lesson of like oh shouldn't have done that that was stupid like what is the like everything implodes because x happens okay so

like positive price pump news good or bad uh and what is the lesson what's the what's the thing most likely to just wreck everyone and maybe bring even for a short period of time Bitcoin's price down with it because it's just so catastrophic and people don't understand the difference between Bitcoin and everything else. So whoever wants to dive on that one first. Yeah, if you're focused on anything outside of your own fucking labor and the own effort you're putting in to just acquire more fucking sats and just stack and save and like, I think that you're just fucking going to get wrecked no matter what the fuck happens.

like if you're not focused on improving your capital flows getting better at the things you do building forward in whatever line of work or whatever place you find yourself uh you're going to get fucking wrecked if you are disrespecting your own abilities talents and whatever lions are waiting inside of you and you are looking externally for all sorts of whatever fucking bullshit like i just don't like tons of insane fucking shit is going to happen all sorts of stuff is going to explode. We're going to reach different price points. It's going to go all over the fucking place.

But as long as you just shut the fuck up, respect the Bitcoin, improve your value, improve the effort of your labor and fucking stack and save coins and shut the fuck up, everything's going to be fucking awesome. And year over, year over year, it's just going to keep fucking getting better. And it really doesn't fucking matter what shit coin explodes or what fucking rug happens or what bullshit happens that crashes the price of Bitcoin or boost it up. On a long enough timeline, we know exactly what the fuck happens with this thing. Just focus on your fucking labor, build your savings, improve your skills, and invest in having a fucking meaningful life.

And forget about all the fucking distractions that are trying to get you to the future faster. Put in the energy now, be fucking patient and just fucking keep on, keep it on. ignore all of that fucking noise. Focus on what this whole thing is about is about in the first place, which is storing the value we produce with our time into the future. Hell yeah.

Fuck yeah. Now on that note, Hoddle, what blows up first? The thing that's going to fuck us up is the same thing that fucks us up every time, which is leverage. I don't know what form the leverage is going to take, but leverage is going to be the thing that fucks us up.

One thing that's interesting is there is a lot of energy around micro strategy and like sort of the Dgen culture of Wall Street Betts has found its way into Bitcoin via micro strategy. And so like if you look at the irresponsibly long micro strategy group on Twitter, there's a lot of people who are just crying their fucking eyeballs out every single day because they're like, sailors buying Bitcoin too fast and too aggressively. And he said he was going to take three years. he did it in three months? What does he do it? And it's like the reason you might be like, why are they complaining? The reason they're complaining is because these guys have short term options that expire worthless in January. They're fucking pissed off. But Saylor is a Bitcoin maximalist and he's like, I'm going to get my hands on as many cheap bitcoins as I fucking can right away. Like that's what I'm going to do. Right. So I think there's DGens coming in here who don't

understand the trade. They're going to, you know, take leverage and they're going to fuck us all up. Okay. That's the negative thing. I don't know. which exactly how it's going to play out, but like watch the leverage. It's dangerous. The positive thing. So obviously there's going to be a million positive things. Bitcoin, you know, potentially taking a run at a million dollars. BlackRock is telling people to get 2% of their net worth in Bitcoin.

When 6.15% BlackRock, hmm, soon? Your number's low. Your number's low, bitch. Thank you. I think, forget all that. That shit's all going to happen. We know that's going to happen. I'm going to go out on a limb here for this one.

And I am going to say that Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett himself, right before he shuffles off this mortal coil, because he's a million years old, is going to change his mind, flip, and buy a significant amount of Bitcoin. And if Warren Buffett buys Bitcoin, the positive price appreciation on that move will signal a sea change in traditional markets because so many people will realize if Warren is doing it, it is the thing to do so i think warren's going to flip right before he dies let's know my natural clauses i'm not going to kill warren yeah buy the bitcoin right fucking now you're going to buy the bitcoin you're going to you know fucking announce it type the tweet type the tweet Now we all know how Hoddle's planning to enjoy his semi-retirement. Putting the semi-retirement.

Also, like, to your earlier point about the options about to expire, Imagine betting against how aggressively somebody is going to stack sats. Like how stupid of a play would that be like, ah, this guy happens to think, this guy happens to think that Bitcoin is literally the best pristine collateral that the world has ever seen. It's the best money is the soundest money. Nobody can fuck with it. You know what's a good bet? betting against how quickly this person will stack sats. I'm going to take that bet.

Like fuck yourself. Like you deserve to get wrecked. Harry, I'm tossing it to you. Best and worst, most degenerate thing next year. What do you think? The best of time. I think Bitcoin asymmetrically improves with each incremental unit of time. And so the most bullish news one year from now is that one year will have passed.

So that's a very safe bet, but one I'm happily willing to take. And I agree. There's going to be like a hundred insane things every week. And, you know, Bitcoin now goes up and down more in a day than the entire price was, you know, eight years ago. So the scale that we've achieved is just unreal. We have not talked about mining at all, but I think mining is awesome, and we're going to keep doing that. And I think that, you know, the size and scale that mining can achieve with full energy market integration, regardless of the free country of Alberta's status, will be huge in the coming year. the thing that's most likely to blow it up is I agree that leverage is probably I mean leverage is the reason why anything always blows up right like that's that's just you know if you if you pump one more pump into the balloon it pops and then you have to melt down the rubber and make another balloon so so I think leverage is probably the right answer I think the more fun answer is that

The internet is a bizarre and exciting place, and everything that can happen will happen. And I think that we have never had native electronic money before. And so the internet is going to be a place where more interesting uses of money are going to happen, and also weirder and more dangerous uses of money are going to happen. I don't mean illegal uses of money. I just mean that markets are going to get influenced by a new, asset living in a new and foreign land, which is the internet. And so whether that's our AI overlords negotiating with each other for SATs,

but I think that if an artificial intelligence environment becomes prolific, the AI, whether it's user managed or self-managed, will have the same incentive structure to acquire as much Bitcoin as possible. and that means that they will have an incentive for the lowest price Bitcoin available as possible. And I'm very curious to see the different ways that we'll get cooked up to see how you can get as cheap of Bitcoin as you can. Interesting. Gentlemen, it's time to round out. I think that's a perfect note to go out on.

It's not the perfect note because I just want to hang out here for like four hours. Yeah, when four hour podcast. Yeah. Also, I got a rival, Marty. Odell's whiskey one with you, Hoddle. That was the, of some of my few favorite memories of Bitcoin, I was in Florida on a road trip with my family and they were all passed out in the vehicle and I just blasted that shit.

Yeah. What's crazy is that everybody who fucking took the advice in that podcast is now a millionaire. Exactly. Exactly. And we're so drunk. Me and, me and Marty are so drunk. can't even talk at the end. We're just like, we're talking about Greta Thumber. We're like, yeah, fuck Greta Thumbra.

So fuck climate change. It's bullshit. Fuck that. Matt had to put me in a cab to get back to the hotel. That is great. That is great. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much. This was so festive.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. We should probably do it again. Do you think we will? I think so. At least next Christmas. Yeah, at least. We need somewhere in between where it's going to happen again. gentlemen, I really, really appreciated this.

This was a lot of fun. And I'll be seeing you guys. At the Bitcoin Rodeo. We'll be seeing each other in person in Alberta. What's the deal? At the end of June. I literally take the bottle. I was like, get to fucking you need to come here.

Fucking come here. And he texted me back and he's like, I'm in. But like, are you? We'll see. We'll see. But either way, it's going to be sick. We had a great time last year. this year yeah listen i'm already coming over on the first wave of the annexation squad so if we do that

around june it's going to line up you know once more through the breach dear friends yeah might get familiar with the territory that uh you'll build a castle in the mountains here somewhere yeah yeah gentlemen thank you so much i will see in the next one uh and if i don't see you uh before new year's then have a wonderful New Year's. I'll see you guys. Cheers. Thanks, guys. Cheers. Cheers, guys.

Cheers, gentlemen. All right, everybody. We are on the cusp of the after party, and there's a very, there's a very special guest in this after party. This after party, actually, there's a number of very special guests here. one guy has as as is tradition has been in the background the whole time you saw a peak of them earlier today and special special gentleman and there's a little bit of an announcement coming in in the brief break we're going to have here for that as we do the giveaway too also also inside of that we've got we've got another person who has dedicated his life to a special cause

for over three years and that recently came to an end. He completed his mission and the prophecy was fulfilled. So we're going to be welcoming that person to the stage as well. And then there's a number of people. I was a one-man show for a number of years. And now there are, there's a burgeoning group that I lovingly refer to as team sessions that is frequenting this part of the show. And maybe some other special guests as well. But it's going to be a good time. So we're going to do a quick giveaway here. Actually, get the lightning wallets ready.

I'll do that really quick before we jump to the video that I have queued up here. But lightning wallets ready. We're going to do a giveaway. Of course, I got Bitcoin well pulled up here. I'm also going to grab the QR code for Bitcoin. Well, if you're not on there already, you can scan the QR code and sign up. You get five chances to win up to a million sats if you sign up just today. So scan that QR code, you can sign up. But for those of you that are already there or just have a lightning wallet, you don't have to have, you don't have to be on Bitcoin well yet to claim the stats that I'm about to give away, but I encourage you to do. You can go ahead and you can scan the QR code. I'm going to throw a coin in the Bitcoin Wishing Well over on Bitcoin well. And prizes can range from 500 to, a million sats. So I'm going to do that now. First person to scan it will snipe the sats from everyone else. So you got to be quick on the draw, scan that, get some focus. Here you go,

500 sats. Whoever gets it, please do let me know in the chat. That would be awesome. Congrats to whoever does. And that's not the only thing we're giving away. We're going to jump to, we're going to jump to a cut of our final giveaway of the evening. Maybe not final. We might have something else that we're going to queue up here for you, but the big one. This is the big one. So we will be back in just a couple minutes for the, I mean, I've already been sipping on a beverage, but this is the after party. And this is where it gets D-Gen, I suppose. So please do join me in that. But we're going to do one more giveaway first.

So we'll see you guys in just a sec. All right. Here we have it. This is the big one. The big giveaway of the night. And it's a doozy. Okay. I've got not one, not two, not three, but five cold card cues.

we are going to be given away. I can't even hold all of these cold guard cues and I will say this stack here, this is like a thousand bucks worth of stuff we're about to give away here. That's awesome. That is absolutely awesome. Now, I got to give a shout out not only to Coin Kite who makes this incredible device that I love and is my daily driver for securing my stack, but also a huge shout out to debify.com. They just recently announced that they are now having support for the cold card queue and if you're unfamiliar with devify they of course allow you to borrow against your bitcoin in a distributed multi-sig in which you would hold one of the keys and which is never re-hypothicated so again hat tip to them for helping make this as possible if you want to check out coin kite or devify they're in the show notes down below now onto the important stuff how are you going to get yourself a cold card cue well you're going to need to do a few things number one you have to myself at BTC Sessions. You're also going to have to follow at CoinKite and you're going to have to follow at Debifycom and I'll have those lists down

below. Then finally you're going to need to hashtag Sessions XMIS 24 and then you're going to need to tweet all of that out alongside your best one-liner about why Bitcoin self-custody is so so important be as creative and eloquent as as you can with it. Of course, there's a limited number of characters in there, so squeeze it in and make it count. And then we'll be perusing through the entries, deciding who the lucky ones are to receive a cold card cue and level up their Bitcoin's self-custody experience. So best of luck to you all and a very merry Christmas. Ladies and gentlemen, it's between two. I mean, it's the Tatum Turnup show. All right, everybody.

We've made it to the completion of the, we'll say, the properly organized panels. And now we get the fun to happen. And before I bring in everybody, I want to bring in one special individual who has been laboring. I'm watching him backstage. He's just, he's testing all of his setup and everything and his background and all of this and is just so distracting. But I'm going to give him a pass here because he has been laboring away for three plus years, bringing you daily, daily spaces in which he encourages you to never stop believing. And I feel like along the way he must have had doubts about believing. He never stopped fully, but he had doubts.

So I'm going to welcome to him to the stage before we bring everybody else up. Yellow, are you there? Oh, finally. Okay, it's my turn. Yeah, I've been waiting for a while, but then you're out of Red Bull, by the way. You know what? Hold on. Can I give me a Red Bull?

Ah, that's better. Yeah. Yeah, thanks. I saved one for you. I saved one for you. What's up? Thanks for having me once again. Dude, three, how are you feeling? I mean, I know it's, I know it's not 100K now. Nor was it during your final, don't stop believing. It's not. But how does it feel to be, to be free of doing that? Like, how many, how many days did you host, don't,

Stop blue me. How many times have you listened to this? 1,123. Oh, my God. How's your mental state? Three times each, so do the math. I'm good. I took two weeks off, Twitter, so I'm good now. I just came back today, trying to figure out what I missed.

Not nothing much, to be honest. Yep. You're right. Yeah. Yeah, the price is also the same. I don't know what's happening. You guys hit the post button or something? I don't know.

Well, I'm a dude. I'm glad that you're anything that you do online from now on is now consensual. Yeah. That's how it feels. Yeah. Yeah. Also, I don't know if you saw, but the other night, Elf on the shelf visited our house. I tagged you, but Elf on the shelf, he didn't really understand Bitcoin, but you were here. And you taught him how to use Bitcoin.

And then he created an LN URL voucher from my daughter, who's seven, who then was able to scan it with her lightning wallet and redeem 5,000 stats. So thanks for the education. Elf appreciates it. I do what I can, you know. I'm a giving puppet. That's true. That is true. That's true.

I think if you're good with it, I think we should welcome in the rest of our guests for this afternoon. No, leave them back then. We don't need them. Got me. That's fair. That's fair. I'm a polite Canadian.

I feel bad. So I'm going to. Okay, bring them on. Okay, I guess, I guess. So I'm going to first welcome up. He's been backstage. God bless him has been backstage the whole time. Tatum, I surprised you earlier by bringing you on stage just to, I think by, I'm pretty sure it was me, but it might have been you.

If it was you, then you deserve it. But welcome. How are you doing, man? So I haven't actually had any mod privileges at all. That was 100% you. I've just been, shut up yellow. Are you selling Bibles now? No.

No, not. I'm not doing the Mormons or something. Always a pleasure to be here. I love it. I love it. Tatum, that's exciting. So season two coming? Yes, season two is going to be coming.

I gave myself a pretty big window with just announcing it as 2025. So I have 365 days to fulfill that. a commitment but hopefully it'll be i think i think it's going to be closer to q2 uh but yeah it's it's going to it's going to be a little different it's going to be a little eric andre as you can tell by the announcement and it's going to be a lot more expensive too so if anyone wants to donate some sad to the sets that will be uh continually destroying hit me up i'm really i'm really excited for your first episode where you save your mustache uh it's not Nope, that's not what I heard in the first episode you're saving your muscle.

You heard it wrong. That's not actually. That's what I heard. Somebody told me. Well, you heard that was wrong. No, that's not. Anyway, that's what I heard. Anyway, I think you're right, yellow.

Ben, stop. Let's get everybody else in here. I want to welcome to the stage a number of people all at once, and then I'll go through who the hell they are. There's so many people. but I want to welcome up. Nathan and Gary and Rusty, who's just a

black square, he cares very much about BLM and Selly and Greg who loves potatoes. Welcome to the stage, everybody. I want to go through a couple things here. Gary and Nathan, I'm going to bring you in

and introduce you momentarily because I want to give a good intro to you guys but first I want to say a hello to Selly. He's my man behind everything who's helping with all kinds of stuff. He's been a godsend this year and has been doing a ton of stuff for me and has also, of course, been on the show. Selly, how you doing, buddy?

Good, man. How you doing? Can you guys hear me good? Yeah, we got you loud. Yeah, I went all the way to the Starbucks only to use my cell phone service. So at least I got the ambiance. If you guys can hear the mixers, I don't know, but I got coffee. I'm going to get upset if you send me an invoice for your data plan. That's not kosher.

I haven't yet. It's, I guess I shouldn't tell you what my plan is yet, huh? All right. We haven't talked about 2025, but that's another conversation. You've been on there, you've been on here all day. You know I can tie you up for two hours or so. Yeah, yeah. I get it.

I also want to welcome a world of Rusty. Rusty, I'm opening your incredible artwork right now, so give me just a moment. I've got it here. I'm going to open the animated version because it's just so beautiful. So here is, Rusty's the man behind this incredible piece of art and literally every actually beautiful thumbnail that I've had for these Christmas shows. There's one that I couldn't, like, just the timing didn't line up where he couldn't do it. And that thumbnail looked like ass. And but the rest of them, he's done every thumbnail.

and it's just an absolute exquisite piece of art. And this year was no exception. Rusty, welcome. How are you doing that? I am great. Thank you for that introduction. It was lining up to be a really appropriate thumbnail called the Bull Run. And then we had like this dump to 92K.

So we're like a little bit, a little bit behind now. I'd fully fault you for that. Like that's entirely your fault and actually you're fired and I'll never get you to do it again. All right. Cool. anyone else need a thumbnail for their Christmas show? Just send you now. I've got a spot that opened up.

Don't feel bad. He's told me I'm fired like six times this year. That's true. That's true. I'm very bad. I don't know why anyone who wants to fire Selly. I don't know. I don't know.

It's, it's, yeah. Greg, Greg, Greg, my name. Greg. Greg. Greg. Are you there? Oh, come on, Greg. Greg is just the worst, isn't he?

Can we all agree with Greg for? He's a professional. Come on now, Greg. He's the ringleader of the test stream, of the main factory test stream. He should know this stuff, you know? He just got the new call of duty. We ain't going to see him. That's, I mean, Greg.

Can I butt in here real quick while we're talking about Greg and the world of Rusty? I just want to say that they're two of the worst people I've ever met mine. entire life. I've been on Meep Factory twice and the first the first one thumbnail was great. It was me and my bulletproof vest like slinging A6. And the next one I had gained like 500 pounds. And I think yellow was attacking me or something. Yeah. And they just made fun of me the whole entire time. So just want to throw that out there and be sure you know who you're actually talking to guys just just just be real yeah they did the internet's full of creeps right yeah i if i can i'd like to um tatam you did finally make the poster this year i'm covering it up right there i just i just

wanted to hone in on how you were featured on the on the poster um what do you how do you feel about this It's a stark difference from the last... That's Adam? Shut up! Yellow, shut up. I thought that was big state. Oh, my God.

It's a stark difference in the size from the last thumbnail at rest season. But as long as they included mustache, all good. Fair enough. Well, I'm glad that your feelings weren't hurt too much. I think it intended to hurt your feelings, but... Oh, it was an appropriate character. He's like in the background. He's like an elf.

He's like doing the, you know, making all the toys for all the kids. He's just so helpful. Yeah. It's true. It's true. Yeah. Yeah. I'm the actual one on the background.

I guess that must be on the back of the poster. Yeah. Yeah. I have this thing where I put my favorite bitcoins in the thumbnail first. And then I slowly work my way down to the least favorite bitcoins on the list. And then, uh, and then, If I run at a time, unfortunately, you get kind of, you get fun. I hate to tell you this, but there are people that were not in the show that are on the poster.

Oh, I know. Oh, yeah. No, yeah, yeah. It was, it's fine. Wait, wait, well, well, well, well, well, well, Greg is on there twice. So, if he's not, I need, well, my eyes, maybe. Greg is not on there twice. Yeah, maybe continue drinking.

coffee you might be idiot I don't know sorry I think I included any Ben Ben changed sorry in my back you back yeah I don't think the fix you did for my router is working yellow well I tried did you close it and open up again I keep closing it and opening it up again why does Tatum look like he's selling Bible that's what I say that's what I said holy hell right selling bibles in the side for to stack sand or something I don't know I don't know how it's possible, but you sound like a potato right now. That's why we called him Sputney.

Oh, there's that laugh and then we lost him. Sorry, you guys lost me for a second because Ben changed his number to mine. And every time a phone calls in, it's going to kick me off. Good luck with that. Also, Sally, I'm going to, I got a call the other day. This is kind of half real, so like maybe a little bit too real for this. But I got to call the other day. Yeah.

I got a scam call the other day. I'm just going to redirect these to you from now on, but some dude called me trying to scam me. And then when I didn't fall for it, he told me he was going to send people to my house to kill me. So, so like, I just send all those to Greg's, Greg's house. Like every Friday night. That's true. Yeah, nobody messes with people in Florida. I just direct him to Greg, potato, potato.

I need to do one more intro here of two gentlemen that are on the screen. They've both been on the show before, but I want to give a very special intro to them because they're not just guests here, but both of them in varying capacities are going to become regular faces. on the channel. For the first time, I'm going to have a couple of people that are creating their own content specifically on the channel. So I want to welcome, of course, Nathan from Bitcoin Mentor and a good friend locally here in Calgary. And I want to welcome Gary, who is going to be

doing a show with Nathan on the show as well. And gentlemen, welcome. Welcome. to Thunderdome. Sweet. Real. Awesome. Ready to go. Appreciate the very kind intro there. I don't necessarily appreciate having to follow like American Hoddle and Harry Suddick and Mr.

Harry Balls on the mountain there. Like that's a tough act to come in afterwards. I honestly. Yeah. It's, uh, they, they, they pack a punch. That's for sure.

There's a reason. That panel. Do you have that same panel last year? Yeah. Yeah. Dude, that, you don't really should do a podcast. like that that panel's great it's it's it's like this magic concoction of like just enough like

intelligent conversation and absolute degenerate like expletives laced throughout the episode that it's like it's charming and then just like a double dose of testosterone it's just like awesome there's four of them is that only half the has the regular amount yeah we we just have to ask we just have to add deeter for next year to add a little spice This is beautiful bar room philosophy. I absolutely love it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I'll let, again, Nathan and Gary,

I'm going to let you guys kind of give yourself a little intro, and maybe Nathan, give yourself an intro and kind of what you're heading up in the realm of Bitcoin Mentor, and then Gary, I'll toss it to you, and you can head up maybe like the concept about what you guys are, what show you guys are going to be working on in the New Year. So, Nathan, I'll talk to you first. You don't want to have each of us give the other the intro, Yeah, there we go.

The dating game kind of aspect going on here? Yeah. Yeah. No, no. So I've been working with Bitcoin mentor since launching at the having there. And I've been helping out in the backgrounds and on the sidelines as much as I can. And then starting in the new year here, I'm going to very, very thankfully be exiting the Fiat mines in doing this full time. I will be done. I will be out. I will be free.

I will be in Bitcoin every single day. And I am absolutely looking forward to it. With that, I will also apparently be Gary's editor. I think that's my main role. Gary, why don't you take it from there? Yeah, it's great. No actual work. I appreciate that. Thank you, Nathan. You just get the show up and record. Yeah, yeah. Welcome to my life. I spent four years getting a liberal arts education, six years working in Congress and 13 years as an actor. I've managed to any action. I don't know. I mentioned any actual work. You did something wrong along the way. I don't know. Yeah, we're going to do the show. Nathan's going to be the smart one. I guess I'm going to be kind of the every man who's going to just look to Nathan for answers. works for me because that's about where I am.

I'm surprised at your only child. Mine wouldn't let you say the pretty one. I've learned. Now that I have kids, I have begun to realize I'm not the center of the universe, so I'm trying. Or at least I'm acting to put on a humble face. Pretty good, huh? Very good actor.

So humble of you. How are you both so humble and brave? Oh, you know, I'm just so inspired by Yellow and everything that he accomplished over the last three years. How could I not take it on? I think so. Yeah. It sounds like you guys are from like class of 2021 where you've like I say that you're finally giving up your feet careers to go full-time Bitcoin. Like I haven't been through a bare market yet. We have to put the hat back on. Everybody here has done that once.

And then been incredibly poor and had to like give hand jobs on the side of the highway. Hey. Yeah. I had to. I mean, I just been you man. I don't know. I think they're on the edge. We're trying to get them to the other side. I'm a little more green and starryard than Gary. Gary's been here for a long line time. He just made a bunch of terrible decisions along the way.

So we're basically in the same spot. We're basically the same now. Yeah. Gary, you've clearly endured Mount Gox, Quadriga CX in Canada, FTX, Celsius, BlockFi, all you just a series of horrible horrible decisions uh which uniquely positions him to be a bitcoin mentor yeah i've been hanging around long enough i've seen a lot thankfully i didn't have to endure much because it didn't buy a whole lot at the beginning when i did so it's all right we're good

yeah gary did not get milked by all of those all of those things i was about to say was he involved at every single one of them no he very well put it been and now it was bitcoin mentor so enjoy the He's just our barometer for shit not to do. Can this be the last time we put that spin on it? We got to sell this in 2025. Come on, guys. Thank you. Yeah, Gary is a wonderful, wonderful anti-signal.

If he's sitting there being like, guys, I think we can time the bottom. It's no, no, no, no, no, no. By now. We're done. Come to Bitcoin Mentor. We have an internal Jim Kramer for your... I was just about to say that. I was just like, I'm going to sell him as a Kramer of the Bitcoiners.

You know, Dave Bradley of Bitcoin Brains on Twitter, he has a very good take. And he says, you know, somebody who's wrong 100% of the time is equally as useful as somebody who's right 100% of the time. So, you know, like, Gary gives a lot of value. Just thinking like if fucking up with all these shitcoin scams is like, yeah, good resume for a job. and like pump would be well we're going to do that interview i guess have you learned your lessons that's all we really need to know we're we're giving gary's um no christmas bonus as a multi-sig so that he can't get rid of it rossi you do know the camera is uh is on right suggest that is there something wrong with my face?

No, what I'm saying is that we do know that we can see you, right? Yeah, yeah. Why does it, why does it look like he's in a jail cell? Like he's wearing a, he's wearing a jail, you know, like, I'm saying, good. Did they paint? Did they? I'm not saying anything. You're looking good.

I'm not saying is like you can see you. That's fine. I just, I just don't docks myself on our test stream because we have like way more viewers. Ah. That makes sense now. No one's going to see this, right? Yeah, that's what I thought when I got dogs to me in factory. So I just kind of want to throw out there,

and I'm going to throw it to yellow first. Why throw it out there? Why don't just like bring it in? I can bring it in, I can throw it out, I can swish it around, I can do whatever the fuck you want. Yellow, let them finish. Yeah. Okay, my bad.

Yeah. So I just want, what are you guys into? Thank you for that question. First of all, I want to thank everybody that really supports me. And no, go ahead. I'm curious where you guys see, what is happening next year? Like what kind of, what kind of positives, negatives, like, bullshit are we gonna like what what's the next hawk tua and what's the next i don't know

trump announcing the bitcoin reserve which he didn't do but you know you get the point like what what what are we going to get on polar opposite end of the spectrum yellow i mean like what's actually yellow what's your next prophecy if you want to told that sentence to someone i don't know about I don't know about prophecy, but I can tell you what some of the bad things I see coming coming near the future are. Can tell you about that. What are you saying you speak of? Yeah.

Okay. Are you ready? Are you ready for this? I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you. And I'll take everything from you. That's enough of you, Ben. Somebody screenshot this, please.

Talking sitting behind my back. Huh? Talking to see behind my back about my team. I am everything. I am all. And I'm coming for you, okay? That's all you're going to hear from now on. I had enough.

This was live breaking. Breaking news. I'm going to break your back. Whoa I don't think that was in his memo It might as well as Mead

Before the record I tried getting him on When he was a little more emotional At you know Things have definitely changed In the past like 48 hours Yeah

Yeah Yeah It was like a week or two ago Right after I tried getting him on He He He Yeah

God knows what he was doing But Could you see you, buddy. So why was the question again? I don't think there is one anymore. I love you, buddy. I think we've all forgotten at this point.

What's the next down? If you or your friends need help, Tyle. Hawk Trump? 2-1-1. Tytum wants to know the next coin. Guys, stop giving Gary's suggestions. Do you name what he thinks is going to be the next shit coin? He's going to try and make up for all the losses over the years.

Look at him right now. Look at him right now. You're trading right now. Put it down. You're trading. Don't trade. Get off coin base, Gary. Jesus.

Hey, has there been a DSP coin yet? Because if not, can we get that out of our way now in the chat? No. Someone made a room based on my Mighty Beans video. I don't even know what that means or what I, like, there was just ruins of me. I don't know what. I also don't know what ruins. are they don't exist well yeah that's true don't worry about it that's true tell

that to the Vikings sorry rusty so literal so literally as someone that works in the background I have no idea what ruins are and they haven't affected me at all yeah yeah hey hey hey hey dude Jenny hey look at you here hey hey hey hey fuck us we're in life fuck us What do you want? Okay. Stay still. Well, I mean, sometimes.

Okay. Okay. Solly, did you bring enough for the class? What are you eating? It looks like he's eating Chinese in a Starbucks in a Santa Cesar. That is ramen. This is a trade record. It's steak with onions.

Oh, my God. With onions. Horrible. But anyway, back to the Bitcoin stuff. I feel like next year, we're going to see the, the implosion of micro strategy and uh yeah and uh also then they're gonna keep on buy bryco i guess so they're gonna come back up again so nothing will happen so you know so basically the same stuff will explode and explode uh but different so basically same but different yeah yeah and

instead of paying 16-k. It's my time. Hey, it's my segment. Sit. Sit. Stay still. God damn. Whoa. Now we've got, so it's turned to adult content,

and we have the crotch shot here from Holampton. What the fuck you want, huh? What the fucking want? Hey, hey, what you want something? Enough of that, you do. Yellowhead. Family-friendly programming. You should see what we get in,

in our uh our dms now i'll show you some really cool stuff i don't need to see those pictures i'm glad i don't those anymore sorry yellow wouldn't send me a dm that was literally just a voice message of a razor or clippers and i was a threatening thing i've ever received that's a lie that's a lie no it's not i can i'll pull it up Greg Greg was pushed me a lot after my my surgery and i told him if he if he said another thing i'd send him pictures of my surgery of my butt and he and he said he said something else so oh i bet ben i think your your purview to that too my wife's a nurse and she was curious how is that why i read everything i would like as just greg and that's why he's not even here. The best part about this is I was like, are you okay? And you said that you had surgery.

And then it was like kind of rough. And I was like, oh, no. And then and then like I didn't know what the surgery was. And then and then Lisa was like, tell him this on a picture of like the surgery. And then I got the picture. I was like, no. Look at that. I said, I said, are you sure? And you're like, yes and I was like now I'm starting to think that maybe Lisa had the trigger figure on I what was happening was I thought you said are you sure because it was like the wound was like gross or something or whatever like I mean it was it was gross don't deny me that it was it was but I didn't know the important piece of the puzzle would have been to inform me where the surgery took place okay let me look at it no no because well

I feel like that image was illegal. I know you're a confusing adult, but it felt illegal. Didn't I tell you where... Like, why did you not clarify before and like, hey, you know this? Sir, right after this conversation, I'm going to look at these text messages. Ben only reads half the shit that I answer. And he only answers two people, me and Lisa. And so, like, it would have been me who combed through.

Why am I getting balloons? What the fuck is happening? Wait, wait, wait. Did I say something? Did I say something? What was that tape? Who's thumbs up? Do thumbs up.

Thumbs up. Hey. What the fuck is happening? Wait. It's an apple thing. Wait, wait. What did I do to get balloons? Hold on.

Sadly, I got a mustache. Your NSA agent was excited about your taint pick that I got I was oh I think I was making like like the Gucci and then it was like balloon oh my god hey I feel bad for whoever it's getting the bullish bits next week because God this is none of this will see air ever again good cold good call solid call solid That was all over the place, that one, silly. That was all over the place.

This is why I'm not on the regular show ever. I mean, a background. Yeah, that's true. Oh, hey, Ben, by the way, I wanted to bring up, I wanted to apologize for not having the ASIC life hacks this. Nobody except for the apology. No, not one person. Well, listen.

I'll accept it. Thank you. Thank you. I'll second, Rusty. There's second chances here. I had it all filmed. I literally taped and zip tied my V9 to a pole and went outside. Where is this going, Dayton?

I was weed eating with an ant miner on the end of my pole, and the files just kept corrupting for some reason when I was trying to export them. So I wanted to apologize for that, and hopefully those might see the light of day. have a question for you Tatar. I saw the trailer for the new season. Congratulations, by the way, coming soon, right? Why did you job on the table? I didn't understand that. It's just the box thing. I asked myself the same thing as I was doing it. I actually had to cut that video down a lot because once I got up on the steps out of frame, I was looking down like,

what the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this? And that, I just ended up jumping. So. Did you just farted? No. You just farted, didn't you? No, did something sound like it? Yeah, you just found it, dude.

We're talking to you just fired it? God damn it. I didn't. I would own up to it if I did. This is an education. Here's where you can get all of your top-notch Bitcoin education all the time. So make sure you come back from.

more quality Bitcoin education here at BTC Sessions featuring Tatum and Yellow arguing over farts. I really want to do a tutorial video with yellow. That would be so funny. Oh, yeah, yeah. Great. Yeah. We should set a date and then bump me for fucking Jack.

I feel like that happened. Why you said that made it sound like that happened. That's not. Very specific. Is there something in a specific example? Oh, he happens to drink water now. Hey, I got a question, Ben. Yeah.

Earlier, I think it was, please give me a question. Yeah, yeah, Harry Suttick. Let's get this on track. Harry Suttick said that portals only go one way. I know I brought it up in the show in the chat. I just wanted to get your response in it, if any. anyone else wants to maybe put in their two stats about if portals can only go one way. Well, uh, I think it really depends on the universe that we're living in, but you know, I don't know.

Ben. Thanks. There's, yeah, there we go. I mean, I feel like we need to dive into, you know, where, where are we getting our information from? Is it from, is it from something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe? is it? Well, Ben, I just want to quickly interrupt, too. Selly had his hand up, and it seems like he has a lot of a recent experience with holes and travel.

So maybe Selle, you want to touch on this a bit. Holy shit. Let's do it. Physics. So physically, you can, you know, travel to another universe. You can get to the androgynous and everything. No, no, no, I don't want to do this. So physically, physically you can do it.

But what happens is you would be traveling. like right along the same speed of light and whatever you're traveling in. Am I like to yield my time. Real quick, real quick, real quick, real quick, real quick. The thing is is you can go, you can go out there, but you can't come back. Because if you were to travel back, you'd be like 45 million years in the future. So when you leave, you can't come back. At the speed of light, distances shrink. What the fuck is that dangerousness?

I don't know that it's it's another it's another it's the new it's to get out of our universe the it's it's it's basically like

the multi like to get out of our universe before you finish Ellie can I get like the audience camera to see what everybody at Starbucks is observing right now yeah

yeah now now because Because the last time I did this was on meme stream or the one that doesn't exist or something. Is there just like a bunch of four-wide people? No, no, no, it's dead. I'm in the middle of nowhere. How do I switch? Hold on. I got to.

Can I, okay, I guess I just going to spin. Oh, thank God. Is that even? Are you allowed to be there? Yes. now for now last time so last time

last time I was on meme stream and it went over and like I really had to pee and Marcus I was like I gotta pee guys and Marcus was like just go and I was like okay

I had the first stream on the live stream I see what you did there I got it yeah no I literally did it though I don't know if they probably deleted it it Matt Big Big

Sean was really pissed about it because he brought it up on every other episode I've ever been on over there. He was pissed. It's just important to be memorable. You were asking earlier about why Tatum jumped on the tables. It's an attention economy, guys. You've got to do crazy stuff.

Yeah. I'm jumping back, because I think Rusty brought up a really interesting point. And I really want to get Gary's. I mean, Gary, working in political office and being an actor, you must be well-versed on the physics. And what happens as you approach the speed of light. And so if you please give me a breakdown on that and also your thoughts on quantum mechanics,

I think it would be great for us and the audience. As my understanding, as you approach the speed of light, you increase mass towards infinity, which makes it near impossible to actually pass the speed of light. As far as quantum mechanics, you're dealing with four major forces, weak nuclear, strong nuclear, electromagnetic and gravity. And the problem is melding them all into one grand unified theory. You know, you can get the electromagnetic weak nuclear and strong nuclear into one at dense enough and hot enough temperatures. But, you know, gravity, that's the whole big thing.

At what point do quarks and other subatomic particles act like large, pieces of matter in kind of a gravitational space and it's a little bit beyond my pay grade but did I sound like what I knew I was talking about there because I was to say I've been bested to some degree so we have so we have the ability to do it on on the ground which is CERN right so CERN is 99.99% the speed of light which basically all the mileage I think it's like 28 kilometers is basically when it's on it's like four yards four meters yeah and so We have that. It would be the magnetic part.

But we're... You know, watch the same thing. Are we like a mute? You have like a mute button, be? I do. I'll mute. I'll mute. Yeah, I think that's my job.

I was kind of just for a yes or not. He was what he was talking about. I was kind of just wanted a yes or no answer with the whole like portals one way. If you played portal two, you know, it goes in. No question. I love that. Yeah, yeah. I, great game, by the way.

Oh, okay, so Rick and Morty Portals, Rick and Morty Portals, two-way. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, he-man portals are two-way as well. Well, here we go. Like, Stargate. Does the Stargate portal go two ways or one way? No, long as it's left open, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no.

It's one way, but then you've got to redial back the other way to go back again. So you can't go back and forthwall. I've seen some stuff where people get kicked into the Stargate and they go back and, like, I don't know. It gets sketchy with the scar at star 8. When did you all get girlfriends, by the way? No. Not after this. So for any of us that don't have one.

I just, I feel like after this stream hits, is like now that this is on the air, marriage may not happen. We just have to wait another cycle. Yeah, we've all been a big one more cycle. I've waited so many cycles.

Actually, that brings a good point. If there's anybody in the chat that would like maybe take Tatum out on a date that would be much appreciated for all of us yes this is uh that's not yellow by the way sorry oh okay that's that obvi trouble what's up i was ready to buy i okay that that that video you shared she she's like i i i love tatum i haven't met Tatum but i love tatum she was all over that shit i side note everybody here. Talk to Don, but

Sally is in charge of my birthday party. I don't like that at all. Wait, what do you have plan, dude? Sally, can you maybe drop a few crumbs for people that are curious about the festivities that are happening next year? Yes. Well, it's

I already kind of spoiled it to you. So I guess I'll. So we're throwing it at Pubkey at the end of March to celebrate the big 4-0 for our old podcaster here now. He's been in the space for, yeah. Graithfully, Silver Fox podcast. Thank you very much. Silver Fox podcast.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as far as as far as also, you know, the amount of cycles you're in it, it's an age as you too. Yeah. No, so we're throwing a big party for Ben here for his 40th at Pubkey. On March 29th, it is going to be a 90s Bitcoin theme.

So now that's what I call money. So that's all the sprinkling I got. I'm going to have the invites are going out. And then we're going to have also open invites for after party and stuff like that. So all stuff I'm going to get out as soon as we get done this show that we've been working on forever. Yeah. First of all, I'm going to extend a thank you for working on this. I just 40 seems like a, I'm, I don't know, it's one of those, I guess, some sort of a transition into the next leg of my life.

I suppose, but yeah. Just in Fiat years. Yeah, Fiat years, absolutely. You know what, Gary? Actually, I've started measuring life accomplishments in Bitcoin epochs. Have you really? Yeah, I have actually. I think that's an effective way.

Like in a single year, like it's shit can go up and down, but like over a four year time horizon, shit can change quite a bit. Like, I mean, okay. Yellow, you started doing... I'm not believing in the Bull Run 2021. And here we are. He's not a full cycle, huh? Yeah, basically.

And earlier this year, so three years post the start of DSB, I'm watching you stand on stage to a bunch of psychopaths doing the fist pump in El Salvador as you play Don't Stop Believing in front of a full crowd. So, like, could you have imagined that? when you started your first space and said, I'm going to do this hilarious idea? No. That's a discussion I have with my family here.

Like, they will ask me, okay, I would like, what did you do in Salvador? We went there and there and there. Then I went to up in the States, and you were up in the States? What were you doing in up in the States? Like, so basically I was playing like a song and I had the mic

and it's kind of difficult to explain what I was actually doing do your family actually at all understand the scale of what happened from that well I saw them like videos and stuff where we're like all dancing

and then I came down the stage and we're all dancing together and stuff like that so I was like they were like basically why I think the same thing even being a part of it

yeah so basically they were like I don't get it so I had a very hard time explaining why I was tearing up to my wife it's like you just it's the last time he's going to play this song

like I just I don't really know how to express but it's really tucking at the heartstrings At the last place, I got to admit, I teared up too. And looking back now after two weeks, I was like, why did I tear it? It's so stupid now. But at the moment, it was a bittersweet thing. It was for all of us.

I was tearing up, too, man. I remember anger because other Barry just couldn't find his way to the mic. So, I waited 1,124 days for that. So being the one that's in the background, right? I was all for the mic in El Salvador. Yellow gave it to me. And I was like, no, I'm saving it for Barry. And I gave it back.

And then they tried to give it to him. They tried to give it to them. And I had that, like, I was calling Barry. I'm the one that called Barry. I was like, get the mic. What are you doing? He goes, oh, I thought it was over. I'm like, are you, are you messing with me?

trolling me right? I was like, get it. I love that there's just like random people walking by this like asinine common petition in the back all these people like what the fuck's this guy talking about? One idiot. To be honest, it wasn't bad for

the space like glitz like crazy. 10 K people listen to that space. You think with how many pushups you'd be able to accept and press the button to accept the the mic on stage. Yeah,

it was glitch as fuck. I think Silly's getting away with this because he looks like a homeless Santa. Like, it's like hanging out, hanging out and chill. He really does. He just looks like a lunatic.

Like everyone's like, let them be, let them be. He's just talking about. It's like the prequel movie to Bud Santa. There's a reason why they keep me in the background, guys. They only let me out on holiday specials.

Billy Bob thought of when he was young. This is my holiday bonus, guys. Gary, is this how you pictured your, foray into the world of Bitcoin content creation. I love it. This is great. I needed to prepare nothing.

I needed to learn no lines. I can do this all day. This is man. Did no research. It's great. He became prepared as always. Yeah, exactly. Gary reminds me a little bit of like Taika Waititi.

Yeah. He's a huge compliment. I like that. I thought he had the Mike Roe voice. I like that aspect. I mean, put your hands. together. It's like the humor of Tyca and like the

voice of Mike Roe. I think. I know what I'm going to be thinking about in the shower later. This is great. Damn it, dude. Another one I got to edit out. We just recorded and I got to go through and cut out when Gary's going through his adult film preferences.

By the way, I would love it if a random person walks by in the bracket. If you could just like pull them over and have them join us, just having no what's going on. Uh, okay. The barista, offer her sets. And then you guys, you guys got to tell me when they're coming because I don't

really realize it until they're like, meow. Yeah, just, it just, it, it, it's all the man and be like, excuse me, would you like to join a stream that has thousands of people watching for some reason? I'll buy, I'll buy you a latte. Come say hi to the internet. There's people still watching this, which is curious to me. I just back-checked you on that one. It says 168 people watching the thousands.

That is specifically YouTube, but Twitter is 12K. I'll see how you turn that around on me. Yeah. What we do is we take the average of the last three years, unless it's larger. And counting in those I'll be watching in the future. This is like a debt-based viewership count. Yes. Infinite.

Exactly. It's forever. There's a limited amount of streams and a maximum amount of viewership. It says scarce as stats. Yeah, this is... You know how math works? This is just reassurance that I will forever be on the other side of the show. Thanks for having me.

It's the same thing micros target does, right? Is it? Is it? I don't know. I got another question for you, Ben. Do you? I got, this is a serious one, though. Such enthusiasm.

Yeah, yeah. So James Lavish was on our show once, and I asked him, like, is it better that I'm in Australia and my dollar is more shit than the US dollar? Is that going to help me on a Bitcoin standard more than like an American? So you as a Canadian who was even worse than the Australian dollar, Is this, thank you. What has, has this made you on a Bitcoin standard? Like, have you noticed any change?

Is it, like, bad that the Canadian dollar is crushing? Or are you just like, you just like thumbs up? So here's the unique thing. When. Yeah. I mean, the Canadian, the Canadian moose shekel is, is doomed to an everlasting downward trend against everything. Except for maybe like the Venezuelan Boulevard and whatever other. garbage. But when you enter the Bitcoin realm and if you're relatively mobile and you can and you have

like people that you're dealing with outside of your local jurisdiction, what makes a lot of sense is billing in US dollars, but billing as a unit of account in US dollars and then receiving it in Bitcoin. So you have like a set dollar amount and then you receive it Bitcoin and you can obviously adjust that based on, you know, demand and inflation and all that stuff. But I've been like basically my invoices go out in USD and I receive Bitcoin. And so that has been insane. Like the insulation that I've afforded through doing that has been ridiculous. Like I look at, I mean, not to mention that inflation in Canada has been so much worse. And like the crazy thing, too, is that when you look at the inflation numbers in the U.S., I feel like they're less cooked as much.

They're still cooked. Like, those numbers are bullshit. But comparatively to how badly cooked they are in Canada, it's ridiculous. Like we're, they're being like, wow, inflation is back down below. the projected 2% are like pretty close, like in and around there. We're doing great and they're bragging about, even though like when you say like inflation is falling, you're saying that things are still getting expensive and they're not getting cheaper.

They're going to stay at the same price and they're just going to get more expensive but less fast. Besides that, they're bragging about the fact that we're at whatever percent inflation and it's low. And like throughout this whole thing, they've stated that inflation was like, I don't think I saw a lot of instances where inflation was statedly higher than the U.S.

And I'm looking at grocery prices here. And they're way worse. Like day to day like going and just sending your family, it's way, way, way, way, way worse. And so like in terms of standard of living, just billing in U.S.D., again, spending less than you earn and saving in money that people can't print. It's just like, okay, like it gives you that breathing room.

There was a presentation that Michael Saylor did in Prague. And I think it was two years ago. But he showed like obviously he showed like Bitcoin versus the US dollar, US dollar versus all those different things like metrics and USD. But then he's like, if the U.S. dollar has shit the bet, he didn't say this, he's for Payton, but basically he's saying if the U.S. dollar shit the bed this bad against sound money like gold and then also against Bitcoin, now consider this. And he shows the devaluation of other currencies versus the U.S. dollar over time. And it was horrendous. Like, number one, U.S. dollar versus Bitcoin is just like, obviously like garbage. U.S. dollar versus gold over the past few decades,

obviously still garbage because they just print. But then you look at other currencies versus U.S. dollars, which have already been devalued so much. And it's at the same rate. It's like some of the most generous ones were like 70%, and then others were like 90 plus percent. And so like your comment, compounding the U.S. dollar shitting the bed 90 something percent versus gold over however long and like 99.9% against Bitcoin.

And then you're compounding that with your own garbage external currency that has also shit the bed versus U.S. dollar. And it's just like how, if somebody tries to just be good at something and save, you're, there's, it's, it's impossible. There's no chance. zero chance that you can get by. And so, like, yeah, U.S. dollars, you're maybe a little better off. Like, you can weather it a little bit longer, but you're still just constantly being whittled away. And outside the U.S., depending on where you are, is just a degree of how much more screwed you are versus American citizens.

So the short and very long answer of that is, again, like, yeah. Yeah, charging U.S. dollars saving Bitcoin and then eventually the U.S. dollar will also be a useless measure of account, I think. It sounds like you're very passionate about this. You should have a show or something. I should. I should start a YouTube channel and educate people how to no longer use dollars, I think. That's not going to catch them. There's no way.

Rossi, how bad is it in Australia right now? I was looking at your currency just the other day and man, it seems like you guys are taking a wallping as well. Yeah, so I've been because I've been looking, people were posting like Brazil currency is going down and I posted this graph and it's like a big spike and it's just slowly down, down, down, down to like

all-time lows. And so I like switch to the AUD currency and it's like exactly the same. Barring. And thanks, yellow. Barring. So yeah, it's short answer. Yeah, it's pretty fucked.

I don't really notice it. either, but uh, yeah. I don't know which Selly is real Selly. There's two Sellies. We have all the Sells. One's moving. One's moving. He's got an excuse for this probably. I see it. I see it.

It is. Did this work? Yep. It's working great. And we love you and you're beautiful. Thank you, sir. I think so. I think so. You know, is the first time I ever saw Selly, like, after like his face, I was pretty disappointed, honestly.

I'm going to stop this by going back. Wait, Datum, did you say the person I ever saw Sally's face? I was pretty disappointing. Yes. Yes, that is verbatim what he said. Okay. Okay, I want to bring in. I'm lagging on my side.

I don't know. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Bring him in. Who do we got? Okay. I want to bring in, dude, awesome, awesome guy. and and he's been, I saw him pinging me to be part of the Christmas show.

This is a pastor in Canada who is a bitcoiner that has been preaching Bitcoin when, when amongst, we'll say amongst his flock. I don't know the vernacular. Amongst his flock, I will say. But he's preaching the good word of Bitcoin to people. But obviously like Christmas is an important time. time of year for him. So I just wanted to have him in for a few minutes here to kind of, I guess, reflect on Bitcoin and kind of what he's doing. So I want to welcome to the stage. Everybody give a warm welcome to Pastor Coin. Oh, good-day.

Yo, buddy. How's it going, man? Good to see you. Hey, thanks for having me. I know it's last minute. I would have wore my Bitcoin sweater, but sorry, I'm wearing my Canadian sweater. that might trigger some of the it makes sense that you at being a good canadian you apologized for that so thank you well i do have this in the back too i got my uh hoddlers official you know bitcoin canada jersey there you go man there you go well thanks for being here and uh and a very merry christmas to you how are you hey we're good uh just some exciting stuff in the works another book i think i'm gonna write about Bitcoin. How many more do we need? But I think this one's unique. This is one that I don't think has been done. We're going to talk about the historical connection between Christian theology,

economics, Austrian economics, and how Bitcoin encodes all of that history into one perfect, beautiful monetary network. It's going to blow people's minds. I just got to point out quick, but I'm going to interrupt you because it's going to be such a dick. it's right over here. I've actually got Bitcoin, sorry, the Bible and Bitcoin took right there on the shelf in the background.

Wonderful gift from a good friend of mine. Awesome. There you go. Thank you so much. This is one of my favorite things how people from all these different walks of life can hone in on Bitcoin

for like the good that it provides. And I think that, you know, through everybody's life experiences, you know, you kind of hone in on certain, I guess, certain ways of life, certain mannerism, certain lessons that are learned over time that can help you improve your own life. And I think that Bitcoin, it helps kind of distill the truth in a number of those things. And like, hey, like, what are actions we can take that are mutually beneficial to all? and that kind of lift us up.

And so, like, I see people from various walks of life, including, again, like, being religious and in and around the holidays. And I've been, I went to thank God for Bitcoin. And, again, like, super kind people, awesome people that welcome to be in there. And they've pulled, hey, like, this Bitcoin aligns. with our beliefs because of the following things. And so, Alvin, I was wondering if maybe you could kind of outline, like, why does Bitcoin align with your beliefs?

Oh, my gosh. Well, that's a loaded question, but mainly because of, I think, the main issue, can you guys hear me good? I'm on my phone. Yeah, perfect. Okay, mainly, the main thing was for me, when I started researching Bitcoin, I wanted a technical answer,

but I didn't need it. a technical answer. I need, excuse me, I needed a historical and theological answer as to why Bitcoin. I didn't need to know what is Bitcoin. I needed to know why Bitcoin. And the reason for Bitcoin is, as many of us know, because the current monetary system is so broken and so immoral. As soon as I got that, the rest was very easy to fit in with the rest of my worldview, because Bitcoin at that point became a moral necessity. It went from maybe I can make some money if I trade this thing. And it shifted to, oh my goodness, this is like a moral imperative.

I must be a bit coiner because I'm a Christian, right? I have to now. There's no way around it for me anymore. I must be a bit corner if I'm going to call myself a Christian, right? Jesus, he turned the money table, the money changers tables over, he stood against the crooked and corrupt Sanhedron that was, you know, doing a lot of shifty stuff with the Romans and with money and theft and all that kind of stuff. So once I made that connection, it's like, well, I have to now. It's a moral imperative.

If I'm not going to be a bit coiner for me, I'm not speaking for every Christian, but from my level of understanding, it would be a sin for me not to be, because of how wicked and evil the fiat system is. Again, like this moral fabric through how to live your life. I often find I've got some, so I've got some neighbors that are just like a block over and they saw on my shelf your book. And they are also Christians.

And they were like, what? What is that about? And I was like, well, here you go. And so I'm the guy has not yet bit, but he's always, he's constantly curious. And every time I see him, he's like, what's going on? And like, he's always, he's always wondering. And so like, I feel like for him that this is going to be his pathway. This is going to be his like, oh, this, oh, it's, it's moral.

It's like, I'm not exploiting other people. by using this system. And I think it's and again like a lot of people even just from a strictly moral standpoint, it's a system where it's like oh like I can

thrive and provide value and help my community and not in the process screw over somebody else. Yeah.

And that's kind of the crux of it. Like, that's the most moral system that we've ever had, I think. I don't know. Like, Alvin, would you echo that? If they're, like, I think what the modern Western church, I can't speak for the Eastern Church, I don't really know what's going on there. But I know in the West, where we are, we've lost a lot of history. If you go back into the, even the early Church Father's writings, they talk about economics.

They talk about these things. And I recently did a post on Twitter where I harrow. allow church fathers and Austrian like Mises and stuff. And what they were saying, and it's remarkable to see that in the first, second, third, fourth centuries, we had guys like Augustine and, you know, the other church fathers were saying exactly what Mises and Hayek are saying. It's like this is ancient economic wisdom that, you know, is founded in the

scripture. And we've lost a lot of that because I think Fiat money has also degraded the understanding of money even in the church and among among religious folks. So what I'm trying to do really is resurrect, no pun intended, resurrect the ancient way of that. Sorry, I saw. Payton's face was like blown away for a second.

I'm trying to resurrect the ancient way that is. part of the Christian heritage and tradition like Christian people are a sound money people we have historically been the sound money fair economics just economics people but you know Fiat money unfortunately has even eroded those and we've buried figuratively speaking buried those ancient ways so I'm trying to resurrect the ancient way of economics and in a crazy way Bitcoin is bringing us back to the ancient way of how economics should be. be. And I think it's a beautiful thing. I love it. I'm curious if anybody else has a general thought on this. And then also, yellow is on top of his game when it comes to his background here.

I did you do nothing. Yeah. Yellow, your hair, your hair. Your hair looked good for a second there. Yeah, I didn't. I don't know what you're talking about. That's awesome. Again, MasterCoin, can you let people know what the name of your book, where to find it and everything? Because I think, again, even for people that are not Christian, I think it's a useful kind of mechanism to understand, like, how Bitcoin is like a moral tool to help improve our society.

Yes, of course. It's called The Bible and Bitcoin. You can find it on Amazon or you can go to my website. and get it there if you'd like to pay in Bitcoin, you could buy it with Bitcoin. So yeah, Amazon or my website, the Bible and Bitcoin.com, you can go grab that, grab a few copies. It's been really a blessing to my heart to be here to know that, you know, Ben, your neighbor saw my book and it caught his eye. I designed it to catch the Christian eye. It really is a blessing to know that it's working.

And that the book is in the background there. It's so cool to see. You see, I've never, like, succeeded in anything in life. So I wrote this book and it's like working and succeeding. So it's like wow, thank you God that it feels so good to finally do something that works. I got you right there beside mezes then you and then Bob Murphy. Unbelievable. See this is it I don't even want anything for Christmas.

This is enough gift for me and for Christmas And the brother beside me I can't I'm on a small screen. Are you the one that gave me the free t-shirt in Nashville? Bill? Yeah, he's talking to you, Sally. Probably, yeah. I work with Proof-Avink as well. Yeah, yeah, that was you. I wanted the Make Bitcoin Great Again's shirt, and I was like, I don't really have any money on me, and you're like, just take it. So that was sweet. Thank you. Yeah, man.

He stole his shirt. Hey, I'm actually sending your website. One of my fraternity brothers hit me up for the first time in, like, years a couple weeks ago. You weren't a frat. They let you in? He was listening to Theology in the Raw and Jordan Bush was on and talking about thank God for Bitcoin. He hit me up. He's like, hey, I know you're the Bitcoin guy. This put it into perspective for me.

I was like, oh, sweet, dude. So I'm going to suit that over to him. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Bobby, what are you doing in the dark? Bobby's here. Hey, Bobby, well, he's saving electricity. Yeah, I'm trying. Yeah, I'm in a part of the house is, yeah, we don't have a light.

here but how are you guys doing? You haven't fixed the closet. No lights and your broken-ass closet beside you. I'm not fixed in the closet until a million dollar Bitcoin, all right? Wow. I told you that from the beginning. That's dedication. Good to see you at Merry Christmas.

Oh, Merry Christmas. All you guys, man. Well, you know, what a run has been. And everyone, you know, they used to laugh. We used to laugh like when you have a, one day we're going to crash from 100,000 to 40,000 we're going to crash from 150 to 100

here we are man here we are this is what you're seeing playing out in real life which on that note if we touch 58k again does that mean DSB comes back no no look at

yellow's for his his pin tweet he makes that very clear and he's about to just say the same thing right now But I will say a 50% correction at 116K would land us about in a range where I'm hit on the podcast again. It's not happening. You're dead. This is not a recorded one.

It's not happening. Is the Bitcoin price directly correlated with Max Payne for yellow? Because it kind of feels like that over the past three years. It's not going to happen. Stop it, guys. we let him cross 100k this year so I mean that's a get from God but we're definitely going to hit

58k again at least twice in the next cycle twice it's the bottom you're killing me oh wait wait this is a Christmas special it's not why are we bullish still I don't know I don't know

I don't know I do have to give the space to everybody else Do you really think, you really think it's going to pull back to 58K? Yes. No. Nah. We're going to, we're going to have a side bit for like a million sats. You know what?

Nobody thought it was going to go back to 16K last year, but. Right. But we did that correction and we're going to do it again. Hey, Gary, how low did you think it was going to go? This time is different. Yeah, wait, what did Gary say? What did Gary say? I had a nice little chunk of change when it was at 16.

I'm like, I'm pretty sure. This is going at 13.5. I'm going to hold on. Because I'm a dumbass. All right, guys, we got our Kramer. We did the whole prophecy day, like in three days' prophecy day. Guys, I got to rock my phone's about to die. God bless, Merry Christmas. God bless, Merry Christmas. Thank you for joining us.

I really appreciate you. I wish I could stay longer, but my phone's dead. So, sorry. Check out the Bible and Bitcoin. Good read. God bless. Cheers. See you, dude.

I don't remember. After a halving like this, you know, a halving within seven months ago, let alone the prophecy from yellow. Dude, I am just bullish right now. So we can turn us into, why are you bullish? Look, man, if Bitcoin has withstood everything over the last four years, we're just coming out of the halving, we got this maniac called Michael Saylor that is buying up annual supplies just so you know that 3.125 Bitcoin reward. Guess what? That's 164,000 Bitcoin only released into the market. Okay, this is what digital scarcity is all about. I'm not saying this is the escape cycle. I'm just saying let's hold back a bit on saying, we're going to pull back another 50 or 60% within a year. I think there's a lot coming into the market.

We'll find out. We'll find out. The nice thing is that those that been here for so long, you just steadily stack and keep moving forward. This may be a cycle that is different. I hate to be the guy that says it, but man. Say the thing. Don't say the thing.

Who's that? To Puppies' credit, I kind of like, I'm mildly aligned. Like, I kind of see where he's getting it. And I have a suspicion that we're going to see. See, I don't think it's going to change things, but I think we're going to see the same sort of euphoria at some point in time kick in. So I was, you know, talking to a good old Gary here about this not too long ago, where I think we're going to get this nice slow grind up and retail.

And everybody's like, no, I'm not getting back into. People who got burned or going to have no interest in participating again. But eventually, it's just going to trickle up. just high enough for that NGU which starts to attract everybody again and we get that crazy euphoria blow off top I think we are going to see something stupid this cycle but I think we're going to see the correction

back down but no Selly it's not going to be the 58K is it true I've heard that ETS are going to allow withdrawals the income redemption would be interesting yeah

is that happening not that I'm aware of but somebody's going to do it first right it's kind of like that compression of the the what you call like the the asset center management costs like they're going to compete to get more in their wheelhouse and the first person that offers in kind redemption is going to get more people flooding to their etf so someone's going to do it because if that happens they it's it's fucking up a little bit their their ability to re-hypocate or to fuckery behind doors exactly Hong Kong already, right? Didn't the Hong Kong

Bitcoin ETF have In-Kine redemption? You are paying attention to more markets than I am, Rusty. I'm impressed. I listen to too many podcasts. She's an impressive guy. I don't know what an ETF is. Thanks, CLA.L. I don't appreciate it. That's what Sally had removed the other day. Oh, yeah, gotcha. Thank you. Nice to die.

Oh, shit. Sally's muted because... He's muted. They don't un-mute them. Just leaving this way. It's better. I don't know how he got to cause you. I'm like, this is fair. Did you get, I don't know if you guys saw, did you guys see the, um, I re-tweeted from Jeremy Garcia, um, the sailors plan to have 42 billion over the next four years. And his plan is to slowly accumulate.

And he, he put in a position where even at the last year, if he's, he's assuming Bitcoin's at 400,000, um sailor could end up with over 800,000 bitcoin. I don't think I saw that tweet. I found it interesting because the guy isn't stopping. And there's there's got to there's companies coming in that are going to say,

how do we catch up to them? Of course, you know, Amazon, Facebook, all of that can come in and catch him. Anyone on his level as far as a company, they're dead in the water. I mean, the guys, 40 billion. of Bitcoin already and everyone else that is like his colleagues or anyone else, they're done. It's going to take a massive, massive, I guess just leverage from even the major companies. We'll see how the game theory plays out. What I say is like, don't care about them, watch them, laugh at them, but care about yourself,

care about it and stack your own SaaS, man. Don't care about them. But it is interesting to sit back and watch this unfold. The game theory is amazing. That's also what keeps me coming back. What companies are next? What nations are next? Puppy, who do you think is next?

I don't think it's going to be any of the big players necessarily. I think there's somebody else on the sidelines who's hurting who needs to throw that Hail Mary, who's going to try and lever the crap and get into this quick. 1,000%. 1,000%. It's someone that doesn't give a shit and someone that has control with their company. Because this is a nice thing. It's the companies where, you know,

don't have the bureaucracy to go through. And Saylor had a bit of that to go in with. Say, you know, and if you remember in the beginning, you know, he's getting off this melting ice cube, but he also had to go to everyone and say, this is what I'm looking to do. This is what I'm looking to do. Are you in or are you out? I will buy you out. I'm laughing because we're talking and Ben is looking at the sides and I can hear, hello darkness my old friend and slowly the camera zooms in yeah but but is it something i think it could be it could be Starbucks right Starbucks could be next silly's there go to them at Starbucks tell him to get on the Bitcoin standard well I was going to say

Sally how do we take Ben's channel public and did the same sort of collateral fun stock issuance game oh it's easy okay guys working on you guys give me some money right and with that money I'll give you like an I or you of a company that you are now investors and I go buy some me some Bitcoin and I hold you that Bitcoin for you guys right and then because I hold the Bitcoin our stock goes up and as we still goes up more people like you come in and they give us their money and we buy more Bitcoin and that's for sure not going to blow out at some point. I think we learned

about this in finance. You took finance? Yeah, I'm a tradfibro, reformed. Yeah, I didn't think they taught finance in our country. No, I'm kidding. I used to do mortgages and finance, but they don't teach you it

until you go to college, which is crazy. Really? Mine didn't even teach me anything in college. I just figured I had to pass a test. I skipped all of the liberal arts classes my first two years, and And then my last two years, I just had to retake classes I took in high school to graduate. I was super eye-opening. All my finance knowledge from the yellow names.

Amish or something? That's where I lent my financial advice. It's a lot cheaper than I did. To put it in perspective, if you look at like a five-year chart. Because, you know what- Everybody, did you steal those glasses from Fred Krueger? Quiet, yellow, Jesus. I just, I get, when, I don't have my contacts in today.

I had to revert back to the, to the glasses. Out of those Fred Cruz. Hey, if you guys, you guys know Raybond does a great R-FK impersonation. You should, he does a Fred Kruger one now that is top-nush. So if you're back in spaces, check out Reeve on doing Fred. No, I'm looking through this and I'm laughing at for anyone that was new that did nothing over the last five years except just, you know what I did? I bought Bitcoin and did nothing. And you're up, you're up 1,400, 1,400 percent, whatever it is, by doing nothing.

And like one of the most, one of the most times that it was such turmoil coming out of the vaccines coming out of this economy has been, it's been amazing, honestly, to watch. 2020 March, right? $5,000 Bitcoin. 5,000 in 2020. It's insane what's been going on since then. So, yeah, what do you do? Bobby, I'd even make the argument that you're not buying. Bitcoin and doing nothing. It's like quite the opposite. You're buying Bitcoin and then going and doing something productive. You're not wasting your time on, well, sorry, I'm off work right now.

Thank you, Rusty. I think I am at least boss. But yeah, it's freeing you up to go and provide value to someone else, right? So it's no longer having to stare at charts, although it's fun every now and then. Gary's bad for it too and I'm bad for it too. But it's, it's buy Bitcoin and go be useful to other people. Well, right, but everyone's got a price point where they can be useful to other people. The first thing they must do is accumulate. They have to accumulate first to be used to. It's one of the things, remember you get on a plane?

What do they tell you? In the event of the emergency, there's going to be these oxygen masks that come down. You're the first, look, you're the adult in the aisle. You take care of the, you take care of the mask on yourself, and then you take care of your children. Is puppy saying that he supports mask mandates? Is that, oh, man. Oh, not at all. That's a tweet.

Bobby supports masks. Oh, my God. You first and everyone else. Well, I should buy bias. But yeah, I get like, yes, you have to be in order to, in order to actually have an effect on the people around you. You have to be a productive member of society first, right? You have to have to have found a way to create value for others, which then in turn means

you can spend less than you earn, save, delay gratification, and then use some of those saved fruits of your labor to spur on other ventures or bring people into the fold and hire them, whatever it may be. But like, what must come first is you've found a way to provide value to others and you're consuming less than you provide. And recently, up until the creation of Bitcoin, people were able to do that. But the third factor playing into it was this, this mechanism in which governments could extract your wealth. in the midst of that process where it's like, hey, I'm providing value for others

and I'm spending less than I earn and somebody's there with a straw, just like sucking away all of the value that you're creating and then just like blowing it on whatever with no regard for like, is that a useful way to take that capital and direct it? Well, it doesn't matter. There's infinite amount because I can just steal it from everybody.

And that's kind of where we've been. at until basically now. And that's, I mean, that's the paradigm shift we're in, I think. I had a good example of that. Like, uh, we like, and Bitcoin is like a gauge for if something is productive or not. Like for instance, um, we manufactured yellow plushies and then we sold them. And at the time, everybody in the meme factory chipped in Bitcoin to, to bring this to life. and we made 250 of them.

And then by the time... You're like a Bitcoin loan for those, Rusty? Yeah. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, but the time I paid everyone out, uh, the profits that we made on the project, they ended up receiving less Bitcoin than they gave me at the start of the project, even though in Fiat terms, we made a profit on selling yellow plushies. Uh, so therefore, this was not a productive exercise.

Yeah, but we haven't sold there. We haven't sold them more yet, actually. Yeah. Oh, actually, everyone should buy a yellow plushy. And Rusty, where do we go to get one of these said yellow plushies? I'm glad you asked. You can head over to World of Rusty.com and you can buy yourself a yellow plushy. And how many stats are going to spend to get the autographed one?

Yeah. I mean, do you want the real autograph from yellow or do you want Rusty just fucking scrawling my shit on the back? Would I know the difference? Friends, how can I possibly verify that? Exactly. Yeah, we thought about it. I thought about forging his signature. I don't know how to see that.

That's probably yellow. We might not be able to say that. I can read for the warning. The warning is not suitable for children under three or shit coiners. Nice. My son of three now. Great. Beautiful.

It's in the clear. Puppy, we never got a chance to ask you. We were talking about, like stupid shit that's going to blow up people this cycle or crazy theories of where it's going to go. What do you see, pal? Look, you know, it's funny. And we, you know, we talk about this every day in spaces, sort of, you know, in 2017, when some of us started, there was no lightning network. I didn't, I didn't know to foresee that.

All I knew was Bitcoin can't scale. You better buy some Bitcoin cash. Okay. So, yeah, I got a little Bitcoin cash. Ethereum is this world computer. And apparently there's a problem in the world with things called smart contracts. I don't even, to this day, I don't even know what a smart contract is. And then we had a light coin, the silver to Bitcoin gold.

No idea what that was. All I knew was quickly, guys like Hoddle or not American Hoddle, I got to meet and talk to, and said, look, man, and just get it back into Bitcoin. which I did. So as I'm armed-pilling, you know, friends and family in 2018, watching the price race down to 3,000. I'm trying to tell them this is the greatest thing in the world. This is the greatest thing in the world is crashing down.

But it worked. The point is, I don't know, man. A couple of years ago, who would have known about ordnals or descriptions or power chain? I don't know about this stuff, man. Sometimes, you know, ignorance is bliss, as they say. That's the same thing with Bitcoin, man. Just put your head down, earn your Fiat, mine it, buy, it, earn it, but get some Bitcoin in self-custody. Those three ingredients, that's it.

Those are the people that are still here. It's everyone that chases everything else, man. everyone that chases everything outside of it are the ones that get wrecked. So I short, long answer short, I don't know. I don't know what they're coming up with. And it, and it doesn't matter because you've got to come back to your core principle of, guess what, to stack your stats, man, be humble, stack stats, which is a great, great meme. 100%.

Couldn't have said it better. I like it. I like it. Well, gents, okay, I'm going to start rounding this out, but I want to ask you each, what is your, I guess we'll say Bitcoin or tangential New Year's resolution. And so if I had to think about mine, there's a number of things that play into it, but in the end, My end goal is to, without impeding, like, quality of life, I want to kind of now that I've gotten to a place where I'm like, okay, I'm doing okay in terms of like, I'm not panicking about bills. If I can, if I can hone everything in and focus on freeing up some time for family and focus on like spending time with me. as a sessions and are the mini sessions I have running around the house.

That would be fantastic. So that is that is kind of at the forefront. There's a number of other things that play into that. And I have plenty of exciting. You haven't seen that there to build, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There's plenty of, plenty of things that I want to do in and around like the channel.

And I'm super excited to have Nathan and Gary come into the fold and Sally working in the background tirelessly and plenty of other things going on and work with the human rights foundation and I still like and I'm the the sat market and building locally and all of that all of that plays into it but also a major part of it is having those things happen being a part of them but also kind of like organizing and fine-tuning things to a point where it's like I don't need to be a part of every tiny little decision. And in turn, I get to also free up time to be like, all right, family, let's spend quality time together.

Let's go do something. And I do get that. But I think I've kind of reached the point where I'm like, all right, the previous years have been like, all right, let's build some shit out so that we're doing okay. And then it got to the point where it's like, okay, some shit has been built. out let's reclaim your time there's a there's a book that i i just bought called buy back your time and that's kind of what i think i'm about to do um so yeah that's that's kind of where i'm at so that's my new year's resolution yellow is yours to claim back your sanity yes obviously for sure just a little

bit so i can like be a little bit more balanced uh no um i'm i'm I'm going to be grateful next year if I have my health, and God gives me the ability again to form something like DSB was. Because after two weeks, I have been thinking of what to do with ESB. We have formed like a community now around DSB. We have the craziest DSBers that are really big. passing my pulse, to be honest, and to continue this, right? But of course, I cannot continue as it was.

It was driving me nuts. It was something that was unique. I made it, we completed it, not just me, because those crazes were, every other day were there with me, right, through the bear market and all. They flew all over, from all over their, place and came to El Salvador to do it live. So it's not my thing, it's our thing. And I cannot just say to those guys and girls, we're done. So DSB will continue somehow in another format. Maybe I'm thinking of keeping the format just as it was, but the

vibes completely opposite, meaning I would do it wherever the fuck I want and feel like it. I'll be like, okay, today I have things to talk about DSB and we go live and we do it until a one million or something. Another year. Nah. And I feel like I want to do something similar again in the space. Even if a lot of people hate Twitter, Twitter is my kind of thing. I thrive on it for some reason. I know how it works. I know how to have fun on it and bring people together, I guess, and laugh, especially through the bear market.

I want to be around and entertain people and have a laugh. and also something that also happened lately and really blew my mind was how big of a hard bitconers have I had a personal issue a family known to me a friend of mine came and asked me like if I can do something about their little one which had palsy they needed like a surgery for the United States and needed like 80k or something and I was like okay I'll make a tweet about it and in inside 24 hours we raised like 30k wow and the guy I set the father up with a strike account and the guy was watching like all the tips whatever it was some big bowlers some like a few shots it doesn't matter whatever it was whatever it was from all over the world like what is this who are those people where are they from like what country i was like explaining him i don't know them exactly i don't know all

them from all it's worldwide it's open so so basically the the family raised the normie campaign let's say in facebook raised over like half of the month we raised in the 24 hours. That's awesome. Yeah. That's so cool. And I'm really happy to say now that after like two more weeks of running the normie campaign, they have enough money, the little girl is ready to travel to the States

for the surgery. So goal completed. But that's the power of Bitcoin and Bitcoiners. Like we did something huge for. someone that we didn't know, right? And we did it like that in 24 hours without knowing open, open, like worldwide from, it doesn't matter who you are,

maybe even Bottsleg gave, I don't know, money. Some of you sat. I don't know how that works. So, yeah, that was mind-blowing from me to me. And, yeah. In general, keep it positive, man. Keep it positive. Yeah, I love that.

What an awesome story. And again, it's just like speaks to the idea of anybody can help anyone in need anywhere on the planet instantaneously. Like that, again, like the idea that, you know, Yellow can just drop a tweet and be like, yo, somebody needs help and Bitcoiners on the ready. Zappen Sats from across the world and figuring that out. That's super cool. Awesome. Would it be okay if Tatum goes next because I don't want to follow that up?

Follow that up, Tatum. Yeah. If it's any less prolific, then I will be incredibly disappointed and you won't be welcome back. All right. Actually. You're carrying kids over there? Yeah.

So one of my coworkers is in Ohio, and he works with a food pantry, and he set up, he was wanting to do like Bitcoin donations because they, they occasionally, he runs a mining site out there, and they use the proceeds to fill the food pantry. And he was like, I want to set up like a lightning wallet. And I actually helped them get set up with Albi Hub. and I've been on Nassar for, dang, now it's been two years. Two years, yes, two days ago was my two year anniversary of Noster. So, like, I have a decent following there, and I was like, hey, can you all help me, like, help me test this out. And also, like, this is what it's for, yada, yada.

And he ended up getting, like, $150 in the course of, like, 12 hours. He had no idea. He's like, where's all this coming from? I was like, I don't know, dude. I have no idea, but you're welcome. And he's like, dude, this is sick. So, yeah. Anyway, but, yeah, it is really cool to see, like, Bitcoiners

and their, they're, like, actual, like, someone in the chat said, but yellow, bitcoins are psychopaths. I don't care about anyone. That's, I mean, screw y'all. Like, you're seeing, we literally just gave two stories of how that is the complete wrong thing. so yeah that's really encouraging um my new use resolution uh i have a couple of them uh i want to

2024 sucked major ass i just going to go ahead and throw that out there um and i'm going to make sure that 2025 is uh more positive and uh i want to do there's a few things i want to do to make it that make it positive uh i want to travel more I didn't do much traveling this year unfortunately but like it's been over a year since I've been to a Bitcoin conference and that really hurts kind of sucks like seeing pictures of people hanging out at conferences and I'm just like hey guys remember me because conferences are now like family reunions so I'm excited to get to more of those I want to also want to cut out beer because I've lost like 60 pounds but Holy shit. The only thing that's like holding me back from absolutely being shredded is beer, I think. But they make it so darn tasty. So I'm going to try to cut that out.

I feel yeah. I feel yeah. Tatum, I've got a question for you on this front. So how do you parse the idea that Jonah Hill was like out of shape and hilarious? And then he lost weight and then he'd stopped being funny. But you then lost a bunch of weight, but you weren't even funny to begin with. So hard. I thought that was about to be a dunk, and it was somehow so much worse.

That was crazy. That was insane. Okay, so maybe it's going to be opposite. I'm going to lose all this weight and then be funny then. I don't know. But that's a miracle. Christmas miracle, perhaps. And also in 2025, I want to meet yellow.

I don't know that'll happen but I really I really want to meet you I heard he wants to date you as well so like I didn't that's No what That's what I heard Free Mark

Anything can happen Anything that happened No that's that's that's I think that's that's great I would honestly you need to You need to come to more events Your Your

your currently where you're in Denver right? Yes. You're not yourself yeah well I mean Tatum I'm very public about I'm a founding member

of the space and we got that kicked off this year which that was a positive we kicked off the space so if anyone's ever in Denver come hang out of the space it's a great Bitcoin centered co-working hub and they're uh tonight they're playing Katan at happy hour

over there so definitely going to check that out sounds like a night of I don't know the order you're going here, but just a quick two things I love about Tatum. I never knew. Two-time high school, I think, state champion, state champion mascot of the year. Number two is one of the things he learned was between when he would take his, what were you taking with you on your flights?

Oh, my damn A6. I never took the hashboards out for the first, like, I don't know how many flights. So I was paying for overweight baggage. Overweight baggage. You could just strip them out. So those are the two things that know. It's so stupid, that's my love.

The commitment to the craft. Beautiful. One of my, a guy up was like, you take the hashboards out, right? And I was like, no, I don't. But now I will. Also, it gives you a little more space, too. And also, here's a, the picture of, uh, me. Oh, my.

My God, you- That is amazing. This is true. This is true. This is true. State champion. That's amazing. Are there competitions for that?

Yes. Oh, my, my world has just exploded into, wow. Really? Mr. Ocella, you're not surprised if there's mascot competitions? I want to try to find videos in my routine, because. honestly I enjoyed it was real fun I literally only started being a mascot because I got to hang out with the cheerleaders

and then I ended up being a state champ Ben this is this is why we do spaces this is what you miss for you don't jump into spaces every day after after that like he played the the black Power Ranger was the black one Boy, what?

Yeah, with the basketball, I think. Yeah, the Power Ranger. Not Billy. No, it wasn't Billy. You told me you were one of the Power Rangers. I have no idea what you're talking about. Black one or the blue one?

I don't remember. It was a show, and there was, like, the Hasbro toys in the 90s, and it was based on this, like, Japanese show and this place in new American footage, yeah. I know what Power Rangers. but I have no idea why you're saying that I told you. Tatum, don't pretend you're not a Power Ranger, all right?

Basically, you're basically meeting it right now. Guys, stop. Yeah, put it. Power Ranger would say if they were trying to conceal their identity. I want to see tweets out. Tatum was a Power Ranger. Yeah, nice try. FBI. Like, come on.

Okay. Okay. Anyway, whatever. We know where you're a Power Ranger. Shut up about it. Nathan, what is your new year resolution? Mine is not nearly as heartfelt, so I hate following these two because I haven't done anything good for somebody else right now and that makes me feel like a dick, but Pretty selfish, Nathan. I'm gonna be I'm gonna be super selfish and and mine is for this year

It really is along the lines of this is sound weird, but it's like I'm going to do what I want In the sense that I'm going to take some risks. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna work hard, but I'm no longer to do crap that I don't want to do it. It doesn't mean that I'm not gonna work I'm not gonna work I'm like going to be lazy. I'm just going to do the shit that I think is valuable and I think is important. I'll spend hour, I'll spend fucking 25 hours a day working on these projects, but I'm no longer to kind of waste my time and energy on things that I don't think are at all productive or valuable. Like, I'm done. I'm out. If it's not helpful, if I don't think it's worth anything, I'm not taking part and if I'm not like it something directly out of it. I'm not working for a paycheck anymore. It's been too long. That's, that's it. That's awesome. And I echo that.

so much. There's a pretty good, and so there's a caveat to this. Yes. If you can afford to do it, a.k.a. what you're doing is providing enough value to others that it is,

it allows you to accrue value to yourself. Then if it's not a fuck yes, it's no. Yes. I think that's kind of where you need to, because then, And unfortunately, what happens in that process is there's some people that like, there's people that are going to be like requesting your time where they very much have like a legitimate,

awesome thing that they're doing. But the only thing more scarce than Bitcoin is your time. Yep. And so what you need to do is focus that in the most efficient way possible when you're, on a Bitcoin standard. And so what you need to do is how can I help and effectively like forward? I mean, if you're being an ethical Bitcoin or how can I help the most people in the least amount of time and focus my effort and split that between the people that I care

most about and maybe perhaps people that I've never met and do both. at the same time. But the answer is not literally, you know, leaning into every beck and call that comes upon you. It's like, where am I most effective? Because you can't possibly expect to help every single person that comes to you, but through people around you, you can. Now, there's one other thing that I did want to,

that I did want to share here. And I think it's in the chat. There we go. Before I go on to Gary and ask his New Year's resolution, I've got to give a shout out to Bitcoin Deb. Yeah. She's been here for six hours. A beautiful show.

Deb, you are an absolute and not just this show. I see her every damn show. She's always in the chat. Bitcoin, Deb, you are a legend. You're always here. Awesome. Again. Bob's amazing.

Deb. Awesome. Again, like I feel like I feel bad for taking your time. I also appreciate you being here. So thank you so, so much. And Gary, I'm going to toss it to you again. Before you do. Oh, yes.

Thing number two is I want to spend more time with Gary. So sorry. Yeah. Oh. Okay. I love that. Gary's time in saying that, which he's going to do much more of than the New Year. So Gary, my time here wasn't that valuable anyway.

I wish I could say that I had something in my mind and New Year's resolutions has never been a thing of mine. I never thought of it. And maybe I'd be better off if I did. But I think echoing things that, you know, a couple of you guys and a few people have said already, just time is the most limited thing. I have two kids. They're eight and six years old.

And I've had the fortune of being able to. to spend more time with them than I'm sure like a lot of other dads do because as an actor, I never work. So I've had a lot of time to spend with my kids and I'm grateful for it. And I'm sure there will come a day fairly soon where, you know, the hugs and kisses aren't going to be given as freely as they once were. And I'm going to miss them. And I mean, if you asked me this like eight years ago before I had kids, I would never have said,

I'm like, who is this guy saying such cheesy hallmark nonsense? I would never thought I would talk this way. But it's true. you know, time is important, want to spend time with the kids. And hopefully, you know, my involvement of Bitcoin allows me to do that because I've never been somebody who, I don't know, needed to spend money on like a fancy car or cool clothes or whatever. I wear jeans and obnoxious t-shirts.

I drive a Honda. Like, it doesn't mean anything to me. It's not like a status symbol to me. So if I can find something good to do with maybe some extra money in time that I have, that that's great, as always. I'm sure there are other things about my life and personality and character flaws. It'd be great to fix, but I don't know if I'll ever see that happening and it ever occurred to me to do something about that on New Year's. So, you know, that's that.

That's all I got. Awesome. Perfect the way you are. Rob, Rob in the chat, said Gary, shout out Jersey City Bitcoin meetup. Oh, heck yeah. Love it. And then the other thing that I was going to say is, Gary, You wear obnoxious of tire.

I couldn't play with your boa. I never would have given it away. By the way, Rob Wallace of Bitcoin News. That's who that is. Rob is great. He's been on the show before. And he also gave a shout-out to the SAP market that we recently had, which was awesome. So, Rob, good to see it in the chat.

Appreciate you being here. Rusty, I'm going to toss it to you. New Year's Resolutions. what's on the docket for you? Yeah. First of all, thank you to the people that have bought yellows

since we mentioned him. There's a few people here who won't docks you all. But thank you. Meen Factory gets to eat this week. I've got an easy one because it's my PIN tweet from January the 2nd,

2023. And it's just a graphic I made for, I think it was for Sailor when he was still using my graphics and stopped and started using AI. And so just buy more Bitcoin. So that's, and it's number one on my list as well as number two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten.

If I had to put something in 11, I'd say, you know, go to a, go to a Bitcoin conference. I've been, I've got small kids and it's been hard to travel. They're kind of getting to the point where they're, you know, they're old enough that it's not too much of a hassle for me to be away for a few days. So yeah, and if we could possibly get a Bitcoin conference a little bit closer to Australia, like one of the, yeah, one of the bigger ones, that'd be nice. And a harving party, like a harving party-esque party would be great to hang out with the rest of the Mean Factory guys. I hang out with them a fair bit, but it would be awesome to meet them all in person and hang out. So we're, you know, hopefully we get a chance to do that at some stage this year.

I love it. And Rusty, I was just going to add on whether or not you already have the poster for this show available on the website, but you absolutely do. And as you were talking, I listened to not a single fucking word of what you said, but instead it still benefited you and I ordered you. I ordered a poster from you. Okay, I gave you a code for 100% off, so I'm hoping you used it. No, sure didn't. I paid full price plus shipping for that. But I'm happy.

You obviously didn't check your DMs. No. Never. Never. If someone else wants to order the free poster from one of russie.com, it could be used once, BTC sessions. If anyone wants to capital B, anyone wants to grab it for free

I'm on it you should probably do that actually anyways world of rusty.com again I also why is this like it should be front and center what are you doing well I guess I guess you sell you in the cash into the yellow plush you should probably

if you click on view all at the top there it's in the featured featured products and there it is yeah there she is I have I have a copy of every post that you've ever made for any one of my shows. You did the first one you ever did was the meeting of the Bulls. And so that's when I think I took a little break for like a week or two.

And I came back and I was like, here's my wish list of guests. And the wish list was Michael Saylor, Jack Mallor's, Jeff Booth, Preston Pish, and American Hottle. And like it was just a bullshit list that I was like, this is never, ever going to happen. And then Jeff messages me. He's like, I'm in. Do you want me to message Preston? And he's like, I'm like, I guess so. And then Preston after that was like, yeah, cool, I'm down. And American Hottle, I shot him a screenshot of that message. I was like, hey, do you want to do this? We got two of the five. and he was like he's like yeah fuck it in i'm in and then i was like oh my god this is getting pretty close to actually happening so then i put like just like a list with green checkmarks

beside three of them and then jack mallors was like yeah i'm i'm totally in awesome like replied in a tweet and then like the amount of tags and tweets i was just inundated tagging michael sailor incessantly like early 2021 like at one of the peaks and then he replies to the thread and he's like add a green checkmark to my name and all of a sudden this thing that I was just like total bullshit in my mind that I threw out there into the ether everybody just manifested and then it came to fruition and then Rusty was like you know I know a guy who can make a sweet thumbnail for that and he did And the rest of a good one. Back when Sailor used to write back on our DMs, you know.

These days, the best I can get like is like a fire emoji or a thumbs up. I don't get the emojis anymore. I just get the scene. Rusty, if it makes you feel any better, I don't even get seen. Oh, okay. Look, I will say, I will say. this before I saw a sailor yeah sorry I probably front ran um yellow there when it came to the meme but he did send me a million sats and came to our pled party he was the first guy to show up

to a pled party in miami after only only one invite request i always i thought that was always impressive of him i know he had many things they could do i think the problem is now that i did the math the other day and is there's more sailor interviews there's more minutes of sailor interviews in a day than there are minutes in a day so I'm not sure how he's doing it whether he's like so I don't think he has time

outside of the time whatever time vortex time stone is using or something to he's kind of like Santa and like how does he get it all done in one night and the answer is he's he's clearly got elves that are able to through magic disguise themselves a sailor and go on like MSNBC

and explain why big money is all I'm saying is that like our thing that we all love here like got bigger in the few years lately so it's it's like normal for the guy to don't go as much as to Bitcoin stuff Bitcoin podcast and all that

and go to mainstream stuff and try to bring in people that's what he does lately I feel yeah you're 100% right and it makes sense like I can only imagine just the people doing regular Bitcoin focus content that isn't making waves as much as to be included in the NASDAQ 100. Like their DMs and even just like on the scale. By the way, when is he going live on NASDAQ 100? I got the answer to that one.

No, no, no, you know you? Anyone else knows? Anyone knows? Anybody Nobody? No one knows. The 23rd of December. There we go. Nathan knows. Yeah, I can see it in his eyes.

No, no, no, coincidence? I think not. It was foretold. Yeah. I love it. Well, Rusty, did you,

did you drop your, your, uh, New Year's, yeah, I put, I put my code wrong. The free,

free poster code was sessions 2024 with a capital S. So, so I want to claim Ben's free poster. Yeah. I literally just paid $80, like right now. It would have been, it would have been,

you know, actually 10, responsible to have asked about that before doing that but I did not do that. Yes. Because you're very generous in paying for my time. So you didn't need to now buy the poster as well. I did sling you a few stats for your excellent work. Well worth it, I will say. A few sets.

I will once again, very generous. No, I honestly, Rusty, you fucking kill it every year. And like, you know, if I'm a huge ad. advocate for people accurately valuing their time and your time is beyond a doubt valuable and what you're able to accomplish and put together, you know, despite not including Selly on the, arguably more valuable that you did that. I'm adding nice in next time. Here's my, he was my favorite.

You'll be my favorite big corner on that. How do we stop that crazy roster? Like he does. By the way, I'm trying to get that poster for free right now. So don't love me just yet. I would stop saying good things about Rusty because for us, he does for free stuff. I was just about to say, Yellow is going to come back with a comment. Rusty's going to come back with an incredible rider for the next season.

I want only, I only want green M&Ms flowing for Australia for every episode at my front door. Orange Eminems. Yes, yes. exactly well green because bull market but orange wouldn't be better yes i agree gary this is why we have you not for the technical but for nope thank you're really irrelevant yep perfect bobby we've we've shafted you to the side far too long puppy what is your new year's resolution oh man you know it's funny is a resolution is sometimes you know what am i going to change about myself. What is my new view?

Sometimes you get to a point in life where it's not that you're changing, but you want to build upon what you've been building upon. And what I mean is persistence and consistency. I love those two words. And this is what I've been building upon.

Just getting the message out. Anyone that is new, those that have been at $3,000, $10,000 Bitcoin, been there host bases. This is why I love fucking yell. This is why I love you, everything you guys do. It's because of persistence and

consistency that people come in. And that's where lives are changed, man. You guys are changing lives just because of your persistence and consistent. It's day after day. I know yellow. I always think of the Pablo Escobar meme

now. He had to walk away after 1120-some days, had to walk away from this beautiful thing he built. but we're back here man I just want to continue on with that and you do something out of love you do something that you know what

I don't need to be rewarded for this and I think back to this beautiful gift called Bitcoin from Satoshi Nakamoto and yeah he was a hard ass if you don't got the time you don't got this I'm out at the end of the day he's that's a great gift to the world I don't need to make money

I'll make you know the money comes anyway quote unquote the money comes anyway five year returns right now at 1400 percent but to pay it forward to pay it forward like the class of 2013 paid it forward to me I want to pay this forward to the next class guess what man this this was this is what brings me joy and this is what I want in a new year man I'm just going to be consistent and persistent and you'll you guys will see me around spaces and you'll see you'll see you'll my shitty memes. Nice. Thank you. That's awesome, Pubby. I'm absolutely right. It's the Bitcoin ethos, right? It's not to get rich quick.

It's just keep going. Just keep going, keep stacking, head down, keep working. Stubborn. Stubborn. Stubborn, yellow. Can we also make note that Nathan actually was able to claim? I docks myself to Rusty. I actually grabbed that poster.

You got it for free. You're putting me a bickoner and I now know where he lives. That's, it's poetic. You were able to claim it. It's pretty incredible. Well, from my perspective, where I was watching these shows as a fan a couple of years ago to now participating in the after party, I needed that poster. And I have a new baby on the way so I had no sets to spare.

So I didn't fucking wait. I just grabbed it. I love it. And what I'm going to do right now. You're not even showing, Nathan. How many weeks are pregnant? That's funny. Thank you.

I appreciate that. I've been doing yoga. Wait, is that, is that Nathan fast? My glasses are working. I'm just Nathan fast. Nice, nice. I'm throwing this out. Good to meet you finally.

Anybody that wants to grab the show poster, which is absolutely epic. There's a QR code on the screen right now that will lead you directly to where you can claim it. It's you won't get it for free like Nathan. You'll have to pay just like me. The total piece of $80. But nonetheless, well worth it.

Again, I've grabbed every single one of these and they adorn the very studio that I'm sitting in right now. and zero regrets other than the generational wealth that I spent upon them. I do have to say this makes it two years in a row of gotten a free thing at a Sessions Christmas special. Did it? What did you get last year? Yeah. You see the block clock hanging out behind me?

Oh, nice. Yeah. Oh, my God. You did win that. Mm-hmm. Wow. That was, wow. the foreshadowing there and everything kind of coming together.

Like, okay, so Nathan, when we put out the call of like, hey, we need, I didn't say it was myself, but I said, okay, there's a company that's starting, we're going to be educating people on how to how to do their thing and properly self-custody and all that. I didn't say necessarily who it was like in the communications that we put out. No indication, yeah. Yeah. But then once you kind of got through and reached out, it was like, okay, like this is my thing. Like this is what we're doing and everything.

And so we had, we started having people do like video submissions because it was, we got inundated with like 350 people that wanted to be part of Bitcoin mentor, which was like, it was wild. Like not publicly stating it. It was just a thing that we put out just in, you know, not at all associated with the channel or whatever. Yeah, that rejection email really still. Oh, Tatum. Next year's here. You literally replied with just like a picture of your vest laid on like a sidewalk. I don't know.

I don't know what you expected us to do. I mean, pretty secure, but it is what it is. But besides the fact, when we said, okay, we need video submissions so we can see how you guys are on camera, personal, like, how you explain things. Nathan's submission was basically an ode to or like a spoof of my tutorials and it was broken down by like prerequisites and such as like all the little like intro screens. And it was like, here's what you're going to need to do in order to successfully hire me for your company. That's awesome. Yeah. It was so well done.

And again, like very personable, like very friendly, like exactly kind of what we were looking for. And then the icing on the cake is Nathan lives like 45 minutes away from me. And so it was just like divine intervention of like, hey, this needs to happen. And my co-founder Mike also again, like 30 minutes away. So we're all kind of like locally together. And then and then as we're kind of fleshing of the idea of additional content on the channel, figuring out how that would work. And like Nathan, you know, like he understands his stuff.

He's very succinct in distilling that information. And then Gary comes into the fold. And like, number one, radio voice. Yeah, Max. Like, as Gary speaks to your microphone, I just, I mean, I know that all of you, like, your, your seats are soaking wet right now. Hey, okay, that was just a little. What can I say?

Can I get you to say, Tatum, I think you did a good job this year? Just real quick. Tatum, I think you did a great job this year. Ooh. That's a good enough. You're smart enough. Thank gosh, darn. People like you.

Thanks, Dad. Wow, bonus. I'll record that for the recording in a little bit. Thanks, do the intro, Gary. It'll be great. Season two, intro by Gary. I'm happy to do it. Let me know.

I'll do it for you. But like, these guys have been working in the background, doing some kind of like initial demo episodes, figuring out like how it's going to play together. And there's, I watched the first bit of it. And I was like, there's, There's something here. This is like,

there's, there's like lightning in a bottle here that I'm, I'm very excited about. So, you will, you will be seeing both Gary and Nathan together on episode, uh,

of an episode called, uh, mentor session. Incredibly creative name. Yes. You guys are really, really, I mean,

how long did it take you to come up with that? I'm not going to lie, weeks. That's the worst part. Yeah, and he's not lying. We tried making it so creative, then it's like, let's just stick with me. No, that's exactly it's like, first idea, yeah, no, we can do better. Like a month later, you just go back to that first day?

Yeah, that was the best. Let's just do that. Yeah. How about the two things this is? Yeah. For any of my Simpsons fans, we're just going with Pucci, right? Okay. Yeah.

Let's just call it one behind the other. One B honey other is a great show name. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. And again, Nathan's going to be doing some of his own tutorials as well because if there's one thing I've learned over these past number of years, funny enough, the first question I ever got asked was,

hey, you're doing Bitcoin. Aren't you worried you're going to run out of stuff to do? And the answer is absolutely not. Like, if anybody could see the list of shit that I need to like sort, through and try and explain to people, it is growing far faster than my time. And so it is an absolute necessity that Nathan be a part of the channel creating additional tutorials to complement what I'm working on as well. And every time the coin kite comes out with a new cold card, that takes up about three months of Ben's time right there.

There's so many features. So many fans. You keep adding more too. Don't upgrade. It's too much. Yeah. And by the way, if you, if you like, Hey! Hey! yourself for the cold card shoe right now with this QR going on the screen. Thanks, you know.

Ben, can I jump in with the question real quick? You didn't format your SD card. Okay. This is how long I've known Ben. I remember when I had Bitcoin, like, I had some and like, where do I want to put some of this? And I had a samurai wallet. I'm watching Ben with Samurai Well, like, fuck yeah, man, that sounds good.

I don't even know if these guys are going to be leased. Are they in Cuba? Are they, I don't know if they're being tortured. I don't know where the samurai guys are. But yeah, I had some Bitcoin there and I had to. Yeah, you can accent that still. Yeah, it's crazy shit, man. I don't know what's going on there.

I don't look, I don't take it down to. No, but you make an excellent point too. Like, with the excitement and everything that's going on, it's not to forget about the samurai guys. not forget about Ross as well too. Like I've seen that kind of quiet down in the background. Like it's not time to let off the pedal. We got to hold everybody to account and get him out day one. Yeah. Day one, baby.

Pubby, to answer your question, you still have full access to those funds. You have the private keys to those. In fact, Sparrow wallet on desktop, if you had your seed phrase, all you need to do, you can go to recover wallet. and there's even, I believe there's still the option to import the samurai wallet, like, the breakdown of like, hey, like, pre-mix, post-mix, all of those, like, sub-wallets that they create, all those accounts. Oh, Ben, don't worry. I already got them off there.

Don't worry. Just send me this surprise and I'll fix it. I'll get it right. Get that right back to you. It's already off of there. Exhaust for you public. Yeah. Oh, yellow is still here.

I did that. No, it's good. I'm just laughing at like, like, you know, and this is the thing about privacy. Man, I know, I don't want to turn this back into a big thing. But do you think that's the thing about privacy and then those guys, look, I don't know. Maybe they overstepped their bounds. I'm not sure about all that. But that was a cool thing.

They were the first ones. And I think Ben will agree. I think they were the first ones that actually had a wallet that went with, they had Satoshi's as well as Bitcoin. You could actually translate Bitcoin into Satoshi. And what that means is people could actually see the unit bias. Also, you know what they did? Samurai wallet was the first one. to be like, we are no longer showing a fiat price.

We're just showing how much Bitcoin you have, either in Bitcoin or in Sats. It doesn't matter. But they were like, we're doing a way that there's too many support questions of like, oh, I put this much. I put $100 in and then now it's not $100. And it was, they're like, no. You're sure, shitlock. Come on.

Yeah. But like, they were like, no, we just want people to see, like, how much Bitcoin do you have? that's what you actually have. Like why you, so if anybody wanted a Bitcoin standard first, it was Samurai wallet. So hats off to them and hashtag Free Samurai. And there has been, I'm not going to dive into the news too much right now, but there was an interesting development today in and around what can and cannot be property in and around software when it comes to the tornado cash case. And this may have implications on the samurai wallet case as well.

And when I look at it on its face, not going to lie, it seems bullish as fuck for Bitcoin's sovereignty and privacy. So let's hope that that is true. But regardless of that, let's keep on fighting for people to be able to use their money in a private manner without having every goddamn thing that they do be spied upon. Yep. Concluding this marathon, what have we learned today? We have learned for that, for once more, Craig Zaz, for the third time, I think, was to appear in this holiday special and he's not here once again. Craig Zaz, the man behind names, I guess, Chris Zaz behind.

booking me and sending me to Miami, Ohio. Greg Zaz, our fellow co-bitcoiner, that is a potato for sure. Greg Zaz, what great inputs that guy had, right? Like he made us laugh once again. He made us think once again, inspire to be better with his inputs. we are different.

We are better. We are higher due to Cresaz being this space once again. Thank you, Grazaz, for your inputs. Thank you, Grazaz. You're amazing. We love you. And until the next one. See the next one, buddy.

Well, all said yellow. Greg Zazz is 100% a total piece of shit. I can say, Titum's been putting his hand up. I just feel like I know. Is yellow still here? It was literally just yellow talking right there. Did you not recognize his voice?

No, I know. I thought he did a drop mic and left out. That's what I'm asking. Do you guys know where the F.U. Greg came from? Oh, thank you. That was a answer. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just let you know. Yeah. I started to fuck you, Greg, Neme,

in a YouTube channel with Anders. Yellow was there. Okay, thank you. Just one of a little credit. A little street credit on that one. Thank you. I love it. I love it.

I want to find in one thing, uh, Cortic is in the chat. And he just wanted to let you know that, Samara Wallet, it's not dead. Somebody forked the project. It's now called Ashigaru, and you can run it independently yourself. I did do a video, actually, a two-part video on how to do that. So if you're sure-watched the video, Pubby, didn't you watch the video?

Did you not watch the two-part four-hour marathon? I've never watched a BTC session video in my life. It shows. That's a lie. That's a lie. You watched these shit coin videos back in the day. Pretty sure if I'm dancing at a late coin conference. I, fuck, that's a real thing.

That's a real thing. Yeah. It keeps coming up as a suggestion. It's like six years ago today. BTC sessions talks about the best new coins to get into or some shit. How to trade coins or something. I don't know. Oh, my jazz.

Oh, my God. I'm going to be. Tatum, you stop. You stop. Stop. No more talking. I'm taking control. You're great, but I'm still not letting you talk right now. I'm rounding out. I'm done here. I'm going to spend some time with my family and have a beverage and enjoy my evening. We are rounding, not rounding. We are well past seven hours on this stream, seven hours and nine minutes currently. and it's been an absolute marathon,

most of which has been spent with you assholes. You give the great guests like half an hour, and then you let us just run until the end. I don't know what I was thinking, but here we are. So, nonetheless, I want to thank all of you so much for being here, everybody that has come before, everybody that is currently here, has been an absolute blast. and I think if I'm not mistaken,

this is actually my longest stream to date in eight years, eight and a half going on nine years of this channel. I'm pretty sure this is the longest stream. If it's not, I remember last year was just under seven, or it was in the six hour. Yeah, it was in the six hour range.

One year, it was, I know, I understand, everybody with the math that it's not 6.15, but it was six hours and 15 minutes. I think that was last year. Yeah. And I found that poetic. And I know it's not 6.15 hour. Fuck you guys. But it was still significant for me because it's the thing that Hoddle said.

So I blame Craig. He talks too much. Yeah. I was going to blame Gary for trying to explain space and time. you can book them for a session for that don't give that shit away from free gary i can't wait for gary to get bookings that say uh looking to discuss space and time i would be happy to do it i've no clue what i'm talking about but i'd be happy to do it it sounds like you do that's all it matters that's all it matters exactly yeah exactly

well gentlemen thank you so much appreciate it uh this has been a blast a hell of a year It's going to finish with a bang. Nathan will be back next week on Friday for Why Are We Bullish? And it's going to be myself and Nathan, Nathan being my prospective Opti. And we're going to have my co-host with the most Nico with his actual Opti. So the host with their prospective opties on a year-end roundup. So that's going to be a good night. I'll be there for your fore.

Nice. Yeah, we'll just have probably as be like the, the next opti. Like, if an opti dies, the pitch hitter. There's just a line of them.

Probably could come in. I'm just kidding. I'm just fucking with you. I'll be doing my own. It's fucking got shit to do. All right. Yeah, yeah.

I also want to, I'm going to do this live showdown. This is my friend, David Hartman. He is one of my longest standing friends that I've known for years and years. He's in the chat. He's hard at work right now.

He's in the energy sector. Literally, probably working on getting me energy right now, which clearly didn't work out earlier in the show. So Dave, work a little fucking harder. Come on, man. What are you doing? No, but he was the best of the BTSys BTC sessions roasters. He was a champion up there.

He did roast me at the Bitcoin rodeo last year. Anyways, awesome dude. probably one of the most thoughtful people that I know that goes out of his way to just take care of people around him. And I'm going to give a real world example that just happened. We were in Banff for the, like just an outing for the sad market, a bunch of Bitcoiners, an hour and a half drive out of town. I'm in town. I post a couple pictures. Dave texts me and he's like, hey, are you still in Banff? And he says, uh, he, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, and I, I say, yeah, and he's like, hey, there's this sweet little old lady that lives in town,

and she's, I don't know, she must have been 70 or 80, whatever. And he's like, I, from time to time, go over and I have a little ukulele, and she has a guitar, and I will just go over to her place, and I'll jam out on the ukulele, and she'll play guitar, and we'll just sing songs together just to brighten her day. He's like, if you can swing by her place with some Christmas cheer, it would be greatly appreciated. And so me and my wife Lisa went and picked up some chocolates and some flowers, a Poinsetta and everything and brought it over to her place and just said Merry Christmas. But this is the kind of quality of person that Dave is.

Just such an epic dude that through my lifetime of knowing him has never not done the most to just be a shining light amongst people that he encounters. So a very Merry Christmas to my good friend, Dave. What an awesome dude. And to his expecting wife, Vernel, he's about to be a dad for the first time, which is just so bullish. So, Dave, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Dave. Merry Christmas, Dave.

There are you. Kate, I'll give you the other BTC sessions video on that one later. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Well, gentlemen, I'm going to round out here. thank you so much. This was awesome. I can't think of a better group of people to have aggregated in one space over a number of hours than what I've had. It's pretty easy to do. Yeah. And again, like the crappy one to make up or made up for by the better ones. So, you know.

But anyways, I'm going to round it here. Thank you guys. Have a wonderful evening or day yellow. I know it's you're something. ungodly hour for you, I'm sorry. You're used to it. But anyways, thank you guys so much. Have a very Merry Christmas. Good night. Merry Christmas, Ben. Merry Christmas, everybody.

Love you all. Happy New Year. Merry Christmas. All right. See you. Later, guys. All right. And everybody that has weathered this entire show,

thank you so much for being here. Oh, my God. seven hours and 15 minutes longest show I've ever done and you know what it didn't feel like it because everybody was so awesome um we are again it's wild it's been a full cycle of doing christmas specials like let alone the channel itself but four years of christmas specials and here we are and uh it is uh uh uh uh I'm incredibly humbled that I'm still here, that I'm getting to do this, something I continue to be incredibly passionate about. I get to educate people around the world about a way to conserve the fruits of their labor and help their communities and everything.

I get to work with the Human Rights Foundation. I get to do all these awesome things. And I get to surround myself with awesome people with incredible values. And so I'm super happy about that. And I just want to say a heartfelt thank you to everybody that's been on the show tonight, everybody that's been a part of everything that I'm doing over the years. And I guess that's it. So I'm going to round out by saying a very Merry Christmas to everyone.

I hope that you have your eyes to the future and you're constantly thinking long term with a low time preference about how you can improve your life. and the lives of people around you. And here's to a bullish 2025 and beyond. Think of your life in epochs and start building. So Merry Christmas. Have a wonderful evening. I'll see you guys next time for your daily session.