BTC Sessions - Government's Double Standards EXPOSED: They Don't Want You To See This ep446

Starting point is 00:00:31 What is going on? Everybody, welcome to the show. Another Thursday, another episode of Simply Sessions. Of course, Nico's winning in the wing to bring us the latest and greatest in Bitcoin. Hope you've all been having a good week. We're going to dive right into it momentarily. Of course, this is live. Anything can happen. So I defer to my friend Bill here.

Starting point is 00:00:56 We'll do it live. Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live. The thing sucks. If you have an already, please do like, sub, share all those things. Help a ton getting this content in front of my eyeballs. I'm Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your Simply session.

Starting point is 00:01:32 Before we dive in, quick look at where we are on the market right now. This is time chain calendar.com. We are sitting at $67,070 per coin. A single US dollar will snaggy 1,491 sats. In terms of fees, nine sats per v byte next block, which is actually surprising to me, given the shit coins on Bitcoin that were going down the other day. But hey, back to single digits. And in terms of Bitcoin mine, 19.76 million.

Starting point is 00:02:04 That's 94.13% of the total supply. Let's hit a quick shout out to our sponsors and then we'll dive in. See you guys in just a second. Bitcoin Well is on a mission to enable independence by being one of the easiest and quickest ways to purchase Bitcoin in Canada and the U.S. The best part about it, every buy goes directly into your own self-custody. They never hold your coins. You can add a Bitcoin address as part of onboarding. There's a transparent 1% spread, no hidden fees, no withdrawal fees, plus they have KYC free sells and bill payments on their website.

Starting point is 00:02:43 They're also a publicly traded company under the ticker. BTCW on the TSXV. Check them out over at Bitcoinwell.com. Check out my full tutorial on how to use them. And you can check out the links in the show notes down below and sign up today. CoinKite.com has some of the best hardware on the market today to secure your Bitcoin. The cold card queue is an absolute powerhouse and is my daily driver. And on top of this, they have plenty of other goodies including the Mark 4, the tap signer,

Starting point is 00:03:14 open dimes, the block clock, and much more. If you head over to their website, make sure you use code BTC sessions at checkout to get a nice discount. Links are in the show notes down below. All right, we are back in. Let's get Nico up here on the stage. Yo, what's up, dude, live from Paris. I had this beautiful backdrop ready for you guys with the Eiffel Tower in the scene and everything. But apparently they turn it off at midnight.

Starting point is 00:03:45 Anyways, happy to be here. Rugged. What are we going to? What are you going to do next week? That should be interesting. Yeah. We'll be, yeah, I guess we're both in Switzerland for Legato. Mine B.

Starting point is 00:03:59 That'll be, we'll figure something out. Well, I mean, we'll do something Swiss, I suppose. Yeah, like maybe we like we have fondue. Yeah. Just slices of Swiss cheese everywhere, Swiss chocolate. Like cows in the background. Trying to watch my figure. so it'll be tough for me.

Starting point is 00:04:23 How are you, man? I'm good. I'm good, dude. It's interesting these time zones because my workday doesn't start to like three or four. So I have like the whole morning, but my workday doesn't end to like midnight. So it's like there's like pros and cons, but I don't know. I kind of like it. I kind of like it.

Starting point is 00:04:41 Each way. I mean, it makes sense in Europe because it is just a later culture. Like nobody gets their morning started early. the morning. It's like you go out and you try to get a meal for breakfast and people look at you like you have three heads. Yeah, like they actually shut shit down here on Sundays. Like, you know, like it's, things are closed. Like, like actually close. Yeah. Because because people, the whole culture there is, uh, you live, uh, you, uh, you, uh, you work, uh, so that you can live your life. Whereas, you know, back in, uh, you know, Western culture like far, like, like,

Starting point is 00:05:18 North American culture. It's very like you you live to work. Yeah, straight up. You know, it's definitely, it's definitely a change. I could see the pros and cons to both. So, but yeah, it's, it's quite interesting. Yeah, man. Yeah. Well, sweet. Let's, I mean, let's, let's dive into it. Let's see what's been going on. What is top of mind for you, man? Yeah. So speaking of Europe, uh, Italy plans to raise Bitcoin capital gains tax from 26, to 42%. When this news broke, I heard Jocamo screams halfway across the planet. Well, technically I'm not halfway across the planet, but I did hear his screams. And then

Starting point is 00:06:01 I heard him saying he's leaving. Anyways, no, but in all seriousness, on Wednesday, Italy unveiled its draft budgetary plan, which outlined new revenue-raising strategies, the proposal to hike Bitcoin taxes, the companies, the countries aimed to generate point of its GDP, translating to approximately 4 billion euros. The plan also includes raising funds through new tax regulations targeting banks, insurance products, gaming business licenses, and adjustments to the web tax. According to the deputy finance minister,

Starting point is 00:06:36 this is a reaction that was based on Bitcoin and, quote, the phenomenon is spreading and they're referring to Bitcoin. The new budget measures are still awaiting approval from the Italian parliament with a final vote anticipated by the end of the year. If enacted a 42% capital gains tax on Bitcoin would make Italy one of the highest tax countries for cryptocurrency in the world. Now, I don't think this is going to work. And the reason I don't think it's going to work is if you just compare and contrast the different jurisdictions, we covered this. I think, I believe, on last week's episode, the UAE just passed a law recently, making it so that making it so that

Starting point is 00:07:20 crypto transactions are exempt from tax. So the way that it works in the U.S. and Italy and Canada is that they don't see it as legal tender. So if I send you a transaction and let's say I bought Bitcoin for 10K

Starting point is 00:07:36 and I sent it to you, I have to pay the capital gain because that would essentially it's like as if I sold it and I would have to pay the capital gain difference for sending it. The U.A.E. is coming in and saying, you know what? No, this is just a transaction. You don't have to pay a capital gain. And in El Salvador, where it's legal tender, it's treated like money. So, for example,

Starting point is 00:07:59 if you go to Europe and I'm using my American debit card and then my bank does the exchange and blah, blah, blah, I'm probably getting effed and all that stuff. But the point is, is that even if the euro gains against the dollar, I don't have to pay the capital gain on that because there's laws in the books where it makes it like a fair exchange, a fair thing. But because Bitcoin isn't viewed as money, there isn't a fair exchange. It's seen as a commodity. But it's interesting, though, because that's as it relates to taxes. But as it relates to KYC and AML and sanctions, it's treated like money by law. So it's just, it's funny how governments are picking and choosing what laws are convenient to them, what laws are not convenient. It is money in some senses,

Starting point is 00:08:49 but it isn't money in the other sense. Whatever is more convenient to the state is what flies. But the reason that I don't believe this is going to work in the long term is because of El Salvador, because of the UAE. And again, I think we're going to see the sovereign individual thesis play out where they make the case that you're going to see the rise of so-called cyber money controlled by private markets, which will supersede fiat money issued by governments. And again, I just want to read this quick quote where it said it will become harder for a nation state to collect taxes from its citizens. They compare the state to a farmer keeping cows in the field to be milked. But that quote, soon the cows will have wings.

Starting point is 00:09:33 So I think that this is a major drop ball from the Italians. And I think that Norway actually just tried doing this in regards to a wealth tax. And they created a wealth tax and they actually raised the wealth tax. And what happened was they actually lost tax revenue because wealthy people left the country. So, yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's going to be a very tough pill to swallow once governments figure out that, holy cow, like, not only can rich people leave now, but they can take everything with them if they want to. And then I think over the long term, you know, when they finish calling a psychopaths and everything under the sun,

Starting point is 00:10:22 I think over the long term, it's going to become a forcing function onto governments where governments are going to come to realize that, hey, listen, the dynamics have changed, and we are actually going to have to provide services and charge a fair price for their services, rather than the extortion type of relationship that governments have with their citizens today.

Starting point is 00:10:44 Well, that's the theory. Let's see how the plays out. But it's just interesting. And I think you're going to see a lot of people from Italy move to Dubai. That's my two stats. Yeah, I mean, it only makes sense that the Norway case, it's very reflective of,

Starting point is 00:11:04 it's almost like a subdued version of what's about to happen, right? Because, you know, right now, yes, the percentage of people in Italy that own significant some amounts of Bitcoin may not be high. But what's going to happen is as it becomes a larger and larger asset that people decide to store their wealth in and becomes a medium of exchange that people more regularly use. Well, I mean, in Norway, you know, people have money tied up in the banking system and everything. and there was still capital flight where people were like, this is no longer worth it. And it went from, I'm trying to remember the numbers, but it was they anticipated making

Starting point is 00:11:47 an extra couple hundred million dollars in revenue and they actually doubled that to the downside because of the loss of tax revenue because of capital flight. And that's in the legacy banking system where it's hard to move around. Imagine with Bitcoin where it's literally like, okay, well, I'll just. just leave with my keys. And like, whether or not in that jurisdiction, that's a legal thing or it's a supposed to incur some sort of like an exit tax depending on the country, there's going to be people that just fully step around that.

Starting point is 00:12:20 And they'll never come back. They'll never come back. 100%. And again, like the jurisdictions that have the most to win are places like Dubai, places like El Salvador. Because they're just going to look at those people and say, you know what? like guys you can come here you know um and you know a lot of wealthy people are going to go there they're going to set up businesses there uh they're going to buy real estate there uh when they set up

Starting point is 00:12:45 their businesses there they're going to bring jobs right there's other ways to raise revenue for governments believe it or not um so you know like the example that i always give is um the quality like california and new york both have uh state income tax, but you have a better quality of life and you can even make the argument that the government provides better services in Texas and Florida and Texas and Florida have no income tax. So where is that extra income tax going, right? Just food for thought.

Starting point is 00:13:25 Yeah. Anyways. So moving on to the next thing. So I thought this was quite interesting. We always talk about large corporations, publicly traded companies. We always talk about nation state, Bitcoin nation state adoption. But we don't really talk about hedge funds a lot. I found this article about a week old, but it's from Bloomberg.

Starting point is 00:13:48 It says almost half of traditional head funds are dabbling in crypto. To be specific, it says among hedge funds trading in traditional markets, 47% had exposure to digital assets. up from 29% in 2023 and 37% in 2022. According to the Global Crypto Hedge Fund report published Thursday by the Alternative Investment Management Association. Among those funds that are already invested, 67% plan to maintain the level of capital, capital and crypto, while the rest plan to invest more at the end of 2024. Another thing, and here's some more data.

Starting point is 00:14:27 This is an original post posted by River Financial. It actually, oh, sorry about that. It actually breaks down the specific hedge funds. So there's about 25 listed. The vast majority of them have exposure to Bitcoin, specifically spot Bitcoin. What's interesting, though, is in top three. You have Bridgewater Associates. It's one of the most well-respected hedge funds.

Starting point is 00:14:51 This is headed by a guy that a lot of people, a lot of you guys will know, Ray Dalio. and it seems like he's holding out, not getting exposure to Bitcoin. But the rest of these hedge funds seems like they're getting a ton of exposure to Bitcoin. So it lists the amount of Bitcoin that each hedge fund owns and how much purchases they actually made in QT and Q2 of 2024. And some of these actually made some quite big purchases. Like, for example, this GS asset management bought 6,202. And this one, millennial management owns 27,000 Bitcoin. and they bought 1,429 Bitcoin in Q2 of 2024.

Starting point is 00:15:31 So you're getting a lot of exposure not only by public companies. Of course, Michael Saylor continuing to use the infinite money glitch, other companies following in his footsteps, nation states like the Kingdom of Bhutan that we found out has one third of their GDP and Bitcoin. Of course, Freedom Country El Salvador. But now you have huge massive hedge funds. You have asset managers like Black Rock and Fidelity. So like everyone is getting exposure to Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:16:00 This is happening in the background, whether people like it or not. This is the reality of the situation. Bitcoin is here to stay. Everyone who is an actual player. And it's not only that. You have Goldman Sachs. You have Wells Fargo. You have JP Morgan, I believe.

Starting point is 00:16:19 You have the second largest bank in Europe, B&P Peribas. you have the Wisconsin Pension Fund. Like everyone has some type of exposure to Bitcoin, either through spot Bitcoin, exposure via the ETF, or exposure through micro strategy. This thing isn't going away. This is the beginning of the institutional adoption of Bitcoin. And this is year one of this. And I think that this trend is going to continue for the next 10 years or so.

Starting point is 00:16:48 Yeah. It's funny when you pointed out Bridgewater. and Ray Dalio. I'm, it, it, it's funny because he's, he's on the cusp of getting it, but hit, you know, his one sticking point that he always pulls out is, uh, he thinks that the government can just shut it down. Like he hasn't figured out, oh, they'll just ban it. They'll just ban.

Starting point is 00:17:10 Like, I don't know why he hasn't gone deeper into examining that and like why that's not, not possible. And like, why that's now very unlikely based on. It's being integrate, rather than being banned, it's like, oh, we're going to shove it into the legacy financial system and everything like that and try to like, people are trying to profit off of it and everything through that. I wonder if his reasoning is still there and he's just kind of stuck on that point. It's a weird point for him to be stuck on given that we've seen instances of banning just fully not working. Yeah. And also like at this point, you know, and you have a very important election coming up here in the United States. And, you know, with Sailor and Black Rock, like, this isn't going away, right? Like, this is not going away. Bitcoin has entrenched itself in the finance. Like, I'll put it to you this way. These hedge funds all have a tremendous amount of political way. You know what? Actually, this is a perfect second. way to my next story, okay? Let me actually find it because this is great, because we've been

Starting point is 00:18:25 waiting for this moment for all the lives, and it's finally happened. I'm going to talk about Kamala Harris. So we have been talking about Trump for a long time, and we've been saying, you know what, Trump is positive for the industry. He says he'll protect the right to self-custody, and, you know, he'll protect the right to mine. And we've been a little bit critical. of the Kamala Harris campaign because they've been quiet on Bitcoin and the crypto industry. Well, that has changed. Now, what I will say is I promise that I would wear a Kamala shirt. This isn't exactly what I would have preferred.

Starting point is 00:19:08 I believe this is a step in the right direction. But I believe it's a little bit off the mark. And I just want to preface this by saying YouTube, these are her words, not much. fine. But this is, this is real. And this came from her Twitter account. And I'm going to offer no opinions. I'm just going to read it. So it says Harris Wallace policy. Kamala Harris will create an opportunity agenda for black men. And one of those things as it relates to Simply Sessions says she will protect cryptocurrency investments. So black men who make them know their money is safe. I don't know what that means. what does that entail? I have no idea. Also, like, is it just applying to a certain set of group of people? It's not

Starting point is 00:19:58 applying to everyone. I will say, though, is that this is great. This is phenomenal. This is a step in the right direction. Now we have both presidential candidates that are saying they're somewhat pro-crypto and pro-Bitcoin. Not ideal in my humble opinion, but definitely step in the right direction. and also a testament to the influence of Bitcoin in our movement. She wouldn't be saying this unless she felt like she was gaining votes. I don't agree with the method, but I'm going to give credit where credit is due, Kamala. Yeah. The specificity is what gets me very.

Starting point is 00:20:37 I also wonder, how would you specifically protect a certain segment of the population to ensure that they specifically have safe money in cryptocurrency investments. I'm not sure how that would exactly play out, but maybe like some free hardware wallets sent out based on skin color. I don't know. Is that how it's going to work? You know? Like let's test your melanin net levels and set up cold parts for those that apply. I don't know. Is that? We're going to roll this out. I'm not sure. Yeah, so I get this is this is great This is a step in the right direction I would love it for it to be a little bit more inclusive

Starting point is 00:21:23 But you know, it is what it is So here's Alex in all seriousness though Here's Alex Thorne This is a lot of information I don't know if we have time to break all of it down But I'll focus on a couple of them But Alex Thorne Great guy, he's the head of research at Galaxy Excuse me

Starting point is 00:21:43 Oh, good. And he released a policy, a so-called policy scorecard. And he differentiates between the Biden administration, the Harris, potential Harris-Waltz administration, and Trump vance administration. So it's color-coded and everything. It's great. Like I said, it is quite long. So I'm going to focus on, I think, let's focus on the SEC sanctions and self-custody.

Starting point is 00:22:12 So first, the SEC. So obviously Biden has been terrible in this regard. He said he would veto SAB 121. Harris has been a little bit more positive. She said her administration would, quote, encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors, which could be seen as a nod towards financial regulation policy

Starting point is 00:22:39 for digital assets, though the statement doesn't clearly signal a divergence from the Biden administration. Behind the scenes, conversations, though, suggests Harris is targeting a slightly more constructive approach. And you see this with Mark Cuban behind the scenes as well. And, of course, with Trump, he's been extremely supportive. He went on the Nashville.

Starting point is 00:22:57 He literally said, I'm going to fire Gary against her twice to a roaring crowd of applause. Now, let's talk about sanctions. So I think this is going to be one of the most contentious issues with governments, specifically the U.S. government, because the U.S. government gets a tremendous amount of power through their U.S. sanction policy, so they essentially weaponize the dollar, and they use that against enemies of the U.S. government. So for example, like with the war and Russia, the Russia and Ukraine war, one of the first things that they did was they froze the account of Russian nationals and accounts that they thought had some connection with the Russian government.

Starting point is 00:23:38 problem is that with Bitcoin, like, and we were laughing up, we were making jokes about this, you and I, Ben. With Bitcoin, it's like, like, they would release lists of Bitcoin addresses, and they would say this address is sanctioned, but they wouldn't have the keys to that said address. So, like, that isn't freezing money, you know, that doesn't come with the same power. I don't think current U.S. sanction policy is compatible with an open monetary network. And that's going to be a very tough pill to swallow for bureaucrats that have been used to controlling the money. I think you guys just did an episode on this for Tuttle Twins, right? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:24:20 So, yeah, I think there's going to be a very tough pill to swallow for all governments, the fact that they're going to not have the ability to control the money of which their citizens use. And I just don't think we've even crossed that bridge yet. but Alex breaks down like the different approaches. So Biden is negative, Harris is negative, and Trump is negative as well. I don't expect this to change. And now the third point that we have time to cover today is self-custody. Self-custody is a revolution. So self-custody is what's going to change things.

Starting point is 00:24:57 If enough people in the population are holding their Bitcoin in self-custody, I think it changes things over time. He breaks it down. So first, from Biden, no overt attack on self-custody, though the Treasury Department has sought the authority to label non-custodial wallet providers as money transmitters. Harris is unclear and likely no change from Biden. Harris has made no statements nor offered any policy guidance on self-custody,

Starting point is 00:25:29 though similar to Treasury, some of her advisors have been hostile in the past. Trump is somewhat positive. Trump pledged to protect the right to self-custody during the speech in Nashville in July. He is likely to be supportive, though the risk of U.S. government default and pressure from Treasury, terrorism financing may soften his stance slightly. And it's also officially part of the Republican Party platform as well. But again, it's very important to, you know, everything's fine and Danny into the government defaults and they have to do a 6102 order, bro.

Starting point is 00:26:04 So, yeah. So, I mean, like, these are the clear differences between the different administrations, but I got to give credit where credit is due. This is, this is better than it was before. It's not actively hostile, I suppose, for a very specific group of people. So, yay. We don't apply. We're not, we're not a, like, we don't fit in this category, though.

Starting point is 00:26:31 That's true. There's nothing about me specifically having my cryptocurrency investments protected and knowing that my money is safe. So I guess I'll wait for that policy to be dropped specifically based on my melanin levels. You know, maybe that will come down the line. I'm sure it's somewhere in the back end. She's just waiting to drop that one closer to election day. I can't even make that state. Could you just imagine replacing that?

Starting point is 00:27:00 Kamala Harris will create an opportunity agenda for a specific man. Like, I can't even say that. Definitely if we said that, there'd be some sort of demonetization or, or immediate. Yeah. Immediate. Anyway, so I want to talk about the double standards. So we've been getting hit by a metaphorical two by four for the last, you know, three and a half years with Operation

Starting point is 00:27:32 Choke Point 2.0 and all that stuff. But I just, I want to highlight the hypocrisy between its rules for the and not for me, right? So, of course, you guys remember Binance founder CZ? He was sentenced to four months in prison after a

Starting point is 00:27:50 plea deal. So here's some specifications. Crypto billionaire stepped down as Binance CEO as part of his agreement with the Justice Department. U.S. prosecutors recommended a 36-month sentence for Zau, finance founder, CZ, who pleaded guilty to money laundering violations in November, was sentenced to four months in prison on Tuesday. So moving on, we have Arthur Hayes. Former Bitmec CEO Arthur Hayes sentenced to two years probation. And the reason that he

Starting point is 00:28:21 was sentenced to that was he pleaded guilty in February as part of a plea deal as well. and he willfully fail to implement anti-money laundering at the exchange. Very similar wording to CZ. CZ, they even said the word terrorism when they did his press release and stuff. Now, of course, you guys remember the Samurai Wallet case and very similar wording. The arrest, they arrested and charged the founders and the CEO of Samurai with money laundering and unlicensed money offenses. Now, the reason that this infuriates me, and I usually, I don't say that lightly, is check this out. I'll play you guys the clip. Here it is. Good afternoon, everyone.

Starting point is 00:29:10 Before we get started, I want to extend my sympathy to the millions of Americans who've had their lives turned upside down by Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene. I know I speak for all of us in expressing my gratitude to the first responders on the ground who are carrying out rescue missions. And I want to thank all the volunteers who are helping their neighbors get through these storms. And now to the subject of today's announcement. Today, TD Bank pled guilty to multiple felonies, including conspiring to violate the Bank Secrecy Act and commit money laundering. Td Bank has also agreed to a $1.8 billion criminal penalty, combined with civil enforcement actions announced today by other agencies, the United States will be imposing a total of approximately $3 billion against TD Bank.

Starting point is 00:30:05 TD Bank created an environment that allowed financial crime to flourish. By making its services convenient for criminals, it became one. Today, TD Bank became the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to Bank Secrecy Act program failures and the first bank in history to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering. This is also the largest ever penalty under the Bank Secrecy Act and the first time the Justice Department has assessed a daily fine against a bank. As part of the plea agreement, TD Bank will fundamentally restructure its corpus. compliant program at its U.S.-based bank, which is the 10th largest in the United States. The bank has also agreed to the imposition of a three-year monitorship and a five-year term of probation.

Starting point is 00:30:57 While the bank has started its remediation, it will continue to remediate and improve its anti-money laundering compliance program to ensure that the bank operates lawfully and safely moving forward. Okay. All right. the bank gets a fucking fine and we get locked in a box like what I don't understand what what is like this is the biggest case ever

Starting point is 00:31:25 money laundering for the Mexican drug cartel huge crime committed they're not even referring to the executives they're referring to the entity as the bank but Arthur Hayes he goes to prison CZ he goes to prison tornado cash developer he goes to prison Samurai wallet developer, he goes to prison.

Starting point is 00:31:46 TD, oh, you guys get a fine. Yeah. And again, 2008, they got fines. So the banks get fined and we get thrown in jail in prison. Our industry gets thrown in jail in prison. And by the way, it's a, like, it's a tenth of a tenth of what TD did. So what's the difference? I don't understand.

Starting point is 00:32:10 Please look at me with a straight face. and explain to me why we, again, get thrown in prison and they get a fine. Why couldn't CZ get a fine? Why couldn't? And again, why didn't they just, could you imagine the same press conference, but they're like, Bynance did this? No, no, no, no. They were like, CZ's a fucking criminal and he broke the Secrecy Act.

Starting point is 00:32:37 You know, he deserves to go to prison. No, they don't say that. I don't understand. This is ludicrous. This is corruption to the highest level and just a clear representation of the double standards between banks and the whole in our industry. Like it's not fair. It's not fair.

Starting point is 00:32:58 And I can't take it seriously because it's like we're supposed to look at these people. They're supposed to be our betters. They're supposed to be the regulators. They're supposed to be the people that set the laws. but it's a different set of laws for the bankers, and it's a different set of laws for the Bitcoin and crypto industry. Yeah, you're totally right. And again, the key component here is that that $3 billion fine,

Starting point is 00:33:26 the largest penalty of its kind in U.S. history, that's nominal. But of course, like, it's always going to be the largest fine of Mankind in history. And on top of that, it was like 1% of revenue. over the same period. So it's a literal slap on the wrist. And I think the best comment that I see right here from Satoshi, Satoshi Witness, just the cost of doing business. It's like they just factor in that there's going to be some type of fines. It's like, oh, it's, it's effectively a licensing fee to get past the regulations and to continue making profit regardless. So like, it's just, it's a joke and you're right.

Starting point is 00:34:09 They hold one industry and one group of people to a completely different standard than the other. And in one, it's we're going to need some of those profits. And in the other, it's you're going to go to prison potentially for the rest of your life. Yeah, 100%. And then not also that. They shut you down. So like if you're Bitmax, Bitmax is not available to U.S. citizens. Binance. Binance has a whole separate entity for U.S. citizens, but it's essentially shut down, right?

Starting point is 00:34:42 So, like, it's not only that they put you in prison, but they shut down your operations to Americans, right? And then the lightning wallet is a great example of that, right? So wallet of Satoshi, incredible lightning, not a custodial lightning wallet. And they pull out of the U.S. And then they operate everywhere around the U.S. And then they operate everywhere around world. Everyone uses Wallace Associated. Wallis-Ossi. Wallace at Sotoche is like, no, I don't operate. I'm going to get like, so I go to prison. Are you kidding me? You're crazy. I don't want to do that. So like, yeah, I mean, this is, this is insane.

Starting point is 00:35:16 This is ludicrous. This is hypocrisy to the highest levels. And again, I can't look, just because you stand behind this podium and you got this official stuff, like, this is corruption, man. This is, this is hypocrisy. And it's, and it just boils down to wanting to protect the status quo over everything else. That's really the way that I see it. Anyways, kind of shifting the subject a little bit here. This is quite interesting. So Germany sold a lot of Bitcoin earlier in the year. A lot of

Starting point is 00:35:49 people are saying that this part of the reason that we started consolidating and chopping sideways. But this German politician who actually spoke at Bitcoin Amsterdam, her name is Joanna Kotar, she said something really, really interesting. Let's check it out. I think if the United States starts and buys Bitcoin as a strategic reserve or something like that, then I think all the European countries with a little bit of delay, they will get FOMO. They will get the fear of missing out. So there's a lot of pressure now on the American colleagues here to do something about it

Starting point is 00:36:26 because it's always the states to start first. And so maybe that has an impact because otherwise it will take a long time in Germany to change it. I think if the United States starts and buys Bitcoin as... There we go. So this is massive, right? And someone who's actively part of the German government. And she's saying something that we've been hypothesizing, something that we've been saying. But Max Kaiser calls it the global hash war, whatever.

Starting point is 00:36:59 This election in the U.S. that's in less than a month is going to be extremely consequential because what she's talking about right now, about the U.S. actively making it part of their strategic reserve asset, this is something that Trump has promised to do. And if Trump manages to win this election coming up and this actually become like Bitcoin has been legitimized in the the eyes of traditional finance through the BlackRock ETF. If Trump gets elected, it would be legitimized in the eyes of nation states. And all of a sudden, if the U.S., right, the world leader and GDP and economy and innovation, all that, basically puts a rubber stamp, you're going to see Europe, you're going to see China, you're going to see Russia. It's going to open the floodgates, Something that we've never even, like, anticipated or could have even have imagined. And again, it's not me just, like, theorizing this, this German politician saying this as well. And also something that I find quite interesting as well is, it seems like other companies are following the micro-strategy playbook.

Starting point is 00:38:17 Specifically, I believe this company is German as well. A company by the name of Samarro Asset Group to buy Bitcoin using $33 million, $33,000. million euro bond, or 30 million euro bond. According to the news on October 14th, Samara said investment bank Pareto Securities would be the sole manager in arranging a series of fixed investor meetings on a potential multi-million euro bond to expand its investment portfolio. And up to 30 million euros senior secured Nordic bond may follow subject to inter-Aliya market conditions. The bond's proceeds would be used for additional limited partnership stakes and investment in Bitcoin, which the firm uses as its, quote, primary treasury reserve asset.

Starting point is 00:39:02 Now, what's really interesting is that they didn't use the word secondary or alternative. They said primary, right? That is really effing, exciting. So, you know, in the same week that you have this German politician basically saying, like, look, if the U.S. comes in there and makes Bitcoin a strategic asset, you have a publicly traded German government. company saying, you know what? We're going to copy Michael Saylor, use the infinite money glitch, and we're going to buy Bitcoin as a primary Treasury Reserve asset. I mean, yeah, dude, things are extremely bullish. Things are heading in the right direction. And this was your Simply sessions for October 18th. Ben, I will see you next week. Peace out, everybody.

Starting point is 00:39:47 Oh, yeah, man. See you soon. Thanks so much, buddy. All right. And everybody, stick around because When we come back from a brief break, we're going to be given away some free sats. Get your lightning wallets ready. Get your cameras ready because the first person to scan the QR code when you get back is going to win some sats. So we will see in just a second

Starting point is 00:40:07 after a quick shout out to our sponsors and following that. We'll also be hitting up all the tech updates, all the latest, and what has been going on with the tools that you need to secure your Bitcoin. So we'll see in just a moment. Speed wallet is a Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:40:25 Lightning Wallet built with simplicity in mind. Spend and receive with ease, claim your own lightning address, shop your favorite gift cards, and even earn rewards when you spend. Head over to speed.app to download the app on your mobile or desktop today and use the link down below to get 5,000 Sats for free and have the chance to win even more. Keeper is a fully open source Bitcoin app created to help you stack Sats long term. Easily use your hardware devices or or assisted keys to create multi-sig wallets and plan your inheritance. Head over to Bitcoinkeeper.app to download the app and use code BTC Sessions 30 to get a 30% discount on your first subscription.

Starting point is 00:41:15 Debify.com allows you to borrow against your Bitcoin in a non-custodial way. Collateral is held in a three or four distributed multi-sig with trusted parties. It provides institutional liquidity providers, loan periods of up to five years with flexible conditions and the best rates. Best of all, no rehypification of your funds. If you want to check them out today, head over to debify.com or hit the link in the show notes down below. All right, we are back in,

Starting point is 00:41:44 and I hope you guys have your lightning wallets ready because we're about to give away some sets. I'm here on Bitcoinwell.com. If you're unfamiliar, they are in Canada and the U.S. An excellent spot to be stacking sets. And they also have this handy, fun little game that you can do on your home screen. And the way it works is when you sign up, when you purchase Bitcoin, when you refer friends, you earn points. And those points can be used

Starting point is 00:42:11 to throw coins into the Bitcoin wishing well, which can get you rewards in the form of cold hard sats anywhere from 500 sats all the way up to a million sets. So what we're going to do is we're going to toss a coin in the well right now. And the first person to scan that code with their lightning wallet will receive all of the sats that were won. So I'm going to hit play now. We'll redeem 500 points. And off it shall go into the well. I'm going to blow it up a little bit so you guys can get that.

Starting point is 00:42:42 Ooh, 2,100 sats. Nice. So I'll give you guys a minute to give that a scan. Congrats to whoever gets the free sats. And if you do, please do let me know in the chat or in the comments or wherever you're watching this. I love to see people snagging those free sats. But we're going to keep going with that.

Starting point is 00:43:03 There's one other thing I wanted to bring up, and that is Bitcoin Mentor, another way for you to earn sets. Now, a lot of people watching this show, you know, familiar with Bitcoin, been around the block. You know, you've got maybe your hardware wallet set up and using wallets for a while. But we're definitely heading into a very interesting year. There's going to be a lot of interest in and around Bitcoin. And there's going to be friends and family that are curious. And if you want to help set them up with some of the best educators in the industry

Starting point is 00:43:37 and funnel them somewhere where they can learn about wallets, hardware, multi-sig, even lightning, running a node, home mining as a hobbyist, well, you can funnel them towards my team at Bitcoin Mentor.io, an incredible group of educators that can help assist. them in their Bitcoin learning journey and with every single session that somebody books referred by you as an affiliate of Bitcoin mentor, you earn $21 in Bitcoin. And so this is in perpetuity moving forward forever. So if somebody keeps on coming back and learning more and booking more sessions, you get $21 for every single one of those. So I encourage you all if you want to help educate people,

Starting point is 00:44:25 but also earn some sats in sending people down that good pathway of education, then be sure to scan the code on the screen right now and sign up to be a Bitcoin mentor affiliate, and stack sats will stack in knowledge with your friends and family. Anyways, with that, we are going to move in to the updates. A number of things I want to touch on today. Number one, I just kind of say that the new episode of Tuttle 21, just dropped today.

Starting point is 00:44:57 And I'm in it in cartoon form. I watched it just before coming on here to do the live show, and I watched it side by side with my daughter, and she had a blast watching it too, and it was a lot of fun. This is their second Bitcoin episode that they've ever done. You can find it now, the full episode, for free on YouTube, and it was also posted to the Swan Handle on X. And you can also, of course, watch it through the Angel app.

Starting point is 00:45:29 And there's going to be a kind of a live stream with commentary and interviews and stuff like that coming up on November 7th as well. But if you want to check it the episode, it is live now. And it's a lot of fun. So, yeah, moving on, let's check out a few other things. So Foundation Passport version 2.3.4, restored compatibility with CASA app. So what's new, CASA users will now be able to properly perform health checks on their setups. There's some minor visual bug fixes involving niche scenarios. Basically updates available now.

Starting point is 00:46:04 And yeah, so awesome. If you were a CASA user and you were having issues with your passport alongside CASA, well, that's been resolved for you. Moving on, SimpleX chat version 6.1.0 better calls and iOS notifications, UX improvements. So let's see, new inversion 6.1, enhanced call reliability and usability. You can now activate the camera and share your screen from desktop app during voice calls. Multiple issues affecting call connectivity has been resolved. Better iOS notifications and better user experience. So new conversation layout, customizable messages, rather, improved switching between user profiles,

Starting point is 00:46:44 faster deletion, moderation, and forwarding of messages. Now why am I bringing up simple X chat? Yes, it's tangential to Bitcoin. And the reason I say that is because you can run your own server for private chat alongside your other Bitcoin infrastructure on your Start 9 node. And I believe Umbrell has it too. I run Start 9, so that's why I'm familiar with it there. But great privacy tool, if that's of concern to you in your day-to-day chats.

Starting point is 00:47:14 You can download not only download the app, but host your own reliance. on your own hardware as well. Moving on, Zeus version 0.9.1, both 11 blinded paths, inbound routing fees, and more. So what's new? Bolt 11 blinded paths. Zeus enhances user privacy with wrapped invoices when using Olympus Lightning Service provider

Starting point is 00:47:40 and now blinded paths, which conceal public keys and specify encrypted payment routes. Users can activate blinded paths via the receive view toggle when the LSP is off. Inbound routing fees, routing node operators can now set inbound routing fees for their channels. And rescans of external wallets, you can now set the birthday in blocks for external accounts from hardware wallets so that your Zeus wallet can scan for passive events to improve the experience of crafting on-chain transactions. and linked contacts showing in channel view.

Starting point is 00:48:20 If you have an open channel with a friend registering in your contact book and that friend's note is identified in the contact entry, a link to their contact will appear on all channels you have with them. You can also view on-chain addresses, addresses option in the menu.

Starting point is 00:48:39 Yeah, that's pretty awesome. I've been using Zeus a lot ever since AlbiHub dropped on Start 9. And AlbiHub is just an easy way to host your own lightning infrastructure and link to it externally so you can access your lightning node from your phone in a quick and easy way. It's pretty awesome. So the combo of those two things, amazing. Moving on, Fountain Version 1.1.5.

Starting point is 00:49:08 Pay, both 11 invoices, artist pages, library movements. So Fountain is basically a lightning-powered value-for-value podcasting app and a Noster client. So this new version features a streamlined content library for better performance, the capability to pay bolt 11 invoices directly through the podcast app and a dedicated artist page where you can view all tracks by a specific artists. It's not possible to pay anything in Bitcoin with your podcast app. Next time you're buying a coffee. You can pay in Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:49:46 Open fountains, scan the invoice and watch the cashier lose their mind, said the project in a blog post. So what's new? Simpler library architecture. Again, paying Bolt 11 invoices, which are just any amount. And then artist pages. You can see the artist page, track, album by track or album to view and play all tracks by the artist. Additionally, you can skip tracks in the player or add them to your library queue or playlist. Anyways, super awesome.

Starting point is 00:50:14 Love to see the proliferation of value for value content. Fediment Web SDK, building eCash into the web. And so this is a toolkit for building Fediment and lightning wallets in the browser. This is interesting because I've been playing with Fediments and the Feddy app and I'm learning the ropes of setting them mints and all that kind of stuff. Very interesting ecosystem. I love the privacy afforded with it. I think it's a great idea for small communities, things like that.

Starting point is 00:50:50 But you've been kind of roped into just the FETI app. And I think with this SDK, you're going to see more tools pop up. So you have optionality where people can spin up a mint. And this is just a protocol where anybody can do this. And then you have your choice of interface instead of. of being very limited there. So that's great. So with this, WebAssembly powered client, eCash payments,

Starting point is 00:51:16 lightning payments, state management, privacy included, framework agnostic. Again, that's kind of the key thing here, agnostic in choices of how you view and interact with the network. I think that's great. So good to see Fetamint kind of opening up to the world, at large. Okay, I had to bring this up. Guys, we're about to go into another bull run where there's

Starting point is 00:51:50 going to be another hard lesson learned by many people. And there's been many lessons learned over the various cycles of years past. I think that 2017 with the ICO bubble kind of started the, gave the first major push to Bitcoin only. Like all of these other shit. and crap that have been popping up, people are like, oh, wow, this is, this is all garbage. Like, why wouldn't I just go Bitcoin only? And not everybody learned that lesson. Some people are still in the process of learning that lesson, but here we are. Fast forward to the next cycle in around 2021.

Starting point is 00:52:27 A lot of people that settled in on Bitcoin felt, you know, like they, oh, I'm a genius. I figured it out. I figured out the trick. And then they levered up. And they were like Bitcoin only and I'll use leverage to get more Bitcoin. And what happened? Well, rug pulls abound, liquidations abound, people end up with less Bitcoin than they had before. Unfortunately.

Starting point is 00:52:52 So that was another big lesson there. And custodians, right? Rug pulled by FTX things and all of that stuff. Well, I think this is the cycle of learning that just because something is on top of Bitcoin doesn't mean it's a good idea. and this is one such thing with all the ordinals and everything. Orge.io tweeted out a one ounce gold bar was just tokenized to the Bitcoin blockchain for the first time by swarm markets and ordinals bought using the Ordinals protocol. Da-da-da-da-da.

Starting point is 00:53:28 The owner of the old gold bar inscription can redeem it for an in-real-life gold bar at any... The main point being, as I wrote here, This is functionally no different than buying a paper representation of gold. The physical asset is not locked to the token in any certain way. You're relying on the auditor to confirm that the gold is indeed there, and you rely on the custodian to actually redeem your claim for the physical item. Both of those, as anything when you're not having the physical. physical thing itself, are risks. And just because the token representing the physical item is

Starting point is 00:54:18 on a blockchain doesn't change anything, even if it's on the Bitcoin blockchain, it doesn't make a lick difference. It's still, you're representing something in the physical world, an owned piece of property with a token on the Bitcoin blockchain. Just because it's just because, it's difficult to change the data on the Bitcoin blockchain, you can't go in reverse transactions, doesn't mean that that applies to the real world item as well. Somebody can take the gold. The person allegedly holding the gold for you cannot actually have it. They could lose it. They could steal it. They could have it stolen from them. That's not fixed by putting a token anywhere. Yes, of course, on a shit coin, they can be co-opted. They can be shut down in some instances.

Starting point is 00:55:13 They can be re-transaction can be reversed. But even though Bitcoin is like the most robust, decentralized digital currency on the planet, if you tokenize physical items on top of it, it gives you no guarantees. It just gives you a greater certainty that your transaction, of the token representing the digital item won't be reversed. But that means sweet shit all when you go to redeem your digital token and the bar of gold doesn't exist. So please, please, please think about the things that you allocate your capital into. Just because it's on top of Bitcoin doesn't mean it's a good idea.

Starting point is 00:55:57 Or better yet, a better way of phrasing it. And hat tip to Francis Pouliott, who said this to me years and years. ago, you know, if it's a bad idea on a shit coin, it's probably still a bad idea on Bitcoin. Take that for what it is. Be careful out there. Also, don't buy Trump's shit coin. Moving on. This is what I'm working on this week, you guys. I'm in the midst of a tutorial for Ashigaro. This one is taken a little bit longer because I literally created my own dojo which is kind of the back-end infrastructure, hosting an entire copy of the Bitcoin blockchain

Starting point is 00:56:39 and all of the infrastructure around it. So I have like a mini-PC. I installed Linux on it, installed all of this, and I'm going to, once it's finished sinking, which should be tomorrow, I will link up Ashigaro wallet with it, which is a privacy wallet. This is a fork of samurai wallet,

Starting point is 00:57:00 which, of course, Samurai wallet, the servers, all of that was shut down by law enforcement, and there is trials ongoing in and around that. But this is a fork of that project anonymously started and where there are no central servers, where if you want to use it, you must host your own. So I wanted to see how it worked. It's going to have a number of the, pretty much all the same features, except for, I don't think that there's any, I don't yet know of like a wide coin join implementation that is going to go into this. I would not be surprised to see coordinators pop up that are anonymous, as we've seen with things like Wasabi. I hope to see this with Ashi Garo as well, but it's still going to have

Starting point is 00:57:50 onion routing, ricochet, encrypted key recovery, post-mix spending, batch spending, stealth mode, peer-to-peer coin joins. This is like pay join. No, it's not pay join. It's the equivalent of stowaway, I believe is what it was called in Samurai Wall. Either way, awesome. Coin control, smart mining fees, all that kind of stuff. So anyways, check it out, Ashigaro. r-s-h-h-I-G-A-R-U-U-D-R-S. Again, I'm putting together the Ronan Dojo. No, I think it's just called Dojo. Anyways, I got a mini-PC running it. It is, I've downloaded the whole blockchain. It is indexing it, now it's at like 93 or 94 percent by tomorrow i will be fully done i will then kind of document my experience using the mobile wallet and linking it and then once that's all done i will put it all

Starting point is 00:58:44 together and put it up but very very interesting excited to see that uh finish up i'm looking at it right now um and then finally a couple other things uh i'm going to be headed to the plan B forum in lugano switzerland lugano being a uh uh a uh a town in Switzerland that is basically creating a Bitcoin circular economy there, which is really, really cool. I'm very interested to see what like a first world high-end kind of expensive town in Europe on a Bitcoin standard looks like. We shall see.

Starting point is 00:59:22 I'll be there. I fly out next Wednesday. So I'll be getting there on Thursday, the 24th, I believe. Something like that. But anyways, the form. is on the 25th and 26th. The speakers list is just awesome. I'm super excited about it.

Starting point is 00:59:38 There's a lot of great people there. Nick Zabwe, of course, Stella Assange, Adam back. Again, like just the list. I mean, you can see them on the screen if you're watching,

Starting point is 00:59:47 you know, Satoshi himself. Peter Todd will be, I'm sure he'll be inundated. Poor Peter. But lots of great people going to be there. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Starting point is 00:59:58 I get to do a fireside chat with Elizabeth Stark talking about lightning. I'm doing a chat, of course, with Anna Chekovich, talking about what we're doing with the Human Rights Foundation. I'm doing a privacy panel that I'm moderating. I'm also doing a talk on some of my favorite tools and items and devices of 2024. I think I'm going to be doing some emceeing as well. So it's going to be jam-packed.

Starting point is 01:00:19 It's going to be a lot of fun. If you're going to be in Lugano or if you'd like to be and you haven't grabbed your tickets yet, I would do that sooner rather than they. I think the tickets go up at the end of today. They go up another 50 Swiss francs. They're 250 right now. That's actually really, really quite, in my opinion, compared to some other tickets for other events. That's quite affordable, especially for the guest list there. So if you're going to be there, grab your tickets.

Starting point is 01:00:49 You can actually get a further discount if you use code BTC sessions. And yeah, I hope to see you guys there. It's going to be a lot of fun. And of course, tomorrow. Why are we bullish live at 6 p.m. Eastern time. We've got Avi Burra. We've got Green Candle investments and John Chenow. And it should be an absolute blast.

Starting point is 01:01:08 I think this will be a fun conversation. I'm really looking forward to this one. So be sure to hit it up. And finally, I'll do one more shout out to Bitcoin Mentor. Again, if you want to be an affiliate, if you want to earn $21 for not just each person that you refer that books a session, but for every single session that person, that person and books with us in perpetuity moving forward forever, then sign up to be an affiliate. You can scan the QR code on the screen right now.

Starting point is 01:01:39 And once you get signed up, you can use your link and you can share to anybody that you think needs some one-on-one education to help them get set up and get secure in their Bitcoin journey. Then we'll be happy to help them with my awesome team of educators over at Bitcoin Mentor. Anyways, with that, I am out. have yourselves, and let me get this off my screen, there we go, have yourselves a wonderful day or evening, wherever you may be. And I will see you guys. And next time, I'll see you guys tomorrow for your daily session. Have a good evening.

BTC Sessions - Government's Double Standards EXPOSED: They Don't Want You To See This ep446

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