BTC Sessions - It's official... CSW is DONE! ep402

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

Simply Sessions: Dive into the latest Bitcoin buzz as we cover Craig Wright's court defeat, Trump's changing stance on Bitcoin, Biden's proposed mining tax, the ECB's digital currency rollout, and how Nostr tackles social media censorship. Stay ahead with us. BOOK ME for one-on-one private sessions to learn about wallets, hardware, multisig, privacy, nodes and much more. https://www.btcsessions.ca/ 💪 SUPPORT THE SHOW: 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 Nunchuk Wallet and their Honey Badger plan is a best in class assisted multisig setup with built-in inheritance planning and NO KYC. Pass on your savings to your loved ones with ease in a simple claiming process with full customer support. Check them out today! https://nunchuk.io/ SEEDOR is one of the most robust metal backups on the market today. Get your SEEDOR starter set today! Use this link for 5% off. https://www.seedor.io/discount/BTCSESSIONS?redirect=%2Fcollections%2Fprodukte For US based customers: https://www.seedor.io/btcsessions Canadian customers: https://link.thecryptoboutique.ca/BTCSessionsSeedor Start9 is your Bitcoin & lightning node, and full personal server - enabling you to take back control from the gatekeepers of your money and data! Grab a Server Lite, One or Pro today and become truly self-sovereign! https://start9.com/ HodlHodl is a NON-CUSTODIAL, NON-KYC solution to stack sats peer to peer! Buy and sell Bitcoin while maintaining privacy. Furthermore, you can check out their Lend platform for p2p loans that are never rehypothecated. Sign up and try it out today! https://hodlhodl.com/join/BTCSESSION

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the show. Another Thursday, another episode of Simply Sessions. We have Nico in the Wings here about to bring us the latest and greatest in everything Bitcoin. And it's a jolly happy day. I'm sure you guys already know why something that's been just festering for so long. Seems to finally be resolved and we can be free of it. But today is a day for celebration, my friend.

and we'll talk about it momentarily. Anyways, I hope you guys are all having a fantastic week. Of course, this is live. Anything can happen. So I defer to my friend Bill here. Do it live. We'll do it live. Do it live.

I'll write it and we'll do it live. The thing sucks. Now, if you have not already, please do like, subscribe, share all those things. They help a ton getting this in front. of more eyeballs. I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your simply session. Before we bring in Nico, let's take a quick look at where we are in the market. And maybe I should maybe I should get my all of my tabs in order. You can tell it's it's been a long week. Anyways,

I am currently pulling up time chain calendar.com and simultaneously I'm grabbing the live chat this will now be on the screen everything you say will be live for the world to see for better or worse uh so back to time chain calendar dot com we're sitting at 71 000 285 dollars per coin it's been a volatile day we've seen it north of 73 we've seen it south of 69 nice uh but nonetheless how many sats are can you expect to pick up at this moment in time for a single u.s dollar that would be 1,403. And in terms of fees, not too bad, 21 sats per bite next block six sats anytime. And in terms of Bitcoin mine, 19.65 million of them. That is 93.59% of the total supply and speaking of coins mind, we're about 36 days out from the having estimated to be sometime

on the morning of April 20th, 420, absolutely poetic. So we'll be seen yet to having. Now, if you are on the channel, you're sorting through the myriad of tutorials for free and you can't quite make it through. You need some additional handholding. Feel free to reach out to me on my website, bTCsessions.ca to book me for private 101 education sessions. Shout out to sponsors of the show hoddlehottle.com.

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Check them out at cedore.io. Links are down below for the best shipping options for you. Now, Nunchuck.io, they got you covered when it comes to assisted multisiguesigues. with their Honey Badger program. Effectively, what this does is allows you to set up a multi-sig quorum on your mobile device using things like tap sign or cold card and plenty of other options. Once it is all set up, you have a multi-sig vault with baked-in inheritance planning so that your Bitcoin can get to your next of kin if anything should happen to you.

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What's up, dude? It's good to see you. I'm pulling the swaparoo. Are you ready for it? Hold on. We're going to flip tips. One, two, three. Oh, there we go.

Nailed it. How are you doing, man? How's dad like? Oh, man. No sleep, but, but amazing at the same time. You know, I think you gave me the best advice for like the first six months, six to nine months, it's potato phase. Yes. So she's still in the potato phase. Mom's being a soldier. She's a trooper.

I don't know. I don't know. It's like biology just takes over and, you know. For some people, it's not even six to nine months as potato phase. For some people, it's full life. I don't know if you know, Greg, but. permanent potato. And I say this because I'm going on their show after this, but, you know, he, he far surpassed.

Like, he's, he's, he's king potato. He's just kept it forever. 100%. It's the, the living embodiment of what a potato should be is Greg, Greg Zog. Yeah. It's a superpower, I think. Yeah, 100%. 100%.

A hundred percent. Historic day today. Historic day. Historic day. Great day for Bitcoiners. And of course, it looks like it is the end of the saga. But before we jump into it, I do want to give a shout out to the victims of this lawfare, Peter McCormack.

And of course, you know, the one, the only, the legendary hoddle, not the space cat. They not only were, you know, I wouldn't consider them martyrs because they're victors. But, you know, just like you, Ben, just by being a bit coiner and being in a certain jurisdiction, you just kind of get brought into certain things, you know, Hoddle not just by, you know, standing up and saying what was right at the time. You know, he was, he had private detectives going after him, going to his workplace, trying to docks his real identity. Someone in the chat says, don't forget the COBRA lawsuit. That's true as well. And yeah. And it seems like it's finally, you know, this is, there is no shadow of a doubt. There is no doubt anymore.

There's no more. You can't say anything anymore at this point. The judge made sure of that. So here is the Space Cat's tweet. He said the judge just ruled from the bench. Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto. further findings of fraud will come in the written judgment. I want to add a little bit of context when he says fraud.

There's three judges and three separate jurisdictions that have called Craig Wright and some people were nicer. Some people were more blunt, but they said that he lied, basically. A judge in Florida, a judge in the United Kingdom, and a judge in Norway. So, yeah, I mean, when you lie and when you forge, And, you know, I'm not making any, you know, conclusions, but, you know, that's based on what I've seen and based on what I've read, you know, that that would be considered fraud.

So really interesting to see, really interested to see what the final written judgment is going to be. Michael Saylor joined in the celebration. He's fully plugged into the Bitcoinverse. And he says Craig Wright is not Satoshi. And of course, Jack Dorsey, you know, also very, very famous, you know, Bitcoin Billion. He just very cryptic. He says W for W obviously means when. And this is the actual statement from the judge. So he says, I will make certain declarations which I am satisfied are useful and are necessary to do justice between the parties. Very strong statement. First, that Dr. Wright is not the author of the Bitcoin white paper. Second,

Dr. Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in the period between 2008 to 2011. Third, Dr. Wright is not the person who created the Bitcoin system. And fourth, he is not the author of the initial versions of the Bitcoin software. Any further relief will be dealt with in written judgment. I will extend time for filings at any appellant's notice until 21 days, after the form of ordering hearing, which would be appointed following the handout of my written judgment,

and I asked the parties to seek to agree an order giving effect to what I have just stated. Full set, done, game over, it's over, it's done. This judge literally did not leave room for interpretation. Yeah. So he is, Craig Wright is not Sasoji Nakamoto. Period. Done.

It's over, right? What did he say? This is law. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to law. Welcome to law. Okay.

Can I share something with you? Of course. It's probably my favorite thing on the internet that I've seen today in regards to this particular story. And I just, I have to share it because it is so funny. Let me just bring up my screen here for a set or the particular window. this was shared by by mr hoddle and this is a couple this is like a spaces or something of vs vrers reading the judgment okay so first of all can you can't let me know if you can hear this

can you hear it i can't hear it i can't hear it i i may not okay i'm gonna i'm gonna have to uh i don't to try and troubleshoot in the middle of this. But I retweeted this. You're going to have to go and listen to it. But basically, it's him reading the statement from the judge. And then another girl, like, he's like, any, does anybody want to come up and discuss this? And then this girl in the audience is like, I got you. I got you, Ben.

I got you. You got me? Yeah. Okay. Hold on. I'll, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll bring it up here. Okay. Well, you just got to listen to it.

It's so good. Let's check it out. I'm not hearing it now. What do you? What? Yeah. Weird. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. It's not coming through. Weird. I wonder if they, they must have changed something on a stream where it's not, uh, we can't play videos now.

Oh my God. But if he just put the last one though, I don't know. Anyways. So, nonetheless, there's this point. This girl comes up.

She's like, did he just, did he just pass judgment? and the guy's like, yeah. And then it's literally, there's like 10 to 15 seconds of silence from the girl and then just fuck. Oh my God. It's so good.

It's so good. Anyway, so if you're looking around, peek over on X and find that tweet, it is comedy gold, absolute comedy gold. It's incredible. Welcome to law. That's what I got to say. Welcome to law. Anyways, I saw someone in the chat mention,

do we get to hear Satoshi cluck? Yes. For the SB OGs, Satoshi the Bitcoin chicken clucks every time of the price of Bitcoin made an all-time high, which it totally did this week. We hit 73,656. Anyways, okay.

So the next piece of news, and I think this is a lesson that all Bitcoiners, you know, know, if you humble yourself enough, which is this idea that everyone eventually bows down to the king. And if you don't, you get absolutely wrecked. And, you know, that includes, you know, the most powerful people in the world. And one of them being Larry Fink, which he is the CEO of the largest asset manager in the world. And this is back in 2017.

He said Bitcoin is an index of money laundering. Of course, Bitcoin's incentives do what Bitcoin's incentives do best. a tweet I came out with a couple of days or like in January said Wall Street thinks it will change Bitcoin but it will be Bitcoin that will change Wall Street and that's exactly what happens. Wall Street has had a taste of the asset the best asset the world has ever seen and they can't get enough of it to the point that it's taken micro strategy three years to accumulate 205,000 Bitcoin. BlackRock has already surpassed. BlackRock has already surpassed past that and they're holding 223,000 Bitcoin followed by Fidelity at 132,000.

So, you know, think about this. You're going from Bitcoin is an index of money laundering to like put your money where your mouth is. And for any bitcoiner that bought before January of 2024, pat yourself on the back because you frant ran Wall Street. usually it's Wall Street front running Main Street so a big win in my opinion anyways what are your thoughts on this Ben I mean it's it's pretty wild to see and I like it doesn't seem like it's gonna let up any time soon like this is just the initial like we're we're a

few months when did when did the approval happen it was in how Finney day it was it was the the half it was the same January 9th yeah of of January 9th of 2020 for. And then the funds officially kicked off within days of that. So, so basically, we're like, what, two months into this and we're already like, we're pre-having, like, we have, you know, notably past all-time highs a month from having, which is like historically just hasn't happened. And again, this is just like the initial beginnings of allocations where people are flowing into this. And this is not to even mention that there's going to be all these funds and, again, like retirement funds and all of these different things that are now just starting to look and consider adding this to portfolios, let alone it being added to just general funds. Yeah, we haven't seen anything yet.

But I will, again, as always say, don't sell your Bitcoin to BlackRock. Exactly. If you're selling your Bitcoin right now, it's definitely going to Black Rock 100%. But there's another element to this, right? Which is it's not just the traditional ETF. And now they're taking a next step, which is they're adding it to funds, which is really interesting. We had some news coming out of Canada that a portion of fidelity. in Canada was adding Bitcoin to a conservative portfolio.

Portfolio fund. So, you know, this is like a quote unquote conservative fund that has all these different allocations with all these different assets. And they added a 1% Bitcoin allocation to that fund in Canada, Fidelity Canada. And then more of the trend seems to continue. And the reason that this is such a big deal

is because, this is the legitimization of Bitcoin in the eyes of the institutions, right? This is the real deal. Like once BlackRock puts their name behind it, once Fidelity puts their name behind it, and what happens when that 1% allocation starts to outperform the rest of the portfolio? You start to increase that allocation, the portfolio. And then, of course, the black hole of that is Bitcoin starts to just suck. suck everything up. So, and I know what a lot of people are thinking, like, what is this

SCIO fund, right? So it's called the Strategic Income Opportunity Fund. And if you read the description of it, the Black Rock Strategic Income Opportunities Fund is a flexible bond strategy that seeks to offer investors attractive income returns and meaningful portfolio diversification. So do you hear that? It's a flexible bond strategy. I mean, You see where they're putting in Bitcoin with this? And now here's the cherry on top, the part that I find absolutely hilarious, right? ESG integration, baby. That's right.

Bitcoin is now ESG friendly. This is how you know we're winning, bro. This is Bitcoin's incentives taking over and doing what they do best. Yeah. It's amazing. Bitcoin is eating the world and it will continue to do so. I see a lot of people also, you know, concerned about this. I'm not, you know, yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the suits having Bitcoin.

I don't mind the suits like understanding that Bitcoin's important and buying it up. But I see a lot of worry that like, oh, this could ruin Bitcoin. I kind of don't think so. And I say that from a perspective of Bitcoin is, as we've always said, Bitcoin is for enemies. People that you don't like are going to use Bitcoin. Everybody's going to use Bitcoin. At some point, the entire planet will be using Bitcoin, whether or not they know it at first. But eventually, like explicitly, I think the entire planet will be using Bitcoin.

And at that point, it's kind of like, well, yeah. You know, just because somebody across the street, you know, even right now, like, just because somebody I know that I don't like is using dollars doesn't mean that dollars have not been a way for me to purchase things or use them day to day, like cash wise. And so the same will be true to for Bitcoin, but like to the 10th power because Bitcoin is so powerful for so many people that, yeah, Yeah, of course everybody's going to be flocking to it and using it. Just don't sell your Bitcoin to people. Use it for, you know, keep it within your own local communities.

And again, that's what we're trying to, what we're trying to do here in Calgary with our market and everything. Like you can sidestep a lot of stuff by getting on your Bitcoin standard figuring out how to use it in your daily life. And then it doesn't fucking matter what BlackRock does because you're using Bitcoin. 100%. 100%. And look, And look, Bitcoin is the money of enemies, man. So you have to be OK with the suits. You have to be OK with basically anybody using this, right?

And that's just how Bitcoin is, right? Yeah. Well, what I'll say one thing about this, that I think the reason that I brought it up is we've spent years of trying to defend the idea of like, you know, people saying like, oh, criminals are using Bitcoin. And we're like, yeah, but criminals use fucking cash too. So what the hell are you talking about? So by that same string of logic where like just because bad people are using Bitcoin doesn't make Bitcoin bad, again, I don't think that suits using Bitcoin to preserve capital at in any way is going to ruin it for me.

And if it, if that is something that's going to ruin it for me, then I'd rather know now then not, but I don't think that's the case. So again, I would apply the same lesson that we've said always is Bitcoin is just a medium through which many people can accomplish many things and anybody can use it. 100%. 100%. Yeah, man. And anybody could use it.

And that's why it's going to change the world. And it's going to make the world a much, much better place for it. And look, and if you're against anyone using it, You know, this is a very strong statement, but I'm going to say it anyways. You're anti-human, man. You're anti-human, right? Like, everyone should have the ability, the comment sections. Liz Horan.

Yes, even her, a Liz Horan can have all the stats that she needs, and she will eventually be using it. Oh, she'll come around 100%. She probably owns a little bit of black rock, I think. Yeah. Anyways. Okay. So also, again, Bitcoin's incentives doing what Bitcoin's incentives do best. And this is huge news coming out of Arizona.

So Arizona Senate considers adding Bitcoin ETFs to the state's retirement portfolio. Then I said when politicians, regardless of parties, start benefiting from Bitcoin's incentives, it's game over. We are winning. But I said that. And I do believe that Bitcoin is apolitical. And I don't believe that, you know, it stands in any, you know, You know, it doesn't any, like, you know, it helps everyone equally.

In fact, I would say Bitcoin is, you know, this great unifier, right? But what's really interesting, though, is that when this came to vote, it was divided along party lines, right? Which is very strange to me. So, you know, it was, you know, basically all the Republicans in the Arizona State Senate voted yes. And then the Democrats voted no. And what's really interesting also is that I've started to notice this trend. before. I've seen this before. And I'll connect the dots for you guys.

And basically it's just the current administration, which is part of the Democratic Party. They've been relatively hostile towards the industry. So, I mean, my question is, right, if you're a bit-coiner and you have a Democrat representing you, and of course, this isn't black and white, There's Republicans that are anti-Bitcoin. There's Democrats that are pro-Bitcoin.

I mean, I would call your representative and be like, you know, like, why are you against this thing? Because I don't understand. Like, I don't understand what argument could you say? How is, you know, Bitcoin bad? Because, you know, you have it on the local level where they're like voting against Bitcoin. You have Elizabeth Warren's bill, right? And then on the federal level, on the executive branch, I mean, you have. I mean, Pierre Richard said it best, and I'll get to this in the second.

It says, Biden administration, and this is on top of the proposal that they already proposed a couple months ago. And it says, Biden administration is proposing a 30% tax on electricity used by Bitcoin miners. Even if you're off grid using your own solar and wind generation, all of the reasons they provide are pretextual. The real reason is that they want to suppress Bitcoin and launch a central bank digital currency. right so I mean are we going to go down that path where one party is pro-cd-cd-c and another party is anti-cbd-c because I mean look it's already becoming part of the political discourse here's Trump who is the leading he's he's the Republican candidate and he's using it part of his political

rhetoric tonight I'm also making another promise to protect Americans from government tyranny as you're a president, I will never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency. You know about that? So I mean, like, is that the, is that? Because like, that would suck if Bitcoin becomes partisan. Because it's not partisan. It's not left versus right. It's not Democrat versus Republican.

It's not liberal versus conservative. The real battle at hand is the party of Orange, the party of Bitcoin, peace, prosperity, opportunity versus the party of green, the party of nihilism, slavery, war, all the negative things. So, you know, this is, I got to say, I'm a bit surprised here, you know, with this, with this, with this, with this Arizona stuff, right? And the fact that the, the, the votes were so, you know, partisan. Like, I don't understand it.

I don't get it. And again, like, you know, you know. know, Bitcoin is the most equitable, equal money the world has ever seen. It protects the lower and middle classes from the ravages of inflation, right? So you would think that, you know, the Democratic Party would want to support the lower and middle classes. So that to me is very, very interesting. Yeah. I'm inclined to think that the people that flock to Bitcoin tend to.

to be the ones where they are somehow being disenfranchised or or censored or, you know, are at risk of some type of financial censorship from those that are currently in power. And so I think part of the reason you see Republicans leaning into it and kind of giving it the thumbs up, at least at the current time, more so than the Democratic side of the aisle, is because you have examples like in Canada where you kind of had like the more conservative movement, you know, that were part of the trucker protests and everything. And then you had the more kind of Democrat slash liberal side of the movement go and do things like shut down bank accounts. And in the, in the U.S., you know, censor speech on

on Twitter and social media and stuff like that. And so the people that are on the receiving end of any type of censorship are going to look for tools that are censorship resistant. I would not be surprised if in, you know, if as that political pendulum swings back and forth as it tends to do, that you get a more conservative Republican base that gains power. and all the sudden they decide maybe they don't like Bitcoin as much, and then all of a sudden you see the Democrat slash liberal side of things start to warm up to Bitcoin.

I would agree with that. I think that's a really good point because in the U.S., you know, you had the McCarthy era, right, which was the 1950s and 60s, and the left was persecuted during that time. So I agree. I think that's a really, really kind of good observation. which is like Bitcoin protects or is the freedom tool of the people who are currently being oppressed regardless of, you know, that side of the aisle, right? And I think that's a really, really good point.

I just hope, though, that like, you know, again, like Bitcoin is a unifier. It's not a divider. Right. And I would hate for this to be like a dividing issue because, you know, like, dude, like everyone benefits from Bitcoin like it doesn't benefit one party or the other you know what I'm saying so you know I just hope that it just I hope I hope this is good you know and I love the progressive Bitcoin guys because they understand this they make that that content and they fully understand this and I and I hope that they you know I hope that that picks up steam because I really feel like and Jack Dorsey said this as well like Bitcoin will bring the world together it will not divide the world. And I think what's dividing the world right now is Fiat. Anyways, so a little bit of an

update on the, you know, the CBDC kind of movement around the world, right? And I'm going to start with the Bitcoin senator, Senator, Cynthia Lummis. And she's asking Jerome Powell, let me know if you can hear the audio, Ben, about whether, you know, the federal reserve could introduce a CBDC without congressional approval. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome. It's nice to see you, Mr. Powell. My first question is about CDBCs.

There's been some chatter lately on the social media that people are concerned about the Fed creating a CDBC without legislative authorization. You and I've discussed that before. And as you know, there are other means other than a CDBC that could use digital assets to create a secure and instant payment system other than a CDBC. So the question is this. Do you still agree that the Federal Reserve cannot introduce a U.S. Central Bank digital currency without congressional authorization?

Yes, I do. Thank you. That really calms people's fears, the people who are concerned that we could end up with something like the digital yuan that is used as a means of surveillance. So I think that that will calm some of those discussions down. Thank you so much. So, okay, so you say, okay, the head of the Fed is basically saying, no, they can't do it without congressional approval. On a state level, Florida passed a law that basically said they outlawed CBDCs on the state level.

But again, don't pay attention to what they say, pay attention to what they do. Here is Representative Tom Emmer, and he says, if you don't think the Fed is pursuing a CBDC, think again, the Fed gave this to my staff during a presentation. earlier this Congress, they view a CBDC as one of their key duties. Key duties of the Fed payment system. Currency, check collection, automatic clearinghouse, wholesale payments, fiscal agent of the U.S. government, Fed now, Central Bank digital currency. So I mean, why the double speak? I don't understand, right?

Like, why are you saying this and whatever? And I truly believe it's because I don't think people would be okay with it. And the issue that I have with it really is, again, like, they're not really being transparent about it. And this is where, you know, and I read this before, but this is where Pierre's point is so spot on, where he says, Biden administration is proposing a 30% tax on electricity used by Bitcoin miners, even if you're off-grid using your own solar and wind generation, all of the reasons they provide are pretextual. The real reason is they want to suppress Bitcoin and launch a CBDC,

even though the American public doesn't agree with this. And what's even crazier is, and I'll read you kind of like the pretext here of this no BS Bitcoin article, US President Joe Biden unveiled his fiscal year 2025 budget proposal, which includes a Bitcoin mining excise tax, to quote reduce mining activity. So there is literally, they want to introduce attacks to reduce mining. Not like for whatever reason, but like just with the sole purpose of trying to, you know,

stop mining operations essentially. So I mean like they're saying one thing. They're saying, no, we can't do this without congressional approval. Oh, no, the CBC. We're just kind of looking into it. But then, I mean, you see the paper from Tom Emmer. I think this is point blank. You know, and of course, he's a politician.

But if you are to believe him and he is the GOP majority whip, you know, these are fed officials, Federal Reserve people that are giving him this presentation at the very bottom. It literally says central bank digital currency. So do I think this and this are not connected? I mean, I don't know, man. Yeah, it's a little wild. I mean, they're going to do everything that they can to to roll out and have more control at all times because that's the only power they have. The amount of spending that they're doing cannot be rolled back.

You know, that debt is never going to be paid back. I mean, they just announced that their intended the deficit in 2025 is going to be something like $7.6 trillion. And this year is already supposed to be six point something, which is above what was spent, like, during the, during the crisis, like a few years ago. You know, like we're spending like there's an international crisis. and there's not. It's just like regular run-of-the-mill spending now is the expected. And so, yeah, I see in the comments here, Phil C saying every hundred days, one trillion. Yeah, I mean, like, they're spending like no tomorrow, and there may not be a tomorrow if they keep spending like this.

And it's just, yeah, how do you rein that in? How do you keep people from fleeing the currency? And I mean, you get them onto a system where you have full control over their incentives where like if you spend it on one thing, we're going to reward you with more points. Dollars. Well, Stephanie Kelton may get the last word because her MMT quackery is going to make a lot of sense when it's basically a point-based system on your behaviors. It is a game. It is a point-based game when you get the CVDCs coming in. But yeah, like that's how they control people's behaviors. That's how you get absolute insane control over people's day-to-day lives and their

spending habits and where you can allocate money. Like it's what they have now, but taken to the extreme. And so, of course, they want to prevent people from jump and ship. And like the 30% tax on, especially all. Off grid. That's insane. That's insane. You're using your own like renewable power and they're like, listen, you know, we see that you're using You know, some hydro there totally off grid on your own land. You're going to need to pay a 30% tax for that. It appears that you're taking that renewable energy and pumping it into an electric device that we don't agree with like it's crazy like okay, what if it were toasters? Yeah, they wouldn't care. Yeah, they wouldn't care. They wouldn't care. They care. They care. Because it's a threat. It's exactly what you said. That's what it's all about. You know, I just I just wish they were up front about it. They can't be upfront about it though because I don't think people would be okay with that. I don't think people would be okay with it at all. And at the end of the day, if that ever pass, I have my doubts that this would get through. No way this goes through right now with the current house is divided and all that. Yeah. Yeah. But like in an instance where it did what happens? All the hash just moves. China 2.0. China ban 2.0, dude.

So. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. This is just, it's just nuts. Anyways, this is kind of like, I would say the CSW is the highlight of the week. But this is just absolutely hilarious, the series of events. Michael Saylor continues his massive speculative attack on the dollar. I wish I had a Fortune 500 company to leverage because he literally found, the infinite money cheat codes, but to real life. This is absolute insanity.

Okay, and I'll break it down for you guys. So micro strategy completes a $800 million offering of convertible notes at 0.625% coupon and 42.5% conversion premium. The interest rate is absolutely minimal to those convertible notes. They're due in 2030, okay? And he got $800 million for them. You know what he did? He bought Bitcoin. And then he went on mainstream media. And this is what he said. Oh, wait, we don't have it yet.

What? Sorry, sorry. Let's do that again. Okay. So then he went on mainstream media. And this is what he said. Well, because they expect that it's going to be more desirable. Well, I mean, let's be honest. Most of the people who are, yes, sure, some people pass it on to their children. But like most of the people who are buying assets at some point want to sell the assets out of profit. So let me say to differently. Okay. People that use fiat currency as a store of value, there's a name for them.

We call them poor. Okay. So then he said that. All right. And then the next day, he did this. He literally did the same thing. And then if you guys still don't understand. understand, here's our boy, the Bitcoin therapist, great content on Twitter I might add.

And he said, Saylor found the infinite money glitch, the infinite Bitcoin loop, Bitcoin micro strategy, debt Bitcoin. Okay, so he literally buys Bitcoin. The micro strategy stock goes up. He's able to borrow against it, uses that money that he borrowed to buy more Bitcoin. Therefore, when the price of Bitcoin goes up, he goes up and then he borrowed against it and buys more. Bitcoin. This is, he's speculated, he's attacking the dollar. And here's our boy, Nick can't mine, head of news at Bitcoin magazine. I think he says it best. Sailor raised 800 million to buy more Bitcoin two days ago, went on Yahoo Finance and called people who save in Fiat poor,

and now he's raising another $5 million to buy more Bitcoin. What a legend. That was the highlight of the week for me. That in CSW. That's a great tweet. That's a great tweet. Nick is at the top of his game with that one, I think. Yeah, 100%. So yeah, someone's saying it's like, how could you not love how could you not love Sailor? Like, dude, like he hacked the system. Dude, I didn't know there was an infinite money glitch cheat code in real life, you know? Did you, okay, did you see somebody took that clip and turned it into like, oh, the, the remix. It's so good. Oh, it's so good. Somebody tweeted out there like, this shouldn't be good, but it is. It's so good. It's like, the six. beat and just like a remix of we call them poor dude it's so good it's so good oh man all right it seems

like we're getting to the top of the hour before i go ben is it cool if i uh if i show my merch a little bit yeah man do it do it okay and i got a i got a friggin order some uh no i'm gonna i'm gonna bring some to you don't order some dude i got you're gonna come to come i got you to calgary i'll bring you some goodies i'll bring you some goodies anyways guys if you want to support to Simply Bitcoin channel, help us stay independent. We just dropped a new collection. We teamed up with Bitcoin artist Asanoa. I always, I don't know if I pronounce that correctly, but he's absolutely awesome. He's incredibly talented. We have different merch. We have the peaceful, we have the peaceful revolution. We have the golden Bitcoin. We have the golden snapback,

the golden Bitcoin dad hat. And then of course, as requested, we have ladies merch as well. You can find this at simplybitcoin.com. Anyways, guys, that was your Simply Sessions, Ben. Always an honor. I'll see you next week. Peace out, everybody. Later, man. Good to have you.

Awesome. And everybody, stick around because we're going to finish up with a few quick tech updates that I want to fill you guys in on. Bring up my screen here really quick. So first, I just wanted to make a note again, Zeus, constant updates coming out from them. And this one is particularly cool. So it's 0.8.2. what does it do now?

So zero confirmation LSP support for L&D connections. What the hell does that mean? Well, basically, as they stay in the quote here, users of platforms like Umbral, Start 9, voltage, RASPI blitz, basically if you run your own lightning node, you now have the option to use Zeus's lightning service provider to get connected to the lightning network,

removing the need to manually open up channels on your own. So basically you can defer to voltage, connect it, like use the app and everything, and just it's like hit a few buttons and be like, yo, I don't want to deal with channels. Can you just do that? But it's your own node. And then you have access to it on mobile. That's super awesome. It also has point of sale.

You can print receipts, all that cool stuff. Lots of different currency, Fiat currency conversion. So you can price things and use it as a point of sale. terminal super awesome so anyways really cool to see these developments I like the idea that you can still be running your own node but then have a lightning service provider that kind of automates everything for you so I like the direction this is going because it keeps that ability to be self-sovere but defer certain tasks to a service provider so you still own the channels you still own the node you still own everything

but they are in have a task of saying oh geez this guy needs more liquidity let's get another channel going so that's super awesome up next block so jack dorsey's block they've started shipping the bit key wallet so you get this like little brick thing this little stone uh it has a fingerprint reader it is nfc enabled and it's basically the the newest hardware option to hit the market uh bit Key wallet is officially out of pre-orders and is now shipping to your doorstep as the team continues to build a better, safer way to self-custy. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback since launching pre-orders in December. The Bikki team has been hard at work, building additional features while putting the final touches on the Bikki app available for download on Apple and Google.

So, yeah, a few new things. They added even though customers lose both their phone and their Bitcoin hardware, simple recovery tools like trusted contacts allow customers to safely recover their funds by relying on people they know to help verify the recovery request. Additional features like emergency access provide customers with a guaranteed way to retain control of their funds, even if the Bikki app and the Bikki team were to disappear and through our global partnerships with Cash App and a company that I prefer not to say their name, because let's not give them any more business. Customers can now easily safely transfer by Bitcoin using our partners' platforms directly within the Big Key app.

So I have one of these on the way. I will be doing a video on it when it arrives. Very interested to see how it works. And I don't know. Learn more about it. My understanding is it's basically like a multi-sig setup, but has like a spending wallet option as well, like thresholds where Block will auto sign with their key and your phone key for a certain threshold. But if you want to spend above that, then you use the actual device as well. So yeah, very, very interesting.

We'll see when it arrives. Also interesting on the hardware front. These guys were in Madeira. They're called Portal. And they've got a device called the 22. And it is a hardware device that is natively NFC. And so I didn't really get to see a lot of presentations. I was super busy running around.

But I was privy to the fact. they were doing it. But now that I've looked into a little bit, it looks kind of cool. So basically their mission is to build hardware for Bitcoiners starting with a completely new mobile native hardware called Portal. Why yet another hardware wallet? Because we think none of the existing ones are both safe and easy to use with smartphones. So we've made our own. Portal is built around NFC, not only to talk to the phone, but also to power itself. No cables, no batteries, just wireless magic. We spent a lot of time simplifying the U.X. There's There's no menus to navigate as a user.

You are just showing each transaction output and you sign it by holding the button for a couple of seconds. Everything is open source, firmware completely written in Rust and based on Bitcoin DevKit. This allows us to support single-sig, multi-sig, and complex descriptors very easily. Hardware has been designed from scratch. We're also releasing an SDK to help existing wallets integrate our service. We prefer to remain focused on our hardware and let other teams develop awesome software. I mean, there's a lot of things here that are sounding very good to me. The idea that you can have a native NFC device, no need to power it, use it with mobile,

and you actually, you know, with NFC devices, you know, some of the tradeoffs have typically been like, well, you have to trust the software that you're running and, and you don't have a screen on the NFC device like a card. This has a screen. So you can actually verify on the device, which should be kind of your beacon of truth, that what you're seeing on your phone coincides with what's on the device itself. So pretty cool. I also have one of these on the way. I'll be doing a video on it as well.

So keep your eyes open for that. Shout out to Bisk. Been a while since I played around with Bisk, but it looks like going to be playing around with it again soon. Bisk, too, just had a test release. They've got an entirely new interface. It looks pretty nice. So BISC2 introduces a range of trade protocols, each with its unique advantages and tradeoffs. The diversity, this diversity empowers users to select protocols aligning with their preferences,

concerning factors such as convenience, security, minor cost, trader fees, privacy, and available support. So they prioritize maintaining data privacy through robust measures. It upholds user data privacy similar to BISC 1 by eliminating registration, Tor hidden services, avoiding central services, all that kind of stuff. It allows for multiple identities, so you don't have to have like a single account. You can have multiple ones. They also, when it first launches, it's going to support only one trading protocol called BISC easy. It's designed for new Bitcoin users who have not yet purchased Bitcoin and therefore

cannot use BISC 1 due to requirements for a security deposit. A lot of effort was put into making this. as simple to use as possible. So I think that's pretty great. One of the main things with the original BISC was you had to, like, add Bitcoin first to have it in a bit of an escrow in case you tried to screw around. So the fact that they've worked on getting BISC so that you don't have to utilize that as a newcomer, you might be able to just onboard directly to know KYC through them.

So that's awesome. I'll be playing around with that as it gets into production. with main net and everything, but that could be a little bit of time here. And also in the realm of no KYC, Mostro. This is Mostro.network and relatively new. I've talked about it a few times, but no KYC peer-to-peer lightning exchange on top of Noster. And so they've got it kind of got the testing up right now. And when you go to it, and I believe I'm already, no, I'm not logged in with my NSEC yet.

But basically, if you got Nostr, you can log in here. And right now, they're just doing small amounts, but you can basically set up sell and buy orders, and you can start purchasing Bitcoin peer-to-peer on top of Noster, which, again, just to kind of keep it censorship-resistant, super awesome. Anyways, so I'll be playing around with that. I'm going to do some testing. It's very early days for it.

So again, I probably won't yet do a tutorial until it's a bit more robust, but really cool. In terms of like the kind of centralized sign-up exchanges, there's still a lot of good work being done here. Rely launches Lightning for over 100,000 of its European users. So they are partnering with Bloxstrom and Breeze, aiming to ensure seamless integration and optimal user experience. They use Greenlight cloud nodes and Breezes SDK-S SDK lightning service providers

to enable Rely to offer lightning benefits, while maintaining non-custodial control over users' funds. So basically, it's an exchange, and you can immediately get non-custodial lightning from it. So kudos to them for rolling that out. A couple more things here in terms of non-custodial ways of swapping between things. If you're familiar with bolts, I've covered it before. It's a way to swap between lightning and liquid, and it's actually what's used on the back end of Aqua Wallet, which is another cool thing.

I encourage you to try, check out the tutorial. But now they have non-custodial swaps between lightning and on-chain, or sorry, not lightning. They already had lightning and on-chain Bitcoin, but lightning or sorry, liquid and on-chain Bitcoin. So you can do swaps via that. So you can go from on-chain to liquid or liquid to on-chain via bolts. And so my anticipation is that this is going to be baked into wallets as well. well, which is super useful for me because I actually use liquid quite a bit as my, we'll say like my monthly float. So whenever I'm receiving Bitcoin, I try to get into Liquid as like a

medium ground so that I can then decide what to do from there in case of fee spikes. So I kind of work within Liquid. I can pay my bills and stuff through Bull Bitcoin in Canada with that. So that's super helpful. And, you know, fees are low enough on liquid where I don't need to worry about on-chain fees whatsoever at the current time. But then for my daily spending wallets, I can just swap it over and send it to either Aqua or send it to Phoenix. And then if I want to, it's the end of the month, there's leftovers and it's going to go to savings. I can swap it back to on-chain or peg out back to on-chain and get it into my hardware. So that's kind of what I've been using a lot. So it's nice to see that there's just going to be this quick auto swap functionality with bolts,

and that can be baked in natively just to a wallet that you're already using, and you don't have to think about it as much. So that's super cool, very happy with that. I'm thinking now, and that would basically be me being able to use Aqua, and I'd be able to receive lightning, on chain, or liquid, and have them as a single unified balance. and I'd also be able to send to on-chain liquid or lightning, and my wallet would just interpret wherever the hell I want it to go and figure it out and just do it for me. So that's kind of cool. Anyways, I'm excited to see it happen.

Yeah, look forward to it. The bolts guys are killing it. They've been really, really busy. So good for them. A couple last things. I did a new tutorial. I got the Treasor Safe 3. I've had it for a while, but I finally got around to doing a tutorial on it.

Too long didn't watch is. that one, it's the Bitcoin-only edition. So it's shipped natively with the Bitcoin-only firmware, which is nice. Obviously, open source works well. It's same functionality as the other Trezors. The one additional thing that I think is important with this one is they added a secure element.

That was one of the big trade-offs with using Trezor prior was without a secure element, you don't have a chip that secure. that secures your seed phrase. And so with physical access and some know-how, somebody would be able to take the device and extract your keys from it. No longer the case when it comes to the Treasor Saves III.

So that's a nice kind of step forward for them. So I thought it's pretty good. Feel free to check out the tutorial and let me know what you thought. A few last things here. We got some events coming up that I would, if you're going to be at, please let me know. And I'd love to see you there.

So first up, we got the Saturday market here in Calgary. Very excited for it. By the way, this is all on my website, BTCSessions.ca. There's an event section. So if you're curious about any of these, then go check them out. But in Calgary coming up in just over a week, a week in a couple days, and about nine days here, we're doing the Saturday market in Calgary. Very excited to be doing this for the second time.

We're creating a local Bitcoin circular economy. And there's going to be a lot of great people down there. We got some farmers. We got some, you know, we've got a plumber. We've got the barbers. We got all kinds of local merchants and stuff like that. So come down, support. If you want to be a merchant, please reach out.

Email Dave at Bitcoinbrains.com. And you can also check it out on my website there. But either way, if you want to come down and just, you know, spend some sats and learn about Bitcoin and see who's there, then it's free to attend. So find all about it over on the website. I'm also very excited. I'm heading to El Salvador for the very first time on April 1st. I'm going to be there for about a week.

And I'm going to be there for the halving party. Of course, the having isn't actually happening during the having party, which is hilarious. But there's a bunch of us heading down. Very excited for that. And yeah, you can check that out. That's on the website too, all the links to it. I think I have a promo code. It's either sessions or BTC sessions.

Try them both. I think if you were on the fence and you're looking at tickets, try one of those sessions or BTC sessions and it'll get you a discount. Again, coming up in May, we've got the Canadian Bitcoin Conference in Montreal, excited for that one. I think there's a promo code for that as well, BTC sessions. Nico's coming up for that one too. He's going to be doing the AV and everything and doing the live stream. So that should be fun.

And then I'm Europe bound again in June. I'm going to be going to the Azzell Freedom Forum in Norway. And of course, BTC Prague, which was one of my favorite events. advanced last year. So if you're looking at going to that one again, if you're on the other side of the pond right now and you want to, you're over and you can get over to Prague, then please do. I'll see you there. It was awesome. And again, there's a promo code, BTC sessions if you want cheaper tickets for that. Anyways, guys, I'll wrap it there. Of course, we have coming up tomorrow, why are we bullish? Awesome panel tomorrow. We got Sean Harris. We got Eric Yakes.

writer of one of the best Bitcoin books out there, The 7th Property, and we got love of Bit – love is Bitcoin. I got to meet her in when I was in Madeira, and she was part of the art auction and had some pieces of art there, which was awesome. So anyway, it's very excited to have them all on. And actually, in about half an hour, I'm going to be on the meme factories next episode of their test stream. So I'm going to be hanging out with all the memers. So make sure you go check that one out. In fact, I'm going to see if I can pull that up because I want you guys to be able to find it.

Anyways, I retweeted it on my main page. So you should be able to find it there. I think I said something to the effect of, I don't know who the hell these guys are. But there we go. We'll just plunk it in right here. Anyways, just go follow at Meme Factory TM. And they have the link right there. So it'll be going live in about 25 minutes.

So I'll see you guys over there, and it should be a great time. But be sure to come back here tomorrow at 6 p.m. Eastern time for Why Are We Bullish? Anyways, guys, enough of me. I'm going to pack it in here. Thank you guys for being here. Really appreciate you guys joining in. Hope you're having a great week. And I hope you continue to have a great week.

Anyways, with that, I am out. Have a wonderful day or evening, wherever you may be. See you guys next time for your Simply session. Oh, the bitch.