BTC Sessions - Morgan Stanley: FIRST US Bank To Offer BITCOIN! ep158

Starting point is 00:00:36 Wasabi wallet and fairly private. What's going on, everyone? Welcome to this show. Hope you're having a good Thursday. We've got lots of news to talk about today. We're going to be talking about Morgan Stanley. We're going to be talking about Visa. We're going to be talking about the stimulus checks and stacking sets with those bad boys.

Starting point is 00:01:00 Lots of fun stuff to chat about. Of course, as always, this is live. So a quick disclaimer from my good friend Bill here. We'll do it live. Okay. We'll do it live. Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live.

Starting point is 00:01:17 Friken thing sucks. Excited to have you guys back. I got a great lineup today and an awesome show coming up tomorrow. So don't be missing that one. But in the meantime, I am Ben with the BTC sessions. And this is your daily session. All right. Before we dive into the news, of course,

Starting point is 00:01:53 So let's take a look at where we are in the market. So I'm pulling up the Bitbo.io dashboard. Again, if you're not using this thing, you've got to check it out, all the information you can need here. Bitcoin's sitting around 57,600, almost 700 US dollars per coin. Now, we did briefly tick above 60 grand again. So you can see in that if you're watching live, you can see in the chart it did tick up there and then came back down.

Starting point is 00:02:22 since and that's within the past 24 hours. But just to kind of contextualize this to keep your head straight on your shoulders here, our all-time high of somewhere between $61 and $62,000 was only on the 13th, and it is the 18th today. So that was only five days ago. So it's easy. It feels like that was already a couple weeks ago, but it's only been five days. So, you know, sit back, relax.

Starting point is 00:02:54 Don't worry about these midterm fluctuations. Now, in terms of other stats, one US dollar will pick you up 1,734 sats, 35 sats. So stack those while you can. The percentage of Bitcoin mined currently, of all Bitcoin, 88.85% have been mined. And in terms of fees, actually not bad today. So if you're looking to get some transactions through, it might be a good time. For next block, 64 sats per byte will do you. If you're willing to wait an hour, 25 sats per byte is fine.

Starting point is 00:03:28 So yeah, not too bad today. Before the news, of course, shout it to sponsors of the show. Leaden.com. You can use your Bitcoin for a variety of different services here. They've saved my bun on a few occasions where I needed dollars and I didn't want to sell my Bitcoin because that's taxable. And I was also worried about having a buyback in at a higher price. I was able to deposit Bitcoin, get dollars. and when I paid that loan back,

Starting point is 00:03:49 I got back the same amount of Bitcoin, which is the important number for me. Of course, they still obviously have their Bitcoin in USDC savings accounts, interest rates of up to 12.5% annually paid monthly, and their B2X offering. It uses the same loan mechanism to instantly buy you more Bitcoin if you're feeling a little bullish.

Starting point is 00:04:08 Check them out. Links below, if you click that link and opt-get a loan, they'll give you $25 for free into your savings. Up next, we have the Kobo Vault, one of my favorite hardware wallets. I love this thing because it's 100% air-gapped, which means you never plug it into any internet-connected device. It's all done offline via QR code.

Starting point is 00:04:26 That keeps the keys to your money, safe and sound. I really like this thing. I've been using a lot with multi-sig setups lately alongside like a cold card and a ledger, and I've had a lot of fun with it. So be sure to check it out. Links below. And for reference, I'm using the pro with the fingerprint scanner and the rechargeable battery. Now, I do live on Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:04:45 One of the easy ways that helps me do this is bid refill where you can get pretty much any damn gift card you can imagine. They've got gift cards from all different countries and you earn Sats back as you shop, which is fantastic for me. You can use main chain and lightning payments, whatever you prefer. And they do have a referral program if you're into that. So be sure to check them out. Links are below. And finally, guys, I can't say it enough. I've gotten lots of questions the past couple of months.

Starting point is 00:05:13 people that did not back up their Bitcoin wallets properly throughout their paper where they wrote down their seed phrase and now they're just screwed because they deleted their wallet. So take it seriously. Get your backup secure. And if you can, get it in solid steel instead of paper because paper, you know, fire damage, water damage. You might accidentally throw it out like these people I've been talking to. Solid steel.

Starting point is 00:05:36 You don't run into those issues. At least, I mean, pay attention if you're throwing out a solid hunk of steel. But a great way to store your seat. and have some peace of mind. With that, let's dive into the news. Big one the other day. So let's read through this story here on CNBC first, and then I'm going to give you a little bit of a hot take on it,

Starting point is 00:05:53 because I found it a little funny. Morgan Stanley becomes the first big U.S. bank to offer its wealthy clients access to Bitcoin funds. A few of the Cliffs notes here, the investment bank told its financial advisors Wednesday in an internal memo that it is launching access to three funds that enable ownership of Bitcoin, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Starting point is 00:06:15 Two of the funds on offer are from Galaxy Digital, a crypto firm founded by Mike Novagrats, while the third is a joint effort from asset manager FS Investments and Bitcoin company Nidig. Morgan Stanley is only allowing its wealthier client's access to the volatile asset. The bank considers it suitable for people with, quote, an aggressive risk tolerance,

Starting point is 00:06:39 who have at least $2 million in assets held by the, firm, the investment firm needs at least $5 million at the bank, or an investment firm needs at least $5 million at the bank to qualify for the new stakes. Now, a couple of other things, they also say that even for those accredited U.S. investors with brokerage accounts and enough assets to qualify, Morgan Stanley is limiting Bitcoin investments to as much as 2.5% of their total net worth. Yeah, so I'll kind of sum it up there, but this is kind of a double-arched sword here because it's funny to see the banks that have been opposing this so much in the previous years,

Starting point is 00:07:22 basically calling it a scam or not wanting to touch it with a 10-foot pole, finally capitulating. On the other hand, though, the way that they're approaching it still seems pretty antiquated. I tweeted about it the other day. I outlined the last point there. And I said, Morgan Stanley is only allowing their richest customers to have access to Bitcoin, requiring clients to have at least $2 million in assets held by the firm to qualify.

Starting point is 00:07:49 PLEBs are unaffected because we've already been stacking for years. You've been front running the cantillionaires. Yeah. I mean, again, it's funny because they're treating this as if they're protecting investors. but they know that regular individuals like you and I can just go on an exchange and buy this on our own, right? Like there's no, you're not extending any sort of a, any sort of protection to us because there's a million other ways to get Bitcoin. So I don't, I don't really know what they're going at here. Maybe they just don't want to deal with low value clients or something like that.

Starting point is 00:08:29 They just want to cater to the high net worth. But effectively, you've got an easier on-ramp to Bitcoin than the people with a lot of money banking with Morgan Stanley right now. So, you know, I guess that's a plus. Let's keep going here. Visa, this from BTC times.com, by the way, Visa plans to enable Bitcoin payments at 70 million merchants. Now, I'm not super stoked about the idea. I mean, I'll say I'm indifferent to the idea of merchant payments accepting Bitcoin. Bitcoin, like, is it a plus? Sure. I mean, if you're going to be spending your Bitcoin, then sure.

Starting point is 00:09:07 But in general, like, we saw that whole narrative through the last, or at least I did, through the previous cycle. So like kind of the 2013 to 2017 run, the narrative was like, we have to get more merchants accepting Bitcoin and then it will be adopted by everyone. But it's kind of a backwards way of thinking because if you're taking your dollars and your exchanges them for Bitcoin and then you're immediately turning around and spending that Bitcoin, why are you going through those extra hops and extra fees just to achieve that buying that item, right? Sure, if you have Bitcoin savings, maybe you want to spend if it goes up or you want to pick up something that's going to meaningfully impact your life. But anyways, I think the merchant narrative is a little bit tired.

Starting point is 00:09:52 But again, from the perspective of we saw a MasterCard already kind of capitulate saying that they're going to add functionality for cryptocurrency. Now you see Visa. This is interesting. Let's read a little bit, though. Visa seemingly plans to follow in PayPal's fresh footsteps as it works to adopt Bitcoin. The firm's CEO, Alfred Kelly, said on Fortune's leadership next podcast on Tuesday that the payment processing behemoth is willing to facilitate not only, Bitcoin purchases, but also spending functionalities in a big way. Here's the quote. We're trying to do two things. One is to enable the purchase of Bitcoin on Visa credentials.

Starting point is 00:10:33 And secondly, working with Bitcoin wallets to allow Bitcoin to be translated into fiat currency and therefore immediately be able to be used at any of $70 million places around the world where visa is accepted. So that's good. I mean, particularly I like the idea that you can easily purchase Bitcoin with Visa, if that's the case. But what they're talking about is being able to swap instantaneously from a Bitcoin stash into dollars at a point of purchase. So it's like you're pulling direct from your Bitcoin to purchase things, which I've used some of these Bitcoin debit and Visa cards in the past. And some of them were kind of clunky. You typically had to convert Bitcoin to the local currency.

Starting point is 00:11:20 prior to your transaction and then go ahead and make your purchases. So it was kind of like you had to plan ahead instead of just saying, hey, I want this. I'm going to tap my card. So, I mean, that would be a bonus. Now, they also said we continue to think of Visa as a network of networks, blockchain networks, and stable coins like USDC are just additional networks. So we think there's a significant value that Visa can provide to our clients,

Starting point is 00:11:47 enabling them to access them and enabling them. and enabling them to spend at our merchants. So I think all in all, this is going to be a very in-term solution, right? This is dependent on a world where there are many different monies. But I think over time, the money tends to one. In like a free and open economy where people can decide what their money is, the store of value and the money will tend to, towards the one that is the most saleable good.

Starting point is 00:12:22 The one that is most liquid, the one that is most widely accepted, people will want to use that one, the one where people can store their value the best. And I think that eventually trends toward Bitcoin. Now, there may be different networks built at top Bitcoin that could interact with a merchant like Visa. Maybe, you know, we already have liquid network and lightning network. And I'm sure we're going to see other things that facilitate different features on top of Bitcoin. So I feel like what Visa is saying, Bitcoin will do better in time. But for the interim, sure.

Starting point is 00:12:55 If companies want to add layers of transaction facilitation on top of Bitcoin, then fantastic. Although this would be from the sounds of it, obviously a custodial manner. So maybe not as exciting. We'll see. Let's move on here. Oh, the Stimmy's. The Stimmy's. rolling out. Everybody's getting their stimulus checks in the U.S.

Starting point is 00:13:21 in Canada, they're just a perpetual stimulus check. I don't know if you guys watching in the U.S. I don't know if you guys knew this, but basically if you were out of work here in Canada, because of the pandemic over the past year, you were pretty much getting like two grand a month continuously. Like you had to, it's funny, they gave you the money and then you had to take the tax off of it after and then pay it back to them. I don't know why that, that was weird. But anyways, Americans finally get a little bit of a payout here, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:54 after the government forced them to shut down all their businesses and such. But let's read a little bit. This article on the BTC Times, nearly 10% of the $380 billion in stimulus checks may go into Bitcoin and stocks. This is based on the survey here. Side no. That the recent stimulus was. how many trillion? Was it 1.9 trillion, I think?

Starting point is 00:14:23 And 380 billion of that went to actual individual people like retail citizens that just need to pay their bills, right? So I just want to point out one thing that the stimulus, it kind of matters the percentage that goes to people versus to special interests and other places where that money means. may flow. Because the amount of dollars in your wallet doesn't matter. It's the percent of purchasing power of total money that you hold that actually shows how much power you have in that economy. And when I see $380 billion divvied out to individuals and the rest going, I don't know, then that necessarily means that you're going to have other people benefiting far more. and actually in terms of percentage-wise, individuals getting their stimulus checks in the long run are actually out a little bit more than everybody else. Anyways, besides the point, let's read on here.

Starting point is 00:15:26 Nearly 10% of the money distributed among the United States citizens in the form of $1,400 stimulus checks could flow into Bitcoin, a study released by Mizuho, Mizuho securities on Monday suggests. the study which questioned nearly 235 U.S. citizens. That's not a very big sample size, but hey, let's roll with it. With less than $150,000 in household income, found that 200 expected to receive their third stimulus check over the following days, with 40% of them planning to invest at least a portion of the money in stocks or Bitcoin. Damn, four out of 10 people there are going to take that stimulus. this money and and I don't want to say gamble with it. Like I guess if they get what's going on,

Starting point is 00:16:16 if they get the devaluation of the dollar, that it's not gambling. But if they're just rolling the dice to make more dollars, that's gambling, uh, more or less, right? Like the stock market has been basically become a giant casino as of late.

Starting point is 00:16:32 Um, yeah. So that's, it is a bit of a staggering stat to see 40% of individuals getting their stimulus check in the next few days are saying, yeah, I'm going to take a portion of this and actually speculate with it. Interesting. Anyways, let's keep going here. The survey predicts that Bitcoin will account for 60% of total incremental investment spend. We calculate it could add as much as two to three percent to Bitcoin's current $1.1 trillion value, market value. Yeah, interesting. Keep going. They also

Starting point is 00:17:08 made some... No, I don't. I'm not even going to go into that. They're talking about stock recommendations and everything. Anyways, besides the fact, a bunch of people are gambling with their stimmies. Is that a good thing?

Starting point is 00:17:23 I mean, again, I would say if you understand what's happening to the dollar and to other fiat currencies around the globe and you're allocating into a more scarce asset, then that's probably a positive. But dude, if you're just rolling the dice on Robin Hood to buy like GameStop or whatever other stock of the week

Starting point is 00:17:42 and you're just kind of seeing what happens. Not great. I don't know. Let's keep going. Retail Bitcoin traders rival Wall Street buyers as mania builds. This from Bloomberg. The cryptocurrency market's little guys are going toe to toe to toe with the big banks as Bitcoin continues to surge to new highs. That'll compiled by JPMorgan Chase and Co. Suggest. Using Square and PayPal data as a proxy, retail investors have purchased over 187,000 Bitcoins

Starting point is 00:18:14 so for this quarter compared to roughly 205,000 last quarter. Keep in mind, we're only partway through March, and that probably doesn't include the first half of March. Now, meanwhile, institutions have bought about 173,000 of the world's largest cryptocurrency, 173,000 Bitcoin. over that time frame, as gathered by Bitcoin futures, fund flows, and company announcements after buying nearly $307,000 in the last quarter of 2020.

Starting point is 00:18:47 Okay, interesting. Let's keep going here. For many retail cryptocurrency traders, Bitcoin was the bread and butter trade of the pandemic. Meme stock trading volatility burnt many, like I was alluding to in the last article, but Bitcoin has maintained an amazingly bullish trend that has made most winners, made the most winners.

Starting point is 00:19:08 Yeah. And then also, this is the worst, retail traders got reinvigorated with the latest NFT buzz and as the stimulus checks hit their bank accounts. Ah, Jesus. See, the worst thing about this is you've got like an actual hard money that is solving a problem that works. And in a mania, it just gets bogged down with. all this bullshit and scammy crap that comes out around it.

Starting point is 00:19:37 And it's very hard to keep that focus. I'd say it takes a cycle, like a four-year cycle in Bitcoin, to really kind of decipher what's going on and get your head on your shoulders straight. And sometimes it doesn't even happen for people. But guys, just take my word for it. Please be careful. Stack sats and try to ignore the noise.

Starting point is 00:19:57 It can be tough if you're new, but you'll thank yourself later, especially in a bare market if you're not holding on to a bunch of shit coins. Let's move on. India to ban Bitcoin again. This is good. Let's go. According to a March 15th, Reuters report, a local government official said that the upcoming

Starting point is 00:20:20 bill is one of the strictest policies against Bitcoin and other digital assets. The new rules would criminalize the possession, issuance, mining, trading, and transferring of Bitcoin and altcoins. Yeah, Bitcoin holders would have up to six months to liquidate their holdings before the restrictions become effective. Yeah. What do you even say to this? Indian investors reportedly hold 100 billion rupees or 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in digital asset investments split among 8 million investors. India's Bitcoin industry is booming with user registrations at local crypto exchange BitBNS, up 3,000% compared to just a year ago. major local Bitcoin trading platform Unicoin, Unicoin, having added 20,000 users in January and February

Starting point is 00:21:10 alone. Wow. Yeah, the money is multiplying rapidly every month and you don't want to be sitting on the sidelines, even though people are panicking due to the potential ban greed is driving these choices. Now, the funny thing about this is, is there's now a premium on Bitcoin in India because people want it and they're worried that they're not going to be able to get it. I also, somebody tweeted out, Steve Miller, he was replying to somebody, thoughts on Bitcoin. He said, cryptocurrencies, a product of government malfeasance. Okay, I'd say that's fair. He goes on, these are false currencies, man-made another fiat.

Starting point is 00:21:50 Oh, my God. They have been given value by speculation caused by central bank, unlimited printing and adoption an MMT, government will have to kill them just as India is doing. They'll die. Now, I do agree with him that Bitcoin is a product of shitty monetary policy on behalf of governments. However, his assertation that Bitcoin is another fiat currency is stupid. And the fact that he thinks that India is effectively killing Bitcoin and governments are going to follow suit. and that it will work is ridiculous.

Starting point is 00:22:31 Again, I replied to him, India just banned Bitcoin for a second time. Let's not forget, they previously banned Bitcoin a few years back. Just like China did many times over, China banned Bitcoin a ton of times. They banned mining. They did all these things. They shut down the exchanges. Do you think there's no Bitcoin in China? Of course, fucking not.

Starting point is 00:22:51 Nigeria also recently just banned Bitcoin. Oh, wait, no, they already did. They just had to reiterate that it was banned because so many people, people were using it. Now, Nigeria per capita is the largest user of Bitcoin on the planet and has been banned effectively twice. They even had to start paying Nigerians to use quote-unquote government sanctions methods of moving currency for remittances. Hilarious. Anyways, I don't think this guy's thesis is going to pan out. Let's keep going. So let's talk a little bit of macro here. The Fed is keeping their interest rates near zero and still expects no rate

Starting point is 00:23:32 hikes through 2023 despite brighter economic outlook. This is on USA Today. And this does relate to Bitcoin, the recent pop and price and just general sentiment as to why Bitcoin has value. So I'll just read a little bit here. Despite a substantial upgrade to its economic outlook, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday held its key interest rate near zero, continued to forecast no rate hikes through 2023 and vowed to maintain its bond buying stimulus. So effectively, the government issues bonds and they are typically an assurance that you will get a certain percentage back on your money. Now, those rates currently are effectively zero. They have been creeping up as of late, maybe one and a half percent that you'll get annually for a 10-year bond.

Starting point is 00:24:25 But that's shit. It doesn't even keep up with inflation. But the Fed is stating that inflation is actually lower than it really is because they use the CPI, the consumer price index, which doesn't include very important things like food and fuel and housing. All of those things you need to live that should probably be included in inflation. But they're too volatile. So they don't include those. And so you get people trying to make economic calculation based on these metrics like CPI. that are saying, well, at least I keep up to inflation.

Starting point is 00:24:58 If I put my money in here, I'll have the same amount of money after 10 years guaranteed. And the stock market is frothy. Maybe I don't want all my money there. And conservative investors would just sit it in bonds. But when you realize that real inflation is much higher, that the cost of actual assets and things that you might want to own that will accrue value is going up at a much higher rate and that you're increasing the amount of dollars at a much higher rate, which means it must go somewhere and,

Starting point is 00:25:25 something is being inflated in price, then you quickly realize that, again, those inflation numbers are bullshit and you're actually at a net loss when you're taking that 1.5%. So the Fed had kind of set out these metrics saying, okay, we want to see

Starting point is 00:25:41 more inflation, we want to see unemployment start to drop, we want to see gross domestic product and productivity of the country continue to go up. And all of those things are happening. But they're saying, still we're not going to adjust

Starting point is 00:25:56 damn thing we want to see Bitcoin we want to see we want to see Bitcoin go to the moon that's effectively what they're saying but we want to see inflation go well over 2% for a period of time and they want to kind of like average that out over a number of years so like expect inflation is what they're saying and the market reacted to this stocks

Starting point is 00:26:16 went higher and Bitcoin bounced majorly and started going up it was down at like 53 and now it's you know, it's 57. It went up to 60 for a little bit. So, yeah, people are speculating that they're going to continue to debase the currency and they're going to keep buying bonds as much as they need to. So just unlimited money, more or less. Anyways, things are kind of messed up.

Starting point is 00:26:41 Let's keep going. Last couple things. Cash app. Those of you in the States, yes, you can buy Bitcoin via cash app. You can now actually send Bitcoin for free to other cash. hashtags right from your cash app. So you can send Bitcoin individual to individual. Kind of cool.

Starting point is 00:26:59 They said to celebrate, we're giving out $1 million worth of Bitcoin. Not bad to enter, follow, retweet, so and so forth. So yeah, kind of cool. Good to see further functionality coming into cash app. Kudos to those guys. And finally, fun little tidbit of the day,

Starting point is 00:27:14 a Playboy Playmate is now super stoked on Bitcoin. Jessica Vaughn. She said, today is the first day I own Bitcoin. Are my eyes going to glow on their own or do I have to manually do something for the laser look? Obviously, this has like damn near 300 retweets, like 6,500 likes. Yeah. Maybe American Hoddle was right.

Starting point is 00:27:39 We're all going to get girlfriends, you guys. Too funny. Too funny. Anyways, I did offer her some advice on wallets. You got to throw it in there. Hopefully she doesn't quickly turn into a shit corner. That's my hope. She did come in under the context of how the Fed is debasing money and how it's all a sham.

Starting point is 00:27:59 So I'm hopeful. We'll see. Anyways, guys, I'm going to round it off there. Thank you so much for joining me. I do see you guys in the chat when I'm doing these. It's just when I'm doing the show by myself. I can't quite respond and actually have a cohesive show at the same time. So I do see you guys.

Starting point is 00:28:17 I do appreciate the comments. Thank you guys very much. As always, hit like, subscribe, and share those help so, so much. Please, please do. And my camera just died, so I'm going to end this up really quickly here. Anyways, guys, you can also hit up the sponsors, Ledin, Coba, and BitRefil, and Bill Fottle. And you can hit up tippin.combe. Slash at BTC Sessions to drop me a Bitcoin Lightning Network tip.

Starting point is 00:28:42 As always, I'm Ben with the BTC Sessions. And this has been your daily session. I'll see you guys later. by Bitcoin.

BTC Sessions - Morgan Stanley: FIRST US Bank To Offer BITCOIN! ep158

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