BTC Sessions - NEWS ROUNDUP: El Salvador Law Primes BTC Volcano Bonds ep313

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

New El Salvador law passed, allowing for Bitcoin Volcano bonds to be created while simultaneously labeling altcoins as securities. Nigeria declares war on cash, Silbert accused of fraud and MUCH MORE on today’s show! 💪 SUPPORT THE SHOW: 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 an Embassy 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/QUEM 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 BillFodl: get your wallet backups in solid steel, protect your hardware with faraday bags and much more! https://privacypros.io/btcsessions Free video tutorials not enough? Need some extra hand-holding when mastering self-custody, multisig, coinjoin, running a node, or other skills? Book me for a private session on my website! https://www.btcsessions.ca/ Like what you see? BITCOIN TIPS: https://strike.me/btcsessions ⚡[e-mail]

Welcome, everybody. How you doing? Hope you're having a good week. It's time for some news. We're going to chat some of the stuff that's been going down this past week or so. We've got our good friend Nico over from Simply Bitcoin to fill us in. Again, if you're not subscribed to Simply Bitcoin, what? What are you doing? What are you doing?

Are you not checking out the spaces and seeing what they're covering and hitting them up on YouTube, subscribe to everything they do because it's just pure signal. So please check them out. But I'm very glad that Nico gets to. come in here and fill me in on everything that's been going on. It makes the news days that much better. So very happy to have them. Of course, we've got plenty to talk about El Salvador news.

There was some dipshit talking about how Bitcoin's never going to work. So there's lots of fun things to be chatting about. Anyways, I digress. Please, we're going to dive into this. Of course, this is live. Anything can happen. So I defer to my friend Bill here. We'll do it live.

We'll do it live. Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live. The thing sucks. Yeah. If you have not already, like, subscribe, share. All those things help the ton getting this content in front of more eyeballs. I am Ben with the BTC sessions.

This is your daily session. Before we dive in, let's take a look at where we are in the market today. And do my eyes deceive me a green dildo? I don't, I haven't experienced one of these. Is this the right, right way to say this? We haven't seen one of these in a while to have I experience. Oh, man. Okay.

Anyways, we're sitting at 18,919 cuck bucks per coin. A single US dollar will pick you up 5,286 sats significantly less from when we last. spoke friends. How do you feel about that? Do you feel bad about yourself? Did you not take the opportunity to stack more sads? Perhaps you should now. It's still low. 91.72% of all Bitcoin have been mined, which is 19.26 million of them. In terms of fees, next block looks like 21 stats per bite, a little spike. Thank God that wasn't happening while I was doing my tutorial. I've been put in together. Anyways, if you're looking for any time in the next hour or so, still going to be like 16 sats per byte.

So be aware, use RVF, do what you got to do. But yeah, stay privy. Share that to sponsor the show, coin kite.com. They have the best hardware in the game. I love my cold card, Mark 4, for securing my stack. I've got a beast of a tutorial detailing all of the advanced features that this thing allows you to do. So be sure to check it out. They've also got things like the OpenDine, the Sats card, the block clock, the tap signer,

all kinds of awesome stuff over at Coin Kite. Go over there. Go on a little bit of a shopping spree. Treat yourself. Use code BTC sessions at checkout for 5% off. Up next, start 9, your sovereign, completing solution. I've done a full tutorial on how to set this bad boy up to run your own Bitcoin node and your Bitcoin stack.

So Bitcoin Core, running a lightning node, and a bunch of peripherals like mempool. Space and other stuff to interact with your Bitcoin, but that's not the only thing it's good for. you can host your digital life and get your data out of the hands of corporations and into your own for a more privacy-centric life. So you're not giving up everything to everyone. You will be sovereign and you will be happy. So be sure to check out start nine.com. Check up my tutorial. You can check out the embassy one or the embassy pro if you're looking for something super beefy to host

your life. Check them out. Hodel, hoddle. If you're stacking sats and you have a number priorities being peer-to-beer transactions, privacy, no K-Y-C, all of those things. Hoddle-Hoddle has you covered. You can sign up in minutes with nothing more than an email address. You can make up the email before you get in there. It could be a dummy email that you have just for hoddle-hottle. It doesn't matter. You can be trading peer-to-peer with individuals, stacking non-KYC sats.

On top of that, they also have their lending platform. So if you are looking to do some lending, it's never re-hypothicated. So be sure to check them out. These guys are awesome, very excited for everything they're working on. And it's a super easy way to go and get some non-KYC sats. If you haven't tried it out, give them the gander. There's a link down below to check them out. And I, of course, have a tutorial on it.

And finally, if you're backing up any important Bitcoin wallet, be sure to get it in solid steel. You don't want your seed phrase flitting around on some piece of paper. so you have to worry about fire damage and water damage and plenty of other things. Get it in a solid steel. Head over to Privacypro's.com. And check out the bill funnel. This is how I back up my important stuff. So I don't have to worry about all those things I mentioned.

Again, privacypros.com slash BTC sessions for a little deal at checkout. Of course, if you guys are looking for one-on-one, help with anything that you're doing, be sure to go to BTCSessions.ca. If the free tutorials are not enough and you need some back and forth to really nail things down. That's where you can go. Let's take a look at some of the streaming sats that have come in over the past week or so. Damn, you guys have been dropping sets. Yeah, Joey drop in 169 sets. Nice. I know I speak for all my sessioners when I say, Ben, you are the reason why I'm bullish. Camel Weasel, Michael Saylor, blow my mind every time.

Amazing guests in the show. Kudos Ben. I imagine, obviously, watching the Christmas special there, which is a six-hour marathon, so I wonder if you got through the whole thing. Mo BTC, Deak. Good to see you, man. Happy New Year, Ben. I hope you come to BC soon. I'd love to shake your hand.

Stay frosty. I will be to BTC. I will be to BC at some point. I've been out of Vancouver earlier in 2023. So we'll see. Cryosats. Ben, for Premier Minister, Prime Minister. Nico, aka Mr. Nice.

We love you, too. keep on building legends. And finally, Joey, I would like these sats to go to the Simply Sessions Hairdye Fund so that Nico can finally get a golden streak to match his heart of gold and so that him and Ben can touch tips. Hashtag Ben Nigo, hashtag golden streak, hashtag touching tips. Let's bring Nico in to see how keen he is on touching the tips. What do you think, man?

I am so excited to touch tips with my golden streak. I feel like maybe the streak of the beard and then we could like chinned head. Well, we'll get creative with it perhaps. And then you won't have to endure it for too long. It'll grow up quick. Man, you know what? Like, I know it's a joke, but there's a voice in my head that's like, Nico, just do it.

You live once. Do it for Halloween one year, man. Dude, I feel like it's a right of passage for YouTubers. Like eventually you do have to do something with your hair. Oh yeah. Yeah, I think so. There's got to be some sort of a schick. Also, I saw you guys had a stream earlier today.

Speaking of cross-pollinating brands, I need me some Simply Bitcoin merch. So I'm looking and shopping. I'm deciding. I saw the one that was just like the big Simply Bitcoin across the chest that you guys wore before. I mad want one of those, but the ones that were up today were also pretty sick. So I'm deciding what to do. I'm going to send you a bunch. Like, let's talk.

I'm going to send you all of it. I will just, it'll be like just, I'll look like Richard Hart, but with simply Bitcoin gear and like less of a fat piece of shit. I got you, bro. I'm going to send you a bunch of simply Bitcoin merch. Hell yeah. Perfect. Well, dude, I'm glad to have you here.

We have plenty to chat about. I'll bring up your screen and maybe you can start chatting about what you're interested in. What's been going on this week? What's new? Yeah. So huge historic news coming out of the Bitcoin office. That's not a meme. That's not, you know, that's actually real.

But before we get to that, I'm going to totally forget, Ben, what do you think about playing this video of this very famous of this gentleman called Peter Zihon? and he went on the Joe Rogan experience podcast. And he said some interesting things about Bitcoin. Let's listen and then and then maybe we'll have a little chat about this gem. Here we go. No intrinsic value to this asset. And now it's starting to be priced appropriately.

So it has a, you know, what's Bitcoin at? 16,000. It has another 17,000 to go down. Really? Yeah. There's no intrinsic value to this product. And do you think that people are just, inherently like lost faith in the idea behind crypto because of FDX?

Well, it became an ideology. And whenever you invest based on an ideology, you're going to make some decisions that are a little divorced from math. And what do you mean by ideology? Well, the people who really like crypto are convinced that it's the currency of the future and that a decentralized ledger is the way to go and that anything that is controlled by a government entity is by definition and negative. And if it's done by the private sector freely, it will be better. that's just not how currency works. Currency is a method of exchange and a store of value. And for that, there has to be a degree of trust, and you have to have it managed in terms of

volume. I mean, one of the craziest things about Bitcoin is that there will never be more than X number of units of Bitcoin. Well, by default, that means it can't be used for trade, because the whole idea of economic activity is that there's expansion, which means you need more currency to lubricate and manage that expansion. If currency is locked into a specific number, you get monetary inflation, and that is one of the fastest ways to destroy an economic model. So because of the lack of Bitcoin, because there's a certain controlled number, the only thing that can happen is Bitcoin becomes more expensive.

Right. And that means that the people who hold it are the ones that make the money, but everyone else suffers. I'm sorry, that's not viable. The alternative is you have some private dude out there who generates the coins on a whim. how is that different from the monetary reserve or the monetary authorities that we have at the Federal Reserve, except for the point that there's no accountability? No, no. Like, how can somebody say so many wrong things in such a limited amount of time? I don't.

Like, where do we want to start here? Like, the fact that he disagrees with him just two minutes prior himself, where he's like, Bitcoin, the intrinsic value of it, like, the value of it. has like 17,000 to fall. Yet at the end, he argues that it's not viable because there's a limited supply so that it's likely to keep increasing in purchasing power. Bro, so much to a pack. So much to unpack. What you said and then the store value aspect of it.

So like Fiat is not a store. Like he contradicted himself like at least 10 times. but and he mentioned it I think Ben like I think he was projecting when he said that Bitcoin was an ideology I think he really believes in

the Fiat ideology I think he's completely convinced that unless government controls the money money can't work but history has shown that that has been an absolute disaster that that hasn't been a benefit and value is subjective man

it doesn't matter what the ECB or what this guy thinks the value of Bitcoin should be. What matters is the market value. And the market value tells me that people really believe this thing has valued. It's completely irrelevant what they think. I just, and then he goes into, he goes on to say that, that like the decentralization and the lack of, like, control of like a central governing body is not how money works.

Except for like prior to this. humanity gravitated towards the least manipulable and and most decentralized option that we had at the time, which was precious metals like gold and silver. And so like naturally we gravitated to the thing that nobody could control and inflate the shit out of. And so and so like even that that he said was completely wrong. Like the experiment of central banks and like and and having like like fiat currencies that are effectively pegged to nothing is a relatively new experiment. Like we are the guinea pigs that get to live our lives through that. And it's been kind of a shit show. Wouldn't you agree?

Dude. It's been a disaster. Like it's been an absolute disaster. The hubris. the fact that he, like, he believed, like, look, it has to be this way. It has to be this way. Alex Gladstein said it perfect, right? This guy has financial privilege.

You're not talking about the vast majority of the world don't have these stable fiat currencies, right? It's actually been a total disaster that it isn't the free market. It isn't the private sector, right? As much as they say Bitcoin is private, I think fiat currencies are more private because all the monetary policies obfuscated. It's all behind closed doors. At least we know the monetary policy of Bitcoin.

It doesn't change. Anybody can make Bitcoin. They just have to invest in mining it, right? Like, what do you think sounds more public and private to you, right? And the very beginning, Ben, I think it was a huge tell, right? He called it a product. The very beginning is the first thing that he said. Yeah.

Yeah. Again, like the idea. And what was the other? Oh, there's no, he talks about how, accountability and he's like well the difference between like if you wanted all the qualities

that he wants in a money he's like well in order to do that you'd have to have some dude that's like making it and there'd be no accountability there what like the accountability that the fucking fed has there's no accountability look at central banks around the world there is

dick all for accountability like it's the only thing in check is is how quickly social unrest builds. And we've learned that people can be pushed pretty far and we'll put up with a fair amount, which is unfortunate. But hey, you can sidestep that today if you so choose.

Dude, oh, man, disaster. Okay, and then this is the last thing. Ben, I really wanted to run this by you and then really got your thoughts because this has been troubling me for quite a while is so Joe Rogan is inviting him and he didn't invite Michael Saylor Yes during the last bull run

What's going on there? That's strange I don't know I don't know like this again like his his producer Jamie or who the guy on the opposite side is kind of a shit coiner I think and has like a an NFT as his as his profile picture is like an ape as a so I don't know like he's he's probably exposed to like a decent amount of shit coinery in there. So maybe that kind of like through him for a loop. Also like everybody again like it's unfortunate he hasn't had somebody like a Michael Saylor or a Jack Mallors or a Safedine or whoever on that would just knock it out of the park

that we've seen knock it out of the park every time and have that discussion. Because I feel like having those discussions, once you can. kind of nail down those points and you understand them when somebody comes to you with the tired old arguments we've been hearing for a decade then it's like you may not be able to articulate it yet but it's that instant like oh i already know that argument is bullshit i can't quite like put it into words yet but i understand that you don't know what you're talking about so i can kind of dismiss it from there and i think um yeah everybody's got to go through that I'm sure he's he's at least open to it.

There wasn't a lot of pushback here, but I don't think that he has the, the ammo to push back on stuff like that yet. I don't know. I know. It's weird. Yeah. It's weird.

It's, do you think something's up or what? Dude, I just can't explain it. I can't explain it. Like, like, you know, ammo to push.

I just, I don't, I don't, Ben, it doesn't make sense to me. Like, Everything that happened. Everything that happened.

Michael Saylor was extremely high profile. Tucker Crawl. This guy was everywhere. And then he wasn't invited on the most popular. He did Lex. Michael Saylor did Lex. Yeah. Why do you Joe Rogan?

What's going on there? That's true. That's true. Yeah. I don't know. Well, one day, maybe. I don't know. We'll see.

We'll see. We'll see. Well, let's continue on. You know, Peter, what's his face can. can continue believing. Like, I don't know. I'm done with trying to convey. I saw everybody trying to, like, debate him and get him on shows.

I don't, I don't care. Like, he can buy Bitcoin at a much higher price. It's true. 100% true. All right, Ben. So, this was the, the, yeah, yeah, Joe Rogan. You're going to buy Bitcoin at a higher price. So this was the big news, Ben.

the Bitcoin office, it's not a joke account, it's not a period account. Apparently, it's the National Bitcoin Office of El Salvador under President Buckele. And this is what they announced. El Salvador is Bitcoin country. Bitcoin is money. Everything else is a security. Today, El Salvador builds on our first mover advantage by passing landmark legislation, establishing a legal framework for all digital assets that are not Bitcoin, as well as those issued on Bitcoin.

The law also paves the way for volcano bonds, which we, will soon begin issuing. El Salvador is the epicenter of Bitcoin adoption and thus economic freedom, financial sovereignty, censorship resistance, and unconfiscatable wealth. When we issue the first of the volcano bonds, we will once again be blazing the path forward for this new monetary revolution.

They called it a revolution, right? That's some signal right there. With the passing of the digital securities law, El Salvador will offer unprecedented consumer protection from bad actors in the crypto space, while also firmly establishing that we are open for business to all those who wish to build the future with us on Bitcoin. The new legislation also creates the National Digital Assets Commission, the regulatory agency in charge of applying the securities law,

and protecting the rights of digital asset purchasers, as well as issuers in El Salvador, and of deterring fraudsters from operating here. The law plants another flag in the history for El Salvador, under President Buchalia, El Salvador, has become not only the safest country in Latin America, but now also the country with the strongest protection of persons rights, economic freedom, sovereignty, and prosperity.

We want the world to know that we're just getting started. El Salvador is Bitcoin country, get ready for good times because we are winning. What do you think of that, Ben? Ooh, I mean, that first, everything else is a security. That's spicy. I like it. I mean, I guess I should clarify. I mean, I'm not a big kind of regulation guy,

but I do think that if you're a place that regulates and you have regulations for this sector, you should at least be consistent. Like, you look in the U.S. And it's, it's a cluster fuck. Like you've got, you've got cash settled Bitcoin futures, but no spot ETF. You've got people dropping ICOs, raising billions of dollars and getting a slap on the wrist.

That's like less than a percent of profits that they made. you've got all kinds of dumb shit going on. And yeah, you know, it's it's nice to maybe see some consistency there. I will say, I think that the time, it's kind of nice for the country as a whole that the bonds, that that program, it was, took time, right? because had it happened like say a year ago right had it happened say like a few months after the it was legal tender that would have been you know i'd say disastrous like in terms of the look of it like people already shat all over them for oh yeah you got bitcoin in your treasury and it's gone down a whole bunch since you adopted it blah blah blah um but the the volcano bonds let's say there's a you know it doesn't really matter what the subscription is yeah yeah in a sense it does if it's if it's a pretty poor showing for it then that kind of sucks but the people that do get those bonds um it'll be unprecedented the return that they see on those bonds in terms of government

bonds right um and so the timing for the issuance of these bonds if it happens like I'd say at any point, this calendar year is going to look so good in a couple of years. And they're going to benefit, I think, quite a bit from it. Again, the top down approach of introducing Bitcoin is, again, we'll see. I'm not, again, I prefer kind of ground up grassroots individuals choosing to use Bitcoin. But I will say that I have a feeling this is going to look pretty damn good in a couple of years here. Yeah. 100%.

I 100% agree with you. I think 9Bukele, El Salvador, they're all paying their dues right now. Like we all do the first time we get into Bitcoin, the first cycle that we experience. It's absolutely painful. But over time, you know, Michael Saylor, Naim Buckele, the country of El Salvador, they're all going to be absolutely 100% vindicated. And I think, but let me ask you this, Ben, because I'm curious, right?

The, wouldn't you, you could, you could see this as, as a government intervention, government picking winners and losers. Isn't this kind of against the free market approach? Like, what are your thoughts on that? Say that again. I just, I'm just, yeah, no, no problem. So the, like, so like, right, if you look at it, like El Salvador, what the country of El Salvador is doing is they're picking what is the security, what is not a security.

Yeah. Right. So what do you think about that? I mean, again, if they're, if they're standard, so let's say like, you know, the Howie tests, you know, if that's your, if that's your framework, if that's what you've decided as a country or the rules, I mean, just. apply that framework to everything. You apply it to Bitcoin. It's not a security. You apply it to other things that have like a central governing body or group of people, you know, the investment of money with an expectation of profits or losses based on the performance of that group of people. You kind of have to, you have to apply that equally. If you're going to have rules, then you don't

get to like pick and choose and be like, well, they did it a while ago. So Ethereum, I guess, might not be in a security like you can't you can't just say well everybody has these rules except you and you and you so i don't know um again i'm not a huge fan of of just i think it's better if people are able to make their own mistakes and learn from them we've been babysat our entire lives and it shows because people are incapable of understanding how to ascertainly risk and and be careful with their money. If people knew how to interpret risk, you wouldn't have seen the insanity of 2021 with every person like yoloing into bed, bath and beyond. All of these stupid things that happen. Because because the money is broken, it's destroyed incentive structures.

And it's caused people to realize the only chance that they have. app to make it is gambling. And Bitcoin fixes that. And so yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not a huge fan of the regulations. I think it makes people stupid and it makes people even more stupid when the money is broken on top of it. Beautiful. Yeah, I 100% agree with you, right? It makes people stupid because it takes away the personal responsibility element. And you're outsourcing it to your bureaucracy. You're giving them a tremendous amount of power. But I think you hit the nail on the head, Ben, when what what the Fiat system has done is just completely, completely. misaligned incentives and I think Bitcoin does really fix this. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I'll leave it. I was

going to go on another rant. I'm going to leave it. All right. Okay, the more episodes I do this, the more convinced I am to make my tips golden. Okay. Anyways, I'm dead serious. It's not a joke. Okay. Here is the government of Nigeria. Now, Ben, this is absolutely crazy. And I, I really believe this is a foreshadowing to what other countries are going to do as well. The government of Nigeria says, as far as we're concerned, Nigeria will become a full non-cash economy

by March 1st, 2023. As a consequence, any government official that withdraws even one Naira cash from any public account from March 1st will be investigated and prosecuted. And here is this article by the Cato Institute. It is from December 19. It says Nigeria restricts cash to push, guess what, central bank digital currency.

Faced with dismal adoption rates of its central bank digital currency, the central bank of Nigeria has restricted cash withdrawals to push citizens into using its CBDC. Unfortunately, restrictions on and the eventual elimination of that's already happening, right? The eventual, that was an assumption, that was an assumption back then. Now it's confirmed, right? the eventual elimination of casts are just one of the risks that Nobert, Michelle, and I warned about in a paper we published November, Nigeria launched it CBDC, the Enaira, and the fall of 2021. But few Nigerians have been eager to use it. Current estimates suggest in less than 0.5% of Nigerians are using the CBDC.

To put that number into perspective, more than 50% of Nigerians are using cryptocurrency. So you could assume that is Bitcoin and the shit coin. So Ben, this is absolutely bonkers. And I really believe that what's going to happen in the West as well, right, is the governments are going to roll out these CBDCs. That's their plans. That's what they want to do all developed Western countries are heading down that path. The fundamental issue that they have been, right? And this is actually something that we've been covering on Simply sessions for a couple months now, actually, right?

is incentives are stronger than coercion. The fact is that Bitcoin has better incentives. It doesn't censor you, and it's a deflationary currency, meaning it's purchasing power increases over time. And what they provide with their CBDCs, CBDCs don't fix inflation. They do not, right? And why are people choosing an alternative in the first place? Well, Nigeria, it's simple.

They have double-digit inflation. And just because you introduce a CBDC, it doesn't fix that way. problem, right? And I think that's what the West is trying. They're approaching this problem with if we introduce CBDCs, Bitcoin will go away and they're completely avoiding the reason as to why people are seeking alternatives in the first place. And the reason is simple. It talked about this in the sovereign individual. People are going to choose to opt out of inflation when they have the technology and when they have the option to do so. And governments are just turning a blind die because if they acknowledge it, then it's over, isn't it? Yeah. It's it's very interesting,

the juxtaposition of different approaches to the reality that is Bitcoin. And I'm talking about the the hardest hit countries, the ones that are most disenfranchised. You see some like El Salvador that are leaning towards, well, you know what? We're going to do something totally different. We're going to, we're going to try an open system and we're going to open our doors to people from around the world. And we're going to encourage people to come here and partake in an open economy and build and do something new. And then you see Nigeria where it's like we need to ban everything and we need to force people into this system before we lose. the control. And I think part of it obviously is that they have a current, they still have a degree of control with the currency, right? They still, they want to hang on to that. They want to inflate it

and be able to, again, siphon wealth from all of their constituents, whereas El Salvador was in a unique spot where they didn't have a national currency in the first place. They were stuck with the US dollar and they were stuck with the exported inflation that the US got to hold over. them, meaning like when the U.S. prints money, they get that money and then they can purchase things with that money first before the inflation takes hold. And so they, you know, buy all the imports and they basically rape countries of their natural resources and goods that they produce. And, you know, they're the first ones to feel that inflation before the dollars eventually flow back to the U.S. Yeah. And so I think it's literally only that. If Nigeria didn't have its

own currency currently. I mean, maybe they would have tried to make one and and start from scratch. But there is a slight chance they might have gone the Bitcoin route too. But 50%, 50%. They think, like, they already tried to get people on their CVDC and half a percent adopted it. Think of the adoption that's going to happen when other countries as well are like,

oh, yeah, you know, like the Fed's reasoning or the ECB's reasoning, yeah, we'll create a digital a CBDC and people will go to that and they won't need Bitcoin. You have no fucking idea. It's going to be half a percent just for them as well. And then they'll start doing, I think they'll start doing shit like this as well. Oh, you're muted, buddy. Ah, what a rookie mistake. Oh man. Now I need two streaks. Okay. So what if I do two streaks? That will break it. Wouldn't it been? Well, I mean, we can, like, if you do two, or you could do the inverse, so you can like streak on like either side and then with our powers combined, we'll like make Captain Planet or

something. All right. I'm announcing it here. The next bull market, I'm doing a streak. It is done. It is done. I'm doing it. My girlfriend knows how to do it.

It is done. It's a done deal. Okay. All right. And then we'll do the thing. Okay. Anyways, wow. Sorry, I got distracted.

It's been, it's, you can tell. been rumming, it's been in my head for a while. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, Ben, 100%.

I think this is a foreshadowing of what's to come. Like the reaction by the Nigerian government and it just follows game theory. Like, of course they're going to do this, right? They're trying to, you said it perfectly, right?

They're trying to hold on to that privilege of controlling money, issuing money. And then Bitcoin's like, no, no, no, no, no. Right. I'm the captain now. Um, anyways. So I,

we have, let me say, yeah, Okay, we have time. So let's check this out, Ben. This is the response. So, first of all, check out their meme game. It's really weak.

Like, this is like the announcement, you know, like that's, you know, some dude in a suit, walking, smiling. So anyways, this is the, this is what, this is a 2023. Fabio doesn't know, by the way, he is behind the CBDC. there you go again, the CBDC initiative at the European Central Bank. And he also wrote this very famous piece, Bitcoin's Last Stand, right? And if you go through all these pieces, all they tell you the same type of attitude that Peter Zahan guy had on the Joe Rogan experience, that same attitude, the same attitude,

right? The lack of humility, I know what's best, you don't know what's best, I know what's going on, you don't know what's going on. And it's just, they can't actually debate the ideas. It's like character attacks, right? And this whole article was that, right? It says last year marked the unraveling of the crypto market as investors moved from the fear of missing out

to the fear of not getting out. A stable coin that was a TerraUSD, a stable name only, was among the first to fall in a chain of collapses that brought down several lending platforms, a hedge fund, a leading crypto asset exchange, and most recently a large, a large U.S. listed crypto mining company.

Other crypto companies are likely to be added to this list in the coming months. These failures occurred in rapid succession, reflecting crypto players incredibly high leverage, their interconnectedness across the crypto ecosystem and their inadequate government structures. Yet remarkably, the crypto route has left the financial system largely unscathed. Many, therefore, think it is preferred to let crypto burn rather than regulate at the risk of legitimizing cryptos.

Do you hear that last part, Ben? Yes. Let it burn. If we regulate, there's a risk of legitimizing Bitcoin and shitcoins. So like it's just, look, and it just goes on. It's absolute propaganda. This is absolutely ridiculous. But I have faith because their meme game is weaks us. It looks like he wants to sell me a mutual fund or something.

Like, does it not? It just like, I don't. I don't know what to think of this guy, but it looks like I'm about to, sir, we offer only the best time shares. Like, I don't know. Oh, man. But, like, Ben, what do you think about this? What do you think about this whole? Like, it's just so, it's so beyond ridiculous.

But a lot of normies still eat this stuff up. Yeah. I mean, again, I think the thing here is, is the signal through the noise is that these refutations and these attacks and these like, oh, it's, it's about to die and we can't legitimize it. We can't regulate it because then people will think it's a real thing. And it's going to, it's phasing out and look at, look at all the destruction. And like, they're, they're like 99% right because like everything else. is bullshit, but like they're using that. And I'm, and I don't know if they even truly understand the difference themselves between

all the bullshit and Bitcoin. But nonetheless, like these things are coming. The, the intermittence is is shrinking, right? They're coming quicker and harder than ever before with these attacks. And I think it will only increase, especially when Bitcoin. is on the upswing again, especially as it's once again, surprise revealed that this was just another cycle. And we went down and then we went back up and Bitcoin is still alive. And, you know, there'll be a revolving door of shit coins. But these types of attacks, these types of dismissals will be fast and

furious in the coming years. And people will buy them. You're right. The Normies will buy them. they do right now. But like how long can you be wrong? How long until you step back and look in the mirror and go, geez, maybe, maybe I shouldn't listen to these people. It seems like they might not have my best interest at heart. It seems like they might want to print money and siphon away my wealth. I don't know.

100%. I agree. I agree with you. Eventually it comes to service. Ben, do we have time for one more? Yes, I think so. Yes. Okay. All right. Sorry. I usually don't do this, but this story is extremely important. This is Cameron Vinkle Vye. And he's an extremely public figure. He is the founder and CEO of Gemini. Also Facebook. Ready? When it doesn't know. And when someone of this public nature makes these types of accusations, they're very strong. They're very powerful. And to give a little bit of context, we covered this. actually on the last Simpley Sessions,

Cranbram Winklevi was shaming Barry Silver publicly. Barry Silbert owned this company called a digital currency group, and part of the digital currency group was a company called Genesis. Genesis was behind the earned product on the Gemini Exchange that went under. Right now, at this moment in time, there's about $900 million worth of customer funds from Gemini that have been frozen, and Gemini customers basically got caught holding the bag. You know, Cameron Winklewey is trying to push the blame.

He knew exactly what he was offering. He was offering a yield product to his customer. So it's irresponsible on Cameron Winklewey's part, but also Barry Silbert. Now, apparently what Cameron Vinklewey was saying in this letter, he accused Barry Silvert of fraud. And if you connect the dots, here is this article that dropped by Bloomberg says crypto empire DCG faces U.S. investigation over internal transfers. So not only did Cameron Winklewey call the, you know, Barry Silbert to use the specific word. He said public lies, right?

So basically, you know, accusing him of lying right to the public. You also, it looks like there is signs, or this is Bloomberg, so it's a very reputable source, that U.S. law enforcement is also looking into Barry Silbert. Now, Barry Silbert is behind the GBCC product and also keep in mind, guys, that currently DCG has 600,000 Bitcoin under management. To give you guys a frame of reference, Michael Saylor has roughly like 100, 100 something thousand they have six times as more bitcoin it's an absurd amount of bitcoin so uh it's going to be really interesting to see how this develops but it's just crazy that these ceos are throwing shit

at each other and you know what bit corners are watching on that sideline like that meme of the guy like hitting the bowl and the two people fighting like bitcoiners are just they're watching because they're smart they stay humble they're stacking stats and they're just watching on the sidelines. But this is an absolute disaster, but it's great because it gives us stuff to talk about. What do you think? What do you think is the end game here?

Do you think it gets to a point where, because like, I mean, they're going to, I thought that we were up until maybe like a year, a year and a half ago, I thought that it was possible that we were going to see like a spot Bitcoin ETF and they'd be able to just convert it to that. and then things would be hunky door and we continue on. But like the SEC, man, like they're, they are not, they do not want that to happen.

It would appear, obviously. Like they're, they're just like, no, not going to do it. Don't want to. Here's some futures. Cash settled. But I, like, do you think it gets to the point where they just, they dissolve it and they offer redemptions? And like, how many of those people, like, I feel like a bunch of those people,

they just get redemptions that they just sell. But like right now it's a black box and it's just everything stays in there. Dude, did you see, did you, you saw the CEO of Bitcoin magazine, right? Yeah. Yeah. And they're trying to like do like a like, like, uh, like they're trying to purchase all the stock. I mean, dude, they're getting up there.

Yeah. Getting up there. Uh, I, I don't know what's going to happen. But Ben, I think you and I both believe this, right? Which is why are you buying GPTC if you could just buy Bitcoin and take self-custs of it. Yes. What's going on there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Again, guys, self-custs your coins. It's not that hard. It's no harder than legacy banking. You learned how to download an app and how to sign in and give all your KYC shit and fill out forms and do everything. If you ever sent

money internationally, you must have a PhD by now because that shit's hard. But like, all you need to do is download an app and write down 12 words, and that's your first step into self-custody. Adding a device is really not that much of a stretch beyond there, but like just that first step, you can do it. I believe in you. What else do you say? Dude.

And you know, Ben, out of all people, you're the authority source here, because, bro, you make the actual tutorials. You make it easy for people. they have no excuse at this point. Dude, okay, true story. My stepfather who does not have a smartphone, he was able to, so he has self-custody of his coins.

He was able to use his hardware wallet to go online, go to bull Bitcoin, pay a bill, and send the Bitcoin from his hardware wallet to bull Bitcoin to pay said bill. He had to call me for one thing where it wasn't immediately obvious that there was a drop-down menu to make a selection. Other than that, I showed him how to do it once and he learned. Like if my father-in-law who's in his 60s and basically has not operated a cell phone for most of his adult life can learn a hardware wallet and pay his bills in Bitcoin, you can do it. You have the power.

Yes, 100%. You have the power and you have the resources. VTC sessions and tutorials are absolutely incredible. There's absolutely no, like before Ben, maybe, maybe, you know, I don't know how to do that. You're like, you're right. You know, it's very difficult. But now there's no excuse. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Well, dude, I appreciate your time. This was a good rip. I'm very glad to be filled in on all the latest. And I'm sure everybody in the chat is as well.

Shall we do it again? Absolutely, man. See you next week. Guys. This was your Simply sessions. Cheers, man. I'll see you soon. All right, everybody.

Give Nico a follow. Go follow them on Twitter. Follow Simply Bitcoin. Subscribe. All that good stuff. they do the news six days a week. They will keep you filled in. A few things, though, before we wrap up.

So that clip we showed at the beginning, Joe Rogan, Peter Zahan, there's a couple good rips on kind of like refutations of what he said and like reasoning through. So if you have friends or family that watch that and they're like, this guy said that it's going to fall below zero and then there's no intrinsic value in that a fixed. money supply will lead to economic collapse. Well, there's there's some good stuff that you can send their way. So this from Swan. Why a fixed supply money does not lead to economic catastrophe. So give this a read. It basically breaks down kind of like why that doesn't make any sense for sure. Check that out. Also, this one from Cresis. Cresis,

is so good. Deflation versus inflation, a response to Beater Zahan on Joe Rogan, and he kind of breaks it all down. So be sure to check out that as well. If you're not following Kresis on Twitter as well, be sure to find them. The way you spell it is right up there. Anyways, give them a check. Also, a few things. I dropped a tutorial last week that is worth checking out, in my opinion, how to make a seed phrase with nothing more than dice and a paper and pen and like some open source stuff that you can do. Technically you can do it all with paper and pen, but kind of tried to keep it within reasonable length.

But yeah, learn kind of what goes into creating your seed, the math behind it and how unbannable that would be because what are you going to do? Outlaw dice and numbers and math and words. Me thinks not. So check that one out. Permissionless Bitcoin wallets, they cannot be stopped. Also, I'm working on, it's getting there. I'll show you, where is it?

Here we go. I'm working on this. It is Jam, Jam app, which is Join Market. It's literally just, I'm finishing up the edit, should be done tonight. It'll drop either maybe tomorrow morning or on Saturday. So we shall see. But yeah, if you're curious about Coin Joins using Join Market, on your node.

So you can do this via Start 9 or Umbrel or Razpy Blitz or My node or Citadel. I think those are all the ones that it's on currently. Yeah, if you're curious about Join Market, this interface is actually, I was pleasantly surprised quite easy. So be sure to check that out. That'll be dropping soon. And tomorrow night, we're back for Why Are We Bullish. This actually, if I'm not mistaken, is the first one since the first one since the

The Christmas special. Holy crap, is it? I think it is. Yeah, because last week I couldn't do one. I was in Toronto for an event, which, again, big thanks to Shake Pay for having me out. We went to Queens University. The professor had us out and we got to chat about Bitcoin, why it's different. And we got to hear pitches from a number of students.

There was like a hackathon going on. It was awesome. Brad Mills was there. Jason Meyer was there. Cryptomags was there. And then Carlo from Shake Pay was there. And more people. And Rodolfo from Coin Kite.

It was awesome. It was a lot of fun. But I had a really good time. And I got to say, one of the pitches, I was actually quite impressed with the idea. And I hope he moves ahead with it because it would be incredibly useful to some Bitcoiners and some energy producers. Anyways, I won't say anymore. Tomorrow, we have Why Are We Bullish with Bitcoin Shooter, Casey Hoddle, and Final denominator. He's an accelerationist. We'll find out what that is tomorrow. That will be at 6 p.m. Eastern

Time. Stoked for this one. It would be a good time. Be sure to come and check it out. And that's about it. So everybody, thank you so much for watching. Like, subscribe, share, all those things, super important. They help this show get in front of more eyeballs. If you want to help the show in another way, you can hit up the previously mentioned sponsors, Coin Kite, Start 9, Hottle, Hottle, and Privacy Pros, or hit me up at my website, BTcSessions.ca, if you're looking for private one-on-one sessions. And if you really liked what you saw, you can always drop me a Bitcoin tip on my strike page.

Strike.me slash BTC sessions. You don't need strike to use it. Head there, type in any amount you want, hit the tip button. You'll be greeted by a lightning invoice, or if you tap to the right, a regular Bitcoin QR code. With that, I am out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening. I'll see you guys next time for your daily session.