BTC Sessions - NEWS ROUNDUP: EU Eyes BTC Regs, Bans Russian Wallets ep294

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

EU goes hard at Bitcoin/crypto regulation, UN asks Fed to stop tightening, Europeans move to Bitcoin in record numbers, Grayscale is mining and much more on today’s show! 💪 SUPPORT THE SHOW: Shakepay is the easiest way to buy Bitcoin in Canada Sign up now and get $30 free after your first $100 purchase! https://shakepay.me/r/BTCSESSIONS ALSO search/subscribe to Shakepay on YouTube! LEDN Bitcoin backed loans –  get $10 free with a savings balance of $75 or more for 15 consecutive days! https://start.ledn.io/btcsessions Coinkite offers the BEST Bitcoin hardware on the market. Use this link to get 5% off anything in their store: https://store.coinkite.com/promo/BTCSessions BillFodl: get your wallet backups in solid steel. https://privacypros.io/btcsessions Bitrefill: use Bitcoin to purchase gift cards https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/?code=O04UMic9 Like what you see? BITCOIN TIPS: https://strike.me/btcsessions

Yo, what's going on? Happy Thursday, everybody. Hope you're all having a good week. It's time for some news. Lots of stuff going on. We've got Nico here to tell us what is up. There's been tons of news. Lots of stuff coming out of the EU.

They seem to be trigger-happy with the regulations despite the ineffectiveness of it all. But we're going to be chatting a little bit about that. And a number of other things. Of course, this is live. Anything can happen. so I defer to my 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. The thing sucks. If you have not already, like, subscribe, share, all those things. Help a ton getting this content in front of moral eyeballs. I am Ben with the BTC sessions.

This is your daily session. All right, before we dive in, let's take a look at where we are in the market right now. This is the bidbow.com.com. We're sitting at $19,945. A single U.S. dollar will pick you up 5,014 sats, 91.29% of all Bitcoin have been mine. And in terms of fees, six sats per byte, next block, anything beyond that, again, low single digit should do you just fine. notable we had a large upward difficulty adjustment double digit difficulty adjustment just recently

so even more hash coming in the line interesting shout out to sponsors of the show coincite.com these guys just have the best damn Bitcoin hardware out there if you're not running a cold card what are you doing these things are above and beyond they're so versatile they've got so many features It's insane. Check out my full video on the cold card mark four. I also just dropped a new tutorial on how to utilize NFC using your cold card and Nunchuck wallet.

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If you're in Canada, shake pay. Super easy way to be stacking sats. You can e-transfer in and out, no deposit or withdrawal fees, thin spread. If you sign up with a link down in the show notes to below, and you purchase your first hundred bucks for the Bitcoin, they'll give you $30 for free. You will also get $30 every time you send somebody your own link and they sign up and do the same. They'll get $30 as well.

Beyond that, you can shake your phone every single day for free sats. They've got their Satsback Visa card. They've got their shake paid program, just tons of ways to get additional sats. Check them out. Link is down below if you're interested in that $30. lend.io, you can use your Bitcoin for a ton of different services. I've used these guys a ton. They've been very useful to me whenever I'm in a cash flow crunch.

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Tons of awesome stuff. If you sign up via start.ledon.io slash BTC sessions and fund your account, you can get $10 for free. Bitrefill.com helps me a ton living on Bitcoin. I can pick up all of the gift cards that I need to survive in my day-to-day goings-on, whether it be groceries, gas, Amazon, Uber, whatever I need. It's all here. And I can pay with Bitcoin both on-chain and. and via the Lightning Network.

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So check them out. Links are down below. And finally, if you're backing up any important Bitcoin wallet, get it in solid steel. My friend's paper doesn't cut it. You don't want to have to be worrying about water damage or fire damage

and all that crap, you can just get it in the billfottle. This is how I'm backing up my important Bitcoin wallets in a solid hunk of steel with the billfottle at Privacypros.io and it gives me that peace of mind. I'm very, very happy. Again, check them out, privacypros.com. slash BTZ sessions, that'll give you a little deal. Before we get Nico in here, remember,

I'm going to be in Charlotte coming up on October 21st and in LA on November 12th. And those are in satellite events of one, Haudlewine and two, Pacific Bitcoin. And I'm going to be doing four hour deep dives on the cold card. So if you want to be a part of that, there are only 15 spots for each one. Hit on my website, BTCSessions.com slash events. And you can check it out. And finally, let's do our shoutouts really quick here.

Bitcoin is Hope for a Better World from Michael. Peanut Butter Life said, longtime fan of your videos. Help me with all things, BTC. Thank you. The Queen is dead. The pound is dead. Gold is dead. Thank fuck for Bitcoin. From Zika Boy. Stag, sats, fuck, banks live life,

simple. The shit is hitting the fan from Michael. Anything can happen. When video about Node on personal computer dropping. Good question from Cliff B. Janger. I do have my Linux machine off to the side.

I've got a whole bunch of stuff that I'm learning. and trying with it. So that'll be coming soon. I've got lots of stuff on the go. So as soon as I can get to it. Cryosats went on an absolute massacre with the booster sats. And so there's just so many. So cryosats, you're an absolute legend.

You littered my feed with additional sats. So massive hats off to you, dude. Boost for Ian Major. Ian was on the show last week. Awesome. He was great. So many booster shots. Rooster shots.

Boosted like a car with no windows. Rooster shot. Like cryosats. Dude, I feel bad. 80 million T-31 strike funding is bullish as fuck. Rooster shot. God. Man, cryosats.

You must have been drunk, but I appreciate it. Nonetheless, I will, look at all this. sat at it like he just i i i yeah uh i'm i'm i'm at a loss for words here man uh it's pretty pretty amazing like bullish as fuck i think cryo just like dude i got a i got to like make your next mortgage payment for you or something um anyways michael said always bullish after listening to these uh these friday rips cheers moby back again for more sats uh take care mr sessions And hats off to everybody that did the booths through a fountain app or breeze.

Really appreciate it. Huge shout out to you guys. Anyways, enough of my rambling. Let's get Nico in here. We got lots to talk about. Nico, man, it's good to see you. You are in a different setting. Where are you at, man?

Man, I'm streaming live from the mining conference in Austin, Texas. And they've been kind enough to give me the podcast booth. So it's going to be an awesome special edition, Simply Sessions. I just want to say, dude, you got a super fan. Holy crap. Was he streaming you a crap ton of sats? That was like, I feel like that was more, that that's for sure. And like, it's not even like small, like, yeah, there's a bunch of 10 sat ones.

But then there's like a stream where he went on and did like a thousand sats at a time. So like cryosats is an absolute legend. And he's not just doing this for me, but he's doing it to a bunch of other. Bitcoin podcast out there. He's a massive supporter of Bitcoin content creators. So cryosats, again, I see you on Twitter. I see you on here. Thanks, man.

And I will do my best to pay it forward and keep pumping out content that is helpful to others. And yeah, I appreciate it a lot. Thanks a lot, man. Absolute legend. Legend. So there's been lots going on this week, man. I think we have plenty to discuss. I'll bring up your screen here.

Maybe fill us in on what's been top of mind this week. Dude, it kind of reminds me of like Game of Thrones. You know, it's like, this is what you're watching. You know, this is the separation of money in states. This is like the moment in history that we're like living through it. And it's what we always say, Ben, right? That Bitcoin exposes everybody's incentives and governments are no different. And then them trying to justify their existence for being intermediaries or being the

monopolies on the issuance of money. It's just, it's ludicrous. Like, it's hilarious, you know, and they're pulling out all the stops. And unfortunately, you know, the tornado cash developer, he's being made an example of just as Ross many, many years ago. And what's really sad about this is that, look, at the end of the day, you know, they're going to, and I'll get to that in a second, but, you know, their justification is, you know, they're using the straw man argument, North Korea, Russia, Iran, specifically in this case, it was the North Koreans, right? He facilitated money laundering for the North Koreans, right? And at the end of the day, you know, what I was trying to tell people on Twitter,

I was like, yeah, they're using that to justify the sanctioning of open source software. They could sanction North Korea. They can sanction individuals in North Korea. Why? And we know for a fact that 90% of, or 80 to 90% of the users of Tornado Cash were innocent people. They've even admitted that themselves. So if the majority is used for innocent purposes, why are we, you know, why are we barred from not using an open source technology? And we've made the case over the last couple of weeks, man, that we believe this is because they're trying to set a precedent.

Why? Because Bitcoin is also open source as well. Yeah. It's a little terrifying to watch play out. And it's odd to me. Again, like the precedent was set with the cypherpunks where somebody, you know, walked in to the courtroom with code just printed on a shirt and said, this text right here, it would be illegal or is illegal.

And that kind of opened the eyes to, this is speech. But it seems like that's just been completely disavowed with late developments as of late and it's it's little wild yeah and like think about it right like why is it why is it disavowed like why are they treating this so differently because it's like and it's not me that came up with this quote it's like bitcoin is for all the marbles right the the main source of power of governments is the the ability to print money or issue money that everybody else has to work for and lawrence lepard calls that a privilege i think that's a great word And of course they're going to continue to fight to keep that privilege because that privilege is what enables them to pay for the endless bureaucracy, endless wars, et cetera, et cetera.

So I think this is quarter one of the battle to come. And this is the article is called Arrested Tornado Cash Developer to Stay in Jail after Appeal rejected. Alexei Perstuff, sorry for the pronunciation, a tornado cash developer arrested in August by Dutch authorities over allegations of facilitating money, facilitating money laundering is to stay in jail for at least another two years after his appeal was rejected. So you got that right. He facilitated money laundering by developing open source software. A judge in the Netherlands dismissed the appeal on Thursday, pursuves wife told the block the Dutch police public prosecution service and the fiscal information investigation service didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Perstoff, who was born in Russia, has already been in custody for more than seven weeks after being arrested in Afghanistan. Look at that, Freudian slip. Amsterdam on August 10th, his arrest came two days after the U.S. government added tornado cash and 44 associated Ethereum and USD wallets to its specially designated nationals list. The U.S. Treasury said the Cryptomixing Service, which allows users to obscure transactions,

has repeatedly failed to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious, actors. Ben, you know where they're going with this. It's incredibly obvious where they're going with this. That is terrifying. They're not talking about a business. They're not talking about an individual. They were just talking about software and why software couldn't be specifically designed to benefit the government. It's absurd to me. This poor man and this is I don't think it's as bad as Ross. Ross got two life sentences. But look, once again, they're trying to make an example of them. And the collusion between two separate governments, right?

What was it two or three days after the U.S. issued that, that, you know, Matt O'Dell calls it a blog post? They just lock this guy in jail and throw away the key. Like, this is scary. This is heavy stuff, man. Yeah. The Dutch, man. The Dutch.

Interesting that it's in Amsterdam, hey? Because you got Bitcoin Magazine's Bitcoin conference in Amsterdam coming up. pretty quick here. That'll be a weird juxtaposition of what's kind of happening politically there. Meanwhile, you've got a mass gathering. I hope that anybody who's developing on privacy-related software is treading lightly while they're in town. Dude, it is, it's very scary stuff. And like I said, I think that they picked this because it was a low-hanging fruit without too much push. like it was some obscure you know software and here's a screenshot from something that we've actually gone over this was a statement from the secretary of treasury janet yellen on the release

of reports on digital assets and right she's referencing you know joe biden's executive order which we went over on this show right and specifically the thing that i'm referencing is action plan to address elicit financing risks of digital assets right and i took a screenshot of one of the pages and the the name of the paragraph is proliferation, proliferation financing. And what's really interesting about this is, you know what, Ben? They give the example of the North Koreans, right?

So in the same pages, right, that they're justifying the existence of central bank digital currencies as to why they're necessary, right? They're also giving the example that was used to justify sanctioning open source software, specifically Tornado Cash. But what's interesting is that they don't name tornado cash by name. What they say instead is the DPRK actors used mixers, among other methods, to launder their illicit proceeds. So it's really interesting. But once you dig into the details a little bit, you see how all of this stuff is interconnected.

And what it's really used is it's used as a justification to basically take away your freedoms. Like, that's crazy. You're developing a certain form of software, which is a form of speed. that's illegal. You go to what's that mean to jail directly to jail, directly to jail, right? Yeah, that's wild. And I mean, this isn't where like in looking at some of the other stuff you got here, this isn't where where it ends in terms of the EU kind of beginning to get a little dicey. I'll let you leave where you want to go to. But let's jump to the next. Yeah, absolutely. It definitely gets a little bit more scarier, but I'm going to change course a little bit here first and kind of backtrack again, because unfortunately, Simply Sessions keeps the receipts for these people.

But this is a Wall Street Journal post. It says United Nations calls on Fed and other central banks to halt interest rate increases. And if you dig into the paragraph, I don't want to read the entire thing, but one of the justifications that they say, right, it says the United States. United Nations C-T-A-D estimated that the Fed's rate increases so far this year would reduce poor countries' economic output by $360 billion over three years and further policy tightening would do additional harm. So it's making the case, right? And here is another paragraph. And its annual report on the Global Economic Outlook, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said the Fed risks causing significant harm to developing countries if it persists with rapid rates rises. What's really frustrating this about, what's really frustrating about this, Ben, is these are the same people, the United Nations Conference Training Action, the UNCTAD that has a slogan on the top called prosperity for all. These are the same people. And we went over this report, Ben, that came out with the report on August 10, 2022. United Nations spells out actions to curb cryptocurrencies in developing countries.

So how could you make the case, right? That you're concerned about the well-being, about the people of developing countries. But at the same time, on the other hand, while no one's looking, what you want is to curb the adoption of cryptocurrencies in developing countries. And, you know, we went over this, Ben. They gave a bunch of reasons, right? They gave reasons as to why central bank digital currencies are good, why cryptocurrencies are bad. Some of the reasons that they say is, you know, this is, well, cryptocurrencies can facilitate remittances, they may also enable tax evasion avoid avoidance through

illicit flows. It's very similar wording to the tornado cash stuff. Just as if to a tax haven where ownership is not easily identifiable, in this way, cryptocurrencies may also curb the effectiveness of capital controls a key instrument for developing countries to preserve their policy space and macroeconomic stability. Right. And it goes on to say if cryptocurrency become widespread means of payment, even replace domestic currencies unofficially, this could jeopardize the monetary sovereignty of countries. So it's really interesting, Ben, who exactly are they speaking for? Are they speaking for the individuals of those countries? Or are they speaking for themselves? And again, this goes back to like that theme that I've been

talking about, about how Bitcoin exposes everyone's incentives. And in this case, whether it's the United Nations or governments, they are no different. They're being exposed for what they are. it's always been about power and control. Yeah. Like, I mean, what you just read there, and again, we've touched on it before, but what they're effectively saying is, oh, you know, this could help individuals that, you know, are using it for remittances and everything. And, you know, they can easily move money around and, like, work abroad and send it home

and not have to pay a bunch of fees. And, like, that would be what most people, we're using. And then probably also there'd be a mix of, hey, let's hedge, you know, the bullshit that's happening with our own local currencies. Well, they don't want that to happen. They don't, you know, they're saying like, oh, look, this could benefit a whole bunch of people in this way because that would probably be the primary use case.

And like what percent of it, what percent of people are likely going to be doing illicit things? Like we've already had the former CIA director come out and like give stats on that where it's like a tiny fraction and shrinking percentage of Bitcoin transactions are used for illicit purposes, whereas two to four percent of bank transfers are illicit. And so we have examples of how bad it is in traditional banking. And they're saying like, oh, hey, well, this tiny percentage, well, we don't give a fuck. that it's going to benefit 99.9% of everyone in this way. We care that there's a couple people that are going to maybe get around taxes with it. And so, you know, I guess the rest of you are just kind of screwed because we want that tax money.

So it's insane to me. Dude, it's insane. It's disgusting. And you're starting to hear the same excuses, right? This is the same justification for tornado cash. Illicit funds, money laundering, right? But it's what you said, Ben, the vast majority of people that are using these services, whether, you know, whether that's in this case, in the case of Tornado Cash, whether it's the mixer or in the case of Bitcoin, right? We had, I had someone from Nigeria and I spoke to him and he was telling me clearly.

And with this accident and everything, we were speaking the same language. It was crazy. He was like, I don't have another option here. You know, it's Bitcoin. My fiat currency, it's double digit inflation. know, and that resonated with me. That was such a powerful message. And the United Nations, right? You know, when they released this type of report, you have to be, you have to be honest. That's what they're against, right? They're against the average Nigerian being able to help themselves from, you know, theft by inflation.

And I find it absolutely ironic and hilarious at the top. They literally their slogan is literally prosperity for all. prosperity for all as long as it's under our control. That's what they really meant to say. Yeah. Like they're talking about preserving the sovereignty of monetary policy in nations. And they're talking about prosperity for all in the same sense. Well, the only reason that monetary policy needs to be preserved and protected is because it's shitty and it's shitty.

and it's stealing from the people. If the money was managed well and actually worked and people were able to save in it, why would they wouldn't need anything else. They could just go about their day. They could work. They could save for retirement. Just put away a little bit of savings here and there. They could transact easily, but it doesn't fucking work.

And it's designed that way to extract value and make everything difficult. and they want to preserve that. They want to preserve it. So, you know, I guess prosperity for all comes in a far distant second to preserving the drain of resources that Fiat is. 100%. It just boils down to power and control, prosperity for all, as long as it's using our system. It's not using our system to hell with prosperity. It's about control now. So I find that hilarious. Anyways, moving back to the EU, more crazy news coming. Ben, this is so many things happen this week and it's absolutely insane. And I want to get your thoughts on this because, dude, you're my favorite tutorialist on YouTube and you cover, you know, you, you cover all the wallets and you cover all

the hardware. And I think this is going to become specifically, you know, we know that the majority of Bitcoin wallets are mobile wallets, of which are downloaded by app stores. That could potentially become a exploit that could be used by governments in the coming years. And this language was really striking to me. Does the EU SEAL's text of landmark crypto law Mika fund transfer rules? Keep in mind, Mika was the law that Christine Lagarde kept referencing. She's like, I'm looking forward to this. I'm looking forward to this, right?

So that's definitely not a good sign. It says Mika introduces the first ever licensing regime for crypto wallets. That's right. You want to download, you want to develop a crypto wallet? got a license and exchanges to operate across the block and poses reserve requirements on stable coins that are intended to avoid terror style collapses a separate law on fund transfers requires wallet providers to check their customers identity in a bid to cut once again you're hearing it again money laundering that's right ladies and gentlemen they want it they want to force wallets to k y

see you. That is terrifying. So you download a blue wallet and I guess you have to put in your ID before you could. Ben, what are your thoughts on this? The app stores are the choke points. It'll be difficult, if not impossible, to impose this on like desktop wallets, obviously. like if you if you're if you're operating from a laptop or a desktop you just you go to the website you use a VPN if you need to and you download whatever you need but yeah like those that just operate from a mobile device we need to and I think I saw Stefan Lavera commenting on this but he's like we need to start encouraging people to use alternative app stores which you know like if you're on an iPhone LaVeara commenting on this but he's like we need to start encouraging people to use alternative app stores um which you know like if you're on an iPhone that's a pain in the ass. You've got to learn how to side load apps and things like that. It's not an easy thing for people,

whereas on Android, it's a little bit easier to, you know, to load up F droid or something else. And you can, you can just download pretty much any apps that you want. But still, like this is,

everybody has defaulted to this place where you effectively have two app stores that gives everybody, everything that they do every day on their phones, on their lifeline that is their mobile phone. So that's a huge hurdle. I wonder if it goes as far as the app stores. And does it come down to,

because Apple's been a little adversarial in a lot of this stuff in and around privacy as well. I wonder if it's, it would come down to them, you know, saying like, well, we're not going to take this off. But again, if it's something like the Treasury or EU being like, no, this is illegal, get it out, then yeah, that's there you go. That's it. So what I would say is if you're a person that worries about the idea of Wallace just being unavailable to you, learn how to side load apps on your iPhone or get an Android.

and download FDroid, which is basically just a different app store where you can download pretty much anything open source and just put it on your phone and it'll work like a regular app. You can update it however you see fit. And use desktop wallets too. You know, they're pretty versatile. They have a ton of features to them. Sparrow wallet is incredible. And it has built-in samurai whirlpool. So, you know, take a look at that.

Also take a look at things like, God, now I'm totally forgetting the name of it. Geez, state chains. I can't remember the name of the wallet. I was just chatting with the guy recently. But anyways, there's a wallet that does state chains, which is another privacy preserving technique that basically allows you to own. It's like swapping open dimes. So like you're switching UTXOs with somebody and there's no indication

that it's happened on chain. So there's a lot of stuff out there. Just start learning before it's much more difficult to learn. Yeah, that's all I'd say. But it's getting to be a little crazy. What I do think with a lot of this, though, is that you're going to have the hardcore Bitcoiners really start to, like, I'm already starting to be like,

okay, how would I do this without the app store? I've got my like Google pixel here that is degougled and is running calix OS and has Feroid and everything on it and I've loaded up a bunch of my wallet. So yeah, I am starting to think about these things right now and I think other people should too. Absolutely. And it's just crazy that, you know, we've reached this point where, you know, instead of having the conversation and you saw this in the, I'm going to reference the report by the Treasury and The report was the future of money, right?

In that report, they never mentioned why people are seeking an alternative. It always goes back to payments, payments. It's all about efficiency of payments. And they never mentioned that people are seeking an alternative, which is why that conversation with the Nigerian Bitcoin was so powerful. People are seeking the alternative because the inflation genie is out of the bottle, right? We now know that we can save and earn in a money that isn't going to steal from us. So is it really about KYC?

It was really about identifying who you're, you know, transacting with? Or is this really about stopping the adoption of Bitcoin, which they've even admitted. It says it right here. We have to curb the adoption of cryptocurrencies and developing countries, right? So again, like, I don't think that this law, this EU law is sincere. I don't think it has anything to do with money laundering or protecting the public. I think it has everything to do with hope. hoping to stop, you know, to use Christine Lagarde's own words, to stop that escape valve, right?

I think that's what's really about. And it gets even worse, right? And again, it's a leak. They don't even have the gohanes to tell you this in public. Leaked EU docs warn members to clamp down on crypto mixers, right? The European Union is preparing to warn its 27 member states of pending amped up scrutiny of technologies that power anonymous transactions such as crypto mixers and privacy wallets in a final draft for amendments to EU regulation 2015 847 obtained by blockwords the governing body outlines pending changes to rules dictating how member states should police the digital asset sector the document mostly relates to crypto service service providers such as exchanges wallets you see how wallets are included there fucking crazy um and i'm sorry i cursed and staking platforms and the steps that must be taken to stamp out money laundering and other illicit activities in line with the Financial Action Task Force Directives, which we've talked about on the show. It's an unelected bureaucracy that dictates the financial laws of the world, right? So they're going after everything.

And I'm going to connect this with the news that came out today, Ben. EU's Russian crypto ban confirmed as Block Titan sanctioned. So it says it here, all crypto payments from Russians to European wallet providers will be for, Bidden. I don't know. I don't even work, man. I don't know what to say, right? And then and then you kind of connect it with the mixers and you connect it with why they want to KYC wallets, right? You see where this is going. They're trying to impose the old system on top of Bitcoin. Like that's where this is going. And how long until they figure out, hey, and I think this is on purpose, they say, hey, we can't impose the old system on top of Bitcoin. Therefore, we, we're

We just have to ban self-custody altogether, and people could only use hosted-approved wallets, which is where I believe they're taking this. Yeah, yeah. It's funny. As soon as I saw the story about them, the leaked docs about privacy stuff, I was like, I should do another round of Whirlpool.

Like I should, you know, I should take my income and do a quick little and so I did. So if you're not already in the practice of doing that, it's probably a good idea just to learn how to do it. I mean, the nice thing about a lot of the technology around that stuff is you can just run it, right? Like it exists and you can just run it. The Russian ban, like this has got to be, It sounds like initially I was thinking oh well there maybe they're just talking about like coin base receiving Bitcoin from a Russian whatever.

But it sounds like they're trying to say like, oh, if you own a Bitcoin wallet, you can't receive Russian Bitcoin. And I was just thinking about how stupid the idea of like a Russian Bitcoin wallet is. like so what what they're basically saying because like you can generate a wallet writing equations on a piece of paper you can generate a wallet rolling dice so if you were to be inside of a particular set of imaginary lines and you were to roll dice repeatedly and make note of those numbers those numbers would subsequently be illegal outside of you're to roll dice repeatedly and make note of those numbers those numbers would subsequently be illegal outside of of set imaginary lines. How like that that's like getting down to the crux of it. If you effectively create a wallet, you can write it out just by doing some math. And you can you can create. All those numbers already exist, right?

Like it's important to note that all private keys and all public keys and all Bitcoin addresses technically already exist because they're just numbers and letters. You're just randomly selecting one through entropy. Right. And then the chances of somebody guessing that same one as you are so infinitesimally small that you're secure in knowing, okay, I'm the sole owner of this particular set of numbers. But you're effectively randomly picking numbers and then you're not allowed to utilize those numbers outside of a certain jurisdiction. Like this is how insane it is. This is the crux of what's happening. And it blows my mind. Dude, and you know, I always get flashbacks and perhaps I referenced this book too much, but this, you know, we're transitioning into the information age. And there they are trying to implement the analog system. Because think about it. In the analog system, it's like you just can't receive money from Russian bank, right?

Because there is no other way to facilitate that transaction, right? What are you going to use Russian currency? They're not going to accept that. But with Bitcoin, it's an open mona. It's exactly what you said. So if I create a private key in Russia or find a private key better said in Russia, like is it is it now a Putin coin? Like is it now Putin Bitcoin? Like it's so absurd.

I don't know how they're going to. enforce this, but I don't think it has anything to do with enforcing this. I think it's like setting a precedent just like Tornado Cash, where it leads it to a certain direction, which is at the end of the day, the de-incentivization of the adoption of Bitcoin. I think that that's really what this is fundamentally about on the most fundamental, on the basic level. But it's funny because they already replied to this, or the chairman of Russian Congress Finance Committee said EU's ban on our Bitcoin and crypto transactions will only stimulate the development of the market in Russia. I think they're absolutely right, right? The economic reality is if you ban Bitcoin, you're not banning the technology.

You're just banning yourself from it to benefit from it. We always say in the community, have fun staying poor. So is this a have fun staying poor moment for Europe? I mean, yeah, yes. The my My issue right now is, you know what we're going to have to deal with. We're going to have to deal with the onslaught of normies and government pundits and, you know, people that don't think for themselves, basically saying you're all Russian apologists or you're all, you're not patriotic and you're effectively Russian spot. or whatever it may be your terrorist, financial terrorists,

those are the things that are in the pipeline to be thrown at us next. When in reality, all of us just believe that it should be like the speech of where people place their value and the fruits of their labor should be immutable and should not be able to be controlled by anyone. It should just be an open language for where people allocate value. That's it. If you want to punish a crime, punish a crime. Don't punish the medium.

Yeah, 100%. It's going to be a wild ride. And what worries me a little bit, though, is how many of the normies buy into the narrative, the collective narrative, right? Yeah. You know, there's a couple things I can't say on YouTube, but let's just say over the last two years, you know, there were certain narratives that were pitched by, you know, the legacy media, the legacy corporate media, and you saw, and I have lost friends to this, so many people bought into it, right? And it was, and you look back on hindsight, it was just a total lie, you know, to, to achieve a certain political end goal. And so many people bought into it. So it's exactly what you said, Ben, how long until they say, you know, because you're self-hosting your Bitcoin, you're memorizing,

you're storing a, you know, a certain password to simplify it, you're now a financial terrorist or you're now unpatriotic. And how many of the NPCs can they convince of that narrative, right? And these people have Stockholm syndrome because they're fighting for a system that steals from them. And all we're advocating for is, hey, man, I just don't want to be stolen from anymore. Yeah. It's and it'll work. It'll work on a large chunk of the pop The reality of it, though, is that it won't matter in the end. It's just how bumpy of a ride is it to get to that endpoint? And it's probably going to be a bumpy one for sure.

100%. All right. So, Ben, to kind of tie everything up, you see what the EU is doing, see what the United Nations is doing. We saw what tornado cash is doing. Well, rarely do you ever find a smoking gun. We have found one. But before, I want to preface this with why they're doing this in the first place.

And this article by Finbold is great. Investors ditch the euro and pound for Bitcoin in record numbers as their value plummets. But what's interesting, though, is that it says as these individuals from the UK and EU see the value of their currency collapsing, they effectively selling the pound in euro for Bitcoin. If this were just trade to capture the volatility, we would have seen similar spikes in May 2021 and certainly in March 2020, right? It's interesting how all of this regulation is coming when you have news like this. And also you're seeing it from the United States as well. On top of the digital assets framework, this even more pressure by the Biden administration, Joe Biden's administration urges Congress to speed up crypto rules. And here is the smoking gun.

I think this is when you catch them. This isn't simply sessions. This isn't BTC session saying. This isn't Nico saying this. This is a representative, a congressman. from the state of Minnesota. And he says, the Biden administration wrote a report

on how they could issue a central bank digital currency behind the back of Congress and the American people. Now they aren't sharing that report with Congress. Yes, what I just read is not Fingian. That is a real tweet. That is actually coming from a congressman who is in office.

That is what they're doing behind their backs. If central bank digital currencies were the things that they said in that report, why they were writing reports behind our back on how to implement them without legislative approval? Why is that happening? Again, lots of coincidences this episode, Ben. What do you think? Yeah, it sounds like to me, it sounds like the report itself would have some little nuggets of information that maybe to the general public or to anybody that's paying attention. including members of Congress might look at and go,

this is a veritable nightmare. Like this is not what we were told it is. It's not an upgrade. It's like a recess into the depths of totalitarianism, much like what's going on in China, right? I think there's going to, I'm getting notes of that. I'm getting notes of totalitarianism here. And so I think, you know,

whenever you you're trying to cram through some legislation or or make some sweeping change to the way a nation works and you're too worried to present it to the public and to the people that like vote on what gets implemented and trying to do it without any oversight whatsoever it probably spells trouble yeah and it and it also shows their desperation, right? It shows how much, how far they're willing to keep that, you know, to use Lawrence Lepard's words to keep that privilege of being able to issue a money that everyone else has to work for. And now the powers that come with that privilege and how far they're willing to go to keep that privilege intact, right? And I think that this is the smoking gun. This is basically connecting all the dots, right? They've been saying, is it,

now is it too crazy to think that the tornado cash precedent was malicious when you hear things like that is the European laws right and and how they're structured how they want to KYC wallets how they're making Russian private keys illegal is it now too crazy of a question to ask that those things were malicious if you see reports like this where they're caught red-handed trying to implement a central bank digital currency we know that this isn't for the benefit of the people this is for this, it looks like to me, this is a government by the government for the government employees, F the people. Like, this is what this shows me. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't touch this, obviously, none of us would touch this with a 10-foot pole, but there's going to, there's going to be

normies, NPCs that, that look at this and go, oh, it's faster. So, I'll maybe I'll get my, I have my CBDC account and I can get my UVI. That's, what it's going to lead to. And it's more efficient and it's climate friendly. Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's,

it's ESG compliant. So I want that. Yep. So I don't know if we have enough time, Ben, but, uh, this was,

this was, uh, yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, I,

I, I should probably wrap a few other things here. Um, but yeah, that was, that was fantastic, man. Um,

again, the writing is on the, on the wall of what's coming down the pipe. And just to everybody watching, I will say, learn the tools. Learn the tools. Make sure, first of all, if you're still in an exchange, get the fuck off that exchange. Like, hold your own keys, hold your own coins. Learn self-custasy. Learn how to use Bitcoin wallets not just from the app store, but learn how to use a Bitcoin wallet on your desktop computer. Or like we were saying, learn how to side load apps on your iPhone or if you're on Android, get the FDroid app, which you can download.

And it's just an alternative app store. So, yeah, start to learn those tools, learn the privacy tools. There's tons of them out there. I've got videos on just about everything. So check it out. Nico, I appreciate your time. Thank you for bringing all this to us. It's been an honor.

Like always, guys, this is Your Simply Sessions live from the mining conference in Austin, Texas. Thanks, Ben. Thanks, man. I'll see you soon. Awesome. And everybody, be sure. Go subscribe to Simply Bitcoin. Find them on YouTube. Subscribe.

Follow them on Twitter. They are awesome. Nico is always bringing you the news six days a week. This is just a taste of it. So yeah, anyways, a few other things before we log off here. I want to show you guys. I asked on Twitter for recommendations of great Bitcoin content that has come out this week. I got a few really good ones.

This one is called Bitcoin is Element Zero. It is a piece by Knut, Svenholm. If I'm not mistaken, maybe not. And it was narrated by Guy Swan. But while were the watch, it's about 20 minutes long. So go check it out. Bitcoin is Element Zero. Up next, we have Get It, Energy Stores, narrated by Max Hillibrand, and just talking about how energy works and how there's no free lunch and then later gets into the same idea extrapolated out to Bitcoin versus Fiat currency.

So awesome to check out there. I had tons of recommendations. I've been listening to it. I'm about 30 to 45 minutes in of this two-hour beast. And it's Jason Lowry talking about proof of work versus proof of stake and how kind of property rights and property ownership has evolved over time. Kind of from almost like a sociological perspective. Very, very interesting. Anyways, check it out.

It's a good listen. And yeah, really, really kind of unique look at how Bitcoin works. and and the game theory in and around Bitcoin. Not a lot of, not all people like are a fan of like, um, Jason's take on kind of like the logistics of violence and, and kind of the,

the economics of violence and, and how Bitcoin is, he kind of pigeonholes it as like a, a weapon almost, but it's like a, it's a weapon in the way that it's a peaceful weapon, but it asserts property rights. in a way that exerts energy.

So very interesting talk, none the least. Take a listen. I think you'll be happy about it. And for my feel-good recommendation of the week, you got to check out this clip of, it's about five minutes long, and I'm going to play it here, but go check out Power Lunch,

at Power Lunch on Twitter. There's a clip of Jack Mallors, and he comes on to this interview, talking about Strike and the raise that they did just the other day. but what starts as a very antagonistic interview very like oh you know bitcoin's down why is anybody dealing with this amazing that you're able to raise money in this environment when everybody else is having trouble what's the deal like do you still like bitcoin is so like it was very like negative connotations at the beginning and then when jack gets on his rip and he gives

his piece in such like a fun uplifting way and makes a lot of great points that the like negative kind of, I don't want to say condescending, but like very skeptical take of the reporter that's on the broadcast totally shifts. And by the end, she's like smiling and seems actually quite impressed with Jack. And so like Jack can take these interviews and he just turns them around and makes them so fun and so positive and informative. And I just loved it. So yeah.

Anyways, check it out. Jack Mallor's on Power Lunch. He fucking killed it on this one. Good for him. A few announcements for myself. I dropped, as I was saying earlier, I dropped a tutorial on how to use your cold card Mark 4 with NFC alongside Nunchuk wallet on mobile.

So like literally tap to convey the transaction, sign it, and then tap to broadcast. It's pretty cool. You should check it out. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So if you've got your cold card mark four and you want to see how that works, there it is. Search it up.

And tomorrow on Why Are We Bullish, we've got Alex Brammer, we've got Jesse Burger, and we've got Brian DeMint. It's going to be a blast for sure. Check it out. We'll be here tomorrow at 6 p.m. Eastern time. And that's it. We're going to wrap it up. Of course, like, subscribe, share, all those things help a ton.

Thanks to all of you that do the boost. via Fountain app. I really, really appreciate it. Don't miss out on my events in Charlotte and in L.A. So you can check them out on my website. If you want to help the show in another way, you can hit up the sponsors down below. Coin Kite, shake pay, lead, and bit refill, Bill Fottle, they're all down there. And if you really liked what you saw, you can always draw me a Bitcoin tip at my strike page, strike.m.me slash BTC sessions. Type in any amount when you get there. Hit the tip button. You'll be girded with a lightning invoice or if you tap to the right, a regular Bitcoin our coat. With that, I am out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening, and I'll see you guys

next time for your daily session. Huddled by Bitcoin.