BTC Sessions - NEWS ROUNDUP: Fed Raises Rates and BTC Tumbles With Markets ep255

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

The Fed raises rates with markets dropping sharply today, today is halfway to the next halving, Cubans navigate sanctions with Bitcoin. This and 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 Keystone Wallet: secure your Bitcoin! http://bit.ly/KeyStoneSessions 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

What's going on, everybody? Welcome to this show. Hope you guys are having a good day. Hopefully you're stacking some extra sats today and not being too panicky. We've had a bit of a dip. We'll talk a little bit about that in a bit. And what's going on with kind of on a macro level in terms of the Federal Reserve and how it's impacting markets just kind of broadly across everything. Lots of stuff been going on.

in news. We're going to be chatting a little bit about that and kind of how it relates to a variety of things in the economy. We're also going to be chatting a little bit about Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, all that kind of stuff. And a little local stuff in Canada. A whole bunch of stuff to cover. As always, 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. We'll do it live. Do it live. I can write it and we'll do it live. The fucking thing sucks. If you have not, please do like, subscribe, share, all those things.

Super important. They help the show a ton. So, and thank you to those that have been doing it. I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your daily session. Before we dive into the news, let's take a look at where we are in the market right now. There's the Bitbo.com.I.O. Dashboard. We're sitting at 36,400. $74 per coin.

A single U.S. dollar will pick you up 2,742 sats. Don't be too panicky here. We'll discuss a little bit more about that later. But in terms of the amount of Bitcoin that have been mined, 90.63%. And the MENTPool getting hammered a little bit the past day or so. It was up quite a bit. Right now, 16 sats per byte for next block. even if you wait an hour, five sats per byte.

It's still a little high. I did some whirlpool mixes the other day, and I think there were set out like four sats for bytes. So I might be sitting on a few of those UTXOs for a little bit here to get them remixed. But, you know, that's okay. I'm a patient, man. Moving on, of course, shout out to sponsors of the show, ShakePay.com,

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well, links are in the show notes. Bit refill. Love these guys. All of the gift cards you can imagine and you can buy with Bitcoin, both on chain and with lightning. And you earn stats back as you shop. You also can earn some additional sats back by using their referral program. And they just started to roll out in the U.S. bill payments. So if you're looking to be paying your bills and living on Bitcoin, well, bit refill, super easy way to do it. So check them out. Keystone, one of my favorite, most used hardware wallets, 100% air gap. You don't plug. it into anything. It's all offline via QR code. Keeps the keys to your money safe and away from internet connections.

Definitely upgrade to the Bitcoin-only firmware. Works awesome with Blue Wallet, Sparrow, Spector, great in a multi-sig. And I've got a full tutorial for it as well. Check this out in the links down below. And if you're backing up any important Bitcoin wallet, get it in solid steel paper, not the best. Fire damage, water damage, all that kind of stuff. I've heard horror stories of people just discarding their slips of paper.

they've got sitting around. So that solid steel bill fottle at privacyprose.com. I will give you that peace of mind. And again, this is how I back up my stuff. So check them out there in the show notes. With that, let's talk Federal Reserve. Let's talk interest rates, all that kind of stuff, which is likely, has to do with a lot of the carnage we're seeing in the markets right now,

including Bitcoin, because the initial shocks for these types of things tend to cascade out to just about everything. So the Fed has issued a rate hike. I'm going to read a little bit here from CBC, but I like the intro to this because it a little bit points out that the experts aren't necessarily experts and that they've been very, very wrong

for an extended period of time about where they thought things were going. Case in point inflation. No, there is no inflation. There's not going to be any inflation. Inflation will be tiny. Inflation will be transitory. Well, inflation is here and it's not transitory.

They're retiring that word. So there's just been a whole gamut of incorrect assumptions about what was going on, which a lot of Bitcoiners were saying, you just printed 40% of all dollars. There's going to be inflation. We'll dive into that. But I digress. CBC says, like a boogeyman to scare children,

stagflation is rolled out every now and again by economic prognosticators to warn of how awful things can get if we're bad. Perhaps that's why many economists don't seem to be taking the threat seriously. Again, economists now saying that stagflation, which is rampant inflation followed by a stagnating economy, an economy that is not growing. Both those two things combined don't typically happen. But similar to the response of warnings of inflation at 2020,

most financial commentators have been saying that the threat of stagflation, an unusual combination of stagnant economy and steady inflation, is small. But U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell did not seem as confident this week as he has been in the past. quote, I think we have a good chance to restore price stability without a recession, without, you know, a severe downturn. No one thinks it's easy. No one thinks it's straightforward, but there is a certain, there is certainly a plausible path to do that. So, Powell made clear that getting inflation under control was the priority, praising his predecessor, Paul Volcker, who finally slew the inflation dragon with interest rates of nearly 20. percent that drove the 1980s economy deep into recession.

I'll wait for commentary here. I'll keep going here. While we're currently far below those levels, Powell pushed rates up half a percentage point, saying he expects the next two moves would also be half point increases. But there are some who fear the current U.S. central banker has waited too long to hike rates, allowing rising prices to get a foothold and making recession inevitable,

even as North America faces surging imported inflation. Yeah, again, it goes into a number of different things here. I'm not going to get too deep into it, but they talk a little bit also about supply chain issues. They talk about Russia and the energy situation there and everything going on. But the long and the short of it is that, Nobody thought that inflation was going to happen, at least all of the economists, the Keynesian economists, thought that inflation was not going to happen. They were completely and utterly wrong.

And now they think stagflation is not going to happen. And it seems like they may be completely and utterly wrong. Right now the Fed is between a rock and a hard place because on one hand, they have inflation that is going up higher than anticipated. Who would have thought that printing 40% of all dollars in like California? calendar year would result in inflation. Well, a lot of Bitcoiners did. And gold bugs too. We'll give them that. They definitely anticipated what the consequences of 2020 would be. But they now are faced with like there's going to be inflation no matter what. The money is already injected into the system. It's just sloshing around and being priced in. But they face kind of this dilemma. Number one is if

they raise interest rates and and they stop injecting money into the system, then, uh, then, the, the, the markets are basically going to implode. Um, bonds are,

are basically are, are really, really screwed right now. The bond market is really screwed. Um, but equities too, um, especially like the NASDAQ in particular is just getting absolutely hammered because a lot of

people were buying shit not based on the, premise of, oh, this is a good company and it's and it's actually being productive. It's, oh, where can I park my money on the presupposition that I can, you know, just unload these later because money is being pumped into the system and things will just always go up. So when when you take your foot off the gas like that, everything just kind of crumbles. It's like being on a bicycle and stop peddling, all of a sudden you don't have the momentum to even keep yourself standing upright.

or they can continue easing and add to the already existing inflation. Like inflation is already going up to a certain point. And when they say whenever they even use terms like transitory inflation, that doesn't mean that the prices of things will go up for a bit and then come back down. It means that they will go up. And then if the inflation was actually transitory, they would just continue to go up but at a slower pace. Their goal is still inflation.

If inflation in the U.S. was 8.5%, which excludes a lot of important things, but let's just use CPI and say 8.5% over the past year, that means prices of that basket of goods went up 8.5% over the past year. And if inflation was actually transitory, it would mean that price remains the same and then only goes up by whatever the new inflation rate was, say it's their target of 2%. So things went up eight and a half percent. That's the new price. That price continues to go up, but at 2% over the next year.

So you're still fucked. You're just getting fucked more slowly is what I'm getting at here. Anyways, there's some commentary here that I thought was interesting. So this is also some of the spillover that's happening in markets and for just general people trying to afford life. one of the things that a lot of people aspire to is owning their own home. I think most people would echo the sentiment that they'd like to own their own home at some point. And a lot are being priced out of that market because of not only the inflation, which isn't included in inflation gauges like CPI of owning a home because why would you include

something as important as owning a home in there? but also because of rising interest rates. And when those two things are compounding, which typically doesn't happen, the rising cost of homes on top of the rising interest rates at the same time, inflation and rising interest rates, it's bad news bears. So Charlie Bellello, I think his name is. Anyways, he said in January 2021, the 30-year mortgage rate was 2.65 percent. and average new home price in the U.S. was $401,000.

Today, the 30-year mortgage rate is 5.27%, so effectively double, and the average new home price is $523,000. Assuming you actually had a 20% down payment, that's a 79% increase in the monthly payment. So just from January of last year, you would have been paying for the same house, $1,294 a month. But now with the increased price of the house

and the increased interest rates, you would be paying $2,320 a month. Like that's taking somebody who maybe saved up for years and years and said, hey, I am so close to getting a home and being able to afford it. I'm just about there. I'm going to buy within a year. And then they get to this year.

And this is the situation that they face. I mean, not only is the the price of a home, 20, you know, what? That's more than 25% over the original. But the monthly payment because of the interest rates is getting close to double, but, you know, up 80% for the same home. And so that takes a whole class of people that maybe we're getting there and all of a sudden aren't going to buy a home because they just flat out. It's completely out of the realm of possibility.

And then you also get large corporations that they'll just buy it up and they'll rent it out. It's really unfortunate. But we are kind of living in this moment where it seems like less and less people are ever going to be able to own their home. Like I shudder to think, you know, what what children are. that are growing up nowadays are going to come into as they get into adulthood, what they're going to be faced with in terms of the cost of owning a home if things don't change. So anyways, I always love Greg Foss's commentary on a lot of this stuff.

So he tweeted out, hey, European growth is stagnating. In the first quarter, the USA, their GDP actually contracted. So a shrinking economy and the Fed as the economy was shrinking just raised interest rates by 50 basis points, which is half a percent, which is the most since the year 2000. And they said that 75 basis points is likely off the table for any future hikes, basically saying that they're clearly neutered. They can't do too much or they're completely bork things. And then they said and then he goes on to say, yet the federal funds rate is less than 1%. So that means if you're buying treasury bills, that you're lending somebody,

you're lending the government, your money, you're going to get less than 1%. And so 1% for federal funds rate. And yet CPI is at 8.5%, which CPI massively understates inflation because it doesn't take into account things like most people wanting to own a home. And that being a thing that should be included there. they say that he says eight more hikes are needed and I don't think that they'll get past three

in my opinion yeah I mean it's look at the carnage in the market and they've only raised rates half a percent that's insane it's still again interest rates are still under one percent for the federal funds rate and and like when you look at at like what the bond market is doing the bonds, even though they're going, the coupon on them is going up, it's still far below CPI. So basically, if you're buying bonds, you're buying something to guarantee to get back a negative, like a net loss is what you're paying somebody for. That's insane. I really like this from brand BTC.

He works over at Bitcoin magazine. He helped organize a Bitcoin conference. But he tweeted this back in April of 2020. He said, and then he added on to it just the other day, which I thought was what kind of drew me to this thread. Anyways, he said an economics textbooks, or he said economics textbooks in 2030. Economists for years mislabeled inflation as a general rise

in the cost of goods and services. In the 2010s, we discovered inflation could also mean the rise in the prices of assets, like real estate and stocks. This was due to a failed monetary experiment known as quantitative easing, or QE. QE led to massive wealth inequality in the U.S. as prices of wealth-building assets skyrocketed, yet incomes of middle-class workers stagnated. Ultimately, the economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic brought the whole experiment down as the U.S. experienced massive unemployment alongside an unstable market,

which required constant monetary injections to stay afloat. The Fed's balance sheet grew to be larger than that of any bank and led to the accidental nationalization of multiple industries before the Fed finally allowed the housing and stock markets to collapse. This collapse erased tens of trillions of dollars in fake growth caused by QE during the 2010's hyperinflated nearly every incurrent, nearly every currency in the world, lost the dollar its reserve status and gave rise to a no global monetary standard. And then he added to it, he said probably worth adding.

Because we misdefined inflation as CPI instead of increase in the money supply, when commodity inflation, CPI finally it hit, central banks believed selling bonds, removing money from the system at the expense of the credit market, was a good idea. But this did nothing to combat inflation, because inflation was already in the system, just slowly getting priced in. Instead, all this did was remove liquidity from the system, which logjammed the credit market and wiped out scores of wealth in the stock market. I could see that being a textbook. I would defer to that rather than the Keynesian crap that we're getting nowadays. Now, obviously, this shock to the market is affecting Bitcoin.

So, you know, we're down, you know, in the last 24 hours, 8.5%. So we're, you know, we're sitting right now. It's $36,400. But it's important to note that, again, these shocks in the market, tend to affect everything off the bat, especially when there's actually a panic. And I'll point back to March of 2020, when the market just shit the bed entirely.

I'm talking like all markets everywhere. And Bitcoin went along for the ride. It lost half its value in a two-day plunge. But it went back basically right to where it was very, very quickly. and within weeks was like well above that. And by the end of the year, had basically 5xed where it was at the bottom, back to previous all-time highs by the end of 2020.

So what I'm getting at is it can be a wild ride. It can be a little scary, especially if you're relatively new to Bitcoin, this thing, ping pong's everywhere. It's a little wild to to why. it. But at the same time, you now need to kind of zoom out and see see it for what it is. And the fact of the matter remains that it's a global currency that cannot be censored, that cannot be shut down, that cannot ever be debased. Nobody can fuck with the monetary policy of Bitcoin,

21 million ever. And it is the antithesis of the legacy financial and monetary monetary systems that we have right now in that just having a lot of Bitcoin doesn't guarantee you more Bitcoin. It doesn't inherently have wealth gaps built into it that widened over time, right? If you actually look at the distribution of Bitcoin amongst people over time, it actually becomes more and more widely distributed because those that are creating value will earn value. Those that got in early and got lucky, basically if they want to earn more, they have to create value for others. If they aren't creating value or creating value in relation to their stack, well, they're going to have to spend to enjoy it. Right. And so you see it kind of filter out

and go towards the people that are most efficient allocators of capital, but in a fair way. And so, you know, it's those fundamentals remain. And if you can sit through the wild ride, if you can look at the broken system that currently exists and see that these day-to-day movements are nothing but noise, then you will be fine. Imagine looking at this article and having a redo.

Imagine looking back at Bitcoin in 2020 in March. It was only like two years ago and seeing a headline and knowing where it would be today. And the world's most widely held cryptocurrency dropped below $4,000 Friday, knocking half of its value, knocking off half of its value in two days. And imagine not like freaking out and selling into that, let alone just not stacking a few more sats. You know, we're 9x this low-end number and people are freaking out. Like people sell into that. So just again, take the day-to-day movements with a grain of salt.

and when in doubt, zoom out. Let's move on here. Speaking of market shitting the bed and the legacy monetary systems, Turkey, their inflation data shows an annual 70% CPI increase, 70% inflation in the calendar year. They said Turkey released data analyzed by Turkish Statistical Institute showing 70% CPI, Transportation costs suffered the highest annual increase with 105% inflation. So basically doubling.

Month over month data shows a CPI increase of 7.25%. So Canada's in and around that range, 7% annually. They just got that in a month. That's wild. And this is CPI. So all of those omissions that are incredibly important, like energy and actual cost of housing, all of that's omitted. Absolutely insane.

Again, like looking at some of the other stuff here, transportation, we said 1005% food and non-alcoholic beverages, 89%, 77% increase in furnishing and household equipment, 35% for healthcare, 27% for education, 26% for clothing and footwear, 18.7% percent for in communication. Good Lord. Yeah. And then the issue of inflation data failing to be accurate was pointed out by pro-Bitcoin CEO of micro-strategy, Michael Saylor. He said, inflation is a vector.

A scalar index can be biased by choosing certain items. Your index assumes human beings don't need food. energy or home ownership, nor desire assets such as property, equity, bonds, or commodities. Again, when your measuring stick is constantly moving and oscillating and your basket of things that you're measuring is constantly changing and omitting very important things, how do you expect to get an accurate measurement? Let's move on here. Hey, we're halfway to the halving.

You guys know that? As of today, this is the halfway point between the next cut in Bitcoin issuance. So those unfamiliar when Bitcoin first started back on January 3rd of 2009, 50 new Bitcoin were issued every 10 minutes, roughly. Around every four years, that number gets cut in half. So in 2012, that got cut to 25 Bitcoin issued every 10 minutes. 2016, that got cut to 12.5. And most recently in 2020, that got cut to 3. Sorry, 6.25.

So in 2024, around April, we'll be hitting the 3.125 Bitcoin every 10 minute mark. So I'll just read a little bit here. In block number 735,000 mined approximately 1029 a.m. UTC, Bitcoin crossed the halfway point to the next halving. The block was mined by Poulin. They earned $0.162 so and so forth or around $6,400 in fees worth of Bitcoin. Havings occur every 210,000 blocks. And May 5th marks the crossover point into the second leg of the 105,000 blocks. For some Bitcoins such as Samson Mal, the Bitcoin or the pioneer Bitcoin, or the pioneer Bitcoin nation state adoption. The halving is a reminder to stack more sets. Again, Samson here, we're halfway to the next halving and you haven't stacked enough Bitcoin yet.

The having cycle is a unique device that envelops the Bitcoin issuance rate. As a result of the halving cycle, the supply available Bitcoin decreases, raising the value of Bitcoin's yet to be mine. The halving is key in determining the supply of Bitcoin, which recently crossed the 19 million marks, so 19 million Bitcoin over that have already been mined. And the issuance rate currently at 6.25 Bitcoin every 10 minutes. Right now, roughly 250 grand worth of Bitcoin is minted every new block or every 10 minutes. So, yeah, halfway to the next halving.

That's awesome. TikTok next block, friends. Let's keep going. 100,000 Cubans are using Bitcoin in response to U.S. sanctions. So Cuba is embracing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in response to burdensome U.S. sanctions, according to a report on NBC News. There are reportedly 100,000 Cubans currently using crypto or Bitcoin, which is largely thanks to the introduction of mobile internet access that was only provided three years ago.

Holy shit. 2019, they got access to mobile internet. Communism, not even once. One particular cafe owner named Nelson Rodriguez was interviewed by NBC due to his acceptance of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and explaining what made Rodriguez decide to accept new forms of payment. He stated, I like it because I believe in the philosophy. The philosophy Rodriguez is likely referring to as the idea that money should be sovereign, meaning that it should belong to those who have earned it. and also that money should not intentionally devalue over time. These particular ideals have clashed with both local governments in Cuba

and international sanctions often placed by countries such as the U.S. on Cuba. PayPal, Revolut, Zell, and many other forms of internationally accepted credit or debit cannot be used by Cubans due to sanctions banning the services. Many institutions such as J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank have reportedly faced multi-million dollar fines for providing services to Cubans. Yeah, on April 27th, Reuters reported that Cuba was approving cryptocurrency service providers pending the receipt of a license from the central bank, which again, for the central bank to be giving out licenses for that.

I thought that was supposed to be separate, independent. Anyways, a teacher at Columbia's Pontifica University, and former Cuban Central Bank economists reportedly stated if the central bank is creating a cryptocurrency-friendly legal framework is because they have already decided it can bring benefits to the country. Yeah. So again, unfortunate what's going on in Cuba, but also fortunate that Bitcoin exists and allows them a little bit of relief

on the part of a lot of these sanctions. Again, like the sanctions end up affecting day-to-day citizens, whether it be Cuba, whether it be Russia, whether it be whatever other nation. There are just regular citizens that are heavily impacted by these things as well. Speaking of which, I wanted to recommend a couple things to take a look at. Actually, before I do that, I'll do this one first. I brought up this article, and this is new to me as I'm looking at it right now, but I, I thought it was kind of cool and I figured it was worth a mention. So Toros and Ibex Mercado partner from Mexico's first lightning-enabled Bitcoin Exchange.

Reason I wanted to bring this up is I brought Ibex Mercado. These guys were starting some stuff in Guatemala initially. They were doing something called Bitcoin Lake. And then they heard about what was going on in El Salvador with Bitcoin Beach and with the Bitcoin Law and everything. And so they packed up all their shit. They drove across the border to El Salvador. they started rolling out point of sale terminals to be able to deal with lightning. They have grown a ton.

Greg Foss was an investor in them. They've grown a ton. They rolled out all of the point of sale terminals that were used at Bitcoin 2020. They also did the point of sale terminal at Tecisa Tacos down in Miami Beach, which is near where I stayed. And I got to meet John the owner there a couple back in October. I went there for the Human Rights Foundation. Awesome guy, awesome bitconer,

and he had just started accepting Bitcoin at his taco place. And so a bunch of us, myself, Guy Swan, Stefan Laverra, a bunch of other bitcoins, all came down. We all had some tacos and paid with lightning. And when I was back there in May for the conference, the place was constantly packed with bitcoins. Anyways, IBEX did their point of sale terminal. So anyways, Toros has become,

The first lightning-enabled Bitcoin exchange in Mexico, the Lightning Network functionality, was achieved through a partnership with IBEX Mercado, a lightning infrastructure company. Toros users will be able to interact with lightning-enabled POS systems directly from their wallets with almost instant settlement and low fees. So kudos to these guys. They keep on absolutely killing it and super happy to see them growing so quickly and solving problems for people in real time. Next thing, I wanted to mention, and this was recommended to me a bunch, came out yesterday,

a new article from Alex Gladstein. And it's kind of an outline of everything that is happening in Russia and Ukraine. But Bitcoin being a lifeline to a variety of people in different situations on the ground here. I wanted to read just a particular excerpt from this. It's a long read, but well worth it. Anyways, from the middle of the article, as the conflict wears on, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Tether

are playing a growing role providing a plan B where the legacy financial system is failing. For Ukrainians who have fled into Europe, Bitcoin might be a precious refugee technology allowing them to bring their wealth with them or enabling them to receive value directly from friends and family in America. For the Ukrainian government, cryptocurrency is acting as a helpful lifeline, providing more than $100 million for things like bullet-for-vests,

vision goggles, medical supplies, etc. For Russians cut off from the outside world, or for the hundreds of thousands of Russians who fled their country, Bitcoin can be a bridge to business and family abroad. As for the Russian government, its use of Bitcoin remains a matter of speculation. But at the end of March, the head of Russia state Duma Committee on Energy said that the country would consider taking Bitcoin payments in exchange for oil.

So I guess what's kind of being shown here is that, again, Bitcoin is simply a tool, a tool that makes money easily accessible to all. It's a level playing field to everyone, whether you're on either side of a conflict, whether you're a refugee, whether you're a business, whether you're somebody donating to a cause, or whether you're a state that is trying to evade sanctions or whether you're a state that has imposed sanctions and somebody wants to get around those

and actually donate or get money to friends and family in that location. It's usable for everyone. And so that's kind of my key takeaway when I read something like that. It's literally all of these different people that do not have the same values, but are all able to benefit from this nonetheless. And that's kind of the point of it. It separates politics from money because money is just an expression of value and where you would like to see that value placed. It's effectively speech. So yeah, anyways, worth the read.

Check it out. The article is called Currency of Last Resort by Alex Gladstein. and you can check it out on Bitcoin Magazine. Another Bitcoin Magazine article that I was kind of quoted in, this one from Jesse Wilms, and it's called Pierre Polyeb, wants to bring Bitcoin adoption to Canada. Now, it goes through a number of things, shows some videos of him chatting at rallies and stuff

that he's been holding in his run to be elected first, head of the Conservative Party in Canada, but then make a run for prime minister. when that happens, which likely not be until 2025. So there's quite a runway ahead of them. But Pollyev has come out quite, basically kicked open the fucking door on being in favor of Bitcoin. And Bitcoin specifically, which I've been refreshed to see. There was some kind of dicey language early on, but seems to have focused in on Bitcoin

specifically. So key takeaways, Pollyev's campaign is crossing the, country to pact halls everywhere he goes. His principal messages are, one, I'm running for prime minister to give you back control of your life and restore freedom. Two, people with big titles told us we would have deflation. At the same time, they printed money to cause inflation. Why should we believe them now? Three, give people back control of their lives and control over their finances. Four, take money away from politicians and bankers and give it back to people. Five, make Canada the freest country on earth.

Now, he talks a whole bunch about Bitcoiner, about Bitcoin. But my quote here was, it says, BTC sessions is a Calgary based Bitcoin advocate and podcaster providing help and advice to Bitcoiners on his website. And my quote here, when it comes to Polyev, I am cautiously optimistic. I've been disillusioned by politics, as have many Bitcoiners. However, I'm encouraged by Pierre's knowledge of monetary history and the pitfalls of indiscriminate, money printing as well as his continuously refined message messaging around bitcoin itself polyev seems well informed about bitcoin a complicated subject and is clear about the different

kinds of crypto um what i mean there is that it's a he he differentiates he specifically says you know i support bitcoin specifically people should be able to choose whatever they want but i'm like i'm i'm I'm behind Bitcoin. I understand what it's for and why it's important. So anyways, yeah, again, cool to see things like this hitting Bitcoin magazine. Again, as I already said in the quote, cautiously optimistic. Hopefully it all pans out. You know, at least I feel like the pendulum would swing a little bit back in a better direction,

at least even having him as head of the CPC. if you're in Canada and you're interested and you would at least like to see him as official opposition opposition leader then you can vote for him to be head of the CPC but you actually have to and CPC the Conservative Party of Canada you actually have to be a member of the Conservative Party to vote for that and you need to do it you need to have a membership within a month from yesterday Okay. So if you want to do that, if that's something that interests you, you can go to Pierre for p.m.com slash membership. But basically it's like 15 bucks to get a membership and that ensures you're able to vote in the fall when that comes up. But you have to have the membership before, I think, June 4th.

So anyways, worth checking it out if that's, if you hate the guy, then don't go do this. I did it. So I have a membership because I'd at least like to see him in that position of leading that party. I think it would put things in a little bit of a better spot. This is kind of like my Hail Mary for Canada. We'll see how it goes. Anyways. Last few things here.

I dropped a new tutorial on Monday. Finally got through my Ronin Dojo tutorial, which is a full, robust back end for your samurai wallet and your whirlpool mixes. So you link your samurai wallet to it. It will refer to an entire copy of the Bitcoin blockchain that you have downloaded. And it also allows you to run Whirlpool mixes 24-7 in the background without having the app open, without having anything open on your computer. It just sits on your shelf and hums away. So if you want to check that out, yeah, dropped it on Monday.

Looks like a fair number of people have enjoyed it so far. So yeah, do go check it out. It's on the channel. Coming up tomorrow, we've got Why Are We Bullish with Evan Kulutis. He has been working on Zeus, Lightning Wallet, which connects to your own Bitcoin node, which I have done a video on. We've got Q. He was commentating at the Bitcoin 2020 conference.

He works for Bitcoin Magazine. Awesome dude. And we've got Bob Burnett excited to get his energy on the show. He seems like a lot of fun. And yeah, anyways, that'll be 6 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow. And finally, if you want to do me a solid, I still have those workshops coming up in July in Vancouver and Kelowna.

So I'm going to be doing two workshops in each city, a morning session that is a absolute beginners. Hey, how do you get Bitcoin? How do you get into your own custody? Start your own wallet. Back it up. Restore it. All that good stuff.

We'll have some hands on with hardware wallets so people can get familiar and maybe figure which one they'd like to get eventually. And then some just general, how do I do transactions? What's a transaction fee? All those kind of basic things that you would normally learn about Bitcoin in an extended period of time. We're going to get that all into a morning. So you get supercharged on your Bitcoin journey.

The afternoons will be for intermediate advanced bitcoins that want a deep dive on the cold card wallet. So we'll be using the Mark 3. I do have a mark four here, but not everybody there will have a mark four yet. But we're going to do a deep dive on cold card in general. You can bring whatever cold card you have. And we're going to be going through full setup, backup, restoring, wiping, and then some more intense bits like using passphrases and decoy wallets and air gap transactions and all that good stuff.

So if you want to come to that, if you're in the area, either in the Okinawagon or in Vancouver, head to btc sessions.coma slash events and they're all listed there. Or if you know somebody in the area and you want to help me out and try and help get some more people in that room, if they would find it beneficial. Send them that link. I've tweeted it out and everything. It's also linked in these show notes down below. But yeah, very excited to see some people in person. And everybody that's at the workshops, there's going to be a. meetup slash hangout, go for drinks afterwards.

So yeah, looking forward to seeing some people there and should be a lot of fun. Oh, and by the way, 10% of any of the profits from these are going towards me doing free workshops in El Salvador for locals. So hopefully that will help some people out as well. Anyways, I'm going to finish that there. Thank you guys so much for watching and or listening if you're on the pod after the fact. Don't forget to like, subscribe, share. All super important.

They really do help the show. If you want to help the show in another way, hit up the previously mentioned sponsors down below. Shake pay, leaden, bit refill, keystone, bill foddle. They're all down here. And if you really like the show, you can always hit me up with a Bitcoin tip at my strike page. That is strike.comme slash BTC sessions.

Get there, type in any amount you want. Hit the tip button. You'll see a lightning invoice. Or if you so prefer, tap the arrow to the right and you'll see a regular Bitcoin QR code. With that, I'm out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening, and we'll see you guys tomorrow for your daily session.