BTC Sessions - NEWS ROUNDUP: Russian Bitcoin Miners Sanctioned By US Treasury ep251

Episode Date: April 21, 2022

US Treasury moves to sanction Bitcoin miners based in Russia, “experts” find that Bitcoiners are financially illiterate, psychopathic, shadowy super-coders. 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

Welcome, welcome, everybody. It is Thursday. It's time to hear about all the news that's been going on in Bitcoin this week. I hope you're all doing well. There's plenty to talk about, you know, where the plethora of names that Bitcoiners continue to be referred to as in a non-endearing sense continues to grow. We're going to discuss that a little bit. There's some interesting sanctions and stuff happening in and around Russia in particular. our first time minors have been subject to sanctions.

So we'll talk a little bit about that. Plenty of other stuff to discuss here. 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. Fuck it.

Do it live. I can, I'll write it and we'll do it live. The thing sucks! Of course, please do like, subscribe, share, all that stuff. Super important. It really does help the show. show and get it in front of more 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 is bitbo.

dot I.O dashboard. We're sitting at 40,600 and it's kind of popping all over the place. We'll call it 650 because it's getting volatile right now. 40,650 US dollars per coin. A single US dollar We'll pick you up 2,460 some odd sats. 90.56% of all Bitcoin have been mined in terms of fees. Next block, it'll be about eight sats per byte, but anything beyond that if you're willing to wait, one sat per bite will do you. Fun fact, yesterday for 420, April 20th, Bitcoin hit $4269, $42,069. Not significant whatsoever. Moving on, of course. Shout out to sponsors of the show, shakepay.com.

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And you get the exact same deal if you refer your other friends and family. And then you can shake your phone every single day for free sats. I lost my sat streak in Miami. I'm so sad about that. But I'm building it back. I didn't throw in the towel like last time. And I regret doing that. But anyways, my sat streak is growing and back up to 200 sats a day.

I was close to 1,000. I didn't quite make it. And then I lost it. That's too bad. Moving on, lend. Onio, you can use your Bitcoin for a ton of different. Services in particular, if you're in a pinch and you need to get your hands on dollars, you can deposit Bitcoin here, get a loan of dollars to your bank account within 24 hours,

and when you pay back those dollars, you get the same amount of Bitcoin. They also have savings accounts for Bitcoin in USDC. They have the B2X product if you're feeling bullish, and keep an eye out. They're dabbling in Bitcoin-backed mortgages. So check that out. That's coming down the pipeline, exciting stuff. Lennon.io, check them out. Links below.

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and if you want to earn some extra stats back, they also have a referral program to do the same. So check that out. Keystone, you guys know these, this awesome device. One of my favorite and most use hardware wallets, 100% air-gapped, never plug it into anything internet-connected.

It's all done on. offline via QR code, keeps the keys to your money, safe and away from internet connections. Definitely upgrade to the Bitcoin-only firmware. And it works beautifully with things like Blue Wallet, Sparrow, Spector, all the good stuff. Awesome and a multi-sig too. I do have a full tutorial on it. Check it out. Links are below as well.

And finally, if you're backing up any important Bitcoin wallet, get it in solid steel. Paper does not cut it. Fire damage, water damage, you know the drill. This is how I back up my stuff. and has been for a while. So get it in steel. Bill Fottle, Privacypros.io, check them out. Also, got to see the team down in Miami again a couple weeks back,

and they are awesome, as always. So shout out to you guys and maybe be collaborating with them on some stuff in the future coming up. We'll talk about that in a minute. Anyways, moving on, news time. You have bunch of financial, illiterate, psychopath, shadowy, super-coating. idiots. What are you guys doing according to the Globe and Mail through the Bank of Canada? So here on the Globe and Mail, this fucking headline, Bitcoin investors tend to have low financial literacy according to the Bank of Canada research. Canadian Bitcoin owners tend to have low levels

of financial literacy while being exposed to elevated levels of financial risk according to a new Bank of Canada, or according to New Bank of Canada research. Based on a series of surveys, central bank researchers found that around 5% of Canadians owned Bitcoin between 2018 and 2020.

That ownership was, quote, concentrated among young, educated men with high household income and low financial literacy. Seems like those things don't

add up in conjunction. But okay, let's go on here. They found that Bitcoin owners tend to have a greater knowledge of how Bitcoin technology works than non-owners, but score lower on general financial knowledge questions. At the same time, Canadians who are financially literate are more likely to be aware of Bitcoin than the average Canadian, but less likely to own it. The survey is conducted annually between 2016 and 2020 highlight the risk of investing in the volatile but sparsely regulated asset sparsely regulated. Okay. So anyways, they go on to say that around half of the current or past Bitcoin owners who responded to the surveys reported being affected by negative events such as price crashes, scams or data breaches. So I have some issues with this article, clearly.

just a few of the things that that pop out to me. I made notes. So again, so high income but financially illiterate. They also note that well educated, apparently, well educated with a high income, but somehow financially illiterate. Based on whose definition of being financially literate? well, the Bank of Canada. So might it be that their definition of financial literacy, aka the Keynesian economics that you may be subject to in post-secondary education,

is their definition of financial literacy, and may coincide with perhaps lower income or higher levels of debt. and not understanding the value of sound money and maybe leaning towards MMT. I'm just spitballing here, but perhaps. The other thing, they're talking about, hey, half of the people we surveyed had a negative experience. First of all, let's look at the timeline that they annually, okay? So they did it annually between 2016 and 2020.

Well, 2016 would have been prior to reattaining the all-time highs that were hit in 2013 because, you know, there is, there tends to be, or at least previously, there would be kind of like a blow off top and then it would kind of calm down after. And most people would get in during the mania, right? People would kind of come in and go, oh, my God, it's going to the moon. And then the ones that stick around tend to learn more about. it and understand kind of the ethos and more about money itself over time. And so in 2016, those that maybe came in for the mania of 2013, but still stuck around, they would still be

potentially at a bit of a loss, especially if they came in right around the peak. They also, you know, and then there's the 2017 run up. So that would have, in that mania, that would have had a bunch of people come to Bitcoin and would not have been made whole if they had been around the peak until the end of 2020. And they do make note in the article that it doesn't include, like the people surveyed, it doesn't include after the run up in 2020. So like where it reattained the previous all-time highs. So nor did it include obviously anything in 2021 and onwards. Also, when they say that the people are financially illiterate who currently own Bitcoin, but that those that were financially literate were less likely to own it,

they did not include the fact that the Bitcoin ETFs in Canada were launched in, you know, shortly thereafter in 2021. And thus made it possible for many of those perhaps financials, literate people that had money in places that potentially could not be invested in Bitcoin due to regulatory issues that then went on to be exposed to ETFs. They go on to note that they're worried about, they're talking about the existential threats that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies pose to the financial system. They say that these markets are not of systemic importance in Canada,

neither as an asset class nor as a payment instrument. But this could change if a large technology firm, a so-called big tech with a sizable user base decides to issue a cryptocurrency that became widely accepted as a means of payment. So they're talking about, they're worried about an unregistered securities offering. Because like, let's be real, Facebook was going to do this. And then they got swatted down and and hauled into the Senate to answer questions. And basically their whole project of launching a currency was ruined the moment they said they were doing it. So I mean, yeah.

And then of course, they go into, hey, we're looking at central bank digital currencies because that's a great solution in comparison because of course they did it's more about losing control than anything here yeah and again this these are it even says it explicitly in in in the article here there are two main reasons why central banks may want to develop their own CBDC a collapse in physical cash use or widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies or other private digital assets, both which could undercut central banks position at the heart of the payment system and its ability to conduct monetary policy. It's kind of the fucking point, isn't it?

Like, central banks have been dicking us around with their shitty policies and devaluing our savings and directly incentivizing high time preference behavior. and some people would prefer to find an out, to find an exit ramp to that, thus Bitcoin. Yeah. Anyways, just so you know, the Central Bank of Canada believes you have low financial literacy if you hold Bitcoin or own Bitcoin. Kenneth also, thank you. That is incredibly generous of you for that tip there.

But he said, can somebody teach me about money? I'm just a psychopath. Funny enough, I have that in the queue here. Bitcoin fans are psychopaths who don't care about anyone. Study shows. Jesus Christ. I wanted to just like touch on this because I didn't do it in the news show last week. but you know this from the new york post that is literally the title of the article bitcoin fans

are psychopaths who don't care about anyone's study shows and the first the first line of it the average bitcoin investor is a calculating psychopath with an inflated ego according to scientists holy shit this is a real article that was written um also this was come the conclusion was come to based on asking 566 people to answer questions and attitudes about crypto. So crypto, this one I wanted to zero in is crypto versus Bitcoin, because those things are totally, totally different. What do I mean by that? It's that the ethos of Bitcoin, if you actually fall down that rabbit hole,

is one of low time preference, being patient, trying to build a better life and put the fruits of your labor towards things that are actually worth it, cut down on consumerism. You know, it's the idea that if we have money that retains its value, then our behaviors can, we can kind of tailor our behaviors for long-term goals. rather than be forced to focus on the now and never look into our future because we have no monetary means to do so. They go, man, they just go into, they're calling us Machiavellians, narcissists. Also, I love this part here that they touch on. They add in, first of all, many crypto supporters, I would say Bitcoin supporters, but yeah, crypto, sure, believe governments are corrupt.

and crypto avoids government corruption. So I would say yes to the first part in terms of governments are corrupt. Yeah. I mean, does anybody think that there isn't some degree of corruption within most governments in the world, if not all? But then the second part, crypto avoids government corruption. No, Bitcoin avoids government corruption. at least in terms of monetary monetary policy, we'll say.

So it does avoid that. Crypto does not because that shit's just as fucked as the status quo. So yeah. And then to add to that, obviously, you know, back in the day, we have shadowy, shadowy crypto super coders. That name from Elizabeth Warren. So if we put it all together, we're all a bunch of financially illiterate, psychopathic, shadowy supercodes is what I'm getting at here. And one other thing in that, that Globe and Mail article about financial literacy, at the end, they start to talk about, hey, this has become a hot topic in recent months in Canada in particular.

conservative party leadership contender Pierre Pollyev touting Bitcoin and basically using that as part of this platform of like, hey, like there's the Bank of Canada and our current government between monetary and fiscal policy don't have the backs of individual Canadians. And so, you know, it should be up to the individual which currency that they put their trust in. And so we should treat them as equal. And then the basically the free market, whether it be the centrally controlled shit coin that is the Canadian dollar or this open network for value allocation that is Bitcoin that is open and transparent and yet censorship resistant you get to choose. That's that's kind of his stick there that he's talking about. I will say I've

been super disillusioned with politics you're fucking obviously earlier this year. But I will say I'm cautiously optimistic with Pierre, knowing that he has, you know, he has the ear of people like Greg Foss and Jeff Booth. And there's, there's a lot of interesting and intelligent Bitcoiners kind of helping him navigate some of the shit and hopefully move away from the crypto aspect of it and kind of focus on Bitcoin. And we've kind of seen that from him. Again, I'm cautiously optimistic with him. I kind of feel like for me, this is a hope at a return to sanity in this country in terms of government overreach and everything. I went so far, like, again, I know I'm getting a little bit political here.

But if you're in that camp where you happen to like what Pierre is saying right now and you're thinking, hey, maybe, you know, maybe I will. kind of try to support it or at least try to move that pendulum back. If you would like to see him as at least leader of the conservative party, I actually for the first time ever in my life signed up and, you know, officially got a conservative party membership so that I could vote for Pierre to be the leader of the conservative party in the fall. So if you're in Canada and that's something that interests to you, then actually go do it because if you're not a member,

then you can't vote for who leads the party. And that's how you get some other shit bag in there. Okay. If that matters to you. Okay. If not, all good. No problem. Anyways, I'm going to move on here.

Let's go past all the name calling of Bitcoiners. Okay. This from Morgan Stanley says Bitcoin is close to being a currency. There's a report from them. And this is an article from Bitcoin magazine. I enjoyed the article, but I want to just bring up Alex Gladstein's tweet thread on it because I feel like he encapsulated it pretty well there. So he said new Morgan Stanley report released today focuses on the prospects of using Lightning Network for retail purchases and on the long term transition towards payments and settlements using digital and cryptocurrencies instead of fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar. The report was sparked by the Jag maller's Miami announcement.

and they point out that one in six point of sales devices globally uses software provided by NCR. So this announcement is significant, even if only a small proportion of retail shops choose to add the functionality. They go on to say, Morgan Stanley says, in essence, strike is directly competing with Visa Direct, which offers real-time settlement. The main difference for merchants will be charged a lower transaction fee. while the benefit for the consumers that they can if they want host their Bitcoin on private secure network, allowing an element of privacy associated with their transaction. The report talks through various obstacles to using Bitcoin for payments, obviously things like volatility, customer psychology taxes.

It does point out the proposed virtual currency tax fairness act, which would exempt personal Bitcoin transactions under $200 from taxes. Then it says the proposal, may come under considerable scrutiny and would directly imply that Bitcoin, aka crypto, is a legitimate competitor to currency for the U.S. dollar, indeed. And then it examines the volatility and argues that, so this is, again, this is Morgan Stanley. They analyze the volatility. And they argued that Bitcoin users may be more interested in spending during bear markets, but that Bitcoin user purchasing power may continue to rise over time. They have a few great charts like this one on

potato chips priced in Bitcoin. And they actually show the purchasing power. And then there's a, again, Alex says, here's a staggering chart showing a U.S. homes priced in Bitcoin versus U.S. dollars. The average home went from 993 Bitcoin in 2015 to just 8.27 Bitcoin today. And then it shows the continual rise in dollar prices for homes. Now, the more interesting part of this to me is the relative stability of prices of homes in Bitcoin since around 2017 versus the continuous steady incline of prices in dollars. could we be seeing the fact that there's a flight of capital to things that are scarce, like property, like hard assets, like homes and Bitcoin?

And because of that, those hard assets kind of in relation to each other are staying in tandem while the U.S. dollar continuously loses value or all fiat currencies continue to lose value. So we're using this measuring stick of dollars when really it's better to take these finite or, you know, relatively scarce, hard assets and compare them along there because holy crap, like, it's like a straight line sideways when you value homes in Bitcoin since 2017 or so. That's pretty interesting. Anyways, he finishes up in some, this is an interesting report significant for its lightning focus that suggests we're at the beginning of an era where more and more consumers may over time choose to pay for goods using Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

I agree. I feel like Jack Malas announcement at Miami is kind of like one of those sleeper announcements where it doesn't have the boom of El Salvador's making Bitcoin legal tender. Obviously, that's a huge headline that has a lot of geopolitical implications. Whereas this one, it will more directly affect a lot of individual users like myself, if I can just go and live on Bitcoin right out the gate and just earn it and spend it at any merchant in a private way. But it'll take time for that to happen. So like we see the announcement now.

It'll be available for merchants in the coming mods. Some of them will opt in and it takes next to nothing for them to do it. But then it just begins to be easily available. There's no necessary change to infrastructure around that. And that can suddenly happen much more quickly if it's just there, if it's just an update. And so I think we'll see kind of a gradually then suddenly of oddly enough merchant adoption, which was kind of like a meme back in 2014, 2015. That's what everybody wanted.

But now it may actually just come. And it may be spurred on too by merchants actually just wanting to accept Bitcoin and hold it. So we'll see. We shall see. I don't know. But hey, hey, US Treasury sanctions Russian crypto miners. Its first sanction on mining. So today, yesterday actually, the U.S. Treasury took aim at Russia's cryptocurrency mining industry on

April 20th, the Treasury office of foreign asset control added Russia-based cryptocurrency minor BitRiver as well as 10 subsidiaries to its specially designated nationals list. According to the announcement, according to the announcement with the block, the move is indicative of a broader push against Russia's crypto mining industry. Now, this quote is interesting. That's why I highlighted it. the treasury did not mention any particular association between BitRiver and the Putin regime. And this is what kind of gets me with a lot of the sanctions that happen when it comes down to

things that affect just regular everyday Russian citizens and just like businesses that like, you know, like McDonald's trying to say, hey, we're, you know, no more McDonald's in Russia. What the fuck does that do? some dude can't get a Big Mac now? Like, do you think that more closely aligns a Russian citizen with their, with the West or their own government? Because they're going to be pissed with it. Like, they're going to see all these things impacting their lives.

And some, yes, are going to go ahead and protest the war. And then others are going to be kind of almost angry at the West for like penalizing the citizenry rather than the government itself. Like, sure, if you want to discourage war by going after the heads of state and trying to make their lives a living hell. But like, the individual citizens, I feel like get screwed out a lot of this. And in this instance, I mean, this is a private company. And let's take a look at who was affected. Compass mining.

So Compass mining is a company that offers cloud mining. They basically host actual infrastructure for you. So they'll buy a miner or have one and sell it to you. And then it will be hosted somewhere around the globe. And you will own that minor and it will run and earn hash rate. And they just take a small percentage of that. So this was tweeted out by Bitcoin Q&A, who I love by the way. Check him out if you're not following him.

Anyways, he said, Ouch, a cruel lesson in the importance of self-hosting your hardware. Hope there aren't too many Bitcoiners caught up in this. So this is from Whit Gibbs, CEO of Compass Mining. He said, to everyone regarding Russian sanctions, due to the recent sanctions by the U.S., compass mining is required to immediately cease all dealings with BitRiver, a Russian hosting partner. Notice will be sent to BitRiver today to terminate all hosting contracts effective immediately. Machines will be turned off today and they will not be turned back on.

At this time, it is not possible to export any of the machines from Russia. Rather than take a total loss, Compass is making all commercial efforts to liquidate the hardware for our customers and return them whatever funds we can obtain for the sale of these machines. We cannot guarantee that the machines will sell, but we are doing our best to make this happen. Customers will receive a formal notice of contract cancellation and be prompted to authorize Compass to sell hardware. on their behalf. Upon receipt of this notice, customers will have 48 hours to notify Compass that these machines can be sold.

If a customer fails to provide authorization in that window, the responsibility will fall to the customer to follow up directly with the facility to find a solution for their machine. I strongly advise against this course of action, as it is highly unlikely a resolution outside of our option will be had. while we have always advised that hosting outside of North America comes with additional risk, this is a terrible turn of events to put it mildly. Unfortunately, Compass cannot legally do any more than what is stated above. Wow.

So, again, this kind of points to some of the issues with cloud mining, particularly if you're cloud mining in other jurisdictions other than your own. is there's there's degrees of trust there and in this instance it wasn't just you're trusting that compass actually has a minor and they're they're running it and everything you're also having to trust that if they do indeed have a and i'm not saying that they don't in in most instances but on top of the trust of like believing that your machine exists and is actually mining there's also the jurisdictional risk and geopolitical risk of what could happen with your government, with the other government, with the, I guess, what do they call them,

the Russian hosting partner? So like a totally separate company, I guess, that deals with those particular machines. There's so many levels of risk there that need to be taken into an account. And, you know, Bitcoin Q&A is right. There is an importance of self-hosting your own hardware. Like, I'm going to be diving into mining this year and making some tutorials around that kind of stuff. and I'm not going to be cloud mining. I'm going to be getting my own machine,

learning how to use it, putting it in a place that works for me and going through the motions of actually doing it myself so that you get a mining payout. It comes to you directly. So this is super shitty. If you're using compass, I'm sorry,

if you're just hearing this and you're using compass, you better get on that email notice that they just sent out and let them know, that they can sell your machine. But yeah, super unfortunate. Anyways, so, so like these treasury actions have consequences, even on native U.S. citizens and U.S. companies, right?

I'm kind of curious to see. So, like, they're reasoning behind these sanctions is they're saying that these companies help Russia monetize its natural resources. What they've basically made now is they've said, You cannot, it's not even fully clear. Like there's sanctions on these companies and these miners. So are they going to sanction coins that are mined in Russia? I don't know how they would do that.

Even if they could kind of decipher that, you know, coins can be put through coin join or anything like that. I mean, they're not going to, the Bitcoin is, is going to be able to be used no matter what they're effectively if they're able to segregate the bitcoin within russia which they won't be able to do but again it's kind of like that that stick in the spokes meme where somebody's riding a bike and they put a stick in their own spokes and then they are pissed about it and they make some sort of blame uh you know this would be them putting the

sanction stick in the spokes and then saying, why does Russia have so much Bitcoin? I mean, yeah. I'm also wondering if this might bring about adversarial mining

in the U.S. That could be an interesting development. I don't know, especially like if they go for these sanctions and they do dick all, which I very much think they may not have an effect whatsoever, it then becomes like, okay, well, do you, do you try and take a position yourself? The shit could get very interesting here.

Now, I did want to touch on the opposite side of the spectrum. So, like, they're worried that Russia is going to use Bitcoin to avoid sanctions. But on the other side of this war, individuals in the Ukraine are also able to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is is a tool that is apolitical. So it's available to everybody. So you have things like this was on MSNBC about, what was it, eight days ago. They did a demo where they sent Bitcoin from Miami to a Ukrainian that fled and is now living in Poland. And they were able to send her Bitcoin via Lightning Network immediately.

And then she was able to cash it out at an ATM in like three minutes. So it kind of showcased, again, the borderless nature. and the ability to help people, you know, tens of thousands of miles away in minutes. You know, and we have earlier stories from late March where you have refugees fleeing to Poland. And the only way that they can flee with their actual assets without having them confiscated at the border was things like having Bitcoin on a USB drive. I imagine it was actually like a ledger or something like that. But having Bitcoin actually digitally stored or, you know, in your brain, if you're really worried, try and remember your seed phrase if there's that much risk and then cross a border. You know, this can actually really help in a humanitarian sense.

We see Alex Gladstein with the Human Rights Foundation touching on a lot of that. They've got the Oslo Freedom Forum coming up in Norway pretty quick. here. I will be at that, but it's, they've got a full Bitcoin track because Bitcoin is becoming such a humanitarian tool. And I'm very happy to be helping with the MC duties for that. And yeah, I guess that's that. I mean, the main point of all this in, in touching on both of these, these sanctions and how it's helping people in Ukraine and how it can really help anybody, regardless of whether you like them or not, is, is that it's a, a tool and anybody can use it and it can help anyone around the globe and it doesn't matter,

just like the internet can be used for good or bad. Okay, let's move on here. Australia's first Bitcoin ETF could attract $1 billion after launch next week. So yeah, Australia has financial regulators have greenlit. Australia's first Bitcoin exchange traded funds to begin trading on April 27th. And yeah, they say it could see $1 billion in inflows. And now beyond that, they actually have more entrance into the space. So they, I think they already have a second, if not a third Bitcoin ETF being queued up.

But this will be the first one to launch. One notable thing. Approval was made after Cosmos landed the minimum of four market participants to support the 42% margin requirements needed to cover risk. So they've got to hold a fair amount of. Bitcoin to cover like untouched without rehypublication anything comparatively to other products like this. And that's a great thing. You know, I mean, I'm not a fan of rehab publication at all.

But yeah, I'm just waiting for one of these things to to blow up when they rehydpublicate too much as it gets more entrenched into the legacy financial system because bankers going to bank. And they love printing money. and making something out of nothing and pretending that they have enough to back it all. But nonetheless, you know, we've had Bitcoin ETFs in Canada for quite some time now, as we mentioned earlier. You have, they've got ETPs, I think is what they're called in Europe, basically the same financial instrument.

And still no spot ETF in the U.S. what's going on? Gensler, get your shit together. Anyways, so yeah, Australia and ETFs. Let's keep going. What is this? I'm not just showing you a random store here, but again, if you listen to the pod later, this is a store.

It's written in German. There's a number of things here. You see like a ledger, a bitbox, like a steel seed fray, a couple different options for steel. see phrases. You've got like a VR Bitcoin Go card, which I think is like a self-custody, easy way to load kind of thing, a Bitcoin information, talk paper or whatever it is, another book on an understanding, saving and investing in Bitcoin. So like, what is all this? What is this store?

Why do we care? We care because it's actually a bank. It's one of the largest German banks. and there there is the first traditional German bank and this is from Staticus from Bitbox but he's saying or from shift crypto but he's saying hey first German bank to sell Bitcoin hardware wallets directly to their clients they offer Bitcoin education consulting buying selling and directly in their many branches it's non-custodial and it's Bitcoin only and beyond that a board member of one of the biggest German banks is running his own Bitcoin full node. That is super awesome. And from other things that I saw, he's also running a lightning node.

So kudos to him. So, you know, Bitcoin is kind of sneaking its tendrils into everything. So, you know, there's going to be people in every type of occupation that get. orange build and we're just kind of starting to see that. Congratulations to Thunder Games. They reached a milestone. One million transactions have been sent via the Lightning Network as prizes to our players. The most recent, 500,000 has been seen in the last seven months.

Bitcoin gaming is growing. Here's a breakdown of which wallets our users are using most. So if you're unfamiliar with Thunder games, basically you play games and you earn Bitcoin. when you're in SATs via the Lightning Network for playing. So, you know, there's a kind of a growing, they're zeroing in on a niche industry to try and incorporate Bitcoin as an incentive, as prizes for digital games, for mobile games and stuff like that.

So kudos to them. They're growing. It's interesting. I'd like to, you know, play around with them a little bit more. But really cool to see. Good for them. Oh, and they do note that obviously the largest wallet that users are using is wallet of Satoshi there, but that's because it's just like the default wallet that it goes to.

But you also see Blue Wallet, Zebidi, Moon, Phoenix, and Breeze. So I'd love to see like particularly Moon, Phoenix, and Breeze bump up there quite a bit. Zebedee is pretty awesome too, though, in terms of if you're gaming and you're using Lightning. just because, again, they are big in the gaming space. So, yeah, pretty cool. Maybe I'll mess around with that a little bit more. I have done a video on the Zebedee wallet as well. Okay, I asked you guys, what are your favorite pieces of content from the week?

And I heard a lot of this one. Stefan Lavera podcast had Nate, aka B4 Bacon 1 from Voltage, on how to run your lightning node. He chats about different types of lightning users, lightning node types, who do you open channels with using swap providers, lightning node backups, fees, all of that kind of stuff. And I've got to say, Nate is a wealth of knowledge. This guy is so awesome.

And he's the only reason that I ever was able to make my lightning node tutorial because he was so gracious with his time. He sat down. He spent an hour and a day. a half with me just explaining how to use Thunderhub explaining how to set up channels different ways that I can do it how to tweak settings and things like that and I am eternally grateful for that because like he basically taught me everything I know um and then since then he continues to be an incredible resource anytime I have a question if I want to shoot him a quick message he's always there

and so helpful. So I beg of you, if you do one thing, if you listen to one podcast this week, go listen to Nate on Stefan Lavera. Dude is an absolute boss. He's super awesome. And then if you would like some hands-on help with running a lightning note,

just go check out my tutorial that I did on it as well and know that all of that knowledge came directly from this man's brain. So thank you, Nate. You are awesome. And shout out to you and the team at Voltage as well. well. Let's keep going. The other one, this is my pick for the week for favorite piece of content.

Shout out Pleb Music at Pleb Music on Twitter. He is doing a new video series called Citadel Hunter. And he basically goes to different parts of the globe and finds different places where where Bitcoiners live or areas that Bitcoiners might live. and I think the last one was in Croatia, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong. But this one, he went to visit Gigi. If you're not familiar with Gigi, he wrote the book, 21 lessons. You should read it if you haven't. But Gigi is very, he values his privacy, we'll say.

So whenever he's on a podcast that has video, he will wear a full green, suit, like one of those morph suits so that his whole body blends into the background. And then he puts glasses on and headphones on. And so him and then he has a green screen behind him. And then he'll put like whatever, whatever it happens to be as a background. And it's just like a floating pair of glasses and headphones. And that's him. And he's super awesome.

So highly recommend if you're not following Pleb Music at Pleb Music, Go follow him. And then go check out his latest post. And then there'll be a link to his YouTube channel. Subscribe to the YouTube channel because it's awesome. Watch both of his Citadel Hunter's episodes. They're short, easy to digest. And keep an eye out because me and him are going to collaborate at some point in the future.

We haven't said anything specific yet. But I very much would like to go to wherever he's headed and do it. joint video with him or be featured in one of these episodes because I think it's such a cool idea. Also, Gigi's Citadel is like on a mountain top and where the hell ever and he's just like sitting on his roof chill. You got to see him. So check it out. It's awesome. Again, shout out club music. Shout out Gigi. You guys rock. A tutorial I dropped this week. This has been a long time coming. I finally did BTC Pace server. So if you want to learn how to become a Bitcoin accepting merchant, check it out.

I dropped it on Monday. And I use it. The setup that I did was through voltage, which you can host a node there. They don't have any credentials to any of your funds, just so you know it's all encrypted and you have the only access. But you can basically cloud host a BTC pay server and a lightning node and then link it to your BTC pay server and off to the races. and then you have a store and you can set it up however you see fit.

I did a quick example of how to do it. And the reason I'm kind of starting to dive down that road is because I'm starting, segue, I'm starting to do traveling workshops. A lot of people ask me for one-on-ones via Zoom or whatever to teach them different things. And quite honestly, I had to stop doing it because I didn't have enough time to do them. and the monetary, you know, the gain of doing them with one-on-ones, even in the context of, like, pumping the prices up, it's just it ate up too much my time.

And it was really difficult to schedule around. So my plan now is to offer workshops on specific topics whenever I travel. And so coming up, I'm headed, if you're in Canada, I'm headed to Colonna. on July 9th, that's a Saturday. And a week later, on July 16th, a Saturday, I will be in Vancouver. For both of those, and I'm going to bring them up right now, here we go. For both of those, I will be, and the Colonna one isn't up here yet, but it will be. I will be doing two different workshops.

There will be an AM workshop from 9 a.m. to noon. And that's going to be largely for beginners. So if there's a beginner that you know that's in the area that might benefit from it, then that will cover like the ins and outs of self-custody, like where to get Bitcoin, how to download a wallet, how to set it up, how to do proper backups, what will be the next steps for you, what is a hardware wallet, how do you use one? Let's get some hands on so you can try out and kind of see what's good for you and what's not. And just all the basics of the Bitcoin do's and don'ts and things to avoid and how to be careful, how not to get scammed, all of that stuff that is involved in your initial touches with Bitcoin.

So it is for the newcomers. I do recommend if the newcomer is coming, obviously you've got to bring a laptop and a smartphone is recommended. and you should have a degree of knowledge. Ideally, if you show up, you should be able to download an app. This is not for what I'm getting at is if you're watching this show, you're probably already at this point. But I'm saying this for if you know somebody that would like to maybe have a crash course in Bitcoin.

You should be able to download an app on your phone. You should be able to navigate to a website and download a file and locate. that file. You should be able to copy and paste text, just basic skills like that. Then you're fine for the beginner's workshop. Okay. The reason I say that is because the class sizes will be capped probably at an absolute maximum of 20 people because anything beyond that, I have a lot of experience teaching in schools and anything beyond that, the quality of the instruction degrades. And so I want it to be really, really good. So anyways, that's what I'm doing.

I'm going to be in Vancouver on the 16th and not pictured here. I'm going to be in Kelona on the 9th. Both are Saturdays. The afternoon ones are going to be a cold card deep dive. So everything cold cards, setting it up, backing it up in a variety of different ways, wiping it, recovery, how to, you know, how to do things like obviously partially signed Bitcoin transactions or air gap transactions, how to do

backups using their seed XOR, how to use passphrases and use decoy wallets and all that kind of stuff. We're going to go through the gamut. We will cram in as much as we possibly can. It'll go from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in both locations. And then I'm also going to be in New York in August.

So I'm going to try and do one there. there as well. Figuring out a venue so far. I think I'm good on venues for Colona and Vancouver, but New York figuring that out. So I'll reach out to some people, see if there's some space. If you know of some space, let me know that could host up to 20 people. And then also, I'm going to be in L.A. in November. And then I'm also going to be in France, in August, briefly and I may be able to do a workshop there. I am going to be in Oslo in Norway in May, but I think that's probably too soon.

Maybe not for a beginning. I could probably do a beginner workshop, but in terms of a cold card one, that might be difficult because they're shipping and everything. Anyways, tons of shit going on. I'm going to be hidden as many places as I possibly can. So check it out. I will be dropping, this is not yet live, this page, but I will be dropping and making it live soon.

Pricing is tough because I have to try. Like, there's flights or gas or whatever it may be, like in the case of BC, it's gas because I'm doing a road trip. And then also there is renting a space. There is, you know, having accommodations, all that kind of stuff. So pricing, and I don't know how many people are going to show up. Maybe it's going to be like one dude. I fucking hope not. But we shall see.

Anyways, so pricing for the self-custody one is going to be probably 200 bucks. And for the cold card one, it's going to be 300 bucks. And then if you're going to bring your own devices and stuff like that, or you can order a bundle. Anyways, details will come, but that's kind of where I'm at. So I'll leave that now. Sorry, I kind of wanted to rant about that because I'm, excited but worried it's not going to work. We shall see.

Okay. Finally, tomorrow, why are we bullish? I wonder if David's here yet. No, no comments from David yet, but we'll see. Anyways, why are we bullish tomorrow? Neil Jacobs, Econo Alchemist and Chris Alemo. I hope I said his last name, right? All new guests.

Very excited. Excited for O'Connor, too. I met him. Well, I met a bunch of these guys, but I met Akano. in in while i was in miami and actually i met him as i was picking up my ronin dojo which is behind me on the shelf which i'm going to be doing a tutorial on this week fun fact uh so be sure to check that out i will see you guys for that tomorrow with that i'm going to round up uh thank you guys so much i really do appreciate you being here uh as always like subscribe share all those things

super important uh if you want to help with the show in another way hit up the sponsors i mentioned down below. Shake pay, lead, and bit refill, Keystone, Bill Fonnell, all down below. If you really liked what you saw, you can always drop me the Bitcoin tip. I got a, I got one more time, give a shout out. Thank you so much. It was early on in the show, but thank you so much for Kenneth. You're an absolute boss. That was totally unnecessary, but I appreciate the sentiment for that generous YouTube tip there. Thank you again. Anyways, if you really liked what saw you can always drop me a tip at my strike page strike.me slash btc sessions and that is it have a wonderful day or evening wherever you may be and i will see you guys next time for your daily session