BTC Sessions - NEWS ROUNDUP: Travel Rule and Over-Regulation in Developing Nations ep282

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

Attacks on Bitcoin are coming hard and fast, from multiple fronts. The FATF pushes hard for voluntary imposition of the travel rule, the UN outlines how to stamp out state alternatives in developing nations, and open source software for privacy is being sanctioned. 💪 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

Welcome to the show, everybody. It is, for me, past midnight. It's now technically Friday morning because I am currently in France, obviously not my normal backdrop, but I opted to make sure that I had to get in for the Thursday and Friday show. So here we are. I'm at a hotel room in Beirits, and it's a beautiful place. I'm here for a conference called Surf and Bitcoin.

I'll chat a little bit about that later on, But plenty to talk about in the news. The, I think, again, we're getting more and more evidence of the then-they-fight-you phase. And so we're going to be chatting a little bit about that with Nico today. So other than that, this is live. You guys know that. Anything can happen. So, of course, 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. If you have not already, like, subscribe, share all those things. Super important. They help get this content in front of more eyeballs.

I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your daily and simply session. All right, before we bring in Nico, let's take a look at where we are in the markets right now. We're sitting at $21,574 per coin. A single US dollar will pick you up $4,000. 635 sats. In terms of, sorry, I've got my window condensed, so I've got to find where I'm at here. In terms of 91% or 91.1% of all Bitcoin have been mined.

And for fees, it's looking like nine sats per byte for next block, but anything beyond that, one sat per bite should be fine. So I'm not super busy right now. Shout out to sponsors of the show, coincite.com. Of course, I love these guys. You know I've got so many cold cards. kicking around. I love these things. Mark's badass. Excited to see the NFC start to hit some wallets. But again, works beautifully with all of my Bitcoin hardware needs. Awesome and multi-sig.

I love this thing alongside Sparrow wallet. It's an absolute beast. I've been dropping some open dimes here in Beirits for some scavenger hunting. I put some in a lighthouse the other day and somebody had it within 45 minutes. So yeah, lots of fun. Anyways, obviously the Coin Kite, all their stuff, the block clock, everything is just fantastic. So check them out. Again, coin kite.com. You can use code BTC sessions for 5% off everything in the store or just click the link

down below. It'll take you right there. ShakePay.com, easy way in Canada to be stacking stats. E transfers in and out. No deposit or withdrawal fees. There's a thin spread. If you sign up with the link down below, after your first $100 purchase, I'll give you 30 bucks for free. You get the same deal when you refer friends and family and they do the $100

purchase. You also can shake your phone every single day for free SaaS. I got a SaaS back visa card, all kinds of awesome stuff. Check them out down below. Ledin.io, you can use your Bitcoin for a ton of different services. These guys have been a godsend for me whenever I'm in a bit of a cash flow crunch and I need to get my hands on dollars, but I don't want to sell my Bitcoin because taxable event. Maybe I'm worried about buying back in at a higher price. I can deba boston. I can deba boston. here, get a loan of dollars to my bank account within 24 hours, pay back those dollars, get back the same number of sats. They do have savings accounts for Bitcoin and USDC along with their quarterly third-party

audits. So you know you're not getting jerked around Celsius style. They also have a couple different things, B2X offering. You guys know all about that. But their Bitcoin-backed loans for mortgages across Canada and soon in some select US states. So check them out, start. leaden.io slash btc sessions. I do live on Bitcoin.

Bit refil helps a ton with this. I can pick up any gift card, my little heart desires, with Bitcoin, both on-chain and via the Lightning Network. You earn Sats back as you shop. You can get more Sats back with their referral program.

You can top up your phone. You can top up lightning channels. And if you're in the States, you can pay your bills as well. So bitrefill.com, check them out. And finally, if you're backing up any important Bitcoin wallet, get it in solid steel, friends.

how I'm backing up my hardware and other important wallets with the bill foddle over at privacy pros.com. Don't have to worry about fire damage, water damage, all that stuff. So check him out. These guys are awesome. And one last thing before we bring in Nico, let's check out the shoutouts over at the boost of grams with my helipad on my umbral note. A few of them, you're too kind, Benjamin. My ego can't cope. Come say hello. T.combe. me slash UK Bitcoin Maxis, if you're in the UK. your Bitcoin maxi go check it out. Zika boy, I see more emojis, which I

won't try to describe the Luke Bird. As always a great show. Lightning is the way. Thanks, man. Nick said, whoop, Woop. And sent 2100 sats. Thanks, buddy. I'm a fan of lightning, but I'm going to play devil's advocate and say, with the culture of small payments and the

fact that sends on lightning are pretty private, could we see more of a rise of slave wages around the world? What are your thoughts? from Merlin. Okay. I would say that this enables payments to anyone anywhere in the world. And what I think is you'll start to see, and as you've seen with remote workers now, you'll start to see wages rise in the worst countries in terms of wages and wages fall for the same job in first world countries because it's now becoming a global market and you can now

offer your services up globally. And so those. that are used to basically not being able to offer their skills to anybody. So all of a sudden you get people that are getting virtual assistance or VAs from North America and they're paying somebody in India, which would be a much higher wage than they might get at another local job. So I think it actually helps the lowest income earners and it hurts the highest income earners that are unskilled. Random bull from Michael Madelow.

Thanks, man. A thousand sats. Thanks, Ben, Nico, and yellow. Only two sats this time, as I will be donating to Hodlenot. Yes, on Defendingbtc.com. Please, everybody else, continue with that. Hodlenaught's trial with Craig Wright coming up. Keep the education going, my buddy from KNSV-22.

And finally, is there a smoother, sexier duo than Ben and Nico? Hashtag, bring the heat from Joey. 69 sats. So thank you guys for all the boosters. Let's get Niko in here. Buddy, good to see you from afar. How are you doing? Man, it's always an honor to be on the legendary BTC sessions.

I'm doing great, then. You're getting a Sessions fan club here now. Now all the comments are coming in for the both of us. So I'm glad you've been joining me on the Thursday shows now. So thanks, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, I've had a great time. I think, you know, a couple months more of doing this.

I'm going to have a blonde streak right here. It'll naturally appear. You don't even have your diet. It's just going to happen. Oh, man. Yeah. So you got some news for us this week. I guess I'll bring up your screen so you have it.

Fill us in. What's been going on, man? What's the top of mind? The fight for freedom of speech. That's the way that I see it. The attack on the space cat, the attack on Hoddle Not, Craig Wright, you taking advantage of the libel laws in the United Kingdom. He did this to Peter McCormack as well to silence dissenting speech. If Craig Wright is successful at silencing Hoddle Not, it sends fear and shockwades throughout the community because it's basically saying, hey, if you speak out against me, if you call me a fraud, I will sue you into silence.

So this is an attack on all the Bitcoin community. That's why it's so important to stand in solidarity. And if you're not on Bitcoin, Twitter, you should definitely check it out because everyone has a Hodlnott profile picture in some sort right now. And one more thing. Someone donated an anonymous pleb, maybe it's Sailor, who knows, donated 47 Bitcoin. That's roughly $1 million U.S. dollars to the fight against S. CSW and the there's a telethon that starts in 21 hours and the case is in Norway. Damn. So okay, what's what are you given the odds that that 47 Bitcoin was sailor?

Either it was Sailor or it was an OG Pleb. There is many OG Plebs that started stacking when Bitcoin was 10 bucks, $20. And for them 47 Bitcoin, even though it's large, fiat value today, it's just a drop in the bucket in their stack. So it could be either those two things, I think, in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I'm, I'm sure there's got to be somebody looking on chain that's, that's kind of digging around. What would have been poetic is if all that, it was all coin joined. That would have been fantastic. Hell yeah. That would have been. Just, just while we're on the topic, speaking of lawsuits, I'm sure you got to know what I'm going to mention. But did you see that fucking shitcliner bit boy was going to sue somebody for saying something mean about him

on the internet basically the guy made a video months ago about some some you know all these pump and dump crap that he he shelled in a video and and basically said oh yeah he talked about this and it ended up being a rug pull or whatever it was and i think maybe the guy said that he got paid for it or whatever. Anyway, so with this, this story is the backdrop where everybody's already in the mode of

fuck Craig Wright for suing somebody for saying something mean about him on the internet. Bitboy for some reason gets it in his brain that this is a brilliant idea and I'm going to sue some dude with like a, you know, a decent, but not

super tiny following. And the public gets wind of it. everybody just kind of unites and it's like yeah fuck this and the guy got donated a bunch of money which was more than the legal fees um and then he backs down dude i mean it's you know what it really shows that at the end of the day this guy is not a bitcoinser because a bitconer would never go out of their way and try to silence someone else's speech because bitcoin represents it really represents freedom of speech it's the it's the money of enemies right your worst

enemy is going to use Bitcoin and there's nothing you could do about it. So I think it really shows it's kind of like a Freudian slip. It really shows where his priorities are and what he actually believes. You know, so. Yeah. And the apology was the best part because he's like, I'm really sorry that this became public. You're not sorry about the lawsuit. You just, I'm really sorry that this was so hard on myself is what you're saying. Correct. Correct. It's just, it's just, it's. It's. It's, It's just bullshit. It's just bullshit. Anyways, Ben, let's move on to the second part. Indeed.

I'm going to start it off with a quote from the sovereign individual. I'm going to keep referring back to this throughout the news. Check this out, Ben. The state will no doubt take desperate measures at first to tether and hobble its escaping herd. It will employ covert and even violent means we're not there yet to restrict access to liberating technologies. Such expedites will work only temporary. temporarily, if at all. And why am I talking about? Why am I referring to this? Well, it all started with tornado cash. We've been covered. This is a third week we've been covering this, Ben.

And check out this representative. He is a Republican from the state of Wisconsin. He's a, house member. And he sent a letter to the Treasury Secretary regarding the unprecedented sanctioning of tornado cash. Right. And the, and the concerns, right, about the Office of Foreign asset control. And here's the question that I have for you, Ben, the question that I have for everybody in the audience. Or maybe it's a statement. I do not believe current US sanction policy is compatible with Bitcoin. And what the Treasury did with the sanctioning of open source software and not an individual, not a government, is basically signaling where they're trying to take this. And the way that they did it, Ben, was ingenious. Because

they picked a tool that wasn't very popular, but it sent shockwaves all around the industry. It, you know, it started, the, the, the, the shit coiner started having cognitive dissidents last week, and they're like, holy crap, this thing might be centralized. But here's the smoking gun, Ben. Here's the news that came out that really lets me know where they wanted to take this the entire time. They're testing the waters. this is an article by the Washington Post,

top crypto company defies U.S. sanctions on service that hid stolen assets. Ah, so they're trying to get tether to comply with the sanctions. Do you think this is just going to stop here? Do you think how long until they say, hey, tether, hey, USDC. You know Iran and Venezuela, those? individuals there yeah you got to freeze their

addresses and that's what this is all about they're trying to set a precedent and to say hey open source technology is fair game and why are they trying to do that I'm going to refer back to the quote from the sovereign individual the state will no doubt take desperate measures at first to tether

and hobble its escaping herd the state the nation state is losing its monopoly on the creation of money and their ability to manipulate people through that monopoly and then this is them and their last death throws trying to maintain that control but you can't take it away from them bro that move with tornado cash what was that was that quote that jack muller's always says ben pawn to e4 holy crap did they really think this one through and they nailed it yeah yeah absolutely it's it's scary

And this has been, you know, even here at the conference, this has been just in, we haven't really kicked things off yet. But it's top of mind for everybody. Everybody's saying, okay, well, and I've been talking to some privacy people here, people that are working on various tools. And a lot of them are like, it's a matter of time. It's a matter of time before it's, you know, before it's the spotlight's on us. and, you know, what can be shut down and what cannot be shut down. And yeah, it's, it's coming. It's coming.

Absolutely. And I think you buried the lead there real quick, right? What can be shut down and what cannot be shut down. And the decentralization, this is where decentralization will shine. And this is where the centralized shit coins will be captured, basically. I don't think they'll be shut down. They'll just be captured. Hey, Ethereum, you could only run OFCC.

compliant notes holy crap that date anyways it's um ben checked this out oh no you good yeah yeah i'm good let's keep going with it okay okay okay yeah um here it is coinbase PayPal joins the trust travel rule solution the travel rule is a rule that was recommended by the foreign uh financial action task force and unelected bureaucracy that recommends to all governments how they should handle KYC and AML. It's a hidden group of bureaucrats. You don't even know who they are, not elected, appointed, and they're the masters of the universe getting to decide arbitrary rules, basically saying, hey, you want to transfer $1,000? Well, you got to report exactly who you're transferring it to name, address, social security number. Right now, it only applies to something called VASP.

Those are called virtual asset service providers. But it's just a matter of time before governments try to implement this on top of people and you're already seeing them trying to mess around with vocabulary like hosted, unhosted wallet and that type of bullshit. And one more thing I want to add. Guys, a lot of companies are involved in this Amber Anchorage Digital Balance. finance, BitFlyer, BitGo, BitTreks, BlockFi, BlockPow, CakeDefi, Circle, Coinbase, CoinHacko, CoinSmart, CoinSquare, Crypto.com, Custodia, Fidelity, Fidelity, Digital Assets, Gemini, Krakken, NetCo's, Nexos, Paxos, PayPal, Prime Trust. For anyone who doesn't know, Prime Trust, provides the liquidity for Swan and for Strike. Robin Hood, Shake Pay, Pay, Standard Customs. Shake Pay. I know people from Shake Pay, watch this. This is a voluntary thing, right?

Correct. And what they're doing is they're trying to get ahead of the inevitable regulatory hammer. That's what they're trying to do with this. But I'm not a fan that people do this early. Why would you, it sets the precedent. Like if there's no pushback, you need to at least until it's absolutely like forced upon you. don't just lie down right you got to you got to at least put up a reasonable i understand if you're a business and you have to operate within the rules of of wherever you're located but if it's not

yet law and it's not clear that it's going to be law there's no like oh it goes into effect this date and you have to be ready by this date why are you laying down so if anybody from shake pay is watching this currently, you know, send that up the ranks. Obviously, I'll, you know, I'm sending messages and stuff like that too. But, you know, they're a sponsor the show, but they're not beyond scrutiny. And I love shake pay. It works beautifully. But, you know, I don't like stuff like this.

Yeah, I don't have shake pay, but I have swan. Swans on there as well, right? So same type of, you know, critique. but one more observation, right? And I actually was hanging out with Francis a couple days ago. Bull Bitcoin's on there. Yes. So is this necessary?

Or are you guys just trying to get into the good graces of regulators? But I think what they don't understand, Ben, is that this is a separation of money in state. Do you think the state's just going to hand over the keys and say, here you go, you're not going to do that? Their whole bureaucracy depends on the money printer. Yeah. Anyways. Okay. So this is really interesting, Ben.

And I just want to point out this up top. It says prosperity for all United Nations. Okay. This was the one that bothered me the most out of your selections for the week. Reading this got my blood boiling. Yes. The United Nations that has prosperity for all. They're advocates of human rights and all that BS.

And that's not BS. But the reason I say it's BS is because they're just hiding behind that moral virtue. they literally released an article August 10th saying the United Nations spells out actions to curb cryptocurrencies in developing countries. Meaning countries that need Bitcoin the most because of inflation, because of totalitarianism, what they're saying is, hey, can't have that. What's going on there? And why is that?

Because they stand the most to lose. United Nations, they need that. It's funny because you go down and what they're basically saying is, hey, you know, this could jeopardize the sovereignty, the monetary sovereignty of those countries. It's like, which is that? Being able to print money and impoverish their citizens. But at the very end, the solution that they provide is central bank digital currencies. Ah, it's funny how that works, right? But wait, there's more.

Check this out. Controlling crypto can make the Internet safer, says UN executive. And what is her reasoning? there's an element of capacity building a nation regulation, but there's also investigation collecting evidence. There's this whole story of cryptocurrencies and how it's used on the internet in illegal form. These are small interventions where a lot of investment needs to happen in infrastructure and capacity building in the cybersecurity space. And the reason she's advocating for that is because it says various assets have been utilized in illegal vices, like the purchase of drugs and money laundering.

Well, unfortunately for them, simply says she's, brings the receipts. Check this out. This article by bitcoins.com. A report from the International Nocodic Control Board shows that Bitcoin is not the preferred method for drug cartels or other criminal groups to launder money. They would rather use banks. I'll say that again. They would rather use banks. This opposes the widespread narrative that claims a digital coin creates the opportunity for crime. But wait, there's more. Swift says criminals prefer cash for money laundering, not cryptocurrency. But wait a second. Why are they so focused? on crypto? Why are they so focused on Bitcoin?

Hmm, maybe it has to do with the fact that Bitcoin is a threat to their power and control. And maybe, I know I'm going to sound a little bit of a conspiracy theorist here, but maybe it doesn't have anything to do with financial stability, money laundering, and crime. Because if you look at the actual data, it's saying something completely opposite than what they're pitching. And one last thing, Ben, isn't it absolutely beautiful that they have prosperity for all on the top? Oh, God. It makes my blood boil. Can you do me one favor? Can you scroll down to the very bottom where they give the play-by-play of the methods in which they could achieve this?

Could you give a read to just the final bullet points there? The urges authorities to take the following actions to curb the expansion? Could you just kind of rattle a few of those off of what they might do? Absolutely. Ensure comprehensive financial regulation of cryptocurrencies through regulating crypto exchange, digital wallets, decentralized finance, and banning regulated financial institutions from holding cryptocurrencies or offering related products to clients. So that's like basically saying even banks, they don't want like in developing nations,

they don't want banks enabling people to store their wealth in alternatives. even if it's fully KYC'd on ramps and everything. They're just like, no, don't give them any access to it. Unbelievable. Let's go to the next one. The next one is restrict advertisements related to cryptocurrencies as for other high-risk financial assets, provide a safe, reliable, affordable public. Here's the CBDC, Ben, public payment system adapted to the digital era.

Yeah. Yeah. And then obviously we've seen some of this here, agree and implement global tax. coordination regarding cryptocurrency tax treatments, regulation and information sharing. So there's the FATIF travel rule and then redesign capital controls to take account of the decentralized borderless and pseudonymous features of cryptocurrencies. So they're really just trying to capture every aspect of this. And they're doing it under the guise of saving those and developing nations so that they can continue to peddle their predatory IMF loans and all the other bullshit that they do to siphon wealth out of those countries.

It's literally they want to keep the game. If you haven't read confessions of an economic hitman, go read that because that's the game they want to keep going. They want to be able to go in, seem all buddy, buddy with these countries, and then rope them into these predatory loans so that they can basically just siphon off all of the resources. and wealth of that country. And, you know, from a high level from people that aren't familiar with this kind of stuff, they think, well, it's a poor nation. They must be doing something wrong there. No, it's that.

It's absolute, you know, these absolute cretons of human beings go in there and they take advantage of these nations before they're able to grow enough and become self-sufficient. and they just, the people there and the governments there may not, in some instances, may not realize what they're signing over. In other instances, they're politicians and they're just happy to, you know, get the kickbacks from signing the initial deal and they'll kick the can down the road. But in both instances, the citizens of the countries, they're the ones getting fucked. So it's really unfortunate. It's crazy how Bitcoin once again exposes everybody's incentives. Right. Yeah. And again, I'm going to read it. I'm going to be annoying. I'm going to be that guy.

Do it. The sovereign individual. The state will no doubt take desperate measures at first to tether and hobble its escaping herd. And that's exactly what you're seeing. Last but not least, Ben, check this out. Extremely bullish news. I'm going to do a little bit of a chronological thing. I'm going to put together some pieces. Intel announced an ASIC. This was kind of old news. not only Intel, Samsung produces three nanometer chip that can be used for Bitcoin mining. So now we have Samsung and Intel, massive companies getting involved in Bitcoin. Not only that, Russia's gas prom, huge. The state-owned natural gas giant in Russia, they sell, if you're in Europe, you know who they are. Guess what they're doing? They're mining Bitcoin.

But it's not only gas prom. It's Exxon Mobil. That was also got announced that they're mining Bitcoin, North Dakota. this was just released. And the reason I covered all those things is guys, look at what just happened. That all that news was just released in the last year and a half.

Okay? You should be extremely bullish right now. I know it's not Friday. I know it's not why are we bullish Friday, but holy crap. And here's the headline, seven South Korean brokerages plan to start crypto exchanges next year.

You'd be like, Nika, what does that matter? Well, if you look into it, one of those brokerages is Samsung. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Samsung is not only making Bitcoin chips, but they're also getting into the business of selling Bitcoin as well. Extremely bullish. Very interesting. It's all the, again, all the companies and entrepreneurs are trying to find their in. I mean, it makes sense with Samsung and the chips and everything.

They've been kind of alluding to stuff like that over the past years. We've seen rumblings of that. You know, these are far from the last companies that will be seeing. It's very interesting, again, like the marriage of Bitcoin and energy. And, you know, if we're going to have a money that is married to energy, then everybody's going to want to get their fingers in that bowl and try and get a piece of that pie. And that means more competition. That means more efficient mining.

that potentially means more decentralized mining. And, you know, I'm all for it. Great. More competition in the market. Let's keep it going. And good luck to these countries saying no to these massive corporations. I know. I know.

And that's the thing, right? It's there's what the governments want. And then there's what the reality of a global market is. Right. And if countries push it out, and they make it too difficult and onerous, it's a big world. It's a pretty big world.

And even if a good portion of it is pretty draconian, there's going to be pockets of freedom. And the thing with this is, is those pockets of freedom also become pockets of wealth. And that spreads and people get jealous. And those that see wealthy areas, oh, wow, that freedom-loving country is doing incredibly well. and they're very wealthy.

Maybe we should spread a little bit of that over there, over, over, we're in our neck of the woods here. So yeah, this is bullish. I'm excited for it. Extremely bullish. Get after the United Nations. Good luck. Incentives are much stronger than coercion.

You guys stand no chance. Absolutely. Dude, that was fantastic. Thank you for coming and filling us in here. Um, yeah, man, it's, you know, this is definitely we're, we're getting balls deep into the then they fight you or a while, you know, it's kind of right now it's just the tip, but, but pretty soon, pretty soon we'll be balls deep. Um, the 20s is the decade of then they fight you, uh, in my opinion. And, uh, we're, it's, we're, we're, we're early in that phase of it. But the 30s will be the decade of, and then we win. Um, and I think that's going to, um, and I think that's going to, coincide with with freedom money and also a recognition of the globe that energy is good and it's what makes humanity thrives. I think we're going to see the not only the advent of free and open money for all, but we're also going to see the advent of massive inroads and massive innovation

in and around energy production. I'm very bullish as sad as it is. with all the energy crises that we're beginning to see and that we're probably going to see throughout the winter, we're also seeing glimmers of hope where they're starting, you know, even though it's done in such an ass backwards way where they're saying, hey, you know, it turns out when we're fucked for energy, nuclear is green now.

But with that comes the ability for people to once again work on and innovate with nuclear. So I think that's going to be a big thing over the next decade. And I think that puts us through that fourth turning and into a brand new, a brand new generation of abundance. So you hit the nail on the head. The fourth turning. I was going to mention that if you didn't. We're definitely going.

We're definitely in the crux of this right now. Yeah. Ben, it's been an absolute honor. I absolutely love this. And yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me, man. Thanks for coming rather

But I appreciate you being here And again, everybody watching If you're not already, subscribe to Simply Bitcoin You'll get your news six days a week This is just this is just the the appetizer You got to go check it all out. So Nico, thanks, man. I will be seeing you again soon.

This is your Simple session. You said it. Love it. All right, later, man. All right, everybody. A couple more things to fill you in on before we wrap up. Again, I said I was here in Beirits, France. This is for surfing Bitcoin.

And the conference itself has not yet fully kicked off. There was a little bit of a mixer tonight. Had a few beverages before I came into the news. It is well past midnight. It's going on 1 o'clock here. But wanted to keep the show going. But surfing Bitcoin, dude, what an awesome spot this is. And it's kind of cool because I was out.

I got to meet a bunch of kind of the French Bitcoin maxis the other night. Such great people. And, you know, there, a lot of them were telling me like, you know, France is great. You know, we love it in this location and everything. But being a maxi in France is a tough one. There's a ton of shit coinery in France. They were like, they love it here. They're all about the shit coins.

And so they're like firmly trying to plant that maxi flag and kind of spread that message. And so I'm kind of, I feel like I'm seeing the beginnings of the maximalist movement in and around France here, which is a kind of cool, unique thing to see. And so, you know, I'll kind of watch and see what's going on over the next few days. There's some pretty good speakers here. I'm super interested. There was a bit devs meeting earlier today that was really good. for the part that I could be there. So tons of stuff.

So I got to tip my hat to everybody that's putting on surfing Bitcoin here and for having out some good Bitcoin maximalists. So yeah, let's keep that train rolling through here. If you're in France. The other thing I'll comment on is fucking awesome that there's so many. people working to translate amazing written content into French. I went to the store here, the merch store, and they just had everything. They had Jeff Booth's book. They had the Bitcoin

and Fiat Standard translated. They had Gigi's 21 lessons. All of it's translated to French here. Just a ton of great Bitcoin-only content. And I think that's one of the first steps that you need to get people to recognize the difference between Bitcoin and quote unquote crypto. So, you know, things are definitely headed in the right direction here. Also wanted to give a shout out. I met one of the guys that's working on Mercury Wallet. If you guys, maybe you've seen it, maybe you haven't, but I did a video on it a while back.

It's a privacy enhancing wallet that uses state chains so that you can swap UTXOs without any indication that anything has happened on chain. So imagine a picture taking an open dime with the same amount as somebody else who also has one and swapping the open dimes. So you now own different Bitcoin, but no transaction on chain has happened. Same thing is happening here. The wallet itself, there's a degree of, it's not censorship resistant. But, you know, if something happened where they were to get shut down, there's still a fail save so that no matter what you get. Bitcoin back. So anyways, while we're checking out if you haven't played with Mercury Wallet and

state chains, I'd say it's definitely worth getting your hands dirty and just trying it out just again as another Bitcoin privacy tool in your toolboat. What else do I have to mention? Kudos to Umbrell. They pumped out a new update and they introduced automatic channel recovery in their Lightning Node app. So basically, you can log in to a wiped umbral or a if you delete the app accidentally you enter your 24 words select the time your node was last online and you have your on and on chain and off chain funds restored just like that and yeah so it and in that process if i'm not mistaken it begins closing those channels out so that they will revert back to your on chain balance um so yeah super nice feature to be able to uh reattain those

funds if you have something horrible go awry with your umbri with your umberl um or you know potentially you know hopefully other nodes will implement things like this that's awesome and the last thing i was going to mention is we got why are we bullish we're doing it tomorrow we're doing it tomorrow from france it'll be 12 o'clock for me i'll probably have a few beverages in me for that one because it's going to be a late one uh but we've got jean adams dennis porter and uh julian or uh julian figuaira i'm going screw up his name. Anyways, he runs kinetic finance on YouTube. So anyways, should be a good time. Make sure you come out and see. That's it for me, guys. Of course, like, subscribe, share, all those things very helpful. Hit up the previously mentioned sponsors

down below if you want to help the show in another way. So coin kite, shake pay, leaden, bit refill, bill fought over at privacyprose.io. And if you really liked what you saw, you can draw me a Bitcoin tip at my strike page. strike.me slash BTC sessions. With that, I'm out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening. See you guys next time for your daily session. Hottle by Bitcoin.