BTC Sessions - NEWS ROUNDUP: White House Bitcoin Framework ep290

Episode Date: September 22, 2022

The White House releases framework and report on Bitcoin/digital assets - and it’s a bit of a mess. Argentina adoption accelerates. Nasdaq to launch institutional custody services. Coincorner brings Bitcoin to the UAE. 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 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

What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the show. Plenty to talk about this week. Lots of fun news to cover. Niko is here to take us through it all. Some stuff out of the White House, you know, Sailor doing his thing. NASDAQ maybe jumping in the ring with other institutionals. The institutions are coming. They're here.

But we'll chat about that momentarily. As always, this is live. Anything can happen. So I defer to my friend Bill here. We'll do it live. We'll do it live. Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live.

The fucking thing sucks. If you have not already, please do like, subscribe, share all those things, help get this content in front of more eyeballs. I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your daily session. Before Nico joins us, let's take a look at where we are in the market right now. $19,173 per coin. Single U.S. dollar will pick you up 5,216 sats.

91.23% of all Bitcoin have been mine. In terms of fees, next block looks like 19 sats per byte. If you're willing to wait a little bit, you might be able to sneak in somewhere in the single digits, but it's, you know, it's been a wild ride lately in the mempool. So, you know, usually it clears up every day or so. So just be aware, use RBF and bump those fees if need be. Shout out to sponsors of the show, coin kite.com. Awesome, awesome stuff coming out of these guys.

I love my Mark 4. It's just the best way to secure your Bitcoin. You've been seeing me dropping open dimes all around. I just got a notification that my Sats cards are in the mail. So I'll be able to showcase those. If you're unfamiliar, those are basically like an NFC open dime type deal. You'll see. I'll do a tutorial when they drop.

Anyways, tons of great stuff. Block clock micro are rolling off the assembly floors right now. So be sure to check them out. CoinKite.com. Use code BTC sessions for 5% off everything in the store. Up next, shakepay.com. If you're in Canada, easy way to be stacking sats. So simple.

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Bitrefill.com. love them. Great way to get any type of gift card you can imagine with Bitcoin both on-chain and via Lightning Network. You're in Satsback as you shop. More Sats back with a referral program. You can do phone refills. You can do lightning channels. And if you're in the U.S., you can pay your bills. Yes, you can get on that Bitcoin standard with BitRefill. Again, check them out. Links are down below. And finally, if you're backing up any important Bitcoin wallet, get it in steel, friends. Paper does not cut it. I've heard horror stories. People get in them. went fires tossing them out because it's just a piece of paper around the office.

Get it and steal. This is how I back up my important Bitcoin wallets. And you can grab them at PrivacyPros.io slash BTC sessions and you get a little deal as well for that. Shoutouts. Shoutouts. We're here on the helipad, Helipad boost tracker. People that have been streaming sats to the show.

Thank you guys. I'm so glad that everybody's so nice in the comments. Booster shots from cryosats. and there's a few of these in here. So thanks, man. I always see those. And I see you boosting out other awesome Bitcoin content. So kudos to you.

This is the future. Boost up my session. Zagaboy. Ben, it's fucking Friday morning. Just thought I'd tell you, obviously, from last Friday. Maybe I'll be hearing from again this Friday. But I hope you had a good week, man. Hats off to Ben and the HRF from Cliff, BJ Bangor.

B. Janger. BTC Fien, thanks, great show as always. Michael, Matiloff, great show guys, cryosats, more not booster, but rooster shots. BTC Fiend, great rip, plebs, keep up the good work, flexing from IDAD dude. And a BJ says, it's becoming a quite cozy moment to enjoy a sweet beer

and watch these Bitcoin bullish conversations on Friday night's awesome show. We'll be looking forward. to your BTC mining sessions. Greetings from Iceland. Dude, from Iceland, that's awesome. I have been through a few times. I've flown through there a bunch,

and I did hit the Blue Lagoon in Recovic. It was awesome. So, a cool place to live. Bitcoin, Grandma, great episode. Thank you. Thanks, Grandma. JPC, great show. Pierre for PM.

I hope so, man. I hope so. And a bull from Michael again. Proof of steak equals Fia. money on a blockchain from EMT Bitcoin and happy Friday junior Mr. Sessions from Mob or sorry, Mo BTC Dick. That's a great username. I love it. Anyways, enough of my ranting. Let's get Nico in on what's been going on. Nico, good to see you, man. How are you? I'm doing awesome on BTC Sessions. I always love coming off. Simply Sessions. That's right. No, but you changed it on me. You changed it right when I was saying that. Man, another day fighting in Bitcoin. Awesome. Very excited to be here, Ben. Absolutely. Well, I'm glad to have you. It's been an interesting week. There's been a lot of a lot of stuff going on. A lot of, I mean, just idiots. Like, how do you, how do you interpret this? I don't know. A lot of a lot of stuff.

lot of stupid things that continue to be stupid that should have been corrected by now. But I mean, I'll let you fill us in. What's what's going on here with the White House this week? Dude, the continuation of the separation of money and state. The cat is out of the bag. The central planners, the state, they're telling you. It's right in your face. They're telling you exactly where they're taking this thing. And I did a little bit of the work. I went through all the freaking reports man and it's it's becoming very very very clear that their main bet to continue the racket going on right the the racket of using people to use fiat currencies and by by forcing people to use fiat currencies they can they can they can continue that that inflation

racket they can continue to extract wealth out of their populace and they they want to continue doing that and the way that they set it out in this framework is continue to attack bitcoin's energy usage that's going to be one of the main attack vectors and secondary you know what they promoted this entire freaking time they promoted central bank digital currencies the entire freaking time now and this begs the question ben and i'm going to make the case right do governments really work for us because it's supposed to be by the people for the people or has bitcoin exposed that governments are really for by the government for the government because if they were really by the people for the people then wouldn't you think that they would allow the people to choose a currency that's not going to

steal from them but of course anyways so i'm going to shut up and let's check out this first report and then i'd get your thoughts so this is the first is the fact sheet white house release first ever comprehensive framework for responsible development of digital assets, right? So a couple words here, right? It's a fact sheet. So if the government doesn't tell you, it's not a fact, and it's responsible. Anyways, goes on to say, President Biden's March 9th executive order on ensuring responsible development of digital assets outlined the first whole-of-government approach to addressing the risks and harnessing the potential benefits of digital assets and their underlying technology. Over the past six months,

agencies across the government have worked together to develop frameworks and policy recommendations that advanced the six key priorities identified in the EU. Consumer and investor protection, promoting financial stability. You know what will promote financial stability? Stop printing money, but they

know they never mentioned that, Ben. They never mentioned that. Never. Countering illicit finance, US leadership in the global financial system, and economic competitiveness, financial inclusion, and responsible innovation. So McKenzie Sigalos, she's done an incredible job covering all this. She has this article on CNBC that does a good job at summarizing the framework because it's way too long

to read to the show. She says, the Biden White House has just released its first ever framework on the crypto regulation in the U.S. should look like. The framework outlies the ways in which financial service industries should evolve to make borderless transactions easier. But that already exist, Ben, as well as to how to crack down on fraud in the digital asset space. A new guidelines follow an executive order issued in March in which President Joe Biden called on federal agencies to examine the risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies, issues official reports on their findings. So it goes on to say, a new kind of dollar.

The framework also points to the potential for significant benefits from a United States central bank digital currency, which you can call, which you can think of as a digital form of the US dollar. Now here is the smoking gun, ladies and gentlemen. Federal Reserve Jerome Powell. Previously said the main incentive for the US to launch its own central bank digital currency would be to eliminate the use for crypto coins in America. You wouldn't need stable coins. You wouldn't need cryptocurrencies if you had a digital US currency, Powell said. I think that's the one of the stronger arguments in its favor. In the White House News framework, it points to the fact that a U.S.

Bank digital currency could enable a payment system that is more efficient, provides a foundation for further technological innovation, facilitates faster cross-border transactions, and here's the jab at Bitcoin and is environmentally sustainable. Ben, do you see where this is going? God. I mean, the shame of it is that it will work on the NPCs, right? It's going to work for the people that all the ones that over the past two, two and a half years just said, sure. And went along with absolutely everything with no questions whatsoever.

And I think that this kind of, oh, yeah, you know, digital currencies are, Bitcoin is, is ruining the planet. And it's volatile. and you're going to lose all your money and we're boiling the oceans. So come join us with our sustainable US dollar that is not volatile and it holds its value. I think they're going to be able to rope

a good number of people into it initially. But when those money printers go burr, they're really going to have to incentivize people to continue to use that and I think that's where you're going to start to see UBI via CBDCs to incentivize to people to continue to use them but I think that will also backfire because when when I get my CBDC UBI check direct deposited into my CBDC account that shit is going to be hitting like Bisk or Robosatz it's going to be and it's going to be and it's going to be

swapped out for some sets. Yeah, yeah. But I think they're showing all their cards, Ben. I think we're at that part of the movie. We're at that part of the movie that they're not even hiding any anymore. Or the evil villain, like, lays out his dastardly plan. Yeah. We're at that point in the movie and they're not even hiding it.

They're making it very apparent. But the part to me, Ben, that is despicable out of all this is that the intent. time through this entire, you know, framework or whatever it is they call it, they're pretending that this is for us. They're pretending that this is for us the entire time. And I think that's what bothers me the most. This is for them. It is not for us. It's, it's control. It's, it's, I mean, again, when you get down to the basics of it, money simply represents all of the goods, services and resources in an economy. So printing more money does not create any value what it does.

And also, if you were to print more money and disperse it evenly as like as a proportion of who already owns what, there would be no change whatsoever. There would be zeros added to what everything costs, but nobody would be any wealthier or any poorer. The only reason to have this control with CVDCs and be able to print more money, is to reallocate who gets those dollars. And again, surprise, surprise, it's not you. It's not you that's going to be getting the extra dollars.

Your percentage of the pie is going down perpetually. And this is the mechanism through which they can do that efficiently. Yep. And speaking of efficiency, because that's one of the attack vectors. Another clown world report. By the way, hell of a coincidence. This report was released. I kid you not on the same week that the merge happened.

Oh, oh good. Anyways, climate and energy implications of crypto assets in the United States. Okay, guys, connect the dots for me. Connect the dots. They come out with this, Central Bank digital currencies. Jerome Powell says, there's no need for this. And then they say climate and energy implications of crypto assets. That is a Bitcoin.

But if you still don't believe me, Nick Carter did an amazing rebuke. I can't read it all because we don't have enough time. But I'm going to read the points of the article that he wrote that I think highlight the scam. And it was so effective that Michael Saylor retweeted this and he used the words that the White House report to quote him was propaganda. Anyways, Nick Carter goes on to say, can't win approach to miners using renewable energies to preface this a little bit with the white house report how they cover themselves in this report is as long as bitcoin miners use renewable energies they're okay the problem is that the standards of which they set in order for a minor to be using renewable

energies two things they're economically infeasible number one and number two no other industry is held to those standards. So why are Bitcoin miners held to those standards? And I want you guys to connect the dots. There's no conspiracies, but there's no coincidences. They literally said it themselves. You don't need stable coins. You don't need cryptocurrencies if you had a digital U.S. currency.

Anyways, also in this report, the climate and energy implications of crypto assets, you know what they also mentioned, central bank digital currencies. Anyways, moves on to say. Probably the most frustration portion. portion of the report concerns miners utilizing stranded natural gas or mining with renewables. Basically, the report dismisses all the efforts of miners to decarbonize their operations, laying out extremely narrow conditions in which miners with renewables might be considered acceptable. Suffice to say, I've never encountered the government insisting on conditions this

stringent to any other buyer of great electricity given that the report considers a full ban on mining in the U.S. The dismissal of miners' genuine efforts to decarbonize should be deeply alarming. The OSTP sets them up to fail with a can't win approach. Anyways, it goes on to say one last passage. This is the, this is one of the quotes from this report guys. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, and other federal agencies should provide a technical assistance and initiate a collaborative process with states' communities. The crypto asset industry, and others to develop effective evidence-based environmental performance standards for the responsible design development and use of environmentally responsible crypto asset technologies. These should include standards for a very low energy intensities, low water usage, low noise generation, clean energy usage by operators and standards that strengthened over time for additional carbon-free generation to match or exceed the additional electricity load of these facilities.

Nick Carter responds to that passage. He says, to simplify, they want to require that Bitcoin miners are bringing net new renewable generation online in order to be eligible to mine. Addition carbon-free generation to match or exceed additional electricity loads of these facilities, no such requirement exists for any other industry in the U.S. period. If miners can't do this, Congress might consider legislation to limit or eliminate the use of high-intrifice. energy intensity consensus mechanisms for crypto asset mining. Of course, they're talking about Bitcoin now that Ethereum moved to proof of, proof of stake. Bitcoin encompasses 94% of proof of work cryptocurrency mining. Of course, no such rule exists for any other extractive industry in the U.S., including gold mining. Effectively, the OSTP is asking miners be forced to meet a

completely impossible standard. Again, one that isn't asked of any other. industry and if they can't meet that, they're asking Congress to freaking ban it. And again, this report came out on the week of the proof of stake merge. And it came out also on the week of the White House release first ever comprehensive framework for responsible digital assets. That recommends, you know what? Central Bank digital currencies. Oh, man.

I mean, I don't, I don't want to say everybody should low-key start mining from their home, but everybody should low-key start mining from their home. They're nuts, Ben. They're nuts. It's wild. Again, like the double standard. It's it's abundantly clear that nobody gives a shit that in regards to these reports, that nobody gives a shit like the reality of, like, the reality of, uh, the mining and where it's getting energy from in the first place. Not that it matters because moralizing energy use on its own is stupid.

But they're not even looking to see where Bitcoin currently stands comparatively because they don't care. They just don't like it. They don't want it. They want to offer the alternative and they want to regulate it out of existence. They will fail. Because as we know, even in the face of mining being banned in China, well, it just all the hash rate migrated, except for the hash rate that didn't and stayed. So in the end, they will fail. But in the interim, it's going to be an annoying pain in the ass.

And I'm not sure exactly how it's going to play out because it's funny. you see this report from the White House and and they're quoting like dig economists and they're they're quoting more uh what's it called mora et al or whatever uh and and that 2018 report is like entirely misunderstands mining entirely misunderstands um transactional throughput on bitcoin and thinks that it's a linear model so that they give it like a per per transnational transaction amount of energy that should be that will be used and basically state that Bitcoin is going to use all the world's energy. It's insane that these things are still being quoted. And I think I saw the quote from Nick Carter in the report where he said it's like reading a report from the White House on the moon landing and them quoting a website.

that says it might have been faked or something like that. Like it's or or you know some sort of it's it's it's basically them taking something that has been disproven many, many times and then quoting it as if yeah, well, it's it's been completely disproven. But also here's that information again anyways. Like it's it's ridiculous that that this is the quality of discourse we have. Dude, but I think Nick, Nick Carter pointed out. beautifully right it's like you can't make a good faith argument that they just don't know any better

this is in my opinion and maybe i'm just a crazy toxic maxi and maybe you are too ben this seems completely on purpose and look at the end of the day what is the main source of power for governments the monopoly on the issuance of money and bitcoin is a threat to that so why else why would they recommend something that takes power and money away from them, you know? And I think that this is the situation that we find ourselves in. Now, Ben, I'm not done convincing people, okay? Because people could still not be convinced. But this time, I'm going to read a passage, Ben, and I just want you to reply to, I just want to get your thoughts on each individual one. I'm not even going to add my take, right? And I want to see you spontaneously explode. YouTube, that's a metaphor. This

is a report called The Future of Money and Payments, September 2022, and it is by the U.S. Treasury. Now, let's get to this first one. It says this is a screenshot from the report, and I want to get your thoughts, Ben. The central bank is at the center of the monetary system. Reflecting this position, central bank money tends to underpin interbank payments and serve as the backbone of the broader payment system. In addition to the Federal, in addition, the Federal Reserve provides currency and reserve balances, operates payment system, and supervises certain intermediaries that issue private money and make payments. Here's the key. Even as the money and payment system involves, the central bank's role in final settlement must be preserved to promote economic growth, efficiency, and other public interests. that that sounds pretty uh free and open market to me we must preserve our spot nothing can compete because if an alternative is offered then we're out of a job is effectively what they're saying

correct yeah good lord all right so and then this is my favorite part so there's a point in this report that is called so this report mind you the report is called the report is called The Future of Money and Payments. Check this out. Recent innovations and money and payments. Recent years have seen innovations in money, U.S. retail and wholesale payments and cross-border payments. Some of these innovations build additional user functionality on top of existing payment systems.

But two innovations are more fundamental and therefore may have far-reaching implications. Instant payment systems and stable coins. Instant payment systems are an important upgrade to the current payment system. Stable coins aspire to be a new type of money supported by a novel payments technology. However, stable coins present a greater number of risks related to their financial and technological characteristics compared to instant payments and other existing forms of money and payments, making it more difficult to predict the impact of stable coins on the future of money and payments. Guys, this is a report that says the future of money and payments. And here they describe the recent innovations and money and payments.

And there's absolutely no mention of Bitcoin. That is the signal right there. The instant payments, that's PayPal, that's Venmo, that's whatever. They can capture that. Stable coins, they say that's a risk. But remember, we already have that covered. Because if you listen to J Powell himself, according to this CNBC article, he says, you won't need stable coins. You won't need cryptocurrencies if you have our digital asset.

So it looks like they already have it taken care of. But you could tell what they fear, Ben, because guess what? Bitcoin is not mentioned in the report literally called the future of money and payments. That's the signal. Yeah. They really don't want Bitcoin. They also really don't want stable coins because, you know, obviously, sure, there's increase, you're basically stacking another layer of counterparty risk with, with a stable coin.

You've got the base layer currency, which the risk is, it's just going to be inflated. You've got the counterparty that is the bank that may or may not let you access your funds. And then you've got the third party that holds the bank deposit. that represents the token that you're holding. So there's a layer of counterparty risk there. But what you do get is you get the ability, hopefully, in some instances, to be able to transact as you please. And that's kind of the goal of stable coins.

And they don't want that. They want the CBDC that seems to be easy and simple and cheap and instant. But, oh, wait, who are you paying? No, that's not allowed. You can't do that. No, absolutely not. You're now subservient to not only who we deem you're allowed to transact with, but also our monetary policy.

Those are the two things that we want. And we can give you EBI or we can freeze your account or we can take away your money if you don't spend it quick enough and boost the economy. Dude, these people are insane. Did you see the updated thing in? China where they were showing like, expiration date. Expiration dates on you on. It's funny because everybody has been talking about that forever.

Like, oh, they'll add expiration dates to the currency so that they can manipulate the economy and get people to spend their money no matter what. And I thought it would be at least a decade before we saw them go that far. But China's all over that type of totalitarianism. right out at the gate they're like yo we got a digital currency also fucking spend it or else like there's not they're not even like because they have that much control there i think it would be a while before we saw something like that in the states they would need everybody on that system they would need no cash alternative no stable coin alternative and then they would

spring it hey also expiration date go spend like good little consumers If your $100 will expire this Friday. Oh, man. No, but it's, it's, it's, it's absolutely terrifying. But the silver lining in this is that they're, now they're not even hiding it anymore. Now they're telling you exactly how they, how they mean to attack Bitcoin.

They're telling you exactly like, look, it's, it's our way or the highway. Nothing else is good enough. But unfortunately for them, I think incentives are going to end up winning the day. And I'm actually going to go to this part so I can make the case as to why I believe that is, right? This is Argentina. The name of the article is Reuters.

Bitcoin lures inflation-wary Argentines despite crypto crash. And it says, Savers in South American nation are increasingly being drawn to cryptocurrency to offset years of painful inflation, now running near 60%, shrugging off a recent market. They have to, like, you know, sprinkle in the fud. You know, they're running to it because of inflation, but that even, but that's even after a 60% market crash. And that's even after El Salvador's, quote, troubled experiment. B.S.

Anyways, the local environment is pushing people to protect their capital and cryptocurrencies and we see growth speeding up, says Mara Lieberman, one of the founders of the cafe, which is aimed at promoting the use of digital tender. Throughout Latin America, the growth potential is enormous. It goes on to say. April report from America's market intelligence showed that crypto penetration in Argentina was 12%. Around double the level of Mexico and Brazil, adoption and hyperinflation plagued Venezuela's even higher. The draw is a lack of confidence in the local peso currency, which has appreciated 14% this year against the dollar. Capital controls limiting foreign exchange to $200 monthly are also spurring crypto adoption. Annual inflation rose to 58% in April and can go as high as 70% this year at a rate.

which makes crypto attractive and it goes on to to give other examples but here at the bottom is the point that I find hilarious right and this is kind of like I want to sprinkle in this report you know the future of money and payments the central bank has warned repeatedly about the risk of investing in volatile digital currencies and some adopters are taking it carefully mind you this adoption happened if even after the IMF bailed out Argentina for 45 billion dollars and And part of that bailout said that the Argentinian government would be forced to discourage crypto usage, right? All because of financial stability. Here's this UN report that we covered a long time ago, Ben.

And it's hilarious because it says if cryptocurrencies become a widespread means of payment and even replace domestic currencies unofficially, this could jeopardize the monetary sovereignty of countries. In developing countries with unmet demand for reserve currencies, stable coins pose particular risks. For some of these reasons, the International Monetary Fund has expressed the view that cryptocurrencies pose risk as legal tender. While cryptocurrencies can facilitate remittances, they may also enable tax evasion and avoid it through illicit flows just as if to a tax haven where ownership is not easily identifiable. In this way, cryptocurrencies may also curve the effectiveness of capital controls. So, dude, Argentina, $200 capital capital. Controls bet $200 right $200 what did you expect people to do but not try to find an alternative and this is why even after the White House report even after all three or four there was five of them at the end of the day

incentives are stronger than coercion and whatever CBDC sheik coin they're going to give to us they will it will never be able to match bitcoin's incentives Look at what's happening in Lebanon, bro. They're freezing people out of their accounts. In Argentina, $200 U.S. limit. Why would people not look for an alternative? But it's just hilarious to me, Ben, that the entire time, they're saying, financial stability, money laundering, terrorism. They never mention inflation or debasement in the UN.

in the Reuters article and in the White House report. And that's the signal. Yeah. It's it's it's don't look behind the curtain. Don't don't don't pay attention to what's going on over here. Keep looking at the message that we're pumping out. And again, like it just it the, it's the perfect example, Argentina, where the IMF has thoroughly sunk its claws into,

got to hold the government. There's there's insane inflation going on. The IMF is saying that, you know, continuing to give them predatory loans and, and the conditions of those loans saying you have to discourage and prevent any major institutions from dealing with Bitcoin or, you know, make sure that you're telling your public not to use it. And that's, they've got the like insane adoption comparatively. And it and it gives me hope for that. And I don't want shit to hit the fan at home. but it gives me hope for the fact that when it does, people will just move. They'll just, they'll move to something that works.

And that's Bitcoin. 100%. 100%. So, Ben, check this out. Some very, very, very bullish news. Micro Strategy buys 301 more Bitcoin now holds almost 130K. Absolutely crazy. Micro Strategy bought 301 Bitcoins between August 2nd and,

September 19th for for about six million dollars micro strategies well-known bitcoin hauler putting the cryptocurrency in its reserves it now has almost a hundred thirty thousand Bitcoin Ben I think I think a sailor has gone full Dgen my friend I think so did you see his tweet did you see his tweet earlier everybody always says one Bitcoin equals one Bitcoin he put 130k Bitcoin equals 130k Bitcoin Yeah. But isn't it interesting, Ben, because he's going through the same type of psychology that we all went through. Like you got into Bitcoin.

If you didn't get very lucky and when you got in, that first run up and then the eventual bear market absolutely wrecked you. Completely wrecked you, right? Yeah. It's just funny watching him go through the same process. He just gets a lot more coverage because the guy has billions of dollars. to spend. Yeah. It's, I feel like his timing, you know, different cycle and he also had millions of dollars, but, but his timing was very similar to mine because I kind of came in post bull run, like in the midst of kind of another, like he was, he's lucky because he like really had only

upside for the first little bit. And that, that definitely helped his early position. Um, whereas I, you know, I had a good. of 2014 all downside. But he didn't come in right in the midst of a bull. Like he, he was like in the beginning recovery phases of the bear market. That's about it. Yeah, man.

Oh, and no, and Naimbukele too. They both got smacked, man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Nobody, nobody, nobody gets their tuition for free. Yeah. Everybody's going to go through those cycles. They're all going to see it.

And I mean, this is no different. It's great to see, though, because then you get to see who actually sticks around, right? Who has the lettuce hands and who actually gets it and understands that this is a unique opportunity, as it will always be. Dude, and they're going to look like absolute studs and geniuses next bull market around. I think it's inevitable other countries follow. Yeah. Oh, imagine, imagine the result of sailor sticking to his guns through this entire bear market, continuing to stack sats,

and then the next bull run. Imagine the valuation of Microsoft. It's going to be, every company is going to be like, fuck, we probably should have done that last time around. But now you'll have an actual precedent because he's been all over the news. people have followed them the entire time. They watched the drop in Bitcoin. He got coverage the entire time.

And he basically has gone around the entire time being like, I don't care. I'm buying more. I'm buying more. And it continues to be all over the news. And people are like, what an idiot. And all of a sudden, you know, give him a couple years. And everybody's going to be like, oh, wow, wow. He was actually entirely right, even as everybody in the media.

And it's nice because now we have, there's like a face put to it of conviction through a bear market. It's the first time that there's been like a decisive face that didn't disappear through an entire bear market that was on mainstream media nonstop. Yep. The guy's a freaking, bro, he's a rock star right now. He's a rock star. He's paying his due. So is Naim Bukele. Bro, next full market, Ben.

These guys. I just see. It's just, it becomes undeniable at that point. No matter how much propaganda spin, the legacy media tries to do. NGU speaks for itself. Yeah. And imagine again, El Salvador next, next bull run. Imagine the, the explosion and wealth of that country, the changes that will be able to be made.

And everybody that was kind of mulling it over and dragged their, dragged their feet, these past few years and the next couple years will go, I can't believe we wasted four years of not following suit. Yep. Man. I'm very excited. Speaking, Ben, the next bull, we were talking about this. We've been in this for quite a bit of time.

I mentioned this last time, but it just keeps happening. The necessary infrastructure, the necessary infrastructure is now, place for if the institutions want to go full D-Gen, it's already in place. Now, another piece of signal, they're setting this up at the depths of the bear market. At the depths of a bare market, NASDAQ launches institution Bitcoin crypto custody service. Right. And just to kind of give you guys, here's a little bit, says the move would mark a new chapter for the company that has so far chosen not to compete in a market currently dominated by the likes of coinbase bitco and gemini instead the exchanges service these institutions with offering such as its trading and market surveillance

technologies but just to give you guys a quick reminder right it wasn't only nasdaq it was fidelity charles schwab and citadel securities to launch the same and we we went over this last week fidelity has four point five trillion dollars charles schwab has eight point one trillion dollars assets under management and it was Black Rock not too long ago on August 4th they also signaled that they're going to say hey we're we're also going to offer Bitcoin to our institutional clients now check this out they said they team up with Coinbase I wonder why Nasdaq is getting in the game right they said it themselves right they didn't want to the market was currently dominated by Coinbase but it looks like obviously Nasdaq doesn't want to get left behind now

what's the point of me saying all this? You have $10 trillion under asset under management by BlackRock. You have 8.1 by Charles Schwab. You have another 4.5 by Fidelity. Now you have NASDAX. In 2017, we would always say, when are the institutions coming? They're here. It's here. They're already here. They're already all here. Now, just a small percentage, one or two or three percent of those trillions of dollars under management, That is an enormous amount of money. That is a huge amount of money.

Now, here's the other side, though. This might be positive for the price, but for the revolution, it scares me, Ben, because re-hypothecation. The revolution is people taking self-custody at the end of the day. And it scares me that perhaps there's a lot of rich people buying a ton of Bitcoin through Black Rock, but it's Black Rock that's holding the keys. Yeah. Yeah.

it's yeah if if there are even keys to be held right because like if there's one key for for one bitcoin but 10 people own it then what do you really own it's it's the gold market all over again so you know i think i think what's important is right now it would be great to be chatting with people like Sailor and some of the early like big fish that have been buying Bitcoin and ensure and encourage self-custody because if the early ones begin to set that precedent and I don't know where Sailor is at with custody because I know prior he was not self-custodying. I hope to God that he's doing that now or will be doing that soon because things could get bad and things could get dicey.

And if somebody like Sailor were to move on that and say, no, you should self-custody and this is how you can do it, all of a sudden, a percentage of the people coming in that would have used those institutional products are now deciding, maybe, maybe not. Maybe we'll go with her own. Yeah, 100%. And let's see, let's see. And it wasn't also Sailor. Ben, if I remember correctly, it was also, it was also Naim Bukele.

Yes. Yeah. Naimbukele was, could you imagine? And I think he was actually buying Bitcoin and holding it with an American company. Yeah. Which is the worst thing that you could do. Like the precedent is set that the U.S. has no problem freezing like Russia's money. What happens when they name Bitcoin as a threat to monetary sovereignty,

which they're basically saying already. And all of a sudden they name, uh, they name, El Salvador as some sort of a pariah state that needs to be stopped. And oh, we're going to freeze their their Bitcoin account now, uh, just to ensure like it's all the,

the relationship between the US and El Salvador is already pretty much soured. Um, because they, they, the US can't, can't export. it's inflation as much. Well, I mean, what happens when shit hits the fan? You lose all your Bitcoin.

It's terrible. Exactly. And that's why it's so important for companies like micro strategy, countries like El Salvador, to take self-custody. But I remember seeing a tweet by Samsung Mao that that was already taking care of. And Jack Dorsey actually released an open source guide showing companies how to take self-custody if they want to as well. So I think more people need to watch BTC Sessions tutorials on how to learn how to take self-custody.

You know what? I'm going to do. I'm going to write this down right after this is I'm going to make a tutorial on how to do multisig and I'm going to do it specifically for Buckelly. I'm going to be like, all right, all right, Bikali. Here's how it's going to go. This is how you're going to set up your multi-sig. Dude, I'm really looking forward to that video.

Nation state self-custody tutorial BTC sessions. That would be great. Ben, do we have time for one more? We do. We do. We'll do a quick one. All right. So there's a little bit of noise.

It's noise in its signal. Coin corner partners would seed group to facilitate Bitcoin transactions in the U.E. U.E is where Dubai is. It's United Arab Emirates. And Bahrain. Bahrain approves Bitcoin crypto payments for over 5,000 merchants. Now, I said it's a little bit of signal. I mean, a little bit of noise because you see that on the surface and you're like, okay,

I think the positive part is Ben, though, is that you're having more countries saying that potentially Bitcoin can function as a means of payment, which is very positive. But the news from Argentina makes me a lot happier. The news from Argentina, that is the revolution. What you're seeing in Argentina is the grassroots, the bottom up, people adopting Bitcoin out of necessity. I feel like this is a little bit of top down. Let's add Bitcoin as a payment method. But it feels a little bit forced versus Argentina.

just like, you know, screw the IMF. I got to pay my family. What are your thoughts, bro? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the top down stuff. I mean, it's nice to see orange-pilled heads of state, but like the real revolutionist with the people because heads of state come and go.

And eventually you're going to get a head of state that realizes, hey, if I don't have control of the money, I don't have control of the populace. And they'll enact crappy regulations that make it so that they do have control of the money. So when you have a populace that is armed with knowledge that helps them be self-sovereign in their money, then that is where you actually see the power of what Bitcoin can do. Yeah. 100 percent. Well, positive news, good news. I liked it. Yeah. It was a, this is a good rip, man. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for coming and filling everybody in.

Yeah, I feel like this was a pretty positive one. There was some crabby reports, but in the end, you know, the writing's on the wall of the direction it's going to go. It's just how bumpy that ride is going to be. Absolutely. Can't stop the Honey Badger. We'll win this. Take self-custody. And this was your Simply Sessions.

Thanks, man. I'll see you soon. Take it easy. Everybody. I hope you enjoyed that. We always love having Nigo here. So good. Go subscribe to Simply Bitcoin. They do news six days a week. The signals high. I got Optimus coming on the show pretty soon here in a couple of weeks here as well.

So we'll be seeing some more of Simply on here. A couple last things before we get going here. I just wanted to let you guys know what's been going on for me. Hey, speaking of tutorials and everything, there's been kind of like a big overhaul on Umbrell in the past couple of months. I did an Umbrell tutorial on setting up a node like over a year ago, I think two years ago now maybe. God, I don't even know. Anyways, the interface has totally changed. And since then, I've been getting a lot of questions. Well, how do I connect wallets?

I can't find where that is or my on-chain wallet doesn't appear to be there. Where is that? So what I've done is I've gone through. I've done an entire tutorial just from the starting point of, all right, my node is running. What do I do? So that's where this tutorial is going to go. It's going to take you through the basics of connecting on-chain wallets, the basics of using just your regular lightning nodes, some, you know, how to set up channels, how to connect

a remote wallet when it comes to lightning. It also goes through just basics of how to set up applications, how to download them, how to use them, passwords, all that. I also teach you how to set up tail scale so that you can access your node on the fly from anywhere without even having to use the Tor browser. It's super convenient, super easy. That should be dropping on Saturday morning. So keep your eyes peeled. Hit that little bell notification on the channel if you want to get notified for that. A couple of things I've been up to.

I'm super interested in learning Linux. I haven't played around with Linux too much, just like dabbled here and there. So I grabbed myself a think pad recently for like 300 bucks, super cheap. It was like an I-5. And yeah, I loaded it up with Pop OS, which is like it's built,

it's based on Ubuntu. And so I loaded that up. I use the command line to download Bitcoin core and sync it up. And I am starting to go through, you know, I'm learning a little bit about PGP or GPG. So being able to verify signatures, stuff like that, doing that through the command line. So super interested in stuff about that. These are like the rabbit holes that Bitcoin sends me down. And then now I'm kind of going through this stop and decrypt article back from February 2021.

but how to set up LND on that machine using the terminal, which is, there's some hurdles because I think the terminal in Pop OS is a little bit different from just like regular Ubuntu. And yeah, but I'm learning. I am learning and I'm excited about it. So anyways,

that's what I'm playing with right now. A couple of weeks coming up, I just bought my flight to Charlotte. I'm going to be in Charlotte, North Carolina on October 21st and 22nd for Haudlewine put on by Bitcoin Charlotte. I'm super stoked for it. There's going to be a pumpkin carving contest. The Beef Initiative is doing a dinner there.

There's a Halloween party and there's a day of talks and workshops and everything like that. And also on the Friday, the 21st, I'm running a four-hour cold card deep dive. This is the same one that I did in Vancouver, now coming to Charlotte. And you can grab tickets now. You can find these. I did tweet it out earlier, the link to the BTC pay, but there's only 15 spots available. So if you're in Charlotte for Hot-Lean or in the Charlotte area around October 21st, then be sure to grab a ticket ASAP. Again, only 15 spots.

We're going to go through everything, the basics of how to set it up and then deep dive into some of the more advanced features. If you're a little timid on your cold card, this is for you. I'm also headed to LA. We were talking about Sailor. Sailor's going to be there too for Pacific Bitcoin. That is November 10th and 11th. I'm going to be there as well. So I'm going to be helping with a bunch of the Swan Dome stuff.

And maybe I'll do a live show there. Yeah, I'm going to be doing a whole bunch of stuff down there. Very excited. If you're looking for tickets for that, PacificBitcoin.com and you can use code sessions. And I think you get like 50 bucks off the general admission and like, 200 bucks off the the whatever like the high end tickets are anyways you can get deals there and guess what i'm doing a workshop there too it is the day after the afternoon on the saturday so the 12th i'm going to be doing my cold card workshop there so if you're going to be in l.a for

pacific bitcoin again only 15 spots available for that so uh you can uh check that out i did tweet it out earlier as well. But you can find that on my website, BTCsessions.ca slash events. They're both listed there. So yeah, I hope to see you guys there. I'm super stoked to be doing more workshops, hitting these events.

And finally, tomorrow. We got a killer panel. I'm super stoked. Foss, the legend. Foss man is coming back. Greg Foss. We've got Rob Simone from Hedgeye. He's going to be on. He had me on this show,

talking Bitcoin recently. He's the resident Bitcoin maximalist at Hedge Eye, just so you know. And then we've got Joe Hall over at Coin Telegraph. He's a great writer. And also, I got to meet him for the first time when I was in France for surfing Bitcoin. Awesome, dude. Super stoked to have them all. That is going to be tomorrow at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Do not miss it. And with that, I got to get going. I got family stuff to attend to. So thank you guys so much for watching. As always, please do. Like, subscribe, share, all those things,

help get this content in front of more eyeballs. You can also hit up the previously mentioned sponsors in the show notes. Coin kite, shake pay, lead, and bit refill, Bill Fottle, they're all down here. And if you really liked what you saw, you can always drop me a Bitcoin tip at my strike page, strike.me slash BTC sessions. Get there. Type in any amount you want.

Hit the tip button. You will see a lightning invoice. or if you prefer tap to the right, you'll see a regular Bitcoin QR code. With that, I'm out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening. See you guys tomorrow for your daily session.