BTC Sessions - Raoul Pal: $1M Bitcoin, Bittr Closes Purse Lives On, Argentina BTC Surge EP049

Starting point is 00:00:08 Wasabi wallet and fairly private. What's up everyone? I'm Ben with the BTC Sessions and this is your daily session. Before we dive in, of course, shout out to sponsors of the show, leaden.io. This is where you can use your Bitcoin for a few different services. They've got savings accounts where you can earn interest on your Bitcoin. They've got Bitcoin backed loans. This is the first service I ever used to theirs and it's where you use your Bitcoin as collateral to you get a Canadian or US dollar loan. So in my case, I was in a pinch. I needed dollars. Didn't want to sell my Bitcoin, so I was able to park it in a dedicated address that I could audit 24-7. And when I paid back my loan, I got back the exact same Bitcoin. And then finally,

Starting point is 00:01:03 they've got their B2X offering. And this is where you use the same loan mechanism to instantly buy more Bitcoin, effectively doubling your Bitcoin on the spot. If you want to check out any of those, there's a link in the show notes down below. And if you opt to use that link to get a Bitcoin back loan, they'll actually get it. give you 50 bucks with a Bitcoin for free. Secondly, we have Coinberry. This has been my go-to spot to stack more sets as of late. It's super easy to use. They've got a great web interface. They've got an awesome app that you can buy on the go or sell if you choose to. I'm more of a stacker myself. But a few things I really like about Coinberry. Number one is how fast I can fund

Starting point is 00:01:43 my account with e-transfer. Super convenient. Keep in mind, that's Canadian. But also they have dollar cost averaging features. One is called autopilot. And the way it works is you can set the interval and the amount that you like to buy on a regular basis so that you can take the emotion out of buying your Bitcoin. They've got a killer, killer deal when you sign up after your first $50 purchase using the link down below. You'll get 20 bucks for free. So pretty solid there.

Starting point is 00:02:12 Be sure to check that out if you're in Canada. And with that, let's dive into the news. I love the title of this article here from Coin Telegraph. And the title is, Boomers Are Ficked, New Macro Report Forecasts $1 million Bitcoin by 2025. And so what this is, it's kind of encapsulates the thoughts of Rao Paul, who's a financial analyst. And he's been trumpeting Bitcoin for quite some time now.

Starting point is 00:02:45 and he really sees potential for this to be a new paradigm shift with the global macro environment. So I'm going to read a little bit about what he had to say here. So according to CEO Raup Paul, who authored the report on global macro investor, he was painting a dismal future for the financial market. he said that this has fueled the fire of systemic weakness across global markets. Quote, the damage this does to the U.S. pension system is incomprehensible. The baby boomers will sell every rally they can to protect their last rapidly diminishing nest egg. He summarized on the market losses from March.

Starting point is 00:03:32 Baby boomers are totally fucked. I have been publicly warning about this. Since the point of the report's publication, a curious phenomenon of stocks recovery combined with record unemployment has grown more and more visible. Bitcoin proponents have argued that this represents the intrinsic unfairness of the current fiat economic model. Big business turns numbers while employees and small businesses are left with nothing. RT host Max Kaiser has termed this neo-feudalism. So for Paul, Bitcoin represents a striking act.

Starting point is 00:04:10 exit opportunity from the rapid deteriorating status quo, whereas gold could go up five times in the next five years, Bitcoin has much more potential. And again, a quote from Raul, he says, Bitcoin, well, that's a different story. I think this can go get to one million in the same period. I think it can go from a $200 billion asset class to a $10 trillion asset class. It's not just a currency or even a store of value. It is an entire trusted, verified, secure, financial, and accounting system of value that can never be created outside of the cryptographic algorithm. It is nothing short of the future of an entire medium of exchange system and of money itself and the platform on which it operates. So he paints a pretty bright future for Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:05:01 Again, we'll see in the coming years how that plays out. but with the halving just around the corner, I think around 17 or 18 days away in the first couple weeks of May, that could be a catalyst for this next couple years to see some of those wild swings. And again, we'll see another halving coming up in 2024, which will further drive down the stock to flow when it comes to the issuance of new coins. And in a world where we just have Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world turning on the spigots, running up those money printers, and creating unprecedented amounts of new currency. Bitcoin stands in stark contrast to that and we'll see how that whole ideology holds up. I'm thinking well, but who

Starting point is 00:05:57 knows? Let's move on. This is a bit of sad news. So bitter, bitter is a bit of. a Bitcoin only on ramp in Europe. It's based in the Netherlands and it is shutting down because of new regulations. So the regulations are the AMLD5 and so what this does is it's an anti-money laundering regulation. And they were prepared to try and deal with this and implement the necessary KYC AML. By the way, know your customer anti-money laundering. That's what those abbreviations are for. They were prepared to implement those, even though it would be incredibly inconvenient to have to provide full KYC just to buy something like 25 years of Bitcoin. But they were prepared to do it until the Netherlands implemented insane additional restrictions about having just above and beyond

Starting point is 00:07:08 kinds of reporting and everything. And Bitter is more or less a one-man team, and he would have had to grow his operation exponentially, very, very quickly with no income to support it. And unfortunately, that's just not possible. he was going to look, he was going to look into potentially growing slowly and utilizing the time that he had. He thought it was going to be a six-month window. But unfortunately, that's not the case. So I'll just read a little bit from this press release here.

Starting point is 00:07:41 He says, I was aware of these upcoming changes in November 2019 and have been exploring multiple options, what I should do with bidder. I was also under the impression that as soon as the law would become effective, existing market projections. would have six months to complete their registration. How wrong I was. It turns out that the transitioning period only applies to those companies who have submitted a complete registration request before the new regulations officially start, probably within five to ten working days. And the DNB, which is their national bank, is the one who has six months to then evaluate my

Starting point is 00:08:19 registration. Additionally, as soon as the regulations are live, bidder would have to do a, you know, a a full KYC procedure on every existing new customer. It just wasn't feasible for him. The fees involved tens of thousands of euros right off the bat on top of hiring lawyers at, you know, $315 euros an hour to maybe obtain a license, which still probably would not be possible. So more or less, they're shutting down.

Starting point is 00:08:49 It's just not happening anymore. Now, what I did like about what he had to say here is he, pointed people towards some excellent alternatives. And we may see this in the face of kind of draconian measures and overbearing measures like this. We may see this more and more. And what he did was actually point people towards more decentralized alternatives. So he said, of course, I still want each and every one of you to stack sats, although it would probably not be as hassle-free as bitter is.

Starting point is 00:09:21 If you can, do not use KYC exchanges. Take a look at Hoddle, Hoddle, and BISC, which are decentralized exchanges peer-to-peer. If you must use KYC, do not use Coinbase. Kudos on that. And look for Bitcoin-only alternatives in your country. In the Netherlands, I gladly recommend Bitonic. Nice guys, great company, very involved in the Dutch Bitcoin community, and most importantly, no shit coins.

Starting point is 00:09:51 kudos to the owner of, or previous owner, I guess, of bitter. Anyways, sad to see, sad to see this go. These guys started in April of 2018, so it's only been a couple of years, but they did provide a great service to people in the Netherlands and around Europe. So, sorry to see that. Now, on the flip side of things, we talked the other day about purse.io shutting down, and purse was a way that, You could match people who wanted Bitcoin with people who wanted discounts on Amazon.

Starting point is 00:10:26 And the way it worked is you would make a wish list and you would post it to purse.io. And somebody who wanted Bitcoin would go and buy your order and you could set a discount. So basically it was usually somebody who couldn't easily get Bitcoin where they're from and they would buy that order and know that they're going to take a little bit of a hit, sometimes five, ten, sometimes much more when it comes to percent. percentage-wise, and you would give them Bitcoin in exchange as soon as your order arrived. They, unfortunately, said they were going to shut down, but the response to this was so large that it looks like they may be continuing on. They had, quote, an incredible outpouring of support from the community, and it looks like several parties, including well-known Bitcoin advocates, high-volume users, and established

Starting point is 00:11:18 cryptocurrency companies reached out with interest in acquiring. purse.io. So right now they're kind of vetting potential new owners. Now, I have some hopes for this. I hope that it's an actual hardcore bitcoiner who will do stuff like making sure that they batch transactions, making sure that they have dedicated native Segwit addresses back 32. Those ones start with BC1 addresses. And that cuts down on blockchain bloat and it cuts down on fees for users. and then implementing things like Lightning Network and potentially even liquid, things where users can get in and out, still be using Bitcoin and not have to worry about fees when there is a fee crunch.

Starting point is 00:12:04 My worry is that perhaps Roger Verre might acquire them, in which case he would probably be pumping Bitcoin cash as an alternative, which I don't think would go particularly well for Perce in that, I don't think there would be enough Bitcoin cash users to full-on support this type of a project, but who knows, maybe I could be wrong there. Anyways, we'll see. We'll see what happens. It looks like they've got multiple offers.

Starting point is 00:12:35 So hopefully a good Bitcoiner picks this up. Moving on, I wanted to touch on this. Bitcoin Backs Securitize launches compliance tool for peer-to-peer transactions. So what this is is a... a digital securities platform backed by major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. And so they're creating tools so that you can have peer-to-peer digital securities transacted, again, as I said, peer-to-peer, in a compliant way. But when you really look at this, all they're doing is they're just centralizing control

Starting point is 00:13:17 over allowing people to do things. So it's, you know, everything is registered. So I'll just, I'll just read this quote here. Once an issuer decides to enable the instant access feature, any potential buyer who has KYC AML approval from and is registered with the issuer can purchase the digital security from the holder if the holder has shared the transaction link with them. Only transactions that meet these KYC AML requirements and adhere to any applicable transfer restrictions imposed by the issuer via the DS protocol will be permitted. So basically, if you're issuing a digital security, you have to register and set restrictions on how and when you can transact with your digital securities and anybody utilizing the digital securities and trading it and why.

Starting point is 00:14:13 wanting to obtain it also has to register with KYC AML, and they're still restricted in how and when they can transact those digital securities. So my question is, how is this peer to peer? How is this actually anything better than what we have? Maybe because it slightly cuts down on trading fees, on something like a TD Ameritrade or whatever, where it's less of a middleman, a cut, but more or less, it gets rid of most of the benefits of having a digital representation of an asset. I don't know. I just, I don't understand why this is any better than the system that we have other

Starting point is 00:15:03 than potentially a little lower on the fees. But it just kind of sounds like a whole lot of bullshit and hype just to, I don't know, to ramp up interest. I don't really know what the endgame here is. Although maybe it's just a Trojan horse, maybe these regulations and restrictions can be subverted in the future. I don't know.

Starting point is 00:15:30 Perhaps it's a step towards that, but really, realistically, these digital securities, if they're going to have to go through a centralized issuing authority and be tracked by a specific web portal, otherwise you can't transact with them. How is that any better? Let's move on. Demand for Bitcoin surges in Argentina as default looms. So, volume in Bitcoin in Argentina has risen exponentially since the 2018 cryptocurrency crash as the country faces a possible

Starting point is 00:16:05 default on $65 billion in foreign debt. So Arcane Research posted data to Twitter on April 23rd, showing that weekly volume of Bitcoin purchased in Argentine pesos has jumped over a thousand percent since January of 2018. However, the volume for Bitcoin and USD has also shown substantial increases of 407 percent and 139 percent respectively. Now, one thing to note here, so you can see the chart here clearly. It's basically a hockey stick or starting to become a hockey stick chart is swinging upwards quite drastically over the past two years. Now, the important thing to note here is that the inflation rate in Argentina is also doing the same thing. We see kind of low or high single digit and low double digit inflation rate

Starting point is 00:17:06 for the past, well, since around 2004, up until around 2013. And then it just starts to go exponential. And you see inflation rates of 25, 34, 53 percent in 2019. And obviously we're only part way into 2020. So we don't have those numbers yet. But that does account, keep in mind we're only looking at 2018 to 2020. That does account for at least a portion of this hockey stick graph looking at buying of Bitcoin. Although not all of it, maybe about a fifth of it.

Starting point is 00:17:40 So there is definitely higher volumes and interest when it comes to local Bitcoin's volume, but not all of that can be attributed solely to new buyers. It can also be attributed to the devaluation of the local currency. And one last thing I wanted to touch on here, Knut's fan home, hopefully I didn't butcher his name. Awesome guy. I got to meet him in Riga. Last fall for the Hodel Hodel Conference, for the Baltic Honeybatcher Conference, rather,

Starting point is 00:18:19 with Haudill-Hoddle sponsoring it. Anyways, he wrote a book called Bitcoin Sovereignty Through Mathematics, and he just released the follow-up to that, and it is Bitcoin Independence Reimagined. It did briefly get rejected from the Amazon online store for, purchase, literally because all he said was written months before the, written just a few months before the coronavirus panic or something like that. These, these concepts are more important than ever. That was the only thing and they just flag it and they're like, no, you're not allowed to say that. So anyways, you had to adjust that in order to get it listed in the store. It is now up. You can find it on

Starting point is 00:19:07 Amazon wherever you are. I ordered it the other day. I'm looking forward to reading it. But congrats on the new book, Knut. Really happy to see that launched. With that, I'm going to wrap up. Thank you very much, you guys. If you are on YouTube, please do hit like, subscribe, and share. Now, if you are on YouTube, please also do check out any of the other platforms that I am on. I would love you to subscribe to at least one of them. You can find me on Facebook, Twitch, D-Live Library. I live streamed this to Twitter. I'm also audio only on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

Starting point is 00:19:47 most other podcast platforms, you can find me on any of those. Please do try and find me on one other platform because YouTube, I can't necessarily rely on them. So I'm trying to push people to other platforms to ensure I don't lose my audience. If you want to help with the show in another way, you can hit up any of the sponsors I mentioned down below. that was leaden and coinberry. They both got deals for you,

Starting point is 00:20:10 as well as wasabi wallet to help with your Bitcoin privacy. And if you really loved what you saw, you can always drop me a lightning network tip at my tippin.me page. That is tippin.combe slash at VTC sessions. And with that, I am out. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Starting point is 00:20:27 And I will see you after the weekend for your daily session.

BTC Sessions - Raoul Pal: $1M Bitcoin, Bittr Closes Purse Lives On, Argentina BTC Surge EP049

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