BTC Sessions - SAMOURAI SAGA: FOUNDER’S BAIL ep412

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

On this episode of "Simply Sessions" for April 25, 2024, we cover Russia's Bitcoin ban, the Tornado Cash case, Samourai Co-Founder's bail, new Hong Kong ETF, and the IMF's endorsement of Bitcoin for cross-border payments. Plus, insights on global Bitcoin legislation and green mining initiatives. ___ BOOK private one-on-one sessions with BITCOIN MENTOR! Learn self custody, hardware, multisig, lightning, privacy, running a node, and plenty more - all from a team of top notch educators that I've personally vetted. https://bitcoinmentor.io/ 💪 SUPPORT THE SHOW: BITCOIN WELL is the quickest and easiest way to get Bitcoin directly into self custody. They also offer non-KYC sells and bill payments. Transparent 1% spread, no additional fees and no withdrawal fees. Check them out today! https://bitcoinwell.com/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 NUNCHUK WALLET and their Honey Badger plan is a best in class assisted mutisig setup with built-in inheritance planning and NO KYC. Check them out today! https://nunchuk.io/ SEEDOR is one of the most robust metal backups on the market today. Get your SEEDOR starter set today! Use this link for 5% off. https://www.seedor.io/discount/BTCSESSIONS?redirect=%2Fcollections%2Fprodukte For US based customers: https://www.seedor.io/btcsessions Canadian customers: https://link.thecryptoboutique.ca/BTCSessionsSeedor HODLHODL is a NON-CUSTODIAL, ANONYMOUS solution to stack sats peer to peer! Buy and sell Bitcoin while maintaining privacy. Sign up and try it out today! https://hodlhodl.com/join/BTCSESSION DEBIFI is a non-custodial Bitcoin backed lending platform with institutional grade liquidity providers and no rehypothecation of your funds. Find them at: https://debifi.com/

Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the show. Another Wednesday. We're doing it a day early this week, but we are here for Simply Sessions, Nikos in the Wings, ready to give you the latest and greatest in the Bitcoin ecosystem. I'm going to be following up with all the tech updates. And yeah, it's going to be a good one. I hope you guys are having a good week. I'm here early. I'm doing everything early this week. So news today. Why are we? We bullish tomorrow. Why? I'm going to Vegas with the Wi-Fi and we're going to go see some music and do a couple shows this weekend. So we fly out Friday morning. So I just gave everything a little shift. But it should be a good time.

Of course, this is live. Anything can happen. So I defer to my friend Bill here. We'll do it live. Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live. The thing sucks. If you have not already, please do.

like, subscribe, share all this things. Super important getting this content in front of more eyeballs. I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your simply session. All right, before we bring in Nika, let's take a look at where we are in the market today. And guys, can I just say it's a special day? There's the return of, dare I say it,

58K gang is back. They're back. And look at that palindrome action. we're getting 58085 wild. Good times. 58K gang has been waiting in the wings, ready for this day, and there will be plenty more of these days to come

for the rest of humankind. So prepare yourself, 58K gang forever. But yes, we are sitting just north of the 58,000 U.S. dollars. I hope you're stacking those stats while they're on the cheap. In fact, a single U.S. dollar will snag you, 1,722 sats. Sounds pretty good to me. Don't mind if I do.

In terms of on-chain fees, also looking attractive, 32 sats per byte next block, anytime 10 sats per byte. And in terms of Bitcoin mined, 19.69 million of them, that is 93.78% of the total supply. Shout out to everybody in the chat, by the way. Good to see everybody popping in. Mike, Nathan, CryptWork. Jay, Pablo. for being here and keep those messages coming. Everything you say in the chat from here on in is live for the world to see for better or worse.

And before we bring in, Nico, we're just going to do a quick shout out to sponsors of the show. So let's see them right here. On a mission to enable independence by being one of the easiest and quickest ways to purchase Bitcoin in Canada and the U.S. The best part about it, every buy goes directly into your own self-custody. They never hold your coins. You can add a Bitcoin address as part of onboard. There's a transparent 1% spread, no hidden fees, no withdrawal fees, plus they have KYC free sells and bill payments on their website.

They're also a publicly traded company under the ticker BTCW on the TSXV. Check them out over at Bitcoinwell.com. Check out my full tutorial on how to use them. And you can check out the links in the show notes down below and sign up today. Kai.com has some of the best hardware on the market today to secure your Bitcoin. Cold card Q is an absolute powerhouse and is my daily driver. And on top of this, they have plenty of other goodies, including the Mark 4, the tap signer, open dimes, the block clock, and much more.

If you head over to their website, make sure you use code BTC sessions at checkout to get a nice discount. Links are in the show notes down below. All right, we are back. And before, before I get Nico on the screen, let me just say, Bitcoinwell.com slash BTC sessions. Bitcoinworld.com slash simply. Oh, God. I was killing me when Opti was on a few weeks ago,

and why are we bullish? And then I took him off the screen. And so I could. Oh, damn it. Damn it. You brought it up. You brought it up. But no, just Bitcoin Well.

It's amazing. Amazing self-custody by default platform. Definitely check it out. Dude, have you been watching there? So Adam has paris. up with Julian and Isabella. Yeah, get based. Get based. Such a good channel. I thoroughly enjoy it. Obviously, they chat about Bitcoin and stuff, but it's also just like a good overview of like Fiat Clown World and I love what they're doing

there. Dude, it's, it's amazing the short that Julian and Isabela did was phenomenal, where like Gillian was on screen and then he just Isola just pushed him off and it was like her talking. Yeah, amazing content. Amazing group of content creators.

And I'm excited because we're all going to be on stage in between two tips in the Canadian Bitcoin conference. That's coming up quick, man. That's like what, a couple weeks out here. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm excited. I'm excited, dude. Maybe I'll finally get my maple syrup. I think so. Yeah. You've never been to Montreal yet, have you? I've been.

as a teenager. Yeah. Oh, so it's been, it's been a minute. But I am, I am familiar. A lot of, it's like they force feed you French.

There is a tad of that. Let's so nowadays you can get by pretty easily. But in days of old, they would definitely not be super keen on the English. But hey. Anyways, dude, we got so much to talk about such stuff going on in,

in Bitcoin space. And I just broke it down to like kind of simplify the basically the stage that we're in. There's two things that are happening. We've been iterating on this theme for quite a while. We're definitely in the then they fight you stage. There's two things that are happening simultaneously. The disintermediation of information. Mass-scale peer-to-peer communications circumventing information gatekeepers.

And number two, the disintermediation of money. global peer-to-peer money circumventing intermediaries and capital controls. Government was not ready for the internet, and I think that's really what is responsible for a lot of the chaos that we are currently going through. So first, I really want to start with the largest and most popular broadcasters on the face of the planet talking about this. They're talking about the fact that legacy media is dying, that independent content is the future that, you know, it's, it's, we are,

and this is what people have to understand, you have to empower yourself. You are the media now and on, you are, if you have a Twitter account, you have a Noster, I don't even, it's a Noster account, a Noster profile? What is it? I don't even know.

We'll just go an NPUB. If you're an NPUpper. If you're an NPUBer, you know, you have the ability to grow up, platform, leverage that platform, and speak the truth, right? Speak, you know, get your voice out there, right? And these are really exciting times. This was never possible before the internet. So check out this clip from the Joe Rogan interview with Tucker Carlson. It's interesting is that there are people saying that now. And I think

that's a relatively new thing in terms of mainstream media. It's, and I consider what you do on X mainstream media. I mean, this is what we're on right now is essentially mainstream media. It used to be, you could call it, there's corporate controlled media. I agree. And that used to be mainstream media. Mainstream media used to be CNN. It's not really anymore. Mainstream media is what, in terms of the volume consumed, more people are consuming things on Twitter, on X than there are on anything else. They're consuming information through the internet, through YouTube. For good or for bad, whether it's correct or incorrect. They're consuming information in in different forms now than ever before. So more people are saying what you're saying than have ever said it before. And when people lie and when people bullshit and gaslight, it's more offensive now than it's ever been before because there's so much access to truth that it's just you can see it now. If you're paying attention, if you're not a boomer who only reads the newspaper, you pay attention and you see it. You go, this is whole. horse shit. But it's, it's like, I guess what bothers me is that the lies aren't sophisticated.

No. I mean, I look back over my now sort of long life and I'm recognizing all the times that I was lied to, but, you know, I didn't know I was being lied to. They kind of pulled it off. There's something incredibly insulting and demeaning to tell me a lie when I know it's a lie. And you know I know it's a lie. We both know it's a lie, but you're demanding that I pretend to believe it. Right. What you're really saying is, I have no respect for you. You're like my dog. Right.

You're a slave. Like, I'm demanding that you participate in my lie. So, I mean, dude, like, I don't even, like, need to comment on this. Like, it's like, we've seen this. Like, we've seen this, whether it's, like, the press conferences coming out of the government, the gaslighting about the inflation, the disintermediate, the, sorry, the disintermediate. the, sorry, the disinformation rhetoric, you know, the gaslighting on money. It's a really fascinating phenomenon, Ben.

And honestly, like, in a way, I feel very privileged. And, bro, like, dude, like, like, the fact that we have the ability to communicate with people now directly, you know, we have these platforms that we've sweat and bled for and grown over the years to say lightly. You know, and now that gives us the ability to communicate directly to people. And I think the reason that people are resonating with this independent content

is because they have the ability to tell the truth. Like, and you're hearing the people that are supposedly supposed to be like the professional journalists. Like, dude, they're like professional propagandists, bro. Like, they're not really doing journalism. It's like propaganda. They're like force feeding you stuff down your mouth, man.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, I love watching this conversation here because it is very true. And it's what people have been feeling for some time. And it's also reflected in, again, in the viewership of all of these platforms that used to just be absolute behemoths. And then either one of the dudes on screen right now drop a video. And it just blows their views. view a ship out of the water by at minimum 10x.

But on the higher end, it could be like 100x. Like, it's insane. The type of reach that people can get by completely bypassing kind of the legacy ways that used to be used to indoctrinate everybody. And I'm not saying that you can't use social media to still. still sow seeds of untruth, but it's harder as they're talking about because there's so much information out there. And for every person that claims something to be true, there's going to be a contrarian that presents the opposite argument. So at the very least, if you're curious,

you can find opposing viewpoints and then make your own decision. And that's kind of the beautiful thing about the age that we're living in right now. 100%. And I think that's the key point, right? This idea of like, don't trust, verify, you know, seek the truth, do your own research, do some critical thinking. And I think we've been living in a world where, you know, there was 50 channels, right? Two or three were media, we're news channels. And you just took what they had to say at face value and you trusted them. And then the internet just like open Pandora's box, so to speak. And yeah, you might get a lot of BS, right? Absolutely. But you might get a lot of people

that, you know, like there's a reason Joe Rogan's the most popular broadcaster in the world. There's a reason Tucker is one of the most popular is because people resonate with their message, you know, and someone said it in the chat, right? You know, and Joe Rogan said it, right? For better, for worse, right? I truly believe I think it's a better world in that sense because any individual can now have a voice, can now grow a platform. And I think. think the world's a better place for it. Anyways, so really, dude, this week has been absolutely nuts. And the second theme that I wanted to talk about is obviously the disintermediation of money. And things really, really accelerated, right? The samurai Bitcoin privacy developers were jailed.

The tornado cash, you know, lawsuit that we literally, we said this on simply. sessions like less than a year ago, we said that this was going to be used as a precedent to go after, you know, to basically say, okay, we as the U.S. government, we can go after open source software because it facilitates money transmission. So the, the, what they're trying to do is, is, you know, it's pretty scary, to be honest, because the next step, the inevitable step after this is going after self-custody altogether. And, you know, it's And before you think I'm a cuck, this is Cynthia Lummis, a Bitcoin senator. And she's even trying to get ahead of this from a political, strategic perspective.

This is one of her quotes. She says, I'm deeply troubled by the Department of Justice hyper-aggressive argument that non-custodial software can constitute a money transmission service. This stance contradicts existing treasury guidance, common sense, and violates the rule of law. arguments against self-custody software threaten the fundamental property rights that are core to being an American. I will do everything I can to fight for your rights to hold your own keys

and run your own note. That is absurd. Like if you think about it, that last part, they're basically saying like, I will fight for your right for you to write down 12 words. I will fight for your right for you to run a computer. Right. Because that's essentially what a note is.

That is so crazy. Here's a little more context on the Coin Center response. It's way too long to read the entire thing. So I'm just going to kind of read the like the front or the beginning of it because I think it does a great summary. But anyways, it's titled for the audio listeners, the DOJ's new stance on crypto wallets is a threat to liberty and the rule of law. Sudden DOJ charges against non-custodial wallet developers

challenge longstanding U.S. policy on money transmission. It is regulation by criminal enforcement. That is a very key point of the message. So all of these things, whether it was the FinCEN proposal, whether it was the samurai wallets getting arrested, and all these precedents being set, they're not using the legislative process. So they're not going through Congress.

They're not doing those things. what they're doing is they're, it's by criminal enforcement. They're just charging people with crimes, right? And that becomes like a small little forcing function because you see all these lightning companies pulling out of the U.S. Phoenix, Wall of Satoshi said, look, like, F you guys. Like, you know, I can get arrested. The laws aren't even there. You guys are just making it up as you go. And like, I'm like, I'm not going to risk like basically getting locked up. you know, for whatever reason. Here's this amazing quote from Beauty on. The FBI calls Bitcoin money so they can arrest you for money laundering.

The IRS calls it property so they can tax you on capital gains. The SEC calls it a security so they can sue every exchange. The CFTC calls it a commodity so you can't use it as a currency. So they're picking and choosing what it is in order to achieve a certain goal. So the coin center thing says it has been the clear and consistent policy of the U.S. government since at least 2013 that cryptocurrency wallet developers and the users of those wallets are not money transmitters. So it has come as quite a surprise of the Department of Justice is suddenly intent on charging wallet developers criminally for unlicensed money transmission.

Even if they exercise no actual control over the assets their users choose to secure with their software. This is an insidious development that appears to be nothing less than regulation by criminal enforcement. Federal prosecutors have put forward the unprecedented Interpreted interpretation of money transmission law into two recent cases. That is not a coincidence that this is happening at the same time and there's a lot of other things that are happening at the same time Which I'll mention in the second. It's not a coincidence that this is happening after the having this is not a coincidence that all of this is happening around the same time. They're sending a very clear message Anyways, it goes on to say the April 26th unsealed Samurai Wallet indictment and the DOJ's opposition to Roman Storm's motion to dismiss and suppress evidence in the tornado

cash case was published the same day. Simultaneously, the FBI issued a warning to crypto wallet users suggesting that they may lose their funds due to criminal seizures and investigations if they don't move them to a regulated entity. It is hard

to know at this point if this is a deliberate attempt to abruptly change long established policy through criminal enforcement. I know that Coin Center has to say that, but I'm going to say it. It 100% is a deliberate attempt. Or anyways, it goes on to say,

if this is a significant disconnect between the Department of Justice and Fincent, either way, this is a disaster for the rule of law, due process rights for the accused, and fundamental freedoms of speech and privacy. And then it goes on to the brief. But it's way too long for the sake of the show. But, I mean, that tees it up, Ben, like,

what are your thoughts on this, dude? This is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is intensified. man like this is getting crazy like the fact that we have a senator saying i'm going to protect your right to hold 12 words you know or 24 words like i'm going to protect your right to uh you know uh run a computer like i make a joke with you saying like look they're going to let us live stream from the gulags but like holy cow dude this is nuts i i think um something that you said earlier on the show like in in episodes past uh is is right on the money it's it's it's the regulatory creep, right, where they're, they're throwing this thing out that is so,

it's, I mean, our reactions say it all, right? This is so insane. And it doesn't make any sense that a piece of software, somebody who wrote a piece of software who somebody else can then independently run, that's open source that they can just host themselves, forked, do whatever, that that would be, that somehow the person who wrote the software, having no. no access to the funds whatsoever would be a money transmitter. What I believe is that this, and it was interesting listening to Joe Carlos Soray on one of the spaces last week, he said the government always operates in a way where they tend to have a very vague definition of what the laws are so that they can basically.

go go crazy with it and target whoever they want. If they settle, then out of court and take plea deals and stuff like that, then it robs us of legal precedent. And anything that we get that isn't as bad as what they're alluding to right now will seem in context like a win, but it won't be a win. it's going to be a loss because they're going so far with it. And anything where we're like, oh, well, okay, so self-custody is no longer illegal. All we got to do is any app that we get on the app store, we just have to K-Y-C for it.

But we've got our own keys. Like that's the kind of thing that I think is likely to happen where it's like everybody's worried about self-custody being outlawed and we get something that's a little bit neutered from that, but everybody's like under, not under lock and key, but like under the surveillance cameras of the U.S. government, like, to the extreme to where you can't even download an app without, you know, dishing out your ID and your social security number and like all of these different things. Like I think it's that regulatory creep. Just making its way, you know, you give an inch, they take a mile kind of thing. The other thing,

all say, just to illustrate how ridiculous this is, I've done a couple of videos in the past, and these are just two different ones. The top one here is literally creating a Bitcoin wallet with dice. So just numbers rolling dice on a desk and doing some math on a piece of paper to create a Bitcoin wallet. And the second one is literally little 3D printed tiles with words on them with 2048 words in just a little bottle. And you can pour them out on the desk and randomly pick 11 words and then use a little bit of math to calculate the 12th one. And you have a Bitcoin wallet. How on earth could anybody say that this is somehow, you know, somebody is a money transmitter utilizing something like this? And I'll give a shout

out to one of the guys working with us over at Bitcoin Mentor. He made a little demo video of him with the Entropria set with those little pills, making his own seed words and then using the Seed Siner, which is a do-it-yourself, build your own hardware device to do the calculation. So I think it's super awesome. And to Dale's mention in the chat, do you think government will block hardware wallet importing? Well, it depends how far they're going to take it, right?

Like if they're going to be crazy about it, then maybe, right? And so at that point, your only hope is something like SeedSigner where you can build it yourself, right? Like it's open source software with run in the mill parts and you can just build it from scratch. So I guess my conclusion here will be the tools do exist that even this type of of top-down insanity can't stamp it out but you've got to be aware of the tools so yeah that's that man 100% man you got to be aware you got to wear you got to listen to sophisticated bitcoins who make tutorials like btc sessions um so he can show you how to uh you know take self custody of your bitcoin and somehow that's dangerous um yeah like dude it's just absurd but at bitcoin

it exposes all incentives and this is what it's doing is that like we're getting to the point where like they can't flat out say like yes we want to force you to use the money that you know steals from you and the bases like they can't get to that point yet but they're like they're they're they're struggling like eventually like it's going to get revealed for what it is it's like dude like yeah we we hold you hostage essentially and look so I said a lot of other things happen the same week um guys a lot of things happen in the same week. The Samurai Wallet co-founder, Kian Rodriguez, he pleaded not guilty, and he was released on a $1 million bond. Not guilty. So usually, I don't know if you guys know

how the, and I'm not a lawyer, by the way, but I have some type of knowledge on this matter. But essentially, when you get charged with a crime on a federal level, they have a 98% prosecution rate. They don't charge people unless they think that they can put you in prison. Also, what they do is that they offer you a deal, right? And the deal that you say, basically, I'm guilty, and then they give you a lighter sentence, right? Obviously, that benefits the prosecutor. Or if you fight it, you have the opportunity to win, but if you lose, they're going to give you a severe sentence for fighting it, right? So, uh, you know, the Samurai Wallet co-founder, he's choosing to fight it. Good for him. But, uh, you know,

at the same time, right? And again, it's setting a precedent because if he wins this case, and that's something that I also haven't seen a lot too. It's that like, guys, this affects you. Like this affects you. If you take self-custody in the US, take self-custody in Canada, like, it won't stop here. It's not just about, you know, locking one Bitcoin privacy dev, right? that they claim. It's like, look, he was facilitating illegal money laundering, but 95% of people that were using samurai were just people seeking privacy. It's like basically saying like, like, you know, because a criminal used your service, somehow you're guilty of that. Like, what they're doing is they're trying to make an example. And I got really like heated last

week on Simply Sessions when I said like, guys, no bankers went to jail for 2008. None. Zero. Right? Number one. Number two, when a bank does money laundering, which is a vast majority of money laundering is done during the, uh, using the traditional financial system, they just get slapped with the fine. Bro, they found a giant, uh, transport ship full of cocaine that belonged to J.P. Morgan. The J.P. Morgan guys didn't go to jail. Like, so it's again, it's rules for thee, but not for me. And what they're really doing is setting an example. I'm not done, by the way. Also, around the same week, the world, this is a record, right? CZ is going to be the wealthiest man to have ever gone to prison, right? And whatever you think about Binance, right? We're all bitcoins here.

You know, we think it's a shit coin casino. It is a shit coin casino. But dude, if people want to go and fucking shit coin and gamble and whatever, whatever it is that they want to do, like, bro, so be it. right this isn't like sbf where the dude just rug pulled the f out of people right and remember guys they made an example of arthur hayes as well with bitmex right so this is like a continued pattern right and again bankers they operate by not only do they operate by a different set of rules if the bank is big enough and it goes under the government themselves will bail you out right so again it's rules for

but not for me. And here's really what I want to focus on too. Also, same date. Roger Ver, one of the early Bitcoin investors, Bitcoin community is very divided on the guy. He was responsible for a lot of the Bitcoin cash shenanigans, right? He burned a lot of money trying to push the hash rate artificially high to convince people that Bitcoin cash was the thing.

He ended up losing a lot of Bitcoin in the process. But if you're cheering, I understand. why people dislike Roger Ver. I get it, right? You did a lot of damage to the big. You could say that. We ended up winning whatever. But if you're cheering that they put them in a box for this,

you really don't understand what's happening right now. That's what I got to say about that. And there's more details about this. And I want to get into the details because they're really important. So Roger Ver charged with mail fraud, tax evasion, and filing fax tax returns. early Bitcoin investor Roger Ver was apprehended in Spain over the weekend and the U.S. authorities will seek his extradition.

Okay, pattern, right? Where was the samurai guy arrested? Portugal. Where was Roger Vru arrested? Spain. Who were they arrested by? Who were they getting charged by the U.S. government? So U.S. government is literally showing the Bitcoin community that it doesn't matter

where you are. Uncle Sam will get your fucking ass. If you're a threat to the existing fiat cartel. That's essentially what it is. And I'm not denying that these individuals, you could say, okay, they're human, right? Maybe, you know, they didn't do things properly in certain things here and there. But there's a double standard when it comes to bankers and politicians, which are way guiltier of a lot of the things that these two individuals.

And not only are they guilty of this stuff, they've caused deaths they've caused people to lose their homes they've caused financial damage like here in the United States the intelligence agencies commute basically convinced the public

that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction we literally went to war with Iraq under a false pretext completely destroyed the country millions of people die like I think a lot of people die let's say let's say that Right.

Heard a lot of Americans. Afghanistan. Very similar story. There for 20 years, pulled out, left billions of dollars worth of weapons unaccounted for. And then you're trying to tell me that like, oh, you know, $2 million worth of illicit finance using a mixer. We're going to focus on that. Unannoted, you know, Pentagon spending, military spending. But they want to surveil every $600 transaction.

Like, look, if you're going to say all these things are legal or illegal, like, fine. But you don't even follow your own effing rules in the first place, but you expect all the other, you expect the peasants to, right? The political elite, they play by a different set of rules. Everyone else, nah, man, that's crazy. So anyways, more details on the Roger Verstuff. Verre is accused of neglecting to file returns on asset sales and failing to pay a United States exit tax on capital gains after he gave up his U.S. citizenship and set up businesses and secured citizenship in St. Kivitz and Nevis.

The indictment claims that by June 2017, VERS's two U.S. registered companies, Memory Dealer's and Algestar owned approximately 70,000 Bitcoin. In November 2017, Vr approximately sold 10,000 of them on cryptocurrency exchanges for approximately $240 million in cash. Even though Ver was not then a U.S. citizen, he was still legally required to report to the IRS and pay tax on certain distribution such as dividends from memory dealers and Adjustar, which were U.S. corporations. Verre allegedly concealed from his accountant that he had received and sold memory dealers in Alistar's Bitcoins that year. As a result, Ver's 2017 individual income tax return did not report any gain or pay any tax related to the distribution of memory dealers. and Agistar as Bitcoin's to him. Look, I'm not,

the law is what the law is. Like, there is an exit tax in the U.S. But think about that for a second. There's an exit tax, right? So you take all the risk, you work, and the U.S. feels like they're entitled to, you know, I think it's like 50%

if it's over $2 million worth of assets. Here's Walker, America. It says the United States of America, hold its citizens prisoner. If you want to leave but do not pay taxes on your unrealized capital gains, it will find you and put you in jail. Meanwhile, the government prints money out of thin air and sends your tax dollars to fund foreign wars.

Like, that's the issue. Like, okay, if you're going to put those laws into place, fine. But you guys aren't exactly, you know, saints yourself. Like, you guys are doing some shenanigans. So, you know, it's interesting. And then again, Ben, you're probably going to kill me because of how much I referenced. this, but it reminds me of the passage from the sovereign individual where it says they compare the state to a farmer keeping cows in a field to be milked, but that soon the cows will have wings,

right? And now connect the dots with the Joe Rogan Tucker clip and then connect the dots with what's happened with Roger Ver. The reason the government is doing this is they're trying to set an example and send a clear message to Bitcoin or saying, listen, privacy, we could put you in a box. You're going to try to give up your citizenship after you get your magic. games and move to El Salvador, we're going to put you in a box. And it doesn't matter where you are anywhere around the planet, we're going to put you in a motherfucking box. That's the message that they're sending right now. But at the same time, the silver lining in all this is that they wouldn't be doing this unless they felt like they were losing. And again, this isn't a coincidence

that this is happening when it's happening. And by the way, this isn't my original. idea, so I'm not going to take credit for it, but it was Mark Goodwin that, you know, I just spoke to. And he was the one that originally brought it up to my attention. He was like, Nico, this isn't a coincidence that these arrests are happening after the having now that Bitcoin's forward monetary inflation rate is 0.85%. It is lower than anything else in the world right now, right? So, Dude, this is an attack on Bitcoin. We're winning. This is why they're doing.

This is the reaction from the state. This is the separation of money in state. This is what we're living through. And unfortunately, Ben, like with all these things, you live this through, you live this as well, Ben. You were a freedom fighter during the Canadian truckers protest. I think things are going to get a little bit more bumpy before they get better, in my opinion. because this is crazy. And by the way, this election is a big deal here in the U.S.

This whole thing. Like, things are heating up and I think people really, really have to understand what's at stake here and what's going on. It's Bitcoin or slavery. That's not a hyperbolic statement. What future do you want your children to live in? That's the question that I have for you guys. Do you want your children to live in a future of freedom and prosperity, peace,

opportunity or do you want your future you want your children to live in a future of war, nihilism, you know, death destruction, poverty, all of that stuff. All right, rant over, but a lot to cover, dude. So much news. Dude, it's, again, the exit tax thing to me is insane. Like, in the sovereign individual, they do talk about jurisdiction shopping

and rather than treating, again, the metaphor, for their treating constituents as cattle, rather they'll advertise more or less to people to come there. And in exchange for the taxes that you may pay in a certain jurisdiction, here's what you get. And it's more like, OK, is that worth it for me? OK, maybe that sounds like a good place to be.

But this, the exact opposite thing, somebody saying, God, I hate it here. I don't want to be here. You guys suck. You guys just do nothing but like siphon value from me. I'm going to leave. And that jurisdiction says, okay, cool. We'll take half your shit since you're no longer going to be enjoying our services.

Like what kind of fucking deal is that? That's a horrible deal. It's a horrible, horrible deal. The other thing I'll say, again, in the context of, yeah, Roger Verre sucks. I do not like him as a person. However, I tweeted just earlier today, and I said, in the hierarchy of things I dislike, men with guns who extort entire populations

for half their income, far outrank shitcoin scammers. And my favorite reply, let's just say it more concisely summed up what I was thinking. Bitcorn's replied, tyranny done to a douche is still tyranny and unlikely to stop at the douche. Bro, Bitcoin Twitter undefeated and 100% man. That's wisdom. And remember, you mentioned it earlier, Ben, about the regulatory creep. We call, I'm going to say this.

I'm literally, I don't care. You guys call me arrogant all you. want. I don't care. I literally said that they were trying to set a precedent with the tornado cast stuff. I literally said it. We said it, Ben, during Simply Sessions, we told you guys this less than a year later. Less than a year later, all of this stuff happens. So my question to you is just using common sense, first principles. Do you really think it's just going to stop? You really think they're just going to pack it up, right? Tornado cash less than a year ago, right? Setting the precedent. Now they're arresting Bitcoin privacy developers. They're arresting Bitcoin OGs that,

you know, went to the dark side. But like, what do you think's going to happen five years from now? Right. Like, and again, it's not like, we're not being hyperbolic. We're not trying to make a big deal out of it. If a U.S. Senator is trying to get ahead of it and saying, like, look, like, this is pretty crazy that they're going, they're basically trying to say that, that non-custodial wallets are money transmitters. Like this is kind of nuts, right? So I think it's time to really wake up. Someone in the chat says, what is the solution?

The solution is knowledge is power. You have to tell people around you what the deal is, what's going on, that writing down 12 to 24 words is not a danger to society. If enough people do that, then they can't sigh up the population into going along with it. That's what you could do, right?

Just make your voice heard. And anyways, so we are at the top of the hour. Ben, do you mind if I show my merch real quick? Yes, absolutely. Please do. And I'm, you're going to have to be bringing one for me in Montreal because I'm going to talk that shit all the time. Absolutely. So guys, if you want to support Simply Bitcoin really, really helps to the channel. Go check out our merch. Go to simply Bitcoin.com. We teamed up with a Bitcoin artist called, I always, how do you say it, Ben? Ask, I'm not sure. The Bitcoin artist Sassanoa.

He's amazing. And yeah, we got the peaceful Bitcoin Revolution shirt. We got the gold Bitcoin pill, the gold Bitcoin snapbat, the dad hat. So go to Simplybitcoin.com. Really, really helps the show. Ben, always a good time. And guys, this was your Simply sessions. Enjoy Las Vegas.

And I'll see you next week, brother. Cool, man. See you later. And everybody, stick around. We're going to hit up the tech updates in just. just a moment here, but first, a quick word from our sponsors, and we'll dive right in. Multi-sig and inheritance planning

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into the tech updates. And again, really quick, I will just say that if you're interested in how Bitcoin wallets work in the background, like what is the math actually happening behind the scenes? Just go on YouTube, search up permissionless Bitcoin wallet. and you'll find this one that shows you how to make a Bitcoin wallet quite literally with dice and a piece of paper. And you can walk through the whole setup, just writing down numbers and doing a little bit of quick math. It was really cool.

The first time I did it, I thought it was very interesting to kind of see the inner workings of what's actually happening there. And then, of course, Entropia, just literally seed phrase in a little can. and you just shake it up and you spill them out and you pick out some random ones. I'll give one more shout out to one of our Trumbie Hoddle. He is one of the Bitcoin mentors at my new company. And again, his video was pretty damn cool that he put together. Just him, again, like a very brief look at how to go ahead, use intropria and then use a seed signer to calculate your 12th rewards.

So shout out to him for that. video. Now, we're going to touch on a couple quick things. Now, because the Samurai World Pool coordinator is no longer functioning and has been taken down, you're seeing Samurai Dojo, which is the plug-and-play node for at home, they've removed the Whirlpool CLI or the command line interface. You've also seen the same be removed from Sparrow Wallet. Yeah, so that is that. You're just starting to see it kind of pop out. I will say that they say that Ronan Dojo is not dead. You can't kill an idea.

Becoming more censorship resistant and enhanced security and privacy for our team is our current focus. The Ronan Dojo team is not part of the samurai team. We are our samurai community members who develop tools for the samurai community. Their vision will not die. Again, free samurai. Also, of course, we saw Wasabi. they pulled out and are blocking all U.S. residents and citizens. They said effectively immediately until further notice, ZKS. Snacks is now blocking U.S. citizens and residents from visiting its websites, downloading and using Wasabi Wallet and any related products and services, including APIs, RPC interfaces.

So, yeah, they're blocking basically wasabiwolliWallet.io, API.wasabiwolli.com and ZKSnacks.com. Yeah. So that's that. What I will say. is if you are running your own Start 9 server, you, of course, can go ahead and download Jam, jam for Join Market, and that is also another option when it comes to on-chain privacy. And then in the vein of even like self-custodial stuff being shut down, you can actually host your own Mutiny Wallet server for Lightning,

which is really cool. So worth poking around and just kind of seeing what self-hosting looks like in that regard. Alternatively, Mutiny Wallet, you can install as a progressive web app from your browser onto your phone. So there's still options, even if everything got yanked from

the App Store, you're still able to use these tools. Okay, moving on. Update to MyNode version 0.3.28 released. And so what's new? They upgraded Bitcoin to version 26.1, LND. New upgrade,

its loop, and then they removed, of course, again, Dojo and Whirlpool from the marketplace. Unfortunately, that is no more. Moving on, Coinbase has started rolling out Lightning Network support in partnership with LightSpark. Now, they said starting today, support for the Lightning Network via LightSpark will begin rolling out. Enjoy instant, low-cost BTC transfers. Bitcoin is one of the most important assets in crypto.

Oh, God, Coinbase, you can't even help. yourself. And since our inception, we've continued to support the Bitcoin ecosystem through our exchange numerous investments through Coinbase ventures, adding support for lightning furthers the growth of the crypto ecosystem by increasing. I can't even, oh, God, it's such a shitcoin casino. Just don't, don't use Coinbase. Delete Coinbase. It's trash. I will give them a tip of the hat for finally adding lightning, although what I'll say is it's not rolled out in Canada, which is kind of fun. I guess lightning only reaches as far as the edge of the U.S. border. But nonetheless, I suppose credit where credit is due, but just to use something else.

Let's move on. Ocean Pool integrates Bolt 12 Lightning Payouts. So Ocean is they are a mining pool where they're basically trying to further decentralize mining, buying, allowing people to create their own block templates to prevent censorship from mining pools, which is super cool. Anyways, as of today, Ocean Miners can attach a Bolt 12 offer to their Bitcoin address and get paid over Lightning. Bolt 12 offers allow us to request multiple invoices for any amount while only requiring the

miner to set things up once. Miner simply signs a message containing the offer using a private key. associated with their Bitcoin address. Using Bolt 12 also allows us to prove to the world that a payment was made, the size of the payment, the node to which it was paid, and that it was paid by us. Pools traditionally have held their miners Bitcoin like a bank, while on-chain Bitcoin transactions get increasingly expensive

as demand for Bitcoin rises. For small miners, the problem is exacerbated since in some cases, the cost of the transaction fee is higher than the reward they can earn. This is unsustainable because it creates lock-upycese. and two custodial pools. Ocean helps overcome the risk using Lightning. Ocean co-founder Luke Dash Jr. or Dasher said. Yeah, anyways, so that's super cool.

Basically, the idea is you can give a singular payment code that can be paid out to multiple times from the same mining pool. And that is fantastic. To see Brains also recently allowed for lightning payouts. Really quick, Helm wallet, a liquid web wallet using bolt swaps for lightning. So announcing my latest project, Helm wallet, this is by Bordelix.

He said, I believe there's a huge gap between the ease of use of wallet of Satoshi and the self-custy of Phoenix. To minimize this gap, I created a new web app that has the self-custy of Phoenix and the ease of use of wallet of Satoshi. Helm is a liquid wallet

that uses Bolt submarine swaps to disguise itself as a lightning wallet that even your grandma can use. Sounds like Aqua. All transactions. must go on chain and bolts must earn something for the service. They provide so there are fees to be paid. That's a minimum in around 200 sats.

Average costs for sending or receiving is around 400 sats because it's a liquid payment, not a lightning payment. Transactions between helm wallets don't pay bolts fees but can take up to one minute to complete. That's because liquid blocks are one minute apart. The web app is completely independent. No server required. You can clone it, build it, and run it from your own computer.

everything runs on the browser. You can try it in TestNet if you want, or the code is available as well. So yeah, just what I'll say in regards to the messaging there, the self-custody of Phoenix with the ease of Wallet of Satoshi. The ease is there for sure because it bakes in not having to create lightning channels and just using that swap function in the background where you're actually receiving liquid where he says the self-custody of Phoenix, there's nuance there because liquid in and of

itself is technically not you holding your own Bitcoin, right? Because liquid is an abstraction. Liquid is pegged one to one for Bitcoin. You can run a liquid note and verify that that is the case, but it's, you know, you need to be aware. It's effectively a, you're not relying on a single custodian. There's 15 keyholders in a giant multi-sig. 11 of them would have to rug pull all at the same time to collude to remove the peg. And a lot of them are big companies like BitFenex and so on and so forth. So like, would you trust a single exchange? I would say don't do that. Would you, would you trust that 11 of 15 businesses globally distributed around the globe aren't all going to collude to rugpole your money, maybe for smaller amounts for set periods of time.

And so that's totally up to you. But either way, good to see things like Helm wallet popping up. Got to give a shout out to Bitcoin well. Why? Well, because they just added, and I'll click this in here, dark mode. And so now you don't have to blind your eyes by looking at the bright picture on the screen. Let's change that chart, by the way.

It looks better on the one year. I hope you guys are all snapping up. Anyways, kudos to Bitcoin. Well, enjoy the dark mode for sure. I did drop at the end of last week, so after the news video, I did drop a full tutorial on Fedomints. Similar model to something like liquid, but anybody can create a mint, and it does give you fantastic privacy, instant transactions, free transactions within the mint. And also you can send and interoperate with lightning wallet.

liquid wallets that have swaps. You can even interact with on-chain back and forth if you're using something like bolts. You can pretty much, and you can even basically lightning is the glue that holds all these systems together. So a fetament can interact with a bolts-enabled liquid wallet can interact with a custodial lightning wallet. Can interact with a cashew wallet. All of these systems are glued together with lightning, which is really cool. cool to see it. So highly recommend, check out the video. It's very interesting to say the least. And with that, I will give one final shout out. If you guys want to check it out. I've been

mentioning this. We just launched our company, Bitcoin Mentor, myself, my co-founder, my cook, and we have a team of Bitcoin educators that we've aggregated. 350 people applied to be a part of the team. narrowed it down to 16, if you can believe it. And so basically, we're a team of people that can help people with things like wallet configuration, learning how to use hot wallets, hardware, software, collaborative custody, rolling your own multi-sig, running a node, all kinds of different stuff. And we've got big learning tracks and all kinds of great stuff that you can basically level up.

So if you or somebody in your family is trying to get their head around self-custage, and all the tools of Bitcoin, just reach out to us at Bitcoin Mentor.com. And with that, I'm going to round out. Thank you guys so much for joining in. Hats off to Nico for giving us the latest and greatest. And of course, please do hit all the previously mentioned sponsors in these show notes down below.

And don't miss the show tomorrow. We got, Why Are We Bullish, a day early on a Thursday, but the same regular time, 6 p.m. Eastern. And I'll be dropping the guests tomorrow morning, so you will see that. Make sure you take a peek and check on Noster and on X for who's going to be on. With that, I am out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening, wherever you may be.

I'll see you guys next time for your daily session.