BTC Sessions - SIMPLY SESSION: The Bitcoin ETF Rush ep350

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

-Institutions rush for ETF approvals -IMF feels threatened by Bitcoin -Prime Trust in receivership -CBDC propaganda -Apple bans Nostr Zaps   💪 SUPPORT THE SHOW: 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 multisig setup with built-in inheritance planning and NO KYC. Pass on your savings to your loved ones with ease in a simple claiming process with full customer support. Check them out today! https://nunchuk.io/ Start9 is your Bitcoin & lightning node, and full personal server - enabling you to take back control from the gatekeepers of your money and data! Grab an Embassy today and become truly self-sovereign! https://start9.com/ HodlHodl is a NON-CUSTODIAL, NON-KYC solution to stack sats peer to peer! Buy and sell Bitcoin while maintaining privacy. Furthermore, you can check out their Lend platform for p2p loans that are never rehypothecated. Sign up and try it out today! https://hodlhodl.com/join/BTCSESSION Free video tutorials not enough? Need some extra hand-holding when mastering self-custody, multisig, coinjoin, running a node, or other skills? Book me for a private session on my website! https://www.btcsessions.ca/ Been watching the show for a while? Like what you see? Help me cover my video costs by sending some sats over on my Geyser Fund page! https://geyser.fund/project/btcsessions

What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the show. We're back. We're back at it. And we've got our friend Nico here to fill us in on the latest. Lots of institutions clamoring to get their hands all over your sats. Don't let them. Don't let them.

We're going to be talking about a ton of different stuff. Craziness, obviously more implosions, more in news about prime trust, all kinds of stuff. Domas continues to get slapped by Apple. We're going to be talking about a whole bunch of different things. Of course, this is live. Anything can happen, especially because I'm now using different streaming software. So we'll see how it goes. But I defer to my friend Bill here.

We'll do it live. Okay. We'll do it live. Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live. The thing sucks. If you have not already, Please do like, subscribe, share, all those things.

They help a ton getting this content in front of more eyeballs. I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your daily session. Before we bring in the NICO, let's take a look at where we are in the market right now. This is timechain calendar.com. We're looking at 3,000. Is that right? Let me give a little update here.

My block clock, I think. No, that's right. All right. We're at $30,433 per coin. A single U.S. dollar will pick you up 3,286 sats in terms of fees. Actually, not bad. Considering that the MMPL is backed up by like a gig, still next block, 18 sats per byte. If you're willing to wait a bit, 13 stats per byte, it is, the MNPool is purging anything below around 6.5 sats per byte. And in terms of mine Bitcoin, 92.45% of all Bitcoin have been mined. That is 19.42 million of them. Shout out to sponsors of the show, hoddlehottle.com.

If you are buying Bitcoin and you've got a few priorities in mind like peer-to-peer trading, instant self-custody, no K-YC, hoddle, hoddle is the place for you. You can sign up with nothing more than an email address, scroll down, choose your currency, choose your payment method, choose your amount, and start viewing offers immediately and stack in non-KYC Sats. They also have a lending platform in which nothing is ever re-hyproposated. So check them out. Links are down below or right on your screen right now.

You can scan that fancy little QR code that I just figured out how to do. Up next, when you get non-KYC sats, you're going to want to secure it in the best damn hardware on the market. And again, cold card, coin kite, everything they're doing. I love it. The Mark 4 is awesome. Tap signer, sats cards, block clocks, open dimes. and I honestly, I'm getting so excited for the cold card Q1. It looks absolutely awesome.

So if you want to reserve one of those or pick up anything else, I mentioned here, head to coin kite.com and use code BTC sessions that check out for 5% off. And again, the link is up on the screen here. Now, if you are looking to move beyond single sig and you want to dive into the realm of multi-sig, perhaps, you can check out nunchuk.io and their assisted multi-sig setup. Basically, you set it up on your mobile device, super easy with things like the tap sign or cold card and a ton of other hardware options. And they will hold one key. You hold three.

They can never move your money without you, but they're there for you just in case. It has baked in inheritance planning so that your sats get to your next of kin. And on top of that, it's no KYC. You don't need to give them any personal information. That sets them apart with other options on the market. And you know that you don't have to give them all over. of your, you know, an arm of leg and a firstborn child just to set this up and have it work for you. So check him out.

Link is on the screen here or Nunchuk.io. And finally, Start9, your sovereign computing solution. Love these guys. I'll be talking about some of the updates and stuff that they've got near the end of the show. But these guys are awesome. You can basically go to start9.com and you can pick up any, any of their options in terms of devices. they've got entry level all the way up to your pro star options. You can run Bitcoin Core, Lightning, Memple.

Dot space, join market, your data, files, photos, passwords, Noster Clients, Noster Relays, all kinds of great stuff coming out of these guys. So head over, check him out. And yeah, with that, I'm going to stop my rambling here. Got to get my buddy in here. There he is. I'm learning. How's it going, man?

Yo, I'm so hyped, bro. This is dope. This is dope. I like it. I'm figuring it out. You know what I'm going to do today, too? Because, you know, there's people in the chat. I would like, I'm going to start having chat pop up here.

And I want to see I'm bringing it up. But new comments will be displayed if I'm not mistaken. New comments will be displayed in the chat box there. So I'm going to try and see how that goes as the day goes on. So guys, drop in chat message. There we go. Yeah, it's working. Anyways, I'm going to, I'm going to let them flank us with some chat, if that's okay by you. Yeah, let's fucking go.

Awesome. Awesome. Cool. Well, what's, what's up in mind, man? What do you want to, what do you want to chat about? What's been going on? We got a, we got a financial, you know, we've been saying this, we've been saying this narrative, right? which is the narrative in 2018, the coping narrative was the institutions are coming, the institutions are coming. And we've been saying that for the last couple of weeks, but, you know, the tsunami of institutional interests just continues to accelerate. You know, there's that very famous quote, right? There's decades where nothing happens and then there's weeks where decades happen, you know, and we're definitely like living through that. So if you don't mind, Ben, if you could share,

There we go. Let's do it. There we go. Dude, I love this setup. Dude, this is dope. I forgot to redecorate. There we go. Now it looks better. Awesome.

All right, let's fucking go. All right. This is fucking sick. Okay. Awesome. Here we go. All right. So, dude, if I would have told you this was true, like, if I would have told you this was

going to happen five years, five years ago, you would have told me, you would have slapped me. And you said, Nico, you're freaking crazy. So anyways. So here's an article by Forbes. Spain's largest bank joins list of financial institutions exploring Bitcoin. It goes on to say Santander, Spain's largest bank recently announced the start of a digital assets 101 series for customers and prospective investors. Bitcoin advocates were impressed with the bank's writing, latching onto Santander's introduction

to the Bitcoin Lightning Network as an example. And it goes on to explain what the Lightning Network is. Now, this is so crazy. Ambaugh CEO, Jester. on Bitcoin Twitter was cited in the article, and he said that McDonald's and Starbucks, as well as well-known companies who have adopted Lightning, but said they did so in response to El Salvador's Bitcoin legal tender law. Shrader goes on to say, told me that companies like Microsrategy and Santander are recognizing the potential of lightning based on the technology rather than

adopting it out of necessity for compliance purposes. And I just want to focus on this part, where they kind of say the quiet part out loud. The Santander report estimates that, the Lightning Network can facilitate over a million transactions per second compared to 20,000 per second for traditional card payment networks like Visa. This is a bank saying this. And again, I don't think that this is a coincidence that all of this is coming out after the BlackRock ETF announcement. It's also not in Spain. The largest bank in Germany, Deutsche Bank, confirmed that they were applying for a Bayfin license for crypto custody. So the largest The largest bank in Germany is saying, hey, we want to get into, you know, Bitcoin and

Chitcoin. I think it's Bitcoin and Ethereum custody. The largest bank in Spain is bullish on the Lightning Network. This is crazy. This is nuts. You would have not have believed me if I would have told you this five years ago. And then also a very giant bank in France as well. And it goes on to say the C-A-C-E-I-S, the asset servicing arm of banking giants credit

Agri-Coli and Santander. So it has been registered by French regulators to provide crypto custody services. The bank, which provides services to asset managers, such as insurers, pensions, funds, and private equity was registered by France's financial markets authority as of Tuesday, June 20th, according to the regulators' website. And I don't know if you guys saw that, but it was mentioning Santander as well. So not only are they writing really awesome stuff about Lightning, it looks like they're trying to get into the custody game. Now the numbers here are absolutely bonkers, right? So this specific bank

has 4.6 trillion euros assets under custody, right? And this is on the heels of companies like Fidelity, which we're going to get to it a second, 4.5 trillion. And of course the Big Kahuna, which is Black Rock. And other big news, I know it's a lot, been Fidelity joined Spot Bitcoin an ETF race with fresh SEC filing. So it's not only Black Rock throwing their hat in the ring, it's also fidelity as well. And then there was a new show that was released by Swan this week called Nakamoto Portfolio Gotlet. And in that show, which was hosted by Dom and Alpha Zeta, they hosted Greg Foss, Joe Carlosari,

and Elliot Johnson. Elliot Johnson is the founder of Evolve, ETF, which is the first Canadian spot Bitcoin ETF. And what he said during the podcast really, really resonated with me. He said Black Rock would not have applied if they didn't feel 100% sure that this thing was going to get approved. And he felt confident that he believed that the Black Rock ETF was going to get approved. So on the heels of that, I don't think it's a coincidence that you have very big banks in France, very big banks in Spain. Better said, some of the biggest banks in those countries, saying, hey, we want to custody your Bitcoin.

And now you have this another giant, another behemoth. And this is a title article from Bloomberg. Fidelity joins Spot Bitcoin ETF race with fresh SEC filing. So this is absolutely crazy. This is a worldwide phenomenon. This isn't just happening in an isolated, you know, part of the globe. This is everywhere. I think there's that meme, right, of like the dam.

And behind the dam, there's like, you know, all these financial institutions. And then below the dam, it's like this small little town and there's like little Bitcoin in there. Right. I think the dam is breaking, man. And this is incredibly bullish also, Ben, because this is happening while Coinbase is being sued by, while Coinbase is being sued by the SEC. And then on top of that, BlackRock is using Coinbase to file this ETF. And it looks like BlackRock doesn't really care.

And then most importantly, BlackRock is. basically controls the world. They own a huge percentage of every Fortune 500 company. So it's absolutely bonkers everything that's going on. Yeah, it's super interesting. One of the nice things about it, like number one, don't give these institutions your stats, of course. But number two, it will be nice, especially seeing these articles here where they're talking about lightning and they're talking about they're basically, if all these institutions basically want to sell this, they're going to need to go through. And they've clearly already done their due diligence in terms of like, oh, you know, why is Bitcoin worth being a part of?

But they're now going to take those talking points that we've been shouting from the rooftops for ages and dispel all the fud. Because they want to present Bitcoin in the light that they understand it in and say like, hey, you know, the slow and expensive trope is BS. And here's why. Because lightning and other technologies built on top of it. They're going to go through. They're going to dispel all of the environmental foot. They're going to start talking.

You know, it's going to become more common knowledge, at least in like a financial sense, as to why Bitcoin is good for our energy grids, why it helps. because it's all going to be part of their selling points around why they're, you know, why they want a Bitcoin ETF. They're going to want to make it look good. And so, you know, they'll do the legwork for us. And if there's fuckery of foot later on, then, you know, run your node and, and who cares? 100%.

Exactly. Right. So, yeah, it's pretty interesting, though. I think it's a double-edged sword. there'll be positives, there'll be negatives. But if you hold your own keys, if you run a node, if you do all those things, then, you know, you're not especially affected either way. So fantastic.

What did you say in the very beginning, right? It's like don't sell your, don't sell your Bitcoin to BlackRock. Yeah. This would be like the worst time to sell your Bitcoin. Like after all this, all this news is coming out and then you're just giving it to Larry Fink. Like, ah. Yeah. Well, imagine.

And like think of what happened to gold after it was the first gold ETFs came out. And that was at a time where the majority of the world, like the entire world was already utilizing gold as a store of value. And, you know, these central banks were holding it. All these things, all these institutions were already holding gold. And then ETFs happened. And the demand for it went up from there. Bitcoin has not had time to proliferate around the gold, around the, around the world like gold has. And so there's so few people that actually have custody of Bitcoin that, especially like meaningful amounts, that an ETF going now and the demand for an actually scarce asset, yeah, it could be a hell of a time.

So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be a hell of a, it's going to be crazy, man. It's going to be crazy. And one of the things also that I remember that he said in the podcast, which is like really resonated with me as well, is, is he said that Bitcoin is unique in the sense that it's kind of like it, Wall Street didn't get in first and then Main Street. It was mainstream got, Main Street got in first and then it was Wall Street. And I thought that comment was just so fascinating, right? And then this kind of like coincides with what you're saying, right? Which is don't sell your Bitcoin to BlackRock. There's not going to be enough Bitcoin to go around, right? And just don't sell it to these people. Like don't sell it. Like you got in first.

You frant ran BlackRock. Now you owe it to yourself not to get, not to get rid of your advantage by selling your Bitcoin. I also, uh, prevene in the comment says hopefully BlackRocky. T.F. gets rejected so we can stack more. Can you imagine? Yeah, it'd be great. I don't mind this sideways action. Yeah, bring it on. Yeah, it's okay. Time to stack. Exactly. Time to stack. Anyways, Ben, we got another prediction right on Simply Sessions, which is we were making the case that, you know, that Hong Kong was being used as this

testing ground. This is kind of this narrative that we've been beating the drum on. But before I get to that, I also, so we have a bank in, we have a bank in France. We have a bank in Spain. We have a bank in Germany, some of the biggest banks in those countries. And now HSBC, which is this massive bank in Hong Kong, they're rolling out cryptocurrency services as well. And then our theory of the case, I think, was really proved right by this political article that dropped about two or three days ago. and the name of the article is China's move to control the blockchain. It goes on to say as the United States,

the world's largest financial power continues to mole its approach to crypto regulation within the House Financial Services Committee, expect to consider a bill next month. Financial centers in place, including London, Dubai, and Singapore, have sought to set themselves up as alternative crypto hubs. And remember, Jack Muller's warned about this during the Crypto Policy Summit, which was thrown by the Bitcoin Policy Institute. Shout out David Zell.

And he said, like, he warned the regulators there. I think there was a couple senators that were in the audience. He said, listen, like, you, like, do you want Bitcoin companies to pay taxes in Texas? Or do you want Bitcoin companies to pay taxes in Dubai? Right? But it goes on to say, but thanks to Hong Kong, China is taking two approaches to crypto at once. On the mainland, Beijing has banned global crypto networks, while developing and promoting more versions of next generation monetary technology

that provide greater control to the Chinese Communist Party government. But through its special administrative region in Hong Kong, Beijing has also been able to carve out a niche in the freewheeling global markets for digital assets that would compete with other free market financial hubs. Despite being denominated in dollars, the world's most popular stable coin, Tether, is owned by a Hong Kong-based company. Earlier this month, and I think here's the signal out of all this, the Bank of China, a majority-state-owned firm headquartered in Beijing, issued $28 million of debt on Ethereum through its Hong Kong-based investment arm. The move allows the government to take advantage of open blockchain networks for its own purposes

without giving up its control over the financial activity of average citizens. Also this month, the Financial Times reported that regulators in Hong Kong are pressuring large banks in the region to provide banking services to crypto exchanges, inverting a dynamic in the U.S. where many banks are reluctant to take on crypto clients because of the industry's unsettled legal status. So this is absolutely insane, and this is something that, Ben, we called this, right?

They're using Hong Kong. They're using the one country, two systems, to, you know, like, okay, mainland China, you know, let's keep you guys controlled. and under this central bank digital currency system, you know, we want total social control there. But then in Hong Kong, which is kind of lazai fair city, they're saying, hey, let's take on the benefits of, you know, this Bitcoin thing, you know.

And I find that absolutely fascinating. We know how the CCP feels about Bitcoin. They ban Bitcoin in the mainland. They ban Bitcoin mining. But here it is again. Bitcoin's incentives stay winning and they're irresistible. And even, you know, one of the most powerful nation states in the world can't even resist Bitcoin's incentives.

They want to benefit from it. So I think this is a, this creates a huge risk for U.S. regulators. You know, the last thing that they want to do is scare off, you know, whatever happens to the shit coin company, so be it. But could you imagine some U.S. regulators scaring off Bitcoin companies to, you know, their current political enemies, which is China. It'd be catastrophic, you know. So I think they're playing with fire here.

And I think Jack Muller's warning in the Bitcoin Policy Summit was warranted. Yeah. Well, it's funny because you're watching China have to, they're basically trying to have their cake and eat it too, right? And I don't think that necessarily works. It works a little bit easier in China, given that they, you know, Hong Kong is kind of segregated from the rest. but like the reality of it is people can still use Bitcoin in China. People can are still like a huge portion of the hash rate is still in China. So Bitcoin is very immune to government crackdowns.

But you know, the the result of this is going, you know, I think you're right is going to be, well, we don't want them to beat us. And so you're going to see more favorable. you know, more favorable looks at it across the pond and here in North America and in Europe, perhaps, you know, if they, if they don't, if China begins to benefit from it, then Western nations will have to take a second look and be like, oh, if we overregulate this and they're reaping the benefits and we're not, then we better, we better get our shit together and actually. And it's much more likely to be a less draconian touch than China. And I know there's some

accelerationsists in the chat right now that are like, no, be as draconian as possible so people realize that they need freedom money. And you know, I would echo that a little bit as well, but I kind of think that this is what's going to play out nonetheless. Yeah, 100%. And I'm, you know what, I'm, I'm okay with the accelerationist. Like, so be it, you know, it's kind of, of like with the, you know, the central bankers, like we make fun of them. We make fun of Christine Lagarde saying, you know, she's blaming inflation on the weather and, you know, quote unquote, climate change.

And they're just trying to justify the printing of money. But at the same time, I think the more money they print, like, yes, it sucks because it's kind of bittersweet. Like they're hurting people. But at the same time, they are accelerating this adoption of Bitcoin as people, you know, flee. They use, to use her words, right? they find the escape valve and they're like they're going to use it they're like you know

f this system so yeah man i echo what you're saying i got i got to bring up something in the chat for you just because i don't know if you were going to touch on it but i feel like it's something that we have to just quickly touch on uh robbie was asking about you guys have thoughts on nigel farage and his bank account getting closed did you hear about that i did and i actually covered it today on simply i didn't add it to the simply that's okay i wanted to quickly touch on it just because for those unfamiliar, he was, like, he's in the UK. He was like a broadcaster.

He was part of, I can't remember what political party it was, but he also very much backed Brexit and took it to a referendum and all this stuff. And he's like, he got screwed. Like, they shut down his bank account and said like, hey, you can't have a bank account. And then he's like, oh, well, that sucks. I'll go to the other banks then, I guess, and try and get another bank account. He went to like seven banks and they all told him no. And he's like a politician.

He thinks that it stemmed from an opposition, somebody from the opposition of him, saying that he was accepting Russian money, but there's no like precedent to actually show that any of that happened. It was just hearsay. But because of that, he was designated as a pep, I think it's called, like a politically exposed person. and now all the banks are like, no, you just can't. You can't bank anymore.

You know that money that you like to use so you can live. That's not allowed. So he's just, he's like, I might have to leave the UK because I can't, like, how do you do anything? How insane is that? Dude, it is so insane. And, you know, I think that this is just the beginning of it. But Beauty on, the founder of Azteco, he made a really good point. in this quote tweet that he said, and I think it's really like a very powerful call to action.

He says, Nigel accepts this abuse because he refuses to act like the English used to act. First of all, there is no, quote, right to a bank account. There are no, quote, our banks. Banks are businesses that belong to the shareholders, not the account holders or society. Second, it's 2023. Everyone who wants access to financial rails could have it through Bitcoin. Right. And then he goes on to say all you, Nigel needs to do is download Samurai wallet, Breeze, Blue Wallet, Wallet of Satoshi. There's so many others. In 2023, being a victim is a choice. And I think that's a very, very powerful statement by BeautyOn. Because now we have a viable alternative and that viable alternative is Bitcoin. Yes, 100%. Like it's, you know, me and my wife, me and Lisa, were having a conversation about this because I came out and I was like, you got to hear this crap that happened.

And she's like, what, like, what do we do if that happens to us? Because she never would have entertained the idea, like, if it was two years ago. But now that every, you know, everything that happened in Canada, she was like, oh, that is a thing that could happen. And she hates that idea. But, you know, I'm talking with her. I'm like, we would, it would be a massive pain in the ass, but also we would be okay. because they would get our debt. So congratulations for that.

And then we would still have our money. I would still be able to get paid because my income is primarily all Bitcoin. And then I'd be able to use various mechanisms through which I could still pay bills. I could still get food and groceries and gas and all that stuff. I'd be able to still pay even for like car insurance. and stuff like that, I have to pay like the whole year up front. But so there'd be certain things that are a huge pain in the asset. I'd still be able to pay my mortgage.

And that's because of Bitcoin. Like it gives me the power to do that even in the face of like a worst case scenario. It wouldn't be easy, but it would be possible. And it would be impossible for somebody not on a Bitcoin standard. Amen to that, brother. Yeah. And what you said was so powerful, right? Because Bitcoin gives you two powers, right?

Gives you the power to vote with your wallet, which is what you were just talking about. like look my money's in self-custody I'm protected it also gives you the power like you know if push comes to shove Ben and you know shit gets hairy in the US or shit gets hairy and you know in Canada it's like you could take your wealth with you right you know if you're in a pickle you will memorize 12 words if your life depends on it you will memorize those bad boys I don't suggest it but you know it it empowers it empowers individuals to just leave like before Bitcoin you have to like hide gold on your body hide

You know, like, those smugglers where they see like, they like put a bunch of cash on their body and stuff. Like, there was no effective way, you know. Wolf of Wall Street style. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's the scene I'm thinking about. Yeah. Praveen just asked really quick, how would you pay your mortgage in Canada? Bull Bitcoin and Bitcoin well, both have mechanisms with which tie into Canadian payment systems where you basically say, hey, I want to pay this bill.

This is the biller. This is the account number. And it basically just brings up. up a QR code, you send Bitcoin, and they do the rest of the like work and the payment gets made within typically one, maybe two business days. It's super slick. It's, it's, it has made my life immeasurably easier on, on a Bitcoin standard. It's incredible. So hats off to Francis at Bull Bitcoin because he's, he's kicking ass and taking names. Hell yeah. Hell yeah, bro. Francis is doing Satoshi's work. Indeed. Indeed.

Anyways, all right, so another win. This was the IMF basically admitting that they can't get rid of this thing. It goes on to say in a June 22 report on Latin America and Caribbean, the IMF pointed to various approaches taken by local governments in addressing the adoption of cryptocurrencies and central bank digital currencies. The IMF said Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, whose governments are, of crypto was, quote, in progress, ranked among the highest countries in the world for the adoption of digital assets in an effort to help the unbanked send faster and cheaper payments

and more. In addition, according to the fund, most central banks in the region, quote, have or are considering adopting digital currencies. It goes on to say, if well-designed CBDCs can strengthen the usability, resilience, efficiency of payment systems, increased financial inclusion, said the IMF, while a few countries have completely banned crypto assets given their risks, This approach may not be effective in the long run. The region should instead focus on addressing the drivers of crypto demand,

including citizens' unmet digital payment needs, and on improving transparency by recording crypto asset transactions and national statistics. That is a bunch of bullshit. They don't mention inflation, which is the sole reason as to why people are seeking an alternative. Look, if you live in Canada, if you live in Europe, you don't need more efficient payments. Like cash app is dope. Zell is dope. Venmo works pretty well. PayPal works pretty well, right?

Unless you're Nigel Farage, of course. But for most people, it works pretty well, right? So I just love the fact that they just skirt. They just continue to skirt around that. And then here is, you know, their cope. So they say, look, you know, you can't really ban cryptos, you know, but we we need more efficient payment systems. And then they roll out, you know, they, they show their cards. They say, the IMF initiates development of a global digital currency platform. It goes on to say, even though cryptocurrencies don't receive the warmest welcome globally, CBDCs are flourishing. Central bank digital currencies have received increased attention in recent months. Global regulators and policymakers have dedicated their efforts to exploring and evaluating this emerging technology. Now, according to the latest report, the IMF is developing a platform for central bank digital currencies. The IMF managing director Christina Georgiva stated that the IMF is developing the platform to facilitate easier transactions between countries.

Georgiva told a conference in Morocco, CBDCs should not be fragmented national propositions to have more efficient and fair transactions. We need systems that connect countries. We need interoperability. Well, you know what I got to say about this? The intermediaries are trying to come up with reasons as to why the intermediaries should still exist. even though we have a technology that does all the things that she just mentioned, we have something that already does that. But they're not incentivized to understand that.

Because if they are to understand that, that they would understand that they're out of a job. They're going to be out of a job very quickly. But at the end of the day, the IMF is a very powerful institution. And I don't think they're just going to go gently into that good night. I think they're going to pull up a little bit of a fight. It's hilarious how they're framing it because it's like, oh, we need to use this new technology so that we can have fast payments.

Do you think that they don't have the technology to make an international payment fast now, like without like a quote unquote blockchain? It's not about that. The reason that all of these things are slow and antiquated and shitty is because they've regulated themselves into obsolescence and their draconian laws and their censorship prevent them from making things simple and quick to transact. You've got to jump through hoops to send money. Yeah.

Are the systems oldest, oldest shit? Absolutely. Could they upgrade them? Absolutely. But it wasn't until Bitcoin came along and said, hey, we're going to do all this and censorship resistant as well and make it better. money so that you can't debase it, that they're now saying, oh, everybody, everybody just wanted fast payments.

They wanted to be able to pay people fast. It's not at all the main reason that people are so interested in Bitcoin. And it's going to, like, especially when they're saying, oh, these, they shouldn't be segregated, you know, little walled gardens from country to country. we need a system altogether. Well, I'm sure they're more than willing to step in and fill that role and have absolute control over the world's central bank digital currencies. I'm sure that, you know, I'm sure it's not, it's altruistic what they're going after, right?

They just want to be a helping hand. There's no way that they want to be able to exert control on all of the world's currencies at once. Right? That couldn't be it. Of course, no, man. Dude, they're good people, bro. A clout, you know, I've had dinner with clouts. He's just misunderstood, you know.

He doesn't want you to eat bugs. It's all a lie. It's all bullshit. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, you, you probably had a nice steak dinner, but he's he's advising bugs. That's all. You know, he doesn't want you to owe nothing and be happy. That's all bullshit.

That's all bullshit. It's, you know, like Alex Gladstein's book, you know, maybe it's a misreferral. representation of, you know, the good wills of the IMF and the good people and the good intentions. Dude, that book, I've never, like, it's seldom have I read a book and been so angry the entire time. And except for the end where there's the glimmer of hope and you start to, like, it was such a refreshing reprise as he gets to near the end of the book. And he starts talking about, you know, the African Bitcoin conference. And Farida, uh, Navarima. talking about how, you know, escaping this economic colonialism with Bitcoin is a real thing.

And yeah, man, if you haven't read what's it called economic, economic repression by Alex Gladstein, check it out. It is excellent. Yeah, I completely agree. It's an absolutely phenomenal book. Anyways, Ben, big news came out this week. and I actually have, if do I have the notes still? Yes, I do have the notes. Awesome.

Okay, so big news this week. Crypto firm Prime Trust placed into receivership. It goes on to say, Prime Trust only holds 3.5% of cash owed to clients. The receivership request filed in Nevada on Tuesday states that Prime Trust, which was previously a financial infrastructure provider for Binance, US, and others owes to its clients more than 85 million. in fiat currency with only three million dollars on hand. Additionally the company owes

69.5 million in crypto and holds 68.6 million in crypto assets. This move from the Nevada from Nevada comes only days after custodian Bitcoe withdrew its bid to acquire prime trust. It also follows a cease and desist order issued by the state which claimed that prime trust was on the verge of insolvency. Even more troubling the filing review. that Prime Trust is operating with a $12 million equity deficit and is facing challenges accessing some of its crypto wallets. While Prime Trust has entered into agreement with fire blocks to manage its crypto assets in 2020, new management reverted back to a legacy wallet management system in January 2021. It was then discovered in December 2021 that Prime Trust was unable

to access these legacy wallets and the cryptocurrencies held within them. While Prime Trust was unable to access these wallets, it is alleged the firm used its client's Fiat currency accounts to purchase crypto to be used for processing crypto-denominated withdraws. Prime Trust efforts to regain access to crypto wallets while still ongoing have been unsuccessful. The receivership aims to appoint a receiver to oversee Prime Trust operations, examine its finances, and determine the best course of action to protect clients and potentially through rehabilitation or liquidation. And I know what a lot of you guys are thinking. You know, this, what about this is Binance?

What does it matter? Prime Trust was used by Bitcoin-only exchanges such as Strike, such as Fold, such as Swan. Luckily, Strike, Fold, and Swan got out on time. And none of their customers have been affected and the withdrawals have not been stopped. But, you know, not all these platforms were so lucky. CoinBits appears to not have gotten out on time. And it seems like all they're so. services are currently on pause, right?

So this is crazy, you know, all this, you know, all this stuff is, is just happening in, you know, in, in, uh, in, uh, this, so much stuff happens in, in, in Bitcoin time. It happens so freaking quickly all the time. Um, and I think that this is just another example of not your keys, not your Bitcoin. Take self custody. Right. And shout out to a lot of these, you know, a lot of these, uh, you know, a lot of these, these, Bitcoin companies that, you know, advocate for that specifically Swan, right? They, you know, they push hard on their users taking self-custody.

So, yeah, it's just, you know, if you don't, you know, want that third-party, third-party, counter-party risk, you definitely want to take self-custody. And then this also applies to the other Bitcoin companies that are taking the other approach where they're the custodian and the broker, you're still trusting them, right? So, you know, and then you'll have situations. where you'll have situations like FTX or Mount Cox, where they were the broker and they were the custodian, right? So at the end of the day, you know, whichever,

whichever way the Bitcoin company decides to approach it, whether they want the custodian and the broker to be separate or they are the custodian or the broker, at the end of the day, it's not your keys, not your Bitcoin, right? So I think the lesson here is take self-custody, and I think, you know, if you take self-custody, the world could be burning around you, and you'll be okay, you'll be protected.

Yeah, yeah. Again, you got to sit back and relax during all of this if you just took custody of your coins. And one note on you were saying how the customer funds, they owe like $68 million and they hold like 63 or whatever it was. Anyways, most of the crypto that they hold is in some shit coin called audio. I saw that. And it's like super illiquid. So like there's no way they're going to be able to sell all of that for like the 60 something million worth that they need to like pay back clients for. So like the what they're actually going to get back from that is is much less than people are expecting. And so it's an even bigger hole than than we thought.

So that's funny, I guess. Like what what a mess. And this is what's the what's the term for it? preferred custodian or are uh yeah so there's broker and there's custodian this was a custodian prime trust was a custodian but but there's there's like a special uh because they're a trust and there's there's shit that they're not supposed to do like fully not supposed to do at all yeah each customer is supposed to have like their funds or like each entity is like segregated and yeah untouched and yeah that obviously wasn't happening that wasn't happening but you know i i i think

I think whichever model because like so the trust model is protected by the law. So like clearly prime trust broke the law here. Like clear as day, right? And tried to cover it up too. And tried to cover it up. Right. So but at the end of the day, even if you're trusting an exchange that is both a broker and the custodian, you're still trusting them not to do the same.

Right. At least with the trust side of things, there is some type of legal protection. but I think it all boils down to the same thing. Not your keys, not your Bitcoin. You're still trusting another human being with your money, right? And this applies to banks. This applies to everything else. When you trust another human being with your money, they have control over you.

Right. So, you know, it's like the solution to this is you take self-custody. And regardless of what would happen to any exchange, you know that your Bitcoin is safe, right? And you'll be okay. And I think that's really the clear message here is that. that, you know, trust no one, really. I think that's, or trust minimize your setup as much as humanly possible. I think we need the X-Files theme every time, every time another exchange implodes is the trust no one. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-a-ha.

Exactly. I mean, I need to put that on my soundboard for the next time. Trust no one. I want to believe. At the end of the day, Bitcoiners are going to be some of the most jaded bunch. I know. I know. It's great. Yeah. Amazing. Do you want to quickly touch on the Domas thing before we wrap? Absolutely. We could definitely do that. That we were out of time. All right. So, Damos. Damos is the app that you use on iOS to connect with Noster. And they've been going, they've had a two-week battle with Apple to, and I think. think we actually started covering this on Simply Sessions to basically, hey, we're going to remove you from the app store if you don't disable the Bitcoin tips feature called Zaps. And they were forced to do so.

And it sucks as a content creator. Actually, Ben, we talked about this at Bitcoin 2020. Right. There's only so many ways that you can monetize. You can make money as a content creator. And I was so bullish on peer to peer on, you know, value for value. And, you know, shout out Fountain. Shout out Geiser.

They're great too. You know, there's awesome Bitcoin companies that are working on this. But what I loved about Domus and Noster is that dude, like, I would just copy paste my videos and people would just send me, zap me a thousand sats, you know? And then you think, oh, that's not, that's not that much money, whatever. It's like, okay, what if and when Bitcoin reaches dollar sap parity? Those are thousands of dollars that are being streamed to me. because of my proof of work.

And, you know, Ben, I know that you're an Android maxi, right? I still haven't made the conversion, okay, because Apple just makes it so freaking convenient. You might soon, no. I think I'm going to have to just get an extra phone so I can still get zapped because I'm addicted to those zaps. But yeah, man, Apple protecting their payment moat. They have Apple pay.

They want to remain, they want to remain intermediaries because that's how they collect some rent and some fees. but, you know, look, this was always a single point of failure. This is always a weak point because Apple forces iOS users to download their apps through the app store. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And it's, it's, you know, you can kind of do like progressive web apps and stuff like that.

But, you know, like you're on Android. Yes, there's the Google Play Store, but you have FDroid. You have, I can't remember, I recall the other one. But there's multiple app stores that you can go through to install. And you can just install APK files as well. So you have a lot more freedom with how you utilize your phone. Yeah, and Apple just doesn't have that. And I don't think they're going to loosen up that stranglehold.

I think that they may have to at some point reverse course on their stance on Zaps and Noster and all this stuff, especially if it becomes ubiquitous elsewhere. They're, you know, much like when they initially banned Bitcoin wallets. And actually when they did that in 2014, 2015, that's why I now use Android. I switched from iPhone at that point because I was just getting into Bitcoin. I was like, well, I'm super interested in this. You know how it eats up all your time, especially when you first get in and to see that be banned. I was like, okay, well, I guess I just need to not use iPhones anymore. And so I switched over.

And once I kind of got the freedom of being able to do kind of whatever the hell I wanted with my phone. and I had already been jail breaking my iPhones before, but I was like, yeah, why go back to that? Like I still use a Mac computer because it works well and everything like that. But if they were to try and do a similar thing to Max where you couldn't install your own software, which would be suicide. We all know that. But if they were to try, yeah, I'd probably just move fully to Linux and it would be a pain in the ass. It'd be so bad for content.

It would be so bad, yes. but like in that in you know if I couldn't install a Bitcoin wallet on my Mac you better believe I wouldn't be using a Mac anymore do you think they'll take it I don't see for so for the phone I think that they can get away with murder right but for a computer yeah no they I don't think they'd ever be able to do it on a computer because the whole point of a computer is to be able to install whatever software you want and be able to do what you want with it you know they have their curated app store but obviously everybody's so used to on a computer, you download something from the browser and install it, like you don't always just go to the app store for your computer applications. So, yeah. But yeah, but yeah, I agree. I would have to join you. I would have to, I would have like my CBDC computer, which would be the Mac. And then I would have my freedom computer, which would be like a Linux, like, you know, like on a, I don't know, I don't even know that world, like on a crazy hardcore laptop or something. I don't know. Yeah. My, I've got a couple Linux. I've just got like an Intel Nook sitting beside me. So I've got I've got dual screens,

but I actually have it. There's a program called, what the hell is it called? It's Synergy. Basically, I can have my Mac and I have my Mac on two screens, but I can drag across into the Linux computer with the same mouse and control it all from one. So I can kind of have both. I can't drag applications, but I can still control it from the same mouse. That's nuts, dude. That's That's absolutely crazy. No, speaking of software, dude, I am fucking in love with the Embassy Pro, like the, the bad boy. Mine gets here on Tuesday.

Dude, it is amazing, bro. I have it, I have it set up, Ben, you'll appreciate this. I'll have it set up. I have it set up with, I have it set up with, I'm an electron junkie and I love Electrum. And I have it set up with my Electrum via Tor. and I can connect to my node remotely and it is like the most freaking

dude it's like it's beautiful and they've got shit coming down the pike soon like with a ton of updates this year where the connectivity options like one of my main things was like oh they didn't have tail scale but they're going to have options for like

other private VPN things where you can just kind of tunnel through in a private connection they're also going to have clear net and a whole bunch of other things happening later this year. And it's bad. But yeah, my pro gets here on Tuesday.

And it looks pretty sweet. I was going to talk. I'm going to talk about it after we wrap here. But yeah, man, it looks good. It's amazing. Yellow, calm down, sirs. Wait, hold on. Yeah, yellow is.

I will, I will not calm down. No. No. No. No. Awesome. Well, dude, thank you. Thank you. And I get to see you in person in like, are we just going to do, we'll just do a video together here in my hometown. I'm excited. I'm Nico and Canada. Maybe we'll just do it from this room. We'll just roll you in another chair and we can just do it here.

Oh, man, the BTC Sessions Studio. Okay. All right. But should I sit on the left or right? What's easier? I don't know. Also, my camera's mirrored right now. So like, like, oh, wait, no, it's opposite. Can I drag myself? There you go. I can't. There. We did it. Technology. Technology. This was fun. All right, Ben. Thank you so much. All right, guys. This was your simply, simply sessions. I'll see you guys. Later, man. Awesome. All right. A few more things. Before we wrap up here,

let's take a look at some exciting stuff that I saw technology-wise this week. Just wanted to touch on Bitcoin Keeper. I haven't had a lot of time to play with this, but they're killing it. Keeper, basically, app on your phone. You can manage hot wallets, cold wallets, multisig, all of that. They incorporated Whirlpool now for Android users. It was already accessible on iOS, but yeah, now you can do a whirlpool there. And yeah, kudos to them.

And you can now directly send mixes from Whirlpool to your multi-sig volts. That's pretty awesome. So I got to get playing. I'll do a tutorial on it at some point. In the realm of Nostr, there's now streaming on Nostr. So I'm going to have to figure that out. Maybe I can do some live streaming to Nostr, see how that will work. I got to do some playing.

But nonetheless, snort. Social added streaming, which is super awesome. And beyond that, Amethyst also added live streams and live streaming chats. So I've got some more learning to do. That looks pretty awesome. I'm going to have to play around. Now, we were just talking about start OS, start nine. They did just release their, and it actually dropped their latest update,

which actually improves tour reliability quite a bit. I was having tour issues. It was dropping a little bit. Those seem to have been basically fully resolved. So that's awesome. And in terms of arriving next Tuesday, my server pro, look at the specs on this thing. Yeah, so they've got StartOS on, it's basically kind of like an Intel nook, but it's got basically got the Intel management engine disabled in the firmware, which basically makes it as. you know, as open source kind of as you can with, with the, the firmware and the hardware.

Processors an I7, 1.8 gigahertz up to 4.9. It's got 32 gigs of RAM, 2 terabyte hard drive. Yeah, the thing looks like a beast. Very excited to get my hands on it. And then also somebody who's asking about migrating lightning notes. So I did a video on migrating. I migrated my umbrella lightning node over to my start nine. And they had an easy button basically to do it.

You can go back and watch the tutorial, but it's a few clicks. It's pretty simple. But somebody's asking about doing that for like My Node and everything. And actually they said any day now we'll be launching a new version of L&D, and it includes similar actions to migrate from My Node and Razpie Blitz. So if you're on one of those and you were looking to migrate, then the option will be there for you if you want it. Yeah, anyways, enough about that.

I'm just excited to get my new device. Apart from that, coming up soon, reason Nico is going to be in town. We've got the Bitcoin Rodeo happening next week, the 4th and the 5th of July in my hometown of Calgary. I'm actually excited for this particular, and some of you may be unfamiliar with some of these people, but I still think it's super interesting. There's going to be a panel called why Alberta is the place for Bitcoin. coin. There's a publisher called the Western Standard and the individual that runs that is going

to be moderating it. We've got the Minister of Technology and Innovation in Alberta. We've got a guy, a good friend of mine that I really love spent a time with. His name is Graham Wardle. He was on a show, a Canadian show called Heartland for like 15 seasons as basically like the main character. but he's like huge into Bitcoin and Freedom, which lines up quite nice. He's going to be on that panel. And then we've got Ben Harper. He's from Luxor.

And he doesn't like to say this publicly a lot because he wants, I think he's, he's his own person. But he's the son of our former prime minister in Canada. He's Stephen Harper's son. So he's going to be on that panel as well. So there's a lot of unique people talking about Alberta and Bitcoin. Very excited for that.

Anyways, if you're in town, if you want to check it out, go to Bitcoinrodeo.com and there's still some tickets kicking around if you want to join us. It should be good. It'll be nice, like kind of intimate setting and lots of opportunity to like actually link up and chat with individuals and everything. So it should be a good time. In other news, I dropped a tutorial yesterday for Phoenix. So I've been kind of searching for a go-to lightning wallet that I can recommend to people, just as like an easy onboarding.

And I didn't want to just be default sending people to custodial options, even though they're nice and they're easy. And I got to play around in Oslo. I settled on Phoenix wallet as kind of my go-to now. And actually I use it quite a bit. It's very intuitive. It's very simple to use. Onboarding is like a minute.

And you can send somebody their first transaction. Now, because it's non-custodial, there's a channel setup fee the first time, which I tend to phrase as just, it's a, it's a like a connection fee. It's about a dollar. So as long as you're sending like, you know, five or ten bucks, then you can kind of just say, hey, this is a connection fee. And then after that, you can send and receive for cheap.

Anyways, yeah, if you want to check that out, if you haven't tried it already, check out the tutorial. but also if you're looking for easy onboarding for friends and family, Phoenix, in my opinion, is kind of the way to go if you want them to self-custody. And the backup is very familiar because it's a 12-word seed phrase. So anyways, check it out. Worth taking a look at. And with that, I'm going to wrap up.

Thank you guys so much for joining me. Of course, like, subscribe, share, all those things, super important. You can hit up the previously mentioned sponsors in the show notes, Hodel, Hodel, Coin kite, Nunchug, and Start 9. You can also head over to my website, BTCSessions.ca. You'll find a whole bunch of stuff there. And you can actually book me there for private sessions. You can scan the little thingy on the screen or just go to the website and you'll find it there.

And if you really, really liked what you saw, you can always drop me a lightning tip at my Geyser Fund page. So on the website, you can just scroll down. There's a little LN URL. But if you click on it, it'll actually take you to the page. And yeah, you can send stats there. There's also a QR up on the screen right now that will take you directly to the Geyser Fund page as well. So anyways, with that, and apologies for the muddling around as I discover all of the features of this site. But it's kind of cool.

And I like it. And I love having the chat on the side there. I hope you guys enjoy that too. It's kind of nice being able to see the side. stream of people saying everything as me and Nico go through this. I'm going to keep this in the live stream for why are we bullish as well. I think that would be an excellent addition to the show, having the visibility of what people are saying to the guests and everything. So, nonetheless, thank you guys so much for being here. And as always, I will see you guys next time for your daily

session.