BTC Sessions - SIMPLY SESSION: Why Is Bitcoin Terrifying the IMF? ep353

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

-IMF worried about tax collection -Brazil’s CBDC can rob you -Vanguard owns $560m Mining Stocks -Bank of America stealing from customers This and more on today’s show!   💪 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. Another Thursday, another episode of Simply Sessions. My buddy Nico was just here in Canada. So I feel like now we're sitting apart from each other. We can't even actively touch the tips during this live stream. We have to, we have to mime it. I want them back in this office stat.

Maybe I'll make a visit. But we will be seeing each other if I'm not mistaken in October. So I'm looking forward to that. Nonetheless, yeah, we're here. We're going to be chatting about the news. Lots of stuff going on. Lots of stuff. IMF, cracking under pressure, maybe starting to see the writings on the wall.

We'll chat about that. Vanguard seems to understand that mining is important, getting a lot of things. We're going to be chatting a whole bunch of different stuff. CBDCs creeping up on everybody, stealing your cash, all kinds of fun stuff. Nonetheless, this is live. Anything can happen. and so I defer to my friend Bill here. We'll do it live.

We'll do it live. Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live. The thing sucks. If you haven't already, like, subscribe, share. All that helps this stuff get in front of more eyeballs. Hopefully you want that to happen. Who knows?

But nonetheless, I do appreciate you all. I am Ben with the BTC session. this is your daily session. Before we bring in our friend, Nico, let's take a look at where we are in the market right now. This is timechain calendar.com. We're sitting at $31,428 per coin. A single US dollar will pick you up,

3,182 sats. In terms of fees, next block, 28 sats per byte, peeking up just a little bit with, I don't know, maybe a little bit of green candle. action gets people moving stuff around. Anyways, 28 stats per byte next block. If you're willing to wait a little bit, 18 sats per byte, memful purging anything sub 2.7 sats per bite. So just keep that in mind. In terms of Bitcoin's mind, 19.43 million, which is 92.52% of the total supply. Shout out to sponsors of the show, hoddlehaddle.com. If you're buying Bitcoin and you have priorities

in mind like peer-to-peer trading, instant self-custody and no K-YC, you can head over to hoddlehottle.com, sign up with nothing more than an email address, scroll down, choose a currency, a payment method, and an amount, and start browsing offers immediately. Stack those non-KYC sats. They also have a peer-to-peer lending platform in which nothing is ever re-hypropicated. You can check them out today. Links are in the show notes. Now, when you do stack some non-KYC sats, you're going to want to secure them with some of the

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The HoneyBadger program is awesome. Basically, it works as they hold one key and you hold the rest of the keys in the quorum. They are your signer of last resort. And it keeps everything cozy and secure in a multi-sig and also cuts down on single points of failure. It's super easy to set up on your mobile device with things like the tap sign of the cold card and a bunch of other hardware options. It also has baked in inheritance planning, meaning that your sats will get to your next of kin, if anything should happen to you. And one of my favorite things about it, non-KYC as well, meaning you don't have to give up your private information in order to set this up and have it work for you. So check them out, nunchuk.io. I also just started covering some of their advanced

features. There'll be a new tutorial out on that soon. And finally, start nine, your sovereign computing solution. Love these guys. They recently released a bunch of new devices, but what do they do? You can set up your whole Bitcoin stack here. Bitcoin Core, Lightning, MempleDust Space, Join Market, a bunch of other Bitcoin-related applications. Host your data, files, passwords, photos,

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It's beautiful. I just migrated from server one and I love it. Anyways, you can get anything from like entry level all the way up to the hardcore device that I have. Check him out, start nine.com. Anyways, enough of my rambling. I need to get my buddy in here. There he is. How you doing, man? What's up, dude. How are you doing, Nico? That was everything. You're in my seat. You know, it's kind of strange. It's still warm from you, I think. What's up, man? Dude, I thoroughly enjoyed the troll that we did, and why are we bullish on Friday.

We, like, killed my camera. I hopped out a frame, you hopped in and turned it on, and then just continued speaking as if, as if nothing had happened, and everybody played, it was fantastic, thoroughly enjoyed it. And then you joined for the rest of the show. It was a good time. Yeah, dude. I mean, it was great getting to see the legendary BTC.

BTC Sessions studio where everything happens. It puts my studio to shame. It's so organized and you got things and the lights and it's just this beautiful, you know, this beautiful place where you can make content. I got to make it cozy. I'm in this room way too much. So, yeah, it's a good time. I'm glad you could, I'm glad you could join and partake.

It's been a good time. But yeah, man, you're back home. We are powering through doing it. You've got your work cut out for you. You've been doing how many shows today? Yeah, today's going to be my, this is my third. And then we got a show together in about an hour or so. And that should be my fourth.

Damn, man. Yeah, you're really burning the candle at both ends, but that's okay. It's, I'm sure the plebs and everybody watching appreciates it. So everybody, everybody in the- See him too much. Fuck this guy. I'm sick of him. Yeah, man. Well, let's get into it.

What's been top of mind? What's going on? What are you focused on this week? Dude, so we got your, you know, your homie, Pierre Polyver, if you could pull up the screen. I'm pretty sure he was in Alberta. when he did this. And the reason for that is because now I'm an Alberta expert, okay?

I've been there and I went to Banff and I saw Sir Thorne and his bagpiper. If you know, you know, probably no one knows what the hell I'm talking about. But I am, I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm well versed in Alberta, okay? And I'm pretty sure that he's wearing a cowboy hat because he was at the stampede. He was. So this is a speech from the stampede. Anyways. So, okay, all seriousness.

So this is really interesting, done, because for a couple of reasons. Now in the U.S., you have RFK Jr. on the Democratic side, and you have Ron DeSantis on the Republican side, both anti-central bank digital currency. In the case of RFK Jr., he's super pro-Bitcoin. He said at the Bitcoin conference basically announced, it, I'll protect your right to hold Bitcoin. And then Ron DeSantis basically saying, look, does it really mention Bitcoin specifically

says crypto? But he did pass an anti-central bank digital currency bill in Florida, which passed, right? So in the U.S., there's a non-zero chance that there'll be an anti-CBDC president in the White House in 2024. In Canada, I don't know when your guys' next election is, but now there's also a non-zero chance that there will be a anti-CBDC pro Bitcoin president in the equivalent of the Canadian White House. I don't know what that's called. Prime Minister. In the, I don't know, in Parliament, we'll say, I don't know. In the Canadian equivalent of the White House, right? And that is crazy, right?

Because these are not, you know, small, you know, you know, Central American or African countries, right? These are very, very big and wealthy nation states that, you know, might have politicians that are pro-Bitcoin. So I think that's really cool. Anyways, I'm going to play the video. I'm going to play it for about a minute because in the last 30 seconds he starts to get into the political rhetoric. But I thought it was interesting. Let's check it out. Often he makes my very best arguments for me.

I want everyone to speak freely. We have Section 2B of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. To be or not to be. That is the question. I will honor the charter, repeal the online and on-campus censorship, and stand up for freedom expression for all Canadians. Absolutely. Freedom.

We will uphold freedom here and everywhere. We will stop interference by Beijing and our democracy. Canadians should choose their government, not communist dictators from abroad. we'll bring in a foreign influence registry to track and expose any who are paid by foreign dictators to influence and manipulate our politics. We will ban all of my ministers and top government officials from any involvement in the World Economic Forum. All right. I think we get the general gist of it. Did he mention CBDC yet? No, that's right after this, actually.

So, yeah, let's continue. There will be no more mandates, no more sense. Central Bank digital currency, no mandated digital ID. Okay, there we go. All right. We had to endure the politics for a long time just to get to that part. They could have just cut out the last 10 seconds. But anyways, so round of applause for Pierre, he's already got a ton of it.

But yeah, man, I think if you see that speech in itself, you'd say, okay, that's a bunch of noise. Does it matter? But I think if you connect the dots and you look at it from a macro perspective and you see what's apping in other countries, I think this is extremely bullish. And just to kind of add to your point what you said in the very beginning, yeah, I don't trust him at all whatsoever. I don't think I trust any politicians. But do we really need them to trust, do we really need to trust them? Or is it good enough if they at least slow down the other side? and that would be my take. Yeah.

So I think in terms of that everybody's like, is he actually a Bitcoiner? Is he using that as a, I mean, if I would say that being a Bitcoiner is not yet a thing that helps get you elected. So if somebody's bringing a Bitcoin, I don't know if it's coming from a place of this will get me votes.

Because realistically, like the thought around. it is likely to hurt you in votes more than it's likely to help. So I do think that he is a bitcoiner. I know that he's got good bitcoins that he spends time around. So he's probably at least getting a decent education around that stuff. I enjoy the idea of being like, yo, let's not have our elected officials be part of the World Economic Forum. maybe that's not a good idea.

And then the thing that struck me the most is not that he said, we're not going to, you know, I won't let a central bank digital currency happen, which that is a thing that I'm like, great, I don't want that here. But the more striking thing is that that got cheers from the audience, not as boisterous as some of the other stuff, but it means that a good chunk of the audience understands that a CBDC is, is not in their best interest. And that, to me, is bullish.

If the average individual looks at a CBDC and says, whoa, that's not going to be good for me. That's not going to help me. It means that the shitty marketing from our central banks saying, this is going to be super helpful for everybody involved, it's not working. And everybody's seeing through their BS. And that's great.

It's great to see that that's not panning out for them. So maybe I'm more hopeful for society than I was before I heard those cheers. Do you think they know what they're cheering? I don't know. Maybe I'll just maybe I'll just be a little bit hopeful and naive for a period of time. That's okay. I'm going to imagine that all of them were like, yes, central bank digital currency means surveillance and censorship. And that's horrible for everybody instead of just, man.

and hat said good things. Yeah, yeah. I got to say, you know, you guys are extremely freaking nice, okay? I'm so used to like, you know, walking down the street and then someone basically saying, fuck you with their eyes. And over there, they're like, hello.

Sometimes with their mouth as well. Exactly. And they're like, hello, how are you? You know, and you kind of, you know, like if you cross, if like you did something wrong, like they'll apologize. you know, which I think is awesome. It's very Canadian. It's very, very nice country. Samuel wants clarification who that was. That's Samuel. That is Pierre Pahliav. He is next in line

to potentially be the leader of Canada, the prime minister of Canada. So there will be an election. And Nico, you said you weren't sure when it's going to happen. At the latest, it will be 2025, so two years time. Right now, I'd say the chances. And a lot of... of polls are showing the chances of Paul Yev actually winning are like a coin toss. It could be like 50 50. So there's a 50 like in all realness is a 50 50 chance that there could be like an anti-cbdc pro Bitcoin prime minister of Canada inside of two years, which is a pretty interesting. And had you said that two years ago, I would have said you were crazy. But here we are. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's crazy how this whole timeline thing is happening. Anyways, all right. So let's talk about the IMF, our friends at

the IMF. And, you know, our friend Augustin Carson as well, we all know him. That's where all the inflation goes. Anyways, so IMF paper on taxing Bitcoin sees quasi-autonomy as great as challenge. Policymakers are struggling to accommodate cryptocurrencies within tax systems, not designed to handle them. This paper reviews the issue that arise. The risk for now appear more. latent than real, but this can change. So it goes on to say the greatest challenges for implementation quasi anonymity is an inherent obstacle to third-party reporting. Quote, this is because their essence and the core motivation behind their development is precisely to avoid placing trust in centralized institutions of a kind that might be able to provide information to the tax

authorities or perhaps to levy some kind of withholding tax. The good news for tax authorities and regulators is that is that contrary to the vision of original bitcoin designers a core role has emerged for centralized institutions of various kinds in the transacting of crypto assets notably exchanges through which they are bought and sold right so like basically they're seeing the writing on the wall like we're not going to be able to control the money flow slash tax as effectively as we've been able to do so uh but they're kind of in the bargaining phase. They're like, wait a second.

But if we capture the exchanges, we will be able to do all the controls and their surveillance that we've been able to do so. And then just kind of, if you use common sense, like what is the next step? Right? And you kind of connect the dots with the language that is being introduced by the European Central Bank,

right? The MECA regulation. unhosted and unhosted wallet. So you can kind of see where, oh, you know, the hosted wallets are okay because we could surveil it and we could see what's going on and we could see what third party, you know, you're transacting with. And that's necessary. And unhosted wallets are bad.

And this is what the IMF is basically saying. And then connect this with the piece that was released that I think, we covered the on the first in between two tips episode, Ben, where basically it said that the IMF is coming to realize that they're not going to be able to ban this thing. And there's been, there's actually an article that we'll cover today on Simply Sessions written by Crypto Vistardo. And he layouts three countries and, you know, approaching it as to why he believes that IMF has changed tune. So I believe that this is another phase in the bargaining, in the, in the, in the, the stages of denial. This is kind of like the the bargaining phase that they're going through

where it's like, okay, wait a second. This is going to be a tax issue, but it's okay. We could let it happen because there's centralized exchanges and because of the centralized exchanges, we could still have the same surveillance and controls that we once had. So everything's kumbaya, everything's okay. Yeah. Right. The interesting thing about all of this, the IMF stuff, is all of the quotes is it's just so overtly like geez we're not going to be able to steal from these people as efficiently as we used to is basically what they're saying

like the whole thing is just like we used to be able to steal here here here here often here many times here and now they're like oh that's going to be so much harder if people just want to exchange goods and services back and forth But the entire thing that they're talking about hinges on the exchanges in a world where Bitcoin is just money. Oh, I see you, Augustus.

He's listening. He's listening. In a world where Bitcoin is just money, then their plan of attack of, oh, we'll just get the centralized entities. I mean, the grand vision for Bitcoin exchanges is that. they're obsolete, right? They obsolete themselves as they become successful. The more people that own Bitcoin, the less people use exchanges because they start using Bitcoin and earning it day to day. So I think that's my takeaway from that part of it. 100%. Like you're 100% spot on with the end goal. The end goal is we have to get these things

or I guess you could say that it's a transition, right? But do you think we'll ever get there? I mean, I think we'll get there when Fiat ends, right? Yeah. It's like when Fiat is dead, then there won't be a necessity for, you know, the things, I guess. Yeah. When Fiat ends, the IMF just does, it doesn't exist because there's no international monetary fund to deal with. like there's there's no entity like that.

Yeah, 100%. I'm just laughing at the, at the chat. Augustus is Opti's ex. Man, was he training up or down when he went from Augustus to Chrissy? Oh, man. I don't know, but I'm definitely going to put that as a breaking on simply Bitcoin Twitter. Oh, man. He's going to kill me.

Okay, all right. So we all know Augustus wants your Bitcoin on a centralized exchange because he'll still be able to, you know, take from it, take from it. He wants to take from your cookie jar. Anyways, so speaking of more craziness, I feel like this entire article, Ben, it is an entire coping type of article. Like it is just one big, quote, cope. it is highly entertaining because of how much cope is in this article

but it's actually even written from a first person perspective and the name of the author is Mairead McGuinness and he goes on to say he says during the pandemic I returned to Belgium from Ireland only to discover that I had left my wallet behind after the usual panic

I realized that I wouldn't have any trouble buying groceries or making other payments I didn't have cash and I didn't have my credit cards or debit cards. But I did have the digital wallet on my smartphone. Everyday finance has gone digital in just a few years. It's been a gradual yet profound evolution accelerated by the pandemic. Forget your wallet like I did.

Use your smartphone or smart watch. Splitting a bill, scan a QR code on a friend's phone to pay them back. Shopping online, choose from a maraud of different options to pay. But while we make payments using our digital wallets, what we don't have yet is a digital form of cash. That means something that can be used just as cash is today. Legal tender. That can be accepted everywhere.

And that can be exchanged for one for one with physical cash. There are various forms of crypto. The centralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are so-called stablecoins like Tether, with a value usually tied to the U.S. dollar. But the past year has clearly demonstrated that crypto is volatile, and unlike Eurocash or digital euro, it is not backed by a central bank. Okay. So a couple of things to impact there.

Number one, I traveled to Canada, and the vast majority of time will bend in, let me pay. But the times that I was able to pay, I used Apple Pay. And it was very, very fast. It was very efficient. And all you got to do is you get click the two buttons on the side of your phone. And it goes, ping. And I'm sure Android has some type of equivalent. Why do you need a digital euro for that?

don't know. And then the other thing in terms of the volatility aspect. So let's talk about that, right? So here's the euro. Here's price in Bitcoin. On a five-year time scale, the euro is actually down 80% towards Bitcoin. On a three-year time scale, it's down 70%. On a year time scale, it's down 30%. Year-to-date, 44% month, 13%. Maybe they're talking about the week. Because on a weak time scale, the euro is actually up 0.59% against Bitcoin. Is it still because we

had a bit of a pump earlier today, so maybe that's out of date? You're right. Maybe let's press refresh. Yeah, it's still there. So maybe the article is right in terms of on a weekly basis, this person, Mr. McGinnis, you're right

bro. Bitcoin is volatile and the euro is actually up 0.59% against Bitcoin this week. So you're right, man. If you were holding Bitcoin from Monday to Friday, you would have been fucking wrecked in euros by half a percent. So, okay, but in all seriousness, yes, there's volatility, but the volatility goes up into the right while Fiat currencies goes down into the right.

And again, like, I'm reading this article and this is actually a call to action. to Bitcoin developers. Apple Pay is awesome. It is so easy to you. I click two buttons on my phone and I go, and it vibrates and it makes me feel good. Like Bitcoin wallets need to get to that point because it is so easy to use.

Why do you need a central bank digital currency for that? Why do you need one if it already works, right? Well, it's obvious the reason why you need one. It's because Augustine can't take from your cookie jar if there is no central bank digital currency. That's why, you know, but it's just... It's so bad in that picture. He's mad at me right now.

I'm calling him now. He's like, Nico, stop talking. We need a central bank digital currency that we can control, right, with that famous video. So, yeah, man, that's my take, man. That's my two stats. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of redundant, like the typical tropes of, wow, it's digital and it's faster. and it'll be more convenient for all.

The only reason that fiat is is slow and inaccessible to a large number of people on this globe is because they've regulated themselves into corners and there's counterparty risk involved, right? And so, yeah, like people in certain places are not going to accept credit when it doesn't settle, you know, quickly. And so there's a lot of opportunity for fraud there. it's not a bearer instrument, so that's a problem. But in general, it's not, the regulation in and around money is the problem. Like they've all regulated themselves into corners to not be able to offer these types of services.

I think some people will use it in terms of they'll just be duped into it, and then it'll be too late. I think that the people that aren't duped into it, some of them will be encouraged to use it by various incentives. Like, oh, here, get your UBI check, and then you'll be good. And, you know, it'll be round of UBI until it's just forever clawbacks. And, you know, if you don't spend it quick enough, we're going to take it back from you and we're going to debate.

Like, all of those control mechanisms will come. after everybody's enticed to use it. But I think Bitcoiners are on the up and up and know that the CBDC is rat poison. 100%. And that's why Augustus is frowning right now. He knows that we know. Yeah.

Anyways. So big, big news on the quote unquote institutional adoption. Here's Alpha Zeta. He's the chief intelligence officer at Swan or chief investment officer. Sirot Swan better said. And it's kind of like the story that we've heard over and over again, right? The first story was the story of Black Rock and Larry Fink and basically saying that Bitcoin is only good for money laundering.

Fast forward five years later, Bitcoin's incentives stay winning, number go up technology does its thing. And then Larry Fink is Bitcoin is actually an international asset. Well, Vanguard, which for anyone that doesn't know is the second largest asset manager in the world behind BlackRock, they also changed tune. This is an article from 2018, a headline, Vanguard Chief, you will never see a Bitcoin fund from us. Fast forward, Vanguard now owns $560 million worth of Bitcoin mining stocks. They own 10% of riot, which is the largest publicly traded. Bitcoin mining company, right? So again, Bitcoin's incentive stay winning. Maybe they stayed true because they said there's no fund. But I mean, at the same time, you know, Bitcoin's incentive

stay winning. Now, here is micro strategy. And because it is a publicly traded company, you can see the top 10 stocks or owners that they have. And there's a couple of them, right? There's Vanguard group that owns 3.4 or they increase their shares by 3.4.4. but is, you know, one of the largest shareholder shareholders of micro strategy with 8.52%. Fidelity with 6.79% and BlackRock with 5.58%. And Morgan Stanley, which I'm pretty sure as an owner of Bank of America, if my memory serves me correctly. And they got some shares in micro strategy. In fact, they increased it by 15%. So, and micro strategy, the interesting part about micro strategy is that it acts as an ETF basically already. Like the micro strategy like stock literally is completely correlated with the price of Bitcoin.

Right. So even though these big-ass institutions aren't getting direct exposure yet, right? They sure want to, they sure do like number go up technology, you know, because they're trying to get exposure to it somehow buying 10% of a mining company. That is, that's some interesting stuff. I love the definite statements that they put out, the absolute statements that we will never, never do this. And then, you know, turns out never is a long time, right? So those types of statements tend to age poorly, especially in relation to Bitcoin. So, yeah, I mean, you're going to see a lot of this.

I mean, JP Morgan, you know, it was Jamie Diamond saying, oh, I'd, I'd, I'd, I'd, fire anybody on my staff that was, uh, had anything to do with Bitcoin. And then turns out, you know, they're doing all kinds of shit with Bitcoin. So like, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, there's going to be so many of these stories in the coming years. We're, we're now getting to the point where it, the inverse will be true. It'll be like, if you're not involved in this in some capacity, um, it's going to be a big red flag. Yeah. One one one million percent. I think it's what you said, man. Like, it, it, it, they, they can only take an ideological stance for so long.

And because they're public companies, right, they're, like, they're public companies. So their shareholders are going to be like, yo, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah. You know, um, and this is Bitcoin's incentives. And it's crazy because it's like ground up, you know, it's not top down. It's like this like ground up seepage into every facet of society, whether that's, you know, Mr. Polier with this, with this hat, talking. about anti-cbdc's or ron desantis or rfk junior using that as like a you know as a political

campaign slogan um like bitcoin is just seeping in from underneath and these central bankers they don't know what to do bro there's too many leaks and they're you know as gus his fingers are too too big and he doesn't know what to do with them anyways um all right sounds like fingers can't plug those holes very well i don't know what to to do. Bitcoin is coming through. Okay. Anyways. Um, okay. So, uh, another kind of example, not your keys, not your Bitcoin or not your, not your keys, not your money better said, right? Here's a lot. And he says, I'm with my wife and daughter in a bank of America office. They shut down my account with any notice or ex with, uh, I'm assuming he says without any notice or explanation. And we

won't be able to feed our family or pay medical expenses. We're staying here until it's fixed. So far, have refused to even explain why they did this. Okay. So that's lesson number one, right? If you have to ask somebody else for permission, is it really your money, right? And then there's been 100 years of history, whether it's the great bank runs of the,

I think it was like late 1920s or early 1930s, or even in Lebanon lately, right? People were freaking out to the point that they would go to the bank and hold it hostage. And instead of like trying to rob the bank, they're just like, dude, just give me my money. Right. So, you know, it's the lesson that we know in Bitcoin. It's not your keys, not your Bitcoin.

But it's even worse than that. It seems like they were doing some other stuff behind the scenes. I'm going to pay you a part of this clip. Wait. Are you hearing stuff? Oh, is the volume not coming through? I'm not seeing the video. Oh, oh, here we go.

How about now? Okay, there we go. There we go. All right. Let's try it again. Federal regulators are ordering Bank of America to pay up. They say the bank charged illegal junk fees to consumers and opened fake accounts. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered Bank of America to pay more than $100 million to customers, another $90 million in penalties.

And on top of that, the bank has to pay an additional $60 million in fines. CNN's Matt Egan joins us now live. So, Matt, what does this mean for Bank of America and its customers? Well, Boris, these are alarming allegations against one of America's largest banks, and they are eerily similar to the Wells Fargo scandal of years ago. Here's what regulators are alleging that Bank of America did. First, that they had this double-dipping fee scheme where when customers tried to buy something, if they didn't have enough money in their account, they were slapped with a $35 fee, but not once, multiple times for the same transaction. That is a big no-no.

Regulators also say that Bank of America was withholding credit card rewards. We're thinking about bonus points and cash rewards, withholding out to tens of thousands of credit card customers. And also, this is the part that is reminiscent of Wells Fargo, regulators say that Bank of America employees opened up fake accounts in an effort to hit sales goals that have since been disbanded. All right. I think, I think, you know, if that's not a better advertising for Bitcoin, I don't know what the fuck is, bro, at this point. Dude, like, and it keeps on, like, they said it, oh, well, this is eerily, you know, this is eerily similar to what Wells Fargo did. Banks steal from you. That's like the business model, man.

Like that's what they do. And I don't like, again, like people, we've been taught our entire lives that you couldn't possibly be responsible enough to care for your own money, despite the fact that everything else in life we're told, figure it out, learn. You know, you got to deal with this stuff yourself. You know, be an adult, you know, care for, you know, grow up, get a job. take care of your kids, take care of your property, you know, take care of your vehicle, whatever it may be. But God forbid you take care of your own money. You can possibly be responsible enough to do that.

I think it's just BS. I think it's just propaganda we've been fed to say that, you know, if you're capable of taking care of all these other things, including taking care of children, infants that require you to survive, then you're more than capable of, of taking care of your wealth as well. And what's more valuable your money or like a living, breathing child?

I would say the child. And so that's like if you can take care of that, you can take care of something that I would say is less valuable, which is like your own money. 100%. Yeah. That beautifully said, right? Like if you can take care of a child,

you can definitely write down 12 words, right? Like it's as simple as that. And I think society has been brainwashed. And I think that that convenience, right? Like I think the slippery slope of convenience. And I think a lot of people got enticed by that. It's like, oh, like, you know, I brought up the example with Apple Pay before. Yeah, Apple Pay is very fucking convenient.

But Apple Pay is also, I have to use a bank for Apple Pay. And what if I was in that situation, then that poor person, you know, that very unfortunate person better said was in and then all of a sudden my apple pay wouldn't work and you know what will always work bitcoin that i have in self-custody yeah and there's not there's nothing there's nothing anyone could do about it especially augustus that's why he's so upset that's why he's so angry and a grumpy all the time um so yeah man it's uh you can take care of a puppy from other compliance that's fair that's i love that well we got about two minutes left i got one headline we could read which I think is really interesting.

You know what? Let's do this and let's kind of compare and contrast the two. So we know we've been covering El Salvador on Simply Sessions for a very long time. And we've been covering how the legacy corporate media has been angling El Salvador. Now, I think that this is the most ridiculous headline

I've ever seen. So this is the country with the highest murder rate now has the highest incursed car frustration rate. El Salvador President Eam Buckele kicked off a gang crackdown that has strong support from locals who can now live and do business safely, but it faces questions from rights groups. Okay. Fine. You say, okay, you know, they locked up 1% of the population. That's terrible. But the dude also has a 90% approval rating. There's this, the story goes on to tell, like this article goes on to tell.

literally stories about how people in slums, like here's the one. I would vote for Buckele 10 more times, Edwin Alvos, who recently opened a Mexican restaurant near a notorious San Salvador slum. Two years ago, I wouldn't have opened a business here. This was a red zone. He used to fork over $6,000 a year in extortion payments in a failed effort to keep open clothing and restaurant businesses. In the slums that surround the country's capital. Parents now say their children can play outside without asking permission from one once omnipresent street gangs. Middle class teens gather at the coffee shop of central San Salvador and restaurants are filled with families having dinner. I don't know about you, but maybe

that's why the dude has a 90% approval rating. Isn't that the whole point of government to like keep law and order and make people safe? Isn't that the whole point of paying taxes? I, I I was talking to Jimmy Song yesterday, Ben, and I think that money plays such an integral role in society, right? Is half of every transaction is the base layer. If that base layer is corrupted, it corrupts the incentive structure. What happens if that base layer is not corrupted? It's actually a strong, truthful base layer, and the incentives are actually aligned. then all of a sudden maybe the government actually does what the government is supposed to do

and then crazy thought maybe that's what you're seeing in el savador and you know why i believe this is true because of the amount of propaganda and spin and shit that they're throwing at this tiny little central american country that no one gave a flying fuck about before they passed the bitcoin law a couple years ago. Yeah. It's so interesting to me when I, when I see this. Like I, you know, there is, I'm torn two different directions because like part of me is like, shit, the, the people that, you know, got swept up in this that maybe, you know,

that were completely innocent and they're thrown behind bars. And it's like, like, that should be sorted through. and probably, you know, taking a look at. But at the same time, it was the highest homicide rate on the planet per capita. People could not go outside and to see that much of a turnaround. And I don't know what the solution is in terms of like what is the quote unquote most right way to do things. but to have that stark of a change that quickly and to have an entire population

that is like, oh, I couldn't go outside before and our children basically weren't allowed in the streets whatsoever. And now everybody's like, oh, we can like go and enjoy our cities and we can have children and not worried about them like being shot in rival gangfire you know, every other day. You know, when you're weighing things, like I would say it was worse before.

And I would say it's hard to argue that standard of living now is not better. Right. And so how do you fix that big of a problem where it's the highest homicide rate on the planet per capita in a way that causes the least deaths and gets people back to like a degree of normal? normalcy and being able to live their lives, not in fear. And I don't know. Maybe maybe this way that they're doing it was the quickest and most humane way to do it. And now you sort it through. And the part of me that thinks that that may be true is because of Bitcoin being there.

And I know people would be like, well, what the hell is the connection there? it's because by implementing a currency that can't be manipulated by the government, it vastly reduces the powers of that nation state in terms of how much they can exploit their citizens. And so by virtue of Bitcoin being baked in and teaching the citizens locally about Bitcoin and how to utilize it, even if it's not widely used yet, because obviously it's been like two years. It's going to take time.

I think having that there, even if Buckele got to the point where it was like, guy with a lot of power does some good stuff and then does some really bad stuff, there's a tool of freedom that has been given to the people there. And that tool can be used also against the existing government. So I think there's a degree of check there. again, I'm like, I don't know even what I'm really saying here in terms of a definitive, this is good or this is bad, but I can definitely say that for the vast majority of people in that

country, life is better now than it was a few years ago. 100%. And I think your, your, your intuition to be skeptical, right? I think it's 100%. You're 100% right because it could easily be turned around the populace, right? And I think we've seen many examples of this throughout history. I would just say, Ben, like, I've never seen this much hope in Latin America. In, like, I can't remember an example in my life that we've seen this. Now, is it going to be, you know, a Greek tragedy where, you know, this eventually becomes tyrannical?

or, you know, is, or is it going to have a happy ending because Bitcoin is the money? And I think only time will tell. Yeah, I agree. Awesome. Well, that's great. Can Nico, before you go, can I show you one thing? Yeah, of course. Okay. I'm going on a tangent here, but let's, I've got to bring up something.

It's more local, we'll say. It's more Canadian. And it has to do with, again, of course, central bank. banks and banks fucking the populace. But here we go. You may have missed this headline, but for my Canadians out there, it's from the Toronto Star and it says as interest rates continue to rise, some variable rate mortgage borrowers are seeing their amortization periods extend to 60, 70, even 90 years.

Canada's federal regulator is now acting to reduce the risk posed by such forever mortgages. So if you have a variable rate mortgage and you were kind of on the cusp of like they had like stress tests to see if you could afford your mortgage if rates went up by like a certain percent, which was like way less than what they've actually gone up by. Well, now you could be stuck with your bank being like, well, either you go into foreclosure with your house or what we could do is we could take your existing mortgage. with the rates as they are and you're you know, make your make your, make your payments basically the same as they were except for you're going to pay us for the next 90 years. And that's basically you're just you're you've now made a down payment on a home. You're going to continue paying your mortgage forever.

And then you're going to die before you pay it off. And then they'll probably just repossess your house then and then sell it again. This is the world that we're currently living in. I made a little, I made a meme about it. My parents in their 30s. Let's buy a house. Me and my 30s. One day I'll save up enough for the down payment on a 90-year mortgage.

And this is the world we live in now. So here we are. And good luck with your 90-year mortgages. I mean, this is going to break, right? Like, one of two things will happen. The government will be like, you're not allowed to put people in 90-year mortgages. then the banks will be like, all right, I guess everybody just fucking defaults with the rates the way they are. And then we get another housing crisis or they lower rates.

And then we just get more and more inflation. Like it's basically which one do you want or everybody gets stuck with high rates and 90 year mortgages. So we've kind of got like three shitty paths to go down or the secret backway path is by Bitcoin. Yep, exactly. buy Bitcoin, opt out of this fucking bullshit. And that meme, I think, is so fitting. Because it describes it so well. And then this is the other frustrating thing, right?

It's like one of the things, I'm not saying all, right? But like one of the things that, you know, I've heard like messages from parents and stuff, it's like, just work hard. It's like, when you were growing up, it was a whole lot easier to buy shit. Now they're literally telling us, you'll owe nothing and be happy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's out of compliance as you're virtually renting. It's worse than renting because you made a down payment and you will still never own the home. This is what it is. Yeah.

It's so crazy to me. They just keep extending it. Like they just keep like extending this, this fakeness. Let's make a law. So like the next thing will be like, all right, we've got to institute laws where if you take out a 90 year mortgage and you don't and you die before. it's paid off that debt gets bestowed upon your children and your grandchildren. So you just have entire generations of slaves. Do you want generational slavery or generational wealth? You've got two paths. Pick one.

Exactly. Exactly. Anyways, Ben, this was awesome. Everyone, this was your simply sessions. Ben, I'll literally see you in an hour. Yeah. I'll chat about it on the show in a moment. All right.

See you soon, dude. Peace out, man. Take it easy. All right. Later. Okay, everybody. A few more things. Let's touch on before we tap out here. A couple things. Cold Card Q1 progressing. Check it out. Calculator crew getting excited. This is what the Q1 is, again, they're just like kind of going through the printing process, figuring out what it's going to look like and everything. This is a clear, clear version of the cold card Q1. Full keyboard numbers up, down, cancel. NFC, QR scanner, all that stuff. It even has a flashlight, and it's powered by regular batteries.

So anyways, looks awesome. I'm super stoked. It's a Ti-83 calculator or a Blackberry, whatever you prefer. Same deal. Anyways, there we go. I've got to give a huge shout-out to Max DeMarco. He just dropped his Noster documentary. It's just called social media.

is broken. Can we fix it? You can find it on YouTube. Share it around. Watch it. Also, send him some sats. He's on Geyser Fund and everything. Go find it. All the links will be down below. It's awesome. It's really cool. He did an amazing job as he always does. What else we got here? I just saw this drop from Darren Honeyset. He is another YouTube Bitcoin educator. And I'm really trying to pump up any other Bitcoin educators that are out there that are doing step-by-step tutorials. Actually, stepping back, Max DeMarco did make also a tutorial on Noster, which he'll link in the show notes. But back to Darren here. He did a tutorial on Start 9 getting set up with your Start 9 server, setting up Bitcoin core, linking it to a wallet, all that good stuff.

So, yeah, it's all here. You can find him just Darren Honeyset on YouTube. or D Honeyset on Twitter. He's also on Noster and you can find him there. But yeah, give the tutorial some love, shared around the more Bitcoin educators we have, the better. You can never have too much of this stuff.

So shout out to Darren for dropping this. I also dropped a tutorial earlier this week on the Bitcoin ring or the Bolt ring. It's basically a tap NFC ring that is linked to a lightning wallet that you control. and you can use it for quick tips and small payments. You can lock it out whenever you don't want to use it, all that kind of stuff. You have full control. You can control it from your phone.

Yeah, super awesome. Check it out. I don't know if they're for sale yet, but they should be soon. I got an early one while I was in Prague. So really cool. So check out that tutorial. And then what are we doing tonight? Pacific Bitcoin and Swan.

They're putting on Pacific Bitcoin Happy Hour and game night. They're doing like a Hollywood Squares type thing tonight. It's going to be myself, Nico, Tatum, Cryptomags, Kenny Florian, Katie, the Russian. We've got others joining in is my understanding. And then Neil Jacobs will be the host. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to this one.

It should be a good time. Yeah, I think that's pretty much all I got to tell you. Thank you guys for being here. Make sure you tune in shortly for Hollywood Squares. Whereas, whatever that becomes, it's going to be on YouTube. And yeah, in fact, I've already retweeted it, but I'm going to do an extra retweet right now. So it should be the top of feed.

Anyways, thank you guys. Of course, like, subscribe, share. All those are helpful. If you want to help the show on another way, hit the sponsors, hoddle, hoddle, coin kite, nunchucks, start nine. You can also, on my website, BTCsessions.com. If you need to book me for one-on-ons, if you need some extra help. setting up whatever you need to set up.

Just head over there. If you really liked what you saw, you can actually. One other thing I was going to say, if you are setting up one-on-ones, I'm going to be in Europe for the majority of the summer starting this Sunday. I've got select days. I can do one-on-one. So if the European time zones are a bit more comfortable for you, this may be the time to book a one-on-one session.

I'm not doing too many days while I'm over there, but like twice a week, I will have a full day that I can be booked for. So just keep an eye out. If you do need to book a session, then do it now because I'm sure the days are going to probably fill up if I have limited amounts. But anyways, I digress. If you really like the show, you can always drop me a tip, send me a Bitcoin tip via lightning.

Just scroll down on my website. There's a QR code there. And if you click on it, it'll take it directly to my guys on page. You can even leave little comments if you go to the user fun page when you send some stats. Anyways, enough of my rambling, guys. Thank you so much for being here. As always, thank you to everybody in the chat.

I appreciate you. You guys are awesome. And yeah, that's all I got to say. Have a great day or evening, wherever you may be. See you guys next time for your daily session.