BTC Sessions - SIMPLY SESSIONS: Why Chase Bank is Blocking Bitcoin Purchases - What You Need to Know!

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Breaking down the latest buzz: Chase Bank bans its customers from buying Bitcoin—Is your money really yours? Plus, we explore Gary Gensler's role in the SEC's pushback against a Bitcoin ETF. Michael Saylor and Microstrategy make yet another bullish move on Bitcoin. And did you know the U.S. government is the biggest Bitcoin holder? All these and more in this must-watch update! 💪 SUPPORT THE SHOW: Nunchuk Wallet and their Honey Badger plan is a best in class assisted mutisig setup with built-in inheritance planning and NO KYC. Check them out today! https://nunchuk.io/ SEEDOR is one of the most robust metal backups on the market today. Get your SEEDOR starter set today! Use this link for 5% off. https://www.seedor.io/discount/BTCSESSIONS?redirect=%2Fcollections%2Fprodukte For US based customers: https://a.co/d/1DkbfV2 Canadian customers: https://link.thecryptoboutique.ca/BTCSessionsSeedor 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 Server Lite,One or Pro today and become truly self-sovereign! https://start9.com/   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  HodlHodl is a NON-CUSTODIAL, NON-KYC solution to stack sats peer to peer! Buy and sell Bitcoin while maintaining privacy. Sign up and try it out today! https://hodlhodl.com/join/BTCSESSION 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's going on, everybody? Welcome to the show. Another Thursday, another episode of Simply Sessions with our good buddy, Nico. I feel like I haven't seen them so long. We've even had to do these things on the fly because one or the other of us will be traveling. It's been a busy year. So, yeah, excited to get in here. I see everybody in the chat.

I was popping in a few messages in there early. So thanks to everybody that's in here. Keep those messages coming. and we'll be pulling up the live chat on the screen once we get into everything. Of course, as I mentioned, this is alive. Anything can happen. So 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. Somebody tagged me in something on Twitter earlier where Tucker Carlson was with Bill O'Reilly.

And they just tagged me. And I was like, all right, well, fuck it, we'll do it live. Anyways, guys, like, subscribe, share, all those things, super helpful. And I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your Simply session. Before we bring in Nico, let's take a look at where we are in the market today. I'm also going to get our live chat up here as we go. All right, those should start piling in.

as we go. Anyways, guys, this is Timechaincaller.com. We're sitting at $27,014 per coin. A single US dollar will pick you up 3,702 sats. A little bit of a bump today. A little bit of a bump. Don't get too excited. Don't jinx it. Don't jinx it. Anyways, in terms of fees, next block, 24 sats per byte, anytime 8 sats per byte.

We've also seen a drop in fees recently. Those damn wizards just couldn't keep it up. suppose. So just be aware. It's purging. The Mempool is purging anything sub, say four sats per byte. And in terms of Bitcoin mine, 19.5 million of them, which is 92.85% of the total supply. Shout out to sponsors of the show, hoddlehottle.com. If you are buying Bitcoin, and you've got some priorities in mind like pure-to-peer trading, instant self-custasy, and no K-YC. This is the place to be. Sign in with nothing more than an email address. Choose your currency. method and amount and you'll be off to the races viewing offers immediately and able to stack

some non-KWAC SATs. They also have a peer-to-peer lending platform in which nothing is ever re-hypothicated. Check them out. Links are down below. Of course, once you stack some stats, you're going to want to secure it with the best damn hardware on the market. Coin kite is absolutely awesome. The cold card mark four is my go-to hardware of choice. I also have all their other goodies, tap signers, sats cards, block clocks, open dimes, and coming soon, the cold card Q1, which we'll chat about a little bit later when I'm doing the tech updates. Anyways, I already reserved mine. If you want to reserve yours, head over to coincite.com.

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And finally, start nine, your sovereign computing solution. You can run these plug and play devices to host your entire Bitcoin node. and software stack as well as your own personal data. So what can you host? Bitcoin Core, Lightning. Mempool.Space, join market. You can also host files, password, photos, nostril relays, all kinds of great stuff. I've done the tutorial on these guys, lots of stuff coming out from them,

and some pretty big updates on the horizon. So if you want to check them out, head over to start9.com. They've got everything from entry level all the way up to what I'm running, which is the Start 9 server pure. Anyways, with that, guys, I'm going to stop my rambling here. I got a dead Nico. And it's been far too long. And what's you?

Oh, you got a buddy. Did you get, is that an imposter or is mine an imposter? Who's on my shelf? Is that you, yellow? I don't know what's going on. Happen to be back, Ben. Dude, how long has it been? How long has it been?

It's been a long time. Like, my tips are starting to fade, bro. I know, I know. I think, are we going to fix that? We have to. We have to. So at first, I have to be honest with you.

I was like, okay, try this as experiment. But I keep getting compliments, bro. People are like, this is dope. And now that I've got in my blue blocker glasses, you know, I feel like it's a good combination. Yeah, I mean, I'm big in it, man. Lisa's coming down. The wife, he's coming down.

And she was like, am I packing my, my hair stuff? I'm like, it's probably not a bad idea. So, you know, if you want to retouch the tip, It's a possibility. It has to happen. It has to happen. And I saw Nathan. Nathan is he's 75% there.

So we might get a third tip. Can we convert him? What happens when everybody in Bitcoin just starts getting tips? I love the comments. Getting tipsy. We need to host a party called Getting Tipsy. It's a participant has to come with a blonde tip. that's great awesome man well dude um what's going on what's what's top of mind what's been happening

in the news here it's never a slow week in bitcoin um and we'll start off with with the chad sailor and making more chad sailor moves um but i got to say this ben like he's got to leave some Bitcoin for the rest of us, bro, because he's just stacking all the corn. He's gobbling it up. I'm jelly. You know, one thing I'll say about Sailor and the detractors that are like, he's getting too much Bitcoin. This is worrisome.

What I would say is, you know, he, first of all, if you don't like that he's buying too much Bitcoin, then go buy some Bitcoin and don't give it to him. And secondly, he's kind of also earned this unique spot where he bought a business that's cash flow positive. And he's then able to capitalize on that and purchase the hardest asset known demand and stack it. So I don't know. Can't complain. Yeah, can't complain. Don't we all wish that we had this multi-billion dollar company to leverage to just buy more Bitcoin.

It'd be great. Wouldn't it be? Yeah. But I see a comment. I see a comment. It says sailors got some serious breath. But does he though? Does he?

Does he? I feel like, I don't know, man. Would you be, would you want to be in anything that's not Bitcoin right now? Yeah. Serious brass is sitting in like T-bills.

Yeah. That takes some, that takes some, some Cajonis for sure. Anyways, so here's the Chad announcing this. Microstrategy has acquired an additional 5,445 Bitcoin.

It's like nothing. It's just 5,000. Nothing. That's nothing. That's nothing. For $147 million, that's nothing, then. At an average of $27,000 per coin, Microstrategy holds 158,245 Bitcoin acquired for $4.68 billion,

at an average price of $29,582 per Bitcoin. So if you kind of do a little bit of math, Saylor almost owns, like if you take into account the lost coins, right? A lot of people, some people say it's $4 million. Some people say it's three. Some people say it's two, whatever. Michael Saylor almost owns 1% of the whole Bitcoin supply, which is absolutely bonkers. Because as soon as other companies start to figure out that Bitcoin is the best money that has ever existed.

And it's just a superior asset. it's a superior strategy. He puts this perfect. I would call this a meme. Bitcoin illustrates the true cost of capital. And at the bottom, it says performance since August 10, 2020, when micro strategy adopted its Bitcoin strategy. So it's a big FU.

Chad Sailor is just putting his Chad Sealer on the table straight up. And it's a comparison. So if you were holding silver since then, you'd be down 20%. If you've been holding bonds, you're, You'd be, if you were holding bonds, like you said, you'd be down 19%. If you're holding gold, shout out Peter Schiff, you'd be down 7%. If you're holding the NASDAQ, 21%. If you're holding SNP, like an index fund, you'd be up 30%.

If you're holding Bitcoin, you'd be up 118%. Right? So obviously, he made the right choice. And I think as time progresses, and I love this website because it really does show everything priced in Bitcoin, things get cheaper. Even though inflation is doing its thing, even though inflation has made the cost of living,

you can make the case it's doubled the cost of living or it's at least made it 50% more expensive. If you've been living on a Bitcoin standard and you've been living on a long-term basis, things have actually gotten cheaper. Here are the primary, so it's the US dollar, oil, gold, SMP 500, and most importantly, housing. Because we all know since they started money printing

because of the pandemic, the cost of housing, at least in Miami's doubled, right? It's absurd, right? But if you've been saving in Bitcoin, housing has actually gotten 62% cheaper. The SMP 500 has gotten 63% cheaper. Gold, 61% cheaper. Oil, 73% cheaper. The dollar, 75% cheaper.

Mind you, we're basically at the bottom of a bear market, and things have still gotten cheaper if you've been saving in Bitcoin. And I think that's what Michael Saylor was indicating. And I think that this strategy is going to become undeniable. It's going to be irresistible to other public companies

in the next having. And then you see that. That's why you see the moves from BlackRock. That's why you see the moves from the other asset managers. They see the writing on the wall. This is becoming incredibly obvious that Bitcoin is the right move.

Yeah. Just at one little side note, you know, the only piece of real estate that hasn't gotten more expensive in Florida? Where? Marlago. What was the? It was like $18 million. I'll just leave that one on the table there. No need for that. Rabbit. Oh, man. That's hilarious. Yeah, yeah. It's just crazy. But I mean, but it's not only Florida. everywhere. Like it's just things have just gotten so expensive because of all this money printing. And it's just really theft, man. Like, you know, so I like, I'm renting. Like I, like, I'm, I'm, I'm in that age. I'm in that point in my life where I'm like, looking at housing and I'm like, like,

like, this is like insane, you know. Yeah. Even us and like in, I'm in Canada, we, we bought our home in 2020 and then, you know, so our rates were not shit. But in Canada, when you sign, uh, when you lock in a rate, um, It's not you lock it in for the entirety of the mortgage. You must renegotiate after five years. So my law. Well, it's just, yeah, it's just baked into the financial system. It's just, yeah, every, a fixed rate mortgage is fixed rate for five years until you renegotiate.

So like there's a ton, like my mortgage will come up in 2025. I mean, who knows? Like, I feel like some shit will break before then and they'll, stop hiking, but I'll probably be like, even if it starts to come back down, it's still going to be like, well, that that fucking sucks. Like, that's just, it's just the way it is. I mean, I'm not going to be out on the street, but like, you know, it just goes to show that any property that's not Bitcoin has, has risk to it.

And so, like, sure, I'm paying for a home that I'm living in. But like, you know, there's no guarantee on what the future cost and payments. and value of said home will be, it's all on the whims of the central bank. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's completely out of, out of, out of, uh, it's completely out of, out of, out of your control. And then that wasn't until Bitcoin. And I think that, like, that is why, you know, that's why the central bankers hate it and that they can't control it. And I want to just say a comment too, because you said in Canada, um, Ben lives in the nicest freaking part. I've, the stop signs have stone, like, a,

stone base, okay? It's really, really freaking nice. The streets are paved with Peter Ships gold. Like, it is a really really, really... It rains, diamonds. It is a really like nice ass plate. They don't have that in Miami. Well, you got to come to the mountains and we saw Banff and it is pretty beautiful there. So yeah. Oh man. No, but

even bro, that just Alberta, Alberta's dope. It's very, very cool. I really, really enjoyed that. I even know that part of the world existed. And the ratio for the amount of Bitcoiners per person is absurdly high. I don't know what it is about that region of the world. I mean, it helps when you've got a crazy dictator that shop your bank accounts, I suppose. That'll do it. I think that will do it.

That will do it for sure. Okay. All right. Moving on to the next piece of news. This is going to be a couple videos or not this one yet. but I would consider this cosmic justice. And I came up with the term, Ben, okay? And I've heard this term used in political rhetoric,

but I don't like political rhetoric because left, right, it's all BS, you know, whatever party gets elected, it's the same thing. They print money, they de base everyone else's, right? But I've co-opted some of that rhetoric, and what I did was I inserted some Bitcoin stuff. So I call it the iron law

of central banker politician projection. Okay, the iron law of central banker politician projection. Everything they blame onto Bitcoin and onto Bitcoiners, 99.99% of the time, in my experience, they are guilty of themselves. But you couldn't have written this better than what happened. So this is Mr. Mendez. He is a senator from New Jersey,

and he had some things to say about El Salvador and President Buckele. Let's check it out. We have an increasing challenging situation in El Salvador, one that threatens both the future democracy in the country and bilateral relations with the United States. Over the last two years, President Buckeli has presided over a number of alarming setbacks for demonstrators, undermining judicial independence, intimidating opposition lawmakers by using security forces to occupy the legislature, negotiating political packs with gangs, regularly attacking journalists and media outlets.

And in addition to these actions, Buckeli has also repeatedly used his network of Twitter trolls to attack and threaten not only government critics within El Salvador, but also United States officials. We have an increasing challenging. So corruption using Twitter, you know, like all these horrible things, right? So mind you, this is the same U.S. government that got caught, like, dead to rights with the Twitter files asking Twitter to censor certain Americans because of their political speech.

It's the same government, right? But again, you couldn't have written this better. Fast forward a couple of months and some news broke about Senator Bob Menendez. Let's hear what it has to say. New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, who is the chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He's being charged with corruption-related. charges for the second time in 10 years. He was charged indicted before and there was a hung jury

and now he's being charged again for something completely different. Let's get right to Carrey for the details on this. Kara, what are you learning? Yeah, John, so the U.S. Attorney's Office here in Lower Manhattan has announced that they have brought bribery charges against Senator Menendez and his wife. And according to the prosecutor's office that they alleged that Menendez's wife had received hundreds of thousands of dollars. in bribes that they had done them used to help three New Jersey businessmen and the government of Egypt. This investigation has been going on for several years, and sources have told CNN that they have sent out rings of subpoenas to people seeking information about some of these

businessmen and these relationships. Now, one of the businessmen is someone who has known Menendez's wife for a long time. He is someone that had obtained the exclusive right to export and certify halal meat to Egypt. That has been a focus of this investigation. And another one of the business then is a New Jersey developer. And prosecutors were asking questions about him, his communications with the senator and his wife. So as you said, though, this is the second time in 10 years that Senator Menendez has been charged with bribery and corruption.

Wait a second. Hold on a second. Isn't that exactly what he accused of President Bukale of the iron law of, of, not Iron law of politician, central banker projection absolutely never fails. And here, let's take a look at some of the pictures. Here's Naimu Kelle, like rubbing in his face. This guy actually called for an investigation against us. He ended up being charged.

Like literally, he said that he mentioned drug dealing and whatever. This is literally like a drug dealer, a Mercedes, gold bars, and cash. And by the way, he has his own merch. Senator Menendez hats. Why would he leave the Senator Menendez hats with the piles of indicted bills to just like, I'll just leave this hat here beside all of my, my criminal associated cash. Dude, it is, it is like, it is so, like, you couldn't have written this better. Like, the joke writes itself, right?

And he mentioned something about, you know, President Buckele is a danger to democracy, right? It's just like I hear that all the time, right? So let's take a look at it, right? Let's take a look at the opinion polls of President Buckele all in the 80s or the high 80s, mid-80s, high 80s to low 90s, right? High approval rating. I understand a lot of people's thinking about, you know,

him locking up a large portion of the population. But if we're going to use democracy as a thing, right, because they love to use that word. Democratically, a vast majority of the population supports what he's doing. Isn't that the whole definition of democracy? Now, if you compare that to the U.S., which is grandstanding, the last presidential approval poll,

is that 52% of the country disapproves with the U.S. president. And I'm sure in Canada, it's not too high either, right? So again, the iron law of politician's central banker projection never fails. All right. I've started to notice a pattern. I put a label on it. Oh, my God. I mean, really, the only thing to say is something, something glass houses.

Like, it's just like, who, yeah. I'm kind of at a loss with this. I mean, it's, I suppose this is just par for the course. for politicians. I mean, never trust a politician as far as you can throw them. And yeah, I don't know, man. Yeah, I mean, the hat, though. The hat.

I wish he had individually stamped each bill with like a bill with his, his little logo on it. That would have been even better. Yeah, right. That would have been the, the cherry on top. All right. So the big news for this week really was Chase. So apparently this was a letter or an email that was sent and it was reported by various news outlets. So to my understanding, this has been confirmed. But this is an apparent email that was sent out,

specifically to not chase in the United States, but chase in the United Kingdom. So it's an email that says, our policy around crypto is changing. Here's what it means for you. Hi, to help keep your money safe from fraud and scams, we're changing the types of payments you can make from Chase. Right. So I just, it's always under the guise of keeping your money safe, right? That is the same excuse that Elizabeth Warren uses to justify trying to pass that bill that would essentially kill Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining in the United States. It's not my words. That's that, that's, that Pierre Rischar said that, right? That that bill that Elizabeth Warren would pass

would essentially kill Bitcoin in the U.S. And that's that same word, safety. It's always for your safety. So that's what Chase is saying. And then it goes on to say, from 16 October 2023, if we think you're making a payment related to crypto assets, we'll decline it.

If you'd still like to invest in crypto assets, you can try using a different bank or provider instead. But please be cautious, as you may not be able to get the money back if the payment ends being related to fraud or a scam. Please head to our website for more info about how to protect your money. We've made this decision because fraudsters are increasingly using crypto assets to steal large sums of money from people. Declining these payments is one of the ways we're helping keep you and your money safe. All the best, the Chase team.

Yeah, like I can keep my own money safe now. I don't need to trust you. And again, like this whole idea where it's, It's like, we know what's best. We're doing this for your protection. Perhaps they're doing this because they don't like the competition. Maybe that's, you know, the real reasoning, right? And again, you know, they talk from a place of like moral grandstanding.

And, you know, J.P. Morgan Chase doesn't necessarily have, you know, the best, you know, track record. And I know I'm nitpicking here, but still, like, again, like, if they're taking this moral grand stance of like, Hey guys, you could trust us. We're angels. We've never done anything bad. Check out this article from CBS News. Ship seized in $1.3 billion cocaine bust is owned by J.P. Morgan Chase. And check out this Department of Justice press release. J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. agrees to pay $920 million in connection with schemes to defraud precious metals and U.S. Treasury markets. Right? So what about that? And then not to mention, they said keep your money safe. What about keeping your money safe from inflation, right?

What about keeping your money safe from censorship? What about that? Why is that never mentioned, right? It's always, you know, it's always like keeping your money safe as long as it's in our control and in our custody. Yeah. Yeah. It's, and again, so there's kind of two aspects to this. Number one, the caveat, I think this was specifically UK.

But, I mean, in my opinion, that doesn't really matter. like that's it's if chase in the UK was making this decision like how how soon could it then affect others so like if you're if you're using chase at all and you like bitcoin then you should be aware and also does this then eventually extrapolate out to any association with Bitcoin right because like it's not a far leap between oh you've bought Bitcoin to oh you're associated with Bitcoin and perhaps uh and perhaps you're associated with fraud. And so, you know, Chase doesn't give a fuck, right? Like they're just like, especially if you're just a little guy with a regular bank account,

they'll shut it down on a whim. They don't care. They don't care. The only people that get the preferential treatment are the big boys that have the big accounts, right? The ones that can commit the fraud and money laundering freely right under the noses of the banks and get a pat on the back for doing it because they're bringing in business. The other aspect of this, like to play devil's advocate, and this is a tweet I saw from Francis Pouliott, was he said unpopular opinion, Chase's decision to not allow these types of transactions may be justified in that sometimes they can basically be on the hook for some of the fraud that happens.

like I worked for a Bitcoin ATM company and there were regularly like the ATMs got used all the time for scamp, you know, calling calling people and being like, you owe taxes or something, go to this, you know, and it'd be somebody who'd just moved to Canada or something. Oh, you got to pay your taxes or you're going to jail and they'd get them to put in cash to a Bitcoin ATM and send off Bitcoin to wherever in the world. So I can see that obviously being a problem. but at the same time like it's it's not your money right like it's well i guess i guess it is it's it's jace's money at the point that you deposit it but like you know from a moral standard from a moral standpoint like this is other people's money and they're basically saying what you can and cannot do with it and so um yeah if if if you don't like that then yeah probably don't use chase probably go somewhere else and if if you're

you really, really don't like it, I've got a secret. You could go on a Bitcoin standard. You could completely separate yourself from the banking system and only need it when you use it when you absolutely need it to keep the minimum balance for what you need to do. I've heard that's a great way to live, and it takes a huge weight off your shoulders. I mean, I've heard from a guy, who knows a guy.

It's a phenomenal way to live. And I've heard from a guy that knows a guy too. But yeah, I hope they keep doing this. I hope they keep doing it. Like, this is, like, if you want to see the best advertising for Bitcoin, like, you're looking at it. Like, you're literally looking at it. Here's a bank, right, that is telling you what you can and what you can't do with your money. Yeah.

Right. Under the guise of safety, as if you're a moron and you can't think for yourself, right? And you can't make decisions. And I think that a lot of the problems that are, you know, going on in society today, you could, you can make the argument is because people have outsource a lot of their responsibility. So whether that's the seeking of information, health, money, and I think that personal responsibility, I think could, could, you know, I think it's necessary when you, when you migrate to a Bitcoin standard. You need a bit of personal responsibility to take self, self-custody. Yeah, 100%. And I, you know,

I see it time and again. And Bitcoin is, is a very harsh. but effective teacher. Every lesson is not sugar-coded and can cause real pain, but pain is actually what makes people learn, right? If you get burned, if you make a mistake, if you get scammed, you know, if you've got, you know, two brain cells to rub together, you will not repeat that mistake, right? You learn from that pain. And I caveated that with if you have two brain cells to rub together because there were people that went from like Celsius to BlockFi to FTCS to like literally every single one of the.

I think I saw the post of the guy being like, I put my money all in Celsius and then I lost it all. And then I started to rebuild and I went to BlockFi. And then I lost it all. And then I went to FDX and just basically opt from scam to scam. So like, yeah, I mean, I guess common sense. sense is in common, but like, again, Bitcoin will teach you and it is necessary to have personal responsibility. If it's not personal responsibility, the responsibility has been shifted to somebody else's shoulders. And they're not exactly incentivized to be responsible. Yep, exactly.

They're not. It's, it's a, it's a system of misaligned incentives versus a system of aligned incentives, right? And if you guys have insecurities about how to take self-custody, check out the best tutorials in the game. So, but yeah, it's no excuse. And then also, like, you know, if you want to take levels to it, I run a start nine, what is it, the prism, right? The highest version, too. Oh, the pure. The pure. And it is so, it is so sweet. And then you can just connect your Bitcoin, your software wallet through tour anywhere around the world. This is the nicest freaking feeling ever. Yeah.

I don't know. They've got some big updates coming, man. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. Okay. Got some good stuff coming down the bike. Yeah. Okay.

All right. So, yeah. So this is Chase. Now, a thing, like, I would say there's no direct connection to this, but you can make the argument that there is a, you can make the argument that there is a pattern, right? This is something that has been happening in the U.S., right? It's something that we've been covering on Simply Sessions for quite a while now, right,

which is the current administration's attempt to isolate the industry from the traditional financial system. And I think this chase move is just another, you know, troubling sign that that is what's happening, right? And again, like, this isn't just a crazy Bitcoin. are saying this or BTC sessions or simply Bitcoin, it's Caitlin Long had a, you know, had an interview with her, and she said it.

It came directly from her. I believe that my bank, Custodia Bank, was denied a federal banking charter, and that order came directly from the administration. Her words, not mine, right? That's a very, very strong statement. And that kind of confirms what's been going on, right? that it's not a theory anymore, right?

Like, you know, when you have someone who's trying to start a business and that's a conclusion that she's coming to, I think that's a very, very strong statement. Anyways, moving on to the other big piece of news this week, which was Gary Genser had a interview or midi or hearing. I think is what they call it in front of the financial committee. And currently the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, are in power, they have control the house. And holy cow, did they rip him a new one?

Like, it was really, really bad. Now, again, I hate, I think politics are fundamentally corrupted because if you have a corrupted base layer, I think regardless of who you vote into power, it's just, it's the same, they don't call it the uniparty. They don't call it, if you don't fix the root cause, the root issue, you're not going to fix the problem, right? But that being said, I think that they use this, obviously, because they're politicians as a way to get votes and get popular support, right?

Like, I definitely believe that's what they did. But that's not to say they didn't rip him an absolute new one. Now, at this point, and I'm not the only one that I've seen said this, I truly believe that the delay of the spot Bitcoin ETF is political. I cannot come to another conclusion. So many asset managers, whether it's BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, just announced that they have $1.5 trillion assets under management. They just announced that they're filing to launch a spot Bitcoin ETF. So there's so much demand, so much pressure. And they just announced that they are going to delay it again.

This just came out a couple hours before we started recording. This is Bitcoin Archive. BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF decision was just delayed by the SEC. And then they make a joke, Gary going to get a phone call. So let's hear what Tom Emmer, by the way, Tom Emmer has been super pro-Bitcoin, also pro-crypto, unfortunately. But he really went ham. So this was the press hearing. This was the press hearing hearing before the hearing hearing.

So apparently there's press hearings before hearings. Anyways, let's check out what he has to say. Thank you. I identify with both the conference chair's remarks and Michael Cloud's remark. It's a big day Congress for more reasons than what we've talked about so far. Today, SEC Chair Gary Gensler is going to testify before the House Financial Services. Boy, does he have a lot to answer for it. Under Gary Gensler's leadership, I would say failed leadership, the SEC has been an incompetent cop on the beat.

Throughout his career, Gensler has been relentlessly loyal to the biggest institutions at the expense of everyday American. Today, he's going to face some important questions about that. Gary Gensler has worked to consolidate his own power, even though it means crushing opportunities and, frankly, the financial future of this country. The strategy hasn't been successful for him. As you note, the SEC continues to lose again and again in the courts on its crusade against digital asset innovation. So it should be increasingly obvious that the crypto industry is not an industry rife with

noncompliance. Rogue bureaucrats like Gary Gensler are supposed to be working. for the people not raining over them. I, for one, would like to see the SEC return to its mission and make sure that they protect opportunities for every American who wants to participate in the greatest capital markets in the world. Digital asset innovation is an important part of that.

Despite what Gary Gensler thinks, he is not a government of one. He is a bureaucrat who answers to Congress, and I look forward to having him before our committee today, and now I turn it over to our beloved leader, the toughest man in Congress, Steve Scalise. All right, so he went ham. All right, but you would say like, holy cow, you went ham. Here's the actual question, questioning, or he went more than ham.

He ripped Gary Gensler a new one. Let's check it out. Do you believe the vast majority of digital assets meet the investment contract test and therefore securities operating illegally outside of the U.S. regulatory umbrella? As I've said, many of these assets are basically the public is anticipating. Sir, is that a yes? Is the answer then yes? Again, without prejudging anyone, I do think that the significant majority are.

And to be clear, sir, it has nothing to do with a concern you noted in a speech last year where you said, quote, over the past year, several bank executives have shared their concerns with me about the sheer number of positors who move money from their bank accounts into crypto-related exchanges and wallets, end quote, right? The concern that those bank executives raised was that there's- Again, I reclaiming my time, sir. Okay, so I just want to pause it right there. You hear what he said, right?

that there's bank executives that are concerned that people are withdrawing out. Now, on Simply Sessions, we connect the dots. Does this make a lot more sense now? Right? Does this letter from Chase, this email from Chase, saying we're doing it for your safety make a lot more sense? It wasn't for their safeties because they don't like the competition, obviously. A balance sheet is looking a little slim there.

Oh, man. All right. So let's go back to the reckoning because he just keeps going. I've asked you to answer the questions as short as I can so I can use the time I have, and it's clear that you would like to avoid answering the questions, in my opinion. An Obama appointed judge in the Southern District of New York, a bank-friendly jurisdiction where you bring most of your cases, recently found that decentralized financial technology, quote, not only removes the so-called middlemen from these transactions,

but it also allows users to interact through a variety of methods in an easy and efficient manner, end quote. The court also said underwriters, like the ones at banks where you work, sir, are, quote, precisely the types of individual roles that these are, decentralized exchanges were designed to eliminate." Mr. Gansler, can you assure this committee that your style of regulation by harassment towards digital asset innovation is the benefit of every American and not driven by your desires to protect industry incumbents?

This is a field that's right with fraud and manipulation, and I'm looking out for the American investors who've been hurt by the crypto. I'll reclaim my time. Mr. Gensler, despite your years of rhetoric, like today, I'm convinced you are not an impartial regulator. Instead, it's clear that you are working to consolidate your own power, even though it means crushing opportunities for everyday America. Americans and frankly the financial future of this country. Even the federal courts are highlighting the damage you, sir, are doing to our constituents and they're telling you that

you don't have the legal authority to accomplish your goal of squashing competition in the financial markets. Congress has been telling you that too. Now, Mr. Gensler, I believe our great financial system is the definition of freedom in this country. And congressional policies must provide room for the traditional financial system to evolve alongside the disruptive digital asset ecosystem. That said, it cannot be understated that a common theme throughout your career, sir, is your relentless loyalty to the largest financial institutions at the clear expense of innovation, competition, and everyday Americans. I yield back. Okay. One more thing. One more thing. He said that he was doing this for the protection, right?

Now here's the bottom part of the letter from Chase. Very similar wording. We've made this decision because fraudsters are increasingly using crypto assets to steal large sums of money, from people declining these payments is one of the ways we're helping keep you and your money safe. Very similar wording to what Gary Gensler had to say. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe I'm a crazy bitcoiner and I'm seeing things. But anyways, Ben. Ooh, I don't, you know, I get uncomfortable watching things.

Like, just watching them squirm in the seat. It's, uh, oh man, yeah. that was that was a pretty relentless little rant there um i i love that he came in he's like he probably sat down with this list of questions and he was like i'm not going to let this guy say a fucking word just all i want is yes and knows and then i want a rant in between i am angry uh he was so angry he was so angry oh man well uh I mean, yeah, I mean, Gary probably had to get home, have a drink and take the edge off there. Holy crap, I wouldn't be limping out of there.

I almost feel bad for him. I almost feel bad for him. Almost. Almost. Anyways, this was fun. Guys, thank you so much. This was your Simply sessions. Thanks, Ben.

See you next week, bro. I'll see you in a few days here. Have a good one, man. It's going to be retouched. Retouched. All right. See you in LA. See you later, bro.

Peace. All right. Everybody, a few additional things before we get out of here. Just some tech updates for you all before we get going. And actually first, I wanted to quickly touch on something that I'm personally very excited about, a little bit of like a personal thing here, but also very exciting for others that were involved in this. The Human Rights Foundation Bitcoin Development Fund.

so that the people that are part of the Oslo Freedom Forum every year, they gifted 19 Bitcoin for 15 different Bitcoin projects. So around $505,000 worth of Bitcoin to different projects worldwide. And so this quote from the HRF is proud to support a diverse range of projects to make Bitcoin a better global tool for human rights. Since early 2020, we've supported more than 95. projects globally with more than $3.2 million worth of Bitcoin gifts. And you can also submit proposals, by the way, at dev.fund at hrf.org. So some of the grants, Fersi for his work on Bitcoin

Core, he got $50,000 for summer of Bitcoin. There's Summer Fellowship Program, Gerald, for his work on Bitcoin Core, Vintium, their work on expanding the open source Bitcoin work in Latin America. G. Deer for his work on Lightning Native Stable Coins. Kawakibi Foundation to build a Mina Bitcoin hub. Justin Mueller for his work on Fetamint. D++, who I love, she's such an awesome teacher for her international educational initiatives and work on Foss projects.

Bitcoin Akasi down in South Africa for their efforts to build a circular economy. and Amidi for her work on Bitcoin mentorship and Bitcoin Bites. And I received a grant from the HRF, and I'm very, very grateful for it. So I received $25,000 or am receiving $25,000 in Bitcoin to put towards global education initiatives. I'll just say kind of what I plan on building with that. There's a lot of kind of out of date or like two long explanation videos. And I need an education track for various, for various kind of pathways that a lot of political dissidents and fundraisers that are happening in areas where there are tyrannical governments. And so these people need to have very, to the point, simply explained, you know, what is a Bitcoin wallet?

How do I properly secure things? How do I do things like multi-sig in case one of us gets picked up? How do I use privacy tools to prevent the government from tracking what we're doing? How do we pay journalists that are in various locations? And what do they then do with the Bitcoin when it gets there? How do you set up like a BTC pay server donation page? How do you use lightning? All that kind of stuff.

So I'm basically making education tracks around that. I'm also and already have been doing one-on-one sessions with journalists and political dissidents from around the globe for different initiatives. So I've been doing that kind of behind the scenes. And then I'm also going to be using some of the money to actually get myself to some of these places I may not have already been able to get to so that I can on the ground in person educate people around this stuff. So I'm very humbled, kind of flabbergasted that I got it, but I promise I will put it to good use. and hopefully help some people that are in a pinch. So anyways, I do want to give a mention to the rest of the grants, La Libraria de Satochi to make technical education accessible to many Spanish speakers as possible.

TabConf, a technical Bitcoin conference in Atlanta, SatsConf, the largest Bitcoin conference in Brazil, and travel grants to BTC Plus Plus, a Bitcoin developer conference focused on Nix and software reproducibility in Berlin. So again, a huge congratulations to all of the people that got Bitcoin grants. A huge thank you to the HRF for selecting me as a grant recipient. And also a huge thank you to the HRF, the Azo Freedom Forum, and actually Bitcoin Park for the Bitcoin Global Summit

that just took place with a whole bunch of political dissidents and people that are working to use Bitcoin as a tool to subvert tyrannical states. So very, very excited about it. And yeah, thank you guys. And thank you guys in the chat for the well wishes. I really do appreciate it. You guys are great. But without further ado, let's chat about some of the other exciting stuff that is happening here.

First of all, the cold card Q1, Rodolfo just dropped a picture of it. He said, it's smaller than you think. It is, actually. And it looks nice. I actually like the really clear plastic on it. And, yeah, I'm very excited for the Q1. So they've been dropping more teasers and hints and everything. It's looking pretty good.

Yeah, looking forward to getting my hands on one of these. Anyways, moving on, Lightning Network Plus. So I did a tutorial on this a while back. It's a way of doing liquidity circles amongst people. people creating triangles, squares, and pentagons of liquidity where you basically loop up and each open a channel to each other. So you have the liquidity of all of each other's nodes instead of just a single connection, which is a great tool.

But they did also just launch Lightning Network plus liquidity pool, which is where you can actually either directly pay for channels or earn liquidity credits by opening channels to other nodes. So basically the way it would work is you would open a channel to somebody and you would earn credit by doing that. And then you can use that credit to get incoming channels from others. And yeah, so they're basically creating a lightning network marketplace. It kind of seems similar, but with different quirks and features than Ambos Magma. So awesome to see more tools like this being built out. I haven't played with it yet, but I think this is probably another good video I should do.

So anyways, that'll be on the roadmap. Moving on from there, Anchor Watch raises $3 million funding round led by 1031. With this latest investment, Anchor Watch will be in position to complete all regulatory and capital requirements. You deliver Trident Vault to customers and start selling policies. So Trident Vault, I want to pull it over here. very interesting. I believe it uses a miniscript to create these insane multi-six setups where you can have layers of kind of if-then statements where like if the following happens, then you require these keys to unlock the money. If after X number of blocks, the money has not moved, then you only require the following keys. So you can do all of these crazy intricate things. so that you can have like high, high security, but then if enough time passes

and you haven't done any transactions or whatever, then you can have a lower security setting. So, you know, in an instance where keys are lost or something, you have like a degrading multi-sig. So eventually you can access the funds. Super awesome. Really cool. I'm interested in playing around with it.

But either way, yeah, they're shipping. So congrats to Anchor Watch. and looking forward to seeing Trident Bolt. Moving on, you can port all of your data from Twitter slash X over to Noster now. So you broke up with your ex. It wasn't treating you well. Maybe it was shadow banning you or your friends. It was manipulating you into becoming your worst possible self.

But over the years, you recruit a bunch of quality shipposts and perhaps some nuggets of wisdom, introducing exit.pub, the last bridge you'll need to port over your data into the new world of decentralized freedom tech. So basically you can download your entire Twitter archive and then port it to Noster. And all of the time stamps and all of your tweets and everything will show up in Noster with the correct timing of like, oh, you know, I had Twitter in 2010 and I said something. It'll actually say that's when it was from. So yeah, kind of cool.

I don't know if I would bother porting mine over though. I kind of like the clean slate that I've started with on Nostr. Either way, awesome tool for those that want that. Moving on, Simplex Chat. So I just did a tutorial on Simplest chat a little while ago. It's an encrypted messenger, which you can also host relays for on your Start 9 server. And I believe it will be on other node implementations and options as well. You can also just run the software itself on your phone and then use their relays as well.

But yeah, you can self-host. And there's no user IDs. So you can't explicitly link. messages to individual people, and it's only accessible to people on either end of that relay. Either way, super cool. Anyways, they've got some updates. They now have a desktop app, which is super awesome. We've got a directive service and other group improvements, encrypted local files and media

with forward secrecy and simplified incognito mode. So, yeah, super awesome there. Check it out. And then Albi, they have added on-chain swaps, some bug fixes, and UI improvements. The big one is the on-chain swaps. So it's possible to do on-chain swaps and send payments to on-chain addresses using dZ.io directly from within the extension.

So that means that, you know, I pull down my, I'll be here. I send from a lightning address into a regular address, and it will auto-swap from there into an on-chain wallet, which is super awesome. So really cool to see that as well. Another thing I dropped earlier this week, actually this morning, it's all blending together, guys. Anyways, I did a new tutorial on something called Coin Miles. Basically, it's a way to passively stack Sats.

So if you have, if you're not currently on a Bitcoin standard and you still are earning and spending filthy fiat, then here you go. Basically, an app, you can use a regular credit card with it. And every purchase that you do earns you Sats back. And the whole point of it is if you're not currently doing something like that already, then you're potentially leaving hundreds of dollars worth of Bitcoin on the table every single year. I did the math, like just for my just for my groceries by doing it and conservatively estimating what I'm spending on groceries every month with a family of four. I'm probably leaving around 200 bucks a year worth of sats just there by not using it. But if I extrapolate that out to travel and, you know, various other like gas and all these other things that I regularly purchase, it's probably close to a thousand bucks of Bitcoin per year that'll be able to stack back. And also, little tip, I did it in the video.

But if you're using another sats back like visa cards, so here in Canada, they've got shake pay. And so you can load that up with funds from a bank account with dollars. and then you earn sats back for using the card. But if you load that card into coin miles to purchase the gift cards or shop online, then you're earning double sats back. So like the shake pay card gets you 1%. And then for instance, like my groceries, I was getting 1.5%. But it actually ends up being 2.5% with both rewards.

So anyways, check it out. It may be worthwhile. I believe it's in Canada, the U.S., and a couple other countries right now with more on the roadmap. So peek in and see if you have access worth checking out in my opinion. And then also tomorrow, why are we bullish? Stacked show. Very excited for this one. Anita Posh. She's super awesome. Lynn Alden returning to the show and Steve Lupica, who I've never had on, but also awesome, awesome dude. And very excited to have them all. So be sure to tune in. That is tomorrow at 6 p.m. Eastern time should be a good time. Very excited for it.

And then finally, coming up, this is what me and Nico are talking about. We're heading down to Pacific Bitcoin. I will get into L.A. on Tuesday evening. The event is happening. I think me and Niko are going to do a live show maybe on Wednesday from there somewhere, which will be a lot of fun. But then the main event is Thursday and Friday, October 5th and 6th. If you don't have tickets already, head to PacificBitcoin.com.

You can use code sessions and get 21% off. your tickets. But if you are so inclined, be sure to come and visit my workshop. I'm doing two workshops on the Saturday, the seventh. So I've got a couple of them. I'll get rid of my screen here so I can just chat. But anyways, I've got two sessions coming up. So the way it's going to work, and you can scan that if you want to get directly to where tickets are. But basically, I've got a morning session that is first you're going to learn how to use Nunchuck Wallet. Second, you're going to learn how to set up a tap signer. And then third, you're going to learn how to use multiple tap signers to do a multi-sig wallet in Nunchuk, which is super awesome.

And actually, pretty slick once you get into it. And we're going to try a whole bunch of other awesome things in that workshop. And then the second workshop in the afternoon is the cold card deep dive. It is a four-hour deep dive. You'll walk out of that place being an expert. Basically, full set up your cold card, learn how to air gap it with spare wallet on your desk. learn how to wipe the device and restore your seed phrase. And then we're going to dive into some of the advanced features as well.

So that's what's going on there. I'm very excited about it. It should be a lot of fun. And yeah, I encourage you guys to come on down. Anyways, guys, I'm going to wrap it up there. Thank you guys so much for being here.

As always, smash that like button. It's just down below. And doing so really does help the show. So smash it. Smash it now. And, of course, like and subscribe. and other than that, you can hit up the previously mentioned sponsors in the show notes

or you can hit up my website, BTCSessionist.ca, for private one-on-one sessions. With that, I am out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening, wherever you may be. I'll see you guys next time for your Simply session.