BTC Sessions - Trump Rugpulls Bitcoiners?! | Preston Pysh, Natalie Brunell, Bob Burnett

Episode Date: January 25, 2025

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What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the show, another Friday, another episode of Why Are We Bullish? We've got an incredible panel tonight. We've got Preston Pish. We've got Natalie Brunel. We've got Bob Burnett. And we're going to be discussing all kinds of things. It's been an insane week.

Can I remind you guys? I have also lots of other stuff coming through. Wow. Where is that coming from? My bad. Tons of stuff been going on this week. Insane, insane stuff. Did you know that the Trump coin was literally just like six or seven days ago?

That seems like it was two years ago. So much has happened. Just today, or just yesterday, rather, SEC rescinds Saab 121 permitting banks to custody Bitcoin. Beyond that, just today, Black Rock has filed for in-kind redemption for their Bitcoin. Bitcoin ETF. That's a big deal. We might be touching on that as well. And of course, the big, big news, I'm certain that every time you guys look at images like this, you're already tearing up. But Ross Ulbricht officially freed and a full pardon, absolutely wild. Now, we did, of course, get an announcement from the White House, an executive order, strengthening American leadership

in digital financial technology. A number of Bitcoin. consider that we may have been rugged a little bit there. American Hoddle, make no mistake, we just got rugged, everything else's cope. It's been a week of hot takes and interesting news. And then a lot of rumblings about this. I'm going to play a quick clip, and then we'll dive right into the show. This is Jack Mallors, this coming out of Bitcoin News.com. And the quote here, I can confirm, Ripple is spending millions of dollars

to undermine a strategic Bitcoin Reserve in America. I'm going to play a little bit of this. And give me a thumbs up in the chat. Make sure you like the video. And let me know that you can hear this as it starts playing. But let's take a quick listen to Jack here. Now, Ripple. Ripple is a for-profit company.

It prints its own token in XRP. And it is asking the U.S. government to support its monopoly. I ask you this, why should the U.S. government back a privately owned currency? This is corporate lobbying disguised as innovation. This is corporate lobbying disguised as tech, growth, jobs, industry. Ripple created all of its currency, issued it to themselves and relies on the public to buy it. This is not the money for the people. This is not in the best interest of the public.

This is in the best interest of a private corporation. This is an economic announcement that would be like 2008, that would be like 1971, that would be like 1933. This is against what this new administration and President Trump stands for. This is against the best interest of the United States of America. It is absurd and ridiculous and ripple needs to stand down immediately. Not only are they undermining future prosperity in the United States benefiting from the technological innovation that is Bitcoin, but they are also trying to take advantage of the situation and benefit themselves. Call your representatives.

Some spicy takes there from Jack Mallors. We're going to be touching on this and much, much more in today's episode. Without further ado, I'm Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your daily session. All right, it's time to bring in our guests. I want to welcome to the stage, Mr. Preston Pish, Mr. Bogg Burnett, and the lovely Natalie Brunel. Thank you all so much for being here. How are you guys doing on this Friday?

Wonderful. Great to be here. Good to see you all. Great. Awesome. Preston. How are you? Doing great. I love the hoddle that Bitcoin in your... That is that is early AI That's been on there for a little bit more That Bitcoin Yeah

It's it's it said sexily if I do say so myself Well guys thank you so much for being here again Lots this what an insane week The inauguration was just on Monday That It seems like two years worth of news has gone by In that period of time but I mean Lots going on

Preston we were just kind of discussing before the show and, you know, we were kind of batting around this. You've obviously seen some of this stuff in and around Ripple. I mean, what's your takeaway from like Jack and his, his tirade there? The thing that I've noticed through the years is you don't actually have an organic market there. You don't have a natural demand for their tokens. And so it hasn't worked in the past. I don't suspect none of this is going to work in the future.

It doesn't mean we should underestimate it. And I think that's why you're hearing a lot of the outrage from a lot of people. They're upset to see what they're doing to undermine, you know, a lot of the work that's been done. It seems like they're going in and trying to massage some of the language that Cynthia Lummis' bill has in it by just going in there and throwing massive donations to people in trying to get, you know, what they want. They're the ones that are behind the change the code and all of this, just just all this stupidness that comes out of Ripple through the years. I'm not too concerned about it. I kind of expect it out of them. If Bitcoin is truly decentralized, truly the money for the people, at the end of the day, it's just going to continue winning because you have a real market. You have real people demanding the coins.

You have real energy expense. You have all these things that are natural market forces. And I think that it's easy to scream and yell at it because it's really frustrating. But at the end of day it doesn't really bother me or scare me too much. Yeah. Yeah. I again, they, they tend to flail. I mean, after the massive success that was the change the code, uh, initiative, um, you know, I welcome them to continue wasting their money. Didn't the artist become a Bitcoiner afterwards, the one that did the whole skull thing? Oh yeah. I think, yeah. Wasn't it great? I think the whole community adopted that skull as like a symbol, right? It completely fired. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, Matt, are you particularly miffed about Ripple and its antics?

Yeah, I mean, I, why would you want something that has an issuer in a strategic reserve for the United States that I don't understand? I've had a really interesting experience with the XRP Army. One time I went on television and I got asked a question and I obviously don't track Ripple and all of its lawsuits that came about. And so I kind of deflected the question, but I didn't fully hear it. And the way that it got clipped made it sound like I said something negative about XRP.

And they came after me. And I got like a flood of one-star reviews on my podcast. And they're so harsh and they're so mean. And I just don't get it. But, you know, I'm one of those people that I feel kind of zen because we understand Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the one. merit. And so I don't think that we really need to to yell and scream. We can just allow Bitcoin to quietly show itself to be superior. And I just think that it's honestly silly when we look

back at all of this and we see how much money went into it. And like Jack Muller's pointed out, corporate lobbying disguises innovation. It will be so clear that it should have been Bitcoin all along. But yeah, don't don't upset the XRP army if you have a podcast. Apparently not. Apparently not. Well, so the title of the show is not why are we bearish. It's why are we bullish? And so, again, premise of the show, each one of us likely has something that we're particularly excited about and bullish about in this period of time. And there's been plenty to be bullish on this week. So I'm going to basically go down the line. We're going to go to each person, find out why you're bullish. We'll riff on it a little bit and then we'll rotate to the next. So it's really simple. Number one thing, try not to drop your reason. for being bullish too early before I ask you specifically. But Preston, I'm going to go to you first. I'm just going to keep you up. Why are you bullish?

What's the top? If you were to say top tier thing, you're bullish on right now. You know, in sports, you want the other team that just, you want to be in their head, right? You want them to be thinking that they're playing, you know,

their game, even though they're just so focused on you that they're playing your game. And when I look at everything that's happening right now, that's it. Like they're being forced traditional finance, Fiat, all of it, they're being forced to play our game is all there is to it. There's going to be a lot of confusion. This is going to be very messy.

No one ever thought this was going to be very simple. And just like the individual, when they come into this space and they get all excited and they go out and they buy a bunch of this coin, that coin. And they really don't even understand what it's all about. You see that then happen out, happen at an organizational level. And now you're literally watching it happen at a nation state level. And it shouldn't surprise anybody because at the very top of a nation is a leader and a person who's calling the shots and their whole staff has fallen in underneath of them. And they're they're propagating these messages. And so sometimes you see in El Salvador where somebody just kind of gets it right out of the gate.

They're orange pill. They understand why Bitcoin's very different. And you get that leadership that's all underneath of that. And you saw that, you know, in style. You saw this also with micro strategy, with Michael coming in and he's a hardcore Bitcoiner. The only thing he buys is Bitcoin. You might see that approach. You might not see that approach.

I would argue in the U.S., where we came from in the past administration and what, you know, they were trying to do with a crypto army to defeat it and put all these things in place. I mean, Gary Ginsler was a puppet, trying everything to stop the SAB-121 is in. example, all of those things, they're all being reversed and turned inside out. And so as I'm looking at this, why am I bullish? Well, I'm bullish because they're being forced to play our game. And when I look at like SAB 121, all these banks, they're going to come into this hardcore. They're going to come into this. Okay. And if you think you're going to turn that off after four years after they get totally ingrained into this ecosystem, you're totally kidding yourself. Now, are there going to be a lot of mistakes?

Well, I hope not. I hope I'm trying to do everything I can writing different articles talking about rehypothecation and the risks that are associated with that being pulled back and whatnot. But we got to try the best we can. And it's an education burden. And I'm super, super, holy crap, am I bullish going into this year. But I also want to take all the lessons we've learned for the past decade and a half and try to apply. that and try to teach people the best we can so that we don't keep repeating the same mistakes.

And my God, there's a lot of mistakes that we've made or seen in the past that I think we can learn from. So I would just leave it at that. Yeah, I like that. I want to get commentary from Bob and Nat here. One thing that I'm going to toss in just to echo your, we don't want to repeat mistakes of the past. And in and around your articles about rehypublication and the risks of re-hypothicating Bitcoin. I think Bitcoin as an asset is very efficient at pointing out bad actors. And it's funny because every cycle we see the same implosions happen. And every cycle we think we've moved beyond that.

We've matured as an industry. But really, like the same fiat tendencies underlie all of our institutions. And so you had 2013, Mount Gawks blows up, jump forward a cycle. The mentality was we've moved past that. We've got everything's fine. And then largest Canadian exchange, Quadriga CX goes under. There's a full documentary on it on Netflix of what a mess that was. Jump forward a cycle.

Oh, we're way beyond that. We've got FTX now. It's the darling. The guys' parents are literally regulators. Couldn't possibly fit. And exact same thing. I don't think we're beyond, you know, banks doing this. It's just like the next.

echelon to reach unless there's some sort of guardrail like, hey, you can't re-hypothecate this stuff. You have to have, like, we've got to have like actual reserves there. So I'm, I want to tee that up to Bob and Nat, whoever wants to dive in first. Anything that Preston said there or going down the rabbit hole of, uh, potential blowups, if we don't learn from past mistakes, feel free to jump in. I'll let Bob go. Oh, all right, Natalie. Thanks. Well, I think that it's kind of, this is kind of a double-edged sword thing. I think Zab 112 is kind of a double-edged sword. I think that ultimately the inclusion of the big financial institutions and the nation states is the inevitable destination of Bitcoin. So like we can't hyper-bitcoin eyes. We can't become the base layer of

money without this sort of stuff happening. But we also now, as I think Preston did a good job articulating, we have this issue that there's a good chance they'll F it up. It's to some degree. And but that doesn't end. The one thing we've learned about Bitcoin is its resiliency. So they probably will mess it up. Hopefully it won't be too bad. And we can expect these setbacks.

But I think the momentum is too strong. it's inappropriate to say Bitcoin is too big to fail, but it's, it's, you know, one of things I say a lot is I think Bitcoin has reached a point where as long as we properly take care of it, it is too big to fail or it is completely resilient. So I think it was Jack actually in his, in his little monologue there about XRP, said, hey, you know, go talk to your representatives about the XRP stuff. And I know for me, one of the things I do, I happen to live in South Florida, Byron Donald's is my congressman.

And, you know, I've had a chance to meet with him. I've got to know his chief of staff. And I'm feeding him all the time, you know, because I know he has an ear. And I think if you're out there and you have somebody that like that, that you can get a message to, I think it's imprudent on you to do it. But this is the inevitable course, and especially from the bullish theme, like this is happening way faster than I ever imagined it, like way faster. You know, I'm so I'm thrilled.

Yeah. Nat. Yeah. I mean, I guess I didn't expect last year this time for us to have the kind of momentum that we do and for the highest office in our country to be talking about. It's obviously been disappointing that the focus isn't totally on Bitcoin just yet and that we have all this talk about digital assets and crypto at large. But I really do try to remember what it was like at the beginning when I was really ignorant to the real promise of Bitcoin because I remember coming in and not only being skeptical about the whole space at large and worried that I was going to lose all my money and thinking that it was somehow inherently because it's digital. It can be hacked.

But it took me so long to really understand the difference between Bitcoin and crypto. And so regardless of whether they're really high up in government or in Wall Street or anywhere, there are a lot of smart people that still don't understand. And I want to give them the benefit of the doubt that if they do understand that they would be, you know, promoting Bitcoin as the sound money that we need to recreate the foundation of our economy on and build it on true, like, perfect, pristine collateral and digital capital. I don't want to believe that people are just, you know, all terrible inside and want to just pump their own bags and dump it on the rest of the public.

I don't want to believe that. And at the end of the day, like, we're past that the horizon point where Bitcoin is not going to be banned. And so who cares if the government allocates to something else that's bad? They're the worst allocators of capital anyway. I said that in my news block today. They always invest in pretty much the wrong thing and do the wrong thing when it comes to money. So that doesn't change the fact that we get to own Bitcoin and we get to stack earlier and more.

And so, I don't know. I just, I hope that people take the time to educate themselves, but we're all on this journey. And we've all been there and looked at Bitcoin and thought, oh, it can't be the only one or the price is too high. And you just have to, you just have to learn and humble yourself. And clearly not everybody's done that. And some people have been able to take their money and lobby politicians because of their own special interests. But I think that the cream will rise to the top. And obviously, that's Bitcoin.

Yeah. I mean, in a way, it's bullish that governments are misallocating capital. Like, I mean, it's, you're right. Like, I think it was Francis Pouliot tweeted out the other day. He's like, he was pretty hunky dory over all the. stuff, hey, where governments are misallocating capital while also taking the pressure off Bitcoiners, it's a win-win. Ross is free. That's so far so good. Yeah, I mean, I would echo a lot of that. I think it's to be expected when the world is rushing into this thing right now that,

I mean, how long did it take all of us to figure out only Bitcoin? It was a job. It was a journey. But I will say that people are getting there faster now because, you know, in the early days, there wasn't the content and and the, the well-formed ideas that we have today. You know, the Bitcoin Standard was, was released in 2018. So like, that wasn't even there during the ICO bubble. And so, you know, and since the Bitcoin Standard, the proliferation of books and podcasts and and resources that people have. As long as you get into that vein, it's very short period of time. And so in doing like one-on-ones with people and kind of hearing a little bit about their Bitcoin journey, I hear things that I'm astounded by.

Oh, I got into crypto, quote unquote, and then six months later, I figured out only Bitcoin. And I'm thinking, how in the hell in six months? That's crazy. That's wild, which I think that's exciting. Like, have you guys encountered the same people quickly kind of gradually, you know, catching on? Yeah, I mean, I had a lot of people reach out about the Trump and Melania meme coins. But even they were skeptical from the start. They're like, this is a scam, right?

Like, I shouldn't invest in this, right? This is like, this is a bad version. I'm like, yeah, it's a bad. That's the beautiful part about the meme coin thing because it's so overt, right? Yeah. It's, hey, this is literally a meme and we want you to put your money into it. Like, nobody can possibly think that it's anything other than gambling with that. Right.

Yeah. I agree with you, Ben. I think we're seeing an acceleration of the process. And you're probably right. It's probably because of information. But it's also because I think there are people out there that as their family and friends go through the experience are offering that insight, like, hey, don't get too caught up in Solano or Cardano or. you know, whatever, Bitcoin's the real thing. I think we're at a point where a lot of these other coins,

like I'm not seeing very many new people get involved in a lot of these alt-coins, shit-coin stuff. There are very vehement people, like the people that attack Natalie from the XRP army. You know, I've been attacked in the last month from both the BSV and Bitcoin cash folks. Oh, no. And, you know, they're all, in my opinion, they're all in a state of collective denial where they have created rooms where they are now echo chambers and they are completely delusional and discarding, you know, external information.

But they're getting smaller. I think the groups are getting much smaller. And, you know, shit coins are never. going to go away. But as you said, I think it's going to get harder and harder for people to have pull the scam, pull the Ponzi because I think people are so much smarter. Yeah, yeah, I think so. Well, what we're going to do now is we're actually going to go ahead. We're going to do a rotation. We're going to give a quick shout out to sponsor the show. But I want to thank the on YouTube, 623 live viewers that we have and across all platforms.

the almost 2,800 people that have tuned in so far. Thank you guys for being here. If you're in the chat, make sure you queue up. Because at the end of the show, we're going to take your questions. We'll pick a few of the best ones for the panel. And also, make sure you smash that like button. But we're going to do a quick shout out to our sponsors. And when we get back, we'll do a quick giveaway to get out your lightning wallets to scan

and QR code. And then we'll dive in to Bob's reason for being bullish. So we'll see you in one minute. Bitcoin well. is the best place to be buying and selling Bitcoin in Canada and the US. And now with Bitcoin Well Infinite, it's also the best place to be making large buys at their OTC desk of over $50,000. Their White Glove service gives you fast transactions, no slippage, and the lowest fees.

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discounts or simply scan the QR code on the screen to get started right away. All right, we are back in. We're going to give away some quick sats before we dive into our next reason. I'm here on Bitcoin Well. If you want to check them out, there's a QR code over on the side of the screen. But you don't need to have an account in order to win the sats. The way it works is when you do sign up, when you buy Bitcoin, when you refer friends, you're in points.

And those points can be used to toss a coin in the Bitcoin wishing well. And each time you do, you have a chance to win up to a million sats. So I'm going to do that right now with your Lightning Wallet. Whoever scans the QR code that pops up next first will steal the sats from everybody else. So off it goes, I'm going to leave it up for a few seconds. You've got to be quick on the draw here. But there's 500 sats for whoever scans it first. And if you do win, of course, let us know in the chat or in the comments down below.

We would love to hear about your gloating. But with that, let's go ahead and let's, let's go ahead. and let's dive right in. And it's quick. Somebody scanned it too. I was trying. Yeah. And by the way, everybody that is in the live chat too, for every 100 likes this show gets at the end,

I will do another giveaway. So for every hundred, we'll do another shot at some additional stats. But Bob, I'm going to defer to you next. I'm going to cue you up. Maybe I'll make you nice and big on the screen for this one. But I want to know why are you bullish? Yeah. We'll cue you up.

here. There you go, buddy. You know, when you asked me, Ben, a few days ago to, it's come on the show, of course, I'm always happy to be here. And I thought, you know, this is actually a challenging exercise. Like, how do I come up with one bullish thing? I made a little list, and it was actually quite extensive. And before I get into my biggie, which I think maybe you'll surprise some people, I'm going to give you just real quickly the two runner-ups. The two runner-ups were, number one, I think, that the Ethereum community has been revealed. The Ethereum ecosystem has been revealed. And the things that we've been talking about with the centralization have all come out.

And if you're not familiar with it, go look at Vitalik's tweets about basically saying, you know, I'm in charge. I make the decisions. The protocol changes because of me. Malady. Put a milady on that. please. And my lady, yes. That's amazing.

The second thing is I've had just, I would say in the last two weeks, a tremendous amount of enthusiasm from the small miners. The plebs are starting to mine again. And, you know, my hat's off to the people at BitEx and Future Bit, the Avalon Nano3, like these sorts. of products are bringing a whole bunch of people back in. And again, this isn't my biggie today, so I won't say any more about it. But this is really, really important.

And it really warms my heart to see that happening. Now, the thing that I'll say about bullish probably will surprise people. But in the midst of all the executive orders, one of them was a charter for the US to send missions to Mars. And Elon Musk obviously is sitting behind a lot of this. But I think what's interesting about it from the perspective of Bitcoin is that if you think about the colonization of Mars, it will be an opportunity, like the first opportunity in history for a monetary system to be created in parallel with the society.

itself growing up. And I'm going to release a show here in the next few days kind of on this topic. But while Bitcoin can't be the money on Mars, it can provide the architecture, like the basic architecture. Some things are different. But I'm just thrilled about that because I think as humanity goes to the stars and we start exploring, we're going to find that the world doesn't have to go through. the 5,000 year struggles that we went through, that it can do it right, it can be decentralized

from the beginning, we can have all the right monetary policy from the beginning. And as an engineer and a technologist, going to Mars in and of itself, I think, is just phenomenal because I was a child of the 60s. I was a young boy on the Apollo missions, and that was a big, big deal for me. It's a big part of why I do what I do and became an engineer was you know, the inspiration I got from those missions. I love this topic. I had an actual, this was a few years, this would have been four or five years ago, but I had a conversation with somebody on the show about how one might even create a currency

that, like an interstellar currency, because obviously the main issue is, you know, the... Propagation delay. Yeah, propagation, the getting the information in this time that, the latency of the block times versus how much time it takes to get information to Mars. But feasibly, you could perhaps seed a civilization with a side chain of Bitcoin where you literally lock up Bitcoin into like a multi-sig. some of the keys go and then your side chain, like a liquid type thing, and you have a side chain

where Bitcoin is actually locked up on chain on earth and you could have the side chain simply be the base monetary base for that colony. It's possible. I think it'll take a different approach personally. And ironically, I've been thinking about this for quite a while and I had kind of started building this architecture. And then he brought it out and like, oh, hallelujah, you know, I can get some of these ideas out to the world. But I don't think it'll be a side chain. I think it needs to be its own thing because for several reasons. But one thing is that I think they should implement a version of proof of work.

But it should be based on the cost of energy and the cost of computing on Mars, not the cost of energy and computing on Earth. and at the beginning that will be harder. And on this show that I'll release, you know, one of the things I talk about is I could see that every person that goes to Mars gets issued a node. And the node is both a node and a minor for this new Mars version of money. And they have to make decisions because they're going to be, they're going to early on, they will have rationed energy.

So they'll have decisions to make like, hey, if I take a cold shower instead of a hot shower, I can run my minor longer, and I'll get more of the money. So it'll, you know, all these sorts of things. And in fact, I said, I believe as we colonize Mars, and I believe ultimately will be an independent society, it should be in the constitution of Mars that every person, by birthright, gets a node in a minor. Like, it's part of your birthright that you get that.

And so as the society scales and everybody gets, you know, in a very democratic way, their ability to participate. I want to throw one thing. I'm getting a little cosmic here, but I just, this is such an interesting topic to me. Okay. So, Bob, are you familiar and I guess panel in general? Are you guys familiar with the Fermi paradox? Yes. Yes. Okay. So anybody that's watching that's unfamiliar, it's the idea. that it is highly like they're in the high likelihood that there's advanced extraterrestrial life there's no conclusive evidence it's like where the hell is everybody like with the the amount of time that has passed and the amount of time that has brought humanity to where it is

right now shouldn't we have encountered you know some type of other life and the the great filter theory is a possible resolution to that. And it's an idea that basically there's some sort of major hurdle that a society must surpass in order to begin colonizing the stars. So my question to you, Bob, is having a decentralized finite currency, the great filter? Interesting. It may well be. Yeah, I think that I hadn't had that thought been, but that's very perceptive.

And I think you might be right. I think AI is a huge part of this, by the way. I think AI is a huge part of this because when we look at colonizing Mars, like everybody that's going to be going in there and performing all the work to set up energy plants, all that type of stuff, it's going to be AI. It's going to be robots armed with AI that can go and do these complex tasks, right? going to be some human. You got to basically strip away all the biometrics that are required for the biology of a human and all the vulnerabilities of having wet code, right? You got to strip that away. It has to be robust enough. So it's going to be a bunch of robots that go in there armed with AI that go and colonize and set up the ability for a human to even think about going

there, first of all. So it's going to be that and it's probably going to be combined with some type of money that allows the most efficient and thoughtful and uh highest performing thing so these go hand in hand the AI and the sound money go hand in hand together in order to accomplish something with this yeah yeah i agree with you um Preston and like said by my i'll go back to my other point too i think what's i would love for bitcoin to be the money of mars it just it doesn't work technically um maybe we can do something like you said with ben with the side chain and certainly can't discount that idea. But I think it's much better. I think I think the people of Mars ultimately will want their own society, their own independence. Like any,

any attempt to colonize always ends up with people seceding, right? They always want their own independence. Somebody just wrote in the comments, all failed alien planets went with XRP. We've got a few guests. We've got a few guests. Yeah, we've got a few guests. in the chat that are not thrilled that we're not fans of XRP. That's okay. This is not the show for you. Nat, I will let you chime in on our interstellar adventures here. I mean, I don't know if you have thoughts here. We're probably the wrong guest for a space panel because I don't think about Mars. I feel like our Earth is so beautiful and there are so many places I haven't been and there's so much to fix here.

And so I'm fascinated by the conversations. I've seen some movies. I actually covered the Mars rover landing. It's a very difficult environment to land something in. And I don't want to live up there. I don't want to go up there. I'm good. I'd rather just have some Bitcoin and build a nice house here on planet Earth.

But hey, you got you to you. March is your thing. Like, I'm all about your right to Mars. I can see Matt's face. as we started discussing interstellar currency. Sorry, Natalie. That's a good one. It's very good. You just like the actor in it.

I'm fascinated by like, you know, the physics and black holes and all of that. But yeah, colonizing Mars is something I don't think about at all. I'm a strange person, Natalie. If you didn't know that already, now you know. Actually, Interstellar was filmed. in my city and like right around it. It was filmed around Calgary.

Yeah. Yeah, the beginning of the movie where there's like the big sandstorm that blows in on the baseball game is like 30 minutes south of my house. Wow. Yeah. Anyways, I digress. Again, I do want to touch on one other topic here, Bob, that you had touched on. And that's the home mining because, you know, we had Matt Cratter, Bitcoin Mechanic

and Preston on the Christmas. show and we were chatting about the whole mining. I've literally got, I've got a future bit on, like right here, just off to the side of that, I've got a nerd axe, which is a fork of the bit axe. Right beside that, I've got the big brains mini miner. And so I've been kind of covering all of this. And I've got to message them back because I'm horrible at my DMs, but mechanic is going to help me through setting up my bid axe with datum on my start nine. So I think the long and the short of it is, I love the proliferation of these cool little, one in a sense, like hobbyist things where it's now become re-accessible for the average person to from home start to learn about mining

with a really low-cost device and just, you know, for the price of like a hardware wallet, get something on your shelf, learn about Bitcoin mining. You know, you can link it and get small little lightning payouts if you want. or I think more compelling is having is having the kind of forever lottery ticket sitting right on your shelf and I think that's that's super cool so I mean do you want to just quickly kind of touch on what you've seen in that space and then I'll get quick thoughts from Nat and Press. Yeah I think some some people have been critical of it I saw just quickly in the comments

as they've been flying through even some people said that doesn't make any difference it does make a difference. And it will make a difference. And what we're going to see over the next couple years, I think it's something I'm working on, is a new ASIC, new chip, right? And we're going to be providing very powerful chips to home miners so people can build these specific devices at hash rate that really matters. But what's happening is, I would say this. If you've never mind, understand Bitcoin. And I'm not being critical of anybody, but you can't really grasp what's happening until you're part of the mining process. So at a minimum, even if the hash rate you're contributing is a terrahash or three tarahashes or something like that, which you could argue

individually is insignificant, you as an individual are now going to grasp Bitcoin at a completely different level. And then what you'll understand is. where you're going then that mining like you're not a minor i don't want to take too much time but you're if you hash you're not a miner you're a hasher like if that's all you do is hash if you just point it to a pool because the role of a miner i think is is you create templates you you um you voice your opinion about protocol change changes. You certainly hash. And ideally, you get, which is what we do at Ocean, you get your payment through the Coinbase transaction as much as possible. So, you know, you create this

Bitcoin that doesn't flow through any custodial solution, doesn't have a chance of getting captured. So to me, that's what's happening with mining. And I, I am very optimistic. optimistic that a couple years from now, we're going to have millions of people mining just like you are. That's really cool. I love that. Nat, I want to ask you, have you had much of a foray into any of these hobbyist things? Or like, what have you seen? You've obviously interviewed people about it. I'm curious if you've dipped into it or who you've talked to. What do you think? Yeah. So I have a future bit Apollo too. And I've also played around with the heat bit, which is like a heater that also mines. I actually think what Future Bit is doing is amazing. I had John on the show, and we talked all about the importance of

the decentralization of mining and home mining. And his big message was that like every, every minor counts. Like every individual solo minor really does count. Yeah, maybe you'll never win a block. But like you also might. You know, it is that like lotto ticket that you might win, but you're contributing to the overall decentralization, which I think is really, really important because there are these bottlenecks. And both John and also Bitcoin Mechanic have been on my show and talked about the concerns about, you know, the concentration within the pools and the possible censorship going forward. And so I've really, really enjoyed those conversations.

And I think that people just right now, if you're a newbie, you probably think it's like out of reach, that it would be too expensive to mine at home. And I think that these types of solutions really do make it more approachable. They're easy to set up. and it doesn't like make your electricity bill all of a sudden crazy. And I think it is really important. And obviously pointing to something like Ocean really helps with the decentralization of the overall network. So yeah, I mean, I'm all about it.

I can understand why someone would just kind of feel like, oh, I'm not ready to maybe venture into that. But I think like with everything with Bitcoin, it's a lot easier than you assume it would be. And it's fun. And I think it's just important. It's really important to decentralize. that. My favorite comment in the chat right now is Nat is mining before Preston. Goat. She is the goat. I mean, did you see her dress that she wore?

We didn't even talk about this. Kudos Natalie. That was awesome. That deserve the honorable. Holy moly. Preston, are you, okay, first of, okay, before I asked Preston if he's, if he's budged on mining at home yet, I do want to echo Nat when it comes to like I just did a video on the future bit just recently it's pretty slick I just want to show the dashboard here I got mine behind me purring on the but it's like it's just so so nice I just turned it on so that I could see the hash rate and everything but it goes up to I

think 10 terra hash or something but it's on eco mode so it's not blasting out my microphone right now but it just gives you kind of like a nice measure you can go and check out the minor and what it's doing and kind of the heat and how many watts it's using and all that. The cool thing about this, now, of course, I just turned it on so my hash rate is low, but it shows you your chance of mining a block. And it's low right now because it's been off for the past hour. But when this ramps up, I've got, I think it's like a 1 in 800,000 chance or something like that, which for a thing that's sitting on my my shelf. I don't mind those chances for getting a little heat in my office in the winter and and having a chance of getting 3.125 Bitcoin. I think that's that's pretty slick. I like

that. The other cool thing is it's you create your own mining pool and you can link other miners to it. So it says two here. I've got two workers. The other one is the brains mini miner beside it. And eventually this is going to be four because I've got a nerd X and I've got a bit X that I'm going to be doing a video on. So I think it's really cool. You've also got your full node and you can connect your wallets to it and everything. It is super slick. So I guess what I'm saying here is Preston, what the hell are you doing? Are you going to get on this or what are you doing? I mine with simple mining. It's not at home. I'm outsourcing everything. 96 terra hash per second. So what was yours there that you were showing like one or two? This is six, I think.

This one is six on eco mode. It can go up to 10. Yeah. Look at Bob smirking. I need to. What's that in megawatts? This was, well,

this is like $6 in energy per day is just to kind of get people an idea. So like, I mean, am I, yes, am I doing it like Natalie at home? No. But,

you know, I think it's important for people. If they, if they, to Bob's point that he made, if you really do want to understand Bitcoin. I think this is an important part of it. Just like running a node is an important part of it.

And yeah, I mean, you really understand the mechanics of like how this all works, how it's actually decentralized, how, you know, we're putting the power of money into the hands of every single person on the planet if they choose to go that far. And yeah, I think it's a really important thing. I'm not mining at home, though. I have to admit. I'll make that datum tutorial and then you can follow that one. Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm waiting for. One of the future bits did win a block in October.

So, I mean, a solo miner got all that Bitcoin. Well, I love that approach. Being like, wait, where is that? Oh, yeah, right. You're wrong. And it's, you know, and it's, you know, done properly. It's a non-K-y-C. Yeah.

And which is also really cool. But what I also like, even the narrative, you know, in this little discussion here, Don't, if you do it, don't think about like, oh, it costs me, I don't know, $10 a month or $10 a day in electricity and I'm only getting aid or whatever the economics are. That's irrelevant. It's not, it's not, it's not, it's, it shouldn't be done as an economic exercise, in my opinion. You know, it, I think part of it is the learning experience. And then the, I think the other part is, in my opinion, if, if, if, if, if, if, you. if you're involved in Bitcoin,

I think we all should have a certain responsibility to be part of securing it, right? And so I think people that just buy Bitcoin and do nothing, I'm not being, I guess I am probably being critical of them to a certain degree. Like I feel like we all have an obligation to do something to make it better. I mean, that's part of being decentralized.

If you buy Nvidia stock, you're putting stock in them and they have a whole team that's going to go out and supposed to take care of your thing. But Bitcoin's different, right? It's by nature decentralized. It is the community and the network. So if you're a non-participant, you're not really doing your fair share of securing it and supporting it. I like that. Well, I mean, there you go. You've got your mandate.

everybody in the chat. You've got your mandate to go forth and take that extra step, do a little bit of home mining, start learning. I did a poll earlier, Bob, just so you know, out of the people watching, it was something like 20, I think 26 percent said that they were doing some sort of home mining. Wow. That's pretty good. That's damn good. It's almost 780 people, and this is the YouTube specifically. But that's, I mean, out of that crowd, that's pretty solid.

That's not bad at all. It really is. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, there you go. If it's not you yet, it's very accessible now. It's something that you can definitely dabble in. It doesn't have to be expensive.

It can be a fun weekend project and you can just start learning. So I love it. I love that topic. I love the interstellar topic too. That was fun. But we are due for a rotation. We're going to do one more shout out to our sponsors here. And up next we're going to be hearing Nat's reason for being bullish.

If you're in the chat, please do smash that like button. Reminder for every 100 likes this video gets. We'll do another little giveaway at the end during question section. And of course, we're going to be jumping to Natnex. But we'll be back in one minute after a quick shoutout. Debify is the best and easiest way to borrow against your Bitcoin in a non-custodial way. Funds are held in a multi-sig escrow where you hold a key. And the platform allows for excellent hardware.

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or you can hit the link in the show. Donuts down below. And when you do, you will earn 5,000 sats as you create your first. All right. We are right back in. And Nat, I'm going to toss it to you. I'll make it nice and big on the screen, but I'll queue up with the same question. Why are you bullish? Let's hear it. Well, I don't want to be cliche, but obviously I just, it just feels like we're in a new era. and given the acceptance at the political level and the regulatory level, I just think this is like the new epoch that we're entering into, and there's going to be more retail and institutional adoption. And the talk of even just a strategic reserve is something I would not have expected.

So I'm just, I'm feeling bullish in general. I was in D.C. last weekend right before inauguration weekend. And I had, I used to live there actually for, I finished grad school there. And I've never felt such a positive energy the way that I did. It's just a lot of people filled with hope and filled with this sense that change is actually going to happen. And that we helped make that change possible. I mean, I think that's why Bitcoiners were so excited about, for example, Ross's pardon because the community had so much to do with that. And we can make change happen and our numbers matter and our advocacy matters.

And so that was really exciting. So that's probably the thing that makes me most bullish. But if we're going to remove all the politics and all the talk of Bitcoin at the national level, then on a personal level, I have kind of a funny story. I am someone, if you know me or if you follow my show, like I have, I think I've long talked about the fact that one of my dreams that I hope Bitcoin helps me accomplish is having a home. Like I want, you can't live in your Bitcoin. I've never lived in a home that doesn't have walls with neighbors.

I've always lived in apartments and just, you know, always dreamt of having a home. And for a while I've been struggling because now I'm reaching that point in my life where that's really what I want. And so the question is, do I sell my Bitcoin? How do I get that? And I did this like total deep dive. And by the way, I'm going to give a shout out to Carla, who many of you know from Carla and Walker. Carla's amazing. And she and I feel the same way.

And we have very similar backgrounds. But I really crunched the numbers over the last couple of months of what you would put into a down payment and interest rates and the cost of having a home versus just keeping that money in Bitcoin or putting more money into Bitcoin. And the math has won that I'm not going to be buying home yet because I feel way more bullish on Bitcoin. than I do owning a home. So that's made me feel even more bullish because I look at the appreciation of a home or my down payment and the equity that I would have versus my Bitcoin. And the Bitcoin's going to win. So at some point, I do want that home, but maybe I can borrow against my Bitcoin.

So I will not be a homeowner yet. Sam's very happy because he helped convince me. That is super funny. You know what? I mean, you met Lisa. We saw each other actually in, well, many places, but we had a nice lunch with you guys in the Amalfi Coast in Italy. But Elisa independently kind of came to her own conclusion. She was talking about, oh, you know, if we make extra payments on the mortgage, then we could pay it down earlier and everything.

And then over time, without any prompting, she was like, but what if we just? saved in Bitcoin and was like, wait, why would we do that? Oh my God, we should just save in Bitcoin. We should just push that off as long as we possibly can and just pay the pay the minimum, whatever. Yeah. So like, you know, people are coming to those conclusions. Yeah. Of course. Yeah, now I want to take out a mortgage to buy Bitcoin. I was kidding. No, but it's true. And it's just, It's so interesting how your mind shifts. And I don't know if you guys saw my recent interview with Jeff Booth, but it really, even though I've talked to him and I've read his book, I don't know why, but like it really sunk in

at a deeper level the last time I talked to him, this totally different world that we're entering into where deflation is good and deflation delivers value. And deflation allows us to have an abundant future. And I don't know. I just like I'm very optimistic about that happening. and the fact that we are really early, even though I've felt so late, because I'm way later than you guys are.

But we're all early, even the people that get in now are early, and it's exciting. It really is. I mean, I love that. I'll let the other gentlemen tap in on any thoughts that they have around that. I'll try and stay, let them speak first. So I don't know, Bob or Preston,

if you want to dive in, any additional comments or questions or thoughts in around us. Bitcoin will, I don't know if I can you guys hear me yeah we're good all right um Bitcoin will just take the consumerism the mentality in this uh you know this conditioning that I think everybody has had their entire life to just go out and spend because the money's going to be worth less tomorrow so this this idea of wanting to spend is just so indoctrinated into our you know how how we function and Bitcoin just literally flips us on its head. And so anybody that actually understands Bitcoin understands the

problem that's being solved and has been around for a little bit, they start to shift their thinking into, do I really need this? Or am I satisfied with what I have? And can I forego that short-term interest of today or tomorrow for what I could have 10 years from now? And it's just, it's just really fascinating to watch because anybody that I've known that really understands Bitcoin, They all are just like, I drive a truck from that's 2017. We're in 2025. Before I, before I had Bitcoin, I would have wanted a new vehicle, you know, every three or four years or whatever it is. But you know what?

It's good enough. I don't need something new. I just, you know, I don't even drive. I just sit in my office all day and, you know, shit post on Twitter. So, like, I don't need to, I don't need these things. And I think it's this shift that is so important to kind of recognize and just, really have a deep appreciation for it. I think it's good.

It's forcing people to value what's actually important and what they actually need, not just to go spend to spend. Yeah, I started a poll in the chat, by the way, buy a house or rent and stack more sets. And so, yeah, we're at a solid 70-something percent for rent. So you're winning the audience over. Bob, I'll let you chime in here. Well, it's interesting.

you know, like that stat. So I have, I have four kids and two step kids. They're all between 25 and 35. And only, they're all doing well in life. They're all bitcoiners to some degree or another. And only one of the six has a home, owns a home. And part of that is for this reason. And, you know, I know, I know, I know Natalie and I know Sam.

And it's so nice. to have a spouse that is supportive of this. You know, and I'm blessed the same way. My wife, I give you two examples. Like my wife, at Christmas this year, I got her some gifts. And when they were all done, she was jokingly, but not jokingly mad at me saying, I really just wanted more Bitcoin. Like, you know, she would have been just happy with me, you know, giving her, giving her

a treasor or something with with some bitcoin and like you preston we need to get a third car right now and just that today lola was was shopping for cars and she picked out something it was it's a 2017 with 90,000 miles on it and it'll be just fine it'll serve our needs but i think without bitcoin there's a good chance you know that was a 80,000 dollar purchase but yeah yeah you know and and like I said it's it's it's really great when you're in a relationship because I do know I'm sure you all have in your circle like I do know a few people where the spouse is not as supportive and it's you know it's a real problem like I mean I wish the best for everybody that's in that situation but I could see it ultimately being

a relationship breaker for some people yeah Yeah, it's a tough one. It's funny, I, I feel like Lisa just through osmosis and tolerating me for so many years that she, she has become a Bitcoin, but what really did it was bringing her to an event. And then she met all the people and she was like, actually, these people are great. I really like them. And now, and now she just like, she wants to be at all the events. It's her chance to be social and get out and she's really, and now she's on.

the whole like all the food is poison rabbit hole and she's like trying to find natural recipes and like you know swearing off seed oils and all that so she's like well down various rabbit holes because of because of everybody but but she's loving it so um yeah yeah um what i want to do right now uh is i want to give uh towards the end of the episode here i want to give the chat a chance to ask you guys some questions. So I'm going to pick some of the best ones. So everybody in the chat, start thinking. I'm going to show a quick thing here really quick.

But we're going to start grabbing just a few questions that you want to ask. It could be general for the whole panel or if you want to ask a specific person. Just let us know. And I'm going to peruse for some of our favorite questions. And guys, if you see one in the chat, I'm talking to the panel here. If you see one in the chat that you really like, make sure you keep an eyeball on it. so I can pull it up. But really quick, before we do that, I just wanted to let everybody know that's watching.

Of course, I have my company Bitcoin mentor. One of the mentors is Jesse Berger, and he wrote a book called Magic Internet Money, a book about Bitcoin. It is awesome. It's so good. It's just such a nice read, very, very simple to get through. And it explains a lot of things that would normally take me like 20 minutes and he somehow condenses it into like a paragraph. So Jesse's awesome. Great dude.

He's been around the block. Again, he's a part of Bitcoin mentor. But if you want a free book, just scan the QR code there. You drop an email and we'll get you a copy. It's a really good read. And if you feel like you're already pretty well versed on Bitcoin, you can always gift it to a family member that you want an orange pill. It's really, really accessible. So anyways, with that, let's take a peek.

at that chat and see what we've got going on here. Okay. Oh, this is, oh, perfect question for why are we bullish. Hey, panel, what is your strongest bear case against Bitcoin? So why are we bearish? We're taking a temporary shift. We have to take a shower after the episode now. But why are you guys bearish if you had to be bearish?

I mean, it's not that I'm bearish, but my concern is just on the technical front from an encryption standpoint is there's just no way of ever knowing whether the encryption, the underpinning encryption of Bitcoin is sound and can be continued to be intact. I mean, how would you possibly be able to prove that? I think it's unprovable. I'm kind of curious Bob's take on that, but there's a risk. right that we can't prove i suspect yeah yeah it's a it's a non-zero risk um bitcoin's architecture allows us to fairly easily pivot if we have to but if we do pivot um there are a lot of ramifications of that and you know the the network might get way weaker um but you know i i think we will see the signs. I might be wrong, Preston. Like, you know, it's a non-zero chance that this could happen, but I, but I think it's highly unlikely that anything gets broken. And, you know, it won't be, um, it won't be the hashing stuff with Chaut 256 that falls first. You know, it'll be the stuff with the,

the, um, addresses and, and the way that, you know, public, private key relationships are, are developed. I guess since I'm talking, I'll say, you know, my, my barest case is that we go through a period, an extended period where everything goes perfectly. And people get complacent. And I think that's the biggest risk that Bitcoin has in the long run is that we start bringing in new people that, that, don't know what we went through that don't know why we have fought for certain things and then as proposed changes come in they don't they don't know why the block size war occurred you know they don't as an example like they they don't know the importance of that and they don't understand

that risk um it's especially something i i worry about several decades down the road so you know i'm a weird guy I think about Mars and I think about, you know, the year 2200, like things like that. But that's what I worry about. Like my great, great grandkids and those generations, Bitcoin is so successful that it dominates the world. But those people never know why we fought for the architecture the way it is and that that allows it to erode. Much like I think when you look at the Constitution, people that don't want to fight for the first thing. Amendment or the Second Amendment or those sort of things. They, they, you know, they haven't done the research.

They're lazy. They're complacent. And so they acquiesce to people attacking those, those attributes. Matt, any, any bearish, sorry, reasons for you? Any quick ones? I mean, I think Bitcoin will win. I guess I do, if I had to worry about something, it would be that some sort of draconian force takes over.

And we're under a more authoritarian rule that is against property rights and makes Bitcoin into something that, yeah, you can't self-custody. And it has to be like a, it takes away the freedom technology component to it and everything's controlled and monitored. And that wouldn't be the real Bitcoin. That wouldn't be the ethos of Bitcoin. But I just don't see that happening. I really don't. I think that we will have a lot of headwinds when it comes to privacy and making sure that we can use this in a free way as a medium of exchange. But I think that it'll Trojan horse its way in and overall, especially the way that it's being used in developing nation and other parts of the world that will clash with maybe the way things have always been in the West and the central banks.

And I think Bitcoin will ultimately win the battle. But yeah, I don't know. I'm just, I'm bullish. I'm not bearish on Bitcoin. I can only be short-term bearish if something plays out. The only thing that I think is we get a really, really intense shit coin extravaganza these next four years. And then there's some sort of massive blow up at the end of it or like massive. massive rug pulls or whatever happens.

And then the next incoming administration uses that as an excuse to get super draconian on their regulations. And so that's kind of, and that would just be, that doesn't kill Bitcoin. It just makes it really, really difficult for people in the interim. But I think it pulls through that. It just really sucks for the people at the time. So that's, that would be my bearish case. Really quick, nap for you.

Somebody asked, any plans to have Ross on your shirt? at some point? I mean, I would love that. I've had the chance to meet Lynn, and she's always been a part of the women of Bitcoin brunch, which I'm really grateful for. And I mean, it would be a real honor. I've tried to reach out. But also, I'm someone who really respects this space. And so, you know, for example, there have been podcasters out there longer than me. And so I think that they should be first in line. And whoever Ross chooses, I mean, or maybe he'll decide to just continue sharing his story in his own words to his audience directly via video. I, you know, whatever, whatever he feels is best.

But yeah, it would be fascinating. I have a million questions I would ask. So it would be awesome. I can imagine. I can imagine. Preston, I'm going to put this one towards you. This is, I'll always love him in this guy comments because he's got the most hilarious nickname, but he actually asks relatively insightful questions.

So this question comes from pood in the cereal. he said sub 121 was revoked via sub 122 ibit filed an in-kind modification of the ETF right after does this indicate banks are holding the ETF and want to move themselves

to come go bingo yeah that's elaborate so yeah what's fascinating I think it was was a Goldman that had I forget which bank it was it might have been BlackRock

itself I can't I just can't remember, but I remember them that they bought $500 million worth of Ibit to put on their own personal balance sheet at the bank. This isn't them selling the product and collecting fees. This is them believing in what they're buying and putting it on the balance sheet. So the fact that BlackRock went out today and is asking for in-kind redemptions is super bullish. And I think it actually adds a little bit of a counterweight to my big gripe. my concern about re-hypothecation for custodians, because if you're Coinbase and you're in-custaining these coins and you know that a BlackRock-like entity can do in-kind redemptions,

you're going to be very concerned about, you know, re-hypothicating that Bitcoin if a large entity like that can just step in and redeem and take custody of the Bitcoin themselves with, you know, some type of notice. I don't know what the timeline would be for, you know, in-kind redemptions and how much time they have to provide it. But this is, in my opinion, this is a very good development, the in-kind redemptions. The SAB-121, I think, is also very bullish, but also very concerning simultaneously.

Oh, there's Holly. Look at Holly. This is really bullish, because what it's doing is it's just entrenching Bitcoin into the, it's just seeping the, the tentacles of Bitcoin are just going into everything. And that's going to be really difficult to undo, call it four years from now. So that's the bullish side of it. The concern that I obviously have, it goes to what I wrote about not having things over collateralized in the borrowing and lending space.

And I just, you know, we've just seen the genesiss, the FTXs, I mean, you name it every cycle, this borrowing and lending and the rehypothecation of Bitcoin is just scary as hell because of the 80% fall. And it's just relentless. If you're doing those types of things, you're just going to get, you're going to get your head ripped off. And my concern and why I'm writing, you know, what I wrote is, you know, your grandma might own the ETF. If you think you're going to teach her about self-custy and all these other things, like, I'm sorry, I just, I don't. I think you're being very naive. I think you're being very idealistic.

And I think you're taking what it is that you know and you're applying it to everybody else in thinking that they can get to where you're at. And I don't believe that. I think a lot of people are going to have exposure through the ETFs. This isn't what I want, but this is what I think will happen. I think that's a very high probability. And so I just want to try to protect those people the best I can. And I think there needs to be serious talk about their,

not being any type of rehypification with Bitcoin as pristine collateral. And it's just that simple. I like it. All right. Last general question for the audience. After this, we'll bid everybody to do and we'll do our giveaways based on how many likes this episode gets. So make sure you're smashing that like button during this last one.

This one, I just want to get a general read. How bullish are you guys on Cynthia Lomas being able to turn around the digital asset stockpile into a Bitcoin? strategic reserve. I mean, I think she's a hardcore Bitcoiner, personally. I don't know that for sure, but the little bit that I've seen, the people that I know that are close to her demonstrates that she is all about Bitcoin.

I think that she sees all these other things for what they are, which is, you know, a scam, centralized, not Bitcoin, not backed by energy. She understands all of that from what I gather. And, you know, good luck. She's going to chair this committee. This committee is going to be the one that actually puts forth the legislation to stand up, you know, a strategic reserve. I think that's very bullish.

Do I think it should happen quicker than six months? Yes, I do. I think she should have had 30 days. I think that's what I wrote if I was, you know, writing an executive order. So yeah, I think I think there's some there's some good things there. And the fact that she's kind of at the helm and sharing it, I think is a really good thing. So you see a lot of comments online. People are upset.

They're scared about Ripple. Like stop being scared. Stop being, you know, just like wash the fear away. It's good to know the risks, right? And to talk about it in an open kind of way. But good God, there's some people out there that are so dang scared and fearful. And I just want to shake them. Like, wake up.

We're like, we're in this game. We're playing offense right now. We're forcing them to play our game. And boy, what a time to be alive and to be bullish. And we've got the right people in the right place. So is there some things that we can, yeah, there are. But like stop being so damn scared. Please.

Hell yeah. Nat, does Cynthia Loemis have the tools in her arsenal to potentially make this happen? I do. We're so lucky to have her. and she really understands Bitcoin and she's positioned perfectly. So, yes, I have faith that things will turn into the Bitcoin stockpile or reserve. But I also think that they should be strategic and careful. I mean, this would be like the biggest announcement, literally, geopolitically.

I mean, they have to be very careful. I wasn't expecting day one for them to announce that they're buying a million Bitcoin. At least that's me. I think that they're going to be a little quieter and more strategic about the whole thing. And I definitely want to echo what Preston said because I think some people are getting so riled up right now. And I will say I'm still connected to so many people who are outside of the Bitcoin community or they're still in media. And it doesn't necessarily make our space look good when we're just throwing insults at another coin and just getting so nervous and upset about it. It's like, again, just we know we're going to win.

And Bitcoin has the merit. And we don't have to all of a sudden start yelling and cussing and all of that. I think we need to just remember that were the adults in the room, honestly, the Bitcoiners are. And we need to behave that way whenever possible. Because sometimes the way that you deliver a message is really important. And I've certainly learned that with my background. Yeah. Bob, I'll get your take on it as well.

Yeah, it'll be simple. I've had very limited interaction with her, but I will say that she, she's always impressed me. I think Natalie mentioned this, very calm, reasonable demeanor, doesn't overreact. She's in a very powerful position now. She was named the chairman of the subcommittee on digital, I forgot the exact name, but she's like running a key committee that is going to be a big part of this. And while I don't particularly have influence with her, you know, people like Parker Lewis that, you know, are friends that I respect tremendously are in her ear and have been for years.

And so she's going to get the right messaging and the right tools to push this through. Yeah. I mean, I'm pulling for you guys. Maybe one day we'll get a strategic Canadian Bitcoin Reserve, and maybe we can lighten up on the maple syrup reserve that we've got going here. Nonetheless, everybody in the chat, of course, I'm beyond elated that everybody came and hung out over the course of the episode. We've had getting close to 9,000 people tune in. So thank you all for being a part of the episode. Of course, we're going to be doing giveaways. We're going to be doing a few more sad giveaways here. But I want to offer a huge thanks to Preston, Bob, and Natalie. And now I'm forgetting. And Holly. And Holly.

Holly, thank you so much for your input. I really appreciate it. Really, I think Holly was most bullish of all. I'm pretty sure. She was wanting to get in here so bad, so I had to let her in. Of course. Well, she's welcome back anytime, as are the rest of the panel. But guys, thank you so much for getting bullish with me on a Friday. You're welcome back anytime, and I'll see you guys in person, I'm sure, soon enough. Thanks, guys. Thank you. All right. And everybody, we are ready for our SAT giveaway.

Get your lightning wallets ready because we are going to do it right now. This episode has gotten 340. 59 likes. If you get it up to 400 by the time I do the first three giveaways, then we'll do a fourth. But we shall see. In the meantime, again, I'm here on Bitcoin. Well, I'll give you a QR code on the side as well if you do want to check them out, if you want to sign up. But the way it works is, of course, you sign up, you buy Bitcoin, you refer friends, all of those things earn your points to use to toss a coin into the Bitcoin wishing well. Each time you do so, you have the chance to win up to a million stats. So we've got...

Three roles right now for sure. You just need a lightning wallet. And whoever scans the QR code first is going to win the sats and steal them from everyone else. So here we go. We're going to do roll number one. And good luck to everybody that is going to do this. By the way, if you do have a quick last minute questions, then I will give you the chance

to ask them. If you got any technical stuff for me, questions about tutorials, stuff like that, I'll grab one or two. So congrats to whoever snag this 210 sats. We're going to do another one right now. And I'll do a quick refresh here. Shout out to Nathan Sato Shizzle, Ryan Long, Grand Machines, everybody in the chat right now.

Thank you for being here. Joshua, thank you guys for being here. We're going to do another one and toss it into the well. off we go 210 sats there whoever scans it i'm going to leave that up for about five or ten seconds uh off we go i see that we still of course have some of the altcoin fans in the chat it's okay

it's early days you guys are learning um some really good books that i recommend you check out and this is not said in jest uh go ahead read jeff booth the price of tomorrow it's incredible uh read the sovereign individual i think that's well worth a read read the fourth turning. That's well worth a read. Of course, the Bitcoin standard is an absolute staple. Another great one by Eric Yakes is called the seventh property. That's a great, a great read as well.

All of those can definitely help you on your learning journey. Let's do one more. We're almost at 400. Holy guys. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. We're at 383 likes.

So if we get to 400, I'll give you guys a couple of minutes, but we'll toss one more round here, and we'll see if we hit it before the end of the episode. But we'll toss one more there. Off it goes. And 210sats, whoever scans that first gets it. We've also got a poll going in the chat, and I said the poll was,

do we get a Bitcoin reserve? And the choices were yes or no, we get an S-coin stockpile. It looks like reserve one out at 66%. 33% think we're getting that stockpile. So we shall see. But here's our QR code for the winner. There we go.

Okay. I'm also one more time before the end of the episode, I'm going to remind you guys about the book giveaway, and I'll bring up that QR code for you. Again, over at Bitcoin Mentor.io, you can check us out if you need any help with your learning journey through Bitcoin when it comes to setting up hardware, multi-sig, running a node, mining at home, all kinds of stuff. We can help you through it.

Head over to BitcoinMentor.io to book a session. But of course, if you want a free book, one of our mentors, Jesse Berger wrote a book called Magic Internet Money, a book about Bitcoin. It's very accessible, very easy. A great read even for seasoned bitcoins, but also a great gift for those pre-cointers in your life that you might want. to send it to. So head over to the QR code on the screen and you can drop an email to get a free copy. Anyways, guys, we are going to round out there. Thank you so much for joining the show.

This was an absolute blast. Again, you're now filled in. I want you to keep stacking stats. I want you to keep stacking skills. I'm Ben with the BTC sessions. This was your daily session. Hidal by Bitcoin