BTC Sessions - UNSUSTAINABLE: Fed Chair Frets Over America's Future ep396

Episode Date: February 9, 2024

In this episode, we dive into Fed Chair Jerome Powell's alarming statement about America's unsustainable fiscal path and its potential impact on Bitcoin's future. We also celebrate Nayib Bukele's reelection in El Salvador, a significant win for Bitcoin adoption, and explore how Fidelity and BlackRock's Bitcoin ETFs have surged into the top 10, signaling a growing institutional interest in BTC. Join us for these insights and more on the evolving landscape of Bitcoin. BOOK ME for one-on-one private sessions to learn about wallets, hardware, multisig, privacy, nodes and much more. https://www.btcsessions.ca/ 💪 SUPPORT THE SHOW: Coinkite offers the BEST Bitcoin hardware on the market. Use this link to get 5% off anything in their store: https://store.coinkite.com/promo/BTCSessions Nunchuk Wallet and their Honey Badger plan is a best in class assisted multisig setup with built-in inheritance planning and NO KYC. Pass on your savings to your loved ones with ease in a simple claiming process with full customer support. Check them out today! https://nunchuk.io/ SEEDOR is one of the most robust metal backups on the market today. Get your SEEDOR starter set today! Use this link for 5% off. https://www.seedor.io/discount/BTCSESSIONS?redirect=%2Fcollections%2Fprodukte For US based customers: https://www.seedor.io/btcsessions Canadian customers: https://link.thecryptoboutique.ca/BTCSessionsSeedor 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 a Server Lite, One or Pro today and become truly self-sovereign! https://start9.com/ HodlHodl is a NON-CUSTODIAL, NON-KYC solution to stack sats peer to peer! Buy and sell Bitcoin while maintaining privacy. Furthermore, you can check out their Lend platform for p2p loans that are never rehypothecated. Sign up and try it out today! https://hodlhodl.com/join/BTCSESSION

Well, let's try that again. Sorry about that, everybody. Hopefully, you found your way back. We just had a connection issue, and then it just dropped the stream. So here we are. We're back. Again, we've got Nico in the wings. We're going to be chatting the latest and greatest in Bitcoin news.

Of course, this is live. And as you've just seen, anything can happen. So I defer to my friend Bill here. We can't leave Bill out here. I'm not going to skip it. Live. Okay. We'll do it live.

Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live. The thing sucks. Gonna have to take a look at restream here. I don't know what the hell. Either way, whatever. We're doing it live. Of course, if you can, like, subscribe, share.

All of those things probably particularly important now that there's a dual stream and people could be confused. So please do share all this out there so people are aware. the new stream is at. I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your simply session. All right. Before we bring in, Nico, let's take a look at where we are in the market right. And now I'm bringing up timechain calendar.com. And simultaneously, I am bringing in the live chat. Everything you say from here on in should be live for the world to see. I see them coming through now and back to time jing calendar.com and let me know in the chat if you can hear me okay i did hear

somebody say that uh that we're muted but uh it seems like we're all good so anyways uh time jing calendar dot com we're sitting at 45, 35, 35, 356 dollars per coin a single US dollar uh will catch you 2,205 sats in terms of fees next block still low 23 sats. per bite anytime 18. I haven't seen fees in the teens in quite a while. So do all the stuff you need to do. And in terms of Bitcoin mine, 19.62 million of them. That's 93.4% of the total supply. If you need help with anything Bitcoin related, you're going through all the tutorials on the channel. And maybe you just can't quite grok it. You need some additional handholding. You can reach out to me at my website, btcccessions.com.com.com.com.

for private one-on-one education sessions. Shout out to sponsors of the show Hodelhottle.com if you're buying Bitcoin and your priorities include Peer-to-Beer trading, Insta self-custy, no K-YC. This is the place to be signing up with just an email address is easy. Once you're in there, you choose your currency, payment method, and an amount, and you can start browsing offers immediately.

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But the cold card cue is looking great. I've got all their stuff. So if you want to pre-order one of those cues or any of their other stuff, like cold cards, tap signers, block clocks, you name it. Head over to coincite.com. Code BTC sessions will get you a big discount at checkout. Backups are important as well. Shout out to Cidor. This is one of the most beautiful. beautifully designed and robust steel backup options on the market. It's got a disk and capsule design. They have full starter sets that gives you everything you need to stamp your seed and protect it from the elements like fire, water, and corrosion.

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in order to have it set up and work for you. And finally, shout out to Start 9, your sovereign computing solution. These guys have plug-and-play options in order to host, not just your Bitcoin life, but your digital life. So things like Bitcoin Core, Lightning Node, Mempool, files, passwords, photos, Noster Realizing clients, and some AI tools as well. There's plenty of other things. They've got everything from entry-level devices all the way up to what I'm running,

which is the Start9 server pure. Head over to start9.com. And if you're looking at the Pure, which should be coming back into stock within the next month or so, you can use code BTC sessions with a little plus sign at the end and get yourself 18% off. With that, enough of my rambling. Let's get Nico in here and let's see what's been going on. Yo, how's going, man? Yo! What's up, dude?

Happy to be back. Yeah, we almost weren't back. I know, I know. It was a little bit of a double take. It was... I don't know what happened, but here we are. We made it. We made it, and I'll tell you this,

we've been doing this for so long, we all kind of just reacted, scrambled back. Yeah, yeah. I mean, luckily, at least for what it was, I was able to just, like, duplicate the event and post it. and go. So, here we are. And it wasn't midstream, right?

Because that would have been, that would have been a different story. Yeah, that would have sucked. Oh, well, well, well,

we made it. And much with my approach to everything, you just soldier on. And here we are. It looks like people have found their way back here. So thanks, guys. And please do give this a share.

So anybody that's like sitting on the old stream, wondering what's up knows where to go. But yeah, man, let's chat. What's been going on this week? What is top of mind for you? You know, every week I always feel like I'm going to be out of a job.

There's never going to be. It's like, you know, because you don't know what the news is going to be for the week. But every single week since I started doing this three and a half years ago, the news cycle always keeps on giving. So so much stuff, very, very big consequential events this week in terms of the institutional the institutional interest in Bitcoin is absolutely insane. And the bull market hasn't even started. So first starting off with this, I think this is very historic and kind of a big effing deal.

This is an article for the audio listeners from Coin Telegraph. The headline is Black Rock and Fidelity Bitcoin ETFs reach top 10 in January flows. It goes on to say Black Rock and Fidelity Spot Bitcoin. have ranked among the ranked among ETFs with the largest January flows totaling around 4.8 billion. BlackRock's ETF had an estimated 2.6 billion in net flows reaching 8 place while the Fidelity ETF landed 10th place with 2.2 billion in net flows. And here's the signal, Ben, out of all this.

This is the very, very, this is the signal. The United States is home to over 3,100 ETFs, 3,000. 3,100 ETFs as of December 31st, 2023. And ladies and gentlemen, a Bitcoin ETF is already in the top 10. Two are already in the top 10 out of 3,100 ETFs. If that doesn't show you institutional interest, I don't know what does. I got a bridge to sell you. Anyways, listen.

So, and if you take a look at this, right, the S&P 500 ETF, the BlackRock one is at the very top of lifts list the Vanguard S&P 500 is at the very top of the list. You have investment-grade bonds. You have equity factor returns. You have Vanguard total stock market ETF, et cetera, et cetera. And then you have Bitcoin ETF, the BlackRock one in eighth place, and then the Fidelity one in 10th place. Now, mark my words. And what's going to be crazy is these two are going to take the top slot. Just because I think it's just a matter of time. And we'll get to that. another thing we're going to cover. It's just a matter of time

before people realize that holy cow, this Bitcoin thing outperforms everything. And I think that's the signal and people are starting to wake up to that. And take a look at this. Last time we reported on the holdings and we're going to be doing this every week

on Simply Sessions. BlackRock had, I think it was like roughly like 70,000 Bitcoin. Now they're up to 78. thousand Bitcoin. And here's the thing, there's not enough Bitcoin to go around, right? It's not like gold where if the price of gold goes up, right? They mine more gold, right? Doesn't matter if the price of Bitcoin goes up. The supply stays the same. In fact, not only does it stay the same, it gets cut in half every four years, right? So it's like a supply shock insured, like a supply shock

is insured, you know? So anyways, what's your take on all this, Ben? I mean, dude, we've been here a minute. This is, this is, this is the part that we've been waiting for, I guess. Yeah. I mean, it's, so it's, again, a double-edged sword, like, part of me is, is, I mean, this, this is what kind of, I think, is the catalyst for a major run that may be some people that we're anticipating diminishing returns.

I think that may not be the case. And again, just the pace at which Bitcoin is being gobbled up into these funds paired with the impending reduction of newly created coins is going to be a site to behold. And I'm curious how extreme that's going to get. Now, the other thing that I'm quite excited, about for this cycle is I think I tweeted this out just shortly before the show is is I'm very excited for this cycle watching the suits unable to stack more Bitcoin IOUs on the weekends

because the the markets are closed while everybody else is able to freely gobble up coins. And I'm almost I'm I'm a little bit curious too if that's going to result in some of these people that may have just gotten exposure to ETFs to be like, I need, I need access to this market more than just during regular hours because this runs 24-7. So we'll see. But, you know, when the one part about it that I'm kind of like, is, is unfortunately, the people that were excellent at gaming the Fiat system and were beneficiaries of the Cantion effect are also going to benefit massively from the shift from Fiat into the Bitcoin standard. Unfortunately, they're just positioned in a place where they'll be fine, at least the ones that pay attention will be

totally fine. They'll be able to shift over. But they won't be able to continue. you to game the system from the Bitcoin standard at the scale they've been, they'll just have to provide value from that point forward instead of just getting the, you know, getting access to the early money. 100%. The special, the so-called special treatment. And dude, you hit the nail on the head because, yeah, you know, Michael Saylor had to get in line like everybody else. He had to pay the price of tuition. I never forget. Pacific Bitcoin, 2022. He was sitting in the, you know, in the front row watching all the panels and stuff.

And the price of Bitcoin has as $16,000. Mind you, Micro Strategies average price to acquire Bitcoin at the time was $29,000. He was down billions of dollars. He was the CEO, chairman of a public company, all those shareholders, you know, all that pressure, you know, and he held through. He paid the price of tuition like everybody else, right? And that's what makes Bitcoin great, right? Is that if you want to make more Bitcoin, you got to mine it.

like everybody else. You want to buy Bitcoin. You got to buy it like everyone else. You don't get a special deal, right? And yeah, I agree. But yeah, the wolves are definitely in the den, 100%. Wall Street is here and Wall Street's going to try to shake you out 100%. Anyways, speaking of Wall Street, another historic moment. So not only did the ETFs reach the top 10 out of 3,100 ETFs, sorry, the top 10. Fidelity. This is. is a very big deal as well. I would say maybe if not a bigger deal. Fidelity's all in one ETF. It's a conservative ETF allocates one per so far one percent but they have they're open to allocating up to three percent in Bitcoin. This is a very very very very very big deal and I'll

explain why in a second. So here's Adam back and he puts a Lord of the Rings like kind of meme where it's like, you know, the, the battle of Helms Deep and the king of Rohan is there, and the battle starts and he's like, you know, and so it begins, right? It's a very epic movie, a very epic scene in that movie, but he goes on to say, you know, Adam back quoted in the Bitcoin white paper, or cited, better said, said, fidelity putting respectively 1% conservative, 2.5% balance or 3.1% aggressive Bitcoin via their ETF and general managed fund, all in one ETF. Now, the reason that this is such a big deal is because what is going to happen, and I'm telling you this right now, is that that 1% allocation will outperform some of these other

allocations, and that will inevitably lead to a domino effect, right, where they start to realize, wait, why only 1%, why not 2%, why not 3%, and here's the thing, this is Fidelity Canada. wait to see what happens when this works. This is going to come to fidelity in the U.S. This is going to come to Fidelity. This is going to come to BlackRock. And people are going to start noticing, oh, crap, it's not an option to potentially have exposure to Bitcoin. It's a necessity.

And if you don't have exposure to Bitcoin as an institution or a public company, and I'll get to that in the Michael Saler news, I'm actually at a competitive disadvantage. compared to the people that have put Bitcoin on their balance sheet, right? So this is a big deal. This is a historic moment in Bitcoin's history. Remember, guys, this isn't just a regular ETF. This isn't just a Bitcoin ETF. This is a conservative all-in-one ETF, meaning it includes investment-grade debt, U.S. equities, international equities, Canadian equities,

and it has a cryptocurrency segment, a little section, but really it's just Bitcoin in there, 1% global equities. So you guys get the point, though, is that now Bitcoin is being treated on the level as an asset, as all these other assets. And that's a big deal. And that's bad news for these other assets, because we know who the king is.

We know who the black, you know what the black hole is. And of course, that's Bitcoin. So this is a big deal. And I suspect, you know, as time goes by, that number is going to go up. That 1% allocation number is going to go up. Oh, for sure. Like, that's going to, when people realize that you, you no longer need to gamble on tech stocks and shit like that just to make retirement, this is, again, this is a conservative fund.

It, like, over the long run, Bitcoin becomes the most conservative, easy button when it comes. comes to preserving wealth. And I would not be surprised over the coming decade to see Bitcoin basically, you know, start to supplant all of these other things here as like the number one allocation. You know, it becomes the replacement for bonds, right? It becomes the replacement for all of these typical things because it does the best over a long period of time at preserving wealth. And there's that stat.

It doesn't hold up anymore where at any point in four years, you would have outperformed the S&P 500, but that's based on like peak to trough. Like, you know, if you had bought at 69K, you know, obviously with the FTX debacle, at some point, like over that four years, you would have been technically down, but had you DCA'd, how had you like just gradually allocated over time, you would have

massively, massively outperformed. So, yeah. 100%. And just to add to your point, I'm glad that you brought that up, right? Like, look at this, man. Price in Bitcoin, we all love this website. It doesn't matter what the asset is. You know, if you've been saving in Bitcoin, everything gets cheaper.

There's not one thing on a five-year time scale that has not, you know, everything's just gotten cheaper compared to Bitcoin. Everything just goes down compared to Bitcoin. And this is what absolute scarcity is. And then this leads me, this is a perfect segue to Michael Saylor's absolute flex, right? He does have a 10 minute video. Unfortunately, we don't have the time to play the entire thing. We'll play like a minute or two and we'll talk about it. But this leads to the symbolic flex of Michael Saylor. And he did this in his fourth quarter, 2023 report. He also announced, that micro strategy acquired an additional 850 Bitcoin sorry 331,755 Bitcoin acquired since the end of Q3 for 1.25 billion so you acquired more Bitcoin they now

own 1,190,000 Bitcoin he's going for that 1% allocation I think right now he's at like 0.8 or 0.9 right if you account for the Bitcoin that's lost he already has more He already owns more than every 1% of every Bitcoin, which is absolutely crazy. This guy's going to be the richest man in the world. But take a look at his presentation. And unfortunately, by the time he says this part, it's about six minutes in, so we're not going to be able to get to it. But there was a part, Ben, where his producer or his helper wanted to make Michael Saylor full screen, right? And Michael Saylor said, no, no, no, no, no, keep that on screen, right?

And you have to think about the symbolism. What is the symbolism of him saying that? So let's take a look at this image. And essentially what Michael Saylor is saying is he's, we have a saying in Miami, right? He put his giant on the table and, you know, a soft flex. And he's basically showing the world that, yes, this Bitcoin thing, this Bitcoin strategy, not only is an alternative, it's a superior. alternative. It's better. It's a better strategy. And look, stock performance since August 10, 2020, look, it doesn't matter whether you're Microsoft. Microsoft is almost up 100%. It's at 97%. But compared

to Bitcoin, Bitcoin up 260. Micro strategy stock, because it's a leverage play, is up 305% since they've adopted the Bitcoin strategy. So clearly what Michael Saylor is showing, doesn't matter if it's compared to Microsoft, Google, meta, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Oracle, IBM, S&P 500 as a whole, NASDAQ, gold. It doesn't matter. The Bitcoin strategy outperformed every single one of those massive companies with a crap load of the smartest employees in the world. The smartest people work at Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, Netflix. Like you have the smartest minds working at those companies and micro strategy still adopted, I mean, still outperformed all these guys because they adopted a Bitcoin strategy.

Now going back to this, do you really think it's going to stay at 1% after I showed you that? Do you see like the convergence of forces coming together? And this is why Michael Saylor, like literally, this is why he did this during this call. Like, and essentially what he did, I'll play you guys like two minutes of it. But essentially what he's just, he's just continuing to. Talk the theory of why Bitcoin is a superior asset of why it's a good strategy, et cetera, et cetera. So here's about a minute or two. August 10th or August 11th when we adopted our Bitcoin strategy.

Our stock has outperformed Bitcoin as well as every major asset class along with every major big tech stock, as well as every major enterprise software stock. We're very proud of this. And for those of you have followed us on this journey, you know, it's been a number of steps every single quarter that got us here. But I think that this is a very useful chart to illustrate and discuss some key elements in our strategy and in our business outlook. First of all, with regard to Bitcoin, 2024 is the year of birth of Bitcoin as an institutional

grade asset class. Bitcoin is being increasingly referred to as an asset class and as a new asset class. And in fact, it's the first new asset class of the modern era. It's difficult to really name another asset class, gold, when it's a number. was converted to ETF wasn't a new asset. Commodities were never a new asset. 30 years ago, the S&P index was converted into an ETF, the spider. That wasn't a new asset then, but it was certainly a revolution in finance. And so Bitcoin represents many things, but one thing it represents is the first institutional grade digital asset.

So I'm going to leave it there, guys. It's 12 minutes long, so obviously we don't have time to play it. But put all the pieces together. Ben, I'm sorry, that was like he was talking in low voice throughout the whole video. We got the same comments when we were. We played it over on the Simply channel. But look, so put all the pieces together, right? Bitcoin ETF already in the top 10 in the United States out of 3,100 ETFs. Number two, right?

You have the 1% allocation by a quote unquote conservative all in one ETF. And now you have Michael Saylor, again, Miami saying putting his on the table and basically showing, Hey guys, yeah, yeah, the Bitcoin strategy is the way. For the rest of the 12 minute video, right? Like I said, he just continues to talk to talk, right? Like we've heard this a thousand times on all the other podcasts.

But the symbolism is very strong because of the chart that he has on his, you know, on our left, right? Which is like, yeah, guys, you know, I'm talking and I'm saying all these things, but the proof is in the pudding. Don't trust verify the results are right. there. So yes, dude, this is a lot of crazy stuff happened this week. And I completely agree with him. Bitcoin is now considered a traditional investment asset, a new investment asset, if you, you know, if you are to believe what Michael Saylor just said. Yeah. I mean, it's coming. People are waking up to what this is. And again, that to jump back to the fidelity thing, having that as as a, even a small,

part of a conservative fund and then watching what that does to the performance of something over, you know, even like four or five years and seeing and contrasting and comparing those that did it and those that didn't. It's going to be, it's going to be game over. Like Vanguard, they're screwed. They are so screwed if they don't get in line with this stuff. It's going to be laughable when you see a fund that allocated one or two percent of Bitcoin and just destroys everything that Vanguard throws out there. It's going to be hilarious. Yeah. Yeah. And that they're going to have to change their logo of the ship with the Titanic. No, maybe that's a bad. Maybe that's too much. But a slip, a ship sinking, but everyone was able to get onto the Bitcoin life.

Life life. Yeah. It's unlimited Bitcoin life rafts. It's just like whether, whether you're going to eating caviar or you're going to be you know having you know soaking up some scraps or something 100% a hundred percent anyway so in other news uh you know we're getting to the part of the movie ladies and gentlemen with everything that's going on right all that positive news people are waking up to the fact that bitcoin is the superior asset we're getting to the part of the movie where the people in charge are starting to say the quiet part out loud of what us bitcoiners have been screaming from the rooftops for many years now. In fact, this was in the Genesis block, ladies and gentlemen. What was it? Chancellor on the brink of the second bailout for banks, Satoshi knew back then that

they were going to continue to print money and that was an unsustainable path. And ladies and gentlemen, that's not me just saying it anymore. That is the chairman of the Federal Reserve Trrone Powell saying it himself in the latest interview on 60 Minix, and I think it was last Sunday. Let's check it out. The U.S. is on an unsustainable fiscal path. The U.S. federal government is on an unsustainable fiscal path. And that just means that the debt is growing faster than the economy. I have the sense this worries you very much.

Over the long run, of course it does. You know, we're effectively, we're borrowing from future generations. It's time for us to get back to putting a priority on fiscal sustainability. And sooner is better than later. And here's the thing. They can't. They can't. It is impossible.

They cannot stop this. And just to kind of give you guys a visualization of how bad this is, right? Here's the U.S. debt clock, right? So the U.S. national debt is $34 trillion, right? You go to the U.S. domestic product, it's $27 trillion, right? So right now the debt is $100,000. 122% of the GDP. But here's where things get really crazy.

And shout out to James Lavish for pointing this out to me. If you go to U.S. unfunded liabilities, that's $212 trillion with a T, right? Just Medicare liabilities alone, that's $40 trillion. Social Security liability, that's $26 trillion. Just to kind of give you guys an idea, that would make it so that every, every U.S. citizen would be liable for $632,000 each. There's 350 million people in the U.S. Roughly.

I think there's a little bit more now. But yes, this is what it means by unsustainable. But now one of the things that kind of upsets me a little bit, and I want to get your take, man. I'm just going to kind of leave this. Some of people kind of just see this. Is the part where he's like, yeah, this doesn't worry me now.

It just kind of worries me for future generations. Like, dude, like, fine, bro, you're, you know, like 50s and you're in your 60s, bro. But like, Ben, like, we're still in our 30s, dude. Like, we have, you know, I'm about to have a child. You have children. Like, F you, dude. Like, like, thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. But, like, you're screwing us.

You guys are printing money you don't have. We're spending money we don't have. And you're screwing us. And now they're saying it. They're admitting it. But they won't stop. You know, they're still sending. billions of dollars to fund these foreign wars that we can't afford to pay for.

It's just, dude, it's, it's, I don't know what, I have no comment. Honestly, the, the number one problem I have with what he said, other than being like, well, eventually, was that he used the vernacular. He said, uh, we're borrowing from future generations as if we were going to then pay back those future generations. There's no, there's no paying it back. Like he will be dead and gone and people will be dealing with the repercussions of of what he did as as head of the Federal Reserve, right? Like that all of the boomers right now will be gone and it will be the other, the future generations, our generation, our kids, our grandkids.

Those are the people that have to deal with it. So don't, don't say you're borrowing from future generations. You're, no, you're stealing from future generations. You are taking something away from them and you're letting them deal with the consequences. People are getting an unclear picture of the reality of, you know, what things are worth. And they're going to get screwed by it. The world is completely broken. And unfortunately, again, that falls to partly us.

and that falls majorly to our kids. And hopefully we can just, as we are trying to do, hopefully we can just hop off this train and onto one that's going to take us to a better place. 100%. Because, you know, you hear that and you're just like, dude, like this is crazy. And here's the thing, Ben, people are starting to wake up. And, you know, again, guys, you guys know on Simply Sessions and on Simply as well, you know, we don't take a political stance. It's not left versus right.

It's not red versus blue. It's not conservative versus liberal. It's really, you know, the party of green, which is the party of fiat, central bank digital currencies, nihilism, slavery, poverty, control versus a party of Bitcoin, the party of opportunity, prosperity, hope, optimism, peace, freedom. just all that being said, people are starting to wake up. And I think it's our responsibility as Bitcoiners to really kind of like, you know, you know, when people are two, people are fighting and you just kind of like push them apart, right? And just be like, dude, like, you know, whether you're on the, you're left leaning or you're right leaning, it's like, bro, like, they're both doing the same thing, dude. Like, you got to fix the money, bro. It's the money that's broken. It's not the other person. It's not Trump provided.

They're both doing the same thing. So we really like, it's our responsibility as Bitcoiners to really go on and have a unifying message. Because I think Bitcoin is a great unifier. Right. That being said, people are waking up to the problem. People are waking up to the issue. Now, this is Stephen A. Smith. Stephen A. Smith, for anyone who doesn't know, is a very, very popular sports broadcaster here in the United States.

And he's saying the choir part out loud, right? He's like, dude, what the F is going on, right? So it was like originally, it was like a five, 10 minute clip, but I cut it down to one minute. And like, people are feeling the pain. You could tell them the economy's better. You could tell them that Thanksgiving is getting cheaper. But the reality is that the sticker shock don't lie. Like, that's the reality.

Anyways, like, I think I get passionate, but like he takes it up to level 10. How the hell of your print money for foreign countries? But you don't print that money to help eradicate folks that are starving right here in the streets of America who are born and raised here. This is what I'm talking about. And so when you have something like that, what's the one way to eradicate it? Yes, you've got to have a flourishing economy. Yes, you can't have inflation. Yes, you can't be on a verge of the recession.

Milk don't need to cost $7. Bread don't need to cost $5. Don't get me started with how much sugar cost. You can talk about employment all you want to. You can talk about the labor participation rate. But guess what? If you ain't making no damn money and you got to get two jobs to pay the same prices or to buy the same amount of stuff that you used to buy and the price is higher than it used to be because of inflation, then guess what?

What do you really accomplish? How the hell are you? Okay. I love it, man. I love that like what was this on? Like, because he's a sportscaster. So what were like how did you get on this rant? I think this is one of his shows, like one of his podcast shows.

Okay. But yeah, dude, he was on top of it. But he did mention milk. And he did mention sugar, right? Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you've been living on a Bitcoin standard, milk has actually got an 85% cheaper on a five-year scale, 84% cheaper on a three-year scale and 72% cheaper on a one-year scale. Sugar?

You know, he said sugar, like pretty crazy. still things have got cheaper. So us as Bitcoiners, our responsibility is not for, because he's very passionate and he starts talking about politics. Our responsibility as Bitcoiners is like, dude, there's a, there's a solution in front of you. And all you got to do is take self-custody. Watch Ben's videos. Be sophisticated.

Take that Bitcoin into self-custody. And your life will get better regardless of the 80-year. old that's an office and that's the reality right and we really really got to focus on that now on the other side you know our so-called leaders instead of worrying about you know this this hurt that they're causing on americans here you have janet yellen lecturing us how we have to legislate bitcoin and stable coins check it out council is focused on digital assets and related risks such as runs such as from runs on crypto asset platforms and stable coins, potential vulnerabilities from crypto asset price volatility, and the proliferation of platforms acting outside of or out of compliance with applicable

laws and regulations. Applicable rules and regulation should be enforced, and Congress should pass legislation to provide for the regulation of stable coins and of the spot market for crypto assets that are not securities. We look forward to continuing to engage with Congress on this. Okay, so she said, you know, of all the problems that's going on, she's like stable coin regulation and crypto assets that are not security. So what are those? That's Bitcoin. So, Ben, could you make me full screen for a second? I absolutely will.

One on one second. Okay. All right. So I'm going to, you know, the microphone and the thing in the tags. I'm going to do the same thing, do the papers. And I think Congress should pass a law so that these politicians stop printing money and devaliening. everyone else's money. Like we could both play that game and what is more useful? Like she's hiding behind the coattails of this emblem and it's like I'm the U.S. Treasury Secretary and you

should take me seriously because I have the papers in this microphone and telling you how this is a risk to everyone. But in reality, this is the hope. This is the solution. All right, all right, I'm done. Dude, we could both play that game. We could both play that game of hiding like, look, because I have my papers and I'm fancying I'm the U.S. Treasury. But dude, you're just printing money. Like, Janet Yellen, you're printing money. You're making everyone poorer. And instead of addressing that as your job should be,

because you're the Treasury Secretary, what are you doing? You're literally blaming the solution. You're literally, like, trying to attack the thing that is actually giving people a shot. And that is not Nico just talking shit. The numbers are there. Like Michael Saylor literally flexing with the numbers. I'm flexing right now. I wish I could have these numbers in Congress

and just be like, yo, look at what you're attacking, dude. This is the solution. So yeah, they can say whatever they want, but number go up is going to continue to prove them wrong and make them look like fools. That's the reality. All right, I'm done.

I needed that right in my veins, man. It's, again, like think of all the bitcoins you know that have, you know, stuck around and just kind of been on their Bitcoin standard, offered value. Again, the golden rules, create value for others, spend less than you earn, saving Bitcoin. Amen. It's the cheat code to life.

If you can pull those things off, you will do excellent in the seismic shift that we're about to see in the world. Yeah. That's literally all you need to do. That's like all you need to do. It's so simple. It's complicated. right because we've we've been used to living in a world where you see that you see that with the funds like oh we're going to put it in u.s equities Canadian equities like you know real estate like you know we're we're like searching this return you shouldn't have to be forced to invest just to maintain your purchasing power shouldn't have to do that like if you me and ben like we're content creators or YouTubers right we love making content that's what I love doing it right

Like, and let's say, you know, God willing, it happens in the future, whatever, you start to build up a certain amount of wealth, right? Why do I have to start investing just to maintain that? That's crazy. That's insane. And then, of course, do you have the time to be a part-time investor? Right? Are you going to outsource that and then hire like, you know, a wealth management bank or whatever? And then they're going to start taking fees, right?

But now we have a solution, which is just buy Bitcoin and save it. And that's it. Just don't worry about it. Right? And put it into self-custody. Right? And you see how much they're trying to demonize it. Right? Do you have time for one more video? Yeah, man. Let's do it. All right. So, and they're trying to demonize this because they know.

They know that it's the end of the racket. Now, this is a very old, this is not very old, but this is a somewhat old video by Barack Obama. And he's promoting Bitcoin, believe it or not. Check it out. The question we now have to ask is, if technologically it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there's no key, there's no door at all, what mechanisms do we have available to even do simple things like tax enforcement? because if in fact you can't crack that at all, government can't get in, then everybody's walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket. Precisely.

And like, and here's the thing, right? Let's give them the benefit of the doubt, Ben. Let's give them a benefit for the doubt. Fine. Maybe like you guys deserve the key or maybe he's whatever. I remember the Canadian truckers protest. I remember Janet Yellen telling me that there was going to be no inflation.

I remember multiple times government using this power that they're like, we deserve this power, and they've used that against their own citizens. I'm sorry if I'm skeptical and I don't believe you guys anymore. I'm over it. It's done. I'm going to try something new. And then when you go try something new, they're like, that can't happen. And guess what?

I think the world's going to be a better place. because governments are going to have that check, because governments are not going to be able to steal from their citizens, not, I mean, you can, you can, the tax debate I want to avoid, but steal from their citizens through currency debasement, right? So yeah, man, it's exciting times. If you're taking Bitcoin and sell self-custody, you're just watching all this eating popcorn, you know? But anyways, grab a big bag. It's going to be an exciting few years ahead. of us, I think. The 2020s are going to be jam-packed. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Ben, someone who makes tutorials on self-custody, what do you have to say to

former President Obama? I mean, you really sold it. I feel like people are going to watch that clip and they're going to be like, I need to watch some tutorials on how to put up my Swiss bank account on my pocket here. So thanks. Thanks, Obama. Dude, you know the, if you had 24 hours of me, what would you do? It'd be really funny if we put like a video of that and then you right after. That's what Julian did, kinetic finance. He did that and it was or so no, he did it as part of one of his shorts, but somebody else did that too.

And it was like me being like, today we're going to look into the cold card and how to set up a cold card on your sparrow wall. Yeah, man. Anyways, we're winning. Guys, this was your Simply Sessions. Ben, I'll see you next week. Right, everybody. Awesome. Everybody, stick around. We are quickly going to run through some of the tech updates.

I'll keep it brief today, but you're not going to want to miss a few of these. Really quick, let's rattle them off. Citria, I believe I'm saying that, right? Centria announced building Bitcoin's first ZK roll-up. Okay, so what the hell is this? It says, today we announce our introduction. Citria, the first roll-up that enhances the capabilities of Bitcoin block space with zero-knowledge technology. Citria represents a significant milestone in Bitcoin. It is the only execution layer

on Bitcoin that settles on Bitcoin, the first ZK-proof verification, the first universal L2 verification inside Bitcoin. This is the important part here. Citria batches thousands of transactions, processes them in a ZKVM, and produces a succinct voting. validity proof asserting the correctness of the execution as well as the output data. For the first time in Bitcoin history, Citria validity proofs are inscribed and natively verified within the Bitcoin blockchain. So basically, what they're saying is this is a way to batch thousands and thousands of transactions, link it directly to the base layer, and not have to exit to kind of like a hodgepodge side chain.

It's actually a legitimate layer of Bitcoin. So this is very interesting. I'm still trying to wrap my head around exactly how this works, but it seems pretty exciting. And one of the best parts about it is it requires no consensus changes to Bitcoin. So for those that were worried about while we, you know, how are we going to scale Bitcoin? We're still finding new ways to just scale on chain, technically speaking, like without

having side chains and all that kind of stuff. So this should be interesting to see how this develops, but they said that I believe this should be on TestNet by Q2. So that's very, very interesting. Anyways, moving on, macadamia version 0.5. 1.0, a native iOS client for cashew. I've been doing a handful of videos on cashew, e-cash systems on Bitcoin. Basically, these things allow near-perfect privacy, but there are trust tradeoffs with them.

Best use for small amounts, but you can do instant cheap transactions, and you can move from mint to mint with regular lightning transactions. Very interesting. There's lots of inroads to Noster here. So I did one called Enuts and another one called MiniBits Wallet. Both of those I've done videos on. This is just another flavor. I don't have an iPhone, so I haven't tried this one out yet.

It's very early. And they advise, hey, like, this is indeed very early. So just testing purposes don't put a lot in here, but it is on test flight right now. Either way, cool to see more stuff being developed there. Nunchuck updates Byzantine improvements, and you can cancel via RBF, other fixes. So the big one here is they have updates. This is for desktop and for Android and iOS. And basically one of the big ones,

you can now cancel transactions using RBF. So if you broadcast a transaction, it hasn't been mined yet. You can send an RBF transaction that will send it back to yourself. So if you screw up, send somewhere you don't mean to, you can just send a higher fee transaction that reverts it back to one of your own addresses.

and by and by and large, your higher fee transaction back to yourself should be the one that gets mined. And then beyond that, they have some additional upgrades for Byzantine. I won't get into those, but they're very, I will find use for them. This is basically in and around their multi-sig stuff. Shout out to Mutiny, they keep on shipping awesome new things. They've been getting into the realm of fetaments as a way to help scale lightning and help kind of smooth over the transition from custodial to federated to full self-custody lightning

because there are going to be people coming into the ecosystem that are dealing with small amounts, but as they build up savings, they'll be able to at least mitigate and minimize those trust factors and then revert to full self-custody as soon as it makes economic sense to open a channel and fund it with the lightning funds they have. So this includes, this version includes fetament features, including swap to lightning network, feature that moves your Federation ESATs to a self-custodial lightning channel. So that is basically what I was talking about there. You can have funds and you can basically move them into your own self-custody when the amount of Sats makes sense to do so.

Now, another thing in this realm is cashew address. Cashew Mintz is a better lightning address custodian. So right now, if you have a lightning address, it's probably through a fully custodial single point of failure option. Blink, wallet of Satoshi, Albi, whatever it may be, if you have a lightning address, it's likely one company holding onto your funds.

With cashew address, you can actually get a federated model where you have multiple entities with various keys that are kind of guarding that. And so you can have a lightning address that allocates to the mint. And furthermore, one of the cool things is that this address, custodians cannot single out or censor individual users, and then received payments will be locked to your public key, making cashew address a forward-thinking choice in the world of custodial lightning,

meaning that if you receive a payment to your cash you address, number one, you're getting the benefits of eCash in terms of the privacy benefits, but number two, the Mint is only able to forward that payment to your own public key for your self-custodial Lightning Wallet. So that means you can receive offline lightning payments. The cash you address can receive that payment and improve the privacy, and then you can move out of the Mint as soon as you, come back online and the cashew mint will be unable to forward those funds to anyone other than

your private key, meaning that yes, well, if they go offline and just rug the entire community, then, you know, you would have access to your funds, but they also can't steal them. So that's pretty cool. Anyways, you can check it out right now. You can get a NIP-07 extension at app to address.com. Wow, I butcher that. Anyways, it's on the screen. Mastro Network completes its first trade on Mainnet invites users for testing. So what is this? It's a Bitcoin exchange, a peer-to-peer alternative focusing on user privacy. It uses decentralized no-network Noster and Bitcoin's Lightning Network, giving it the quality of being uncensurable by not relying on a single point of failure.

The project still in development offers two versions, a user-friendly web version for non-specialized user, and you can do it via terminal as well. It currently has a limit of 20,000 Satoshi's per transaction and aims to expand with web and desktop versions in the future. But basically, again, peer-to-peer buys and sells of Bitcoin, decentralized K-YC-free Bitcoin using Noster as its rails. Really, really cool. Moving on from there, oh my God. teaser video for the cold card queue looks spectacular. It looks beautiful. Can we just appreciate how sweet this is going to be?

So a few things that I'm excited for. Obviously, being able to type in passphrases on the keyboard instead is very, very nice. The bigger screen is great. Dual SD cards looks awesome. And then the big ones for me is the ability to scan QR code so you can do the air gap back and forth without having to do the SD method if you don't want to. And then again, the scanner and everything on it is key. And then the NFC, I think in a larger device like this will be much more functional.

The cold card mark four had it already, but it seems like on a bigger device like this, it'll be much easier because it was kind of finicky with the Mark four. Either way, looks awesome, very excited for it. They are doing a good job of teasing it. And I have preordered and an embarrassing number of them because I want to do tutorials. And I also might do a workshop once I get my hands on a bunch of them. So anyways, that's what's coming down the line from Colacart. I want to give a shout out again.

We are having a SAT market. Again, a Saturday market here in Calgary on March 23rd. That is Saturday, March 23rd here in Calgary. Even if you're not in Calgary, please do share this everywhere that you can. There's a meetup page. There's also an event on OPA, Orange Pill app. Get the word out. Number one, for people locally to come visit it.

But number two, for people to see it and hopefully replicate it where they are. If not you, then who. Let's build out our Bitcoin circular economies. You can search this up on Meetup. Just search the Saturday market Bitcoin and it should pop up. I do have a host on there, a host profile, BTC Sessions Event Group, and it should be in there as well. Please do share it everywhere you can. A couple other things.

I just dropped a tutorial on Primal, which is a Nostr client. It is pretty damn slick. It's for iPhone and Android. It has a built-in lightning wallet. Obviously, custodial lightning wallets backed by strike and everything. But you can in the app with the credit card linked to your Google account. or your Apple account, you can top up sats for zapping. So you can basically go and it defaults to a small amount in Canada is $5.99, something like that,

or $5.9 in the U.S. probably. But it'll do a buy for you. It'll top you up with whatever that is, $9,000-something sats. And then once you have it, you can zap. You can also send to and receive from external lightning wallet. So it acts as a fully functional lightning wallet out of the gate. Or if you prefer, you can link it to your own, lightning wallet externally and not use the native lightning wallet. Either way, super easy

inroads for people for the first time to jump on Noster and Bitcoin all at once in a single app. And it's super easy to use. So highly recommend check it out. Tutorials up on YouTube now. So go and share that everywhere you can. Getting very excited for Bitcoin Atlantis and Madeira. This is coming up soon. I'm leaving town here in about two weeks. Oh my God. two weeks from today. I will be flying out. I'm going to be in Madeira prior. The actual event happens March 1st through 3rd.

If you haven't got tickets yet, holy crap, you better get on it. If you do want a discount, I don't know what the discount is for, but use code BTC sessions and you'll get a pretty good discount is my understanding. So feel free to do that. If you're going to be there, please do let me know. Would love to say hi. I'm very excited. I've got a keynote that I'm doing.

I think I might be following Jack Mallors, which, I mean, just kill me now. How do you follow that? But nonetheless, it'll be lots of fun. I plan on trying to educate as best I can and give actionable homework on a main stage talk, which I'm very excited about. And I'm also going to be running a resource and education center throughout the entire course of the event. So make sure you make your way over to that because we're going to have actual hands-on learning stuff that you can come do. And we've got a whole bunch of sessions

plan. So very excited for it. Also, if you're going to be there, Bitcoin Shooter, he just made or is soon to release something called No More Inflation. It looks like an amazing film. He's going to be previewing 25 minutes of it there. So if you want to go and check it out. Bitcoin shooter.com slash cinema. Yeah, come to the showing. I'm excited to see. And then finally, we were talking about getting more involved and becoming part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Now, first of all, shout it to Bitcoin Prague or BTZ Prague.

I'm going to be there June 13th through 15th. And it was amazing last year. I can't wait to be back. I was just having talks about what I'm going to be doing there as well. But that is coming up soon. And if you want to be part of the team, they are looking for somebody right now. They are looking for, I believe, a marketing manager. So if you would like to be part of the BTC Prague team, do reach out to them.

Their Twitter handle is at BTC Prague. And you'll see the tweet there. They've pinned it. And there's a link down below. Startupjobs.com they have listed there. So reach out. They would love to hear from you. And yeah, they're an amazing team.

They did such a good job last year. So I can't recommend them enough. And hey, you might get to work in Bitcoin. Also, if you're headed to BTC Prague, you can use my code to BTC sessions. That'll get you 10% off tickets if you're going to be in the area. Anyways, guys, last thing here, we've got, why are we bullish tomorrow?

Very excited to have Nolan, Nolan Bowerley back. Kendall Pappas and Mickey Koss tomorrow on the show. That is 6 p.m. Eastern time. It should be a blast. Make sure you do not miss it. With that, I'm going to start rounding out the show. Thank you guys so much for being here. Sorry for the debacle at the beginning with the video cutting.

But, hey, we made it. We did it live. Of course, if you can, like, subscribe, share all those things. They help a ton. Hit that like button, smash it just below the screen. Share this on whatever socials you're on. And subscribe. Help me on my...

quest to 100K in 2024. It's looking like it's going to happen, guys. We're getting close. I'm almost at 89, so we can do it. And finally, you can hit up their previously mentioned sponsors down below. And if you do need some help, some one-on-one education sessions via video call, scan that QR code on the screen right now, and you can book me for one hour blocks of time.

And if you're listening on the pod afterwards, it's simply btccessions.ca. CA. With that, I am out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening. See you guys next time for your daily session. Simply session.