BTC Sessions - WHY ARE WE BULLISH? Colin Sullivan, Mario Gibney, John Dennehy ep261

Episode Date: June 4, 2022

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What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the show. Another Friday, another episode of Why Are We Bullish, Killer Panel today. One returning guest and a couple brand newbies that I'm very excited to have. Those of you that are here, you know the drill. This is live. Anything can happen. So I defer to my friend Bill here.

We'll do it live. We'll do it live. Fuck it. Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live. I'm a fucking thing sucks. If you have not already, like, subscribe, share. All those things really do help get this in front of more people.

And I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your daily session. Before we bring in our guests, let's take a look at where we are in the market right now. Or we'll just listen to it because I'm having that fun screen sharing problem as I've had in the past. So anyways, we're sitting at $29,8333 per coin. Single U.S. dollar will grab you 3,352 sats. 90.75% of all Bitcoin have been mined. And in terms of fees, pretty steep for next block right now, 20 sats per bite.

But if you're willing to wait just a tiny bit, you could probably maybe, maybe eke through with one sat per bite. Don't count on it just in case. but, you know, just be conscious if you're sitting up those lighting channels or doing some coin join or something. You know, just use RBF if you're sending transactions as well. Always a good call. Shout out to sponsors of the show, shake pay.com. If you're in Canada, super easy way to stack sats. You can deposit and withdraw with e-transfer.

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So check out, they're rolling out in Ontario. They're starting to look in other jurisdictions within Canada. That'll be rolled out in the soon. TM. And then also soon TM would be some select US states. So keeping an eye out. Things are happening. And that's exciting. Probably interesting to a handful of you guys. Bitrefill.com. If you're living on Bitcoin, super easy and really helpful. You can pick up all kinds of gift cards with Bitcoin, both on chain and via lightning network. You earn sats back as you shop. You can earn more sats back with your referral link. And if you're in the U.S. and you want to get living on the Bitcoin

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Definitely upgraded the Bitcoin-only firmware. Links are down below. And I've done a full tutorial. And finally, if you're backing up any important hardware wallet or any Bitcoin while with sizable amounts in it. Get it in solid steel. You don't want that seed phrase just flitting around on pieces of paper. You need something a bit more secure than that.

You can grab a bill foddle over at privacyprose.io. That's solid steel for the hardest money ever made. So be sure to check them out, privacypros.com. Everybody I mentioned is in the links down below. Apologies for the lack of visual accompaniment. Good old stream yard. Never lets me down. So anyways, I'm going to start bringing in our guests here.

And I'm very excited to have them all. So we'll say a quick hello to John, to Mario, to Colin. Welcome, gentlemen. Welcome to the show. Let's get a quick round of intros. So I'm just going to go down the line. I'm going to ask you who you are and what you do. So we'll start with John.

John, who are you? What do you do? Hey, well, first, thanks for having me. Thanks for having us. My name is John. So I'm here in San Salvador, El Salvador. I've been here since August. I'm the founder of a Bitcoin education nonprofit here.

So we're called My First Bitcoin or Premier Bitcoin in Spanish. And our primary focus is just getting people off of zero with Bitcoin, right? So just we do a lot of intro classes. More recently, we've started a pilot program for a Bitcoin diploma. and a public high school, which is a bit more advanced. It's 10 weeks. And now we're talking with the Ministry of Education to hopefully do it on a much larger scale next year. But we're just focused on everything, Bitcoin education in El Salvador,

because we believe that El Salvador is a signal. Like what happens here is going to set a lot of precedence and quality independent impartial education is what will ensure that those are positive precedence. Awesome. Well, dude, I'm very excited to have you and chat a bit more about that momentarily. So thanks for coming. Let's jump down the line to Colin, let people know who we are and what you do.

Yeah, hey, Ben. Thanks so much. My name is Colin Sullivan. I am the CEO of Mink Green. Mincreen is a clean tech cryptocurrency mining company with a focus on heat recovery, largely for municipal systems. I think we basically square. the toughest arguments gained Bitcoin like right in the face and basically solve one of the biggest

problems existing for the industry. So we've got a very large for us project coming up in Lonzo Energy Corps for Lonzel Energy Corps, which is located in North Vancouver, which should be going live, 2023 providing the base load to an entire city. That's awesome. I'm curious to hear more about that. I've done a little bit of reading on what you're doing out there. And yeah, man, it's, it's, it kind of flies in the face of some of the current narratives that we see. So that's, that's awesome. Kudos to you.

Let's toss it down the line, Mario, with the fantastic care. Welcome back, man. Thanks, having me back. How you doing? Doing great, doing great. Give people an intro in case people don't know who you are. Yeah, yeah. My name is Mario Gibney.

I work at Leden, proud sponsor of BT sessions. So, man, usually I do the legend spiel, but you kind of did it for me already. And deposit a Bitcoin to USTC with us, earn some interest on it, or you can use this as Bitcoin back loan. But yeah, so I do work on the marketing team there. Also, just like, just enjoy being a Twitter Bitcoin personality coming up on six years now. It's been a fun journey. And yeah, that's me.

Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to do this again. Why are we bullish? One of my favorite things to go on. Yeah, man. I enjoy having you. You're always such a well-spoken, reasonable voice on the show. I enjoy it.

Well, gentlemen, let's get this thing rolling. And for those people watching that are unfamiliar with the show, this is why are we bullish? We go by the three R's. Basically, everybody's going to come with a reason for being bullish, and we're all going to get to explain that. So the three R's are somebody who's going to give their reason. Then altogether we're going to riff on the reason.

And then we're going to rotate. Really simple. Reason riff rotate. So I'm going to kick us off with my reason for being bullish. And it's kind of a Canadian-centric one right now. So in a roundabout way, I'm bullish on orange-pilled bitcoinser politicians. And the reason I'm going down this route is because of the, the man himself, Pierre Polyev, those unfamiliar, he is in the running to become the head of

the Conservative Party of Canada, at which point if he were to clinch that spot, which the polls show him leading by a sizable amount right now. But, you know, it still weighs out. people you don't get to vote on that until the fall but that said um if if you were to clinch the nomination there then he would be in the running to become prime minister uh at the next election which for unfortunately in ways may not be until 2025 um but i want to clarify why i'm bullish on on Bitcoin or and Orangefield politicians because this is

not me necessarily saying that I have a huge amount of faith in politicians not really but I do think that Orange filled politicians do serve a good purpose

in that I mean my concession is that there's always going to be a politician that you hate. that gets into office that does things that you're not a fan of. I see Orange Pill politicians as a time-buying mechanism, a time-buying mechanism before somebody gets in and is able to pass terrible legislation. So when I think of this, I think of us buying time with somebody that's favorable to Bitcoin

in a way that it gives us more time for for Bitcoin to become more widely understood, but also to become more ingrained with individual citizens and perhaps a little bit in our financial system. So the point where we kind of hit like a point of no return, where even if somebody were to get an office and pass really terrible legislation, in regards to Bitcoin, it would be so ingrained with individuals that it would be largely ineffective, at least at a grasp level, at an individual level. I'm also bullish on the fact that it kind of counterintuitively that here within Canada, for those unfamiliar, Trudeau, our current prime minister, who some Bitcoins will be very familiar

with kind of what what happened here in the past few months regarding certain protests and everything and then fundraising mechanisms through legacy financial versus Bitcoin and which got to their intended recipients and which didn't. But he is effectively kind of partnered with the NDP unofficially to ensure that he's in office until at least 2025. So why I'm bullying, on that is if there is an election right now, he'd be reelected, more or less. But if there's an election after three years of people not having a choice, whether or not he's in office, it's a bit more likely that people may be inclined to vote for an alternative. And given that he's partnered with the NDP, which is the next largest, we'll say, kind of left-leaning party,

that somebody who voted liberal may consider voting for. I think if people are looking for an alternative, they may not vote for the party that helped keep them in power with impunity for another three years. And so I kind of see these things as perhaps coming together into a perfect storm, a very slow-forming perfect storm, to form a situation where we may end up having

a Bitcoiner as the Prime Minister of Canada at some point. Now, again, I think Bitcoin itself is largely a political. I don't see currently with the narratives at play and kind of some of the misinformation around how Bitcoin functions and its net effect on society. I don't see a liberal or left-leaning person endorsing Bitcoin and being able to run on that type of a platform, at least in the interim.

But I do see somebody currently in Pollyev that could potentially not only lead the opposition party, but become a bitconer in office leading country. So, you know, what do I hope will come of this? If he were to actually become prime minister, I mean, the main thing that I would be hopeful about is the tax treatment of Canada becomes like that of a currency versus, you know, being subject to things like capital games. That would be a huge, fantastic win for Bitcoiners if you could just earn and live on your Bitcoin and not have to be calculating every little thing. Or even if there was a concession where anything below a certain threshold doesn't trigger capital games, that would be a really nice thing to have.

I'd love to see incentives for miners, both from a renewable perspective, but also from a reduction of emissions perspective, right? Like taking methane that would have been flared and utilizing that, and thus converting it to CO2, which is not. nearly as bad as methane in the atmosphere. And then like a, it would be really great to see Canada replace all those gold reserves that we sold and got rid of with some Bitcoin, but that's, that's probably not going to happen anytime soon, but, you know, a man can dream. So yeah, like, and apart from that, I'd like to see a slight return to sanity. and when it comes to

monetary and fiscal policy, like namely that you can't print your way out of inflationary and debt problems. Like, that's not necessarily a solution and more of a focus just on general productivity rather than

papering over all of our issues. So that's kind of where I'm at. I guess I'm cautiously optimistic that the circumstances that we're under right now, the economy as it is, the, I would say,

slowly growing discontent with our current government and the potential the potential grow of support for an individual like Polyev could result in a Bitcoin or prime minister. And I think that would be a net positive, not just for people, that lean conservative, but I think it would benefit, as I believe it would in most jurisdictions,

all individuals to have a better understanding of Bitcoin. So that's where I'm at. I'm going to open it up for you guys. I know that was a bit of a long, distrainted rant on what I'm thinking, but these are just the thoughts flitting around my head right now. So I'll open it up to you guys. Maybe I'll jump to Mario first, because I'm curious your thoughts. on on polyev his chances and whether you even think it would be a positive thing for him to either

be leader of the opposition or or become prime minister at some point um yeah i don't know what do your thoughts man well first i would say colin's also another canadian here so he's right yeah i want i'm like i think there's a couple ways to look at this in the one hand i think it's a positive effect it kind of shows how far we've come already that this is even something being discussed by a a better politician. And that's, and that's fantastic. You know, as you said earlier, there's got to be you know, you got to be skeptical. Like, politicians are going to say whatever they want to say in order to get themselves reelected, right? You know, so this might be like legitimately good for Bitcoin. Like, you'll get into office and could, you know, basically do his calculation that

that doing things to please the Bitcoin crowd will be more beneficial to him than doing things to piss off people who dislike Bitcoin. And, you know, there's been of having an asymmetry there. But, like, people who like Bitcoin really like it and people who hate it, generally, like, it's not as important a thing in their life. Like, there's generally other things that they care about more than that. Yeah, the other thing I'm curious about, too, is, like, how, how, uh, because right now, like, Pierre seems a little, he's kind of maximalist.

Um, not explicitly, but it feels that way. And I wonder if that's going to stick, you know, like, What happens if, you know, I wonder if this is going to get away from us a bit and then we start seeing more like, oh, yeah, Bitcoin's great. So is blockchain. So is all cryptos, you know. That would be a bit of a red flag for me, but I haven't seen a lot of that yet. So again, like, I'm kind of with you in cautious optimism. The other thing I hope happens is like it would be great if we could. This is where, this is where I think like what Mink Green is doing is like fantastic is that it would be great if we could find a way to actually have this appeal to both sides of political spectrum.

Like I think it's an improvement if at least one kind of ended the political spectrums pushing for Bitcoin. But a great result would be is if like each party was trying to promote Bitcoin but just in their own way. And we just kind of like that would be like the prime outcome is if we could just have, you know, NDP and liberal and conservative politicians all fighting to be the party that thinks they represent Bitcoin best. Like that's what I really want to see. You know, this is a step of the direction. It's got to start somewhere. But yeah, I mean, I'll pause there.

I don't know if Colin wants to jump in. Yeah, Colin, what are your thoughts on? I think Pollyev's a really interesting case. I mean, it seems oddly rare to have a politician that has like even a basic understanding of macroeconomics. He seems to have a fairly strong understanding of macroeconomics. So I'm somewhat like drawn to his knowledge base as. someone who may be potentially running the country one day. But I did like what you said about how,

you know, Bitcoin just essentially needs space to grow and take hold. No politician is going to make Bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn't need to be made anything. It just needs that sort of time, that Lindy effect to take hold and just basically with sunlight. It is like Bitcoin is true. With sunlight, it will just expand and expand and expand. And the value will become very, very apparent over time. I was interesting Mario's talking about, well, yeah, he seems very maximalist at this point. And like that is a legitimate fear because people, it's almost like a shit coin is almost a right of passage. You know, like many, many maximalists first got burned shit coining and then learned why the market appreciates Bitcoin above all else.

And there is definitely some efficiency in that. There's a reason why it's the biggest. It's not just the biggest. There's a reason. If you don't know why that is, you have to figure that out. And there are resources for that, obviously. It was interesting when you said, Ben, you were talking about sort of incentivization for, say, mining. We kind of went around the barn a little bit with BC Hydro recently. We haven't released anything officially on this, but it is officially a done deal. The amount is still being discussed.

but we're getting support from BC Hydro in their low-carbon electrification program. You know, it's going to be north of 750K to help with the Lonzel project. And essentially, we demonstrated that we were eliminating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a tune of 1,800 tons per megawatt per year, as per what would be natural gas by the base load of the system. and basically took a system that's about 97% carbon reliance and turned it to about 60% or about 40% green at this point for it. So they have been highly supportive. They have been very open to progressive technology. And I think that's a great sign for Bitcoin mining in general.

I don't think there's a lot being done as far as solving the economic problem, electric heating. Electric heating is very expensive. You have a low cost, if you have a green power source, it doesn't necessarily mean it's an economical source. So, McGreen can incentivize that usage and sort of make markets for that and Wells make markets for mining in general. I hope that what's happening with BC Hydro just shows the Quebec government how stupid they were

in regards to offering incentives to miners to come there and use their hydro and, like, offload all their excess capacity and then be effectively just like rug pulling them and saying like no, no, no, no, we're going to jack our rates and and screw you guys. Yeah, that's a really tough situation. I would, it is a bit of a caveat. I mean, it's like we're not just mining. I mean, there's some demonstrable essentially like, you know, miners are going to mine no matter what. This energy is going to get consumed. District energy is going to heat no matter what. This energy is going to get consumed and add CO2. You basically eliminate the need for, one of these, and you use the energy twice in that regard. So we're looking at sort of a 96%

efficiency threshold on the energy consumed to the heat sent into their system. So it's a little different than just, than just mining on that. But yeah, they had massive amounts of power out there. I don't quite understand the politics around that. But, you know, doing business in Quebec is a little different than the rest of Canada as far as I understand. So, yeah. Well, I mean, Mario, you were at block stream were you there early enough to be around when when that because block stream was mining a bunch in Quebec

and then I think they relocated some of their facilities because of that more or less rate rug pull yeah I mean I wasn't I wasn't super involved with mining so I don't know the details but yeah like when I joined we were mining

in in Quebec at one point and yeah I believe the regular environment was just more favorable in the United States. So, yeah, that did happen. Like, I mean, but yeah, I mean, I don't know too much to say in the details there. I was more on the marketing into things. Fair enough. Well, good job, Quebec.

You played yourself. Well, yeah, I guess on the topic here, we'll toss it to John because you are, currently in a jurisdiction where rather than, well, I mean, you firsthand are seeing the effects of having kind of a top down Bitcoin approach. I mean, it started very grassroots and what you're involved in is very grassroots kind of bottom up. But you also see the opposite side of things as well. you know what would you say are kind of the positives versus the negatives of having a politician running a country and and being pro-bitcoin are there negatives there are there positive there what's what's your thoughts yeah yeah this is uh you know as a as a bitcoiner i never expected

the first country that adopted bitcoin it would be a top-down sort of approach that the president would tell the people like bitcoin's great we should use it. it I always assumed it would be the other way around. And I think it probably will be generally that way, right? I think El Salvador will look back on it as an exception to the rule. Although maybe not, maybe not. Maybe politicians are opportunists, right? So maybe they'll start to see in other countries like, hmm, this is, this is good for us.

Too early to tell, I suppose. But yeah, in terms of the government support in Bitcoin here, I mean Mario? Yeah. Yeah, he'll be back. He'll be back. Go on, John. I think the main, the main positive is it's just a much easier environment to work in, right?

So to have, you know, Bitcoin classes or to start a Bitcoin-related project or business, you know, there are still, else I has the laws haven't necessarily caught up to the attitude of the government, if that makes sense. So it's not as smooth as it could be. But I think the idea is to make that smoother here than it would be in another place, just like the regulatory environment is more friendly. And that's a huge positive, right, that Bitcoin companies don't have to worry about, you know, just regulations and politicians. and all that, which isn't really the case here.

So that's a huge positive. On the downside, people associate Bitcoin, and this is changing. This is changing with time. And this is one of the things that we're focused on. But there's an association with a specific political party with Bitcoin here. And I think that's problematic, right? Like people who don't support the government, a lot of them, assume that Bitcoin is bad because it's like, oh, I don't like the government.

The government said they like Bitcoin, therefore I don't like Bitcoin. And I think I think that's one of the things that we just have to be mindful of all the time here. And like I think Mario said before about, you know, the ideal situation would be not that Bitcoin is promoted from one side of the political spectrum and the other side is like pushing against it, which is kind of sort of what happens here, although I think the opposition is starting to come around to it a little bit here. The ideal is that Bitcoin, for me, I think the ideal is that Bitcoin isn't super closely tied to any political party, right?

That it's not a partisan issue. I mean, maybe that's how it has to start, and that's, you know, naturally the opposition will like it or dislike it, depending on what the, what the governing party likes. But that's short term, right? Long term, whoever, whichever party adopts Bitcoin has the friendliest attitude towards Bitcoin, I believe we'll see benefits to that. And, you know, it's just a matter of time until the other party comes around to that. The faster they come around to that and the faster they start to compete, like, hey, no,

if you care about Bitcoin, vote for us, for F, No, no, no. If you care about Bitcoin, vote for us for why. The faster that happens, the better. But that might, you know, it might be like in the case of here, and it sounds like in Canada, that might not be the first thing that happens, but I think that's the ideal. Yeah. I'd agree that, I mean, it's interesting. I'd be curious to hear why you think that it's starting to become gradually less of a partisan issue. Like, are there individuals, you know, or like, is there a general sense of people, you know, stepping back and looking at things and going, oh, this is equally useful regardless

of who likes it? Yeah. So, I mean, you know, I'm obviously a champion of education, but I do think that education is a big part of it, right? So I think in the beginning that, oh, I don't like the government, therefore I don't like Bitcoin. That was, that's a sentiment that comes out of ignorance, right? They don't understand Bitcoin. They're making a lot of assumptions.

And now that some more time has passed, maybe they've looked into it themselves. Maybe like, you know, Bitcoiners have people that like Bitcoin have approached them and explained it to them. Maybe they understand Bitcoin a little bit better now. And they realize like, okay, I could dislike the government and like Bitcoin. It's not. I don't have to choose one of those. Another thing is that here, like I went to protest, you know, there was a protest on Legal Tender Day, which was September 7th, and there were some protests like very early on

that I went to. And it was a lot of hyperbole at those protests. And I think the people actually believed it, right? They believed that Bitcoin was a scam. They believed that the country was just going to lose everything, right? they believed that it was going to enable like all these narco terrorists to come set up and else I would have it like there there was this wild anti-bitcoin propaganda that people actually believed and now you know enough time has passed where I think people are like okay well that wasn't

true so maybe I have to reevaluate my position and and I think it's just a more educated position that people have now than they did initially. It still is somewhat tied to political affiliation here, but it's less than it used to be. Like, we're trending in the right direction. Yeah. You're right. It's an education issue. And when you have Bitcoin front and center for a long enough time period, or not necessarily front and center, but like a visible issue for a long enough period of time, then it becomes difficult to.

to not understand the implications. And so I, you know, I was speaking to Jeff Booth recently, and he was down in El Salvador and he spoke. And he actually went and spoke to a group of people that were very anti-government and thus anti-Bitcoin. And he kind of discussed with them. And by the end of his talk, people were starting to come around and say, okay, well, it can be useful in that sense.

But, you know, you're very pro-Bitcoin. what's in your opinion the worst thing about Bitcoin? And he said in his opinion that the worst thing about Bitcoin is that you have to be okay that the person you hate can use Bitcoin. And not only that, but the person you hate using Bitcoin makes it better and stronger for you. And that's something that a lot of people are going to have to grapple with, that even the people that you disagree with, them using Bitcoin makes it more robust for you. It makes the network more robust.

It makes your money more valuable and more useful and more places. And so it's a difficult thing for a lot of people to parse because we're so used to kind of, especially in the last however many years, this divisiveness where it's like you can't use the same thing as the people that you disagree with. Oh, well, you know, this social network is for, you know, this side of the political spectrum. going to kick all these other people off. And then they're going to make their own social network. And we need to try and stop them from having funding to that one.

And, you know, it's so this thing is mine and this thing is yours. And all of a sudden, there's this global network that is everybody's. And yes, one side of the political spectrum just probably due to nothing more than timing leans towards this kind of open and free network. Do you think it's timing, though? I do. I 100% do because go back, you know, a few decades, go back to the time when even go back to, you know,

I grew up in the 90s and my impression was by and large that the conservatives were going to be the party that was, is the most prone to censorship. And I grew up with that, you know, seeing things like, oh, they're not allowing this to be on TV or this message to be out. They're worried that video games are going to rot my brain and turn me into a, you know, a crazed lunatic and gun people down. And so my thought was that the conservative side of the aisle would be the one

that would be the one that's most kind of stringent on limiting speech. And then I came to adulthood and the pendulum swung to the other side. And I kind of saw the opposite. And it's really just a matter of who has the most power at the most time. Both parties are equally prone to limiting ideas from the other. So I think in a different time, which I'd recognize that wouldn't have happened with technology limitations. But let's put that aside. if Bitcoin had sprung forth at a different point in history when civil rights movements were kind of front and center, and that was trying to be stamped down upon.

Bitcoin would have been a tool for civil rights movements to make sure that their protests and everything they were doing was funded and not be able to be shut down. So I do think it's very much a symptom of timing as to where. which political party hones in on Bitcoin as a tool. Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. And an example that I would use, like a somewhat modern example, somewhat recent, but Occupy Wall Street in 2011, like Bitcoin existed in 2011, but it was very, it was, I hadn't heard of Bitcoin in 2011. It was very young.

But I think that sentiment, like this sort of like anti-corporate, anti-bank, anti-concentration of power. had Bitcoin been a little bit more, you know, had the network developed a little more by that point, like was it 2014 or 2015 rather than 2011, this sort of leftist movement, I think that they would have, you know, grabbed onto that in a similar way that the trucker rally grabbed onto it in Canada, right? So I think it is, I think I'm in, is it isn't a hundred, 100% of it, but it is it is certainly a factor. And it's not to say that the opposite side of the spectrum isn't jumping onto that.

So like let's let's take an example of something that's at the forefront of everybody's minds right now, particularly those that would likely be on the left side of the political spectrum. Not all, but, you know, there's there's a lot of people that are looking at, uh, war in Ukraine, right? And they're, you know, as Bitcoiners, we'll say the more right-leaning bit corners would like to refer to the support of quote-unquote the current thing. And so, you know, as much as there's a number of people that all can support the current thing, there's also a subsection of Bitcorners that always oppose the current thing. And so that you get those polar opposite ends of the spectrum.

But in that essence, I just got back from the Oslo Freedom Forum and I was speaking with a girl who is an on-the-ground activist trying to help in Ukraine. And as things were boiling over, there was a discussion of how the hell do we get money to purchase protective equipment and get it into the country as quick as possible? And through legacy financial systems, it was going to take weeks. But they used Bitcoin and they were able to get helmets and protective vests into the country on day two of the war because of the expedited nature of being able to move Bitcoin around, make those purchases. So you do see all different ways of the apolitical nature of Bitcoin. And so I do think it's a matter of time, but I do think it was a matter of timing that predisposed conservatives at this particular moment in time to gravitate to Bitcoin first.

I see what you're saying. Timing, though, I mean, like if you go down the orange pill rabbit hole long enough, I mean, what does Bitcoin do these existing power structures, right? Like, I honestly, I think I think anyone who's leaning right knows that the government is not going to exist in the same form it does today if Bitcoin gets mass adoption. It's just not. The ability to gather taxes, the ability to print money and fund sort of geopolitical violence will not exist. So there's there's an understanding that, yeah, certain politicians are the right support, but certain politicians are also, you know, pro-small government, that kind of. And you see that a little bit less on the left. As long with people who just have generally more faith that the government can solve problems,

which doesn't seem to be amazingly apparent the last few years. Yeah. Any final thoughts? Any Mario, do you have anything to tag on there? We lost you for a bit, but I'm glad you're back. Yeah, sorry, just some technical difficulties on my end. Yeah, I'm a bit more optimistic that. that governments and, I don't know,

if optimism is the right word, I see Bitcoin having a big influence on governments, but not necessarily, like, changing its format entirely. I think governments still going to be able to attack stuff, but I think that it's, I think more of the effects.

Is that optimism? Yeah, maybe it's not optimism. I guess, I guess, yeah, that's why I corrected myself in terms of, like, I think it's going to be less chaotic than people expect. But, you know, the way I view kind of Bitcoin self-sovereignty is, you know, Bitcoin for the first time gives you an opt-out. You know, you don't have to keep digital dollars in a bank. You know, you can withdraw funds and hold it yourself.

And I think people are still going to use banks a lot going forward, but banks are going to have to really shape up and be a lot more effective in order to retain customers because of that. And I see governments in a similar way. I don't, I guess I'm less, I think governments are still going to be around in a very, very, very big way. But I think the transition is going to be a lot less chaotic. And I think, I think, yeah, just kind of people having more of an opt-out will kind of cause them to shape up. So I guess that's why I say it's kind of, I am expecting things to be a bit less chaotic

with just more of a gradual, steady improvement. That's what I mean by optimistic. Awesome. All right. Well, I guess we'll see. We'll find out. I mean, if Pierre doesn't clinch that nomination for, the head of the party, then everything I've been saying is absolutely fucking moot anyways.

So, so, oh, well. So I guess before we move on topics, I'll just make my plug. If you're in Canada and you're a bitcoiner and you potentially want a bitcoiner as at least head of the opposition party, then I think today, yeah, today is your absolute last day to get a membership to be able to vote. to vote on the leader of the conservative party in Canada. So you have to go to, like the link would be Pierre for Pierre, the number four p.m.com.

If you go there, then you can buy a membership, and then you'll be able to vote this September in the leadership race. But if you don't have one, as of the end of today, then you cannot vote and have any influence. in terms of who runs the conservative party. So yeah, if you're interested in that, again, I'm going to post in the YouTube comments right now, but it's Pierre for p.m.ca.

So if you're in Canada, and that's something that interests you, and you actually like Pierre, if you don't, then disavow everything I've just said. But if that's up your alley, then go ahead. But with that, I'm going to wrap this topic. Thank you guys for indulging me in that Canadian-centric discussion there. But we did get down a little bit of a geopolitical rabbit hole as well.

But we're going to rotate. We're going to jump to John here next. And I'm just going to simply ask you, why are you bullish? What has you excited right now? Yeah. So my topic is also a little geographic-specific, but I think also could be interpreted generally as well. So because I'm here in El Salvador,

what I'm really bullish about is this growing local community of Bitcoiners here in El Salvador, like, you know, this bottom-up sort of thing, which maybe to clarify a little bit about what has happened here, so Bitcoin Beach deserves a ton of credit for, you know, launch and everything here and creating this, positive example of what is possible, but it's not the whole country, right? Like, like that's one community within the larger country. So, you know, when the law came into effect here, this, this top down sort of thing, once you left that beach community, then adoption was basically zero, right? So here in

San Salvador, in the capital, in San Miguel, which is kind of the major city in the eastern region of the country, it was zero, right? Like, there was, there was no adoption. There was almost no knowledge, education. So it's really been built since then. And what I've seen just like in the past week, it's been become very apparent to me, like how much progress we've actually made. And I think it's actually because of the bear market, right? So what we do is we have, what we started with were these intro classes. And we got really good traction to begin with, and we've actually started to notice that, you know,

when the price is going out, people are more interested in the intro classes. When the price is going down, they're less interested. I think that's the demographic, like these complete beginners, are the demographic that are most susceptible to the emotional swings of Bowling Bear, right? But we have been expanding what, you know, what we offer as an educational project.

And we just started a couple of weeks ago, some more advanced classes about nodes and lightning and all that. And I have been actually surprised, pleasantly surprised, that how much interest we've had with those classes, like they have been packed, they've been overflowing. And, you know, even as it seems like there's less interest in the intro classes, these are people that many of them took a class with us, you know, some point between September and now, they took a class and they were like,

hmm, something stuck with them. And then when it's like, oh, I could take, I could go a little deeper, I'd like to do that. And even with the people involved with the project, so, you know, to clarify with that as well, I'm from the United States, but everybody else in the project is, you know, that's working on the ground, all the teachers, they're all Salvadorians. And for I believe all of them, this is their first bear market, right? For the most part, again, for the most part, Bitcoin adoption was zero in San Salvador, with some exceptions, but very close to zero less than a year ago. So this is their first exposure to the bear market.

We had a meeting here where we have a new space, which is where I'm at now. we had a meeting here last night and I was really inspired by how undeterred everyone was. We talked about like our finances are tighter than we thought they were going to be.

You know like this is harder than we thought. This is harder than we thought. You know like the fair market has all and they were like well we just have to work harder. You know, this is really important. And and like it doesn't matter. We're going to do it. We're going to continue to grow.

We're just going to work harder. And I'm not sure I expected that. You know, like, I didn't think about it, but it's, it's been really refreshing to see that there's a real community that could, you know, a bottom up community that could, that could stand up to challenges, they could stand up to obstacles, right? They're not like fair weather bitcoinsers. Like, there's a real emerging community of lifelong bitcoins here. And that is really promising to me. And maybe another example that I could give. We had a fundraiser for our diploma program, our pilot diploma program,

where we were raising one Bitcoin on Talleycoin for it to fund the program for this year. And we were, you know, we started fundraising like, I guess a month ago, and we did really well, and we got about 60% of the way there. And then we kind of stalled. We also stopped pushing it. But we kind of stalled at 60%. We got a big donation just a few days ago. We tweeted about it.

Bitcoin Beach saw it. And they tweeted about it. Also, they donated like a million stats and tweeted it about it. And then a project here, somebody else here was like, oh, this is so great. Let's finish it off today. And, you know, I'm going to match donations for the rest of the day. And then other people came in. And this was, this was, you know, we had nothing to do with it.

We didn't organize it. We didn't reach out ahead of time. They didn't coordinate with each other. There were about 100 people that donated that day, right? Like just kind of there's real community support both here and abroad that is just, you know, despite the fact that I think it's easier to see that we're in a bear market, right? It's not just this like, oh, I made some money, so I'm going to be generous. It's like, no, I lost some money, but this is important.

You know, so it's just this is, this is when there's less noise and more signal, I think. And I'm just, I'm just really bullish because it doesn't, because the top down approach is temporary, right? That won't work on a long time frame if we rely on that because presidents change, right? So a new government could come in that that doesn't. doesn't support it. And if it's if there is no base at the bottom, then it will go away. So now we have to build. I think it's important that we build this base, but it doesn't matter who the president is. It doesn't matter who the government party is. And you know, I think there was a little bit of a danger that we would over rely on on the top here. And what I've seen just in the

past week is, you know, as as I think Bitcoin or should, if we believe in something, we should do it ourselves and that's that's what I'm seeing here that it doesn't matter who the next president is who the next uh governing party is here that there will be this significant Bitcoin community and this is not going away. This is not this is not going to change with the government. This is here to stay. I love that you zeroed in on the fact that in the bare markets, that's kind of where you see should actually get done. And the learning happens. And the people that, what I'm interested to see in particular is the people that are, the people that are coming in and learning in particular with things like my first Bitcoin right now, those people.

people that are taking that time to learn and save and and have that attitude of, well, you know, this is, it's, it's more difficult now than we thought it was going to be, but let's just like put her heads down and be productive and, and build. Those people are going to be, I feel like they're going to see, see the benefits of that like they may have never seen in their lifetimes give them a few years and it's going to be a pretty stark contrast

to things that were possible in that country prior and it's going to take a little bit longer for people to kind of understand the implications of that and also have that low time preference of you know, there's there's kind of these, these ebbs and flows to Bitcoin in these early stages of,

you know, sometimes it's going great and sometimes, you know, it's getting pretty pummeled. But if you're, if you do have the disposable income, which I know is very limited in El Salvador, but if, you know, you're putting away just tiny bit or if you're trying to be as productive as possible, and delaying gratification. If you've got that kind of longer time horizon in front of you,

then the benefits to you can be pretty incredible. I'm curious to see if that experience for people in El Salvador is starkly different from people in a developed Western nation. because, you know, the average person that buys a little bit of Bitcoin in Canada, for example, you know, they've got a few hundred bucks of Bitcoin. And then they find a few years later it's worth like a thousand bucks or two thousand bucks. Yeah. Okay, great.

I'm going to go buy a TV or something. You know, if I haven't done my research, I'm going to go buy a TV. But in El Salvador, like, does that have a material difference on, somebody's day to day if they've saved a little bit and all of a sudden they actually have meaningful savings a few years down the road yeah and and what is meaningful savings is different dependent on on the on the specific place right so what you wouldn't consider meaningful savings and in a developed western country you you might consider that same amount meaningful savings here and it's also like it it it

creates the possibility of saving, which didn't exist for the majority of the country. You know, 70% of El Salvador is unbanked, right? And it's not, I don't think the most important thing is how much purchase and power they have in the future. It's the fact that it's a mental shift to think about the future, right? So like one of the major problems here is is gang violence. And the school that we're working in in San Marcos, which is a suburb of the capital here, you know, it's a socially vulnerable area. And gangs have a significant presence, like literally at the gates of the school. And the director of the school told us that 29 students dropped out in a two-month period this year to join gangs.

29 of just a few hundred. Like it's a significant percentage. And they do that for economic reasons, right? They are not joining gangs because it's a good career move. They're joining gangs because they need money today, tomorrow, $5 or $10, not a huge amount. They need money right now. And they don't have, you know, again, 70% of the country being unbanked.

And especially people that are vulnerable to gangs, which tend to be younger people, I mean, the number would be even much higher than that. They have a very short time preference, right? They're just thinking today, tomorrow, next week. They're not thinking next year, next decade. And I think Bitcoin, you know, beyond purchasing power, it allows people to ponder the future. And I think that's a really important mental shift. And, you know, people that are in it now in the bear market that are getting involved with Bitcoin, I think are just the sort of people who are thinking about the future, right?

Like, they're not like, oh, you know, the price of Bitcoin is everybody saying the price of Bitcoin is going to double in the next month, which is what people say in a bold market, right? And that brings in a different sort of demographic. but the people getting involved now in El Salvador and around the world, but what I'm seeing here in El Salvador are people that have a long time preference. And I think that time preference is just is paramount. Like that's just really important.

Also contextual here, one of the things that resonates with people here are that more so, I'm from New York, more so than people. I know in New York is Bitcoin as a tool for empowerment. In New York, most people that I know that bought Bitcoin, they wanted more dollars at the end, right? They wanted to buy Bitcoin and in the future, sell it for more dollars, which I think misses the point, but that's probably a different discussion. They're not worried about like, oh, well, the government's going to limit my speech.

They're not going to let me donate to X or Y. But here, you know, there's people from Venezuela. There's people that fled that fled Nicaragua in Venezuela that live here, that work on the streets. And it's like that is an example that is very present for people that Bitcoin as a tool, like censorship resistance. Right. Like that means more to people here than it does in New York, for example. Yeah. Mario, Colin, do you have any comments, questions, anything for John?

I think what John's doing is amazing down there. I think education is absolutely paramount to the growth of Bitcoin. And, you know, as he was talking with a political issue with it, it was more of an understanding of the technology than anything else. But, I mean, I am extremely humbled and envious of you being able to be there on the ground and do this. I mean, that's exactly, you know, what any Bitcoiner should aspire to do. I think, you know, I will always take the time when someone reaches out to be like, how do I buy a Bitcoin? does Bitcoin work. It doesn't matter who you are. I will take the time. My board tells me to stop doing that. I'm not going to. But no, I think it's awesome. And I think it's very important

for these places that maybe didn't have the exposure or were unbanked before. There might be a lot of lacking fiscal education. And this can really help jumpstart that. It's almost strange how like the average Bitcoin or knew exactly what was going to happen. with inflation two years ago. And you know, you can debate whether the economists were wrong or were lying or what. But the general population did not think this was going to be an issue. But we knew it because we understand money. And to understand Bitcoin, you must first understand money. So that type of education is critical in a transitionary period like we are right now. Mario, I'll toss it to you. And any final comments that you may have, but I'm going to let you

transition into your topic for being bullish when you see fit. But do you have any final thoughts for what John was talking about? Not that, man. It's doing great work down there. And I love being a listener on stuff like this. And, you know, I got, there's so many different, like, aspects and kind of dimensions in which people can work on this industry. And it's really cool seeing what part of that, you know, what part of it you're

shipping away at and it's uh yeah keep it up um yeah as for why i'm bullish i um i think this is my third time on this segment right right ben um and i realize the last couple times i did um i did very kind of like in the weeds um kind of technical stuff and this time i was like i want to find something simple like price or something adjacent to it and uh and the price is going to double in a single month i'm bullish I'm bullish on the dominance index, which is a bullshit indicator, but it's still directionally correct. And I'm bullish on that because, like, the last month or so, I've had a couple people, individuals come to me and saw kind of what happened with, like, Luna and UST and, like, a few of the other market downsers. Every time something like this happens, all the alts crash more. And I'm bullish on the several new Bitcoin maxis that were minted, the fact that kind of people learn when this stuff happens and they see that, you know, Bitcoin is less affected.

and and kind of you know I think a few more people learn their lesson each time and you know had like at least two friends of mine and a co-worker kind of be like yeah I kind of I kind of get it a bit more now and you know I saw lots of reports of this on Twitter you know you never know like some of it's anecdotal but it's still um it's still uh you know it's still an encouraging thing to see and we got to we got the Canadian bitcorders in the chat here uh they're reminding I'm bullish as well because I just ran into them in a bar downtown Toronto I dipped out to have some food with a co-worker of mine. And there was Joey and Len for the Bick Corner's podcast, just in my usual haunt.

So I figure that's a sign, a sign from the heavens of some kind. But yeah, I know. There's a lot of, there's always like, I mean, these kind of periods of downturn and the kind of bear markets. It's like, honestly, I like them better in a lot of ways just because they, they separate the mice from the men, the weak from the chaff. It's like, you know, the people who have the long-term vision and who kind of are in this for, you know, the long haul really tend to stand firm

and kind of get to build solid foundations for when things get frothy again. And yeah, it's been encouraging. I echo you. You know, the newly minted Bitcoin only or Bitcoin Maxis or whatever, you know, vernacular we're going to go with here. But basically the long and the short of it is people learn when they are around for long enough. Many people learn, not all.

There's some bit by bit. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, the people that take the time, I mean, I was very encouraged. this time around to see a good number of people come into the space during a bull market and very quickly, in very short order, go Bitcoin only in a bull market, which is a difficult thing to achieve. But I think that speaks to the quality of kind of messaging around Bitcoin and what it's for and why it's here and why it's different.

So I mean that was kind of a unique thing that I noticed this bull run that I didn't really notice in 2017. I don't even think that, you know, Bitcoin maximalist was a known term back then, let alone where there are a lot of people of that persuasion. But it seems to be a more known thing. And man, are we learning some lessons? this time around. I was a little worried because we were a little thin on the destruction of a bear market this time around. But it might not be over. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, it might not. And I do think it would be this is a bullish discussion, Mario. Yeah. Yeah. This is this is long term bullish. Yeah. This is a this is low time preference. Why are we bullish? I do think it's,

it would be beneficial to really wash out some of the riffraff here. You know, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a little bit more decimation. Like, if it doesn't happen, so be it. But like, I'm kind of... Listen, Luna was the worst, like, the worst instance of wrecked in the entire history. It makes BitConnect look like, you know, you sunk a rubber duck. in a bathtub. Like that that market cap destruction was unbelievable.

It was I feel horrible for the people who were involved. But I mean like where how does it get worse than that? I mean, so the thing. Don't tempt them. Don't tempt them. How does it get worse than that? I mean, okay. So I thought it was emerge.

The merge. Oh God. Yeah. Well, yeah. This is the this is the thing. that I'm kind of waiting for is for Ethereum to get washed out quite a bit more. So I'm looking at things and and I want, and I think it's in the midst of happening, but I want even Ethereum in its number two spot to start reflecting the chart of something

like Lightcoin a little bit more. And Lightcoin was long touted as the silver to Bitcoin's gold and it's, you know, it was kind of like the next best thing. And everybody got excited each bull market because it would pump. But if you do the light coin versus Bitcoin chart, it's just a very volatile path to having less Bitcoin, right? And each kind of market, each explosion in light coin, it subsequently hit lower highs versus Bitcoin.

when you look at kind of our traditional previous four-year cycles, each cycle you would see light coin hit about half of its previous all-time high versus Bitcoin while still attaining new highs in dollars. And people, like most people were pricing in dollars for years and years. And then it started to become a bit more prevalent to say, well, yeah, but what if you just held Bitcoin and did away with the bullshit of trying to trade. in and out, ignoring the fact that you're incurring capital gains swapping from coin to coin, but just looking at the straight, what if I just held Bitcoin?

If you're still wrecked, then that becomes a pretty glaring issue there. So, you know, this past bull market, Ethereum hit about half of its previous all-time high versus Bitcoin. It was, I think the previous all-time high was around 0.15. This time was around 0.08. I'd like to see that come down considerably from where it is right now, which is, you know, is in the 0.06 range. I'd like to see that have a little bit of a trail off more from here, which would probably need to see Bitcoin bleed a fair bit more to see Ethereum do the same. and more. But, you know, I think that's kind of the missing piece of the puzzle.

Yeah, Ethereum's down considerably from its all-time high versus Bitcoin. And, you know, 25% from its all-time high versus Bitcoin this cycle. But I think it needs to bleed a little bit more than that to really kind of cement in the fact that. that Bitcoin is is kind of the de facto. Is that going to happen? I don't know. But, you know, I wouldn't see more pain as a bad thing. And I think long term, it would be bullish and it would further contribute to Mario's reason

for being bullish, which is maximalist being vindicated and minting more maximalists. So I don't know. John, Colin, thoughts on that further? Yeah, well, I think one of the great things about Bitcoin is it encourages personal responsibility. And, you know, sometimes you have to feel a little bit of pain to learn a valuable lesson. And I think I think maybe that's what we saw with Luna, right? Like in a bull market, people get, people don't do the proper research. They just jump on to things.

And that's a bad idea. And a lot of people know that now. I think, you know, you're talking about more of a bleed out from a theorem. I don't see it as a bleed out. I feel like the dev team is a little blaze on taking on a lot of technical risk. I think that you're going to see something similar to Luna where an exploit. is found in some ways and it just sort of cracks it because the types of things are trying to do with a system that like although flawed is like kind of running is is bizarre to me to do away

with POW I mean they're arguably the second most secure network in the space to just throw that in the trash is shocking um so I think it's going to be something you know that they it's going to be a self-inflicted wound rather than sort of a market indifference towards them like with like coin it's interesting though like you can say that sort of with like coin but you know you get someone to glom onto a meme coin and other script algorithm coin like doge and you know things can change drastically for those things so yeah it's it's interesting uh interesting to look into that kind of stuff but yeah i think that i think that ethereum is um is is is is is walking a very dangerous line right now.

And we'll see what happens in August if they actually go through with the merge. But, I mean, it's going to be largely untested when they go to it. And they're very smart people attacking these networks 24-7. Yeah. Yeah. The merge will be interesting. Excited to see the splurge, though. That's going to be an exciting moment, I think.

That's let's move on. Holy shit. Okay. So, Mario, thank you for your reason. I very much appreciate it. it's a good one of which I've previously spoken about as well. But we're going to jump to our last reason. So Colin, you are up. Please enlighten us. What has you bullish, man? Oh, well, I mean, I'm incredibly bearish. I mean, only small countries are now adopting Bitcoin. So I mean, like,

what does that mean? You know, like the amount of cope you hear from no-cointers about that is so absurd. I mean, you couldn't contemplate a country adopting Bitcoin four years ago. Now, you know, we have obviously El Salvador. We're looking at Central African Republic has adopted it. We had 44 countries and central bankers meeting in El Salvador to discuss the adoption of Bitcoin. That is like 25% of all the countries in the world. Yeah, they're small countries. Yeah, they are affected by inflation worse than anyone else. They maybe have been dollarized. they maybe are suffering very hard for inflation from their own currencies. So it makes sense that they would come to this first.

But I feel like we'll almost be in a situation where, you know, the last countries may end up first and the first countries may end up last. You know, El Salvador could very quickly become the Singapore of, you know, Bitcoin. And I can see this happening on an adoption cycle within the decade. We're seeing there's like this question is so hard to tackle because from so, from so, many angles. It is so obvious the answer is Bitcoin. From a macro perspective, you're seeing, you know, inflation numbers bigger than expected, bigger than expected. Oh, I was wrong. I mean, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is,

When you have a conflict and the U.S. is using the literal function of money as a shield to try to debase, say, another country, another power, that just really, when we can't have a neutral base for exchange, it just takes error. Its use case dies, right? So the U.S. probably stopped being the global reserve currency when they look back in history books around in February, when they said, okay, well, you know, we're going to freeze all the assets from Russia. Like, this is a golden goose. They choked it out. I think, I mean, if I were going to step further, it was very, very hard as someone who often stares at charts in their free time to assess this market. because we're used to a blow off top, right? And I feel like this time we had like a volcano blowoff top. I've designed a very beautiful graphic for you right here. So this is a volcano blow off top from El Salvador.

And you can simulate the top was right here, but we lost it. And if you look at this, we're basically in a bare market for about a year. We just didn't know it yet, which was essentially the bottom of the 2017 peak was about a year out. So if these cycles maintained, thank you. I'm glad you like that artwork. I think we need a chart and somebody needs to, like, that's going to replace the Bart. That's somebody needs to stick a fucking volcano in the middle of a chart. I think that needs to be a volcano mining.

It's, you know, it's getting a little ahead of itself there, showing us how it works. And, you know, we bottomed out 3,500 last time. I think if you looked at, Bitcoin's never touched another halving cyclical top. if you consider all the QE that's happened, we're very close to 20,000 USD value in 2017. There's not much air down there. So I'm very optimistic. We'll start to, we have bought it and we'll start to see it turn around as we can near the next habit.

You said a lot of things where the chart was really all I needed to see. Yeah, I know. That was a highlight for me. I'm a lot of words. That one might have been worth more. I, uh, yeah, it's. Mario, I'm going to pass it to you. You have thoughts on...

I just gave my thought on it. It was a convincing picture. I'm like... No, I don't know. I'm scared now. I gave you a simple, like, price-related metric, and now I got a... Now I got to say confident things about price.

I... Yeah, I want to see the volcano replace the barge. That's my take on this. it does it does feel like an oddly muted it doesn't feel like we got the excitement or or the pain of of the last cycle because like that was pretty distinct and i you know like i i my journey into bitcoin was the beginning of the pain of the 2014 15 bear market So like I came in like after the blow off top and then, you know, proceeded to watch like 80% of Bitcoin's value evaporate over the next calendar year. And then effectively, you know, I got to watch the entirety of the run up in 2017.

And then the entirety of the 80% drop in in 2018, 2019. And so like there hasn't been nearly the extremes that we felt in previous markets. Like what what do you think is contributed? And it's funny because like on the outside looking into people in traditional markets, they're like, oh my God, look at the insanity. And they're quoting dollar figures of the up and down. And we're like, it's only 50%. My God.

Yeah. Okay, so now I got something to say. What you're basically describing is reduction in volatility, which is actually like exactly what you'd expect as, you know, the aggregate size of Bitcoin grows. And it's going to need to happen if it's going to fulfill more and more use cases. So, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, the less these, the less extreme these swings become and the more kind of steady has become, yeah, the more use cases it can fill.

That's great. Yeah, I'd echo that. I think that it's a sign of a maturing market for sure. I mean, they understand sort of the trajectory where it's going. You know, you're going to see less and less volatility over time. The having literally functions with less and less effect, like in a supply way. I mean, like the amount of coins that's dropping is getting less. And so you can see that kind of maybe a muted top as part of that. I know that me, Mario and myself, kicked around, you know, efficient market hypothesis type stuff in the past. And I mean, eventually, you know, all these things I believe will be priced in. We're not quite there yet, but we're getting, the market is getting savvier to how the ebbs and flows of this goes. And you're going to see, you know, less money to be made on both ends, I think. But there is still tons and tons of upside, I believe, through 20, through the 2020s. As long as we agree that halings are priced in, good.

which one havings will be all of them ever happening all the way to the end I it's it's funny because you know obviously they

the havings played a major role early on but now it's it's it's such a it's a diminishing metric right

like going from 50 to 25 coins every 20 minutes or every 10 minutes was a major effect on the you know as much as I hate to use the the term stock to flow ratio early on it's a dirty term now isn't it it is it is it is it's a shame I was right for a long time like scary right well that guy is we're going to have this conversation we're really going to do this that guy was right if he kept his first model was it okay he was dead on if he kept his first model but they think he got ahead about but again like Mario we're arguing the same side of a different coin here I'm like that I'm having a laugh man I'm basically saying that the market was inefficient it's becoming more efficient stock to flow

could only exist in a market that doesn't know what's going on it's like it's it's it's using it's using game theory it's trying to figure out what the price for it is it doesn't quite know what the commodity is yet I think the world is starting to understand what Bitcoin is. And then as soon as it sort of starts to, that model falls apart a little bit. I think we'll see sort of like a gradual melt up and sort of less, you know, having based boom and bust cycles. Yeah.

Well, yeah. And like, you know, Ben's point is spot on that like, you know, going from like, you know, 10% inflation down to 5% and like one of the early happenings is, you know, way less of a big, you know, dip from like where we are now, which is like between one and a half and two percent price inflation to, you know, be like, you know, a bit less than one. So yeah, it's, it's going to all just steadily smooth out. It seems like the major impact on the price is shifting from just pure reduction of issuance to people getting it. The major factor now is how many people understand Bitcoin and how much capital do those people have.

So either you, you know, the two main things are the people with the most capital that are trying to preserve purchasing power, understanding that Bitcoin can't be debased, uh, or large swaths of people understanding that Bitcoin can't be debased like the, or large swaths of people needing Bitcoin to, to, uh, elude, uh, draconian capital controls or things like that. So it's become less about just the inherent properties of the protocol and more about people understanding the inherent properties of the protocol. That's going to be the main driver of the sticker price of Bitcoin.

Ben, when you said, you know, people who have capital, I was in an elevator at Consensus New York, 2018, a very depressing 2018. team. And there are some guys there saying, what if one billionaire just invested in Bitcoin? And now it's like, which billionaire hasn't invested in Bitcoin? Like, it's like the paradigm on that has totally shifted. And you're going to see, I think, more and more of that, particularly when people are looking places to park their money in a very inflationary environment. And I think another, another change from past, from past cycles is I don't think. think there's too many serious voices that are saying that Bitcoin won't exist in the future,

that it will go to zero, that it will be replaced, which was, you know, in 2014, 2015, that was absolutely the narrative. You know, as a bit coiner then, then even I had some doubts, like, is this going to make it? I thought that it would, but like, I wasn't, you know, I wouldn't bet my life on it, right? and there was a little bit less in the last bear market and this time that's just not I don't think anybody could seriously claim that now and that's just another another you know metric of the maturity that's that's happened yeah there's there's very of people that are convinced that it's going to zero it's like Peter Schiff and Dan Pina

like those are the two fucking zero I don't know if you guys have You know, Schiff doesn't even believe that. That's just all for clout, right? Like his son's big into Bitcoin. I guarantee he has some. But I mean, his job is just so stubborn that he can, and his business is based, it's predicated on the fact that he doesn't understand Bitcoin. Like, do you think that, do you think there's a genuine in his mind concession that like,

hey, this is probably going to be around for a long time and is probably, probably like in the realm of like being as having the same purpose as gold or do you think he genuinely just his brain has precluded him from amplified yeah i think he likes that we're talking about him now and that's why like if he wasn't like bitcoin's going to zero we wouldn't be talking about him now if he bought bitcoin then you would kind of move to the background i think I think he likes that we're talking about him now. I think that's the motivation. Yeah, I think it's a brand.

I mean, I've never met Peter. I can't say too much about him. But like the people he's been in front of the people he's debated, I mean, he's been able to get a lot of probably hard questions answered. You know, if he's a reasonably intelligent guy, I think he actually is probably just larping as a Bitcoin hater. Yeah. Interesting.

I mean, my guess is even if he is, we'll never know. right he'll just he'll just move on and and and if he if he sees value in Bitcoin he'll just funnel capital

through his son and the inevitable formation of shift sats is that like that's it's going to be a company that happens clearly shift sats needs to be created as a direct competitor to shift

gold I don't see how his son could not create that company I'm just saying I want some royalties, Spencer. This is, this is, you know, trademark shift stats. I like that. Gentlemen, I'm going to start rounding it out here. But before I do, I'm going to get you to start brainstorming now. Because I'm going to recommend, first of all, I want any final thoughts from

of you, anything that you didn't get to say, anything you think that you'd like to reiterate, whatever. But then I'd also like to challenge you to recommend a piece of content. Whatever that may be, it could be an article, a book, a video, a podcast, something that's been beneficial to you and your learning curve in and around Bitcoin or something tangential to Bitcoin that you'd like to recommend, really anything, any piece of content that you think could be useful for people watching right now. So my general final thoughts in regards to my topic earlier, again, if you're in Canada, if you think that Bitcoin in general is beneficial to residents of Canada for them to learn more about it at the very least and have it be a front and center issue.

and you'd like to have a hand in helping that forward, then perhaps you might consider getting a membership and voting for Pierre to be the head of the Conservative Party of Canada. If so, again, I'll drop it in the comments here, but it's Pierre, the number 4 p.m.ca, and then you can get a membership and help vote them in. and to again, to clarify, I don't think that anybody should put too much stock in politicians. I'm cautiously optimistic on this, but I think politicians can be, as they should be, tools.

Stop there. Yeah. Sorry? They're tools. Yeah, yeah, tools. They should be tools of their constituents as a means to, as a means to, and I view them as potentially a way to put enough time and space between the public at large understanding Bitcoin and its benefits to all and the eventual terrible legislation that

could be brought forward. I'd like to delay that type of stuff as much as possible because eventually some guy's going to get in and he's going to realize that Bitcoin. prevents or drastically impedes his ability to print the money necessary for the thing he can't get funding through via taxes. So, you know, if that's important to you, then maybe consider supporting Pierre Poliev. Potentially. In terms of pieces of content that I would like to recommend, I'm going to recommend, and hopefully I can find it.

And I won't be able to bring it up right now, unfortunately, because they can't share my screen. But I recently added, or I've got an old phone, and I decided to add Calix OS, which is a privacy-centric, privacy-centric operating system for your phone. And so I went ahead and added it. And so it's like you take an Android phone and you flash it with a deg Googled operating system. And I was able to get a bunch of different apps on it and everything.

I've got Zeus so I can interface with my umbrella lightning node. I've got Samurai wallet so I can interface with my Ronan Dojo and do mixing on the fly. So I recommend you checking that out, but in particular, there's a YouTuber, and don't mind me, I'm just going to pull up his video here. So sorry for the audio. but his YouTube channel is called Side of Burritos, which is just a great name for a YouTube channel. But he provided a very in-depth tutorial on how to install Calix OS on an Android phone. I was originally going to make a video on this,

and then I realized I don't need to because this guy's run through of how to do. it was flawless. So I just dropped that into, hopefully, yeah, I just dropped that into the chat there. If you're interested on flashing Calix OS onto an Android device for a more privacy-centric experience, then go ahead and do that. Check out that YouTube video. I'm using a Mac to do it. I know a bunch of people in the chat are, you're not on Linux.

Oh, come on, man. dude I'm I'm doing audio and visual hey guess what everybody I just moved from Linux to Mac like two days ago every people are like that happens actually yesterday literally yesterday yeah it's so the thing is if you're doing A-B stuff if you're doing if you're trying to do video editing and everything it's a fucking nightmare if you're trying to do it on on Linux like it's just I just I want to be able to and of course as I say that My camera cuts out. But that's just because my camera battery, which is not hardwired, just cut out.

And I'm literally replacing it as we speak. But nonetheless, it's a line here on Linux to do it. So regardless, for my mobile experience, I'm tinkering with Calix OS and a more privacy-centric experience. So it was fun flashing this and this video was incredibly useful. So anyways, check it out. I just dropped it in the comments there. But again, if you're watching this later or listening to this later, just search up side of burritos on YouTube.

He has only got like 5,000 subscribers, but he's got some very, very useful tutorials there in regards to this kind of stuff. and I value that. So thanks, man. Thanks for making that video. And I'm going to step aside. I'm going to let everybody else have their final say. So I'm going to jump to John.

Two questions of you. Any final thoughts on anything said today or anything that you missed? And a recommendation of a piece of content you'd like to send people to. Yeah. So just to reiterate, El Salvador is a second. signal, right? I think there's a lot of noise in Bitcoin. What's happening here is a signal. And I believe, you know, there's a lot of speculation, which is going to be the next country to adopt Bitcoin. And I don't think it matters because if we do it well here, everyone is next, right? That's why it's so important what happens here. And then in terms of something to recommend, my first thought was actually the white paper. the Bitcoin white paper, I think that's probably as well progresses, there's less and less people

that read that as they get introduced to Bitcoin. And it's a great document. And maybe it doesn't matter that if it's five years old, 10 years old, 20 years old, that's always going to be super relevant. But if I could steal a second one in there that is even older than the white paper, pre-Bitcoin way pre-Bitcoin. Then I would say the essay, Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. And I think that's important and that's what attracted me that the same sentiment is what attracted me to Bitcoin.

The sentiment being that if you believe there is something wrong, like if you oppose a system, the most effective way to fight it isn't actually to directly confront it. confront it, it's to create something better that makes the old paradigm irrelevant, right? And I think that's what Bitcoin is, right? We don't have to fight the system. We just have to show that there's a better alternative. And I think that's a lesson that my first exposure to that was Henry David Throde, civil disobedience.

It's an essay. It's fairly short. I think it's like 20 pages or something. It's well worth reading. I enjoy that. I'm going to drop the link to that in the chat right now as well. I haven't read it myself. So that's what I'm going to do right after this.

Awesome. Well, thanks, I appreciate that. Let's do a little rotation to Mario. Final thoughts, recommendations. You're out, man. I've got to plug my podcast. I forgot to say that early on, the Unashed podcast. You want, you know,

Bitcoin tactical talk and some, I know, shit posting in verbal form. It's a good place for it. And I want to get a shout out to merch on Twitter, M-U-R-C-H. He's been answering questions about Bitcoin and Stack Exchange for like 10 years. He's like replied to people like thousands of times on there. And he's just wonderful personality. And Pact was just like really interesting shit. His Twitter feed is great.

He does these like Mempool, like weather reports. And, yeah, he's one of my favorite follows, and he deserves some more love. I love that, showing up the Bitcoin plebs that are, and this guy's been around for a long time, right? I wouldn't call a pleb. He's an OG dev. He's, yeah, he's great. That's awesome. Well, yeah.

And what's his handle at? Merch and Damas. yeah i'll uh i'll shoot you in so you can i can share i'm gonna see if i'm already following him oh yeah i follow him there we go i will uh there is his clear link in the chat right now uh awesome awesome i love that um let's rotate one last time Colin final thoughts and recommendations you're up yeah i just want to say that you know energy use onto itself is not a moral hazard uh it's a sign of an advanced society energy is going to be consumed more and more over time. That's,

you know, basically, you know, a sign of a, of a society growing and improving. There is no substitute for POWs is basically we're already in that system already. I mean, it is, it would be a petro dollar system, just slightly different if we moved to POS. However, it can be done better. And I think over time, you know, Bitcoin mining will be trending towards secondary uses for heat like mint green, waste energy uses like with Crusoe and others who are using the flare gas and making different markets more robust as far as their electrical infrastructure goes. So there's a lot of good that comes out of Bitcoin mining and it's the only way to sort of separate ourselves from the existing system without partaking in it with some sort of military enforcement.

As far as like reading goes, it's, you know, John kind of sold my thunder there. I really was going to say the Satoshi white paper. I think going back to it pretty regularly is important. It was written for a world that does not know what Bitcoin is. It's not like some of these more complex coins that have come out and you read their white paper and you have to have this huge knowledge, a backstory of how all these blockchains function. It's actually written quite simple, you know, eight or nine pages of writing, some math in there, but it's highly approachable.

And I think anyone who, you know, is going on YouTube, going on Reddit, listening to, say, the news, reading Forbes is going to have a distorted view of actually how it functions. If you go right to the source, you can extrapolate exactly how it is, apolitically, non-sensational. Just get it from the horse's mouth. Yep. I love that. Yeah. Funny enough, it took me a little while to actually read the white paper.

Like it wasn't when I first got into Bitcoin. I was looking at videos and looking at message boards and things like that. And I didn't actually immediately go to the white paper. So if you're watching this and you haven't read it, it's not that intimidating of a read. It's definitely worth like just going back to the beginning and just seeing what started at all. Yeah, I think that's the genius of it, is that it's, that it's addresses very complex topics, but in a way that is that is digestible, right? Like, you don't have to be an expert in a variety of fields to understand it. Like, it's, it's, it's pretty approachable.

Yeah, I'd agree. And again, like, if you don't get everything there, that's okay. Like, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll absorb a couple things. And then maybe from reading it, you'll have a few questions. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Asking questions that takes you down different rubber holes. So, yeah.

Consensus is read the white paper, if you haven't already. Not written by Craig Wright. I'll leave that there. Gentlemen, I will say one last time. Thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate all of your time. Everybody watching, of course, all of their Twitter handles are linked in these show notes.

So go give them all a follow as well as everything that they are working with. So John with My First Bitcoin, Mario with Ledden and Colin with Mint Green. Check them all out. Follow them and you'll be able to find everything else that they're working on. Gentlemen, you're all welcome back anytime. Thank you for being here. Hey, thanks so much, Ben. Cheers.

Thanks, guys. awesome and everybody watching thank you guys for being here thank you for spending part of your friday evening with all of us of course uh if you haven't already smash that like subscribe share button all of that stuff really does help thank you guys that have been doing it regularly i see you i see when you do it i see the likes i see the subscribes and i see the shares uh and it is very important so thanks thanks a lot uh genuinely for that. Of course, if you want to help the show in another way, you can hit up the previously mentioned sponsors down below. Shakepay, Lennon, of course, Mario here from Lennon, Bit

Refill, Keystone, Bill Fottle. They're all linked down below. And if you really like what you saw, you can always hit me up with a Bitcoin tip at my strike page. That's strike.m.me slash BTC sessions. You get there, you can type in any amount you want. You hit the tip button and you either see a lightning invoice or if you tap to the arrow to the right, it'll just be a very. It'll just be a regular Bitcoin QR code. With that, I am out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening wherever you may be.

See you guys next time for your daily session. Toddled at Bitcoin.