BTC Sessions - WHY ARE WE BULLISH? Kit Stanwood, Coinicarus, Bitvolt ep201

Episode Date: September 17, 2021

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Wasabi wallet and fairly private. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to the show. Another Friday back at home again. Very excited to have another why are we bullish panel. We've got some awesome people today. And yeah, we're going to get bullish. If you're here, of course, this is live as always.

Well, I mean, it wasn't live when I was in Greece. But now, as always. So anything can happen. I defer to my good friend Bill here to clarify. We'll do it live. We'll do it live. Do it live. I'll write it and we'll do it live.

The thing sucks. I already see a bunch of you guys piling in. Make sure you smash that like button. Subscribe if you're not. Give this a share to get more eyeballs in the room. Ooh, a bunch of people just jumped in. And we're going to get this show rolling. As always, I am Ben with the BTC sessions.

This is your daily session. Before we bring in our panelists, let's take a look at where we are in the market right now. I'm pulling up the bitbo.io dashboard. We're sitting at 47,363 bucks per coin. A single U.S. dollar will grab you 2,111 sats. Notable things, 89.61% of all Bitcoin have been mined. Mining in terms of Mempool, damn, drop down. three sats per byte will get you into the next block if you're willing to wait anything beyond 30 minutes one sat per bite will do you uh yeah oh other notable thing that i forgot to mention on the new show the other day we pass block 700,000 notable moment in time uh can't wait for us to switch to a block based time unit in the future uh the most reliable unit of time eventually i'm sure uh also shout out to sponsors of the show

Leadnutio, you can use your Bitcoin for a variety of different things there. I did just drop a full tutorial on them. But basically, if you're in a pinch, you need dollars and you don't want to sell your Bitcoin. Well, you can use one of their Bitcoin back loans if you so choose, if you please, because maybe you're worried about having a buyback and at a higher price point or the fact that it's a taxable event. Those things are good to avoid if you're coming down to it and you really need those dollars. Also, they have their savings accounts. They have their B2X offering, a lot of good stuff.

Check them out in these show notes. Now, if you're stacking stats in Canada, Bit Buy, super easy. They've got a really slick web interface. They've got a dedicated phone app for both iOS and Android. And after your first $250, they'll pitch you $20 for free. Check them out. I do live on Bitcoin. Bit refill helps me out.

Any gift card you can please. Tons of different countries available. And you can pay via Bitcoin on Main Chain or as I do on Lightning Network. and you do earn Sats back as you shop. So links are in the show notes. Of course, Keystone, Air Gapped, hardware wallet, goodness. You never plug it into anything internet connected so that the keys to your money are safe and away and offline

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And finally, if you're backing up any important Bitcoin wallet, get in and steel. Sometimes paper doesn't quite cut it. Fire damage, water damage, accidentally discarding the thing. You know, I've heard some horror stories. So Bill Fottle over at PrivacyPros, dot a got you covered there. With that, I'm going to stop rambling. And I'm going to bring in our guests. We've got Nico.

We've got Kit. And we've got Phil, aka Coin Icarus. Guys, welcome to the show. We're shy one right now because Colin from actually from, Bill Fottle and Privacy Pros. He's having internet issues in his part of the world at the moment. So he may join in a little bit, but I think we can carry it. I think we'll be good.

And hopefully he joins in later on. But let's toss it down the line, get some intros going. Nico, how about you? Let people know who you are, what you do. What's up, guys? My name is Nico. I'm just a simple pleb. I like to mine Bitcoin and I like to make Bitcoin content with one of my best friends,

Phil, he's down there, is coin Icarus, and we have a daily Bitcoin show on YouTube called Simply Bitcoin. I also host Miners. If you want to host with me, check out BitVault.com. And yeah, that's who Nico is. Beautiful. Glad to have you again, man. I think you and Guy Swan and perhaps one other are in the ranking for most often returning guests.

So we'll have to do a talent. I think Guy might have you by an episode or two. But, you know. And Phil, you've been on a couple times too. Let's do a little intro here. Take it away. All right. Cool.

Well, like Nico, just a, you know, Bitcoin Pleb, maybe toxic Bitcoin Pleb, depends. But yeah, co-host Simply Bitcoin with Nico. And also I do a Bitcoin podcast, the fun with Bitcoin podcast. But that's taken a major backseat to our show. So, yep, just, you know, shit posting and, you know, enjoying making Bitcoin content and making people laugh and enjoying triggering people and getting triggered and all that fun stuff. Awesome. And we're already getting some GMs in the comments. GM, Ozzy and Marty.

I see a bunch of you guys in there. Let's toss it down the line. Kit, second appearance on the show. Welcome again. Let people know what you've been up to who you are. Yeah, thanks for having me on the show again and good morning clubs. My name is Kit Stanwood and I work for Bitcoin Magazine and I do digital marketing on the conference side for Bitcoin 2021. So everyone, make sure you go get your tickets and come party with us in April.

It's going to be really exciting. So I just help push out content and spread the good word of Bitcoin over there. I'm also a lifestyle blogger and I do some traveling and stuff over there. So I write a lot of blog posts on my website. That's me. Were you jelly with all my grease posts recently? I was. I really was.

I saw that you like threw out your cold card on the boat. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think yellow superimposed. Yellow superimposed himself onto the boat with me too. It was great. Awesome. Well, guys, we are here for why are we bullish?

everybody in the chat, thank you for being here. Again, smash that like button. Give this a share. If you're new to the show and you haven't seen it, very, very simple. We go by the three hours. Each panelist has a reason why they're feeling bullish. And when they drop it, we all then together riff on said reason. And then we rotate to the next.

So really, really easy. I'm going to get us started off. And again, I tend to like to go with these reasons for being bullish that are like, anti-reasons, I guess in that it's Bitcoin fixes this kind of thing. And something, some news drop today that Bitcoin definitely fixes. I'm just going to put it up on the screen really quick here. Fed Chief Powell and other officials owned securities central bank bought during COVID pandemic. So the guys that are printing the money to pump up the prices of securities owned said securities as they were purchasing them.

If that is not the height of corruption, I don't know what is. The very guys that are pumping up and giving false price signal to the very thing that they themselves own wild. But Bitcoin does indeed fix this because in a world where the monetary base is not manipulated by the whims of a few in closed-door meetings, there's no such thing as printing new money to pump your own bags. It's just everybody's kind of on that level playing field where it's like this is our unit of account. We have a fixed amount of it. And whatever society as a whole deems is a valuable place to put their assets, that will be what has more value placed on it.

So yeah, Bitcoin does indeed fix us. But holy shit. Like you would think that this and it, I mean, I will say it's getting play on CNBC. I'm sure it's hit some other news outlets. But, you know, you would think that there'd be a mob outside the Fed burning it down right now. But that's definitely not going to happen because most people just don't pay attention enough or care enough. because the effects of these policies, they're slow to take effect, right?

Like we printed how many trillions, you know, 30, 40% of the monetary base in like a year and a half. And we're just now starting to see the articles that are like inflation, all the sudden, but hey, it's probably good guys. It's fine.

It's transitory plus good. So it's fine. Yeah, it's unfortunate. But again, Bitcoin fixes this. So I don't know. What are you guys thinking about? this. Did you see this article? Like, what are your feelings here?

Look, this makes me so upset. I can't even, you know, look, we've been hearing for months, right, the rhetoric from central bankers, right, essentially saying, you know, that Bitcoin is shadowy. It's a privately issued currency. You know, it's only used for illicit purposes. You have Christine Lagarde saying, you know, funny business. It isn't a current. You know, you have them sneaking in this last minute provision into the infrastructure bill. You know, that's going to be a heavy burden on the Bitcoin and shit coin industry in the space, right? But all I see is projection. They're projecting what it is themselves, what it is that they're guilty of themselves, right?

And this is exactly what we're saying, right? And look, the reason this happened, right, is because absolute power corrupts absolutely. And one of the details on that article that's absolutely hilarious, right, was first of all, they were never going to reveal this if it wasn't for CNMBC's reporting to expose what was going on. And, you know, there is a very small detail on that article that said, listen,

it was Jerome Powell that is actually going to do a review of themselves, right? So there is, it's like they're themselves doing an ethical review on themselves, you know? And if you actually break down what it is they did, right? Is that they essentially have, they have the ability to press that P button and print that money. And they specifically, you know, allocated that fictitious money that came out of thin air

into the assets that they own, essentially pumping their own bags. How is that different from any goddamn shit coiner? Explain that to me. It isn't. And next time, these people have the audacity to say anything about Bitcoin. I want you guys to remember this and have this in the top of your mind because these people

are hypocrites, they're liars and their goddamn themes. And you know what? Bitcoin is going to destroy them all. If I were to make a meme that was this article put side by side with the article about the NFT guy that was pumping his own bags by placing all the NFTs at like the top of the list and underneath it was they're the same picture. Could I make it to meme review on Simply Bitcoin? Absolutely, dude. Of course. Beautiful. Niko or Phil, like I see you nodding along here. I expect you have something to say. So I was calling it Virtue Theater, but I think it's more like

Concern Theater. That's essentially what they're doing, right? Like they're making it seem like it's this whole thing that they care about that they've exposed. We're looking out for you. We're doing this thing. This is, this is all just a charade. This is, none of this is real.

Okay. Like, it's just garbage. All these people are going to have slaps on the wrist, the cost of doing business, and everybody goes back to their lives. And the average person's going to sit there and go, you know,

they, they, they really held them accountable. Like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Like, who's going to hold themselves accountable?

Like I oversee the printing of the money. I know where all the money goes. I'm going to buy the shares of the companies. I know are going to go up and I'm going to pretend that I didn't do this through random trusts and stuff like. I mean, are you kidding me? Imagine that closed door meeting, all of them in a circle. So we're ethical, right? Yeah, we're good.

Okay. As long as you say it enough times, it becomes true. Just say it enough. Yeah. Kit, I don't know. What do you feel in here? Is this YU Bitcoin? Yeah, yeah.

I feel like it's really unfair that they can just keep printing money. And my thoughts immediately went to how they can just get all this kind of insider information and trade all these companies, make more money. They have so many different ways to pump their own bags by printing it and then knowing all this other information and being able to trade stocks and whatever else. But it's just, I don't think politicians in Congress should be able to do that. That is in discussion, but it's just like crazy. Well, and from what you've said, good point because how many people knew that that certain things were going to be forthcoming?

Like they named like three people in this article in particular, but how many other people were privy to what was going on like outside of the Fed, right? How many people were like, hey, so like we think that some months. might need to be allocated to the following thing. Like, you have no idea what could be going on when, like, what's, what's the quote where, like, the, the, the, uh, the allure of, of printing more money or debasing one's own currency is just too great. Uh, and, and I mean, the allure of pumping your own bags in this situation like this. And, and how far down the line does that go?

It's just, we need to remove that trust. It needs to be a system. where you don't need to trust anybody and anybody can verify because if if the incentives are there, they will be exploited. It's it's unfortunate but true. Absolutely. Just like, you know, back in 1792, the French Revolution, you know, is the removal of, you know, the separation of church and state. Right now, we need to separate money from state, right? Because it's just absolute power corrupts absolutely. And you have these goddamn politicians, right?

They win a popularity contest. And all of a sudden, they have a money printer to pay for anything and everything. And they inside the insider trade like everything. You had Nancy Pelosi sneaking something into the infrastructure bill about making all the government cars, Tesla's, right? Guess what? She bought Tesla stock two weeks before that bill came to be voted on. So you're kidding me. Of course, man.

They all do it. They all do it. I'm surprised this article got even released. I bet you the person that released this article got fired like 100%. I'm telling you it was released on purpose. It's theater on purpose. They want you to think that they care, right? They want you to think that this is actually happening, you know?

Like at the end of the day, you know, it's like you see these two people debating, right? Then they're arguing. Then they turn off the cameras and then everybody shakes hands and goes out to lunch. You know, this is really what's happening, you know? Yeah, I feel like they put it out in plain sight. I mean, we saw that with some of the gala stuff with the eat the rich dress. That was like disgusting, you know, like they just put it in plain sight for everyone to see. The hypocrisy on display there was was pretty wild.

Yeah, it's it's something else. Well, guys, let's wrap that topic. I think everybody in the chat seems to be echoing like, yeah, everybody's too distracted by, bread and circuses and nobody's going to care. And I think they're right. I think they're right. They're not going to care until it starts hitting them in their pocketbook down the line. I've seen, and I think some of you guys are probably seeing in your lives today,

friends and family that are starting to notice, like, I'm having trouble scraping by here. Things like the bills are stacking up and it's not as sustainable as it used to be. But yeah, it's going to keep going this way until that feeling becomes overwhelming. And people, thankfully, now have a way to opt out. So it is what it is. But yeah, let's keep it rolling. If you guys are in the chat, smash out like button. Give it a share.

Get even more people in here. And I see you yellow. Hello, I'm here to Simp for Ben. I mean, Kit. Thanks, yellow. Wonderful. Exciting. Yeah, so we're going to, he is awesome.

I did get to, I did to hang out with him a little bit, and he's a legend. He's been on the show. I'm sure he's going to have to make a repeat return to the show. But let's toss it to Nico. Nico, dude, why are you bullish this week? Tell us. I'm going to take a different approach, okay. I'm bullish this week because, you know, Phil and I are in this unique position where

We have to cover everything that happens with Bitcoin every day. And man, what I call the mainstream media, fiat propaganda arm rhetoric on El Salvador is getting to such an intensity that that tells you that we are right over the target, right? You know, they have articles releasing Naim Buckele is a threat to democracy, even though he has the highest approval rating out of any Latin American president. You have a Steve Hankees article that it's going to destroy the El Salvadorian economy. Right. You have, you know, you have multiple articles from the economist, multiple articles from the Financial Times, multiple articles from the New York Times, multiple articles from the Wall Street Journal, right? Literally every single day and the rhetoric is getting so intense and they're getting so aggressive.

And there's a reason for that. And the reason for that, right, and a component that a lot of people miss, right, is that Bitcoin did not only just become legal tender in El Salvador, right? Bitcoin became legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar. So what's going to happen within the next four years is it's going, and this is why they're getting so intense, right? is that it's going to highlight the deficiencies and the failures of the fiat dollar of the fiat specifically the u.s dollar and the central bankers the fiat economists and the mainstream media which are bought and paid for by them are absolutely melting down and there's absolutely nothing there's nothing they could do about it and it's glorious soak it in

because we're winning guys. And this is amazing. Freedom is winning. I love it. Yeah, it's funny to see the influx of articles about this. And, you know, there have been people, even from Bitcoin magazine, that have been there on the ground. And I know Alex Gladstein was down there.

And a number of people have talked with some of the protesters. And some of the protesters have, ranging concerns, right? So some of the protesters are talking about mostly just government itself. And they're like, oh, you know, they're worried about certain movements in terms of like actual governance and it's not as much about Bitcoin. Some it's like total misinformation about like they just don't understand like, oh, only rich people can buy a whole Bitcoin, stuff like that where they don't quite get what's going on.

And then also similar things where, well, I don't want to be forced to use Bitcoin, whereas the actual law as it's put is you basically can opt out where you're just holding dollars if you choose to do so. But I like what you're saying in terms of it being alongside the dollar. Because if people start to opt out in that country and it's in stark contrast with how the has performed. It's like this beacon to the world of what's to come. Because there's a lot of countries that are starting to eye this and go, hey, maybe we should offer, you know, incentives for this kind of stuff here.

And they haven't gone as far as to, you know, consider making it legal tender or or make major moves there. But I think in time, this is going to become a pretty interesting. case study in terms of how to bootstrap a movement globally. It's crazy that 12 years in we've already seen these kind of moves.

We got to watch the world's first country by the dip. That's crazy. And the guy said it on Twitter. I dropped to the IMF. You can't issue private. Oh, man, amazing. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Ben, but I'll have to say that. I'll open it up to

to Phil and Kit. I don't know if you want to chime in on anything that's being said here. Kit, go ahead. I mean, I love that. It's all happening on Twitter. Like, it's just really wild. Like him and like Michael Saylor going back and forth at it and just being like, hey, who's going to buy more?

Like, I love it. The energy's great on there. Yeah. It's funny to watch these global world-changing events happening. in tweets. You know, it's, there's no better example of, of a World Reserve currency being memed into existence. It's so funny to me.

Yeah. I think another reason I had heard too, that they were kind of skeptical is because that they very had like a currency change before. And I don't know if it went too well, um, in the past as well. So they're kind of skeptical on, on that change. Yeah. Yeah. They've had, uh, they've definitely, I mean, I, I give it to the people there.

They've got reason to be skeptical given the history of governments in El Salvador. They've had a rough go of it. There's been a lot of corruption there. And I think having that healthy skepticism of, you know, that's the ethos of Bitcoin. Don't trust verify. Right. And in this instance, it's tough for a lot of people to verify themselves because it's so new. So that will come with time.

So I don't know. Phil, what about you? What are your feelings here? I think to Nico's point, right, about the mainstream media and everything, I'm, you know, I'm also going to mention the language that they're using, right? This language that they're using, they're essentially, they're trying to create associations, right? They're trying to create negative associations with Bitcoin, positive associations with central banking and central bankers, which is completely insane and psychotic. I don't think they have a grasp on reality and understand how central banking is by the average person who's having their value pissed away. I just don't think that they get that. And it's also, you know, the language that they're using to create fear. You know, like there's a lot of like fear and uncertainty.

And they use this, they use this kind of disingenuous language. And people don't actually really realize it, right? Like you're just reading an article. But the way that they place these words, it's to create these associations so that you think a certain way and it's just completely psychotic and full of crap. So you know what? I, to me, this is just, you know, this is like the throes of an ending system, right? They, they don't know what's left. Like, and again, right, you know, people sit there and talk about ending and, you know, they try to give these like BS timelines, like, look, the reality is, is that the average person doesn't really know

that the money's bad. They can kick this can down the road as far as for real for a long time. Okay. But that doesn't take anything away from Bitcoin. That doesn't take away anything from the freedom properties, from the censorship resistant properties from the fact that it makes central bankers look like fools every second of the day. And every 10 minutes, it's like a fool confirmation. It's like, look at that. We did this all without you.

And it works great without ruining everyone's value. So, you know, screw them. Yeah. And again, the one thing, you know, you're right in that they're trying to. to frame and make comparisons and draw connections between Bitcoin and supposedly undesirable things. The thing that a lot of these articles miss is it doesn't matter if the government were corrupt if Bitcoin is the monetary standard because Bitcoin supersedes anything that they say at that

point. In fact, it would have been much easier to be corrupt and create. a new fiat currency that they could debase at will. But instead, they've opted to go with this hard asset money that is an open network that anybody in the world can use. So even if they had ill intentions and they thought, okay, we're going to game the system with Bitcoin, they're going to find out over time that, well, no, you can't. You know, like you're, I mean, they could do something with the, you know, with custodial

wallets or something like that. But in terms of the amount of power that has versus the amount of power just having full control of a currency and debasing it at will and using that money to pump your own bags in the stock market, you know, that's a lot more power than stealing a few hot wallets. So it is it is what it is. Nico, I love this topic. Anybody have any final thoughts on this before we jump to our next? Ben, if I may, please do. Check it out. I printed

an NFP. Can I right click that? That's exactly what I did. I right clicked it and I printed it. You should put it on your wall. You would be the only one. That's exactly what I did it. I retweeted it for it. Sue me, bro. Sue me.

What is the point he was making? Really? like I don't get I don't get I'm too stupid I don't get his point Phil can you for people that are watching for people that are watching that don't know what the deal is maybe Phil you could let people know what that is or what what happened there okay so there was a I mean and I don't know what what's that the punk NFT so I guess what's his name David is it trusteeven trustless anyways you know shit coiner he he he bought bought, he bought himself an NFT, punk

NFT, and then obviously has it as his avatar, and then printed it. And then put out a tweet, I don't remember the exact wording of the tweet, but it had something to do with calling out all the right clickers and about him

putting it up on the, you know, like him having it up on his wall. And then he put out a second tweet showing him standing next to it. And I'm still completely baffled by the point of this. Because you can now go sell that stupid looking punk on your wall and the NFT is still I guess owned by you

or you could also sell the NFT but you still have the punk on your wall so does that mean you now have to ship that thing to the person who bought the NFT? I know they're trying. I know they're reaching right. I know they want to make this real but like it's just not. And the funniest part, the funniest part about that Phil was that he literally said in the tweet, like all you right clickers you don't have it on your wall well

you're about to get attack man bring it baby bring it bring it bring it I'm all for it I'm sorry Ben I had to say that I'm sorry I'm sorry to ruin the thing I just no it's call out the shit coiners it's all good I love that I love the and since we're on the NFT thing I alluded to it earlier but some may not have been privy to what I was talking about. There was an uproar for a couple of different things,

NFT related. One of them was that there was a group that basically recreated an entire collection of supposedly rare NFTs and just made them on, like they were on Ethereum and then made them on Solana as well. referring with like referring to the exact same one but they they tried to get around the like quote unquote legal implications of doing so by having it be like a description of the image that would be on the internet and and so and then everybody like as a joke was tweeting out like I own this amazing white text description of this but this other picture beside it I don't know

what that is. I definitely do not own that. And so it's like the big back and forth and all the like Ethereum people were like, this is the lawsuit. Wait for your class action. And then all of the people were rightfully pointing out, if you need legal action to clarify who

owns what, then why do you need the fucking blockchain and an NFT in the first place? Yeah. They're lost. And there was some lady that was like, you know, You don't need a physical diamond once you have the NFT. It's like, what the F is wrong?

What is wrong with these people? I don't understand it. I'm just going to shut up. I like Uvis in the chat. NFT is actually a TDR, a tradable donation receipt. That's great. I love that. I'm going to start calling them TDRs from now on.

Thanks, Uvis. Yeah, let's round that. out and keep it rolling. Everybody in the chat, again, thanks for being here. Smash like, give it a share. Oh, also, as we're like getting through, we've done a couple of reasons now. I want to let people know that are watching. I'm doing a new thing every week called Your Bullish Bit.

And what it is is people in the comments of this video, not in the live chat, but in the comments afterwards on like the actual video on YouTube, comment with a timestamp of your favorite moment, your favorite bit, your favorite rant, whatever. And then I'm going to clip that up and make it like a short two minute or less clip that goes out to YouTube and Twitter and even Instagram and dare I say, cringingly TikTok. But let's get some good Bitcoin Maximus content on TikTok that people can can do. So it'll go out to all those. But whatever the favorite moment of the most people is, that's what it becomes.

So yeah, I will say pick your book. bullish bit by the end of the show. But we're going to toss it down. Let's see. I'm going to do a best of, I'm going to get you guys to guess a number to see who goes next. Between 1 and 10. Kit, go.

Okay, Phil. Three. Oh, Kit got it. Kit got it. All right. Kit, you are up. It was six, by the way. Kit, what are you feeling?

What's got you bullish this week? I'm bullish. A couple of things. Michael Saylor bought 5,050 more Bitcoin this week. And they've got around like 1,114,042 Bitcoin or whatever. I saw it on our Instagram around Bitcoin magazine. And that's just a lot. It just keeps an insane amount of Bitcoin. Yeah. So I'm pretty bullish on that. I'm also bullish on the statue that they put in Hungary. That's pretty cool. of Statochi so that's sick we're gonna maybe try to do something with that for the conference we'll see i don't know maybe a little foreshadowed um but yeah i'm bullish on that and then all of the the app for el salvador all the downloads that they've done it seems like it's rolling out pretty good's got some kinks but i'm bullish on it you know they've had well do you know does anybody know what kind of like numbers they're doing with downloads like was it was it like up there in the in the app store i don't I don't really know.

Yeah, I think it was like 500,000 the last time I looked. So it's probably more now. That was, um, that's, I mean, their population is like 6 million, right? So that's a good chunk. It's 11% of the country. Damn. 11% of a country has a Bitcoin wallet. That's interesting.

Yeah, that's, that's cool. That's, uh, and I mean, this is just the first couple of weeks here. And 11% of the country has a Bitcoin wallet. Now, I don't, again, I haven't really seen it. Actually, there's somebody who's a Canadian guy that had reached out and said he had access to Chivo. So I'm going to try and peek at it and kind of, I've seen some stuff online. But I like to kind of see how it works. But regardless, they're seeing things and getting acquainted with Bitcoin.

That might like one in 10 people in the country has just like has that wallet. That's not even saying the people that that have perhaps. other wallets. So that's, yeah, that's, that's really cool. I can't wait till 10% of my country has a Bitcoin wallet. And the stat I wanted to touch on the statue thing. That's, I think that's on my bucket list of just a place to go because it's like, you know, I haven't really, I don't think there's really been something like that yet. I know that like some people are like, it's cheesy or, oh, we should like keep it as like a, I don't know. I, I, Bitcoin is

intangible. So I like tangible Bitcoin shit that I can go see and feel. I guess that's just part of the part of being a Bitcoiner is since you can't hold your own money. You like getting some

some, I don't know, I have so much Bitcoin shit on my shelves and everything. I collect so much crap because I'm like, well, I mean, it's, it's part of history. So I'd like to go visit that. I do, I'm, I don't, I like the look of it. I don't have, I say I'm like indifferent to the look of it.

I think it's, it's cool. I think it'd be fun just to visit it. But I also really like, I did like a side by side with like the Drake meme where it's like, like the no and then the, and I put the, uh, the Dorian Nakamoto clay sculpture as my, That's my Satoshi. I don't know if you guys have ever seen it, but the guy they outed with Newsweek outed as Satoshi, somebody made like a clay statue of him doing the like the frowny face.

And that would have been a good one to go up in Hungary, I think. But hey, anyways, I'll open it up. Anybody want to touch on Chivo wallet, statue, any of what was said? Well, I'd just like to point out that that statue represents everyone except for Craig Wright. I just want to make sure that everyone is clear on that. If he, they made it reflective so that it's kind of like you see yourself and we are all Satoshi.

If he walks up to it, if he walks up to it, is it like a vampire that can't see his reflection? Is that what happens? Yeah, it just turns into like the logo for poop, you know? And you go and that's it. Like, oh, you know, it's equivalent to breaking the mirror.

that's great nico what about you are you going to you're going to go visit that thing man absolutely i i think it's beautiful that the people of hungry you know it you know what's astonishing too is that you know america supposedly is you know a home of freedom and home of this and that you know but it's it's you know the it's the countries that least benefit from the financial system that are first to you know jump on the bitcoin bandwagon you know you have hungry great, right? You have El Salvador, you know, and it's beautiful, man. And, you know, the commercial for the Achivo wallet was just, it was so well done, you know, and it specifically said so many times, like, hey, you know, this is optional. If you don't want to use this, you don't have to use it,

you know, and then you have the president, you know, kind of doing tech support in live time on Twitter saying, hey, we had some technical issues. And then you have the mainstream media, you know, trying to intercept people like, oh, there's all these riots and all that stuff. And then like you see the picture of the riots and there's like literally seven people in the crowd, you know. But it's like, man, the shining light of Bitcoin is just shining right through in this world of darkness, dude. And it's unstoppable. It's the honey badger, you know. So it's beautiful.

And, kid, I think those are some amazing reasons to be bullish. Beautiful statue I hope to put on the bucket list. and the Chivo wallet, man, 11% of the country, the entire country of El Salvador, just got $30 in Sats, man. Incredible stuff. I hope they stash a few away. And took some self-custody, too.

I hope that happened. That would be excellent. That's the next step. At least the country is getting exposure to Sats. And then next step is just educating them that they can hold it themselves. They don't need to leave it in there. So awesome. Well, let's round that out.

And we're going to toss it to Phil. Man, I'm interested to hear your reason for being bullish this week. Please enlighten us. Well, in all, in all honesty, I was going to say something very close to what Nico said. So because we end up, you know, reading all the same news. So, but I figured because he went first. that, you know, he would say something along the same lines. So, yeah, so I am bullish. Why am I bullish this week? To be honest, I'm bullish this week

because of my Bitcoin node. Just the node, right? I mean, take a look at this, right? Look at what we have battling the central bankers. You know, it is truly the David and Goliath story. You know, like it, it's so fascinating. And, and, you know, it's, it really is. It's the straw that breaks the camels back. Like literally Bitcoin is the straw that breaks the camels back. And it's like, how do you get to that point? Well, this is it. Right. This machine has gotten so big, so flimsy, so bloated that, you know, all it takes is sovereignty to destroy it. Right. Here you go. I want to be free of this system. I want to be able to, you know, I want to be able to hang on to my value. I want to be able to store my value. I also want to be able to transfer it to whoever the hell I want without the

government really having any say in it and they really shouldn't because you know like it's it's interesting like there are there strings on our time like when we give our time for this work that we do they get all of it right they they get all of this work but yet there's strings on what we get in return for this work there's strings and stipulations and walls and red tape and like why like why would we agree to this you know so yeah that's what makes me bullish this week is my bitcoin note i like that yeah and it's and it's a beautiful thing now do you run it on a ws friend um yes i do because it's so much better hosted away from me where i can't screw it up no i absolutely not um yeah we're we're not hosting ethereum garbage uh you know it's we're it's hosted locally at home

and I'm proud, you know, the right thing to do. I have a few of them actually. Yeah, it's such a beautiful thing. And it's to tie it into like current events, you had Ray Dalio the other day on, I can't remember what he was at, but it was on CNBC or something. And he was being interviewed by Andrew Sorkin.

And he basically said that one, he thinks that if Bitcoin, Bitcoin gets successful enough, governments will kill it and they have ways to kill it. But then, too, he said he has money in Bitcoin. So I'm wondering what his thesis for owning Bitcoin is in that if he thinks it's successful, somebody will then kill it. So wouldn't that then ruin the value proposition of him owning it? But secondly, I don't think he understands that it can't be killed.

Like it would be so difficult to kill it at this point. And I don't think he truly understands even just the fact that anyone can run a node and effectively hold up middle fingers in the air to the entire world of anybody that tries to tell them a different way of doing things. And how do you kick in the, you know, in a world of 8 billion people, how do you kick in the doors of all of those geographically dispersed nodes? You don't. It's it becomes too expensive to be that tyrannical. It makes totalitarianism, it prices it out effectively. That's what it does. It's amazing.

So anybody watching that doesn't have a node, get a fucking node. It's not that hard to do, and you can do it different ways, right? You can run Bitcoin Core on any computer, right? You can download that for free. You can run it. And then you can just use other software to link into that and connect your hardware wallets. And then everything is done with your own node.

You've run a copy of the Bitcoin blockchain and all of the rules that govern the network. And then nobody can tell you any different. If they try to change them, your node says tough, that's not valid for me. Or you can go a little bit further and you can do like umbril or my node or get a noddle or run Ronan Dojo. And there's all these different variations where you're running Bitcoin Core and then you're running all of this other great software on top of it. So you can do all of these different things. It's just, it's incredible. and it's a massive learning curve as you start to realize how Bitcoin actually works as you're doing it.

But it's simple to get started is the beautiful thing. I don't know. Like Kit, are you, where are you at with if you're not running a node yet? What are the hurdles that you face? Or are you running a node? So I just ordered a node that came built together from the amateur investors, and I want to give them a shout out there in the chat right now. So I'm really bullish on that. I got it in the mail last week.

And so I guess my hurdle is just doing it on the weekend and setting it up right now and learning so much about like what apps I can have on it. I'm pretty sure I'll probably do umbrella. Nice. Yeah, just figuring out the different ways to put it in my life, you know, BTCP. pay server and all those other cool stuff. And learning about just like requirements, you have to have some Bitcoin on a node to like process

different things. So there's a lot to learn and I'm excited for it. That's awesome. I saw them in the chat here. I didn't know that they were on, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, they just started it. Oh, awesome. That's kind of recent. So yeah.

That's super cool. So is it like I imagine it's some some rendition of like a raspberry pie kit or something like that. Right. Yeah. It's a little raspberry pie. Actually can go. Hard drive. Yeah, do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. May as well. We're talking nodes. Let's let's see it. Mine is over here humming on the on the shelf behind me. Am I pointing right? Yeah, right up here.

And that's a that's a frightened that I grabbed from crypto cloaks, but it's just got a little raspberry pie. There you go. That's perfect. That's what it looks like. I've got a bunch of wires. I got a case and everything. And then yeah, the hard drive right there.

You know what? So the first, I love seeing the first node video I ever did was from my node. And I showed kind of my setup and my list of like parts that I used. And it was like, again, it was basically,

like that was a clear case and a clear case for the hard drive and everything and I did it all together and then after making that node I kept on seeing pictures of like the exact same case exact same and so like it just it made me feel good because that meant that somebody had watched that video and made a node from that and I was like yes that's awesome and so I love now whenever I see like that particular look to a node it's that one's obviously different from the one that that I did but it's It's so cool to see so many people jumping into running a node and it's become like this. People really like evangelize it and are now saying like if you want to learn more, if you want to really kind of take control of your own self-sovereignty and your money,

it's a good learning tool and it's just a lot of fun. and it again, for you as an individual, it makes you more resistant, a resilient against attacks on the Bitcoin network. In a way, it does help the Bitcoin network, I guess just given that you're a node in the network and you can stand up to individuals that or large numbers of people

and companies trying to change it. But it's running a node is almost like it's a selfish action, right? Like you're protecting yourself and your your value. So I do love it. It does a bit of vote, right? It's a selfish action, but that's the, that's part of the Bitcoin incentives, right? We provide it's a higher quality, it's a higher quality incentive. And as a result in the Bitcoin network through that selfish action, you're actually helping everyone else as well.

You know, so it's part of the beauty of the incentives, whereas with our, you know, our current, Fiat shit coin monetary system. The incentives are such that our only incentive is to gather and accumulate as much of it as possible in any way we can, as long as, you know, we stay quote unquote within the law or we know the right people or are part of the right circles. Yeah, yeah, exactly. A little bit different. Yeah, yeah. And, Nico, I, obviously, you're a node runner, I imagine. do you have what do you run what do you do man i run i run uh my node and i run umbrel and i have the trident

case with my logo by crypto cloaks and uh but i wanted to say man um what phil said what literally almost made me tear up because he made something so simple um but he emphasized the power that comes with it because essentially when you run your own node, you are the CEO of your own bank, right? You know, you have the ability to transact and especially if you're running it over the tour network, no one knows, right, that you have the ability to send money to anybody, anywhere across the world whenever. Doesn't matter their race, doesn't matter their skin color, doesn't matter if they're considered unbankable, right?

And I think what Phil said perfectly summarize the power that comes from that. And this idea is so powerful that, you know, it's taking down this 400-year-old central banking system. And these little raspberry pies, you know, are literally destroying them, you know, and calling out, you know, the recent word that Joe Biden says, the malarkey. that they're doing and it's just exposing them for what they are. And the way that I see the Bitcoin network and nodes themselves, it's just a giant Mexican standoff. Everyone's just holding a gun to each other's head, and just making sure that no one kind of breaks the rules.

And mining is essentially kind of very similar. It's a race to guess the right number as quick as possible. It's very violent. You know, it's an arms race trying to develop the fastest miner. No, it's kind of work in the same principle, right? You know, I'll make sure you're not doing anything wrong, and you make sure I'm not doing anything wrong. And it's freaking beautiful, man.

It's all open for everyone to see, you know? But at the same time, you know, at the same time, you know, if you're running it over tour, you can't really see it either. You know, so it's incredibly empowering, incredibly empowering. And Phil, that was a beautiful speech and you should definitely use them more on Simply Bitcoin. You don't say those types of things on Simply Bitcoin, okay? You saved it for Ben.

Okay, I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. You saved it for his daily session. Okay, I understand. He brings that out in me. Yeah.

I like what you're saying about governance too. Has anybody seen the meme where it's from, what is it, Boondock Saints? Not Boondock State. What am I talking about? Reservoir dogs. Where there, it's, it just says Bitcoin governance. And it's the three guys standing in the room all pointing guns at each other.

Yes. That's exactly what Bitcoin governance is. And also, Nico, you're getting called out in the chat. And Nico, that looks like a pretty expensive chair for a Bitcoiner. Listen, I work from home. Okay. And I'm in this chair literally making goddamn videos like, the whole freaking day.

So not only do I need a comfy chair, I also need a purple thing so that my butt doesn't fall asleep, right? As you can tell, I'm not as tall anymore, but yeah, man. So you know what? I have no shame. I need comfort or else, you know, my butt's literally going to fall off or something.

I don't know. Although you've probably, yeah, you've probably sacrificed many a chair to have that one nice chair. I don't have, I don't have any more chair. chairs around my house. He's not even in a house. He's actually in a parking lot right now. All he owns is that chair, this mic, and a green screen.

I told you not to tell anyone, man. I told you at the Bitcoin conference and you promised me you wouldn't say anything. And now you told everybody. Yeah. In that parking lot where I met you? Yeah. You're still there, aren't you? I haven't left? I tried to convince Phil to make me move in, but he said no. So unfortunately, yes, I'm at the parking lot. Yeah, yeah. That's great. For now. I'm, I'm, I'm, yeah, no, I think this, this was a great topic, Phil.

And, and again, everybody should run a node if you're able. And even just as a learning experience, it's, it's so worth it. And it's a lot of fun. And then you get like when you when you go and you tell you get to like jump on Bitcoin Twitter and tweet at a picture of your sweet new node and everybody has a conversation about it. And there's so many fun ones to try. Like I really like I really like Umbril just because of the the interface that they've got going. Like it's so slick and so easy to use. And a lot of them now like there's a one called Start 9, Start 9 labs.

Yeah, the embassy. And so they're, and Umberl is starting to do this too, but they're, they're trying to become like a, a decentralization hub, right? It's not just Bitcoin. Oh, yeah. How is it? How is it? Yeah. So the user experience is actually fantastic.

Um, they have an app for the setup that you install, you know, that you install on your phone, um, you know, getting that thing out of the box within, I kid you not within maybe five minutes you have it up and running. So it's pretty. Yeah. You know, like that, that's pretty cool. So the only piece of it, which, and again, I may be mistaken right now because I haven't checked for an update in a little while, but maybe somebody in the chat could correct. But I don't think that they support yet the ability to add an SSD or a hard drive. So you have to run a prune node from their, you know, from essentially from their marketplace, from their services. But it's really cool what they're doing.

So I use it just as an appliance node, right? It's got, you know, encrypted file server. It's got encrypted messenger. And Bitwarden, you know, for password manager. Yeah, exactly. The Start 9 Embassy would somebody just put in the chat. And, you know, like, it's great for that. But I'm really looking forward to when they add the support so that you can actually have a proper full node.

So I'm using my node right now for my full node. But I do also have an umbrella. So I've, yeah, I try them out. like to see all the different user, you know, the, the UXs. Like I like to see all the differences. I like to see the different user flows. Yeah, it's, it's awesome. And I do, I should say I do really like my node.

Again, it's pretty slick. Like when you first, and it's actually been a while since I had my running, I was having issues, um, having two running in tandem just in terms of like my, my home network. I don't know why, but it would cut out my internet. I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe my internet provider just doesn't like me pumping so much traffic, upload and download speed.

Yeah, I know, right? They tried to scam me like that too once. You know, they're like, oh, you have that many nodes running. That's the problem. It's like, do you have any idea how much traffic this is really pushing? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And one of the cool things, now that we're on the node topic, I just want to keep going with it

because I like it. I love that I've now been able to, I've been diving into like the lightning node thing. I did the whole lightning node setup tutorial and everything. I'm now starting to learn about fine tuning that. But I love that I've now plugged in my pod to like the audio version of this. That will, that now goes up to like Breeze wallet and like a handful of other podcast apps.

that literally streams sats to my node. And I can like, I was, it was crazy. I was on the other side of the globe. I was able to remotely create an episode and then upload it. And then people could listen to it on like the Breeze Wallet app, the podcast portion of it. They could stream sats per minute as they were listening. And then I'm using the Zeus app to look at the activity on my, lightning note at home and see

minute by minute like 10 sats coming in from somebody listening to the pod and still access that money and liquidity and move it around as I saw fit. And to do that remotely from the other side of the globe, it's unbelievable to me

like the implications of this kind of stuff. It's crazy. Central bankers are so fucked. Oh, so fuck. When did this is a how to video? I did it. I already did one. Literally all the things I just said, how to set up a node, how to set up a lightning node, how to use Zeus to interface with your lightning node from anywhere on the globe, and then also how to set up your podcast so that it's linked to your node so you can stream sats. And then also how to use Breeze to listen to and stream sats to content creators.

Wow. Awesome. That's amazing. That's incredible. I should probably put that as like a playlist of like how to get your shit together as a Bitcoin content. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously, that would be a great article.

Yeah. Shit. That's going to, I'm literally going to write that tomorrow. That's going to be a blog post tomorrow. How to get your shit together as a Bitcoin content creator. There you go. That was free. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah. No, it's, it's super crazy. and the and I saw a little tweet from Breeze which also blew my fucking mind but somebody tweeted at them and they were like do you have support for video and then they tweeted back soon

oh stream sats for video content are you fucking good that's like that's gonna be my bread and butter that's insane dude that's that's ridiculous oh my God the future is bright man. Yeah. That's crazy. That's something about Bitcoin, man. And it's it's you talk to people still stuck in the Fiat matrix and it's all doom and gloom. You talk to Bitcoiners and they're some of the

most optimistic people. You know, it's crazy what happens to your psychology when your, when your unit of account, right, is in Bitcoin versus Fiat, you know, that's slowly draining your soul and your wealth and time at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. It's, It's wild. I wonder what YouTube's going to do because like it's early stages right now. But like you're going to be able to stream video content and get compensated directly from viewers on a permanent basis, which does two things actually. It forces people to create better content because if it sucks, they're just going to tune out and you're going to lose like the stream of sats ends the moment you suck. So you'll see that like

Oh, sad, sad, sad, suck Dude, you got to tweet that That's literally what it's going to be though So one, you're going to have to have better content And so that's like the quality of content is going to be great You're not going to get that clickbait shit Because as soon as you click it and it's crap Then you just you cut off the money

And then beyond that What is like YouTube is not going to be able to take that cut because content creator is going to be like, wait, somebody was paying me like a penny a minute for a video, which was 10 minutes long, but then I had a million views. And I've heard of what somebody who gets a million views, it can vary depending on the content creator. But if you get a million views on something, it's definitely not as much as a penny a minute because YouTube scrapes that shit away from you. a lot of it. And so it's, I think they've got another thing coming.

Greg Foss was on last week and he was talking about creative destruction in terms of Western Union and versus strike and lightning network and all of that. I mean, this is creative destruction for any content platform that was raping their content creators before that that is. Those days are coming to an end. I can feel it in my bones. It's great.

It's beautiful. I'm going to bring it around for final thoughts here before we round it out. So I'll offer my final thoughts is on Phil's topic, run a note. Get started. Don't be shy. A lot of people get worried that it's going to be too difficult. but honestly it's really, really not.

And it's a cool learning experience. And even if you hit a snag, just jump on Twitter, jump wherever. And Bitcoiners are going to be like, oh, cool, you're going to run a node. Here, let's troubleshoot and figure it out because everybody will just be excited

that you're running a node. Yeah, so that's my final thought. But toss it down the nine. Nico, once again, let people know where they can find you, but also any final thoughts. Yeah, listen, guys, this decade is going to define a generation. A lot of things are going to happen very quickly. Things are going to get worse before they get better.

It's important that you hold the line, right? You keep stacking. You take self-custody. You run a node because the powers that be are not going to give the keys up friendly. You know, it's like an animal press. into a corner, you know, that's when they get more ferocious, right? But we will overcome. And on the other side of that valley, man, it's freedom like humanity has never seen before. And, you know, it's incredibly humbling to be in the trenches with all you guys. So, uh, yeah,

man, awesome stuff. And Ben, like always, it's, it's a complete pleasure and honor to be on your show. You know, we look up to you, you know, you're one of the Bitcoin YouTube OG's only Bitcoin YouTube OG. So every time you invite us on the show, we literally get so pumped. I get excited just to see you at the end, say, you know, your daily session, amazing stuff, Ben. Absolutely love it. And guys, you know, you could find me on, you know, on YouTube and on Twitter. YouTube search for Simply Bitcoin. We do episodes Monday through Saturday. Sometimes we do an extra one. And you could follow me on Twitter at BitVolt 7 and check out BitValt.com if you're interested in hosting some miners. Thanks, Ben.

Dude, glad to have you. Let's toss it over to Phil. Well, everything Nico said in thanks, right? It really does humble us that you have us on the show. You could find me on Twitter at Coin Icarus and co-hosting at Simply Bitcoin TV with Nico. And in terms of final thoughts, just, you know, zoom out. Try not to get trapped with the stupid shit coin narratives. Okay.

It really, it's not going to help you. You're just going to end up in. pain. So just make sure that you're, make sure that you're thinking critically. Make sure that you're asking stupid questions, right? It doesn't matter. Okay, because chances are somebody else wants to ask that question and they're just afraid to. So just do it. Okay, everyone's going to learn. There's nothing wrong with that. Okay. So, and yeah, of course, stack sats. Beautiful. Awesome. And for our final, uh, kit, final thoughts, let people know where you can find and be found. Yeah, final thoughts. I just opt out of the system. Get into Bitcoin. Get into Bitcoin.

into a money that you can control yourself that no one else can mess with. They can't print it. It is what it is when Bitcoin is one Bitcoin, you know. So get in there. Store your energy and your time in Bitcoin instead of theat that's going nowhere. So that's my final thought. Thanks so much for having me on again. I'm always so bullish to come on here. Super excited every single time. So appreciate it. Also, you can find me. on a bunch of different social media channels. I run the Bitcoin conference, so it's the Bitcoin Conf. And I'm at KitSats, Kit underscore Sat, so you can follow me on Twitter there.

Also, I like to retweet a lot of the memers over there. Awesome. Awesome. Well, guys, thank you for being on. As everybody that's watching right now, of course, all these guys, their Twitter handles are in the show description, and then from there you can find everything that they're doing. guys it was it was an absolute pleasure uh you guys are always welcome back on um and uh yeah we'll definitely do this again so so thank you all for being here

cheers guys awesome so i i will uh i'll drop these guys out and uh say another thank you to everybody that's watching here uh thank you everybody for coming around for the favorite part of my friday it's always the best doing Why Are We Bullish with awesome Bitcoinsers. So if you liked what you saw, of course, if you're here on YouTube, like, sub, share. Those things really, really do help. If you're listening on the pod afterwards, be sure to give that a share too. If you want to help with a show in another way, you can hit up the previously mentioned sponsors down below.

Those were Leiden. They were Bit Buy, BitRefil, Keystone, and Bill Fottle over at Privacy Pro's. And if you really liked what you saw, you can always drop me a Bitcoin tip at my strike. Dot me page. That is strike. Dot me slash BTC sessions. Once you head there, you can type in any amount you like. You hit the tip button.

You'll be greeted with a lightning invoice or if you tap to the right, a Bitcoin QR code. With that, I am out. Have yourselves a wonderful day or evening wherever you may be. And I'll see you guys next time for your daily session.