The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - BIP-110 Fork Wars, Eric Adams Rug Pull, and $7.8B BTC Iran Protests | The CBP 248 Pt 1

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

SUBSCRIBE AND JOIN US LIVE EVERY MONDAY NIGHTBitcoin's biggest week yet. We break down everything: BIP-110's soft fork controversy (can 45% hashrate really win?), Eric Adams' NYC memecoin rug pull ($1.3M gone in 30 minutes), solo miners earning $300K blocks, and the Strive-Semler Bitcoin acquisition creating the #11 corporate holder globally.But it's not just crypto news. This week's also about decentralization actually working: X killed InfoFi with one API ban (validating why decentralized social networks matter), Uganda shut down the internet and 400K citizens downloaded Jack Dorsey's offline BitChat app instead, and Iran's $7.8B crypto economy proves Bitcoin's hardest use case is real—escaping financial repression.We also cover Canadian policy: the Federal Court ruled the Emergencies Act unconstitutional, Canada just pivoted to China with a major trade deal, and Ontario's homelessness hit 85,000 (government spent $4B and the problem got worse).⁠Discord:   / discord   A part of the CBP Media Network: ⁠www.twitter.com/CBPMediaNetworkThis show is sponsored by: easyDNS - https://easydns.com EasyDNS is the best spot for Anycast DNS, domain name registrations, web and email services. They are fast, reliable and privacy focused. With DomainSure and EasyMail, you'll sleep soundly knowing your domain, email and information are private and protected. You can even pay for your services with Bitcoin! Apply coupon code 'CBPMEDIA' for 50% off initial purchase Bull Bitcoin - ⁠⁠https://mission.bullbitcoin.com/cbp⁠⁠ The CBP recommends Bull Bitcoin for all your BTC needs. There's never been a quicker, simpler, way to acquire Bitcoin. Use the link above for 25% off fees FOR LIFE, and start stacking today.256Heat -⁠ https://256heat.com/ ⁠ GET PAID TO HEAT YOUR HOUSE with 256 Heat. Whether you're heating your home, garage, office or rental, use a 256Heat unit and get paid MORE BITCOIN than it costs to run the unit. Book a call with a hashrate heating consultant today.RESEARCH LINKS:BIP-110: https://stacker.news/items/1413227Eric Adams: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/ny...Solo mining: https://bitbo.io/news/solo-miner-rare...Strive-Semler: https://cryptobriefing.com/strive-add...21Shares: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-re...X/InfoFi: https://blog.mexc.com/news/x-kills-in...Self-custody: https://x.com/BitcoinNews/status/2012...Iran: https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/iran...Emergencies Act: https://www.fca-caf.ca/en/pages/decis...Canada-China: https://www.international.gc.ca/news-...Ontario: https://www.amo.on.ca/events-training...Uganda: https://www.reuters.com/business/medi...

like a threat. And one of the things that can't be attacked is your self-custody Bitcoin. And one of the things that can be attacked is the ETF. Can't be exposed to that. That's my view. It's not a good idea. And by the way, that'll hit MSTR too. It'll probably hit other stuff as well. Friends and enemies. Welcome back. Canadian Bitcoiners podcast. Friends and enemies, welcome to the CBP. Want to be better informed. Listen to Levin Joe E. Spots is taking care off right off the top. Oh, Bitcoin and easy DNS the media is feeding a slop. It does. Doesn't matter what topics discussed. Quality entertainment and information you can trust.

That's being planned or at least discussed. You know, we're not going to allow people to buy us. You can trust. Send the guys some value boost them with some stats. Bitcoin is a scarcity. I mean, it's just a fact. Geopolitical national down to the local cloud. Friends and enemies, welcome back to the Canadian Bitcoiners podcast.

Tonight on the show, Len and I talking BIP 110. We're talking Eric Adams, Rugby. and we're talking and we're talking the usual notable Canadian news stories as always. Glad to see you guys here.

Thanks for coming. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Make sure you send a like, a subscribe, a share, whatever. Tell your priest,

tell your mechanic. We got lots to discuss tonight and in the future as well. Len, what's going on, buddy? Great to see you. Looking good over there.

I'm ready for golf. Are you? Okay. I'm waiting. I'm dying to play. Yeah. I'm just waiting for the weather to turn. Yeah.

Well, you ain't going to get it this week. I think I just looked at my phone earlier today, and it's supposed to be minus 23 on Monday next week. Yeah, it's going to be nasty. Cold. That's nasty work. That's nasty work. Let's get into the show.

Sponsors is always up front. Easy DNS. Best place for you to host your content by a domain name. Mark is your friendly neighborhood registrar, as you guys know. I saw Mark today. We had a nice burger lunch. The best thing with EasyDNS is not that they take Bitcoin. That's great.

Not that you can do virtual private server stuff there. If you're a Bitcoin enthusiast or Relays, Bitcoin nodes, all that stuff. And it's not even that Mark takes Bitcoin as payment. It's that there's no easier guy to deal with than Mark and no easier team to deal with and the team at Easy DNS. How do I know this? Well, because once you guys have told me, and we know, because Mark's been in front of the show for a long time and a friend of ours for a long time. And if you're looking to do some domain work, some registrar work and you need some help, Mark's your guy. So head over to EasyDNS.

Use the promo code CBP Media and get half off your first round of buys. You can't beat that. Who's the second sponsor? Bold Bitcoin. And if you are in Columbia, welcome aboard because now you're able to buy and sell using Bull Bitcoin. Hell yeah. A lot of good things you could do. Like I mentioned, not just buy and sell, but you could send some people some money.

And it's Bitcoin you send to Bull Bitcoin. And cash ends up, well, Cat ends up in your friend's account. You could pay bills of Bitcoin. You could do reoccurring buys. You could do auto buys, limit. This is incredible from a non-custodial exchange because typically they do not offer these levels of services. And non-custodial exchange, this is what you want because you don't want somebody else holding onto the Bitcoin you purchase. And bull Bitcoin does not do that in order to facilitate the buy.

You've got to provide a Bitcoin address. They may not be the right one. You can provide a fictitious one. But that's the only way they're going to be able to facilitate the transactions. You'll check them out, especially if you're in Colombia, man. Bogota, Medellin, where the heck you want? are welcome aboard brothers and sisters and everybody else and yeah check it out we have a referral below if you do use that to sign up all your buys and sells forever is going to be a little bit

cheaper so you might as well do it they are the best in the game that's where i buy my bitcoin never sell always buy yes sir yes sir uh lots to talk about here we have no interview scheduled this week i need to get back on the interview train but uh life is busy but i will do that lan and i are both going to do more interviews we're going to try and get back to that regularly because I know you guys want them and we're getting a lot of people messaging us about who we should talk to. So I have amassed a list. Will I get through the list? I don't know, but we'll worry about that in the future. You want to do the boost there, sir? Boost, yes. Let's do that. Doom Satoshi, 521 sats. And he writes in Treasor was the first hardware

wallet by Merrick Palatinas. I may have butcher that, aka a.k. Lush. Sometimes the first isn't the best, but they have at least that honor to be the first out there. Yeah, someone's got to kick the door in, right? What did you say the other day? You got to be the first guy through the door.

There's the bloodiest. First of the wall, the first through the door is when they got the most bloodied. Yeah. And Treasurer certainly is, they have a lot of wounds. Doug, 1,050 sets.

And he writes in, Woohoo, wallet of Satoshi winding up in Europe. But in the UK, with all its draconian free speak limiting laws still allow me to tip my barber with sats. A small win, but I'm going to take it. Now to help my hair cutting buddy transition

into self-custodial lightning. Let's hope he does that. Because Wallace Satoshi certainly is not self-costity. You're having somebody else hold on to it. That's right. Maybe it's a good thing that they're letting Europe push people away from Wall. Yeah, you've got to learn, right?

Force them to learn. That's great. Yeah, like that. Business cat, thank you for submitting a boost rather than streaming a sats. At least you get more bang for the buck in my honest opinion. And he writes in for 1,337 sats. He writes powerful, powerful. That was with one of our reps last week.

You break up in two episodes. Yeah, great. Love to hear that. Thanks, business cat. Bless. Jerr writes in. for 2,000 sats, Great Rip.

And Jera also, I have to point out, he released a, what was that thing? Was it? A betting market has emerged on CBP content. I'm going to find it right now. I'm trying to find it. Yeah. Where the heck did I post that?

Internal chat. We're both struggling here. Here he goes to the Hamilton versus Brampton Man Outcome February 2026. the website is Predix P-R-E-D-Y-X and you could see over there

there's four different outcomes you can bet with Bitcoin it's kind of like a polymarket but with Bitcoin is the I have no affiliation with this I have no idea what it's all about but you can set up any sort of betting scheme on there

and he just set up the the Hamilton versus Brampton Man outcome for February 2006 what is it that I have to I have to get them all right right for the center yeah okay

put it up on the screen we put it up on the screen Send it to me in the private chat. We'll put it up on the screen. We'll show people what we're talking about. If you're on audio, you have to come to video for this. But chances are you're going to want to see the betting market that's started on CBP. Unbelievable.

Finley traded right now. It ought to be thinly traded. There's no controls. I could be looking at the stories for all these people. No. I'm not. Yeah, we're going to manipulate this thing. It feels good to finally.

Finally cashing in on this stupid show. So here we go. So we got, the people think I'm. going to go three for four. That's where the money is right now. So yeah, there you go. We can make that happen. No fucking problem, Joe. You're going to rake it in. Yeah. How can you see how can you see how many bets there's been? I have no idea. I'm not familiar with this website. I'm not sure. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. You know, you should post it in a note just for a joke. I'll throw it in there. Sure. Yeah, why not?

Sounds like a plan. And then last but not least for the boosts, we have Hammertown OG 10,000 sats. My man. Making up for missed boosts, keep up the great work. God bless you, brother. Thank you. Appreciate you, man. See you at the Collins.

What is the Collins? It's just a bar restaurant downtown here. As you could tell, I don't peruse the downtown Hamilton area. No problem. Hey, it's done to us. Don't say the H word in this podcast. Anyway, okay, should we get after here? I have no

fucking clue. I don't think I've ever been at Dundas to be honest. That's fantastic. Actually, me, I have driven through it. You've never come. You know, we joke all the time that you've never come to my house.

Many of the people who've contributed to this program, Mark, the Karazas, who else? Taylor Sugar and his buddy there whose name is escaping me right now. Who else has been here? Dee, obviously. I mean, I'm friends with D anyways,

so he comes all the time. But a number of people, and you have never been here, which makes me laugh every time I have to say. I don't leave the basement. So if I'm not going to leave the basement, clearly I'm not going to end up in your house. Yeah.

It's not going to be. Let's get into it. Where do you want to start? Bip, I guess. Do you want to do that? I'm like water, man. Whatever. Let's start there.

Let's start there. Yeah. You're familiar with this new proposal? I'm so more familiar with it. I'm more concerned about some of the stuff adjacent to it, though. But we can, we'll talk about it. Let's talk about it.

Okay. Well, it's a proposed soft fork? and it's going to set some limits on the data fields. So this will be at the consensus level. So the reason for this, the idea about all this, this BIP 110, is to correct incentives for storing arbitrary data on Bitcoin on the blockchain. And they're saying, quote, refocused priorities on improving Bitcoin as money. That's as per them, the BIP proposal dude, actually. And so some of the things you're going to be doing.

in order to achieve this goal. They're going to be removing the 83 byte limit on upper turns. And there are also going to be limits on taproot and other goodies. Really, all this boils down to is there's going to be a real hard push towards smaller blocks. You can't shove in arbitrary data in Bitcoin blocks. And this then is the idea it's going to be used more of a medium exchange rather than file storage. And even if you want to try doing some file storage, there's going to be a cost to it.

It's going to be not as cheap it is right now. So non-monetary transactions are going to be more costly and it's going to be incentivized to not do those. So if you are interested in this, and some people are, you could run one of those clients. They're available right now. It's a modified not client. And they're right now from what I gathered, they're only available for Start 9 in Umbrell. And a standalone client is going to be released shortly. That could be wrong in the last part. Maybe there's already a standalone client right now.

And this is how it's going to work. It's going to be a minor activated soft fork initially. And if there isn't enough people or minors out there that signal support by September of this year, at least estimated September, then it will turn into a user-activated soft fork. So that's the mechanism in which you're going to try to. activate this. And one way, as I mentioned, to show support for this is to run a client, right? Miners, you know, they could do what they want, right? They have every incentive to do something that's going to make them the most money. Do they give a shit about this? Maybe, maybe not.

Like I said, minors, I suspect that their incentive is just strictly maximizing profit. They're not there to do anything else aside from that. Maybe you might have some altruistic miners out there that just really believe in certain things. This is my goal, but the majority of them are not. Look at like Mara, for instance. They're pieces of shit. And the activation thresholds for this is 55%. That's a big problem.

That's a big problem. And this needs to be done within a difficulty adjustment period. So 55% is slightly above majority. I mean, before I go any further, I'm curious why is that a problem? Because the low or too high. For a bunch of reasons. Finish the story. we'll talk about it because I have a lot of thoughts on this.

I think this is a terrible idea. But anyway, now the author of this does say in his proposal that there is the potential of freezing funds. Now, albeit the chances are extremely small, minuscule, astronomical, probably is more realistic, but still there is that outcome here, that there are some people that might, like I say, astronomical, that could result in having their funds frozen if they, adopt this. And he outlines exactly what is the scenario. If you go on the website, Bip110.dev, you can see right there it outlines what it is. To me, that's kind of a little

scary if he's acknowledging that it's there. And not too long ago, last week, I think it was, we blasted Bitcoin Core because people who merge their wallets using Bitcoin Core, they were potentially losing funds. And, you know, it took place because of one of the latest releases of Bitcoin Core. And I was mentioning that the code is getting complex. It's getting real complex. It's many, many lines of coding here. And this proposal, if you look at it on the GitHub,

you can see that there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of line of coding that is going to be altered as a result or added as a result as this BIP. So the finding the end result here, it's going to be difficult, maybe impossible to do it at this particular moment. The only way to do it is to roll it out, roll the dice, see what happens. And then see if there's going to be some unintended. Love that. Love that for Bitcoin, by the way.

Just roll it out, see what happens. Love that approach. Yeah. So we already acknowledge that under certain conditions. And I said, it's astronomical that there's going to be people that could have their funds frozen. All right. So we know that. But what else is lurking in the shadows that we don't know?

Either somebody might know what's going to happen and they'll execute it once it's activated or we'll just learn it along the way and somebody will execute certain plans along the way. That's, I don't know, either way. They are doing this in stage releases in terms of release candidate right now. I believe we're released candidate number two and release candidate number three is coming up very, very soon. And with respect to this, I get what they're trying to achieve in terms of making it more challenging to put arbitrary data on Bitcoin.

I could get that. And I know that they want to make some changes. is effectively making block sizes smaller. But what could break as a result of this? I don't know. I mean, I don't know who could take advantage of it right now, but I don't want to see somebody take advantage of it in the future. And another outcome, if this comes out or doesn't come out,

that people reject it altogether. It doesn't reach 55% in both the minor activated software and user activated software. I'm wondering if this is going to be making Luke disgraced in the community. and potentially walking away from Bitcoin altogether. We've had it. It happened before. People that were prominent members in Bitcoin walk away when things don't come out the way they wanted to. Could the same thing happen with Luke?

I would bet against that. But it's within the realm of possibility. But really, no matter what happens here, I hope we don't. Because if we lose a talented coder, I think we are at a loss. It's utter detriment to have that happen. I don't want to see this take place. So to go back, 55%, you mentioned that you were not too happy. Oh, God, no.

Too low, too high? Way too low. Way too low. Okay. Yeah. Like, think about the progression. Yeah, think about the progression of like changes to the network, right? If you go back to like 2010, whatever, like the Genesis years, there's no governance.

It's just Satoshi changing code. Fine. In 2012, you have OPEVAL. 50% threshold failed. Okay, so 50% they couldn't get it done. Between 2012 and 2015, I'm looking at my notes here. BIP 34 and BIP 66, which was 75%, it's advised 95% mandatory change. 2016 and 17, obviously, Segwit, stalled at 30% support,

and then there was user activated software. BIP 91 was the compromise. That was 80%. 2021 tap route. That was speedy trial. You mentioned 90% threshold over a three-month window. So the window was longer and the threshold was higher. That's like true super majority stuff.

Activated no problem. That was a clean win. And now we're going to 55%. And then if it fails, you can do a UASF. Like at what point, the problem is like, at what point do we admit, okay, that Bitcoin governance isn't technical anymore. It's political, right? You're basically trying to see who's got power here.

is it the miners who have it, the users have it, the nodes you have it. This is what they're trying to figure out. And that 50% is too, I think that's a too little number of 55%. I don't want 55 to be the number for changes. And don't forget, like, the other thing that people miss these days, because things are good. You know, you had $100,000 or whatever we're at. Things are good. Everyone's fat and happy, okay?

But the thing that people are missing and kind of forgetting is that there are a lot of people making big investments in this network on the mining side, on the infrastructure side, stuff like grid management, stuff like ETFs, you know, hold your tomatoes. This stuff is, this stuff is investable because the network is resilient to whimsical changes in policy. Miners can't invest long term in hardware if people are making changes at 55%. It's not feasible. Not necessarily because of this change. but because if you do it once, you open the door to do it other times.

We talk about that. It's a criticism of Ethereum. Ethereum rolled the chain back or froze funds that one time. And now anytime anyone talks about Ethereum being money, any competent discussion has to include that they already nuked their independence one time. And I'll say this. This is my least, probably the least popular take for sure on this show,

but maybe on Bitcoin's Twitter broadly. I'll lead with a question. Why are the blocks so small now? Now. You mean not failed? No. I mean like why is the block size limit so low? To enable anybody out there to run it.

Right. And so that technology... The cost of becoming a new one of reason that astronomically high. That's right. That technology in terms of data storage, bandwidth, and general throughput is going the other way. It's enabling more data storage, easier to run a larger node, easier to process bigger blocks. The demand is going that way. More people want to get into transactions.

I mean, I shouldn't say that right now because we're low stats per B-by. But if you think it's options going that way, there's no debating whether or not the tech is going that way. Why are we shrinking the blocks? Like I realize there's an argument we made about, you know, in between on whether things are useful data, not useful data, useful on blocks, not useful on blocks. But it seems to me this is completely missing the mark. Where do you come down on that? Hard to process. I'm not a, making a block size smaller by with just with the intention of removing arbitrary data, maybe it's not too bad. I'm not saying that this BIP is the way to go.

We should be doing it. I'm just saying just the idea of pushing towards that direction. I don't think it's right. If you're taking away just the arbitrary data, does it change anything for the monetary use of Bitcoin? You're still able to send your stats to somebody else who gives a fuck about somebody. If we do it, yeah, if we do it this way, it's bad for Bitcoin, I would say. Like I would, yeah, go ahead. I didn't mention, and I should have, there's a potential chain split that could come as a result of this. Yeah.

If you have two different clients running two different rules, because this is a software, softwork, it's backwards compatible. You can potentially get a chain split from this. And then what happens if that happens, well, miners then, you know, the orphan chain does that they lose everything in that all the you know the rewards that come alongside that it'd be it'd be a challenging situation for a lot of folks out there and then this is another reason when you do a transaction you wait for many blocks to settle before you move your bitcoin

because you want to make sure for damn sure it's the right fucking chain that you're dealing with rather than the wrong one yeah so yeah and segue you talked about it remember luke was the guy who was responsible for i know i know i know seg was was like clean though right like I don't think a lot of people were debating that the like the the whether he was an honest actor at that point you know what I'm saying and now that debate exists and so when you talk about that on alongside a 55% activation rate it's ridiculous it is ridiculous to do 55% it makes us look stupid like there's and by the way not it's a majority I know but it's

bullshit it's bullshit like 55% is not not the right number. This is a super majority type change he's asking to make. And I think everyone, you know, if you give them some honesty sauce, okay, will say to you that 55% is too low. You can't, you can't make a change to a monetary network on 55% of the people voting. Now, I will also add, again, hold your tomatoes that there's bigger fish to fry right now in Bitcoin. And I think, like, I've said this in a meantime. I think quantum is one of them, among others. But this is not, like, this is not a problem for right now. No one's, there's no block demand.

So what is he worried about arbitrary data for? There's no demand on layer one. So what is he, what is he worried about? Every time I go to send Bitcoin, it's a one sap per B byte for immediate settlement. There is the moral and legal consequences that people are saying as a result of what could potentially be stored. There's already tons of shit on the blockchain like that. Show me the precedent for legal action. Show it to me.

I have, there is none. That's because there is nine. And show me, show me the, like, let me know when money is supposed to be based on the ethics of one guy.

Like, this is basically what it's coming down to. I don't, I don't think this is a good idea. And I don't think it's a good idea to even entertain the debate, honestly. There I am.

I went black for a second. You look okay to me. You got to get out that Linux machine, shut your VPN off. You got to go naked. The VPN maybe. I'm actually, I'm uploading some shit in the background.

I forgot it was uploading. Well, that'll probably do it, too. A little bit of everything. But you know what I'm saying? Like, I, yeah, I see all caps is in the chat. It's not about the size, but about the content making your note illegal and world run. Again, show me the precedent.

Show it to me. What I see is a lot of people have tried to take down Bitcoin for a long time on different legal thresholds for laundering money, KYC, AML, terrorist funds, like, you name it. But there's been weird data on the chain in blocks for a long time. We all agree on that. Well, maybe. I've heard this.

I'm not going to go searching for it because I don't want to uncover it. But certainly if it was there and if it was available to take the token down, we would have had this problem already. We have not. There's got like, don't the panic is misplaced. I'm not saying you should panic about stuff like quantum or other potential bips or problems, but we have other problems that are clearly going to come to a head in the next 10 years. People just want to fight for the sake.

They want to fight. Things are too good. Everyone's too fat. We need a real bare market, like a $20,000 drop. And for all these people, just shut up and get back to like what actually matters. By the way, you're watching other tokens start to go this direction. They're not politicking nearly as much as they used to be. I'm talking specifically about the token that shall not be named.

They're not doing a lot of politicking anymore. Do you mind me? I'm unaware of it. It's the bankless favorite. It's the bankless favorite. I don't even know what ETH is doing. That's because it's not, nothing's happening over there. They're just fucking working.

I just don't. And, you know, whether you like ETH or not as a token or whatever, like I think they got away from the whole global money thing. But they're working on stuff that we. are simply not working on it. And at some point, the other thing, too, that you have to think about is, if you don't make these changes now

with competent devs who are not experiencing a ton of pressure, not under a lot of duress, when Larry Fink wants you to make a change, okay, or wants a change in the network, when these other guys who have tons of Bitcoin holdings who are holding Bitcoin for major institutions, like the pressure you get in your replies, Luke, is not going to compare to the pressure you get

from those guys to do things a certain way. So if you want to make a significant change to the network, do it the right way and do it soon. Because once those guys... What is the right way and what would... In your eyes... Give me back the three... Give me the top route.

90% three-month window. No problem. If it would be... Shit, I would even take 80% out of three-month window. So it's not how this is done in terms of like what's under the hood of the coding. It's the mechanism of activating it. Yeah, I don't give a shit.

Like, whatever. I disagree with shrinking the blocks, but that's secondary to the, to this other thing. Because this other thing jeopardizes the entire proposition of hard money going forward. If you start doing 55% changes and then like that's all we care about. 55 is nothing. It's nothing. And people need to start thinking about this stuff because it's not, it's no longer. The problem with these OGs is that they still think Bitcoin is a pet project on Git and this thing is worth $10,000. it's not. Okay, you're competing with gold and silver now. You're about to enter a true fourth turning where neutral money is going to be very important. And you need neutral money that stays

neutral, not gets caught up in the political whims of nerds and geeks who didn't get laid until they were 30 fucking years old. I don't want that. This is not any way to handle money. You need people who are serious about the use case. And they still think the use case is the one from 2015. We're past that now. You may like that. or dislike that, you may agree with it or disagree with it, but this is the world in which we live as Bitcoiners now. And the idea that you can just keep going this direction with, it's a pet project, we need to make these changes, shrink, shrink blocks, hide bad data or limit bad data. Stop. Stop. Show me the precedent for any of the things you're worried about. And then we'll

talk about it. But I don't see it. And no competent person sees it. There's no one talking about this at the level of we're close to being a global reserve asset. Let's shrink the block size. Nobody is talking about this. Do you look at what's Matthew Cratter and Mechanic? No, I don't care with that guy. You don't follow? Mechanic I would love to have on the show because I think we would disagree and I would

love to really push him on this. Because he's a mechanic is great. He's very technical, but he's mid-curving so much of this in my opinion. Like, don't think too much about it. Just look at what's in front of you instead of just. guessing at what might come next based on stuff that happened, again, when the network was five years old. Like, these, this is different times.

You're operating in different environment. And this thing is a different beast now. That's, that's my big issue. Do you have an issue with, uh, what's happening in New York and New York coin? God, Eric Adams. I love this guy. I love the clip of him in the airport telling that girl to fuck herself. You're going to see the Brooklyn in me?

So good. She's trying to heckle him. He's like, I'm not even the mayor anymore. You're going to see the Brooklyn to me. Keep this up. Something like that. Remember we had a long time ago Miami coin? Yeah.

How's that guy doing? Eric Suarez? No, Francis Swares. Francis. He's no longer the mayor, is he? I don't know. I think it's a lady that's the mayor of Miami now. I could be wrong.

I don't really give a fuck. But that Miami coin was a truly a shit coin. We have another contender that's going to compete against it. Bangor. And I did some research in a You know, it ended up dying a slow and quiet death in 2023. It was delisted by the exchange OK coin. And at the distance spent a trading and it was basically it for Miami coin.

And Eric Adams decides, you know what? This was done once. I'm going to do it fucking better, right? He's going to fix all of New York's problems. And, you know, there may be tons of them that could be fixed. And he was, remember, he was New York mayor up until like, December 31st, right? Yeah.

I think around that time anyways when when Mom Donnie took over there, calm Donnie. I think January 1st he was sworn in. I don't know. Anyways, Adams, former Mayor Adams is now jobless. And he was doing some traveling. I did some research. He went to Dubai. He was in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

And I'm wondering during those travels when he came with this bright idea. And this is the release of the NYC at New York meme. coin and he says that this is his quote, we're about to change the game. And this thing is going to take off like crazy. And it took off like crazy it did when one direction and then the other. Because, well, they set it up. This is the beautiful part by the way to.

He was going to use a portion of the proceeds that would be divided evenly amongst three causes, Joey. Yeah. Anti-Semitism, anti-American awareness campaigns, and crypto education for the city's youth and his scholarship. A lot of people learned a lesson from this, that's for sure. I'll tell you that much. He was pumping your shit out of this fucking bag here.

It reached $600 million market cap, and then it crashed some 75% in an instant. Just flash. And it looks like that the accounts that were involved with the creation of this token, they withdrew $2.5 million worth of coins. And this is a classic rugpole. And check this beauty name from a black one. Last minute of past, this is a good one. Apparently he was even getting the advice from one Brock Pierce before launching.

Wow. And Mighty Ducks actor, that guy? That's the dude, man. The rumor is that Eric Adams, while he was mayor, by the way, would sometimes get to use Pierce's private jet. And it was rumored that Pierce is calling himself as Adams crypto advisor. So there's a simple rule here. Give me the rule. Pierce is involved run the fuck away.

But if it's not Bitcoin, it's trash. And this is another one. And the scammers out there, they could just fuck themselves. They took people's money. They took them for a ride. And they made themselves rich or richer at the expense of a lot of people that just got rug pulled. And I don't understand how anybody in this day of age could get pumped up, hyped up about a project like this. You're dumbest shit.

if you're one of these fucking projects you think these are legit I don't know about you Joy I'd rather shove my dick in a pencil sharpener than fucking invest in this stuff Pull me through a knot in the fence by my cock I guess instead of doing whatever this is Yeah

fucking bullshit Anyway Eric Adams No corner of the way The best is the videos of him Going around New York City And talking about NYC token Is gonna launch to fight anti-Semitism Like the man on the street videos

Did you see any of these? No This is some of the worst content I have ever seen in my life. I loved every second down. He's in the cab. We got to fight anti-Semitism in this city. We got launch this token.

I'm in it for the long haul on Twitter. Let me tell you what the long haul looked like. January 12th, he launches the token at a Times Square event. That probably wasn't cheap. January 12th, at 12.30 p.m. token reaches 580 million market cap. January 12th, 1 p.m. token crashes 81%.

And it turns out that most liquidity was removed from the pool. Now there's a class action. lawsuit being organized against Mayor Adams. How about that? That's like the craziest eight hours probably in that guy's life, isn't it? Like, completely insane. I love that. He's relevant again.

Oh, my God. Like, whatever. The pattern, really, the rule is when you look at these guys who have like declining relevance and declining power, politicians are great for this, right? Because they're a special mix of full of hubris and stuffed with incompetence. and when they lose their advisors and just keep around them, their grifters and homies from, you know, when they were not as popular, they get bad advice. And so it's a perfect time for a guy like Brock to sleep in, Freudian slip there, to sweep in and grab him, you know, by the meme coin and see what happens, right? Just put his name on it or have him pump it up or pimped it on the streets there.

Incredible. And like every other time, Len, you said it. It's, man, if you can put, if you can hit a couple of these like major flag posts here, signposts, you're in a rug. You're in a rug pull, you know. I think this is great. Not since Hock Tua have we seen a rugpole like this, you know. Now he needs to get in touch with Haley Welsh's PR people and find out how she just faded into obscurity after robbing, you know, God knows how many people of Welsh token liquidity money. I love this. This is great. He's the thing is he's to, to, to. interested in being in front of a camera to fade into obscurity. Especially if New York starts to fall apart. That was his opportunity. You couldn't go on Fox News and talk about New York failing. Instead, you had to do this.

How much money did you really make on this, man? I don't know. Only time we'll tell, Len, what happens with our friend, Eric. But I wish him well. I hope he gets things in order here. Maybe he's going to go visit the Democratic Republic of Congo again, this time a lot richer and end up staying there. as a result. I mean, land would be pretty cheap or go back to Dubai because, you know,

taxes are nil for certain people. I see John in the chat saying, too, is it really robbing people? No, it's not. If you're still buying like political meme coins in the year of our Lord 2026, can't help you. You are, you are a mark. You are a mark. If you're not at the table, you are on the menu as the saying goes. And so I would keep that in mind if I was you. Bitax users and solo miners, Joey, this is a story for you. Oh, God. Here we go. And now let's show you, analysis is showing that 36 Bitcoin blocks in the year 2025 were done

by solo miners. And that may not seem like a lot, like a lot, if you think about three a month, but still, it's possible. Solo mining profitable, hell no, right? There are people out there, they're using not just bit bit axes but they're using a lot of machines with giving hundreds of tarahash even more of that and all this really is if you're using any device even the ones there are 100 of tarash or as low as a bitaxx it's just a lottery ticket that's the way

you have to look at it nobody should buy a lottery ticket and plan their life with the winnings of that jackpot it's always a roll of dice once every 10 minutes on average but the odds are pretty shit that you're going to get it. That's one way to put it. Yeah, about as bad as you can get in terms of odds. You get better odds on the betting market on Hamilton Brampton, man. But you can't get those odds on. 1 of 4.

It seems like I'm turning. But at least you are contributing to the network. You're learning about mining and you're adding to the resiliency to the network for being attacked. So that's the one benefit from all this. I know you're not the biggest fan of the Bitax these days. I don't, it's not that I'm not a fan. I just think it's not, you know, you're not a home miner with a bit ax is all I would say. That's all.

You're mining. If you're contributing any hash whatsoever, you're certainly mining. Fair. Fair. And so, yeah, anybody out there, 36 blocks were built last year from solo miners. That's always a chance. That's one every 10 days, basically. Like, that's a pretty high number.

So what does that mean to you? Does that mean there's a significant, you know, significant and growing number of home miners is still less than 0.001% of network cash rates, like a tiny, tiny amount. And you would imagine that the other bigger players are deploying capital and equipment, but still, like, I don't think 36 has to be the highest number ever for a year, right? I don't know. I mean, I shouldn't say ever, but like if we look at like the last five years, maybe it's the highest one. I don't know.

Maybe. I think it's now more mainstream in terms of solo mining because of the stuff like the bit acts. We're getting more information from these. solo miners. I don't know. But you're right. The big miners, the corporate miners,

they're adding shitloads of equipment out there. And I don't know if we're keeping pace in terms of home miners. No, I mean, it's going to be soon, you know, it's going to be percentage wise to get. Yeah, yeah. But it's funny, like much the same as like computer RAM or GPUs. This stuff is going to become impossible to get for years as demand goes up for it. So I would say if you have like an ISS 19 S-21, buy one from Twan at 256 heat, you should do that anyway.

But if you do want something like that, I would say get it now. Actually, I see Mark in the chat. We talked about that at lunch today, how, you know, home computing of any kind, whether it's mining or video rendering or graphics work or gaming, it's going to become very difficult over the next two years. And you can see guys like Bezos at Deal Book, the New York Times deal book. I don't know if it was this year. It must have been this year. I don't know when it was, though. talking about how home compute is going to be a thing of the past.

It's inconvenient. It's archaic. You should just be renting your Nvidia 50-90 use from Amazon for $8 a month or something. So I would say if you're looking to get stuff, do it now. Like, you know, we obviously bought a, I'll share a story. You know, we just bought a new CBP video rig that this stream does. And it helps me, you know, render the episodes at the end of the, at the end of the night. And I was saying, to Lenn, this thing's got a lot of firepower. You could go to space in this thing.

It saves me probably 70% of the time it was taking me on the two-year-old machine we had before, a 30-80. This is a 50-70. This computer on Amazon, when we bought it, was about $2,200. And now you can't even buy it. And I was saying to Mark today that the one that's a peg below this is on Amazon for $3,300 now because the price of all the components has gone up. You can see lots of stories online and people selling DDR5 and 6 RAM at 4X what they paid only a few months. months ago back onto the resale market.

It's going to get weird over the next little while. And I recommend people have a quality home compute, quality home minor, quality home gaming rig, whatever, whatever you're looking for, whatever you like doing. Now is the time, even if it's a little expensive because it's only going to get worse over the next two years. That's by the way, AI is one thing. That's if the geopolitical situation stays neutral. Good luck with that.

That's another part of the thesis that I think people are missing. So have fun. Or you'll be playing Scrabble. Nothing wrong with Scrabble, but playing Scrabble and nothing else might drive you baddie. Or NH-N-H-L-94. You don't need a very powerful machine to do,

no, definitely. No, you can play that on your phone probably. Yeah, people do that. Nice. Yeah. So Samler Scientific. Remember, not too long ago, that stock pumped after they said they're going to be buying

Bitcoin adding it to the balance sheet. Semler is supposedly the 11th largest corporate holder of Bitcoin. and they held about 12,000 Bitcoin. Well, Samlars no longer their own entity. They have been gobbled up by Strive. That's the company held by everybody's favorite H-1B supporter, VVEC.

Yeah, so as a result, anyone that was a similar shareholder, they either will or have received 21.05 shares forever of, sorry, They will receive 21.05 shares of Strive for every one similar stock they own. So that's not about 25, 21 to 2.1. So the premium that they got was roughly 0.34%. So basically fuck all. So there was no big incentive here to sell. They just did it.

And Strife appointed, this is the name you're going to remember. I believe you brought them up. Avik Roy. Avic Roy. As their chief strategy. officer to we follow we follow each other on Twitter maybe I should reach out to him tell them the talk about this yeah

this move yeah well he's he's gonna be overseeing their healthcare segment of the company that they swallowed up interesting are we an acquisition season for these small guys yeah yeah big time it's gonna be the consolidation for this shit companies

like 21 capitals that's the name of it that's the one that's uh... model i think they're they're gonna be in prime position did they have Maybe not mallers, but I'm looking at Tether. They have fuck loads of capital that you can tap into. Big time. And you can't think of the company and I can't believe I'm going to even say this.

But why would you buy a Bitcoin company? Presumably you do it. Wow, tell me I never clean this mic. There's spider webs all over here. Why would you buy a Bitcoin company for their treasury? Why not just buy the Bitcoin yourself? Then you don't have to pay the premium to the shareholders. If it's cheaper to do it this way.

It'll never be cheaper. It never. It'll never be cheaper. I have no idea. In this case, they just paid a small premium above the regular share price. So they got not just a Bitcoin, but they got the company itself that presumably has some long-term value. They probably wanted to put it under their corporate umbrella.

But getting something another, like strictly a Bitcoin treasury company, if it's, if you're getting the Bitcoin and you do the math and it's going to be cheaper to get it like this, even including the debt and everything else that comes like, makes sense. if they can get it like that I don't know It can't It doesn't make sense to do it I do actually

Yeah go ahead Sorry As these companies I think there's gonna The smaller ones That are just struggling right now A lot of them bought Bitcoin When it was like 100,000

110,000 Other prices like 91, 92,000 Their stock price took a fucking beating In the past six months Plus shareholders are pissed off with them Yeah

Why wouldn't they just capitulate Just sell to somebody The first buyer That comes along Yeah Right Why wouldn't they? I don't know

Yeah I like boomer's comment about tether, because you mentioned tether, obviously they're affiliated with 21, and now you're seeing acquisitions and consolidations in this industry. The idea that tether is in short-term paper, gold, other highly liquid assets waiting for a bare market is an idea that kind of tickles my brain a little bit. And there's a few companies that are positioned to know when

a bare market might come or when a big drop in price might come that affects these companies, affects treasury companies, affects Bitcoin, affects the ecosystem. There's barely- Digital assets is one of them. Yeah, there's barely a company that's ready and can see around the corner the way the Tether can. And I really think they have a nice advantage there, especially because they have all those assets like you mentioned, and they're in bed with the U.S. government.

Like, that's another bonus, right? So I- Tethers in bed with the U.S. It's more U.S.T.C. I mean, you can, whatever. I would say they're in bed with the government. Yeah, Lutnik works for the administration, and he's part of 21, and Tether's part of 21. So to me, that's enough.

Yeah, let's see. I don't know. I hesitate to say that Tether will own at least one major American treasury company outside of 21 before the end of the decade. I don't know what that company will be. Well, for sure. You're talking four years from now. What will it be? Which one will it be?

There's only a few with, you know, a potentially bigger stack, right? One of them, obviously, is micro strategy. No, they'll never be able to get them. I know. So, like, it's got to be another one, right? So who's it going to be? Yeah. I'm not sure.

I don't know. There's a bunch of others that just came out and said they're going to be buying Bitcoin. One of those. I don't know. GameStop, even. God. What's that guy got in this balance sheet now? I haven't been tracking it.

And does MBK even have them on the treasury page? I have no idea. Do you even have? have Bitcoin in a balance sheet? I don't know. Not sure. Tesla does, right? Yeah, a little bit.

Adam Backs, Shell Company. Yeah. I wonder what he thinks about. 55%. Anyway, let's move on. Want to talk about this? Rug the Infofi? We can.

Yeah, this is related to Twitter more than anything else. We may as well talk about it since it's a popular discussion came up at lunch. Mark and Mark and I today talking about that. InfoFi, like just to name alone, Joey, should be enough to drop the price 50% of anything related to this. fucking InfoFi. What the fuck am I talking about this Infoify?

Here we go. It was announced on X this past week that they have banned apps that were rewarding users from posting on X, right? Infoify, this shit was incentivizing people to post on X

for rewards. And the rewards were supposedly done from these posts that were AI slop and reply spam. So people were doing AI slop, and doing a lot of replies and they're getting rewards from this stuff like Cato

cookie, some true garbage shit coin projects were absolutely wrecked as a result of this this is low level effort when you just go out there and have bots create AI slop and you just throw it in there for reply after applying to big account and just try to get whatever you can

absolutely trash again this is shit coin at his finest anything related to this is just truly a shit coin. And I'm glad they shut the door on this bullshit. I don't really have much to add to this, except that Twitter is incentivizing this behavior. So they can say whatever they want, but they're asking for this kind of stuff, right? And Twitter's been less than forgiving with their API access.

This is another example of that, of course. Mark and I were talking today about this exact thing and how there's actually like telegram groups where people are sharing their Twitter. posts and whatnot and trying to get replies. And so that was another thing that was affected was the reply side. Twitter's looking at this a lot. And these tokens, like, I don't care about these tokens. It happened my notes here that one of these things dropped like 20% basically overnight Kato token, cattle token, whatever it's called. It should be called Kettle token, but I think it's called Kato token. And if you're still playing these games, there is, there is room to make money on these

things. But the rug comes out so fast on these tokens because liquidity is so low. The market cap is so low, and there's always insiders. You can't compete with insiders. If there's a discord and the telegram and you're joining it and not creating it, you're vulnerable to get rugged. That is the heart of fast rule for all these alts, especially ones that are like attention tokens and have Dow's and whatever else. Just stay away. And by the way, if you want to get monetized on Twitter, there's other ways to do it. You don't need to also risk this kind of nonsense just because you need a couple of bucks. Like go drive Uber or something. You're better off.

You'll sleep better at night. Yeah. People want to do the quick way. They don't want to put into hard work. Yeah. And it's whatever. Iran. Iran so far away.

Bad joke. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. Economic crisis that's going on over there. To say the least. Yeah, to say the least. And I have a Yahoo article was talking about why Bitcoin is needed over there.

And the currency, obviously, the real is getting smoked. You have the official exchange rate and you have on the street exchange rate and there's a disparity between the two. And over time, it's just been going to wrong direction with respect to being valued against the U.S. dollar. And sanctions are hurting their ability to buy and sell abroad. So making their currency less appealing to use. And if you believe the folks from chain analysis, they say that the use of Bitcoin and other digital assets has soared in Iran in 2025. And they say the reason for this is to park their money elsewhere and also to allow for international business to avoid sanctions. And for their sake, I hope that they aren't relying too much on stable coins.

Because stuff like USDT and USDC and USDT are centralized and they could be frozen out of whim, just a simple phone call to the node runner. And they could freeze accounts. and if I could have locked them out of their wealth, that can't happen to Bitcoin. Remember not too long ago we had the courts in Ontario getting in touch with Nunshuck. Yeah. Got a nice letter back. We'll be there for you when the currency fails too. Don't worry about it.

Can't do that on a truly decentralized platform like Bitcoin. But back to Iran, it's reported that there was a huge spike in withdrawals from exchanges to personal wallets in the past a little while. And it's possible with this economic crisis that's going on over there that new Bitcoiners have been minted in a rain. I'm positive small number, but there's going to be a few new ones. And once people buy Bitcoin, I'm going to fucking bet money. They are not going to transfer that back into the real. Maybe into USD, but not to the local currency. It just doesn't make sense.

Maybe they could have trade it for goods and services, going back to cash in local cash, no fucking way. And it's not going to be rosy for those that withdrew their Bitcoin from exchanges, right? Because they withdrew at a time when things are going crazy. It's likely they are KYC from those exchanges. And now they have a target on their back by the government. The government now knows those people withdrew and has X amount of Bitcoin on their balance sheet. I don't think it's going to be a good time moving forward for those people,

especially if they want to sell that information. Remember we talked about in France. last week, some crooked people working for the government sold that gang. Same thing could happen here, right? It's very much possible. But it's just goes to show you, when things go sour, Bitcoin is a good alternative to whatever is being offered about a country. We lead the show with me saying friends and enemies all the time. We have it on the t-shirts. It's in a lot of our content. Here's the reason why. You know what Iran's total crypto activity is in dollars? it's about 7.8 billion.

Do you know how much of that is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard? Five? Three. So about half. About half of the total is them. So whether you are a friend or enemy, it works for you. And over the last year, Len, the IRGC usage is increased by 40%. So they are using it a bunch to skirt a bunch of different sanctions and monitoring.

God knows what else. Yeah, it's actually crazy. They think that these guys are funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and Sarala, which is in Yemen, that's the Houthis, the Iraq militias, and there's additional Assyrian, Assyrian and Palestinian networks that are being funded by the IRGC through Bitcoin crypto, whatever. Weapons procurement, ops funding, tactical stuff. This is how they're paying for a lot of it. This is obviously a big knock. I mean, a knock for sort of midwits, I think, that you can do this with. money, but obviously, you know, pallets of cash of American dollars work the same. You can

Google that if you like. It makes me wonder when this thing gets, if it ever gets resolved, if this civil unrest somehow, I'm wondering if they're going to be ripe for another attack by Israel. I don't know. Because Israel obviously is not going to do it now. You're not going to attack your enemy when your enemy is killing themselves. They're doing whatever they can to weaken themselves. But when this stops, if it ever stops, I'm wondering if Israel, we'll just step in and say, like, you know, we're to continue what we started some time ago and it could escalate in something big. I'm just wondering.

I also should point out that, you know, we often hear one of the criticisms, again, from like the sort of least, the lowest common denominator. I'm trying to be nicer on the show. The lowest common denominator types will say, well, Bitcoin's not going to work if your internet goes out. Well, we're going to see you now because it seems to me like Iran has cut the internet at least at some level. and assuming that people want to move their capital out of Iran or take it with them somewhere or keep it safe during all this and not in the bank and not in their basement, you know, whatever, Bitcoin is a good proxy.

So let's see how much use goes up. Also, Len, like you mentioned it, the currency is at zero over there. So you've basically lost every dollar of value that you've accrued, whether you're a business owner or a taxi driver. and you had nothing to do with it. You're dealing with an oppressive government who squandered, you know, God knows how much of a head start they had. Everyone's seen these sort of pre-Islamic revolution pictures from the 70s.

And you're at the mercy of government action or inaction when it comes to the currency value. I can't tell people enough that not having any Bitcoin exposes you to this. Like, you know, we're about to enter into a trade deal with. China in this country, for those who think we're insulated. We're about to enter into a trade deal with China. What's going to happen to the currency of China that pulls the plug one day? Or if the U.S. decides that

they're going to really impose some serious sanctions on us because of the partnership. What happens to the Canadian dollar? You can be the judge of that. You'll find out very quickly. And if you're saving in that currency, there's no helping you. No one's going to come bail you out.

If they print to try and make up the difference in value, it just makes it worse. you get stuck in a real loop there. And I don't think many people realize that. And the sooner they realize it, the better. The problem, like we always say, though, is that once you need it, it's too late. And so for a lot of these Iranians, unfortunately, and it could happen here. It could happen anywhere.

It's going to be too late once people figure it out. You know, the other thing, too, is that war is now a sort of digital frontier first and foremost as well, a monetary frontier first and foremost. It's not a boots on the ground, first thing. And so, you know, boots on the ground used to be a leading indicator or troop movements or worship movements or whatever. But now you may not even, you may not even get that much warning, you know? The first time you realize there's a problem that might be with the currency.

And then by that time, it's really too late. So keep that in mind. The people that are being impacted there the most, in my opinion, are the ones that are pensioners, seniors. Totally. totally if they have no ability to earn any money they're relying totally of what they've earned and if it's 100% tied into the real or whatever it's called their local currency they're fucked yeah and sam oh well it sucks for them and you're at the CBP where empathy is the name of the game big sucks sucks for you suck on that buddy suck on that's uh let's transition let's transition let's let's go to the notable side there's long Lots to fucking talk about. Yeah, we got a lot going on.

If you're on Twitter, I can see that all you guys are watching on Twitter. Come to YouTube, okay? I promise. The chat is fine. It's not hostile. I'll be able to see the things you comment. And also, we can see and the YouTube chat can see the things you comment. So it's easier like that.

I don't have to stop the show to say, I see a guy on Twitter, which I usually do, but I haven't done in a while. So let's go over. If you're on audio, see it tomorrow. If you're on video, come over to YouTube. We're not going anywhere. We'll talk to you soon. Don't be a cock.