What Bitcoin Did - The Most Bullish Thing About Bitcoin | Alex Thorn

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

“Who is left now that wants to sell at $65K?” Bitcoin has gone through the price pain. Now comes the time pain. Alex Thorn, Head of Firmwide Research at Galaxy, is back on the show in New York to get into whether Bitcoin has already found its bottom, why sellers may finally be exhausted, and how the next rally could begin before the wider market notices. We discuss the on-chain signals around $58K, the changing shape of Bitcoin’s market cycles, and how the enormous debt funding the AI boom could revive the currency-debasement narrative and put Bitcoin back at the centre of the market. We also get into whether a court can declare dormant Bitcoin “abandoned,” the attempt to claim legal ownership of coins linked to Satoshi, the quantum-computing risk, government control of superintelligent AI, and the last-minute fight to protect self-custody through the CLARITY Act. *Note, this was recorded before the recent Coldcard vulnerability. For more info watch this… https://youtu.be/rf-9rf93OpE THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: LEDN SWAN ANCHORWATCH BLOCKWARE BITKEY CAPE FOLLOW: Danny Knowles: https://x.com/_DannyKnowles Alex Thorn: https://x.com/intangiblecoins

If you have assets that you like to possess yourself, you should have Bitcoin. Because like it is money that they can't take from you. It is money that you can send anywhere in the world at any time. Really what's likely to happen, there will be an AI that's too powerful to be public. And if China is going to give it to their people and we're not going to give it to ours, of course that disadvantages us. And I bet you would see the US force China to close theirs off too. So much debt being issued to pay for all the data centers, not just here, but worldwide.

I think you're going to see substantial, like the fiscal impulse is going to become substantial. You're going to hear about like the debasement story is going to come back. And all of a sudden, you're going to look at Bitcoin. It's going to be at like 90K. And everyone's going to be like, oh, no, I need Bitcoin because of the store. And all of a sudden, it's just everybody remembers why they liked Bitcoin in the first place. And then like, bam, it's no longer in like a bear market. It's sort of just like chugging along.

If I had to ask you, would the Bitcoin price be higher if Saylor had never bought Bitcoin? What do you think the answer would be? How's it going, man? I'm really good, man. Good to see you in New York. Good to see you. I got in 23 hours late, but I'm here. I can't believe it.

I was shocked. Was there like a 23 hour flight delay? Was there a, like I saw there was a hurricane in New Jersey yesterday. Oh yeah. I guess there was yesterday. I only caught a glimpse of it from the office, but I guess there was a tornado warning. There was like a thunderstorm that rolled through.

To be fair, rather than not being a plane in the hurricane. That's true. What's going on? I mean, it's all, it's all like AI and clarity, clarity act. And just right now in this, this, the summer doldrums market that we're in. It's hot. Bottom of the bear market.

We're begging folks in Washington to bust their butts on our behalf. And it's like a 97 degree swamp down there. And we're like, please get it done in the last minute. So I would say it's a, it's been an exciting summer, even though the market has been quite boring, I would say overall. Yeah. I think it's true in both equity. maybe boring's not the right word, but, you know, it's not a particularly bullish moment we find ourselves in

for Bitcoin or for equities, really. You know, it's like ebbs and flows. It's always exciting. It's the never-ending saga. So I spend no time in the data, but all I have is vibes. And when you've been in Bitcoin a bit, you kind of work. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

And I do feel like we must be close to a bottom. Yeah, I do too. I put out a report in June that said, I looked at the metrics that, that consistently topped, peaked, spiked at other prior tops, and consistently bottomed at other prior bottom. So I have all these metrics. I basically set Claude code to say, go look, like in my own database, which by the way is what I would recommend,

you don't get a lot of hallucinations when you put binding constraints on the AI to only use the data you give it, right? But what data is that? So in this case, it's like all-derived Bitcoin metrics. So like everything, if you think of like coin metrics and glass, like MVRV and SOPR and NOPOL and Hottle and HottleWave data and seller data, right? Like on chain movements. This is thorn on chain.

Yes, literally. And like mayor multiple and like moving averages, like all that type of stuff, right? And I just and so I created a catalog of which ones reliably mark tops and bottoms. And then of course we go and we look at what, which of those did the topping indicators hit in October or in around that top? have the bottoming indicators hit now. And interestingly, of course, we didn't, a lot of the topping indicators didn't hit. Some of them hit well before,

like after the election and never recovered again. In a way, almost like a, so a dampening of the amplitude of the top. And part of my thesis is like that may also like cap the downside because like the prior bear market bottoms are like 75 to 85% down. We've not gotten that far. And I really don't think we will.

I don't, I mean, touch word, me neither. But that's actually interesting because this ran early. Like with the ETFs in Start 24, right? ETFs like Bitcoin ran. Then it ran really hard into the Trump election. Do you think we just had everything a bit too soon? Yeah, in a way. Some of the topping indicators hit in the post-ETF all-time high and never hit again.

And so I agree. I mean, look, we remember this. I know James Check called it chop consolidation. That at 24, right? New all-time high like in February 24, having, I think, in April. So first time the new all time high in a cycle came before the having, which is what had everyone asking is the end of the cycle or whatever. Then we chopped for 237 days until the sort of Trump election run up. I mean, we got to like 100 right after that.

And then we only got to 125 after all of 2025, right? I mean, it just feels like it should have gone higher. And frankly, this is, people have talked about this too. 2021 felt like it should have gotten higher 100%. So it's kind of like you're in obviously, you know, like the, whether it's those power law people or whatever, like the growth is slowing. Like the curve is bending towards flatter. But again, like if you look at the bottom at the start of 2023, it was like 15.7.

Is that where we opened that year, you know, following FTX's collapse. We're at 60. I'm looking at my watch like it's a block clock. We're at sixth. And this one isn't working. Thomas, get this block. clock working actually. It's not even plugged in. That's probably why. So it's purely an art piece. You know, we're at 65K right now. That's materially higher bottom, right? And 58 is held a couple

times now. To me, I ran a poll at Galaxy among the trading team and the risk and research teams, basically the markets team at Galaxy about like two nights ago. And I put it in the WhatsApp our group chat. And I was like, is this price action? Is it grinding higher, ultimately grinding higher or is it bare market noise like is 58 to 65 like the start of something and literally like 30 people voted in the poll and it was evenly split 15 15 between those two options so people don't know is it time to be are we is 58 the bottom where we've tested like four times personally I like to see it bounce harder off 58 and I'm kind of like in maybe the bear market like you know maybe set 70 I say okay call it a clean bounce there now 58 but you know 65

is close to 63, which is practically 60, which is 58. In my mind, it's just too close. So I think part of the thesis is that, but a big reason why, you know, I think I can go into the 50s, it could even see a 40, I think is possible. That's where I wrote. It's not necessarily likely, but every day that it doesn't like go down, it starts to, I mean, who is left to sell? That's the other big part.

One of the big things I looked at in that report and I tweet about a lot is like dormant coins moving on chain, which of course does not always mean a sale. It often does. I can tell you, I haven't moved coins out of my cold storage, like set up ever. Yeah. So,

like, we had two of the biggest years ever of like, you know, three, five, seven, 10 plus year dormant coins waking up in 24 and 25. Only rivaled by 2017,

but of course, 2017 didn't have the volume of like 10 plus year coins. We had a fairly large amount of those last year. As of halfway through this year, we're looking at, if it's like the first half, second half mirrors the first half,

It'll be less than half the coins at the end of this year. So, like, it's abating, right? And I think that supply side dynamic makes it much more likely that we've bought them. And then you just, like, think through that story. You're talking about ETFs in Jan 24. And this whole story that we've lived through the last two years, like, if you bought, like, the ETF buildup at the end of 23 or, like, the ETF launch is in, like, the 40s, or if you bought during chop consolidation, you know, which is, like, 40 to 60s, like, you're,

you're held from a 60K buy in like 2024 till now you're flat. You've had so many chances to sell. Even when you, if you didn't like the all time high and you decided to sell once you thought it was going down, we rallied back a bunch of times. We were just at 82.5 just in April of this year, like two months ago,

three months ago. Like, so if you, people who felt like when it went to 60, oh crap, I should have sold, they were given them 30% increase to sell into. Like,

who is left now that wants to sell at 65? I think it's materially diminished seller at this point. That's my guess. So then you asked about the demand side, though. Then we have to think about the demand side. And that's also tricky. The demand side is an interesting one. So I've had this conversation with a few people privately.

I don't think of talks about on the podcast. If I had to ask you, would the Bitcoin price be higher if Saylor had never bought Bitcoin? What do you think the answer would be? That is such a good question. I've not ever asked myself. that question. High or lower. Well, because, I mean, he was what?

He started buying in summer 2020. Yep. And he didn't buy that much in the beginning. And we got to basically this price without him having bought any of that. Yeah. The big pump last time it got to this sort of price was really Elon must buying. Yeah. I mean, he was about 40K or something.

Yeah. And like this is when Michael Rahani worked at Tesla, right? And like built out their Bitcoin payments thing. And then Elon rugged by selling some and saying he was testing, liquidity in the market. It was great times. I don't know. I don't know the answer. They still own Bitcoin though. Yeah, they don't know. They own a bunch of Bitcoin, specifically. I don't just Tesla. Tesla still owns Bitcoin too. Yeah, well, there you go. I mean, he didn't sell at all or anything. But then he, remember he said the thing about like that Bitcoin miners need to like become

more energy efficient for him to. And of course, they remember him having a debate with Marty about that. Yeah. And this is like obviously a pretty old debate. I think people that understand energy now. Like it's not really very credible critique of Bitcoin mining. They're very supportive to grids and like you need a lot of electricity. As soon as AI turned up. Well, yeah, now it's kind of like the target has turned a little bit. It's not quite all the way there, but it's probably about equal to the amount that was, I mean, it wasn't like that mainstream of a criticism for Bitcoin mining.

I don't know, I guess it got kind of mainstream. If you hold Bitcoin long enough, there's going to come a time when you need some dollars. It might be a tax bill, a business expense, life getting in the way, but whatever it is, it might come at a time when you don't want to sell your Bitcoin. That's where Lennon comes in. Lennon lets you borrow against your Bitcoin instead. with tiered rates that go as lower 9.25%, so you don't have to sell your stack if you don't want to.

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Head over to swan.com forward slash WBD and booking a call with one of their team. That's SWAN.com forward slash WBD. But the thing is, like, the facts were always on our side with that. I feel like people like Daniel Batt and Troy Cross did amazing work at dispelling that foot. Right. And I think, but for Saylor, I mean, I think he's done a lot for Bitcoin adoption. And I think, I also think, by the way, on the supply side of this current moment, like, they've, they've substantially raised cash now, I think, to mostly, like, settle any fears that, like, there'd be, like, a recursive spiral.

Which I think is a really good idea from them. I think, look, it was so funny, though, was a big pivot for them, like, to basically say, we're going to actively manage this book. Yeah. Because he had been, he had designed the entire thing as just a pure, like, money in the door. Instabai Bitcoin, money in the door, instibai. No, like, that's what we do. Yeah. And that's why you should own a Bitcoin Treasury company, by the way, because they are like predictable permanent buyers. But he isn't really a Bitcoin treasury company by his own admission now. He's a digital credit purveyor, right? So it's different. It has different needs. I mean, he didn't have to do the

preferred issuances that add this complexity with liabilities before. You know, initially he was just selling MSTR stock when it was trading above the value of his Bitcoin and then buying Bitcoin with it. But he was able to stack quite a lot using the... A hell of a lot. Yeah, using these new vehicles. So, I mean, look, I really respect strategy and Michael Saylor. And one of the things that I am so fascinated by is the creativity they have on the financing side. So he should be thought as one of the world's premier financial engineers. Everyone thinks I don't like Saylor, which is just not true. But the, and I don't think he's been a negative to Bitcoin.

But the question I would have is, like, has his buyside been that instrumental in the sense that without him, obviously he's been a huge buyer over the last few years, as of ETFs? They've been like the two main buyers. Would the Bitcoin price be higher or lower without the whole treasury company thing ever existing? I think it's a really interesting conversation. Because like, if you ask, like, if I had to just completely guess, obviously no one

knows the answer to this, I would say maybe it's the same. Like maybe it hasn't actually made a huge increment. I mean, yeah, because also the demand that powered those could have just bought the ETFs or Bitcoin. Yeah, like it's, I think it's, yeah, I think that's a fair thing, way to think of it, that it could be replacement for demand, not it's substantially more demand. Especially when you look at like the, the people that are buying the treasury companies is generally like retail investors who probably could just buy Bitcoin. Right. I think so. I think, um, I think that's a, it's a fascinating counterfactual to think about. I think, um, look, your interview with Michael, I think you interviewed him what, right? after I did, like a month after.

Yeah. I have to admit, I struggled to get my questions in. He was doing his filibuster routine. And I was really proud of your questions to him. And I frankly thought his reactions were really telling to people and was not taken well. And frankly, as a person who does a show myself, looking at a person who does a show like you, like we have obviously different shows. And you did a service, I think, to the community by asking him,

that question. And frankly, it was an incredible clip. That was great media. How well did that clip do? It's funny. I saw him in Vegas and he did a show with Pete and I was in the room of Pete when he was setting up and Pete just made a very offhand joke being like, you're not going to shout at me like you didn't Danny do you. He was like, hey, I made Danny go viral. Yeah. Yeah, you did. Thank you, sir. Yeah. I mean, I think it was a great interview. I don't see. And I love interviewing Michael because he's just like a crazy mind that has all these like really fascinating ideas and his story has evolved so much. I mean, he talks about this all the time. Like, he, I mean, he hated Bitcoin. Yeah. Now he's, he's well beyond just loving Bitcoin. He's

got this whole new bigger idea. It's really interesting. So, no, I like him. And, and, yeah, me too. Like, the thing that I, I think I miss is the 2020, 2020, 2021 sailor. Like, just being truthful. And, like, he can do whatever the hell he wants. And, like, who am I to say what he can do? But, like, that's the sale that I miss. Because I thought he was really on it back then. And I feel like the digital credit thing has kind of strayed a little bit. And I don't, one of the things that I really don't particularly like is talking about making Bitcoin better money through these digital credit products. Like, that's something that kind of just rubs me up the wrong way. Yeah. But like it's kind of by the buy. It doesn't really matter.

But I just, I think it is interesting to think about what the demand side would be like without a, the Treasury company's ever having existed. It is very interesting. And I do not, I do not know. And look, there are a lot of them are not having existed at this point. I know. You see Satsuma's gone now. Satsuma and I mean, I don't know what 21 is going to do, but obviously with Jack announcing.

I don't know. I literally do not know. I mean, I was, Jack didn't, he wasn't that forthcoming about exactly what the underlying issue was, right? He said he has a disagreement with the board. So you don't know what that means. Me neither. And I always find it very hard because like Jack is a friend of both of ours.

It's hard talking about a friend in this kind of way without being here. But like, I feel like some of the hints that he was giving. were that obviously he was saying the direction was different between what the company wants and what he wanted. I think it's the right move for him to step down if that's the case. And I'm also super psyched that Jack's going to be unleashed Jack again. Like one of the things I don't like about the public company stuff is that no one can say what they think.

Like everyone has to be so careful. I mean, especially if you're the CEO of a publicly listed company, right? Because you have to file 8Ks when you're peer places. Like you really can't say. And of course, this is true for. really any company, but even more so for a publicly listed one, like, you've got this fiduciary due to your shareholders. Yeah.

You got to, if it possibly contradicts with the, you know, value of the stock, you have to be careful. And then, yeah, there's lawyers and there's like, I mean, private company is a lot different. Yeah. I also like, I mean, I've just always enjoyed strike. I think it's a good app. It's been a great app. It's, it's Jack and his team are cool.

Jack is one of the coolest people in my view in Bitcoin. 100%. I mean, his whole bit with the closet, I die laughing every time I see. Jack and Dylan, they crush you, man. I know, they do. But it's, like, Sasam is small relative to the other treasury companies, but like 650 Bitcoin or something. It's not insignificant.

Yeah, there's others, though. I don't, I've stopped, I mean, to kind of partly to the point, like, I don't really follow the treasury companies much anymore. But the reason I bring it up is, like, these are the things that feel like bottom signals to me. Yeah, I think there's some truth to that. I think, and there was a whole, like, rage quit of, like all these people, like Jeremy Grant them, all these like, all the old jokers came out to

like Dunk on Bitcoin. That always happens at the bottom. Remember like Peter Zahan? Like this always happens. When you're saying Bitcoin's $17,000 too high. It's going to go negative. Yeah. And we're like, dude, well, you were literally exactly wrong.

In fact, you basically painted the bottom. Yeah. I mean, look, like it's a long history of Bitcoin making critics look stupid. I'm, I think the demand side going forward, though, I think you're not right. Like sailors, I don't, you're not going to see them buying a ton. probably for the rest of the year, maybe some, depending on what happens. You know, he said that he'll be buying the top forever

to Laura Shen that time, right? Which is a bang of clip. I love it. And it has multiple meanings. But one of them, I mean, it's, I like the meaning that, like, he's a buyer at all prices. So it's like, you know, if you buy the real estate market in the US,

like the last 30 years, you've been buying the top forever. And it's also like he's one of us. Like, I buy the top every time. Exactly. But it's also that, like, he is structurally, practically, and capable of not buying the top.

That's when he gets the leverage to buy. He needs the exuberance because that's what creates the premium on his stock. So actually, like, I haven't released this yet, but I've been working on like an academic study. Like the ETFs and Sailor both are structural price followers, like mathematically speaking. They're lacking in the CAO. It makes total sense for Saylor. The ETFs can be a little bit more surprising to think about. But again, Sailor, he needs the momentum to exist already.

So it's not like you'll see headlines that are like, Bitcoin rises on like strategies big buy. And it's like it's the opposite. It's actually the opposite. It's almost always the opposite. Yeah. So like he'll be buying the top forever because that's when he's structurally able to buy. Right.

And so and you can see me now the digital credit like thing engine as he calls it like that that did create like a counterfactual like Bitcoin's going down. Demand is declining while he was still. I mean the beginning of this year I forget the numbers but he bought tons of Bitcoin with that. It was very affected. So but I think about it sort of more generally going for this. year like if you go and ask somebody like what do you think you don't own enough of bitcoin or like

invidia stock right for most of this year i think most people even bit corners would say i'm definitely underweight AI and i wish i was longer AI and um so it bitcoin's been competing with that whole trend and then there's like a you know the whole like derivative and you know supply chain trends around that data centers neoclods memory chips the metals that go into them whatever right like all that stuff has just ripped this year. But all of it right now at this moment, it's all kind of like, eh, it's like it's probably a local top. I have no idea. Not like the top, but like I think frankly like that, if you call it a pullback or the flattening a little bit of that AI trade, is help is being supportive of Bitcoin. Yeah. A little bit. Right. I agree with that. There were a lot of

people who definitely like called up their broker and they were like, because they bought the ETF and they're like not deep into Bitcoin and they're like, hey, that Bitcoin thing's not doing well. Like sell it and like buy Nvidia. Like, there's definitely a lot of that, right? So I think a lot of that has probably abated temporarily too. And then like, you know, clarity can be a catalyst, although probably Bitcoin's not the primary beneficiary of it. I mean, even Gensler said Bitcoin was a commodity, right? So like, but it couldn't be a, I think it will be if it passes and can become law. That'll be a demand catalyst. But then it's like the age old story, like Bitcoin's momentum reflexive assets, one of the most reflexive assets in the world.

It's like a VEblen good. People want to buy it when it starts going up. So like you'll have people if we go, if we just like the hodlers that are owning it down here at 60K, we're still DCA and buying. I, you know, disclaimer like I own Bitcoin. I buy Bitcoin regularly on a programmatic basis and have for a long time. But we just bleed this thing higher because the sellers are exhausted. Then at some point it all starts to kick in.

The narrative reemerges. I think there's a chance that you're going to see like, you know, the stuff that's happening in debt, there's so much debt, the corporate debt, there's so much debt being issued to pay for all the data centers, not just here, but worldwide. I think you're going to see substantial, like the fiscal impulse is going to become substantial. You're going to hear about like the debasement story is going to come back. And all of a sudden, you're going to look at Bitcoin.

It's going to be at like 90K and everyone's going to be like, oh, no, I need Bitcoin because of the store. And all of a sudden, it's just everybody remembers why they liked Bitcoin in the first place. And then like, bam, it's no longer. in like a bear market, it's sort of just like chugging along. Like that, it's, I think James has talked about this, James Check, and I totally agree with it. Like, it's not just the price bottoming that, the price pain that has to happen. It's the time pain. People just need time to like be angry, like sell or whatever, then get so bored, go away for a while, forget about it,

then like get their interest peaked again. Like, that just takes time. Yeah. And yeah, it's going to happen. And truthfully, I don't think most people's interest gets peaked until the price starts going up again. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So you need the sort of like, you know, But the price can't really go up until all those people have already sold, basically. And that's why we debate, like, the supply, there's not, I just don't think there's nearly as much supply looking to sell at these levels as there was. Yeah. No, I agree with that. One of the interesting things I think, you can tell me if you think this is stupid. But with the AI trade, obviously that took so much of the wind out of Bitcoin sales last year. And the companies that have done really well are the data centers and the chip manufacturers, that kind of thing.

Do you think that they could almost be like what the Bitcoin miners used to be to Bitcoin to AI, in that they're almost like a proxy vehicle to get exposure to AI? And when we see like obviously SpaceX has now gone live, Anthropical and IPO, Open AI are going to IPO, do you think they're all going to get crushed when there's like a real vehicle that is actually like explicitly AI exposure? That's an interesting question. I think I don't think so.

I'll tell you why. One, the frontier labs, right, they are purveyors of models, right? They don't own primarily, so maybe they have some, but they're not the purveyors of energy and compute typically, right? Most of them are using data center, neocloud, hyperscalor contracts, and they're creating the models. The open source models are getting substantially better. I mean, all models are getting better, but it feels at least right now like the gap

between the frontier and the open source is declining. Well, Kimmy K3 beat everything pretty much, didn't it? Well, on like a couple benchmarks, yeah, not necessarily all of them. Okay. But he's close. Yeah, I mean, even like six months ago, I think the conventional wisdom was that the open sources were like a year behind the frontier. And wherever, whether they're behind or beating or even, everyone agrees that's collapsed substantially.

Yeah. Now it could expand again. Like, I don't know if the frontier labs get access to like troves of proprietary datasets that make them able to train better or if, you know, like they can, they can hoard the better new chips and train the models on the better new chips that the open source purveyors can't. Like, okay, it could expand. But those open source models still need data centers.

They just cut out the paying the middleman token. So, like, I actually think you could see the frontier labs need to move more into the application space and not rely on selling tokens. That's what they do. They are token merchants, right? And so I think there's, I mean, there's so many angles to these parts of these stories, but I think it's possible that your theory that the, you know, like a public anthropic IPO could take the wind out of sales of like what, a Microsoft or, you know, a neocloud.

The irons of the world. Yeah. Or the galaxies, right? We have our own data centers as well, big ones. And but I think the reality, I think more likely what's going to happen is that those models are disrupted by open source models, which, by the way, have, are really big and need, they need them. So instead of maybe paying anthropos.

bigger companies first, but then maybe depending on how easy this gets, bigger enterprises start getting their own compute and running the open source models on them, but thereby bypassing the spending on anthropic and open AI, it's possible. I think this is a, but again, there's no one knows. Because there's also the added variable

that no one knows about, which is what the US government are going to do. Like they've clearly been holding back these frontier models. Right. And like, I feel like their hands getting forced and they're going to have to just unleash them. I agree.

I mean, but yes, the questions of alignment and safety and regulation and the geopolitics of it are very substantial. Does safety matter, though, if they're holding back these U.S. companies because of safety concerns, which might be totally valid. But like the Chinese models don't care. Like, do they just be like, okay, how about it? Well, yeah.

I mean, that's the AI arms race. I mean, there's a couple. I mean, you could imagine there's great essays, AI 2027. Have you read this or yeah, 2040? So, like, the game theoryed out, like, so many different possible outcomes. It's really, really fun. I recommend people check that out.

And, no, you can end up with a massive accord between China and the U.S. to stop the arms race. Just like during the Cold War, it's totally possible, right? To, like, I mean, I don't know. How much better do you think it can really get? Like, I mean, I'm doing stuff with, like, 5.6 and Fable that is, like, just literally mind bending versus. just like four months ago. So like, yeah, I mean, I guess it can probably always get better.

You know, it can get cheaper. I think this is like really what's likely to happen. There will be an AI that's too powerful to be public. Yeah. And if China is going to give it to their people and we're not going to give it to ours, of course, that disadvantages us. And I bet you would see the U.S. forced China to close theirs off to. And so then the evolution would become making it cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and more accessible, right? And we're in that spot now. That's the, that's the, starting to be what happens. Wait, so you think that they might end up capping intelligence being like, this is as smart as we're going to allow this to get? I think it's almost certainly inevitable at some point. I mean, if the truth is that we simply can't make it smarter, like let's say we hit

the wall, that's the only other thing that's going to stop it from growing, otherwise wouldn't just get smarter forever? Yeah, but what like... That's dangerous. It's absolutely dangerous. Sure. Like, no, it's definitely dangerous. Yeah. I agree with that. Governments are going to involve themselves. I think it's very obvious. But is that not almost like Bitcoin where it's like, Yes, this can be used for bad things, but it can also be used for great things. Yeah, but Bitcoin can't literally destroy the Earth. Like, it can't create like Terminator robots, right? It can't itself train robots to build a factory to build more robots and then invade

your city like in, you know, like in Minority Report or I-Robot or I-Robot. But is this like holding a balloon underwater where you're like, you hold it down as long as you can? Yes. And to be clear, I'm like an optimist about AI. I just think like there's no world where like everyone's going to get like literally like extraterrestrial superhuman intelligence that can crack any lock. Like that's not going to be allowed. And so I think I don't know where that is.

I certainly don't want to, I don't think it's here like it's now. But I think at some point like there, I think conceptually there is absolutely a model too smart to let everyone use. And the question I think what we need. But the problem is like I, so I think you're so right. I think there is probably a model that's too smart to let everyone use.

But they'll still use it. That's my problem with it. Well, this is like one of the theses in this AI 2040 is that like they literally set up where like all of the U.S.'s training is in like Mongolia right next to China and all of China's is in Canada so we can both easily just bomb it like in a literal like, you know, mutual sure destruction. Yeah. I think. But that's like that that seems to me like you're accepting the permanent underclass. You're like you're giving the government control to use this AI that's way too powerful for the public. Well, it's not clear.

I mean, I think one of the, I think they probably both ban as well. I mean, it's just like the government didn't also use the nukes, like when we had. But they could. Well, they could, but they didn't. Well, they did twice. Well, that's true. But those before, I mean, the treaties is what I'm saying. Yes.

So I don't know. Yeah, it's totally possible. It's not clear which way. Also, I mean, look, if you can't stop the distillation, then the models can't. I mean, it looks pretty clear now that you can basically reverse engineer a frontier model into an open source model. And so, like, if it's available anywhere, it's basically going to be available everywhere right away. So like, you know, and then that, you know, what I hope is that if we start capping or segregating or regulating, that we do it in a transparent way. Like what I wrote a piece last month about this mythos thing where commerce department effectively called Anthropic on the phone and said, kill it under this authority.

They never wrote a letter. They never published anything in the federal register. That was completely an appropriate way to do it in my opinion. Yeah. And it's not the, it needs to be done under statute. There's got to be a process or whatever. going to start doing this. Then it's got to at least be done through law, right? It can't be like you get a call on night and says cut off these users from your model. Like, that's crazy.

But then like, I again, I totally agree just like to get into the semantics of it. Like the hard thing about that is that they almost like, the anthropics and the open eyes of the world almost have to like submit their model to the government first, be like, is this okay? I don't like that. I agree. But like I, I'm saying there's a decent probability that ends up happening. I mean, honestly. But is this not just where China wins then? Well, the Well, I mean, if they can catch up. I mean, no, I mean, I'm not sure. Maybe.

I mean, China's giving it away. I think the strategy is so interesting here that they are, they're not trying to make their own frontier models or frontier labs for profit at the moment, I guess. I'm sure they're doing some private, you know, government type training somewhere. But like, their strategy is just like flood the zone. Like, at least have everyone use ours. It reminds me of like this time, I think Bill Gates was asked once if he was upset that there was all these people pirating windows in China.

And he was like, I'm happy they're pirating ours and not the others. I'd rather have them use ours than the others. And I was like, I think that's kind of what China's saying. Yeah, like, well, if we can't control it, we may as well have everyone use the one we're using, right? And also simultaneously degrade the U.S. like advantage, right? It degrades the U.S. advantage. It hits U.S. markets. And at any point, when they've got enough users, they can just make a close source anyway.

They could. They could or stop releasing new open source ones, right? I mean, so I don't know where that goes. I don't think, I hope it doesn't happen soon because I want to keep getting better intelligence. And yeah, I don't want you to be walking around. And by the way, there's way other more dystopian. They can start saying which models each person can use. So they'd be like, well, Danny, you know, you've only been in the United States for two weeks.

So you only get access to like 4-0. You don't get access to 5-6. What? They could do that type of stuff, like, which is another reason I like open source, by the way. Because I run some open-source models at home, just not like huge ones because, like, I don't have a data center. But so I don't know. That's going to get really, really exciting. Do you want to pay less in taxes and stack more?

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Dot world and use the code WBD. That's where another place that Europe and the rest of the world are kind of messing up is that like what good models coming out of Europe. I think there's one. I don't even know what it's called. Yeah, I don't know. But also, we have so much energy. Like, right? I think this is one of the good things. And I know there's, you know, the beginnings of backlash on the populist front, both left and the right, against data centers. A hundred percent. But I also think partly through the Bitcoin, Bitcoiners work, right, like Troy and Daniel, like you talked about, and others, there's a bit bigger realization now that like we can't grow and be prosperous with capping our energy use and actually

energy abundance is the way and and by the way things like wind and solar are naturally good important parts of the grid and have grown a lot as well right but like you kind of need everything and you really need to run a growing and balanced energy grid that's what it is electrical grid I think people like flip-flop too hard on either side of that where it's like either wind and solar is the only way you can do things or it's like evil to do it that way. Right. You just be like the truth is everything. Yeah, you need a bit of everything.

They all have different platform like platform use cases. I think I wish we had more nuclear energy in this country. Yeah. I hope we get some like deregulation because I've been, apparently it takes like a decade to even get a license and like no one's gotten one in like 40 years or something. But nuclear is green and huge. And baseload.

Yeah. And right. And it just goes forever. And also, I don't know. I wasn't alive then, but I'm presuming the use of nuclear weapons, but then also like the partial thing at Three Mile Island and then Fukushima and Ukraine and Chernobyl. But if you really look at those, you know, caused all this negativity about them. But if you actually look at those like none of the, well, I mean, the nuclear weapons are actually totally unrelated.

Although I get they both have the word nuclear in them. But Three Mile Island didn't melt down. Fukushima was, well, I guess the lesson is. don't build it right next to where a title wave could come. And I think only one person died. Right. We did the most amazing show I think we ever did on what Bitcoin did when we was still doing it with Pete was a guy called Anthony Jared.

I don't know if you ever listened to that episode. We recorded in Nashville. He was absolutely awesome. He used to work on nuclear submarines like looking after the nuclear reactors. Yeah. And we basically did an entire show on like why nuclear is the safest form of energy. And this all that, like anyone listening after this show, don't turn off now, after this show, go and listen to that.

Because he lays out all the stats, and it is, I think the only safer form of energy was wind, like by a very small amount. Like, nuclear is incredibly safe, incredibly powerful, baseload energy. Like, we need all the nuclear energy. Wind is intermittent. And like, also the, have you seen the pictures?

Excuse me, of the like graveyards of dead blades. Like it creates a lot of like e-waste, if we call it or whatever you want to call it. And then I was going to just say, like, you know, Fukushima was hit by a tidal wave. It wasn't actually the cause of the reactor. And Chernobyl is just obviously Soviet mismanagement. So there's actually no example of a nuclear plant just like being dangerous, right?

Like, yeah. So I hope we have more of that too soon, you know? I think it's good. They've building a new one in the UK, it's meant to open next year. Like, we need more. That's good. More. I know.

Well, New York closed one. And now they're like, you know, Mayor Mom Dani's like, please keep it at 78. Like, that's not abundance. Like, that's. Yeah, you shouldn't be living in the biggest city in the world. Like the world's greatest city. you should have the accessibility to electricity. Have it as cold as you want.

That's what I think. That's what I think. Cheers to that. Can we go way back? Because you said something before that, I mean to come back to. You were talking about Bitcoin cycles. You said like last cycle,

kind of disappointing. Like 2021, everyone was talking about 300K Bitcoin. Yeah. We got 60K Bitcoin. This time everyone was talking about a million dollar Bitcoin or at least like 300K K Bitcoin. Well, like Samson was talking about a million dollar Bitcoin. But like I think even if you sort of polled most Bitcoin is,

126 was not going to be the top. No, that was lower. But the interesting thing was, in 2017, I was much newer to Bitcoin, so I could have some of my history wrong here. 20K, I think, surprised everyone. Yeah. Why, like, obviously diminishing returns, but why?

Like, do you think we'll ever get those increases that people aren't necessarily expected? Yeah, some people say that there could be like an S where it's like, yeah, levels off here and then it goes like that again one day. The euphoria when it got to 20K, I remember being absolutely insane. Well, it 10 bagged in like, it went from 2K to 20K in about four or five months,

like six months. So that was one thing. In fact, actually, if I recall, on Labor Day weekend in 2021, it crashed below 2K, I think. It might be below 3K. Wait, 2020. Sorry, 2017. Yeah, okay. 2017.

And yes, thank you. So Labor Day, 2021, I think it crashed like over. I remember I was on a ferry somewhere and we're like, oh, my God, it's tanking, right? And then just like December 17th, I think, is the top at 20,000. It's just that like it was so classically parabolic. Yeah. Right. And it had been, you know, 300, just a year prior, three to 600 in 2016.

And also it was the first time that like it truly ran to a level that made it like a genuine, relevant asset globally. And I always think of 2017 is that was the era where Bitcoin became a household name. Right. Like everyone didn't understand Bitcoin, but everyone had heard a Bitcoin. That's why I don't like when people use the Google trends for Bitcoin, like looking up the term Bitcoin. Like, who is in 2026? I'm looking at you, camera. Who in 20206 is Googling the word Bitcoin? It's like Google, Bitcoin, right?

Like, everybody already knows what it is. You're more likely to type in Bitcoin in your brokerage account and see what the price is or on a trading app or type in Michael Saylor. There's still other stuff to learn about. right but I don't know who um so I know I agree I think look I think um the diminution returns I think it's a bigger there's a lot of debate about this I know like Jeff Park totally disagrees with this idea that like the bigger the asset the more it takes to um you know move it but it's all marginal isn't it yeah I think it's just all marginal I think like um look you just had a lot of look we got the support from the Trump administration and the

candidate Trump that also means like half the people didn't like it right like yeah it hasn't I did see a video of Stephen Miller talking about debanking, like, certain types. I don't know if I didn't, I don't want to mischaracterize the legal aliens or whatever. And I was like, you know, you could, I think Bitcoin is definitely a political tech. And you could see the other side one day decide they need the censorship resistant store of value features, you know, and maybe the resumption of higher growth rates in price is correlated to when, both sides say they need it. So there's definitely been like a stratification of the ownership, I think.

I mean, I had people tell me that older investors, they didn't want to buy it till they heard Trump say he liked it. That's what made them look at it. I mean, so it's like, and you can imagine it was the reverse for other people, right? So I think, you know, when people truly need it, it still really had, we know people all of the world who need it, truly need it, right? But, you know, in America, I have pretty good access to financial services and assets that can be used for store of value or hedging or risk, right? But that may not always be true.

And I think you'll see more people decide they actually need and want it. Yeah. I think, like, the idea of financial privacy is definitely not just a left-wing idea, but it feels like a pretty left-wing idea. Yeah. Like, these are the people that should care about it. And I do worry that, like, the Trump administration have put off that whole part of it. of the yeah yeah but it's all it's all um you know it's all cyclical it's all ebbs and flows right like bitcoin none of this is bitcoin's fault right like bitcoin's just chugging it's a cryptographic signature

machine decentralized with hashing right and like and that's just does a thing yeah um it's all just narratives that we put on it and um those narratives have evolved and pivoted so many times not by design like just in culture and like by markets um and so like i think you'll get i think you'll i think there probably will be a left-wing Bitcoin movement one day for all we know. It's useful. I mean, people have definitely tried. Yeah. Progressive Bitcoin.

Yeah, Trey. Yeah. What's Trey second now? I've forgotten. I don't know. Yeah. But like there's Trey, there's Jason Meyer. Like these people have been pushing it.

Like one of the problems I've always had with that idea is that stop putting like either side on it. Yeah. I mean, I absolutely agree. I don't think the, I haven't thought that the Trump administration. or Republicans, frankly, have genuinely made the case that Bitcoin is a conservative's asset. They've mostly made the case that it's a good asset and American dominance is good. And we do a lot of Bitcoin in America. So that's why we like it.

And I think that's true. That's not really that political to me. I think it's more just the fact that they like it that has turned off some of the left. So same question with Saylor with Trump. Do you think Bitcoin would be higher or lower without Trump ever having endorsed it? Oh, my, that is a tough one. I think it would probably be lower. Do you think?

I don't know if it would be lower at this exact moment, but I don't think it. Yeah, I do. It's tough. That's also tough. This is pretty like real fencing for me. But like with both cases, I almost think just the same. Like, yeah, you ask the question and then say unchanged. Yeah.

I mean, yeah, it's tough to know. I mean, look, the last year there was definitely some competition for interest in Bitcoin from like, alt coins. And of course, the president's been involved in those. And I think, I don't know. I don't know. I genuinely don't know. But I have to say, like, you saw the rally. I mean, I would say, no, it wouldn't be higher without, I mean, look at the rally that took us from 60 to 100 directly in response to him doing that. I mean, counterfactuals are impossible to know, but they are interesting. And this is like why I both respect the idea of like the digital gold narrative. Also, I don't like it. I think it's too simplistic. But if you're trying to explain

Bitcoin to maybe an older generation who are less like technically inclined, like it is a really easy way of explaining it. I think I just like it as money that I can control myself that is it is substantially more private than say the Zcashers will admit, right? If you use it properly, it's very private. And also, and it can't be taken away. And it's like, what am I going to? I mean, that's why like one way to think about it. And I agree, it's too simplistic. It is also a lot of other things and can be used a lot of other ways. But like, if you're going to, if you have assets that you like to possess yourself, you should have Bitcoin. Yeah. Because like it is money that they can't take from you.

It is money that you can send anywhere in the world at any time. Now, can you do that with ETH? Technically, yes, of course, but it doesn't have the same other monetary properties that Bitcoin has that you may want. Can you do that with stable coins? No, you can't. Stablecoins are great for like paying vendors or sending money across a lot of money. border. You get debased at exactly the same rate. Well, and first of all, you get debased at the same rate. So if you're trying to diversify away from like a dollar, then those offer you nothing. But also they're freezable, right? It is not immutable the way Bitcoin is. That's okay. I don't pay with the hardest money, immutable money every time. We didn't buy this beer with Bitcoin

today. I could here. Shout out, punky. Right. But like other things I absolutely might, Certainly storing value over time for a long time is one where I don't want. I want to know that it's locked away and there's nothing anyone can do to get it. Right. This is one reason why we work on quantum a little bit as well. We just announced recently the Galaxy Quantum Readiness Initiative, where we're pledging up to $5 million in grants to open source developers who work on post quantum cryptography, review code, like write bips, you know,

whatever, all that stuff. And if I think by the time this comes out, it'll be public as well that a consortium has formed the Bitcoin Security Consortium with Anchorage, Arc, BlackRock, Coinbase, Galaxy Strategy, Blockstream, and Block, I believe, all of us pledging money to help fund development of Bitcoin preparedness. That's awesome. It's because, though, like if that were to emerge, it could threaten my ability to store my Bitcoin, right? And so, like, we don't want to control Bitcoin development at all. I mean,

I'm doing, we're doing classic. I think we're working with Brink to help advise us on how to do grants properly, right, and stuff like that. So, like, we're not trying to control Bitcoin at all. We're trying to make sure it's funded. Yeah, we want people. I mean, the other all coin ecosystems are funding this. They have pre-mines and I see from ICOs and whatever and foundations that are all funding this. And the president just signed to executive orders pulling forward, like, Even if it's a low, you know, I did this, I hosted that debate in Vegas. It was like, you know, like James O'Bern's a big skeptic and I love James. I like James.

He's very smart and it's a great guy. And it's totally fine. But I actually think we reached a decent agreement that, well, like, even, you know what, even if it's BS, you know, there's no quantum computer that's ever publicly been shown to factor a number, I think, bigger than 21. Yeah. Which is ironic. Ironis.

Interesting. Do you know when that was? When? 2012. Yeah. So it's been a long time. Well, they could be being built in secret. And I think there was the Google paper from, I think, literally, like, March 31st or like

March April of this year, right? They actually provided a ZK proof that they had proven the math they did. That was a ZK proof that they, for like an algorithm, not necessarily they could actually do it. Not hardware. There is no computer that can do it today. But they've proven that the math circuitry is actually a lot simple. the computer effectively can be a lot smaller than previously thought.

And that keeps happening on the math and software side. And I think that panel, though, even with the Bitcoin, the very public skeptics, we did all kind of agree that, like, listen, classical cryptography that works for decades can eventually be broken. Totally. Like, funding and building new cryptography. Yeah, exactly, exactly with AI. So, like, but funding and testing and battle testing, new, like, secure cryptography is a good thing.

And we've added new cryptography before to Bitcoin, like the schnor. Yeah. Right. And so like that's, you know, we're not trying to force anything. I think one of the things people are afraid of when people talk about quantum is that like, oh, we're going to like rush and like squeeze something in and like then there's going to be a bug. We're all worried about that. The groups that I just told you, they all love Bitcoin.

They all own tons of Bitcoin. We don't want to fail. Like someone should be, and this is what Satoshi said. He wrote about how like when. like development needs funding he hopes that the business is built around it that profit from it will fund it right like that's and here we are i mean if uh if all we get from this is like more advanced cryptography nothing ever happens that's great and galaxy and coinbase foot the bill awesome exactly that's what i'm saying like honestly it's what i absolutely think um and i think so that one's another

thing is this noaddo case in new york oh dude we need to talk about this so i i heard about this in oslo i was talking to thomas and he told me a little bit about it but it was a very very little bit. I don't know very much at all. So you should lay this out from the ground up. So last year, there were last summer, basically, all these addresses, I think about 39,000 Bitcoin addresses were sent a message, a dust, like in an oper return, basically, in an operative, saying like, this address is abandoned. And if you don't like prove that it's not abandoned in a certain amount of time, then you're, then we're going to deem that we have, have found them or I think take constructive possession of them.

We wrote a big report about that. And then in the report, we speculated that it was possible. One possible reason these might be being sent is that whoever is behind the dusting might want to use this to lay the foundation for a legal case to try to claim legal title, legal ownership, not private key ownership, legal ownership, over these addresses under abandoned property laws. That is what ended up happening. And this anonymous plaintiff, that's what we call Noah Doe. That's what he's called in the, they're called in the court documents. And we don't know who it is. And certainly not trying to find out, right? That's the court's business. In New York State

filed this case against the addresses as, and they're, and they're arguing that, you know, without going into like every little part of the argument, but I have a whole report explains everything that they're arguing, and I disagree with a lot of their facts and analysis in that report, they're basically saying, we found these coins, like we should be given legal title over them. And now, that's not a way that they can come in and get my keys. Everyone's like, oh, my God, but they can't do the keys. That doesn't matter. I'm like, obviously they can't get the keys. No court can order an unnamed anonymous person to give up their keys. It's not going to, I mean, they can try, but it won't do anything. We all know that. But they, let's say that like anyone, regardless whether there's no

adoe or whatever, is under this theory is granted ownership legally over some dormant coins. And then, let's say those are my coins. And I go and send them to an exchange. They instantly like serve the exchange with the legal order. Right. And you know, it's cool. And now it's all a mumbo jumbo. And like, you have to think depending on the quality of their order that if they're my coins, I'm going to have lawyers. You know, if I send them to Coinbase, Coinbase would probably have to like get a bunch of lawyers and stuff. It's like it's lawfare, right? And it and it could be substantial. And by the way, substantively all of the coins that are hypothesized to belong to Satoshi Nakamoto are in that case. So they're trying to get legal title over Satoshi's

coins as well. So like this case like it now it's a it is a very clever case. For one, they don't know who any of the holders are. So they're all named as John Doe one through like 39,000. And so who's going to defend it? And they did dust the addresses again with like a notice of service. But like I don't know if you've used operetta or ever, like, or seen it. Have you ever seen it in a while? I don't think I've ever used it. Well, you probably haven't because the default for Bitcoin wallets is to just suppress dust

and not even show you dust UTXOs that have oper returns because it's spam. It happens all the time. I get it sometimes in my cold storage. It'll be like trade on the use this mining pool. It's literally people advertise and I'll return all the time, right? Yeah, exactly. No, no, let's not do Bip 110, dude. Come on, man, I know. I know that's what everyone, it's like all my Bitcoin feed is still Bip 110. We're not doing there. So like the super interesting thing there is. So for one, obviously they've hits Toshi's coins, but then we know that there's like three to four million coins that are basically presumed lost, right? So I imagine they've hit all of those. I mean, they hit coins that were like five years or more dormant or seven. I can't remember. I mean, they hit a lot of coins.

And many have moved since. Like many, many are, they hit Cassaceous coins. So there's a chance that they could have like hit my coins. I probably got a coin that's not moved to five years. We could make a, we have all the addresses because we tracked both the dusting and the case. We actually won an award. Our authors, Will Owens and Zach McCorney, won like the best crypto research of the year from the Association of Crypto Researchers and Journalists or Journalists and researchers for their report about the dusting.

But the super interesting there is like obviously completely messed up. If anyone ever moves Bitcoin to an exchange, like subpoenas might happen, whatever. Exactly. Also, if quantum ever is a real thing, that becomes a real mess because like a quantum hacker steals the coins, well, that now is illegal case. 100%. What a mess. Yes. This is like the type of, I mean, this is the saga.

It's a very clever and interesting and annoying issue, right? I mean, we, but luck, I would say. in the case, like one of the other things, not only might you not even know you're named in the case and therefore not be able to appear as a defendant to defend yourself. And I will say they have removed some addresses during the case that have subsequently moved on chain. Right. So they've been saying if these are definitively not lost, then we will remove them. But again, you would have to deanonymize yourself and know about it. Now one John Doe, 33, has filed with the court. He has asked for anonymity. I haven't seen yet whether the court has answered this.

He is answering, and he substantively wrote, and his, like, literal only identifying information he's providing at the moment, so it's not even technically clear to me that he does own the coins that John Doe 33 owns. Like, I didn't see that he's submitted, like a cryptographic proof or anything or signed message.

But he is only identifying information like John Doe 33 NY at Proton, like, privacy mail.com, right, or whatever. So, like, some, but again, it's clever because there's nobody in the case to explain to the judge, like, why the case is flawed. Because the plaintiffs are, they were granted anonymity by the court because they're like, we're bit corner blah, blah, and like, you know, it's dangerous.

They had an expert who explained, an expert witness who explained to the court, like, how $5 wrench attacks are a problem and kidnappings or whatever. And so one of the efforts has been to get people that I've seen happen is people filing amicus briefs trying to be administered. committed into the case as a friend of the court to help advise the court on the case. So one guy, they did an event here, it goes by BTC lawyer guy, Ian Cohen, he filed one, saying, I'm a bitcoiner and this harms me and this case is bad and for these reasons. And he had a hearing a couple weeks ago in New York and the judge denied him entry into the case as amicus.

But the digital chamber, one of the big crypto trades, has filed also an amicus. And they have, they're using like substantially major white shoe lawyers, like really good lawyers. They've got legit team. Oh, yeah. And part of what the denial said to Ian was that like, it's not clear that you like substantively represent the public interest. But like digital chamber, I don't know how many members they've got, but like, you know, dozens and dozens. And they've got very prominent former prosecutor as their lawyer, right? And then also our friends at the Bitcoin Policy Institute have filed a different intervention.

So not as an amicus. They are pleading to become an intervener defendant. Don't even know what that is, but it's different than just a friend of the court. Somehow they want to be made a defendant by the court. So then they can directly challenge. I'm not sure. I'm not a lawyer. They also have a top tier law firm.

And there will be a hearing in the Noah Doe case, I think on September 8th in New York to hear both of those. both from Digital Chamber and from BPI. So the Bitcoin community, both in Digital Chamber, BPI, have stepped up to try to intervene in the case and at a minimum, I think, just put on the record the arguments against what Noah Doe's side is arguing. So what happens then? So this goes to court properly in September.

Is it the kind of thing where as soon as the judge has the relevant information from people like BPI and Digital Chamber, that they'll hopefully see the light and just be like, this is nonsense and throw it out. I genuinely have no idea, dude. This is such a strange area of law.

They're using this like a relatively obscure abandoned property statute in New York State that's like usually for like a lost wallet you find on the street. And like I don't know what an intervener defendant is. I don't know if this guy John Doe 33 is going to actually materialize as a defendant in the case. I just have no idea. I think it just if you read their document,

it's not clear that the amount of money at stake is $300 billion. And so we're trying to make sure that the judge is actually aware of how substantial this claim, since they're using something that's normally for like something worth $10, like, are they aware? So the case is currently stayed until that hearing, meaning like it's just paused, right? So what a mess. People want to steal your Bitcoin. And this is a method to, you know, it's not clear. I think the quantum is an interesting point, possibility.

I think just straight up lawfare, you know. Or like, imagine if in the quantum mitigation debate, and I don't think I'm in favor of anything like this, but question about what to do with Satoshi's coins. I remember we were talking about this as long ago as like in bedford two years ago, like our views and what could be done. And like let's say that the Bitcoin community

does decide to sequester them in some way. Well, now that they are under control of somebody, a group or found, I don't know who, right? they could if they have this case, they could send it to the Bitcoin developers and harass them about it, right? Like, it's just like, I don't think that dormancy of coins on chain

is indicia of lostness. Absolutely not. If you have a gold bar sat in a vault, if it's set it for 10 years, yeah, but if I have it under my bed, the theory of this case says that I have to basically go present it to a bank to prove that I still own it, otherwise they're claiming it's lost.

It's insane. Is there any good precedent that could be set from this? yeah well if the i think if they if the judge rules substantially against them especially if like it's you know with help from bPI or digital chamber like that's pretty good i don't know if it i mean it's it's i think it is good i think if they go and try to do whoever these people are if they go and try to do it in other jurisdictions having lost here i think you know you'll see those people follow them around and try to enter that case and show the precedent of having lost here you know you know a low this is a new york state supreme court which i think is basically the lowest court

um but like is the court in the uk bound by that precedent absolutely not but like they might look at it yeah right i remember in pete's case like um you know with craig right like they looked at the they they they read and looked about like ira climent and some of the other cases that was relevant to the judge so i think yeah that's the i mean the best outcome for bitcoins i think is that you get a strong ruling again Why are people such dicks? Man, people just, they scheme and plot. They do scheme. I don't know.

We need like, you know, it's true. Like, come on, go out there and do something more productive. Yeah, exactly. We're in the world of productivity. That's a mess. Well, and if this comes out when I think it is, like, the last, I think, major topic here is just the clarity act. Yeah, I want to know about this.

Because so I've spoken to a few people recently who are very, very bearish now and the idea of clarity ever getting past. Is that kind of where you're at? Well, I think public. publicly. Actually, can we start differently? Yeah. What do we get as Bitcoiners? Like, not anything else. As Bitcoiners, what do we get from clarity? What are the things that we'll be missing if we don't get it? Well, you're getting, they called it clarity. It's kind of a brilliant name for this reason. Well, you're going to get clarity from all the institutional

players. We'll all know for certain in statute that can't be rolled back by just like an next chair of whichever agency, right? So, like, again, spot markets, I mean, I think they're quite good today in the U.S. Yeah. But there is a fulsome spot market regulatory regime here. So like, you know, there's going to be things about like disclosures and audits and like, you know, not harming your customers. So I think much less likely, for example, for like a new FTCS to occur at a high level.

I think it's substantially better regulated than today. Whereas mostly today, I mean, New York has the bit license and a couple other states have some frameworks that are more substantial. but also like, you know, wholesome. But most like Bitcoin purchases today are being sold to you from just someone with like a state money transmission license. But it's not great. Like the people don't like the bit license. Well, I mean, I think the bit license might not be the right framework, but it does provide safety. I think one of the big reasons that they don't like it is it's, it's a bit too strict. It is expensive. It takes a long time to get the bit license. And so I hear a lot of criticism from entrepreneurs.

And it's like, it takes too long to get that. Like, you know, now it's like a created emot. It's like so expensive. That's one of the things. And also, I think they have to approve, like, every new product. Like, I think Cash App, for example, still doesn't offer Lightning in New York, even though they have the Bit License. I don't know why. Obviously, you'd have to ask them. But, you know, I think still, though, like, for example, the New York,

the Bit License on Stable Coins has been, I think it was really good. And it ended up being, like, materially similar to what ultimately became the Genius Act. And I will tell you that if what you want is greater access by CACPA, to Bitcoin, like, and longer term, more durable access. You need regulation, you need something that businesses can feel comfortable. The rules won't change so they'll actually build, right? I mean, that's the difference here. I mean, one thing I like to say is whether or not it happens, like, I think you have the

chance for pretty substantial upside if it happens, literally in the market. But downside should be relatively capped because, certainly for Bitcoin, because, again, this is much more beneficial in, I think, many ways. for the coins that Gary Gensler had said were securities. He didn't say that Bitcoin was a security. And obviously, that's not Bitcoin. So, but generally, like, the crypto industry, we are getting a lot of good regulation and innovation from the regulators that is likely to persist at least through the end of this presidency.

So that's two and a half years, right? So, like, the real, I think one of the best arguments for clarity, and it has a lot of good stuff in it, truly. And I'll tell you another thing that's good for Bitcoiners particularly as well. But it helps prevent like rollback. Like, you know, if we get an Elizabeth Warren presidency, like you saw how fast like Paul Atkins has been able to pivot the SEC. Yeah. Because like interpretive guidance and memos, like they have some weight, but they can be undone. Federal statute, however, is substantially more durable. So that that's one of the best reasons for it. Is this save our wallet stuff that Mike Crowell is doing still in it?

Yes, absolutely. The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, it provides broad protections for software developers who don't control user funds. I think that's... That's a huge one. Yeah, that's a huge one, of course. That's many Bitcoiners and many Bitcoin development companies and many, right? Like, we're talking about like a non-custodial apps, like a wallet, right? Like, that's like, it makes sense, right? Like, you know, if Osama bin Laden writes his letter on Microsoft Word. They don't show up at Bill Gates's house, right? Yeah. Like I'm just saying, like, things that are truly tools and not like intermediaries should not be regulated as intermediaries. I think that. 100%.

I believe that. That's still in it. And also, there is a protection. There is a protection I saw about protecting self-custity, a whole section about it. And one of the things, I believe, it says is that coin dormancy is not sufficient to prove abandoned properties. Okay. We need it.

So, yeah, we need it. So I think. Yeah, BRCA, yeah. I mean, I think it's, I think it's good. I think, but your question at first was about the odds. Yeah. And I mean, I think the, here's the issue. Like, there are a couple issues.

Everyone's talking about the ethics issue, which is about, you know, how to, you know, prohibit executive officials from doing crypto-type stuff. And I think that probably is the blocker if it's a primary blocker. The Republicans and Democrats can get on the same page. And when this comes out, like knock on wood, they might have. That's like, you know, we're recording on Thursday, July 22nd, like they just today released the new combined text of that bill of the Clarity Act.

And it for the first time has an ethics provision in it. And I think it is the first and ethics provision ever for a specific asset class. It's also pretty good. Dems want a little bit more. And like, I'm not saying that's unreasonable in my view, but whether they can get there is not clear. I think if they can get there, then the odds are pretty good. The problem is the calendar. Everyone goes home.

We have no time. We have almost no time. So is that because midterms are going to be crucial and then everyone goes away for the summer? Yeah. So they all go. The House, I think, is scheduled to go away next week. Like, that's their last week next week. So July 30th or 31st, right?

The Senate has one more week before they go on recess as well. Then they come back and it's like raised to the midterms, right? And we could be facing a guy. government shutdown, I believe. That's a possibility in like September and October. And just historically, like if you look, very few substantial pieces of legislation, let alone possibly controversial ones ever get passed in the fall of a midterm election year, right? And then after the midterms, like a lot, I don't know how, however many members lose their seats are now in what is a lame duck session, they call it. And again, like, do we think they're going to like, you know, come in to vote for

crypto on the way out like it's doubtful i mean yeah it's not impossible it is possible it's just much less likely we and others have been saying this for months so it's not like something that we is new like you just in senate florida it takes a long time to vote in the senate it's not like the house is like much more much faster the senate's like they got to do one whole vote first just to make a motion to consider voting on it that needs 60 plus votes like then you need another one and and so like I wrote in June that like we wanted to see text by like July 4th but like that was two weeks ago from when we finally got it like it's just like taking a lot of time and they're about to split like and and just like that I think that has been I'd been lowering it consistently from like 60

75 to 65 to 50 50 50 like basically on calendar alone and so now we're sort of at I will say one one sort of thing here is that like timing urgency the lack of time can force compromises, right? So like, you could get a rabbit out of a hat. People forget the Genius Act failed the first vote, actually literally failed on the floor and, and, and then, and then succeeded, right? Like, so it is possible, and that's why I'm not, I'm not like, I'm nowhere close to zero, you know, I don't know, it's, it's, it feels like a coin flip at best to me right now, but, you know, your viewers and listeners should, I mean, next week in the, like the last week of July, week of August is like that's literally crunch time. So like, you know, I'd like to see,

hopefully by the time this comes out, majority leader Thune, they'll have been some compromises on whatever's outstanding and majority leader Thune will have called a vote. Like we'll have said that a vote will be on a day. And after the midterms, though, there's no shot. I mean, I don't think so. Um, technically there is, you know, like they can do whatever they want. Like there is, the Senate will go into session. Just typically nothing huge gets done then. And then, look, I mean, just then the balance of power in DC changes after the midterm. So like it.

Potentially. Yeah. Well, yeah, right. Potentially. I mean, well, it'll change at least by one every time. Maybe does it flip? Like, does the house flip to the Dems? Does the, is the idea, it's going to flip there right?

Well, I mean, I haven't followed the campaigns at all. But Pollymarket, I think, says more likely than not. like it's like 55, 45, 45 that Republicans hold the Senate and like basically the reverse that they take that. Oh, so it's still kind of a coin flip. Yeah, I know, but I'm here in politics, you know. And that's 10 point delta is like pretty high. And I think those markets actually have decent volume.

So, but I haven't looked at polls or anything. But yes, I mean, I think it is also quite common for the presidents, a party to lose in the midterm. Yeah. Like just because like, you know, it's not the presidential, like a lot of the success, of his party or the president's party in the non-midterm is because the president who won the presidency is carrying the ticket, right? So I mean, I'm not gonna predict that,

but I do think it's true that like, you know, this is a pretty strong shot on goal, right? President's supportive, his agencies are supportive, a lot of his cabinet is supportive, and his party is supportive and his party controls both houses. Like unlikely to repeat that level of, you know, serendipity I think. So, you know, we want to see it.

I think it's a great bill. I think it's a lot of people have worked very hard on the bill. I think it has really appropriate and thoughtful tests for when things are decentralized and when they're not. And responses for when they are and are not, either if they're not decentralized enough, then certain registration and disclosure requirements and things like that. And if they are too decentralized, plausibly comply. Like, I mean, people have spent a long time. Staffers are know all, like,

people writing this bill know a lot about it now. It's not like they're new. Like, a lot of this has been being worked on for like three or four years. Like, do you, do you consider that even a win if this never passes? That at least people have got up to speed with what's going on. Yeah. And look, look, I got to say, a lot of Democrats voted for this in the House. So like, a lot of Democrats also are supportive. So it's not like, fate accompli that like if the Democrats are in charge, nothing can happen, right? So yeah, I mean, I look, I think we've done great work in bringing regulators and policymakers and administration officials and industry up to like speed on this technology,

the legal issues, the things that are truly important for investor protection, innovation, American, you know, capital markets growth and dominance. I think a lot of good work has been done. So as someone who's got no skin in the game in terms of, like, I obviously don't live in America, but America still drives the world. Like, people follow what America do. Like, if the Democrats do win the next real, like, next full election, do you think we're in trouble? In Bitcoin and, like, crypto markets?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it honestly really depends. There are some Democrats who love Bitcoin. Who's the most likely kind of gay? Is it AOC? I have no idea, dude. Gavin Newsom, maybe? I have no idea.

I think if you, again, I would literally, to answer that question, I would literally just look at like Polymarket, where are they ranked. I think Kamala is somewhere in there as well. Sure. I have no idea, but I will say, I mean, there's some great Democrats that love Bitcoin a lot. Ruben Gallego, Richie Torres.

Kierston Gillibrand is a long-time supporter. She's been awesome on Bitcoin and aliens. Angela also Brooks. Like Mark Warner has been supportive in the past. And there's some really good ones, right? So, Hakeem Jeffries has been supportive. And I think it was like 70 Democrats voted for Fit 21 in the House, which is Clarity Act and clarity and later clarity. Even during the, I mean, Fit 21 passed in the Biden administration in the House, of course, not in the Senate.

So like, I don't think the game's over and that we're, but it matters. You know, if we get, you know, an AOC Warren Gensler presidency, I think that'd be quite bad for us. So it, but again, we've, it's not just. Republicans that like Bitcoin, even in D.C. So, you know, you live to fight another day. Some big, if it doesn't happen, some big legislation takes years and multiple attempts. This is one such one. But like, you know, Scott Besson said we're at the one yard line and he's right. Like there's, yeah, there's still debating like I talk about ethics. I think some Democrats still want changes to the BRCA a little bit. That's just a couple words, though, that we're down to. It's like a

310 page law and like we are he's right that like the number of issues has gotten very small I would just say to use the world cup analogy that in addition to being very close we're also running out of time we're in like the last minute of stoppage time at this point as well so like it's time for messy to find the back of that net or they're going to end up losing I mean fuck the Argentineas I'm not you know I'm just saying so I don't know it's gonna it's been a long long road I will tell you though this is I've been working you know helping everyone and that does anything in like the policy space in Bitcoin, in crypto, our friends of BPI, like everyone's been working on this for a long time. And it's pretty, pretty good. It's pretty good.

How frustrating if it never passes. Oh, well. Well, you know, we'll live to fight another day. Yeah, that's what I think. Alex, this has been awesome. Thank you, Danny. For everyone that's in the depths of the bear market, feeling a bit down, parting words. Well, Bitcoin is what we'll call it, is it four and a half times above its prior low. I mean, the floor is rising, I would tell you. I would also just say that like the impulses that have driven people to fall in love with Bitcoin in the world, right? Never ending debasement of, you know, fiat currency. I mean, that's not a feature.

That's like inherent feature of how fiat currency works. government debt you know lin alden says this right nothing stops that train um those things that drew people to fall in love with bitcoin truly not just buy it in an etf uh or whatever they're accelerating and they're not going away and so you know everything in life is cyclical and ebbs and flows and bitcoin is just continuing to do its thing i mean i hate to just use tropes here but they all carry important meaning like tic talk next block absolutely you know even if thomas can't get the battery working here on the block clock. I assure you the blocks are talking.

They are talking. And so, I mean, the thing works, like, learn about self-custody. And by the way, we are entering an age of abundance. I mean, the tools that you can now access with AI, I've built a lot of stuff for Bitcoin, for my own analysis of Bitcoin. So, you know, while you wait for, you know, the Bitcoin bull run, like, practice and get good at your coding. I love it, man.

Thank you. This has been awesome. Thanks, Danny. Appreciate you, man. Absolutely. Let's go.