Why many Bitcoiners went to war with Ripple/XRP this week, the Fed policy's impact on Bitcoin post-Q1, and why I think Trump is walking into an economic trap.
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LINKS:
- Bank of Canada Cuts Rates As Expected, Ends QT, Restarts QE, And Drops Guidance On Looming Trade War | ZeroHedge
- Trump Lashes Out At Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve
- Jack Mallers on X: "Emergency Press Conference: Ripple is undermining American prosperity, freedom, and Bitcoin. Ripple is actively lobbying to stop a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve in the U.S. while pushing their centralized, corporate-controlled token. We will not stand for it. https://t.co/EHldJHxyR9" / X
- January 2025 Newsletter: Three Things Never to Fade - Lyn Alden
- Cathie Wood: Bitcoin is the leader in a new asset class and a movement towards a rules-based global monetary system.
- Bitcoin-Ringing-The-Bell-For-A-New-Asset-Class.pdf
- Head of the Czech central bank wants to buy BILLIONS of dollars in Bitcoin. .
- Trump takes step towards making US ‘crypto capital of the world’ - YouTube
- Ross Ulbricht on X: An Update from Ross
- Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Announces First Round of Top 40 Priority Bills for the 2025 Legislative Session - Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick
- Vancouver passes 'bitcoin friendly city' motion - YouTube
- Local expert makes case for Bitcoin - YouTube
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Music. Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 44. My name is Chris, chrislas.com, jupiterbroadcasting.com. We're going to start today off with some macro, then we'll get into why the Bitcoin community took a sharp turn into attack mode. After a couple of weeks of great news, it's attack mode. We'll talk about why. Plus, my thoughts on an economic blunder that the Trump administration seems to be just happily walking into, and much more. But we start with this vibe shift that came from the Bank of Canada this morning, as I record. Their central bank lowered their benchmark interest rate overnight to 3%, which is a 25 basis point cut.
The sixth in a row, so it was widely anticipated. And the central bank said in their statement, quote, We also announced our plan to complete the normalization of our balance sheet, ending quantitative tightening. The bank will restart assets purchases in early March, beginning gradually so that its balance sheet stabilizes this year and then begins to grow modestly in line with economic growth. So they're lowering interest rates and they're suspending quantitative tightening. And in March, they're going to begin quantitative easing. So that seems to really have set the tone for the day. And later in the day, U.S.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell came out, and we weren't really quite sure what to expect. The market kind of thought it was going to be kind of standard affair, but you never know. It's possible he's been getting pressure from President Trump. The Bank of Canada just lowered rates, said that they're going to begin quantitative easing in March. So everybody tuned in to the Fed press conference with at least a little bit of anticipation and then was greatly disappointed. That was Chair Powell following the very first Fed meeting of 2025, one in which there was no change in interest rates as expected.
But there was plenty said in the news conference we just watched. Chair Powell saying, among other things, inflation remains, quote, somewhat elevated relative to the Fed's 2 percent target. He said conditions in the labor market are solid. The economy is strong overall. He did point to resilient consumer spending. Still considering additional adjustments, he said, quote, we do not need to be in a hurry. No, all the good stuff, though, that really comes in the QA. So like in his official statement, you know, unchanged, it was a 12 to 0 unanimous vote. They are not changing the rate. Inflation remains, quote, somewhat elevated, J-Pow says.
And unemployment has, quote, stabilized at a low level, meaning it's a little soft, but not too soft for us to worry. And they also took out their statement on progress towards 2% inflation in their official remarks. They seem to kind of be admitting that we have had some stalled progress on inflation. And we'll get into that in the Q&A because that's where the good stuff is. But I want to start with the big question in the room. And that was, what is Jay Powell going to do about the fact that now on three occasions, President Trump has said that he wants the Federal Reserve to lower rates? So he was asked about that.
Another point the president made is on interest rates. The president was in Davos speaking to an audience in Davos earlier today, said that he's going to demand that interest rates come down. In this outing with the press this afternoon, the president said that he feels he knows interest rates better than the folks at the Fed. And he does expect the Fed to respond to what he says in terms of demanding lower interest rates. OK, so what do you think Jay Powell said to that? What do you think? Do you think, oh, yeah, I'm definitely going to lower interest rates based on political demand from the president?
No, of course he didn't say that. Chairman, Steve Leesman from CNBC. Mr. Chairman, at an event in Davos, from two Davos anyway, the president said he'll demand that interest rates drop immediately. So I guess I have a three-part question. Has the president done this to you? Has he made that demand? Secondly, what is your response to that? And third, what effect, if any, does a president making these kind of remarks have on policy? Thank you. Three questions. I'm seeing seeing it really as one question, though. So I'm not going to have I'm not going to have any any response or comment whatsoever on what the president said. It's not appropriate for me to do so.
The public should be confident that we will continue to do our work as we always have, focusing on using our tools to achieve our goals and really keeping our heads down and doing our work. And that's how we best serve the public. Can you just comment on whether he's physically communicating this demand to you? I've had no contact. Thanks. Yeah, OK, not a big surprise there. But what does, I don't know, for some reason continue to surprise me is that Bitcoin and crypto get brought up in every context, including the Q&A with the federal chair. And Jay Powell was asked about the risks of crypto for banks and households.
Hello, Chairman Powell, Mark Hamrick with Bankrate. As you know, in the annual report from the Financial Stability Oversight Council, among the risks outlined is cryptocurrency. Could you talk about those risks now? And regarding individuals and households perhaps distinct from the concern about the financial system, do you worry that speculation in this unregulated asset class could hurt their financial well-being? Do you worry that they're too dumb to take care of themselves and that you need to give them rules they can follow so that way they don't end up hurting themselves? In this unregulated asset class could hurt their financial well-being, or do you think it has a place in a household's portfolio?
So at what point does something get considered regulated? So it's not when it's taxed with clear tax rules. It's not when the Commodities Exchange Commission has said that they're an oversight body for the commodity, clearly, because according to this guy, it's unregulated. It's not that all the exchanges closely follow regulations and that my Bitcoin, if I buy it from them, is KYC'd to hell because apparently that doesn't qualify it as regulated. It's not even clear to me how gold is somehow more regulated than Bitcoin, but yet Bitcoin is a dangerous, unregulated currency.
Even though, unless I'm wrong, as far as I can tell, it's just as regulated as silver or gold. Maybe there's something more I don't know. If traders in silver or gold no more, please do boost in. But I find this type of question so obnoxious because it's the equivalent to the, Mr. Chairman, what about the volatility? Volatility is really scary and bad, right? Don't you think so, Mr. Chairman? That's the kind of question this is. Great. That speculation in this unregulated asset class could hurt their financial well-being, or do you think it has a place in a household's portfolio?
You know, so our role with Bitcoin really is to look at, with crypto, really is to look at the banks. And, you know, we think it's, you know, banks are perfectly able to serve crypto customers as long as they... Wait, what? What? Well, that's a bit of a tone shift. That's a bit of a tone shift from Operation Chokepoint 2.0, where the Fed was working hand in glove with Liz Warren and others, to go after banks that engaged in crypto services. I mean, let's rewind this for a second. Before, like, I don't know, last year? I mean, 60 seconds ago? 10 minutes ago? Before then, J-Pow did not have this tone.
And he talked, I've always felt this way. But I've always thought this. You know how I've always felt about Bitcoin. Look at the banks and we think banks are perfectly able to serve crypto customers as long as they understand and can manage the risks. And it's safe and sound as many of our – a good number of our banks that we regulate and supervise do that. The threshold has been a little higher for banks engaging in crypto activities. And that's because they're so new. And, you know, we don't want to make the mistake. If you're making a choice to conduct that activity inside a bank, which is inside the federal safety net with deposit insurance, then you want to be pretty sure that that is safe and sound activity.
So, you know, we're not against innovation, and we certainly don't want to take actions that would cause banks to, you know, to terminate customers who are perfectly legal just because of excess risk aversion may be related to regulation and supervision. Certainly not. Never, ever would take any actions like that. Then he was asked to follow, well, what about households? What about households holding crypto? That's scary and dangerous, right? You know, that's kind of a, it's not really our bailiwick. You want people to be knowledgeable about the financial engagements that they have. And that's why we have, you know, the securities law, the laws that we have.
It's why, you know, if you read a mutual fund prospectus or individual stock prospectus, you want households to have the chance to understand the risk that they're taking. And, you know, I do think it would be helpful if there were a greater regulatory apparatus around crypto. And I think that's that's something Congress was working on quite a lot. We've actually spent a lot of time, you know, with members of Congress working together with them on on various things. And I think that would be a very constructive thing for for Congress to do. Yeah, you know, if consumers just had a prospectus sheet on Trump coin, then they could be making an educated guess on the shit coin that they're buying.
That would make all the difference for sure. So here we go. Interest rate futures right now, they show probably a base cut in June. That's probably we're going to get our first cut, but we'll see. We'll see. I don't know. I'm a little more optimistic in that regard. The next scheduled FOMC meeting is March 18th and the 19th. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some sort of policy change. Maybe they stopped quantitative tightening, maybe nothing, or maybe a 25 basis point rate cut. J-Pow did say today that we don't necessarily need to wait for a 2% inflation before we start cutting rates. So there you go, right?
So that's been a kind of non-news story, I think, as the market internalizes what's happening here for rates in the states. But what was big news is just as the show wrapped up last week, we got official executive order actions. And I think there's some good stuff in here for Bitcoiners. Morgan, that's right. The president signed five executive orders here at the White House just a few moments ago. We're getting the details now on this cryptocurrency related executive order that he signed, which establishes a working group at the White House led by David Sachs to look at cryptocurrency policy to stop what they call regulatory overreach on cryptocurrency.
One important point here, because there's some question about whether the president would go ahead and establish some kind of strategic reserve fund of cryptocurrency. This executive order does not do that. What they say specifically here is that the working group will be tasked with developing a federal regulatory framework governing digital assets, including stable coins, and evaluating the creation of a strategic national digital assets stockpile. So the word evaluating there is doing a lot of work. Basically, that means this working group is going to take a look at it and maybe make some recommendations down the line.
So, you know, no concrete movement in that direction. You might get a sense that this kind of opens the door a little bit from this White House to take a stronger look at that than certainly the previous White House would have done last week. But there you go on cryptocurrency also. Okay, now be honest. Were you hoping with the swipe of a Sharpie that Trump was going to create a strategic Bitcoin stash? And were you disappointed when instead what you got was a working group that's going to study the issue? I don't think you should be. I don't think you should be upset about this.
I've always been concerned that Trump was going to try to do this by executive action. And if he creates a Bitcoin reserve or a stockpile, as he puts it, with a executive order, very simply could be undone by the next guy or the guy or gal after him. Absolutely possible. It's a total threat. And it would be a temporary pump. And then, you know, could you imagine the crash when the next POTUS comes in and decides to remove Bitcoin and the strategic stash? That'd be horrendous. This working group, when he talked about this during the campaign, this working group will ideally interface with Senator Lummis and others that are trying to create this at the bill level, at the law level, and hopefully work with them hand in hand to create something sustainable.
The problem is, it appears this process is being perverted by shit coins. We'll see you next week. Music. Okay emergency press conference this is jack mallers ceo of strike and he and many others have been putting the word out about bad actors in the crypto space that are attempting to influence the white house process and the trump family specifically eric trump and others with money bribes, FUD, and propaganda to make the Bitcoin Reserve a digital assets reserve that features Made in America XRP. Ripple is undermining American prosperity and freedom. I can confirm Ripple is actively spending millions of dollars trying to undermine a strategic Bitcoin Reserve in the United States of America.
This is not just an attack on Bitcoin, but on principles of transparency, on fairness, and on our national security. Bitcoin strategic reserve would be one of the most important economic announcements in American history. I personally would put it on par with Nixon in 1971. However, it would be the first positive economic announcement that comes from the United States in the last hundred years. In 1933, the U.S. made an economic announcement. What was it? We're confiscating your gold. In 1971, the U.S. made an economic announcement. What was it? We're divorcing ourselves from the gold standard. We're divorcing ourselves from being governed by the immutable laws of Mother Nature so that we can debase your money and inflate your life.
In 2008, the U.S. made an economic announcement. What was it? It was, we are bailing out and protecting private corporations, banks, and Wall Street at the expense of you, the public. If the U.S. goes on to make an economic announcement that is the support of a Bitcoin strategic reserve. It will not act against its people in the best interest of the public. It will do the opposite. This is a money that is owned, operated, and governed by the people. Governments and corporations own a fraction of this network who owns it who had first access the people the public this is about being pro-industry pro-jobs pro-energy pro-growth pro-technology this is about solving our deficits this is about leaning into the future in investing in prosperity for generations to come.
And the reason I think why Jack and Bitcoiners get so fired up is XRP, Ripple, in particular, has been attacking this process. And it is the shitcoin of major shitcoins out there. If you have any insight why the normies love XRP, please tell me. Anytime I've ever went to a normie accountant and asked them if they do crypto taxes and Bitcoin, they start talking to me about XRP. I'm not kidding you. It's happened more than once. XRP has attacked Bitcoin the most voraciously. Voraciously? You know, they specifically funded Greenpeace to demonize Bitcoin's environmental impact. They have funded anti-Bitcoin lobbyists. They funded Kamala's campaign, specifically because they're pro-CBDC.
They've been sued by the SEC for being a security, and then instead of taking responsibility for that. They gaslit XRP bag holders. They've pre-mined every coin that's ever going to be in existence all at once. And then they hand it out like the rich. And then embarrassingly, XRP's ledger history is even a total shit show. Their first block, or ledger as they put it, is ledger 32569. Because everything before ledger 32569 was lost. So they just lost all those transactions going back to the number one ledger. 35,000 just gone. All the coins created too in those first blocks, no doubt. Such a shame that those early blocks are gone.
So it's clearly a security. It's the pinnacle of crypto fiat, all created at once, no proof of work required. And it particularly benefits one company and one founder. That should not be in the strategic reserve. It's not like gold or silver or even cheese. Bitcoin is. Ripple XRP is not. So this is why the Bitcoiners and then because they're actively spending money and time trying to confuse the White House and the senators involved. It has folks like Jack and myself a little bit worked up. Equality, inclusion, the leader of the free world, adopting technology that promotes American ideals, a money that we don't control.
But that we support, that both aids to solve our country's biggest problems and promotes the world we want to see as Americans and its people. Now, Ripple. Ripple is a for-profit company. It prints its own token in XRP. And it is asking the U.S. government to support its monopoly. I ask you this. Why should the U.S. government back a privately owned currency? This is corporate lobbying disguised as innovation. This is corporate lobbying disguised as tech growth jobs industry ripple created all of its currency issued it to themselves and relies on the public to buy it this is not the money for the people this is not in the best interest of the public this is in the best interest of a private corporation.
This is an economic announcement that would be like 2008, that would be like 1971, that would be like 1933. This is against what this new administration and President Trump stands for. This is against the best interest of the United States of America. It is absurd and ridiculous and Ripple needs to stand down immediately. Not only are they undermining future prosperity in the United States, benefiting from the technological innovation that is Bitcoin, but they are also trying to take advantage of the situation and benefit themselves. Call your representatives and demand an investigation into Ripple's lobbying efforts.
Tweet publicly. Post your comments publicly. I've begun fighting back. I will not stand for this. I am an American. I plan to have children and raise them in America. I will not let Ripple undermine our prosperity, freedom, and benefiting from Bitcoin, a neutral, fair money for the people, for the public. Because this isn't just about Bitcoin versus Ripple. It's about whether the future of money belongs to the people or to private corporations. And it is up to us to decide. Now, part of this service of this show is I like to try to arm you with information so you can plan and hedge appropriately for yourself, for your friends, for your family, for your workplace.
And one of the things that I think we should talk about, because it is going to impact Bitcoiners, is this concept and expectation that seems to be out there and encouraged by the current administration that prices are going to come back down. The Trump administration campaigned on bringing prices down. You know, eggs have been specifically mentioned in here. And I thought maybe after the election, they'd shut up about bringing prices down and just focus on wage increases and stabilizing prices. But that is definitely not what they're doing. Here is Vice President J.D. Vance in a recent interview that's been going around the Internet.
But I have a different take than most people. You campaigned on lowering prices for consumers. We've seen all of these executive orders. Which one lowers prices? We have done a lot. And there have been a number of executive orders that have caused already jobs to start coming back into our country, which is a core part of lowering prices. Now, I'm going to say there, first of all, the first question is lousy. She knows, and if she doesn't know, she should be fired, that there's not an executive order that comes out that says, Safeway, you need to lower your prices. That's not how this works, right?
The executive office can take actions that will encourage the support of the market. They can't directly tell any, well, maybe like in certain circumstances under the Defense of Production Act or things like that. So it's just a stupid bad question, like really a stinker if you think about it. Totally ignorant. But as we continue, I think it reveals a bad strategy by Vance and Trump. More capital investment, more job creation in our economy is one of the things that's going to drive down prices for all consumers, but also raise wages so that people can afford to buy the things that they need.
Now that right there, that's the best possible answer to what was a very bad question. If you look at our slate of executive orders. I like that she chuckles in there. So grocery prices aren't going to come down because that's hilarious. But also raise wages so that people can afford to buy the things that they need. If you look at our slate of executive orders, no, no, Margaret, prices are going to come down, but it's going to take a little bit of time. No, no, J.D., they're not going to come down. Prices are not going to come down of executive orders. No, no, Margaret, prices are going to come down, but it's going to take a little bit of time. Right.
The president has been president for all of five days. I think that in those five days, he's accomplished more than Joe Biden did in four years. It's been an incredible breakneck pace of activity. We're going to work with Congress. We're, of course, going to have more executive orders. And we're going to try the way that you lower prices is that you encourage more capital investment into our country. And yes, you're not going to lower prices. I mean, they really should stop saying this. And you should not plan or expect on this. At best, you know, they could stabilize prices broadly.
They could make policies that incentivize increasing of wages so that wages go up faster than the cost of goods so it feels like relatively things have gotten cheaper they can do that to limited degree but other than a few things prices are not coming down maybe on a couple of things right there's a few things you can increase the you know the amount of like oil or the amount of people working on something and you'll get more of that resource and so you can bring down the cost for a bit. But generally, once you bring down the cost of a commodity, you increase demand overall. And so then demand actually accelerates.
So even then it's kind of temporary. They really just, you know, just think about this. Think about a stake. Let's just make this really simple. Think about a stake and everything involved that sets the price on that stake. From somebody raising a cow and paying for the feed to transport it and the butcher and the fuel involved, of course. To wrapping it up in that styrofoam and that plastic and putting it out on the shelf. All of the different costs that are in that pipeline from the birth of the cow to the piece of meat going on the cellophane in the store. You would have to lower the cost at every one of those individual steps that touch that piece of meat.
Across the board, all of those, the butcher, the transportation, the cow, the feed, the person that sells the livestock, the cut that the grocery store takes, the pay for the people that wrap it and put it out on the shelves, all of those costs collectively would have to come down to make that stake cheaper. And that is true for every item in that grocery store with every single item having its own unique supply chain dynamics. It's possible. You generally don't see that happen unless there's a pretty bad recession though. So you just should stop saying this. And as Bitcoiners, we should stop, if you have been thinking that this is going to happen.
Things are not going to get cheaper. It does not matter who is in the White House. Things are not going to get cheaper. The rate of their cost can slow. So the price feels like it's stable. But even at a 2% inflation rate, things do not stay the same price. It is built into the system. And I don't know why they're saying this because it's so easy to measure. I can look at the price of eggs today, and I can look at the price of eggs in six months. Now, eggs might actually come down because of bird flu, but you get the general point. You can look at the price of milk or cheese or cereal or whatever it is.
You're, you know, I don't care, top ramen. You can look at the price today, and you can look at the price in six months, and you can see that the price didn't go down. So I don't know why they would be claiming this, but do not plan on this as Bitcoiners do not plan on this. And if I'm wrong, you know what? So what? You got some extra purchasing power, so it's not so bad, right? I just don't know why they insist on saying this. If you think prices are going to come down, then you don't know how the economy works. And if you don't know how the economy works, then you probably shouldn't be trying to fix the economy.
I don't mean to harp on this, but it matters. It matters, I think. And, you know, you just kind of look at the situation. People just want relief. And I think I believe that they want to deliver it. And I do think that some of the things they're doing are going to provide more help than the previous administration. But those things are going to stabilize prices. They're going to slow inflation potentially, maybe. But then other actions like tariffs and other things are going to be inflationary. And so I think at least over Q1, for a while, we're going to see a lot of these things get rolled out as appointees get into their position and start executing policies, as situations come up and tariffs come up as a response.
Q1, at least, is going to be sorting some of this out and realizing that prices aren't coming back down. They're not exploding like they were, but in some areas, they're still a little hot and they're still rising. Inflation still is a long-term play here. Even if J-PAL is feeling pretty good. It's not 100% licked. It's kind of a best case scenario for Bitcoiners. I hate to say this, but if we just look at this through the lens of Bitcoin, this is good. You've got an administration that is clearly more crypto friendly. Does that mean a few shit coins get through the door? Probably.
Why do you care? Why do you care? Just sit back and watch the government get screwed. It's going to be fun. They're going to get rugged and it's going to be hilarious. Bitcoin's a superior product. So even if all the shit coins get through the front door, it doesn't matter. Bitcoin still wins. It's a better product and it has a better network. What do we like it? 60 ish percent dominance right now in the crypto market too. So, I mean, I don't love the idea that a Bitcoin reserve could be a digital asset reserve. And I love the idea that inflation is running hot and our politicians are telling us the prices are going to come down, But none of it is extreme.
None of it is beyond manageable. And it means it's bullish for Bitcoin long term. All of this lines up to be bullish for Bitcoin. A more crypto friendly administrative state that is temporarily bullish for Bitcoin. Inflation remaining a little warm, a little hotter than we'd like. That is bullish long term for Bitcoin, both in adoption and just in a price asset evaluation. situation. It all comes together for Bitcoin at the end. I'd love to know your thoughts on any of this, especially the idea that, you know, the prices are never coming down. I don't know. What do you think? I also, I have a question that I just been, it's on the back of my mind, and I want to put it out there to the audience and just kind of trying to get like, you know, I could do this from time to time, trying to get a sense of where the people are at.
I would like to know, did you stack sats before you started boosting the shows? And if you didn't, do you stack sats now? Or have you always stacked sats? Or maybe, are you only interacting with sats when it comes time to boost? And otherwise, you don't hold any sats. So you follow what I'm asking? I'm trying to get a sense of, did you interact with Bitcoin and hold sats before you boosted? If you didn't, do you now? Did you always, and this just became supplementary to your Bitcoin activity, or is it the only Bitcoin activity you engage in? Trying to figure that out. This wasn't a banger week for the show in terms of sat revenue. You know, kind of has been slowing a little bit.
I kind of worry that with the price, the Bitcoin price over $100,000, we're going to start seeing fewer and fewer boosts. I hope we can prove that wrong because every boost counts no matter the size. And I know that's cliche, but it is true. Because what we're doing is building something long term, something bigger over the years. I and many other podcasters are creating our own podcaster Bitcoin reserve. It's a reserve built through the proof of work of creating content week in and week out. And I suspect that the podcasters, and there's a few thousand of them out there, who have adopted this Bitcoin standard and value for value, I think they're going to pave a way for a more honest kind of media in the future, right?
Because they're securing today a roadmap and a runway for tomorrow where they don't have to have sponsors. They don't have to even care what people with money say. They can stay independent. But I think the bigger thing than that even, the thing that would really matter to me as a listener, because we've all seen our favorite show disappear at some point. Some like a show or a magazine, some piece of content that couldn't stay alive because it wasn't sustainable. And a lot of these live and die on the fiat ad market. But by these podcasts, building a Bitcoin reserve, they're building something that can last and last, something that can be sustainable.
And it means your favorite show doesn't disappear because it's been built on top of a durable Bitcoin standard. So I hope you will continue to boost even as the price is above $100,000. Because I think podcasts like this and others, well, I like to think we're building something special. And I'd like to think that in a couple of years, it's going to pay off. In a few years, it's going to pay off for these podcasters who kept their nose down, didn't say yes to a bunch of sponsor money, instead went directly to the audience and built themselves a runway so they have a sustainable media business years down the road, that doesn't require kowtowing to big advertisers.
I hope, and I hope you will support the show with a boost. So please do boost in. Music. Massive bank wants to stack billions of Bitcoin. A couple of states are on the verge of launching a Bitcoin reserve. A city just went Bitcoin friendly. Final clip of the week. Our last track. State of the network and more. So before we go on, I want to tell you how you can support the show by doing what you do. If you want to stack sats and DCA here in the States, buy sats on River. I think it's one of the best way to DCA into Bitcoin in the United States. They support the Lightning Network. They have proof of reserves, a beautiful UI, lots of options, including a nice savings account so you can hold cash so you're ready to smash buy.
Now, if you're all about self-custody, nobody does it like the Bitcoin well. Amazing self-custody platform. They don't hold your sats. You buy and sell directly from your own wallet. Speaking of selling, if you're ready to spend some Bitcoin and you got it on the Lightning Network, no faster or simpler way than thebitcoincompany.com. Bitcoin-only gift cards instantly bought via Lightning. No login required. You can use your Lightning credentials. If you want to stack sats by paying bills, that's the fold card. That's how I stack sats, by paying my everyday bills. And then I get access.
To my Bitcoin value without selling it by using salt lending. I have links to all of those in the show notes. Yes, you can support the show just by doing what you do. Thank you, everybody who does. Music. Oh, there it is. I was like, geez, is it ever going to fire? All right, we have some boosts to get into, and our first boost is also our baller boost, as we do. And it's from SatSquanch, and he's coming in with 66,667 sets. Hey, rich lobster! Hey, Sandsquatch. And he writes, Thanks for reminding us that Bitcoin is hope for all of us. And thank God for Ross's release.
This is the best yet to come. Ross's story epitomizes me that with Bitcoin, even bad things can be turned for good, and good things can't be confiscated. Oh, well said. Yeah, it really, just something about seeing Ross Freed really felt like, okay, this is good. This is, you know, nature is healing. Thank you SatSquatch it's good to hear from you our next boost comes from Block7 he's got 20,000 sats, alright your time and input is invaluable really stoked that you put this out for newcomers and OGs it took me back to the day I heard the news I had forgotten my Silk Road login but it was a wild time, I of course never bought or sold anything thankfully also never knew I shared a birthday with him how about that rock on Chris keep us going and don't stop oh well thank you.
I definitely checked out the Silk Road back in the day. And, you know, it has this sort of, I don't know, reputation as a dark web marketplace. But it was, you know, it was like a PHP app or whatever. It had some frames with the sidebar and, you know, listings in the middle with reviews. I mean, the nice thing that I think people overlook about Silk Road is you had reviewers on the buyers and sellers. So imagine something that's always been illegal and done out in the streets where you could get stabbed or shot or ripped off or get a bag of something bogus. Silk Road just totally flipped that on its head. You had reviews and reputations.
And so it behooved you to participate in the system and be well behaved. And I don't know, man, like in a way, you know, they were talking about how dangerous it was. But in a way, that to me seems like a much safer situation. Right. I mean, it's still illegal, but at least it's not what I, you know, like the danger that I just described. I don't know. I don't think Ross ever deserved what he got. I'm glad he's out. And thank you for the booze block. Listener Jeff is here, aka producer Jeff, with a row of 6,666 lucky numbers. That's not possible. Nothing can do that. Yeah, I know.
I know. Everything's under control. Super informative episode, not sure what effect this pardon may have for the Bitcoin community. Frankly, all crimes are committed with all forms of value, and those crimes should be just fine justice. Making an example out of someone for crimes committed with a out on the fringe at the time, currency is horrible regardless of the guilt or the crime. One should find justice for their crimes and nothing more. Reminds me of how Nintendo ruined a man's life for making mod chips. Seems like the punishment just didn't fit the crime. Personally not a fan of any drug dealer regardless of how they do it, including pharmaceutical ones. Ah, ha, ha.
Calling out the pharmaceuticals. You know, he never sold drugs. He just built the website. Kind of letting adults do what they do. You know, he's a libertarian, you know, very libertarian thing to do. And... Maybe a few years in jail, you know, like everybody else got like three or five years in jail. OK, maybe. Right. But multiple life sentences with no chance of parole for creating the PHP website that other people use to sell drugs. Woo, doggy. Tell you what. Seems like a lot. Hey, look, there's Gene Bean and he's got a whole big old row of ducks.
Thank you, PJ. And Gene Bean writes, the nuclear waste from the military gets buried just like the rest of it, as far as I know. But where, Gene? Where? And why does it not seem to be a problem? Or does it leak and they just don't tell us? Gene says, regarding Liquid, any downside to running the Bolts web app? Myself, or is it beneficial to just use Bolts.exchange, in your opinion? Either way, I think the Bolts web app is just actually interacting with the back end of Bolts.exchange. I use both. You could also look at swap.io. There's another one over there for pegging in and out of Liquid. And sometimes their rates are a little bit cheaper.
But I do love Boltz.exchange. If I got tattoos of Bitcoin companies, Boltz.exchange would be one of them. Boosting in what, he says, also I wanted to boost in, what's the point, I don't really even follow you. Boosting in, what is the post of mine because others here could show authors the V4V way? Gene, I don't even understand what that sentence is. I don't even, Gene, Gene, Gene, I don't even know. But I do like the sentiment in the Noster post, you link. He says, I'm a big believer in value for value and such. I send stats to podcasts like Chris Fisher's This Week in Bitcoin all the time.
I recently learned of Broken Money by Lynn Alden. I'm finishing it up tonight. I've learned so much from that book that I want to send her some value back as well. The result of my first Boostergram lightning payment with a message attached to the book author. I say this not to brag, but in hopes of spreading the value for value model beyond podcasting 2.0 apps. Now, Gene, I am with you on that. Good buddy. Boy, oh boy. I tell you what. I would love to, not books, yes, books, music, obvious, right? Right? You're doing a good job. But wouldn't it also be great to see software? Please, please, can somebody please, please tell software developers about Boost? Never tell me the odds.
Just make it so. And Gene, maybe you're starting the process. Thanks for sharing that with me. ITGuy05 is here with 2,000 sats. Why you got to put numbers and letters together? Why can't you just go f*** yourself? Here we go. So All in the Family, it's Family Ties is what you were talking about with Michael J. Fox. Family Ties, that's it. The reason why I also watched All in the Family, so around the same time, because I was at an Airbnb, and I think I was using, like, Pluto TV. You know? And I'm just looking for something to watch because it's just, like, the built-in apps on this old smart TV.
I really got to get a portable kit and just be able to bring my own media. But I couldn't believe they were talking about the Federal Reserve and interest rates and all that. It's just really funny. But thank you for the correction, IT guy. And it's nice to hear from you. Thanks for the boost. Vault Byte's here with a row of ducks. That's 2,222 zions. I think the crypto space has its share of retards just like the state money has. But Bitcoin's resilience will prevail. It's your own choice. What kind of money do you want to use? Not only that, Vault Byte, but just think about all these countries, especially like in the UK and in the EU.
And other areas, I mean, and I don't know of all of them, but I know there's something north of 80 countries, something ridiculous, some high number of countries that are all looking into CBDCs. I wonder if I could, how many countries are looking into a CBDC? Because it's ridiculous right now. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Over 130 countries are currently exploring the development of a central bank digital currency representing 98% of global GDP. CBG. And if you narrow it just down to the G20 countries, 44 countries are piloting CBDCs right now in the G20 countries, which is up from 36 last year.
So 44 this year from 36 last year. Okay, Vault. So think about this. Damn near everybody in the West is about to become an alt coiner or a crypto coiner of some kind. It might be a state coin, but they're going to be an altcoin user. And this entire time, they could have been buying into Bitcoin. You know, and they would have their state coin, and they could have a coin that is outside the state system. Is it that weird once all money is cryptocurrency? It's not that weird. But they couldn't get their thick heads past it. And now they're going to end up being a shitcoin user anyways.
And I just think it's hilarious. Thank you, Vault Byte. Appreciate the boost. Ace Alkerman's back with Rodux. Inevitably the meme coins only cannibalize each other shit coins are for gamblers and degenerates the smart money goes to bitcoin i think ross albrecht emerges as a high as a high quality ambassador for sensible bitcoin adoption oh i would love that let's break this down great boost, you're right the shit coins are just stealing liquidity from each other constantly right these meme coins launch melania coin launches they it steals like 50 60 percent liquidity from trump coin it's crazy it's really crazy also there is a really interesting stat and i wish i had this hot and ready for you i do not every time bitcoin has hit a hundred thou you know because we've hit a hundred thou then drop below then we get back to a hundred thou then we drop below then we get to a hundred thou like the last four or five times which to be expected it's a big number, altcoins are at a lower evaluation things like eth and avalanche and whatever else you know especially ETH.
ETH is the, you know, like the first time we hit 100,000, ETH is like at four grand. I'm making these numbers up. The second time Bitcoin gets back to 100,000, ETH is at like 3,800. Third time ETH is at like 34. Now ETH is at like 3,200. Each time the other coins have gone down substantially in value. Where's that money going? It's going to Bitcoin. It's going to Bitcoin. It just does it so slowly you don't see it. But when you zoom out and look at the charts and price things in Bitcoin, go price ETH in Bitcoin. Go price pretty much every other coin and Bitcoin, they all eventually collapsed down.
That's why we say just buy Bitcoin, hold it for four years. Don't mess around with the meme coins. Maybe you'll get lucky on a weird Friday and you'll make a million bucks on Trump coin, maybe. But you just put the proof of work in. You stack sats. You hold on to it. Thank you, Ace. It's good to hear from you. Thank you, everybody, who boosted in. I got some nice comments below the 2000sat cutoff line for reading on the air, on the show, on the air. Thank you, everybody, including Nick and others who sent nice messages. We had also 37 of you stream sats as you listened.
So collectively, the show stacked 88,618 sats by you sat streamers. Thank you very much. I really do appreciate that. And then when you combine that with all of you that boosted, which was nine of you this week, we had a grand total of 195,997 sats. Not a blowaway episode. Maybe people don't like the Roth stuff. Maybe it's the Bitcoin price. But I'd love the support. The show continues on. Working hard. We'll be right back. Music. If you'd like to boost, I'll have links in the show notes. But you can get started with Fountain FM and Strike.
Or use the links in the show notes for River or the Bitcoin Whale. They're on the Lightning Network as well. and then you just need a podcasting 2.0 app, or if you don't want to switch podcast apps, you can use Breeze, B-R-E-E-Z. You can find those listed at podcastapps.com. There's a lot of ways to get involved and have fun, and I appreciate it. Music. I have a few things I want to follow up. This is pretty wild. The Czech head central bank wants to buy billions of dollars in Bitcoin. The central bank head is pushing to invest 5% of the nation's 146 billion reserves into Bitcoin. And you can imagine if the central bankers advocating for that, there's probably broader political support.
And I was just extremely excited to see that because at the same time, we also see more states coming out than I can really keep track of. The Utah House, Utah's House Committee, I guess, has passed a bill that would allow the state to invest a portion of public funds into Bitcoin. Today, the real turd of Texas, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who I just talked about last week, announced establishing the Texas Bitcoin as a priority bill for the 2025 legislation session. I mean, the whole list is a mixed bag, but number 21 on the list is establishing a Texas Bitcoin reserve.
It's remarkable. And then if that momentum wasn't enough, Vancouver, which I told you they were working on, has passed the Bitcoin-friendly city motion. And things are looking up. Inside Vancouver City Hall, the mayor is bullish on Bitcoin. I think it's the greatest invention ever in human history. Ken Simm, the chartered accountant and investment banker turned business owner, says the city can't afford not to consider investing in cryptocurrency. Bitcoin's also the number one performing asset on the planet over the last 16 years. If we don't do something to shore up our balance sheet going forward.
We're not going to be able to provide the same level of services. Yesterday, Council passed SIMS Motion directing staff to explore holding cryptocurrency in reserve and accepting payments in Bitcoin for everything from parking tickets to property tax. Economists suggest crypto caution. If you want to be a progressive city, you should be looking at, you know, how the world is changing and Bitcoin is making a huge impact. But as I said, very, very few people use it. There is a huge question mark over its long term value. And so I think exploring it is probably where it will end. This is their expert.
So let's let's go through each one of these, because it's always fun to kind of respond to some of these like just maybe these are automatic. Like they read these back in 2018. And so when their brain is activated and they're supposed to be an expert, they go to like, well, I read that Wired said this once. And so if I repeat this, it's probably accurate. Progressive city, you should be looking at, you know, how the world is changing and Bitcoin is making a huge impact. OK, I'd like that he acknowledges that Bitcoin is making a big impact, but then he says nobody's using it.
Well, how does it make a big impact if nobody's using it? But as I said, very, very few people use it. You know, does BlackRock not count the most successful ETF launch in history? What about what about like the 15 other ETFs when you go all around the world that have literally thousands of users? And then you have all of the millions of on-chain users. Like, what is the threshold for a lot of users? Because is it billions? Like, what is it for this guy? Clearly, it's not whatever Bitcoin is, which seems to be pretty huge in my estimation. There is a huge question mark over its long-term value here.
Yeah, OK, because you know what? The volatility is so scary, right? The volatility is so scary. Well, Bitcoin is the only asset that comes back, right? Lynn wrote this in a newsletter, and I just thought this was so perfect. She says, in fact, Bitcoin is the only asset I'm aware of that has had four separate instances of drawing down over 75% and bouncing back to an all-time new high each time. That's how assets are monetized. That's not how bubbles work. Bitcoin is not tulips. Bitcoin is not a bubble. You don't have something that collapses and then re-inflates and then collapses.
That's not a bubble. That is an asset growing. And each time it levels off at a newer, higher rate. You look at it, $100,000. And this argument still is accepted on air. But as I said, very, very few people use it. There is a huge question mark over its long-term value. And so I think exploring it is probably where it will end. If the city does decide to dive into cryptocurrency, there is a looming legal question. Provincial law prevents municipalities from accepting it as payment or using it to make investments. A lot of the rules that currently exist are pretty much outdated.
It really shows you the uphill battle that some of these Bitcoin, I guess, legislative actions are going to have to take. Right. I mean, even if they even if they get past the study phase, then they have to, like, you know, get past the whole we can't use it as an investment means phase. It's just so dumb. It's so bad. It's so bad. Let's talk about something better. Last week, I gave Pomp, Anthony Pompliano, a hard time because he went on CNBC and just absolutely did not manage to explain the difference between crappy meme coins and Bitcoin. I couldn't believe it. It was like a setup, and he just managed to not knock it out of the park.
So when the Mooch went on CBS, and I think it's like their Sunday morning show with millions of more viewers, I thought, oh, boy, Anthony Scaramucci is going to blow it, and he's going to embarrass Bitcoiners in front of the nation. I don't know. Maybe he did all right. Maybe he even did better than Pomp. Let's see how he did, and you tell me what you think. Do me a glossary check, Anthony. You see that the struggling to breathe, the searching for words. Do me a glossary check, Anthony. You know, like, it's this is major. He's annoyed by it. He struggles to understand it still. So do me a glossary check, Anthony.
Bitcoin, stablecoin, memecoin, tokens, are they all the same thing? No. And so what Bitcoin really is, and without giving up too much detail on television to bore people, but it's become a durable, stable, long-term store of value. And I say stable because it's never been hacked. It's sort of impregnable and it's scarce and it's immutable. It's volatile, though, and it goes up and down as the society is adopting Bitcoin. We've experienced high volatility in Bitcoin, but it's the best performing asset over the last 10 years. And so if you read something like Neil Ferguson's book, The Ascent of Money, it checks all of the boxes of what human beings like in their money in terms of using it as a technology to trade goods and services with each other.
This is it. I don't know. Maybe, Mooch, maybe you're listening to the show and you heard me say, talk about it is good money, you're doing it. Like, I couldn't believe it. When he goes to the, it's good money, like, yes! Yes! This is what you focus on! Ugh. A meme coin is really just a gambling token. It has... You know, blockchain technology to it, and you can transfer it back and forth to each other, but it really doesn't have that much value, and it hasn't really been adapted by the mainstream financial institutions. And you mentioned some other things. Those are also, you know, security-like instruments in the world of technology, but nothing is as durable or as sustainable as Bitcoin.
There you go. How hard was that? Good job, Mooch. Pomp, what are you doing? What are you doing? Also, I thought this was just fun. You know, I love watching local news because it's always a little bit less polished than the national stuff. I don't know. I enjoy that more. And it's also interesting to see local news have to talk about Bitcoin because there's genuine interest in their local community. But they're not experts and they have to acknowledge that or or they have to at least be disingenuous. They have to they have to pick a route. Right. So it's always funny to see which way they're going to go. Another record set today by the price of Bitcoin. How many of you understand it? I don't.
Okay, so we know what route he's chosen. The humility route, which I applaud. I can't teach you about it, but today I talked with a financial advisor who believes you need to learn more about it. Ray Houstu watches the financial station for a Bitcoin price. There it is right there. Imagine staring at the Fox Business price ticker lower third all day, waiting for the Bitcoin price to come across. That's how this boomer's getting his Bitcoin prices. I'm not trying to be ageist, but that's not something anybody younger would ever even think of, right? They've got widgets on their phone.
I'm not even lying, guys. I've got a Bitcoin price widget on my watch, okay? I've got price widgets on everything, all right? I've got websites bookmarked with different types of ways of displaying the Bitcoin price, depending on my mood, right? I'm not waiting for Fox Business to every 10 minutes scroll the price, whatever the price was five minutes ago when they updated the lower third. It's just like never even crossed my mind. This guy literally stands around watching the TV waiting for the price ticker. Okay, so he's going to tell us about Bitcoin. Ray Houstu watches the financial station for a Bitcoin price. There it is right there.
92,600. Another record-setting day. I absolutely advise everybody to do your homework on it, to research this. It is something that you need to know and learn about. Ray Houstu is a financial advisor. He was a doubter at first on Bitcoin, but he studied it, finding a paper which explained the blockchain technology Bitcoin is based on. All right, my guy. They got a decent guy here. In fact, you'll come to discover he went in specifically wanting to criticize Bitcoin, looking for things to doggone it about, does the research and comes away with the conclusion, wait, this is actually really good technology.
I love those conversion stories. And I read that and I was blown away by it because I just wanted to find a reason to tell people this was garbage. And I couldn't. How Stu can't say whether you should buy it or not. Every person's situation is different. He believes demand for Bitcoin right now is based on two things. The SEC approved it for exchange-traded products, and Donald Trump embracing digital assets. Bitcoin is the network itself, so the government can't control it, the bank can't control it, the central banks can't control it, and that's part of the reason that people are excited about it.
Bitcoin seemed more like a gaming token, a novelty instrument when it started 15 years ago. Now it's recognized like other investments, which are centuries old. Right up there with silver and oil and everything else. House 2 believes Bitcoin has proven that it's here to stay. It's like gold, only it's much more efficient than gold. You don't have to pay to store it. You don't have to pay to transport it. You don't have to pay to protect it. You don't have to cut, you know, with gold, you can't cut slivers off to pay for things. All those you can do with Bitcoin.
Now, there will only be 21 million Bitcoin mined. there are 56 million millionaires around the world. If every one of them wanted to own a full Bitcoin. I like that little, I left that little bit at the end there just because I like it. The millionaire, if every one of them wanted to, they couldn't. Okay, you mentioned, I mentioned, you heard me mention tulip bubble. How many times have you heard Bitcoin called tulips? It's the modern tulip mania. Well, you know, for a little background, tulip mania lasted approximately three to four years. Okay, so first of all, Bitcoin is a little bit older than that.
And it went from 19, I'm sorry, 19. It went from 1634 to like 1637. Collapsed, I believe, in February of 1637. And, you know, it has such resonance in our history, but the overall impact of the tulip bubble on the Dutch economy was relatively limited at the time and actually has cemented the Dutch as the source for the best tulips in the world for the remainder of history. So they've done pretty well. But to compare Bitcoin to tulips is a demonstration of someone's ignorance of how these things work and of how bubbles work. And I just talked about how bubbles work with Lynn's article, which I'll try to link to the entire thing in the show notes.
But Michael Saylor was, and I haven't played a clip of his for a while. He was at a Q&A interview at a special all access event. I got the details for you here. This is the description. At the exclusive CEO reception during the ICR Conference 2025, Michael Saylor, executive chairman of MicroStrategy, captivated the audience in an engaging interview with CNBC's Morgan Brennan. The invitation-only event provided a unique platform for Saylor to share his insights on cryptocurrency and the future of digital assets. And there was a Q&A portion at the end, and this guy who's all smart, and he's figured it out. You know, Michael Saylor doesn't know what he's doing.
He's spent all these billions of dollars because he didn't realize that Bitcoin is just another tulip mania. And so he says, hey, it looks like tulip mania to me. What say you? Silly Michael. He is a science historian. I've read 100,000 pages of history. It starts as a science historian. He says, as a science historian. That's how he starts. As a science historian. I'm like, oh boy, it's going to be one of these answers. And I think the story of history is humanity's condition was improved when we got clean water, clean food, clean air, electricity, clean power.
When we got petroleum, when we got cars, when we got nuclear energy, when we got antibiotics. If you look at the plight of humanity for thousands of years, people are dying at age 30. There's a 40% infant mortality rate because the food's dirty, the water's dirty, and they've got no hope. And when they were dying of dirty water and dirty food, they didn't know they were dying of dirty water and dirty food. We bled George Washington to death. Every rich person in the Middle Ages died of gout because they drank red wine, because they couldn't drink water, because it was contaminated. and so.
All of these companies, if you look at the mortality rate of a corporation is 99%. The average life expectancy of a company is 10 to 15 years. And you can say, well, we'll just take it for granted. Companies should only last 10 years. Just like, you know, 40% of your kids, maybe they should just die before the age of five because that's just the way God willed it. Or maybe we should just die at age 31, which is the life expectancy in Elizabethan England. But the point is, they didn't die because they were genetically predisposed to die. They died because they had dirty food, dirty water, dirty energy.
They worked themselves to death. And the best thing that ever happened to humanity was the passage of technology. So Satoshi put his finger on one observation. The observation is the money is corrupt and dirty and is defective. And you want me to show you how it's defective I tell you a thousand stories of people being murdered for their money Every single story of Jews fleeing from authoritarianism Every story in Germany of the Protestants, the Catholics, murdering each other Everybody that came to America, they came because they're fleeing for property rights, The entire history of the human race is littered with tragedy because people never had proper economic energy.
A type 1 diabetic can't store organic energy. They will eat themselves to death. Fat is the way you store organic energy. Somehow, over the course of hundreds of millions of years, mammals figured out how to store organic energy, and they had fat cells. We as humans have not had the ability to store economic energy properly. We tried with gold. It never quite worked. I could give you 100 examples of it not quite working. I can give you 1,000 examples of hyperinflation dating back to 500 BC of money not quite working. For the first time in human history, we have invented a technology that allows a human to tightly bind economic energy to their person or for a corporation to tightly bind economic energy to the corporation, what it means is you don't have to suffer an early painful economic death.
And you can tell me, oh, that doesn't matter. But I would point to everyone in Africa. I would point to all of the misery in Cuba and North Korea and Venezuela. I would point to the misery in the aftermath of hyperinflationary incidents that took place in Brazil, Argentina. Venezuela Russia I could go on forever there are literally a hundred thousand pages read the story of civilization by Will Durant and you will find a thousand examples of currency collapse and economic misery and this person Satoshi offered us this gift the gift is you get to own your own money and no one can take it away from you you get to keep it right you get to keep your life force.
And what do I think will happen? I think that companies' life expectancy on the Bitcoin standard goes from 10 years to 30 years to 40 years to 100 years. And I think living longer is a good thing. And I think families' life expectancy is dramatically increased. I could do the simple math for you. The half-life of money in gold is 30 years. Gold debases at 2% a year. 30, 35 years. The half-life of money in Bitcoin is forever. 0% inflation makes your money last forever. So I think that some people will not appreciate it, and they won't get it. That's okay. You don't have to buy it.
Lots of people won't buy it. By the way, I do think that if you ask how many Americans own it or care, they just tipped the election in favor of Trump. I think they care. I think the crypto lobby is the number one political force today. So I do think there's a lot of people that do agree with me. They do get it. There are $800 billion to a trillion dollars of real money that has been invested in the network. You can trace it if you like. But that doesn't mean it's for everybody. Everyone didn't install electricity in Florida. Sorry, air conditioning, right? Right, that's new. All sorts of technologies don't get embraced for 30 years, and this won't.
But I would say clean money is just as important as antibiotics. It's just as important as fat. It's just as important as clean electricity, right? So that's my answer to you. It's technology. It makes the world a better place. And I think that for a billion human beings that are destined to economic misery, for them it's the matter of life or death. You're not one of them, right? We'll stipulate. Lots of Americans aren't one. But drop yourself in Nigeria where it's illegal to own the dollar, where the Naira is going to zero, and then try to give some money to a person you want to help in Nigeria or capitalize a company in Nigeria.
And tell me how you're going to do it. Because generally the answer is, well, we just don't. Everybody stays poor. Every company fails. And all the economies collapse. And that's the same answer as a type 1 diabetic. diabetic. We just don't. We just die. And I think insulin to a type 1 diabetic is Bitcoin. Music. On the state of the network before we get out of here. Right now, Bitcoin's sitting at 104,100 U.S. greenbacks. Sats per dollar, 961 sats to one U.S. greenback. We are down 4.6% from our all-time high, which is nine days ago on January 19th, 2025. Close, though. 109, 104, pretty, you know, in the range.
Love to see this. Reachable nodes on the network. We're almost to 21,000, boys. We almost there. 21,923. Come on. Come on. We can get it to 21,000. Come on. We can do that. And this show, it wraps up at block height 881,418. Looking at all these stats here, it's just incredible. TikTok, another block. The network is strong. Music. Links to what i talked about today will be over at this week in bitcoin.show this here was episode 44 of course you can find all the previous episodes over at this week in bitcoin.show would love to hear from you maybe boost in with what you'd like to hear or see from the show if i miss something you'd like to hear me talk about let me know and if you've got thoughts on anything I talked about, please boost in, including, of course, I want your thoughts on Bitcoin before and after you started boosting, if it changed your Bitcoin holding behavior at all.
Also, if you think I'm way off base on the prices coming down, I'd love to hear your Steel Manor pushback on that as well. And please do consider sharing this week in Bitcoin. You'll have to apologize for the fact that I sometimes don't have a working mouth. You'll have to prepare them for that. But otherwise, I hope the signal is strong enough that they'll make it through and they'll enjoy the content. Also, shout out to all of you once again for the second week in a row. We did it. The song that I featured last week hit number one on the Value for Value music charts. Do It Good by Henry Invisible hit number one over at podcastindex.top, which is really cool to see. It's a great song.
And this week, I'm going to leave you with another Value for Value track. So if you boost in during this song, 95% of your sats will go to the artist. It's just such a cool way to support people making independent music. This week, I'm featuring Lou. Music.
Music. Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 44. My name is Chris, chrislas.com, jupiterbroadcasting.com. We're going to start today off with some macro, then we'll get into why the Bitcoin community took a sharp turn into attack mode. After a couple of weeks of great news, it's attack mode. We'll talk about why. Plus, my thoughts on an economic blunder that the Trump administration seems to be just happily walking into, and much more. But we start with this vibe shift that came from the Bank of Canada this morning, as I record. Their central bank lowered their benchmark interest rate overnight to 3%, which is a 25 basis point cut.
The sixth in a row, so it was widely anticipated. And the central bank said in their statement, quote, We also announced our plan to complete the normalization of our balance sheet, ending quantitative tightening. The bank will restart assets purchases in early March, beginning gradually so that its balance sheet stabilizes this year and then begins to grow modestly in line with economic growth. So they're lowering interest rates and they're suspending quantitative tightening. And in March, they're going to begin quantitative easing. So that seems to really have set the tone for the day. And later in the day, U.S.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell came out, and we weren't really quite sure what to expect. The market kind of thought it was going to be kind of standard affair, but you never know. It's possible he's been getting pressure from President Trump. The Bank of Canada just lowered rates, said that they're going to begin quantitative easing in March. So everybody tuned in to the Fed press conference with at least a little bit of anticipation and then was greatly disappointed. That was Chair Powell following the very first Fed meeting of 2025, one in which there was no change in interest rates as expected.
But there was plenty said in the news conference we just watched. Chair Powell saying, among other things, inflation remains, quote, somewhat elevated relative to the Fed's 2 percent target. He said conditions in the labor market are solid. The economy is strong overall. He did point to resilient consumer spending. Still considering additional adjustments, he said, quote, we do not need to be in a hurry. No, all the good stuff, though, that really comes in the QA. So like in his official statement, you know, unchanged, it was a 12 to 0 unanimous vote. They are not changing the rate. Inflation remains, quote, somewhat elevated, J-Pow says.
And unemployment has, quote, stabilized at a low level, meaning it's a little soft, but not too soft for us to worry. And they also took out their statement on progress towards 2% inflation in their official remarks. They seem to kind of be admitting that we have had some stalled progress on inflation. And we'll get into that in the Q&A because that's where the good stuff is. But I want to start with the big question in the room. And that was, what is Jay Powell going to do about the fact that now on three occasions, President Trump has said that he wants the Federal Reserve to lower rates? So he was asked about that.
Another point the president made is on interest rates. The president was in Davos speaking to an audience in Davos earlier today, said that he's going to demand that interest rates come down. In this outing with the press this afternoon, the president said that he feels he knows interest rates better than the folks at the Fed. And he does expect the Fed to respond to what he says in terms of demanding lower interest rates. OK, so what do you think Jay Powell said to that? What do you think? Do you think, oh, yeah, I'm definitely going to lower interest rates based on political demand from the president?
No, of course he didn't say that. Chairman, Steve Leesman from CNBC. Mr. Chairman, at an event in Davos, from two Davos anyway, the president said he'll demand that interest rates drop immediately. So I guess I have a three-part question. Has the president done this to you? Has he made that demand? Secondly, what is your response to that? And third, what effect, if any, does a president making these kind of remarks have on policy? Thank you. Three questions. I'm seeing seeing it really as one question, though. So I'm not going to have I'm not going to have any any response or comment whatsoever on what the president said. It's not appropriate for me to do so.
The public should be confident that we will continue to do our work as we always have, focusing on using our tools to achieve our goals and really keeping our heads down and doing our work. And that's how we best serve the public. Can you just comment on whether he's physically communicating this demand to you? I've had no contact. Thanks. Yeah, OK, not a big surprise there. But what does, I don't know, for some reason continue to surprise me is that Bitcoin and crypto get brought up in every context, including the Q&A with the federal chair. And Jay Powell was asked about the risks of crypto for banks and households.
Hello, Chairman Powell, Mark Hamrick with Bankrate. As you know, in the annual report from the Financial Stability Oversight Council, among the risks outlined is cryptocurrency. Could you talk about those risks now? And regarding individuals and households perhaps distinct from the concern about the financial system, do you worry that speculation in this unregulated asset class could hurt their financial well-being? Do you worry that they're too dumb to take care of themselves and that you need to give them rules they can follow so that way they don't end up hurting themselves? In this unregulated asset class could hurt their financial well-being, or do you think it has a place in a household's portfolio?
So at what point does something get considered regulated? So it's not when it's taxed with clear tax rules. It's not when the Commodities Exchange Commission has said that they're an oversight body for the commodity, clearly, because according to this guy, it's unregulated. It's not that all the exchanges closely follow regulations and that my Bitcoin, if I buy it from them, is KYC'd to hell because apparently that doesn't qualify it as regulated. It's not even clear to me how gold is somehow more regulated than Bitcoin, but yet Bitcoin is a dangerous, unregulated currency.
Even though, unless I'm wrong, as far as I can tell, it's just as regulated as silver or gold. Maybe there's something more I don't know. If traders in silver or gold no more, please do boost in. But I find this type of question so obnoxious because it's the equivalent to the, Mr. Chairman, what about the volatility? Volatility is really scary and bad, right? Don't you think so, Mr. Chairman? That's the kind of question this is. Great. That speculation in this unregulated asset class could hurt their financial well-being, or do you think it has a place in a household's portfolio?
You know, so our role with Bitcoin really is to look at, with crypto, really is to look at the banks. And, you know, we think it's, you know, banks are perfectly able to serve crypto customers as long as they... Wait, what? What? Well, that's a bit of a tone shift. That's a bit of a tone shift from Operation Chokepoint 2.0, where the Fed was working hand in glove with Liz Warren and others, to go after banks that engaged in crypto services. I mean, let's rewind this for a second. Before, like, I don't know, last year? I mean, 60 seconds ago? 10 minutes ago? Before then, J-Pow did not have this tone.
And he talked, I've always felt this way. But I've always thought this. You know how I've always felt about Bitcoin. Look at the banks and we think banks are perfectly able to serve crypto customers as long as they understand and can manage the risks. And it's safe and sound as many of our – a good number of our banks that we regulate and supervise do that. The threshold has been a little higher for banks engaging in crypto activities. And that's because they're so new. And, you know, we don't want to make the mistake. If you're making a choice to conduct that activity inside a bank, which is inside the federal safety net with deposit insurance, then you want to be pretty sure that that is safe and sound activity.
So, you know, we're not against innovation, and we certainly don't want to take actions that would cause banks to, you know, to terminate customers who are perfectly legal just because of excess risk aversion may be related to regulation and supervision. Certainly not. Never, ever would take any actions like that. Then he was asked to follow, well, what about households? What about households holding crypto? That's scary and dangerous, right? You know, that's kind of a, it's not really our bailiwick. You want people to be knowledgeable about the financial engagements that they have. And that's why we have, you know, the securities law, the laws that we have.
It's why, you know, if you read a mutual fund prospectus or individual stock prospectus, you want households to have the chance to understand the risk that they're taking. And, you know, I do think it would be helpful if there were a greater regulatory apparatus around crypto. And I think that's that's something Congress was working on quite a lot. We've actually spent a lot of time, you know, with members of Congress working together with them on on various things. And I think that would be a very constructive thing for for Congress to do. Yeah, you know, if consumers just had a prospectus sheet on Trump coin, then they could be making an educated guess on the shit coin that they're buying.
That would make all the difference for sure. So here we go. Interest rate futures right now, they show probably a base cut in June. That's probably we're going to get our first cut, but we'll see. We'll see. I don't know. I'm a little more optimistic in that regard. The next scheduled FOMC meeting is March 18th and the 19th. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some sort of policy change. Maybe they stopped quantitative tightening, maybe nothing, or maybe a 25 basis point rate cut. J-Pow did say today that we don't necessarily need to wait for a 2% inflation before we start cutting rates. So there you go, right?
So that's been a kind of non-news story, I think, as the market internalizes what's happening here for rates in the states. But what was big news is just as the show wrapped up last week, we got official executive order actions. And I think there's some good stuff in here for Bitcoiners. Morgan, that's right. The president signed five executive orders here at the White House just a few moments ago. We're getting the details now on this cryptocurrency related executive order that he signed, which establishes a working group at the White House led by David Sachs to look at cryptocurrency policy to stop what they call regulatory overreach on cryptocurrency.
One important point here, because there's some question about whether the president would go ahead and establish some kind of strategic reserve fund of cryptocurrency. This executive order does not do that. What they say specifically here is that the working group will be tasked with developing a federal regulatory framework governing digital assets, including stable coins, and evaluating the creation of a strategic national digital assets stockpile. So the word evaluating there is doing a lot of work. Basically, that means this working group is going to take a look at it and maybe make some recommendations down the line.
So, you know, no concrete movement in that direction. You might get a sense that this kind of opens the door a little bit from this White House to take a stronger look at that than certainly the previous White House would have done last week. But there you go on cryptocurrency also. Okay, now be honest. Were you hoping with the swipe of a Sharpie that Trump was going to create a strategic Bitcoin stash? And were you disappointed when instead what you got was a working group that's going to study the issue? I don't think you should be. I don't think you should be upset about this.
I've always been concerned that Trump was going to try to do this by executive action. And if he creates a Bitcoin reserve or a stockpile, as he puts it, with a executive order, very simply could be undone by the next guy or the guy or gal after him. Absolutely possible. It's a total threat. And it would be a temporary pump. And then, you know, could you imagine the crash when the next POTUS comes in and decides to remove Bitcoin and the strategic stash? That'd be horrendous. This working group, when he talked about this during the campaign, this working group will ideally interface with Senator Lummis and others that are trying to create this at the bill level, at the law level, and hopefully work with them hand in hand to create something sustainable.
The problem is, it appears this process is being perverted by shit coins. We'll see you next week. Music. Okay emergency press conference this is jack mallers ceo of strike and he and many others have been putting the word out about bad actors in the crypto space that are attempting to influence the white house process and the trump family specifically eric trump and others with money bribes, FUD, and propaganda to make the Bitcoin Reserve a digital assets reserve that features Made in America XRP. Ripple is undermining American prosperity and freedom. I can confirm Ripple is actively spending millions of dollars trying to undermine a strategic Bitcoin Reserve in the United States of America.
This is not just an attack on Bitcoin, but on principles of transparency, on fairness, and on our national security. Bitcoin strategic reserve would be one of the most important economic announcements in American history. I personally would put it on par with Nixon in 1971. However, it would be the first positive economic announcement that comes from the United States in the last hundred years. In 1933, the U.S. made an economic announcement. What was it? We're confiscating your gold. In 1971, the U.S. made an economic announcement. What was it? We're divorcing ourselves from the gold standard. We're divorcing ourselves from being governed by the immutable laws of Mother Nature so that we can debase your money and inflate your life.
In 2008, the U.S. made an economic announcement. What was it? It was, we are bailing out and protecting private corporations, banks, and Wall Street at the expense of you, the public. If the U.S. goes on to make an economic announcement that is the support of a Bitcoin strategic reserve. It will not act against its people in the best interest of the public. It will do the opposite. This is a money that is owned, operated, and governed by the people. Governments and corporations own a fraction of this network who owns it who had first access the people the public this is about being pro-industry pro-jobs pro-energy pro-growth pro-technology this is about solving our deficits this is about leaning into the future in investing in prosperity for generations to come.
And the reason I think why Jack and Bitcoiners get so fired up is XRP, Ripple, in particular, has been attacking this process. And it is the shitcoin of major shitcoins out there. If you have any insight why the normies love XRP, please tell me. Anytime I've ever went to a normie accountant and asked them if they do crypto taxes and Bitcoin, they start talking to me about XRP. I'm not kidding you. It's happened more than once. XRP has attacked Bitcoin the most voraciously. Voraciously? You know, they specifically funded Greenpeace to demonize Bitcoin's environmental impact. They have funded anti-Bitcoin lobbyists. They funded Kamala's campaign, specifically because they're pro-CBDC.
They've been sued by the SEC for being a security, and then instead of taking responsibility for that. They gaslit XRP bag holders. They've pre-mined every coin that's ever going to be in existence all at once. And then they hand it out like the rich. And then embarrassingly, XRP's ledger history is even a total shit show. Their first block, or ledger as they put it, is ledger 32569. Because everything before ledger 32569 was lost. So they just lost all those transactions going back to the number one ledger. 35,000 just gone. All the coins created too in those first blocks, no doubt. Such a shame that those early blocks are gone.
So it's clearly a security. It's the pinnacle of crypto fiat, all created at once, no proof of work required. And it particularly benefits one company and one founder. That should not be in the strategic reserve. It's not like gold or silver or even cheese. Bitcoin is. Ripple XRP is not. So this is why the Bitcoiners and then because they're actively spending money and time trying to confuse the White House and the senators involved. It has folks like Jack and myself a little bit worked up. Equality, inclusion, the leader of the free world, adopting technology that promotes American ideals, a money that we don't control.
But that we support, that both aids to solve our country's biggest problems and promotes the world we want to see as Americans and its people. Now, Ripple. Ripple is a for-profit company. It prints its own token in XRP. And it is asking the U.S. government to support its monopoly. I ask you this. Why should the U.S. government back a privately owned currency? This is corporate lobbying disguised as innovation. This is corporate lobbying disguised as tech growth jobs industry ripple created all of its currency issued it to themselves and relies on the public to buy it this is not the money for the people this is not in the best interest of the public this is in the best interest of a private corporation.
This is an economic announcement that would be like 2008, that would be like 1971, that would be like 1933. This is against what this new administration and President Trump stands for. This is against the best interest of the United States of America. It is absurd and ridiculous and Ripple needs to stand down immediately. Not only are they undermining future prosperity in the United States, benefiting from the technological innovation that is Bitcoin, but they are also trying to take advantage of the situation and benefit themselves. Call your representatives and demand an investigation into Ripple's lobbying efforts.
Tweet publicly. Post your comments publicly. I've begun fighting back. I will not stand for this. I am an American. I plan to have children and raise them in America. I will not let Ripple undermine our prosperity, freedom, and benefiting from Bitcoin, a neutral, fair money for the people, for the public. Because this isn't just about Bitcoin versus Ripple. It's about whether the future of money belongs to the people or to private corporations. And it is up to us to decide. Now, part of this service of this show is I like to try to arm you with information so you can plan and hedge appropriately for yourself, for your friends, for your family, for your workplace.
And one of the things that I think we should talk about, because it is going to impact Bitcoiners, is this concept and expectation that seems to be out there and encouraged by the current administration that prices are going to come back down. The Trump administration campaigned on bringing prices down. You know, eggs have been specifically mentioned in here. And I thought maybe after the election, they'd shut up about bringing prices down and just focus on wage increases and stabilizing prices. But that is definitely not what they're doing. Here is Vice President J.D. Vance in a recent interview that's been going around the Internet.
But I have a different take than most people. You campaigned on lowering prices for consumers. We've seen all of these executive orders. Which one lowers prices? We have done a lot. And there have been a number of executive orders that have caused already jobs to start coming back into our country, which is a core part of lowering prices. Now, I'm going to say there, first of all, the first question is lousy. She knows, and if she doesn't know, she should be fired, that there's not an executive order that comes out that says, Safeway, you need to lower your prices. That's not how this works, right?
The executive office can take actions that will encourage the support of the market. They can't directly tell any, well, maybe like in certain circumstances under the Defense of Production Act or things like that. So it's just a stupid bad question, like really a stinker if you think about it. Totally ignorant. But as we continue, I think it reveals a bad strategy by Vance and Trump. More capital investment, more job creation in our economy is one of the things that's going to drive down prices for all consumers, but also raise wages so that people can afford to buy the things that they need.
Now that right there, that's the best possible answer to what was a very bad question. If you look at our slate of executive orders. I like that she chuckles in there. So grocery prices aren't going to come down because that's hilarious. But also raise wages so that people can afford to buy the things that they need. If you look at our slate of executive orders, no, no, Margaret, prices are going to come down, but it's going to take a little bit of time. No, no, J.D., they're not going to come down. Prices are not going to come down of executive orders. No, no, Margaret, prices are going to come down, but it's going to take a little bit of time. Right.
The president has been president for all of five days. I think that in those five days, he's accomplished more than Joe Biden did in four years. It's been an incredible breakneck pace of activity. We're going to work with Congress. We're, of course, going to have more executive orders. And we're going to try the way that you lower prices is that you encourage more capital investment into our country. And yes, you're not going to lower prices. I mean, they really should stop saying this. And you should not plan or expect on this. At best, you know, they could stabilize prices broadly.
They could make policies that incentivize increasing of wages so that wages go up faster than the cost of goods so it feels like relatively things have gotten cheaper they can do that to limited degree but other than a few things prices are not coming down maybe on a couple of things right there's a few things you can increase the you know the amount of like oil or the amount of people working on something and you'll get more of that resource and so you can bring down the cost for a bit. But generally, once you bring down the cost of a commodity, you increase demand overall. And so then demand actually accelerates.
So even then it's kind of temporary. They really just, you know, just think about this. Think about a stake. Let's just make this really simple. Think about a stake and everything involved that sets the price on that stake. From somebody raising a cow and paying for the feed to transport it and the butcher and the fuel involved, of course. To wrapping it up in that styrofoam and that plastic and putting it out on the shelf. All of the different costs that are in that pipeline from the birth of the cow to the piece of meat going on the cellophane in the store. You would have to lower the cost at every one of those individual steps that touch that piece of meat.
Across the board, all of those, the butcher, the transportation, the cow, the feed, the person that sells the livestock, the cut that the grocery store takes, the pay for the people that wrap it and put it out on the shelves, all of those costs collectively would have to come down to make that stake cheaper. And that is true for every item in that grocery store with every single item having its own unique supply chain dynamics. It's possible. You generally don't see that happen unless there's a pretty bad recession though. So you just should stop saying this. And as Bitcoiners, we should stop, if you have been thinking that this is going to happen.
Things are not going to get cheaper. It does not matter who is in the White House. Things are not going to get cheaper. The rate of their cost can slow. So the price feels like it's stable. But even at a 2% inflation rate, things do not stay the same price. It is built into the system. And I don't know why they're saying this because it's so easy to measure. I can look at the price of eggs today, and I can look at the price of eggs in six months. Now, eggs might actually come down because of bird flu, but you get the general point. You can look at the price of milk or cheese or cereal or whatever it is.
You're, you know, I don't care, top ramen. You can look at the price today, and you can look at the price in six months, and you can see that the price didn't go down. So I don't know why they would be claiming this, but do not plan on this as Bitcoiners do not plan on this. And if I'm wrong, you know what? So what? You got some extra purchasing power, so it's not so bad, right? I just don't know why they insist on saying this. If you think prices are going to come down, then you don't know how the economy works. And if you don't know how the economy works, then you probably shouldn't be trying to fix the economy.
I don't mean to harp on this, but it matters. It matters, I think. And, you know, you just kind of look at the situation. People just want relief. And I think I believe that they want to deliver it. And I do think that some of the things they're doing are going to provide more help than the previous administration. But those things are going to stabilize prices. They're going to slow inflation potentially, maybe. But then other actions like tariffs and other things are going to be inflationary. And so I think at least over Q1, for a while, we're going to see a lot of these things get rolled out as appointees get into their position and start executing policies, as situations come up and tariffs come up as a response.
Q1, at least, is going to be sorting some of this out and realizing that prices aren't coming back down. They're not exploding like they were, but in some areas, they're still a little hot and they're still rising. Inflation still is a long-term play here. Even if J-PAL is feeling pretty good. It's not 100% licked. It's kind of a best case scenario for Bitcoiners. I hate to say this, but if we just look at this through the lens of Bitcoin, this is good. You've got an administration that is clearly more crypto friendly. Does that mean a few shit coins get through the door? Probably.
Why do you care? Why do you care? Just sit back and watch the government get screwed. It's going to be fun. They're going to get rugged and it's going to be hilarious. Bitcoin's a superior product. So even if all the shit coins get through the front door, it doesn't matter. Bitcoin still wins. It's a better product and it has a better network. What do we like it? 60 ish percent dominance right now in the crypto market too. So, I mean, I don't love the idea that a Bitcoin reserve could be a digital asset reserve. And I love the idea that inflation is running hot and our politicians are telling us the prices are going to come down, But none of it is extreme.
None of it is beyond manageable. And it means it's bullish for Bitcoin long term. All of this lines up to be bullish for Bitcoin. A more crypto friendly administrative state that is temporarily bullish for Bitcoin. Inflation remaining a little warm, a little hotter than we'd like. That is bullish long term for Bitcoin, both in adoption and just in a price asset evaluation. situation. It all comes together for Bitcoin at the end. I'd love to know your thoughts on any of this, especially the idea that, you know, the prices are never coming down. I don't know. What do you think? I also, I have a question that I just been, it's on the back of my mind, and I want to put it out there to the audience and just kind of trying to get like, you know, I could do this from time to time, trying to get a sense of where the people are at.
I would like to know, did you stack sats before you started boosting the shows? And if you didn't, do you stack sats now? Or have you always stacked sats? Or maybe, are you only interacting with sats when it comes time to boost? And otherwise, you don't hold any sats. So you follow what I'm asking? I'm trying to get a sense of, did you interact with Bitcoin and hold sats before you boosted? If you didn't, do you now? Did you always, and this just became supplementary to your Bitcoin activity, or is it the only Bitcoin activity you engage in? Trying to figure that out. This wasn't a banger week for the show in terms of sat revenue. You know, kind of has been slowing a little bit.
I kind of worry that with the price, the Bitcoin price over $100,000, we're going to start seeing fewer and fewer boosts. I hope we can prove that wrong because every boost counts no matter the size. And I know that's cliche, but it is true. Because what we're doing is building something long term, something bigger over the years. I and many other podcasters are creating our own podcaster Bitcoin reserve. It's a reserve built through the proof of work of creating content week in and week out. And I suspect that the podcasters, and there's a few thousand of them out there, who have adopted this Bitcoin standard and value for value, I think they're going to pave a way for a more honest kind of media in the future, right?
Because they're securing today a roadmap and a runway for tomorrow where they don't have to have sponsors. They don't have to even care what people with money say. They can stay independent. But I think the bigger thing than that even, the thing that would really matter to me as a listener, because we've all seen our favorite show disappear at some point. Some like a show or a magazine, some piece of content that couldn't stay alive because it wasn't sustainable. And a lot of these live and die on the fiat ad market. But by these podcasts, building a Bitcoin reserve, they're building something that can last and last, something that can be sustainable.
And it means your favorite show doesn't disappear because it's been built on top of a durable Bitcoin standard. So I hope you will continue to boost even as the price is above $100,000. Because I think podcasts like this and others, well, I like to think we're building something special. And I'd like to think that in a couple of years, it's going to pay off. In a few years, it's going to pay off for these podcasters who kept their nose down, didn't say yes to a bunch of sponsor money, instead went directly to the audience and built themselves a runway so they have a sustainable media business years down the road, that doesn't require kowtowing to big advertisers.
I hope, and I hope you will support the show with a boost. So please do boost in. Music. Massive bank wants to stack billions of Bitcoin. A couple of states are on the verge of launching a Bitcoin reserve. A city just went Bitcoin friendly. Final clip of the week. Our last track. State of the network and more. So before we go on, I want to tell you how you can support the show by doing what you do. If you want to stack sats and DCA here in the States, buy sats on River. I think it's one of the best way to DCA into Bitcoin in the United States. They support the Lightning Network. They have proof of reserves, a beautiful UI, lots of options, including a nice savings account so you can hold cash so you're ready to smash buy.
Now, if you're all about self-custody, nobody does it like the Bitcoin well. Amazing self-custody platform. They don't hold your sats. You buy and sell directly from your own wallet. Speaking of selling, if you're ready to spend some Bitcoin and you got it on the Lightning Network, no faster or simpler way than thebitcoincompany.com. Bitcoin-only gift cards instantly bought via Lightning. No login required. You can use your Lightning credentials. If you want to stack sats by paying bills, that's the fold card. That's how I stack sats, by paying my everyday bills. And then I get access.
To my Bitcoin value without selling it by using salt lending. I have links to all of those in the show notes. Yes, you can support the show just by doing what you do. Thank you, everybody who does. Music. Oh, there it is. I was like, geez, is it ever going to fire? All right, we have some boosts to get into, and our first boost is also our baller boost, as we do. And it's from SatSquanch, and he's coming in with 66,667 sets. Hey, rich lobster! Hey, Sandsquatch. And he writes, Thanks for reminding us that Bitcoin is hope for all of us. And thank God for Ross's release.
This is the best yet to come. Ross's story epitomizes me that with Bitcoin, even bad things can be turned for good, and good things can't be confiscated. Oh, well said. Yeah, it really, just something about seeing Ross Freed really felt like, okay, this is good. This is, you know, nature is healing. Thank you SatSquatch it's good to hear from you our next boost comes from Block7 he's got 20,000 sats, alright your time and input is invaluable really stoked that you put this out for newcomers and OGs it took me back to the day I heard the news I had forgotten my Silk Road login but it was a wild time, I of course never bought or sold anything thankfully also never knew I shared a birthday with him how about that rock on Chris keep us going and don't stop oh well thank you.
I definitely checked out the Silk Road back in the day. And, you know, it has this sort of, I don't know, reputation as a dark web marketplace. But it was, you know, it was like a PHP app or whatever. It had some frames with the sidebar and, you know, listings in the middle with reviews. I mean, the nice thing that I think people overlook about Silk Road is you had reviewers on the buyers and sellers. So imagine something that's always been illegal and done out in the streets where you could get stabbed or shot or ripped off or get a bag of something bogus. Silk Road just totally flipped that on its head. You had reviews and reputations.
And so it behooved you to participate in the system and be well behaved. And I don't know, man, like in a way, you know, they were talking about how dangerous it was. But in a way, that to me seems like a much safer situation. Right. I mean, it's still illegal, but at least it's not what I, you know, like the danger that I just described. I don't know. I don't think Ross ever deserved what he got. I'm glad he's out. And thank you for the booze block. Listener Jeff is here, aka producer Jeff, with a row of 6,666 lucky numbers. That's not possible. Nothing can do that. Yeah, I know.
I know. Everything's under control. Super informative episode, not sure what effect this pardon may have for the Bitcoin community. Frankly, all crimes are committed with all forms of value, and those crimes should be just fine justice. Making an example out of someone for crimes committed with a out on the fringe at the time, currency is horrible regardless of the guilt or the crime. One should find justice for their crimes and nothing more. Reminds me of how Nintendo ruined a man's life for making mod chips. Seems like the punishment just didn't fit the crime. Personally not a fan of any drug dealer regardless of how they do it, including pharmaceutical ones. Ah, ha, ha.
Calling out the pharmaceuticals. You know, he never sold drugs. He just built the website. Kind of letting adults do what they do. You know, he's a libertarian, you know, very libertarian thing to do. And... Maybe a few years in jail, you know, like everybody else got like three or five years in jail. OK, maybe. Right. But multiple life sentences with no chance of parole for creating the PHP website that other people use to sell drugs. Woo, doggy. Tell you what. Seems like a lot. Hey, look, there's Gene Bean and he's got a whole big old row of ducks.
Thank you, PJ. And Gene Bean writes, the nuclear waste from the military gets buried just like the rest of it, as far as I know. But where, Gene? Where? And why does it not seem to be a problem? Or does it leak and they just don't tell us? Gene says, regarding Liquid, any downside to running the Bolts web app? Myself, or is it beneficial to just use Bolts.exchange, in your opinion? Either way, I think the Bolts web app is just actually interacting with the back end of Bolts.exchange. I use both. You could also look at swap.io. There's another one over there for pegging in and out of Liquid. And sometimes their rates are a little bit cheaper.
But I do love Boltz.exchange. If I got tattoos of Bitcoin companies, Boltz.exchange would be one of them. Boosting in what, he says, also I wanted to boost in, what's the point, I don't really even follow you. Boosting in, what is the post of mine because others here could show authors the V4V way? Gene, I don't even understand what that sentence is. I don't even, Gene, Gene, Gene, I don't even know. But I do like the sentiment in the Noster post, you link. He says, I'm a big believer in value for value and such. I send stats to podcasts like Chris Fisher's This Week in Bitcoin all the time.
I recently learned of Broken Money by Lynn Alden. I'm finishing it up tonight. I've learned so much from that book that I want to send her some value back as well. The result of my first Boostergram lightning payment with a message attached to the book author. I say this not to brag, but in hopes of spreading the value for value model beyond podcasting 2.0 apps. Now, Gene, I am with you on that. Good buddy. Boy, oh boy. I tell you what. I would love to, not books, yes, books, music, obvious, right? Right? You're doing a good job. But wouldn't it also be great to see software? Please, please, can somebody please, please tell software developers about Boost? Never tell me the odds.
Just make it so. And Gene, maybe you're starting the process. Thanks for sharing that with me. ITGuy05 is here with 2,000 sats. Why you got to put numbers and letters together? Why can't you just go f*** yourself? Here we go. So All in the Family, it's Family Ties is what you were talking about with Michael J. Fox. Family Ties, that's it. The reason why I also watched All in the Family, so around the same time, because I was at an Airbnb, and I think I was using, like, Pluto TV. You know? And I'm just looking for something to watch because it's just, like, the built-in apps on this old smart TV.
I really got to get a portable kit and just be able to bring my own media. But I couldn't believe they were talking about the Federal Reserve and interest rates and all that. It's just really funny. But thank you for the correction, IT guy. And it's nice to hear from you. Thanks for the boost. Vault Byte's here with a row of ducks. That's 2,222 zions. I think the crypto space has its share of retards just like the state money has. But Bitcoin's resilience will prevail. It's your own choice. What kind of money do you want to use? Not only that, Vault Byte, but just think about all these countries, especially like in the UK and in the EU.
And other areas, I mean, and I don't know of all of them, but I know there's something north of 80 countries, something ridiculous, some high number of countries that are all looking into CBDCs. I wonder if I could, how many countries are looking into a CBDC? Because it's ridiculous right now. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Over 130 countries are currently exploring the development of a central bank digital currency representing 98% of global GDP. CBG. And if you narrow it just down to the G20 countries, 44 countries are piloting CBDCs right now in the G20 countries, which is up from 36 last year.
So 44 this year from 36 last year. Okay, Vault. So think about this. Damn near everybody in the West is about to become an alt coiner or a crypto coiner of some kind. It might be a state coin, but they're going to be an altcoin user. And this entire time, they could have been buying into Bitcoin. You know, and they would have their state coin, and they could have a coin that is outside the state system. Is it that weird once all money is cryptocurrency? It's not that weird. But they couldn't get their thick heads past it. And now they're going to end up being a shitcoin user anyways.
And I just think it's hilarious. Thank you, Vault Byte. Appreciate the boost. Ace Alkerman's back with Rodux. Inevitably the meme coins only cannibalize each other shit coins are for gamblers and degenerates the smart money goes to bitcoin i think ross albrecht emerges as a high as a high quality ambassador for sensible bitcoin adoption oh i would love that let's break this down great boost, you're right the shit coins are just stealing liquidity from each other constantly right these meme coins launch melania coin launches they it steals like 50 60 percent liquidity from trump coin it's crazy it's really crazy also there is a really interesting stat and i wish i had this hot and ready for you i do not every time bitcoin has hit a hundred thou you know because we've hit a hundred thou then drop below then we get back to a hundred thou then we drop below then we get to a hundred thou like the last four or five times which to be expected it's a big number, altcoins are at a lower evaluation things like eth and avalanche and whatever else you know especially ETH.
ETH is the, you know, like the first time we hit 100,000, ETH is like at four grand. I'm making these numbers up. The second time Bitcoin gets back to 100,000, ETH is at like 3,800. Third time ETH is at like 34. Now ETH is at like 3,200. Each time the other coins have gone down substantially in value. Where's that money going? It's going to Bitcoin. It's going to Bitcoin. It just does it so slowly you don't see it. But when you zoom out and look at the charts and price things in Bitcoin, go price ETH in Bitcoin. Go price pretty much every other coin and Bitcoin, they all eventually collapsed down.
That's why we say just buy Bitcoin, hold it for four years. Don't mess around with the meme coins. Maybe you'll get lucky on a weird Friday and you'll make a million bucks on Trump coin, maybe. But you just put the proof of work in. You stack sats. You hold on to it. Thank you, Ace. It's good to hear from you. Thank you, everybody, who boosted in. I got some nice comments below the 2000sat cutoff line for reading on the air, on the show, on the air. Thank you, everybody, including Nick and others who sent nice messages. We had also 37 of you stream sats as you listened.
So collectively, the show stacked 88,618 sats by you sat streamers. Thank you very much. I really do appreciate that. And then when you combine that with all of you that boosted, which was nine of you this week, we had a grand total of 195,997 sats. Not a blowaway episode. Maybe people don't like the Roth stuff. Maybe it's the Bitcoin price. But I'd love the support. The show continues on. Working hard. We'll be right back. Music. If you'd like to boost, I'll have links in the show notes. But you can get started with Fountain FM and Strike.
Or use the links in the show notes for River or the Bitcoin Whale. They're on the Lightning Network as well. and then you just need a podcasting 2.0 app, or if you don't want to switch podcast apps, you can use Breeze, B-R-E-E-Z. You can find those listed at podcastapps.com. There's a lot of ways to get involved and have fun, and I appreciate it. Music. I have a few things I want to follow up. This is pretty wild. The Czech head central bank wants to buy billions of dollars in Bitcoin. The central bank head is pushing to invest 5% of the nation's 146 billion reserves into Bitcoin. And you can imagine if the central bankers advocating for that, there's probably broader political support.
And I was just extremely excited to see that because at the same time, we also see more states coming out than I can really keep track of. The Utah House, Utah's House Committee, I guess, has passed a bill that would allow the state to invest a portion of public funds into Bitcoin. Today, the real turd of Texas, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who I just talked about last week, announced establishing the Texas Bitcoin as a priority bill for the 2025 legislation session. I mean, the whole list is a mixed bag, but number 21 on the list is establishing a Texas Bitcoin reserve.
It's remarkable. And then if that momentum wasn't enough, Vancouver, which I told you they were working on, has passed the Bitcoin-friendly city motion. And things are looking up. Inside Vancouver City Hall, the mayor is bullish on Bitcoin. I think it's the greatest invention ever in human history. Ken Simm, the chartered accountant and investment banker turned business owner, says the city can't afford not to consider investing in cryptocurrency. Bitcoin's also the number one performing asset on the planet over the last 16 years. If we don't do something to shore up our balance sheet going forward.
We're not going to be able to provide the same level of services. Yesterday, Council passed SIMS Motion directing staff to explore holding cryptocurrency in reserve and accepting payments in Bitcoin for everything from parking tickets to property tax. Economists suggest crypto caution. If you want to be a progressive city, you should be looking at, you know, how the world is changing and Bitcoin is making a huge impact. But as I said, very, very few people use it. There is a huge question mark over its long term value. And so I think exploring it is probably where it will end. This is their expert.
So let's let's go through each one of these, because it's always fun to kind of respond to some of these like just maybe these are automatic. Like they read these back in 2018. And so when their brain is activated and they're supposed to be an expert, they go to like, well, I read that Wired said this once. And so if I repeat this, it's probably accurate. Progressive city, you should be looking at, you know, how the world is changing and Bitcoin is making a huge impact. OK, I'd like that he acknowledges that Bitcoin is making a big impact, but then he says nobody's using it.
Well, how does it make a big impact if nobody's using it? But as I said, very, very few people use it. You know, does BlackRock not count the most successful ETF launch in history? What about what about like the 15 other ETFs when you go all around the world that have literally thousands of users? And then you have all of the millions of on-chain users. Like, what is the threshold for a lot of users? Because is it billions? Like, what is it for this guy? Clearly, it's not whatever Bitcoin is, which seems to be pretty huge in my estimation. There is a huge question mark over its long-term value here.
Yeah, OK, because you know what? The volatility is so scary, right? The volatility is so scary. Well, Bitcoin is the only asset that comes back, right? Lynn wrote this in a newsletter, and I just thought this was so perfect. She says, in fact, Bitcoin is the only asset I'm aware of that has had four separate instances of drawing down over 75% and bouncing back to an all-time new high each time. That's how assets are monetized. That's not how bubbles work. Bitcoin is not tulips. Bitcoin is not a bubble. You don't have something that collapses and then re-inflates and then collapses.
That's not a bubble. That is an asset growing. And each time it levels off at a newer, higher rate. You look at it, $100,000. And this argument still is accepted on air. But as I said, very, very few people use it. There is a huge question mark over its long-term value. And so I think exploring it is probably where it will end. If the city does decide to dive into cryptocurrency, there is a looming legal question. Provincial law prevents municipalities from accepting it as payment or using it to make investments. A lot of the rules that currently exist are pretty much outdated.
It really shows you the uphill battle that some of these Bitcoin, I guess, legislative actions are going to have to take. Right. I mean, even if they even if they get past the study phase, then they have to, like, you know, get past the whole we can't use it as an investment means phase. It's just so dumb. It's so bad. It's so bad. Let's talk about something better. Last week, I gave Pomp, Anthony Pompliano, a hard time because he went on CNBC and just absolutely did not manage to explain the difference between crappy meme coins and Bitcoin. I couldn't believe it. It was like a setup, and he just managed to not knock it out of the park.
So when the Mooch went on CBS, and I think it's like their Sunday morning show with millions of more viewers, I thought, oh, boy, Anthony Scaramucci is going to blow it, and he's going to embarrass Bitcoiners in front of the nation. I don't know. Maybe he did all right. Maybe he even did better than Pomp. Let's see how he did, and you tell me what you think. Do me a glossary check, Anthony. You see that the struggling to breathe, the searching for words. Do me a glossary check, Anthony. You know, like, it's this is major. He's annoyed by it. He struggles to understand it still. So do me a glossary check, Anthony.
Bitcoin, stablecoin, memecoin, tokens, are they all the same thing? No. And so what Bitcoin really is, and without giving up too much detail on television to bore people, but it's become a durable, stable, long-term store of value. And I say stable because it's never been hacked. It's sort of impregnable and it's scarce and it's immutable. It's volatile, though, and it goes up and down as the society is adopting Bitcoin. We've experienced high volatility in Bitcoin, but it's the best performing asset over the last 10 years. And so if you read something like Neil Ferguson's book, The Ascent of Money, it checks all of the boxes of what human beings like in their money in terms of using it as a technology to trade goods and services with each other.
This is it. I don't know. Maybe, Mooch, maybe you're listening to the show and you heard me say, talk about it is good money, you're doing it. Like, I couldn't believe it. When he goes to the, it's good money, like, yes! Yes! This is what you focus on! Ugh. A meme coin is really just a gambling token. It has... You know, blockchain technology to it, and you can transfer it back and forth to each other, but it really doesn't have that much value, and it hasn't really been adapted by the mainstream financial institutions. And you mentioned some other things. Those are also, you know, security-like instruments in the world of technology, but nothing is as durable or as sustainable as Bitcoin.
There you go. How hard was that? Good job, Mooch. Pomp, what are you doing? What are you doing? Also, I thought this was just fun. You know, I love watching local news because it's always a little bit less polished than the national stuff. I don't know. I enjoy that more. And it's also interesting to see local news have to talk about Bitcoin because there's genuine interest in their local community. But they're not experts and they have to acknowledge that or or they have to at least be disingenuous. They have to they have to pick a route. Right. So it's always funny to see which way they're going to go. Another record set today by the price of Bitcoin. How many of you understand it? I don't.
Okay, so we know what route he's chosen. The humility route, which I applaud. I can't teach you about it, but today I talked with a financial advisor who believes you need to learn more about it. Ray Houstu watches the financial station for a Bitcoin price. There it is right there. Imagine staring at the Fox Business price ticker lower third all day, waiting for the Bitcoin price to come across. That's how this boomer's getting his Bitcoin prices. I'm not trying to be ageist, but that's not something anybody younger would ever even think of, right? They've got widgets on their phone.
I'm not even lying, guys. I've got a Bitcoin price widget on my watch, okay? I've got price widgets on everything, all right? I've got websites bookmarked with different types of ways of displaying the Bitcoin price, depending on my mood, right? I'm not waiting for Fox Business to every 10 minutes scroll the price, whatever the price was five minutes ago when they updated the lower third. It's just like never even crossed my mind. This guy literally stands around watching the TV waiting for the price ticker. Okay, so he's going to tell us about Bitcoin. Ray Houstu watches the financial station for a Bitcoin price. There it is right there.
92,600. Another record-setting day. I absolutely advise everybody to do your homework on it, to research this. It is something that you need to know and learn about. Ray Houstu is a financial advisor. He was a doubter at first on Bitcoin, but he studied it, finding a paper which explained the blockchain technology Bitcoin is based on. All right, my guy. They got a decent guy here. In fact, you'll come to discover he went in specifically wanting to criticize Bitcoin, looking for things to doggone it about, does the research and comes away with the conclusion, wait, this is actually really good technology.
I love those conversion stories. And I read that and I was blown away by it because I just wanted to find a reason to tell people this was garbage. And I couldn't. How Stu can't say whether you should buy it or not. Every person's situation is different. He believes demand for Bitcoin right now is based on two things. The SEC approved it for exchange-traded products, and Donald Trump embracing digital assets. Bitcoin is the network itself, so the government can't control it, the bank can't control it, the central banks can't control it, and that's part of the reason that people are excited about it.
Bitcoin seemed more like a gaming token, a novelty instrument when it started 15 years ago. Now it's recognized like other investments, which are centuries old. Right up there with silver and oil and everything else. House 2 believes Bitcoin has proven that it's here to stay. It's like gold, only it's much more efficient than gold. You don't have to pay to store it. You don't have to pay to transport it. You don't have to pay to protect it. You don't have to cut, you know, with gold, you can't cut slivers off to pay for things. All those you can do with Bitcoin.
Now, there will only be 21 million Bitcoin mined. there are 56 million millionaires around the world. If every one of them wanted to own a full Bitcoin. I like that little, I left that little bit at the end there just because I like it. The millionaire, if every one of them wanted to, they couldn't. Okay, you mentioned, I mentioned, you heard me mention tulip bubble. How many times have you heard Bitcoin called tulips? It's the modern tulip mania. Well, you know, for a little background, tulip mania lasted approximately three to four years. Okay, so first of all, Bitcoin is a little bit older than that.
And it went from 19, I'm sorry, 19. It went from 1634 to like 1637. Collapsed, I believe, in February of 1637. And, you know, it has such resonance in our history, but the overall impact of the tulip bubble on the Dutch economy was relatively limited at the time and actually has cemented the Dutch as the source for the best tulips in the world for the remainder of history. So they've done pretty well. But to compare Bitcoin to tulips is a demonstration of someone's ignorance of how these things work and of how bubbles work. And I just talked about how bubbles work with Lynn's article, which I'll try to link to the entire thing in the show notes.
But Michael Saylor was, and I haven't played a clip of his for a while. He was at a Q&A interview at a special all access event. I got the details for you here. This is the description. At the exclusive CEO reception during the ICR Conference 2025, Michael Saylor, executive chairman of MicroStrategy, captivated the audience in an engaging interview with CNBC's Morgan Brennan. The invitation-only event provided a unique platform for Saylor to share his insights on cryptocurrency and the future of digital assets. And there was a Q&A portion at the end, and this guy who's all smart, and he's figured it out. You know, Michael Saylor doesn't know what he's doing.
He's spent all these billions of dollars because he didn't realize that Bitcoin is just another tulip mania. And so he says, hey, it looks like tulip mania to me. What say you? Silly Michael. He is a science historian. I've read 100,000 pages of history. It starts as a science historian. He says, as a science historian. That's how he starts. As a science historian. I'm like, oh boy, it's going to be one of these answers. And I think the story of history is humanity's condition was improved when we got clean water, clean food, clean air, electricity, clean power.
When we got petroleum, when we got cars, when we got nuclear energy, when we got antibiotics. If you look at the plight of humanity for thousands of years, people are dying at age 30. There's a 40% infant mortality rate because the food's dirty, the water's dirty, and they've got no hope. And when they were dying of dirty water and dirty food, they didn't know they were dying of dirty water and dirty food. We bled George Washington to death. Every rich person in the Middle Ages died of gout because they drank red wine, because they couldn't drink water, because it was contaminated. and so.
All of these companies, if you look at the mortality rate of a corporation is 99%. The average life expectancy of a company is 10 to 15 years. And you can say, well, we'll just take it for granted. Companies should only last 10 years. Just like, you know, 40% of your kids, maybe they should just die before the age of five because that's just the way God willed it. Or maybe we should just die at age 31, which is the life expectancy in Elizabethan England. But the point is, they didn't die because they were genetically predisposed to die. They died because they had dirty food, dirty water, dirty energy.
They worked themselves to death. And the best thing that ever happened to humanity was the passage of technology. So Satoshi put his finger on one observation. The observation is the money is corrupt and dirty and is defective. And you want me to show you how it's defective I tell you a thousand stories of people being murdered for their money Every single story of Jews fleeing from authoritarianism Every story in Germany of the Protestants, the Catholics, murdering each other Everybody that came to America, they came because they're fleeing for property rights, The entire history of the human race is littered with tragedy because people never had proper economic energy.
A type 1 diabetic can't store organic energy. They will eat themselves to death. Fat is the way you store organic energy. Somehow, over the course of hundreds of millions of years, mammals figured out how to store organic energy, and they had fat cells. We as humans have not had the ability to store economic energy properly. We tried with gold. It never quite worked. I could give you 100 examples of it not quite working. I can give you 1,000 examples of hyperinflation dating back to 500 BC of money not quite working. For the first time in human history, we have invented a technology that allows a human to tightly bind economic energy to their person or for a corporation to tightly bind economic energy to the corporation, what it means is you don't have to suffer an early painful economic death.
And you can tell me, oh, that doesn't matter. But I would point to everyone in Africa. I would point to all of the misery in Cuba and North Korea and Venezuela. I would point to the misery in the aftermath of hyperinflationary incidents that took place in Brazil, Argentina. Venezuela Russia I could go on forever there are literally a hundred thousand pages read the story of civilization by Will Durant and you will find a thousand examples of currency collapse and economic misery and this person Satoshi offered us this gift the gift is you get to own your own money and no one can take it away from you you get to keep it right you get to keep your life force.
And what do I think will happen? I think that companies' life expectancy on the Bitcoin standard goes from 10 years to 30 years to 40 years to 100 years. And I think living longer is a good thing. And I think families' life expectancy is dramatically increased. I could do the simple math for you. The half-life of money in gold is 30 years. Gold debases at 2% a year. 30, 35 years. The half-life of money in Bitcoin is forever. 0% inflation makes your money last forever. So I think that some people will not appreciate it, and they won't get it. That's okay. You don't have to buy it.
Lots of people won't buy it. By the way, I do think that if you ask how many Americans own it or care, they just tipped the election in favor of Trump. I think they care. I think the crypto lobby is the number one political force today. So I do think there's a lot of people that do agree with me. They do get it. There are $800 billion to a trillion dollars of real money that has been invested in the network. You can trace it if you like. But that doesn't mean it's for everybody. Everyone didn't install electricity in Florida. Sorry, air conditioning, right? Right, that's new. All sorts of technologies don't get embraced for 30 years, and this won't.
But I would say clean money is just as important as antibiotics. It's just as important as fat. It's just as important as clean electricity, right? So that's my answer to you. It's technology. It makes the world a better place. And I think that for a billion human beings that are destined to economic misery, for them it's the matter of life or death. You're not one of them, right? We'll stipulate. Lots of Americans aren't one. But drop yourself in Nigeria where it's illegal to own the dollar, where the Naira is going to zero, and then try to give some money to a person you want to help in Nigeria or capitalize a company in Nigeria.
And tell me how you're going to do it. Because generally the answer is, well, we just don't. Everybody stays poor. Every company fails. And all the economies collapse. And that's the same answer as a type 1 diabetic. diabetic. We just don't. We just die. And I think insulin to a type 1 diabetic is Bitcoin. Music. On the state of the network before we get out of here. Right now, Bitcoin's sitting at 104,100 U.S. greenbacks. Sats per dollar, 961 sats to one U.S. greenback. We are down 4.6% from our all-time high, which is nine days ago on January 19th, 2025. Close, though. 109, 104, pretty, you know, in the range.
Love to see this. Reachable nodes on the network. We're almost to 21,000, boys. We almost there. 21,923. Come on. Come on. We can get it to 21,000. Come on. We can do that. And this show, it wraps up at block height 881,418. Looking at all these stats here, it's just incredible. TikTok, another block. The network is strong. Music. Links to what i talked about today will be over at this week in bitcoin.show this here was episode 44 of course you can find all the previous episodes over at this week in bitcoin.show would love to hear from you maybe boost in with what you'd like to hear or see from the show if i miss something you'd like to hear me talk about let me know and if you've got thoughts on anything I talked about, please boost in, including, of course, I want your thoughts on Bitcoin before and after you started boosting, if it changed your Bitcoin holding behavior at all.
Also, if you think I'm way off base on the prices coming down, I'd love to hear your Steel Manor pushback on that as well. And please do consider sharing this week in Bitcoin. You'll have to apologize for the fact that I sometimes don't have a working mouth. You'll have to prepare them for that. But otherwise, I hope the signal is strong enough that they'll make it through and they'll enjoy the content. Also, shout out to all of you once again for the second week in a row. We did it. The song that I featured last week hit number one on the Value for Value music charts. Do It Good by Henry Invisible hit number one over at podcastindex.top, which is really cool to see. It's a great song.
And this week, I'm going to leave you with another Value for Value track. So if you boost in during this song, 95% of your sats will go to the artist. It's just such a cool way to support people making independent music. This week, I'm featuring Lou. Music.
Welcome Into TWiB 44
Let's Start with MACRO
Central Bank Shifts and Market Reactions
Crypto Regulation and Risks Discussed
Banks Serving Crypto Customers
Executive Orders and Bitcoin
The Future of Bitcoin Reserves
Ripple's Influence and Controversies
The Impact of Political Demands
Economic Expectations Under Trump
The Reality of Price Stabilization
Understanding Inflation and Bitcoin
Bitcoin's Long-Term Prospects
Building a Sustainable Bitcoin Media
Support for the Show
Show Boosts and Listener Feedback
Ross Ulbricht and Bitcoin's Symbolism
Following Up on Listener Questions
Bitcoin Adoption and Legislative Developments
Bitcoin's Resilience Against Criticism
Bitcoin as Economic Lifeline
State of the Network and Closing Remarks
