Latest / Simply Bitcoin / The Bitcoin Nation State HASH Race JUST Accelerated! | EP 1170

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The Bitcoin Nation State HASH Race JUST Accelerated! | EP 1170 · Simply Bitcoin

0:00
Yeah well everyone was distracted with the crazy week
0:03
of Trump coming into office. 2 multi trillion dollar BRICS
0:08
nations quietly made a bigger move into Bitcoin.
0:13
You heard that right, the Bitcoin price is going sideways
0:17
but the Bitcoin hash rate continues to hit all time highs
0:21
and some people think that the price should be over 500,000
0:25
considering what the hash rate is right now.
0:29
And the hash rate shows no signs of slowing down whatsoever.
0:35
Are these brick nations welcoming Bitcoin to prepare for
0:39
Trump's proposition of placing Trump's 100% tariffs for not
0:44
using the US dollar? Let's play you the clip of Trump
0:48
talking about those tariffs, and then we'll talk about it.
0:51
If a country tells me, Sarah, we like you very much, but we're
0:55
going to no longer adhere to being in the reserve currency.
1:00
We're not going to salute the dollar anymore.
1:03
I'll say that's OK. And you're going to pay a 100%
1:08
tariff on everything you sell into the United States.
1:11
And we love your product. I hope you sell a lot of it into
1:14
the United States, but you're going to pay 100%.
1:18
He will then follow it up by saying, Sir, it would be an
1:20
honor to stay with the reserve currency.
1:23
I will be. That will be like just playing.
1:26
That's not even chess. That's checkers.
1:28
But you don't have other listen to this.
1:33
So I, I just got to say Trump is a natural born comedian.
1:39
And the other thing that I'll say as well is this really
1:42
interesting phenomenon, right? Like it's like a global currency
1:47
war. The the dollar wants the US
1:49
government wants the dollar to stay on top.
1:52
BRICS nations are, you know, looking into Bitcoin, like the
1:56
rush, the news coming out of Russia, basically making the
1:59
case that they want to use Bitcoin to quote UN quote,
2:02
circumvent the sanctions. Of course, other BRIC nations
2:05
are incentivized to look for dollar alternatives.
2:09
And what I got to say about all this is like when currencies
2:12
compete. For.
2:15
I guess business and people and Bitcoin, I think the individual
2:19
wins in this situation. So it's going to be like a very
2:22
interesting phenomenon to see, you know, where this goes over
2:26
the next couple of years and especially with the pro Bitcoin
2:31
administration in the White House right now.
2:33
I mean, I know it wasn't perfect.
2:35
I know it wasn't perfect, but you got to give credit where
2:38
credit is due. Ross has been freed.
2:40
The repeal of SAB 1/21, which was horrible, the end of the
2:45
Biden administration's Operation Choke Point 2.0.
2:48
I know there's been a little bit of, you know, altcoin degeneracy
2:52
and whatever, but hey, you know, politics is all about compromise
2:56
and I think that's important to keep in mind.
2:58
But let's go through some of this.
3:00
What what am I talking about in regards to the hash rate?
3:02
What am I talking about in regards to what are these BRIC
3:06
nations? Who are they?
3:07
So let's start off with Russia. Russia earlier on the year
3:10
passed a law that would be essentially making mining legal
3:16
in certain areas of the country. Here's one of the recent
3:19
headlines, Russia's ROSTI to launch crypto mining operations
3:24
in low demand areas. I mean this, this perfectly
3:27
makes sense. Bitcoin uses energy that was
3:30
otherwise going to waste stranded energy.
3:32
That's why it's it's economic, it's economical.
3:35
This energy is in isolated areas.
3:38
It's not very it's, it's pretty difficult to transport energy
3:42
over long distances. It like kind of loses its think
3:45
of it like a battery like if you leave your iPhone, your night
3:48
stand and you charge it to 100%, you wake up the next day, it's
3:51
at like 99. So we transport energy over long
3:54
distances. It's doesn't quite make sense.
3:56
So you kind of have to use it on the spot.
3:59
And that's where Bitcoin miners come through because essentially
4:02
Bitcoin miners can go anywhere around the world.
4:04
You can just pick up an S9 or an S19, plug it in the middle of
4:08
nowhere, you don't have a star link or whatever and boom you're
4:10
mining Bitcoin, right. So you go to stranded energy
4:14
pockets and that makes it very economical to mine.
4:17
Also, a new news coming out of Paraguay, massive news.
4:21
Bit Farm sells its Paraguay site to Hive for $85 million.
4:27
So this is a global phenomenon. And of course, the news coming
4:30
out of Brazil. Brazilian congressman introduces
4:34
bill for national Bitcoin reserve.
4:36
Also very similar news coming out of Russia.
4:39
The Russian State Duma, which is the equivalent of the House of
4:43
Representatives here in the United States, made an
4:45
announcement that they were essentially that they were
4:50
looking into making a strategic Bitcoin reserve as well.
4:54
So again, it's the this like nation state game theory
4:59
incentive thing playing out is extremely exciting.
5:02
And I think we're just in the very beginnings of the
5:06
disintermediation of money and state.
5:08
And it's extremely exciting to have this kind of front row
5:12
experience to all of this. ANYWAYS, on today's show we have
5:15
Alex McShane. Alex McShane is the director of
5:18
programming at the Bitcoin Conference.
5:21
And of course, my legendary Co host who's always optimistic
5:25
optimist fields. I do want to give a shout out to
5:27
everybody watching the show right now.
5:28
If you guys are enjoying the show, help us break 100 likes
5:31
within the 1st 12 minutes or 10 minutes of the show.
5:35
So smash that like button if you guys are watching us.
5:38
But yeah, I want to pass it on to McShane.
5:40
McShane, you guys pulled off a miracle last year at the Bitcoin
5:44
conference by getting then presidential candidate Donald
5:49
Trump at the event, and not only that, RFK junior as well.
5:53
So do you have any thoughts on some of the news and headlines
5:56
that I was covering? Yeah, I'm pretty optimistic.
6:01
I'm pretty happy to see some follow through on the things we
6:04
were promised as very, very skeptical the Trump
6:09
administration, but all politicians in general just
6:11
catering to bitcoiners making promises in in in turn for our
6:16
for our donations and sort of support and cheerleading.
6:20
You know, bitcoiners love to rally behind other supposed
6:24
Bitcoiners. And so far Trump's, you know,
6:27
followed through on what he's promised.
6:28
I think people might have forgotten a little bit the
6:31
specifics of the promises that he's made, you know, and, and
6:35
maybe had higher hopes for a Bitcoin exclusive sort of new
6:39
accumulation for the United States.
6:43
It's interesting times, man. It's super bullish, but it's
6:46
also it's very strange and sort of unreal to see, like you said,
6:49
the game theory playing out. And actually, I, I would say the
6:52
opposite. It's almost like the
6:53
intermediation of, of money in state because we have, you know,
6:58
states looking to embrace the, the, the, the real money, which
7:01
is Bitcoin in the world. So it's, it's crazy times, man.
7:04
It's very, it's very confusing. Absolutely.
7:06
And we're going to talk a little bit about that also during the
7:09
news segment. The state of Arizona apparently
7:12
has been making progress there. I'll read you guys the headline.
7:16
Arizona Senate moves forward with Bitcoin reserve
7:20
legislation, so big news, potential Bitcoin adoption on
7:25
the federal level with the, I mean, McShane, what did you
7:28
think about the executive order? I think a lot of us Bitcoiners
7:31
were expecting an official strategic Bitcoin reserve
7:35
announcement, American Huddle said.
7:37
We got rugged. I know that there was a lot of
7:41
pressure by the Ripple lobby to kind of stop that.
7:44
What are your thoughts, McShane? And my thoughts were I've, I've
7:49
been trying to get this interview released.
7:50
I did an interview a few months ago where I predicted that this
7:53
would happen because the US already owns a lot of Bitcoin.
7:57
We already have a strategic reserve, quote UN quote, even if
8:00
we're not allowed to or it might be illegal, illegal like a very
8:05
dicey issue to use this Bitcoin in any sort of way. the US can
8:08
simply not sell it. And they have about, you know,
8:10
190, two, 100,000 Bitcoin that are stolen.
8:15
And I'm not advocating that they should keep the stolen Bitcoin
8:18
as their own, but it seemed likely at the time that that was
8:21
a pretty big disincentive not to spend more money to buy more.
8:27
That's basically what's happened today.
8:29
That's that's the stockpile. That's not we're not seeing that
8:32
new buying. It's going to be at least 180
8:34
days before we see some sort of decision from this kind of
8:37
crypto council thing on whether or not they're going to approve
8:40
new buying. It's very unclear whether this
8:43
is going to be exclusive to Bitcoin.
8:45
Seems very obvious that other lobbies with a lot more spending
8:49
power than you know, other crypto contingents are going to
8:53
worm their way in there and get their coins accumulated as well.
8:57
And let's not forget what kicked off this whole sideways or kind
9:01
of bear season. You know, the Trump's just
9:03
launching tokens left and right. So it's been, it's been pretty
9:08
jarring, man, to watch all this unfold.
9:11
Absolutely, I mean the Trump coin release on Friday, 3 days
9:16
before the inauguration, like God damn a lot of people are
9:20
like Gary Gensler was right. Oh man Opti you were saying Gary
9:25
Gensler was right. What are your thoughts brother?
9:27
Gary Gensler is my hero. He he protected us from shit
9:30
coins. No, no, I mean, I, I'm kind of
9:32
trolling when I say that, but you know, in hindsight, you, you
9:36
can make up whatever story you want.
9:37
So, you know, I, I like, I like trolling a little bit.
9:40
But yeah, going back to this news story, Nico, we forgot one
9:43
big news story here. I'm going to pull it up real
9:45
quick because it really just goes to show that the global
9:48
game theory or hash war that Kaiser has been saying for a
9:51
long time is actually playing out.
9:53
So a lot of people are basically waiting for a strategic Bitcoin
9:57
reserve somewhere around the world, whether it's on a state
9:59
level or a federal level, you know, at the at the top is
10:03
echelons or on a state level in the But what we're seeing is a
10:06
lot of people are starting to look for opportunities to mine
10:10
Bitcoin and mining Bitcoin isn't like a sexy topic here.
10:13
You know, people seem to forget that some of the most important
10:16
people in Bitcoin are the miners out there.
10:18
And you're seeing that in fact, Bitcoin mining isn't going to
10:22
boil the oceans. It's not going to take all the
10:23
world's energy and it's a great way to profit.
10:26
And we're seeing this one. So here's a headline here, guys.
10:28
So Petrobras leverages flared gas for Bitcoin mining and
10:32
they're a huge state sanctioned oil company in Brazil.
10:35
So, you know, Russia, Brazil are now actively looking to mine
10:40
Bitcoin and you're starting to see that more people around the
10:44
world are waking up to this very thing that hey, if you want to
10:47
stay profitable, you might want to start looking into Bitcoin
10:50
mining. And again, everyone's been kind
10:53
of has their eye on the ball on the strategic Bitcoin reserve.
10:56
But I think these plays right now that we're seeing play out
10:59
in regards to energy are some of the bigger evolutions that we're
11:04
seeing happen right now. Obviously the hash rate is just
11:06
continuing to RIP. And there's the saying, you
11:09
know, or price follows hash. Hash rate keeps hitting all time
11:12
high. I forget what Kaiser's been
11:14
saying out there, but Kaiser's been predicting that apparently
11:17
because of the hash rate, the Bitcoin price should be at
11:20
around 500 K. Who knows what is actually going
11:22
to happen with the price right now, But you're seeing that it's
11:25
it's almost like the sovereign individual thesis playing out
11:28
right now as the US tries to clamp down and control their
11:33
world currency status. A lot of countries are looking
11:36
away. And obviously This is why you're
11:38
seeing Trump posturing and saying, hey, you want to leave
11:41
the dollar, you know, have fun. What do you say?
11:43
If you don't want to salute the dollar, have fun playing with
11:46
whatever you want to do, but we're just going to slap tariffs
11:49
on you. So you're seeing that the
11:51
monetary controls right now, the currency controls are playing
11:53
out and the BRICS nation has been posturing, or rather all of
11:56
the BRICS nations have been posturing for the last couple of
11:59
months. And I guess all of last year,
12:01
basically that they're trying to move away from the dollar.
12:04
They tried to create their own currency.
12:06
We're seeing a lot of BRICS nations kind of slowly and slyly
12:09
embrace Bitcoin on the background.
12:11
It's not really making too many headlines, but I think these
12:15
conversations are very important to to kind of parse out what's
12:18
actually happening is the dollar is, you know, even though it's
12:22
the strongest currency in the world right now, people are
12:25
looking to move away from the dollar.
12:27
Like there isn't much interest in U.S. government debt right
12:29
now. And people are looking for
12:31
alternatives. And obviously we think Bitcoin
12:33
is that alternative. Bitcoin mining is going to do
12:35
well for energy sectors all around the world.
12:38
You know, there's a lot of talks about Bitcoin Citadel's
12:40
happening this year. I think things are ramping up,
12:43
but everyone's still kind of caught up in the Bitcoin
12:46
strategic reserve right now. And they're like, yeah, once a
12:48
nation state kind of puts Bitcoin on their balance sheet
12:51
or what, whoever starts printing money to buy Bitcoin, then
12:55
obviously numbers going to go up incredibly.
12:57
But I think seeing Bitcoin mining continue to be
13:01
distributed around the world, even if it's state sanction, I
13:04
think just goes to show that the the game theory and the
13:07
incentives around Bitcoin just holding it and of course,
13:11
Bitcoin mining, it is starting to catch on.
13:13
And this is all pure economics. And you know, the economics runs
13:17
the world right now. Everything that we're seeing
13:19
play out in the last couple couple of days, and I was going
13:22
to say weeks, but last couple of days is really just trying to
13:25
maintain, you know, the world dominance in Wall Street right
13:29
now. They're, they're trying to
13:30
continue the Wall Street price to go up and it looks like
13:33
people are looking for alternative.
13:35
So the US government right now is in a precarious place where
13:40
they have to make government debt look interesting for
13:43
people. And obviously one of the ways
13:45
for them to do that is to add Bitcoin to the balance sheet,
13:48
create these Bitcoin bonds, try to get interest back into U.S.
13:52
Treasuries. And as a Bitcoiner, like, you
13:55
know, McShane was saying, even though we're in the separation
13:58
of money and state, it seems like there is this symbiotic
14:00
relationship right now where they have to embrace Bitcoin to
14:04
kind of continue to kick the ball down the, the, the road.
14:07
So it's a very interesting time that that we find ourselves in
14:11
as Bitcoiners. I know a lot of Bitcoiners are
14:13
feeling, feeling a little icky because it's like, wait, do we
14:16
like politicians now or? Or what?
14:22
Well, there's this, this weird incentive where people have to
14:25
get that number to go up to pump the, the, the price of the
14:28
thing. We're just cheerleading and
14:30
applauding any interaction that every government has with
14:33
Bitcoin overall, where I think we're, as you're saying, Opti,
14:37
like the real thing to be bullish about here is the
14:39
integration of Bitcoin into, into energy across the world.
14:45
And it's the real kind of self custody of Bitcoin.
14:47
It's not, it's not so much these big, you know, initiatives that
14:51
are gonna, that are gonna pump the price in the short term, but
14:54
it is the, the actual localized adoption.
14:57
Those are the things I get excited about.
14:59
You know, I remember, remember in the bear market when we used
15:01
to say, say things like come for the number, go up, stay for the
15:04
freedom and that sort of it's, it's hard to remember that now
15:08
when, when we've experienced such price appreciation.
15:11
But I think those are the initiatives really worth, you
15:15
know, it's like that. It's like that trope just like
15:17
think and act, act locally, think, think globally.
15:21
At the end of the day, there's very little control that we
15:24
individuals have over these state actors.
15:27
They're going to do whatever they whatever they want to do
15:28
and whatever benefits them. So it's just like, hey, keep
15:31
talking to your local. I mean, like, let's point out
15:34
what did Jack say just this week?
15:35
It was kind of interesting. He went back to, you know, if
15:39
Bitcoin ends up just being a store of value, it's essentially
15:42
failed on, on, on like a couple of its core premises.
15:47
I would kind of agree with that. We've seen a regression from the
15:49
2020 bull market where we're already getting into the medium
15:53
of exchange talks and, and actually cheerleading Bitcoin
15:57
and becoming a sort of unit of account.
15:59
You know, we've moved backwards in the United States
16:03
specifically, you know, this is a lot harder to to, to coin join
16:07
here. It's a lot harder to use
16:08
Lightning and to run a Lightning business.
16:12
You know, it might be that Lightning is just for
16:14
enterprises overall. So we have scaling issues that
16:18
we need to address as a community.
16:20
There's just, I think there's just a lot more important things
16:22
happening now than whether or not the US decides to like,
16:25
steal or buy more Bitcoin. Yeah, 100%.
16:29
Very good points. Very interesting just with the
16:32
geopolitical implications, what's going to be happening,
16:36
the political situations, Trump in the White House, Buchele, of
16:40
course, doing its thing. And again, you're now seeing
16:42
nation states all around the world.
16:44
Look, I, I think you know, it is 6 months, right, 180 days.
16:48
If this thing does get announced, like I think you're
16:51
going to see global FOMO the likes of which we've never seen
16:55
before. I think countries are going to
16:57
be forced to buy Bitcoin. They're not going to have a
16:59
choice. It's funny because the
17:03
strategy's at odds of what you should do.
17:06
I mean, the government is not a rational economic actor, maybe
17:09
the least rational like economic actors of them all, like you
17:13
play El Salvador back. The thing to do would have been
17:16
not to tell anyone to just shut up and accumulate Bitcoin
17:19
quietly. They're going to send the price
17:21
through the roof and price themselves out immediately. 100
17:24
percent, 100% agree. Very interesting stuff, guys.
17:27
We'll we'll we'll stay on top of it before we start start the
17:30
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block height 881,228 sats per dollar 976 market cap 2.03
20:25
trillion Bitcoin versus gold market cap 10.58% percentage
20:30
issued 94.36% decline from all time high -6 point 1% realized
20:36
monetary inflation 1.04% and the grand grand scheme of things are
20:41
just getting started. Let's talk about this gentleman
20:43
right here. His name is Michael Saylor made
20:46
a huge announcement. I believe this was was on
20:48
Monday. MicroStrategy today announced
20:50
the launch of STRKA new convertible preferred stock
20:54
offering available to institutional investors and
20:58
select retail investors. To view the investor
21:01
presentation video, learn more about participating in access to
21:04
key details, click here. Here's a little bit more
21:06
information about what this is. It goes on to say the business
21:10
intelligence and Bitcoin focus company MicroStrategy
21:12
Incorporated shares our trading lower.
21:15
On Monday, the company disclosed plans to offer two 2.5 million
21:19
dollars 2.5 million shares of its Series A perpetual strike
21:23
preferred stock and a public offering.
21:26
The company expects to use proceeds for general corporate
21:29
purposes, including Bitcoin acquisitions and working
21:32
capital. Microstrategy's perpetual strike
21:35
preferred stock carries $100 per share liquidation preference and
21:39
will acute fixed rate cumulative dividends and set at pricing.
21:44
The company stated that that the clear dividends on the perpetual
21:48
strike preferred stock will be payable quarterly starting March
21:51
31st, 2025 in cash Class A common stock or a mix of both.
21:57
Hodlers of MicroStrategy, this ain't hodlers.
21:59
I doesn't say hodlers. This is holders Freudian slip,
22:03
holders of Microstrategies perpetual strike preferred stock
22:07
and convert their shares into Class A common stock under
22:10
specific conditions and during designated periods.
22:13
Now what's really interesting about this is Michael Saylor
22:15
actually had a presentation recently where he doubled down
22:19
from his predictions from the Bitcoin conference in Nashville.
22:23
It's about a 2 minute video. Let's check it out.
22:26
Let me switch gears to a 21 year outlook of Bitcoin.
22:30
What do I think's going to happen?
22:31
Well, I've got an open source model.
22:33
It's called Bitcoin 24. You can Google it, it's on
22:35
GitHub, you can download this, you can plug in all your
22:39
assumptions and create your own forecast.
22:42
But I think looking out over the next 21 years, you know, I just,
22:47
I think the money supply, the currency supply will continue to
22:50
grow. You're going to, you're going to
22:52
continue to see innovation, you're going to see equities
22:54
continue to grow. The goal will gradually
22:58
underperform. Of course, Bitcoins going to
23:00
overperform, equities will overperform because of AI and
23:06
technology. And this is a simple view I put
23:11
forth in Nashville in July and I haven't really changed from it.
23:14
I expect the Bitcoins going to go from 60% ARR decelerating to
23:19
20% for a blended rate of 29%. You want a simple view of the
23:24
market. You just think here's something
23:26
which is 29% ARR for the next 21 years targeting $13 million a
23:32
coin. And if you look at that against
23:36
our map of wealth, it's not that radically different.
23:41
Just Bitcoin becomes the global monetary index, a $280 trillion
23:45
asset class. Equities will still be bigger,
23:48
real estate will still be bigger, bonds will still be
23:51
bigger. It's just, you know, if you want
23:54
to get rich, you're not getting rich investing in gold, right?
23:57
If you want to stay rich, you can probably hold a diversified
24:01
portfolio of real estate and equity if you want to.
24:07
So I mean, dude, doubling, tripling, quadrupling down, if
24:12
you're going to outperform, you're going to need Bitcoin.
24:14
I believe he said initially it's going to be a 60% kagar.
24:19
Is that what it is that how you say it?
24:21
Kagar AR is it AR? And then it'll, yeah.
24:27
And it'll decrease to to about 30% or what do you say 29% over
24:32
time. That's, that's pretty bullish,
24:34
man. It's pretty.
24:37
Exciting. Yeah, absolutely.
24:38
I mean, so he made that original presentation at the Bitcoin
24:42
conference. Did you have any idea what the
24:44
presentation was going to be about, McShane?
24:48
Yeah, yeah, I reviewed all 95 slides with Sailor before.
24:54
Wait, are you serious? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:58
He turned in like 100 slides. Because you had to approve it.
25:03
Yeah, well, also just help him kind of figure out what's gonna
25:08
be on the lot, you know, just go through technical stuff with
25:10
him, make sure everything works. He's just a very particular guy.
25:13
So that was AI mean. I I think it was one of his best
25:17
presentations of all time. And he's been giving some
25:19
version of that now for a little while.
25:20
But that was the first time it had aired and had gotten price
25:24
predictions always get people incredibly excited.
25:27
But just the way that he rationalized it and backed it
25:30
and coming out this open source model was, it was just very,
25:34
very exciting. I'm really curious to see how he
25:37
outdoes himself. He's got a big presentation
25:39
planned for Vegas. So I'm, I'm very curious what's
25:43
to come for MicroStrategy. I, I asked him, I, I told him
25:48
his New Year's resolution should be to buy like 500 million worth
25:52
of Bitcoin a day. And he's not quite done that
25:55
this year, but it's in several billion and we're already, you
25:57
know, only 28 days into 2025 and he's he's absolutely crushing
26:02
it. So very bullish on the future of
26:04
MicroStrategy. And I mean, their stock has just
26:06
outperformed like it's been absolutely crazy the performance
26:10
of that stock. I mean, what it 5X in one year?
26:14
It almost made me feel like McShane.
26:15
I should have just bought MicroStrategy instead of
26:17
Bitcoin. It's one of those things, man,
26:21
you don't hear the that those narratives anymore.
26:24
Me and you and Opti, like we feel this in our soul, just like
26:27
don't deviate from Bitcoin, you know, you can't how dare you try
26:30
to seek gains somewhere else, you know?
26:32
But I mean, I'll admit, over the years, like my, my Bitcoin
26:36
position has become more comfortable and I have ventured
26:39
back into equities a little bit. Nothing crazy about Bitcoin
26:42
related, but particularly metaplan.
26:45
I'm very bullish on Metaplanet and and micro strategy.
26:48
So, so I hold a bit of each. And what's happened is they have
26:52
indeed outperformed Bitcoin and it's grown as a percentage
26:55
allocation. Let's say it was 5% grown, but
26:58
you know, 1015% of My Portfolio just because they've been so
27:01
performative. But that being said, it's not
27:04
something I would recommend people do because it's highly
27:06
risky. There's a lot more risk involved
27:08
there than Bitcoin itself. And you don't ultimately it's
27:14
not something you can self custody.
27:15
It doesn't fit my definition of ownership.
27:18
So it is always going to be this relatively small play in terms
27:22
of just like the grander goal of accumulating more Bitcoin, which
27:26
is the one property you can sort of own and defend and, and hold
27:29
with you through this life and pass on to your children without
27:32
permission, you know, from anyone.
27:36
Bit of a rant there, but you know, we always have to make
27:38
these kind of calculations and trade-offs 'cause you're going
27:40
to look over your shoulder and see people getting tremendously
27:43
wealthy, but you're not going to see the millions that have tried
27:46
and lost it all on Melania Coin last week.
27:49
You know what? I.
27:50
Mean like, oh, man, that's so true.
27:51
That's a that's a great point. And yeah, man, I wish, I wish I
27:54
would have followed your strategy a little bit big Shane,
27:57
about taking 5 to 10% of the portfolio because again, you
28:01
would it's just man, shoulda, woulda, coulda.
28:04
But Opti, what's your take on this?
28:07
Are you Bitcoin only Bitcoin in self custody only MicroStrategy
28:11
fan? Are you a Michael Saylor
28:13
prediction fan? What's your take off?
28:15
Well, I'm a. Yeah, I'm obviously a huge
28:17
Michael Saylor prediction fan. I mean, who doesn't like $50
28:21
million predictions in 20 years? Like, hey, I love some bull
28:25
sauce every once in awhile. But when you really kind of
28:28
break it down, even if you're doing the conservative
28:31
predictions, it's still outperforming everything else.
28:34
And so like, even if you do the very simple strategy that I run,
28:38
it's just literally just buy as much Bitcoin it for as long as
28:41
possible, you're going to outperform everything else.
28:44
But yeah, when you look at how MicroStrategy has performed, I
28:48
mean, it's hard not to, you know, 2020's hindsight and look
28:51
back and be like, damn, I should have definitely bought some.
28:53
But like Mcshane's saying, you know, there is more risks that
28:57
do come withholding MicroStrategy or Metaplan or any
29:01
of these other Bitcoin adjacent companies than just holding
29:04
Bitcoin. And personally, you know where,
29:06
where I've been, it has kind of sucked just looking at micro
29:11
strategy pumped so hard. You're like, man, you know, 5X
29:14
sounds great. Well, Bitcoin only did what?
29:17
And this is the best part, you know, micro strategy is 5X
29:19
Bitcoin only does 124% a year. And we're like, man.
29:25
This is not enough. Gains for me, man, like what's
29:28
going on here? We're so spoiled.
29:30
But hey, you know, his predictions, I think are very
29:32
conservative when you look at it, what, 2029% ARR?
29:36
It's like, you know, nothing's growing 29% year over year.
29:40
And if you really want to succeed, you want a very simple
29:45
strategy to do you just keep buying Bitcoin because
29:48
everything is going to zero against Bitcoin.
29:50
Bitcoin's outperforming everything else.
29:52
Obviously we think 25 is going to be the year of, you know,
29:55
parabolic run and by the end of this year I think we should have
30:00
at least hit mid 6 figures in my opinion.
30:04
And then we'll just have to see what happens in 2026.
30:06
You know, are we going to get a standard Bitcoin bear market?
30:11
I think, I think that's still pretty likely.
30:13
But yeah, you know, I like, I like sailors predictions.
30:16
Who doesn't like a billionaire conservatively predicting
30:19
$1,000,000 bitcoins in a, you know, a decade or two?
30:22
Like, yeah, that sounds great, but imagine being someone in the
30:25
audience that doesn't understand what's happening and sailors
30:29
giving these predictions. They're probably like, this
30:31
guy's a lunatic. Like this is not going to
30:33
happen. You know, Bitcoin's at 100K.
30:35
It's over yesterday. Everyone's like, Bitcoin's dead.
30:38
It went to 99 K And it's like, I love the fact that Bitcoin just
30:42
going under 100K means it's over for us.
30:46
So it. Yeah.
30:49
I. Sorry.
30:50
To sorry to interrupt. It's it's wild to see,
30:53
especially like in in Norman land.
30:54
Just the, the mental gymnastics people will do to avoid having
30:59
to think seriously about Bitcoin is insane to me.
31:01
Like it's at 100K now. I'm priced out, I'm priced out.
31:04
I can't, I can't buy this. I can't buy into this mess.
31:06
Trump supports it. You know, it's just like deep
31:08
red sort of asset. We can't, we can't touch this.
31:11
Like people will do anything to avoid having to.
31:15
Basically. Reconfigure their priors about
31:18
money in general and just admit that they were, you know,
31:21
somewhat like deluded and wrong and and then just learning new
31:24
things. It's really it's really sad to
31:27
see and with micro strategy, I think you see that too.
31:30
I think people, like I said, they get a lot, they get super
31:33
jealous or or maybe you know, they're coveting other people's
31:38
stacks and performance. You got to realize like most
31:40
people did not trade that perfectly.
31:42
They did not trade the MicroStrategy perfectly and put
31:44
all those gains back into Bitcoin and you probably
31:46
wouldn't have either. And at the end of the day, what
31:50
is the guy buying? What's the underlying asset that
31:53
he's going to these lengths to buy billions and billions and
31:55
billions of? So just just buy the Bitcoin
31:57
yourself and learn yourself, custody it.
31:59
That in itself is worth more, you know, than any anything else
32:03
you could probably put your your effort toward in terms of like
32:06
wealth accumulation this year. Yeah.
32:07
Wait, wait. Make Shane.
32:08
That's like the funniest part. It's like, you know, everyone's,
32:11
everyone's making fat gains on micro strategy and all he's
32:14
doing is buying big. By the Bitcoin guys, maybe
32:18
that's the simplest. Strategy here, yeah.
32:20
Absolutely. Oh, man.
32:22
All right, guys. Well, we got a loaded show for
32:24
you guys today. We're going to talk to Alex
32:26
McShane during the culture segment and during the news
32:29
segment. We have a bit of an update for
32:30
you guys. Arizona Senate moves forward
32:33
with Bitcoin reserve legislation and massive news coming out of
32:37
Hive. They acquired Bit Farms 200 MW,
32:41
a MW, MW MW Paraguay, Paraguay site targeting 400% global hash
32:48
rate growth by September, so absolutely huge.
32:51
We're going to get to that news. We'll be right back in just a
32:54
moment. I want to give a very.
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All right before we start. That opti we have a question.
34:48
What the? What the?
34:50
I don't even know. You're the pod comp, the Peru
34:54
podcaster here. Shut up.
34:56
I I. Am just rocking.
34:57
The shirt in solidarity. All right, everybody, I do want
35:00
to give a. Shout out to passport by
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You could use promo code simply, you will get a discount.
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You won't get Opti, but you will get a discount to the Passport
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by Foundation Devices. Scan the QR code or check the
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link in the video description. All right, let's jump into
35:13
today's news. The big kahuna Arizona Senate
35:17
moves forward with Bitcoin reserve legislation Arizona
35:21
lawmakers have advanced a Bitcoin strategic reserve bill,
35:23
which seeks to deploy the world's first cryptocurrency as
35:27
a savings technology for the state.
35:29
The strategic Bitcoin reserve act Co sponsored by Senator
35:32
Wendy Rogers and Representative Jeff Wing guy Wing OK whatever
35:37
was passed by the Arizona State Senate Finance Committee with A5
35:42
to two vote on January 27th. The bill will now move to the
35:46
Senate Rules Committee for final debate and amendments approval
35:49
by the the Senate would advance the bill to the House of
35:52
Representatives. The bill proposes the creation
35:54
of a strategic Bitcoin reserve by the US Treasury for the quote
35:58
the storage of government Bitcoin holdings, which also
36:01
allow other public funds to store their digital assets in a
36:05
quote secure segregated account within the strategic Bitcoin
36:09
reserve. It goes on to say the bill would
36:12
allow up to 10% of government entities and public funds
36:15
capital to be invested into Bitcoin and other digital
36:18
assets. It also opens the door.
36:20
It's a pension funds to allocate resources to Bitcoin,
36:23
potentially increasing public interest in crypto currencies.
36:27
So, I mean, again, this is a trend that we're seeing
36:29
worldwide on the federal level, of course, on the state level,
36:34
multiple states have been introducing these bills into
36:37
legislation. I believe the state of
36:38
Pennsylvania, Ohio, I think Florida, I heard, I don't know
36:42
if it's being introduced, but I heard someone talk about it.
36:46
Yeah. I mean, this is this is crazy
36:47
that this is happening all over the US And of course, on the
36:51
federal level, you have Senator Cynthia Lummis with the Bitcoin
36:54
Reserve Act bill or Bitcoin Act, I think it's called.
36:58
So it's very, very exciting stuff.
37:00
McShane, you've been the again, at the forefront of this to do a
37:04
good job with the programming over at Bitcoin at the Bitcoin
37:08
conference. So what are your thoughts, man?
37:10
Are we going to see more of this trend continue?
37:12
Are we going to see one of these bills actually get passed?
37:16
I think if the amount of Congress people reaching out to
37:20
me to speak at the conference is any indication, you're going to
37:22
see a lot more legislation be introduced over the next couple
37:26
months here. It's kind of wild to see, man.
37:29
It's really hard to. It's kind of hard to.
37:32
Wrap my mind. Around as like a largely non
37:35
political person for the most of my life, having to I think a lot
37:38
of bit corners might feel this way if you're like more
37:40
libertarian inclined or just didn't pay that much attention
37:42
to politics, having to start to parse and understand this stuff
37:47
and kind of way, you know, who is being earnest, like who's
37:51
gonna follow through on everything that they're
37:53
promising Bitcoiners like who's really doing the work.
37:56
You know, it's sad, but I've had to turn people down from both
37:59
parties 'cause I'm like, look, you've never said the word
38:01
Bitcoin in a public forum. I mean, you've never done
38:04
anything for us. I can't I can't, I can't trust
38:07
that you have our best interests in mind.
38:08
Why don't you come and just attend?
38:10
And I, I think it's an important reminder for, for everyone in
38:13
the space, especially people, you know, lobbying for Bitcoin,
38:16
like it's OK to demand a little proof of work.
38:19
Let's see what these people, you know what time they put in to
38:23
Bitcoin to understand it first and foremost before we just sort
38:26
of hand them over, hand them over the keys to our our
38:30
networks here. So could you talk a?
38:33
Little bit about that McShane 'cause you, you buried a lot of
38:36
leads there and you get a lot of insight into perhaps like things
38:39
that people are not aware of in regards to the programming that
38:43
you guys do over at the conference.
38:46
So there is a, there is an, there is a filter, there is you,
38:50
you guys want people that are actually they're not
38:53
opportunists, they're not opportunists, they're people
38:56
that actually believe in Bitcoin it did I hear that right?
39:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm not even as much as
39:03
a belief, I'm just like, what? What have you had to do?
39:08
With the Bitcoin space, like why?
39:09
Why is you calling me? Why, Why does it seem like y'all
39:13
are calling me? Just because your fellow
39:16
Congress people have called, they're not going to be present.
39:18
Like this seems to me like it's a popularity contest between
39:22
y'all and it's like if, if certain big names are going to
39:25
be in a place, you all just kind of jump on and have to be there
39:29
just to just to, you know what I mean?
39:30
It's a social like virtue signalling type of thing.
39:34
I don't have time for that. I want to see, I want to see
39:36
skin in the game. I want to see, you know, you
39:39
work for us as politicians. I'm sorry, but you actually have
39:43
to show what you've done for us lately and what you can do.
39:47
And you know, I just want to see the proof of work.
39:49
It's like, I don't, I'm not going to trust these people
39:51
blindly. I love that.
39:53
So there, there, there. There's a lot of conversations
39:58
and debates being had behind closed doors to make sure that
40:02
this is a. This is a differential.
40:05
Value differentiated value addition to Bitcoin and we're
40:09
not just we're not just paying lip service to our community by
40:12
having politicians at these events.
40:14
So like if they're gonna come, we want them to make an impact
40:18
and we want them to come open minded and and ready to kind of
40:22
learn about the space. I love that man, and I love.
40:25
I love that there's a filter. I love that it's not just, oh,
40:29
you know what? So you're a congressman from
40:31
Ohio. You're a congressman.
40:33
Like, show me, show me. We're not going to, we're not
40:35
going to just give you stage time so that you can campaign
40:40
essentially, right? So I love that there's AI, love
40:43
that there's a filter. And I appreciate the insight
40:45
into that. And I had no idea too, bro, that
40:47
you went through Michael Saylor's presentation before,
40:52
you know, just to pick and choose to see what things were
40:55
going. Man, I, I, I didn't Shane, God
40:58
damn, bro, I, I know you had so much.
41:01
Maybe that's probably why it's so good.
41:03
The, the programming and all that stuff.
41:04
I had no idea you had, you were so involved in the, the final
41:08
outcome. That's pretty bad ass.
41:11
Yeah, it's. That's what I'm hiring by the
41:13
way, go I think you can go to Bitcoiner jobs.
41:16
I'm trying to get get some help here.
41:17
Me and Craig with programming are hiring a enthusiastic new
41:21
Bitcoiner. You know, I'll call comers,
41:23
welcome the apps, the apps open for now.
41:25
But if you want to work on this kind of kind of stuff and help
41:28
prepare announcements and help prepare panels and do some, I
41:31
guess you'd call it thought leadership in the conference
41:33
space, Please, please come and join us.
41:35
Sorry, just had to put that out there.
41:37
No, absolutely. Is your, is your.
41:39
Twitter DMS open could they send you a message there or you want
41:42
or it's a Bitcoin or jobs yeah can.
41:45
I let me. Pull up a link for you to send
41:47
them 'cause I, I probably won't get to it if they, if they DM
41:50
me, but if they apply, we'll we'll definitely see it.
41:52
Absolutely, we'll put that. In the chat.
41:53
Opti, you want to chime in while McShane pulls up the link?
41:56
Yeah, well. First of all, what McShane said
42:00
is very interesting. And it's something I've been
42:02
saying for a while on the show is that Bitcoin as a movement
42:05
has basically, you know, come out of the mother's basement
42:08
here. And, you know, the fact that you
42:10
have politicians trying to campaign at the conference, I
42:13
think is very telling of of where we are right now is that
42:16
people are starting to see. And it's something we've said on
42:19
the show many times that if you fight Bitcoiners, you may not
42:22
get in these positions of office, but it also means you
42:25
have to have some follow through.
42:26
And we're seeing that play out in real time, obviously, what
42:29
some midterms are in a year, you know, two years away from now,
42:33
another four year cycle for the presidential election.
42:36
But you're seeing that Bitcoiners as Kaiser always
42:39
loves to say, he who has the money makes the rules and he who
42:42
has the best money will make the best rules.
42:44
And so we're seeing that that that's playing out in real time.
42:47
And I, I think that's very interesting to hear McShane say,
42:50
like, if you guys could hear all the people that are reaching out
42:53
to us, you'd be way more bullish than you are now.
42:56
Obviously we need to see a little more follow through.
42:58
And that brings me to this Arizona Senate vote.
43:01
I think a lot of us bit corners at this point are kind of tired
43:04
of a lot of these announcements of strategic reserve bills
43:08
coming from the state level. I think now with this Arizona,
43:11
we're up to 12. So like, you know, you know,
43:13
we've heard this before if you're not first or last.
43:16
And now at this point, we're all kind of already like have
43:19
fatigue around these announcements.
43:20
Like cool, you proposed a bill to talk about it like not big
43:23
news anymore. And then we've kind of seen this
43:25
on our views and and our viewership.
43:27
People are kind of just tuning out already.
43:29
It's not as big a news as if something gets implemented.
43:33
But the fact that this is getting moved forward in
43:35
Arizona, I think is is huge. Not only is that going to kick
43:39
off the the state level game theory where hey, if Arizona
43:43
becomes the first one, then I'm sure we're going to see the
43:46
dominoes fall very quickly in every other state.
43:48
And if you're not a state that embraces Bitcoin, then you are
43:51
going to essentially be left behind.
43:54
So I think probably in the next couple of days or maybe the next
43:57
couple of weeks, we'll hear more states actually come to the same
44:00
point where hey now they're actually voting on it.
44:02
It's not just proposing a bill because they at this point, it's
44:07
almost like every state proposing a bill, even though
44:09
it's only 12, there's still 50 more to go or what, 38 more to
44:12
go. But we're, we're getting to the
44:13
point now where the rubber is meeting the road.
44:16
So whether it's, you know, the six months that we have to wait
44:20
to see the US actually embark on their strategic reserve and
44:24
however the technicalities of that plays out, or if it's a
44:27
state that's just like, hey, you know, we're adding Bitcoin to
44:29
the balance sheet. Like we're seeing pension funds
44:32
embrace Bitcoin, we're seeing the institutions, it's Bitcoin.
44:34
We're seeing states start to embrace Bitcoin, We're seeing
44:37
countries start to embrace Bitcoin.
44:38
Obviously, hopefully all of this signal starts to trickle down
44:42
and we see more individuals start to realize that, hey, you
44:45
need to have some Bitcoin or else you're going to be left
44:48
behind. And I don't know if you guys are
44:50
following normie culture right now, but a lot of people are
44:53
very upset with inflation and everything going on and, and
44:56
they're lost and they don't know what's going on.
44:58
There's a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world.
45:00
There's a lot of noise going on in the world.
45:02
And the signal for everyone is just, hey, you know, I know
45:05
you're struggling, but you need to start to save something in
45:09
Bitcoin. And this is only going to catch
45:11
on, I think, as we move into 2025.
45:14
And if we break out of this like 100K sideways action, I think
45:18
the FOMO is going to really start to kick in.
45:20
And we're going to see these legislatures and, and, you know,
45:23
politicians really start to embrace Bitcoin.
45:26
But like McShane was saying, not only give us rhetoric around
45:29
Bitcoin, but actually have some follow through and some proof of
45:32
work behind it. And hey, it looks like 2025 is
45:35
just going to be a big year. Absolutely 100.
45:38
Percent agree with that. All right, guys, stay tuned for
45:40
the culture. We're going to talk to McShane
45:43
about all things McShane, all things Bitcoin conference.
45:46
We have Las Vegas coming up, so stay tuned.
45:50
We will be right back. I want to give a shout out to.
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46:51
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47:06
All right, I do want to pull this up because McShane was
47:10
mentioning this earlier, buried the lead a little bit for anyone
47:14
who's looking to join Mcshane's team.
47:17
McShane, please correct me if I'm wrong.
47:19
You guys are looking for a program coordinator events.
47:22
I'm going to read some of this. We create meaningful, meaningful
47:26
environments for people to connect, celebrate and champion
47:28
Bitcoin. Our events provide learning at
47:31
every level, networking personally and professionally,
47:34
and support Bitcoiners in many ways, whether a newcomer
47:37
technologist, a business, a business investor, or developer,
47:41
developer collaborating on open source projects.
47:44
Our conferences have you covered with four annual events in four
47:48
countries. We're on a mission to build
47:50
powerful experiences that amplify and elevate the Bitcoin
47:54
movement. You guys could check a link to
47:56
this. We dropped it in the live chat.
47:58
You could also check it out in the YouTube description and in
48:01
the podcast description. So McShane, I don't know if you
48:04
want to elaborate a little bit on that, because I think that's
48:07
a very exciting opportunity because I know a lot of people
48:10
want to work in Bitcoin. Yeah, it's I.
48:13
Mean we've got the best best job in the world and a really lean
48:17
team just two people looking at hiring 1/3 and you know, travel
48:20
around the world and help people educate others on Bitcoin.
48:26
It's great. I will say if you're going to
48:28
apply, please do not fill out the you know, why do I care
48:31
about Bitcoin section using ChatGPT as an instant, instant
48:34
rejection. So, and it's so easy to tell
48:38
like I want I want passionate, passionate big winners, but no,
48:43
I think I think it's a fun space, man.
48:45
I mean, you guys have been been working in this space for a long
48:48
time now. What do you think?
48:49
I think this is the fastest way to accumulate wealth and
48:53
knowledge at the same time, and at the same time have a great,
48:55
have a great time. Doesn't even feel like work.
48:57
Like I think I've been here for four years now and it's just,
49:00
it's flown by 'cause we've just had so much fun doing what we
49:05
love every day in the Bitcoin space.
49:07
Yeah, absolutely, to be clear. Mondays still always feel like
49:10
work, no matter what. Yeah, I mean to your point.
49:14
It's really. That's the point.
49:16
It's like we love what we do. And really, even though we're
49:19
here very focused on simply Bitcoin doing well, but it
49:22
really is like, it does feel like you're on a mission and,
49:25
you know, trying to get more people into Bitcoin and it does
49:28
feel bigger than us at times. But yeah, hey, you know, I'd be
49:31
lying if I didn't say some Monday still feel like work.
49:35
The rest of the time is great. Yeah, and then like just like
49:38
the the industry too, man, like the industry has so many ups and
49:41
downs. I, I don't, I don't think I
49:43
would want to work anywhere else.
49:45
But at the same time, it's like I, I feel like I got into this,
49:49
you know, like, like simply like it was like four or five years
49:53
ago and I was so giddy and I was like, you know, like this, like,
49:57
you know, young guy, I'm like, yeah, let's do this thing.
50:00
And then you like learn like the whole business dynamics of it
50:04
and people. And like, you know, that part is
50:08
very cut throat. Yeah, it's.
50:10
Extremely cut throat. And that part is, you know, I, I
50:14
think, I think, yeah, I think that that kind of sucked a
50:18
little bit. But, yeah, I mean, just growing
50:21
to get like growing, simply growing.
50:23
The podcast has been incredibly fun collaborating with, you
50:27
know, Bitcoin companies. We've done a ton of work with
50:29
you guys. We love you guys just yeah, man.
50:32
But it's it's it's definitely not all it's not it's not a
50:38
still work 'cause it's still work.
50:40
It's still work. It's still work for sure.
50:42
So it's the most. Competitive industry in the
50:44
world, whether you're in mining, but you know at the end of the
50:48
day we're here to try to acquire more of these Bitcoin for
50:51
ourselves. This is the most scarce asset on
50:54
the planet. So in my opinion, it's the most
50:56
competitive industry in the world.
50:57
And the amount of people with actually what's crazy to me to
51:01
see just in the last year, if you think about all the new kind
51:04
of faces and companies, there are people who have, there are
51:07
people who have been here for a year that have more expertise
51:09
than us after 6-8 years in this, you know what I mean?
51:12
Just like brilliant minds coming into Bitcoin, understanding it
51:15
immediately like starting new companies, taking off.
51:18
It's just, it's never, it's not going to get easier, you know.
51:22
And that being said, that should be motivating, like your first,
51:25
whatever your first 10 bitcoins are hard.
51:27
The next 10 will be even harder. It's only going to get crazier
51:31
and crazier. So it's a great time to quit the
51:35
Fiat job and jump into Bitcoin, I think.
51:37
Yeah, absolutely so. Guys check out the link in the
51:40
description. Don't use ChatGPT to.
51:46
Pull. How will you know it's not
51:47
ChatGPT? You know.
51:51
I see a couple of spelling errors in there, that's always
51:53
reassuring. But no, no, I'm getting, I'm
51:56
getting applications where it's like at the end it'll say like.
51:59
Is there anything else I can help you with?
52:00
I'm like. And I don't want to talk to you.
52:04
Again, like, that's hilarious. That's.
52:07
Hilarious. All right, everybody, so let's
52:09
talk about I don't know how you guys are going to up the game
52:12
from Nashville 'cause you guys really freaking crushed it.
52:18
Bitcoin 2025. It's going to be at the Venetian
52:21
Hotel May 26th to the 29th. McShane could.
52:26
I know, I know that you you're holding your cards very close to
52:29
your chest, but is there anything you could reveal to the
52:34
2200 people watching live right now?
52:39
I guess I have one if you're. If you're an OG, you might find
52:42
this exciting, but Trace Mayer is gonna come out of hiding and
52:45
come squeak into this event, which I'm.
52:47
Pretty, pretty excited. About I know we ran into him at
52:50
at Sailors over New Year's, so it's kind of his first public
52:53
appearance. In a few.
52:54
Years there, but outside of that, I mean, the line up is
52:58
incredible. It's really, really strong and
53:02
it's growing stronger. I don't want to name drop too
53:04
many people. We've got some exciting ones
53:07
already on the website, but I think the just the level is is
53:11
getting pretty insane. We should have a.
53:16
Pretty interesting. Announcement in the next week or
53:19
two here potentially there's some really interesting
53:23
collaborations and opportunities in Vegas that are unique to
53:27
Vegas that we'd like to take advantage of.
53:29
So I don't know, stay tuned. I would say like based on the
53:34
pace of tickets and hype and the the level of people reaching out
53:38
to speak at this, this is far and away gonna be we're gonna
53:42
beat our previous two records for the big biggest, the world's
53:45
biggest Bitcoin conference. But this will be the if the
53:48
price cooperates, this could be like, you know, there's just one
53:50
of the most exciting events in the world at the time.
53:53
There's there's no doubts that will have all eyes on us, you
53:56
know, the entire media industry and hopefully all the citizen
54:01
reporters from from X and all the other platforms there too.
54:04
Just having a great time. So get your tickets now and or
54:08
or come apply to come participate in some way if you
54:10
want to speak or something. Oh yeah, that's awesome, man.
54:13
I'm, I'm I'm incredibly excited. Nashville 2024 was absolutely
54:18
incredible. It was definitely a conference
54:20
that no one's ever going to forget.
54:23
Trump's historic speech. I would say it's on the level of
54:26
Bitcoin 20/21, which was the year that Naimbu Kelly made his
54:31
announcement. I would put it up there in terms
54:33
of Bitcoin conference from a historical, from a historical
54:38
context and of course RFK Junior just one upping Trump the day
54:43
before. OK, Mick, Shane.
54:45
You OK? So you knew about Saylor?
54:47
Did you know about Trump and RF KS speech?
54:51
Yeah, of course. I mean.
54:52
We, we, I would say advise on, we help these politicians, you
54:56
know, develop their Bitcoin understanding.
54:59
I've been working with them for years to do that.
55:01
So especially RFKRFK really, really did his homework and came
55:05
back to shock us. I mean, I don't know if people
55:07
remember, but he came to our event twice.
55:09
He came before, before it was cool.
55:11
He's the first presidential candidate, U.S. presidential
55:15
candidate to speak at our events.
55:16
And if you go compare his two talks, it's absolutely amazing.
55:20
You know, how much he outdid himself and how much he grew on
55:24
that, on that speech. That being said, it's still, you
55:30
know, these are these are words. This is, you know, that can be
55:33
very exciting. But I'm more of a let's see,
55:35
let's see what you can do kind of guy.
55:38
So that's that's pretty good proof of work.
55:41
But you can there's always more, there's always more that can be
55:43
done in this space. And I'm hoping, you know, RFK
55:47
can deliver as well as all these other, you know, we also had
55:51
Tulsi, Vivek. These people can all affect
55:53
change in the Bitcoin ecosystem from, you know, whatever their
55:57
various positions are. I think, you know, Trump
55:59
administrations tend to be a little bit a little bit unstable
56:03
at first. We'll see where a lot of these
56:05
then presidential candidates and politicians land.
56:08
But I think they can they can affect change wherever they are.
56:10
So let's let's hold them accountable and keep keep them
56:13
involved in the space. Absolutely.
56:16
Hey, well. Nick, Shane, we were talking
56:18
about this before the show and it's really, and you kind of hit
56:22
on it earlier in the show about Bitcoin and politics right now.
56:25
And you know, the idea for a lot of Bitcoiners is like, are
56:30
Bitcoiners winning right now? And I think kind of what you're
56:33
talking about right now is, is a perfect segue into this
56:35
conversation. Obviously, Bitcoin Magazine has
56:38
done a lot of work to get influential politicians at these
56:41
conferences. But what's like your general
56:43
take right now with the whole Bitcoin and politics idea kind
56:47
of smashing right now? And like, our worlds are
56:51
colliding. And I think the last time you
56:52
came on, it was before we got all of this crazy news.
56:56
So let's get an updated view. You know what?
56:58
What is your general take away right now?
57:03
I mean, it makes me. It just makes me more eager to
57:08
accumulate more Bitcoin, selfishly, you know, for my
57:11
family and friends. I'm still not a big, I don't
57:17
know, political guy. I guess the job has kind of
57:21
forced me to understand this stuff a bit better.
57:23
But I find it really exhausting to try to keep up with all this
57:28
day-to-day around the world. I don't, I don't know how you
57:30
guys do it, but there's just so many stories that could be
57:33
interpreted as bullish and whether or not they're followed
57:38
up with or anything actually comes through.
57:39
Like these are just bills being proposed, right?
57:42
Whether or not they get into office.
57:43
It just requires so much energy to stay on top of that.
57:46
So I'm kind of kind of more looking for ways that I can
57:49
affect the world locally, you know, through Bitcoin Citadel's
57:54
through day-to-day, like helping merchants and businesses that I
57:57
care about in my life use Bitcoin as a, as a, as a store
58:01
of value, but also to accept it for goods and services.
58:05
I think this sort of bottom up approach is more successful.
58:07
I don't know if we've talked about this on this show before,
58:11
but if you look at what happened in El Salvador, I mean, I'm
58:14
excited for El Salvador, a big fan of, you know, Max and Stacy
58:17
and, and Boo Kelly. I've been down there to
58:19
experience it for myself. Nobody in El Salvador uses
58:22
Bitcoin. The, the people don't give a
58:24
fuck about it. And it's because it was, I'm
58:26
sorry, it's because it was a, a top down initiative from the
58:30
government. So I don't know what all this
58:32
cheerleading like, yeah, on paper this is great for Bitcoin.
58:34
But it's like, I want to see the people accumulate this stuff
58:38
before the government does and before you have to buy it from
58:41
someone like MicroStrategy or, you know, Wells Fargo or
58:45
something like that. Like I don't, I don't want
58:47
people's only access to be through some sort of ETF or, or
58:51
banking instrument or secondarily through like stock
58:55
market exposure. That's not, that's not bullish
58:57
to me. I want people to be like, if
58:59
you're going to get in this space, put in the work and learn
59:02
to self custody and become self sovereign because that's just
59:06
such a. Better.
59:09
Civilization sort of amplifier and I think it's important to
59:12
question the incentives of all these new friends that we have
59:17
found in the Bitcoin space and politics and and you know these
59:22
corporate executives that that that play nice for now I'm not
59:27
saying always be a cynic or a skeptic, but I'm just saying you
59:30
know it's. Important to take these things.
59:32
Locally, into your own hands and make sure that, you know, the
59:36
people around you are in it for the right reasons.
59:38
Just so, so you don't get rug pulled in the end, you know?
59:40
Absolutely. Yeah.
59:42
Well. I.
59:43
McShane it's it's something that I'm glad you put it that way
59:47
because I've noticed this as well.
59:48
Like you think with all of these people coming out, you know, the
59:51
suits or the adults in the room legitimizing Bitcoin, you think
59:54
there would be more of a grassroots movement from
59:57
individuals to be like, hey, you know, you'd think they would
1:00:00
look at these as signals to be like, yeah, actually I need to
1:00:02
hold Bitcoin. But it seems like retail and
1:00:06
individuals out there are still like asleep at the wheel.
1:00:09
And it's hard to pinpoint, like why that reason is.
1:00:11
Maybe it's a little different than.
1:00:13
The 2017 bull run because now everyone has no money anymore.
1:00:16
Remember, like the money was easy in 2017 and everything was
1:00:20
pumping and now everyone is kind of feeling broker.
1:00:23
You know, inflation is kind of hitting everyone.
1:00:26
A lot of people are are, you know, taking secondary jobs and
1:00:28
it's making hard, you know, hard for them to make ends meet.
1:00:32
And you think with all of this, like, legitimization coming from
1:00:35
these people, whether it's the banks, whether it's hedge funds,
1:00:39
you know, pension funds, nation states, you know, the president
1:00:42
of the United States, you think people would take Bitcoin more
1:00:44
seriously. But it seems like, I don't know,
1:00:47
on the grassroots level, individuals are still kind of
1:00:49
asleep at the wheel. And it's, it's maybe a lot of
1:00:52
the flood surrounding Bitcoin in the past and they still have
1:00:54
these old narratives around Bitcoin.
1:00:56
But you think with all this news coming around that people would
1:00:59
just fully start to embrace Bitcoin.
1:01:01
But it seems like they're lagging a lot on that front.
1:01:04
And it's like, OK, what do we need to do?
1:01:06
Is it just because Bitcoin isn't pumping that they're not
1:01:09
actually embracing Bitcoin? But I'm I'm glad you brought
1:01:11
that up. Right.
1:01:15
And it's funny. Because the, you know, people
1:01:18
should economically plan usually the opposite of how they do.
1:01:22
Like it's not the price pumping that should signal you to buy.
1:01:25
I mean, the real reason to buy, you find out later after you've
1:01:28
already kind of bought the top a couple times, is for the freedom
1:01:32
aspects, for the self sovereign properties.
1:01:35
And I think I just feel like that narrative just gets buried
1:01:37
in the bull market And it's a little bit, it's a little bit
1:01:40
frustrating to see. Like I would like to see more
1:01:42
work being done on, you know, layer 2 sort of scaling
1:01:46
solutions or, or lightning adoption.
1:01:49
Like these are the kind of important initiatives that I
1:01:52
want to hear more about day-to-day.
1:01:54
Just, you know, some state proposing a bill.
1:01:57
It's bullish. But look, this stuff's largely
1:01:59
been priced in, guys. I mean, we haven't, this hasn't
1:02:01
given us a bump in months now at this point.
1:02:05
So I don't, I don't know what to tell you.
1:02:08
The price is a distraction. You know one Bitcoin equals one
1:02:11
Bitcoin. Focus on yourself, custody and
1:02:14
your and your security. Wait.
1:02:17
All I heard McShane. Say is the top is in boys over
1:02:22
100K is the top for this run. Wrap it up.
1:02:26
Prepare for a bear market. Oh man.
1:02:28
Oh man, it's important to consider important to.
1:02:30
Consider Bitcoin takes the path of Max Payne.
1:02:34
That would be pretty painful if this was the top of our 500K
1:02:38
super cycle or whatever people are calling for today.
1:02:41
Dollar Super cycle. Oh man, oh, man.
1:02:44
All right, well, guys, definitely get your tickets to
1:02:48
Vegas. Go to B dot TC slash conference
1:02:53
slash 2025 McShane. Do you have a promo code for
1:02:56
them? Try McShane.
1:03:01
That that better be an active promo code.
1:03:03
Let me check. Do you guys have a promo code?
1:03:06
If you have one that's use yours?
1:03:07
I don't know if ours is still. Active.
1:03:09
I don't know. I don't know.
1:03:11
I don't know. Oh wow, I'm trying right?
1:03:12
Now, is it simply simply? Well, guys.
1:03:16
Definitely go to the Bitcoin conference.
1:03:18
We will be there. Mcshane's going to be there.
1:03:20
It's going to be a great time. You definitely don't want to
1:03:22
miss it. I'm sure McShane has some other
1:03:25
announcements which we're going to bring them back on the show
1:03:28
in a couple months and hopefully he can tell us more.
1:03:30
But the breaking news announcement today was Trace
1:03:34
Mayer is going to be making a comeback at Bitcoin 2025.
1:03:39
Guys, I'm your host Nico, our guest today, McShane, and of
1:03:42
course my legendary Co host Optimus Fields.
1:03:45
We're simply Bitcoin and we'll see you guys tomorrow.
1:03:47
Peace out everybody. Today's.
1:03:49
Episode was brought. To you by bitcoinwell.com, a
1:03:52
Bitcoin only platform on a mission to enable financial
1:03:55
independence.