Latest / Simply Bitcoin / NEW: $1.5T Bank in the 8th Largest Country JUST Bought Bitcoin! | EP 1160

Transcript

NEW: $1.5T Bank in the 8th Largest Country JUST Bought Bitcoin! | EP 1160 · Simply Bitcoin

• 0:00
  Yeah. The largest bank in a $2.3
• 0:03
  trillion economy just bought Bitcoin.
• 0:07
  This $1.5 trillion bank seems to be ignoring what their central
• 0:13
  bank and government is saying because this country's
• 0:16
  government recently tried to double the capital gains tax on
• 0:20
  Bitcoin from 26% to 46% only a few weeks ago.
• 0:26
  And then on Christmas Eve, their central bank quietly released
• 0:30
  the report where they called Bitcoin peer-to-peer
• 0:33
  transactions quote crime as a service.
• 0:36
  So what country are we talking about?
• 0:39
  I mean, you guys are going to be excited.
• 0:40
  We're talking about Italy. That's right.
• 0:42
  Italy's largest bank just bought Bitcoin and the party's just
• 0:48
  getting started. 2025 is just getting started.
• 0:51
  Anyways, I want to bring up my legendary codes who's always
• 0:53
  optimistic and Brandon from greenlit candle candle fellow
• 0:58
  Bitcoin only tech creed joining us in the house today.
• 1:03
  So anyways guys, this shot straight into the article.
• 1:05
  What I'm talking about in I'm sorry guys, I don't speak
• 1:09
  Italian, but I'm going to do my best.
• 1:10
  Let's give a shot. Let's give it a shot in Desa San
• 1:14
  Paulo, Italies largest bank buys $1 million worth of Bitcoin, it
• 1:20
  goes on to say, and yet another sign of the growing prominence
• 1:23
  of the leading cryptocurrency in Desa, Sao Paulo, Italy's largest
• 1:27
  bank, has purchased $1 million worth of Bitcoin.
• 1:30
  Indeed, the acquisition was the first of its kind for the
• 1:33
  financial institution, according to an internal memo.
• 1:36
  The total 1.03 million purchase netted the bank a total of 11
• 1:41
  BTC, according to a Reuters report.
• 1:44
  Moreover, local news outlets have reported that in Desa, Sao
• 1:48
  Paulo has officially become become the first Italian bank to
• 1:53
  purchase any cryptocurrency directly.
• 1:55
  It goes on to say Italy's largest bank buys Bitcoin and
• 1:59
  ground breaking move The cryptocurrency market entered
• 2:02
  2025 on the heels of its most important year to date.
• 2:06
  One year ago, the United States approved the first crypto based
• 2:10
  ETF that set the asset class on a new trajectory.
• 2:14
  Just eleven months later, Bitcoin would surge to A6 figure
• 2:19
  price for the first time in its history.
• 2:22
  Interestingly, the asset is expected to only continue
• 2:25
  gaining value this year. With pro crypto candidate Donald
• 2:29
  Trump emerging victorious in the 2024 election, favorable
• 2:33
  regulation is expected. That's right, we have an
• 2:36
  interview. We have Gary Gensler's last
• 2:40
  interview as SCC chair and it's absolutely hilarious.
• 2:45
  He goes on Squawk Box and Joe absolutely destroys him.
• 2:50
  Anyways, so what's quite interesting about this?
• 2:52
  Again, I think it's a symbolic amount, to be frank.
• 2:56
  But we all know how we all started buying Bitcoin,
• 3:00
  including Michael Saylor, right? You know we all don't have $1
• 3:04
  million lying around, right? But for a bank that has 1.5 or I
• 3:09
  believe the exact figure is €1.4 million trillion trillion
• 3:15
  trillion. Appreciate the correction Opti.
• 3:18
  You know 1,000,000 is like it's symbolic, right?
• 3:23
  But we all know how that ends up all of us.
• 3:26
  We we know this story, you dip your toes into Bitcoin first,
• 3:29
  you just. Little little toe dip.
• 3:32
  And then you end up, you know, going 100% plus into the asset
• 3:37
  very shortly after once you realize it's the best asset in
• 3:41
  the world and everything trends to 0 compared to Bitcoin.
• 3:45
  Now, what I was saying in the intro, what is very interesting
• 3:49
  is the news that was coming out of Italy not that long ago,
• 3:53
  where the Bank of Italy called Bitcoin peer-to-peer services,
• 3:58
  quote crime as a service amidst amidst growing acceptance.
• 4:03
  So I think there's two converging forces here.
• 4:08
  There's incentives versus government coercion, right?
• 4:12
  We always, we always make the case that Bitcoin inevitably is
• 4:14
  going to win because it has incentives on its side versus
• 4:19
  Fiat currencies that require coercion, coercion in order for
• 4:23
  them to function. Because if people knew that
• 4:26
  money didn't have to steal from you in order to function, people
• 4:29
  would obviously choose the money that didn't steal from you.
• 4:32
  In fact, not only does it not steal from you, it actually
• 4:34
  gains purchasing power over time.
• 4:37
  Like that is the ideal situation to be in.
• 4:40
  So, you know, it's, it's quite funny how even if the Bank of
• 4:43
  Italy, you know, the central Bank of Italy is like, look,
• 4:45
  this is criminal. A private bank in Italy is like,
• 4:49
  you know what, like number go up, technology good, which is
• 4:53
  absolutely hilarious. And then of course, we had the
• 4:56
  news of, of, you know, the, the increase in taxes on crypto and
• 5:02
  Bitcoin. So according to the first
• 5:04
  article, I remember back in, back in December, it was 46%.
• 5:09
  It's apparently they reached the consensus and now it's 33%, but
• 5:13
  it, it's still up from 26%. But the justification for why
• 5:18
  they increased that tax is insane because their reasoning
• 5:23
  is basically like, look, there's a lot of adoption.
• 5:27
  And because there's a lot of adoption, we have to increase
• 5:29
  the tax rate. Like they're essentially making
• 5:33
  the argument that we have to deincentivize people from
• 5:36
  choosing Bitcoin. Like, why?
• 5:38
  That's insanity. And then that leads me to
• 5:41
  something that we're going to cover on the news section today,
• 5:45
  which if you live in Europe is extremely important.
• 5:48
  In the United States, we dodge the metaphorical bullet with the
• 5:52
  election of, of Donald Trump. I think if Kamala would have
• 5:55
  gone elected, it would have been very, very bad for our industry.
• 5:58
  Opti and I, I think we, we would already be in El Salvador at
• 6:00
  this point, to be perfectly frank.
• 6:03
  We're going to talk about the Mika regulations and where I
• 6:06
  believe they're eventually going to lead.
• 6:08
  And also Bution. Bution is the founder and of of
• 6:14
  a company called the Steco big fan and I think he had this
• 6:17
  amazing a Twitter thread talking about Mika.
• 6:20
  So anyways, very, very bullish news.
• 6:23
  The the largest bank in Italy is officially holding Bitcoin.
• 6:29
  Another historic win. But after all these historic
• 6:32
  wins, whether it's strategic Bitcoin adoption on the state
• 6:35
  level, on the federal level, I mean, like, if, if we put this
• 6:41
  in the headline a year and a half ago, this video would have
• 6:45
  gotten 50,000 views. But now we've just grown so
• 6:49
  accustomed to US winning. I mean, Trump did promise this
• 6:53
  this at the Nashville conference.
• 6:54
  You guys are going to get tired of winning so much winning.
• 6:58
  You know, like whether like the guy was right, kind of like,
• 7:03
  like ever since he got elected, the price went to 100K and all
• 7:08
  this very positive news is coming out.
• 7:10
  So, you know, this is great. This is phenomenal.
• 7:13
  I still think that we have to, you know, be wary and be
• 7:17
  attentive because I just don't think they're just going to give
• 7:20
  over the keys and say, hey, you know what guys?
• 7:22
  You found better money and because you found better money,
• 7:24
  we're just going to go away. Like, I don't think that's going
• 7:26
  to be the case. I think just as the
• 7:30
  disintermediation of information in state was extremely messy, I
• 7:34
  think the disintermediation of money, of money in state is
• 7:39
  going to be even messier because a lot of the funding that
• 7:43
  government gets comes directly from their ability to print and
• 7:48
  control money. All right, I want to give a
• 7:51
  shout out to the 1057 of you guys watching live between
• 7:54
  YouTube Rumble and X. If you guys are enjoying the
• 7:57
  YouTube show so far and the Rumble show and the X show, make
• 8:01
  sure to smash that like button. Anyways, I'm going to pass it on
• 8:05
  to our special guest before I pass it on to my legendary Co
• 8:07
  host. Brandon, what's your take on
• 8:09
  this? I'm sure you're going to cover
• 8:11
  this on your show later. Italy, Italy's largest bank,
• 8:16
  just bought Bitcoin. What's your opinion?
• 8:18
  I mean, how could you not be bullish?
• 8:20
  Italy is turning a corner, right?
• 8:22
  I mean, as you lined out there earlier, Nico, the tried to
• 8:25
  raise capital gains tax on Bitcoin earlier this year and or
• 8:32
  I guess last year. Now at this point I'm getting a
• 8:34
  little convoluted here and now is sitting in Colombia, but seem
• 8:37
  like they overcooked their spaghetti a little bit.
• 8:39
  You know, somebody snapped it a little bit in their face.
• 8:42
  But now Donald Trump is coming in and he's coming in with a
• 8:45
  fresh plate of warm cooked chicken cutlets for the guy.
• 8:48
  So everybody in the chat needs to be throwing up one of these
• 8:51
  emojis in here because how can you not be bullish with all this
• 8:55
  news coming through where Italy is now turning a corner?
• 8:58
  I think the one caveat with all of this is that we have to be
• 9:02
  very cautious with the EU. You lined it out.
• 9:05
  It seems like they're trying to create that digital euro.
• 9:07
  So I'm still a little skeptical with a lot of these Italian
• 9:11
  banks out of all these different members in the EU on just how
• 9:14
  bullish it is. But like you said, I think it is
• 9:18
  a sign of what's to come. I think, you know, we're going
• 9:21
  to see a lot more banks start to come in, see the FOMO, see the
• 9:25
  price go up, and that's going to bring in everybody and it
• 9:28
  eventually Bitcoin is inevitable.
• 9:30
  And I think, you know, the Italians are going to be hot
• 9:33
  here, the pizzas going to come right out the oven, It's going
• 9:36
  to be looking really nice and good.
• 9:38
  And hey, here we go. We got a bright orange future
• 9:40
  for not only the US and everybody else involved, but
• 9:43
  Italy and Europe is slowly going to come around.
• 9:46
  And that's going to start the FOMO effect.
• 9:49
  And then we're off to the races here.
• 9:51
  Absolutely. I love having content creators
• 9:54
  on the show. Brandon, everybody check out his
• 9:57
  channel Green candle. It right at green candle.
• 10:01
  I thought it was green candle lit because.
• 10:03
  That was awesome. I mean, you guys know the guys
• 10:06
  if you know the guy with the green candle just tagged tag
• 10:09
  them for me and tell them to give it to me because I just put
• 10:12
  the IT at the end because I, I, I didn't know man, I needed to
• 10:15
  get it, but. We had to we had to put TV after
• 10:19
  simply Bitcoin on Twitter too, because simply Bitcoin an
• 10:23
  inactive account is sitting on it anyways.
• 10:27
  Opti, what is your professional opinion?
• 10:30
  Extremely professional, extremely optimistic opinion on
• 10:33
  and the Bank of Italy, you know, buying.
• 10:37
  I mean, dude, like I'm telling you like it's a big effing deal.
• 10:42
  It's this is a big deal. This is a big deal.
• 10:44
  So Opti, what's your take? Well, first of all, I would not
• 10:47
  say it's a professional take here.
• 10:50
  You know, I don't have a suit on, so I'm not a professional at
• 10:53
  all. Also, I do want to mention that
• 10:56
  Brandon might have more energy than me today.
• 10:59
  So I'm off to up to energy today, apparently.
• 11:02
  But going into this Italy news and and I'm reading a little bit
• 11:05
  from the Reuters article that was dropped about this.
• 11:08
  Just to give a little more context for everyone out there.
• 11:10
  The headline here on Reuters is Italy's and Tessa, quote, test
• 11:14
  Bitcoin with €1,000,000 invest. And personally, the first
• 11:18
  thought is like it's crazy that $1 million only buys you 11
• 11:21
  Bitcoin at this point like that. It just that blows my mind here.
• 11:25
  But going a little further, yeah, it's it's nuts.
• 11:28
  Just going further again, reading from the Reuters
• 11:30
  article, here's a quote. It says quote, we won't become a
• 11:33
  Bitcoin player. This is the CEO.
• 11:36
  And just going further he goes as a wealth management company
• 11:39
  that has the ambition to become like Swiss rival UBS.
• 11:42
  We have very sophisticated clients that may ask for this
• 11:45
  kind of investment and you can't serve them unless you have a
• 11:48
  presence in the market. Now, the reason I'm reading that
• 11:50
  is because we've been saying this for a long time that, you
• 11:53
  know, Nico just said it and Brandon was alluding to it as
• 11:56
  well, that these banks and these corporations, as we'll probably
• 12:00
  talk about later, they essentially have no choice.
• 12:02
  They have to bend the knee to Bitcoin, especially a wealth
• 12:05
  management company, you know, a huge private bank, like the
• 12:08
  largest bank in Italy. You could venture to guess that
• 12:11
  their clients are asking about quote UN quote digital assets.
• 12:14
  And so this is them just kind of getting their toes in the
• 12:17
  market, buying, you know, a small $1 million investment in
• 12:21
  Bitcoin to get themselves 11 Bitcoin so that they can
• 12:24
  actually kind of give Bitcoin to the clients that want it.
• 12:28
  And of course they're going to do something similar that we've
• 12:30
  seen other banks kind of talk about when they give exposure to
• 12:34
  Bitcoin where it, you know, that it has to be high net worth
• 12:37
  individuals, they have to know the risk, etcetera, etcetera.
• 12:39
  So this is just an initial test, but we all know what happens
• 12:43
  when you kind of dip your toes in the Bitcoin market is you
• 12:46
  eventually start buying more Bitcoin.
• 12:48
  So this is a huge, huge development.
• 12:50
  Obviously, as a bitcoiner, I'm more of like, I don't really
• 12:54
  care about banks buying Bitcoin, but we know that this is the
• 12:57
  next course of action here. Remember, we've been playing
• 13:00
  that sailor clip for you guys a while that the three things that
• 13:03
  needed to happen are actually happening right now.
• 13:06
  And that was the ETF, it was the Fasby ruling and then Bitcoin or
• 13:09
  banks custody Bitcoin. So we're on the trajectory of
• 13:14
  essentially a huge, huge development, huge price run up
• 13:18
  and all the cards are falling in the right direction.
• 13:21
  Yes, this is a small investment. Obviously we don't really want
• 13:24
  these big, you know, national corporations, international
• 13:28
  bankers holding Bitcoin, but hey, we can't stop it.
• 13:31
  And they understand the game that we understand, they
• 13:33
  understand the stakes. And as Bitcoin price starts to
• 13:37
  climb, the stakes do get higher for these institutional managers
• 13:40
  and the people in a position right now that have a lot of
• 13:42
  capital. So obviously they are
• 13:45
  capitulating their the need of Bitcoin and I think this is the
• 13:48
  only going to continue. So very interesting things to
• 13:52
  see play out. And of course, obviously, like
• 13:54
  Nico played and and ran through the fact that the Italian
• 13:58
  government is doing all this crazy stuff to attack Bitcoin.
• 14:01
  And then one of their biggest banks is like, actually, bro,
• 14:03
  sorry, our clients want some Bitcoin.
• 14:05
  We're going to have to buy some Bitcoin.
• 14:07
  It is what it is. I think this is like a, a
• 14:11
  forwarding projection of what we're going to see other
• 14:13
  countries follow and do, especially when we see
• 14:16
  everything coming out of the EU. Like I I've been very bearish on
• 14:20
  every European Union country for the past year.
• 14:23
  They seem to be doing everything in their power to ensure that
• 14:27
  the population has fun staying poor.
• 14:29
  Now hopefully there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
• 14:32
  And I know people don't really like Trump too much, but it all
• 14:36
  got started because Trump won and he came out and said, hey, I
• 14:39
  am pro Bitcoin. And we'll see what happens on
• 14:43
  Monday. You know, next Monday, we'll see
• 14:44
  exactly what happens day one. I'm sure we'll also be following
• 14:49
  closely on what happens the first 100 days.
• 14:51
  It's looking like the Trump administration is actively and
• 14:55
  actually pro Bitcoin, or rather, you know, pro crypto here or
• 14:58
  whatever. But they are taking it very
• 15:00
  seriously. And this is just going to start
• 15:02
  to kick the dominoes worldwide. And remember, guys, we we say it
• 15:06
  all the time. Rather, Nico says all the time,
• 15:08
  elections do have consequences and the way politics works right
• 15:11
  now, lobbying makes a lot of impact in what happens in the
• 15:16
  policy and the personnel. And remember, the Bitcoin Crypto
• 15:20
  PAC essentially lobbied 1/3 of the capital that Trump got.
• 15:25
  So they are taking Bitcoin very seriously.
• 15:28
  And we're seeing that now. Every other country has to take
• 15:31
  Bitcoin very seriously. So again, yesterday we were kind
• 15:34
  of talking about Zuck and the writing on the wall, etcetera.
• 15:37
  The writing is all on the wall right now everywhere around the
• 15:40
  world that you have to take Bitcoin seriously you can't just
• 15:43
  relegate it to the Internet call it you know what what they call
• 15:46
  it crime as a service for money launderers.
• 15:48
  You know it's only for criminals it's it's Internet nerd money.
• 15:52
  Now we are hitting the mainstage and 2025.
• 15:54
  I think it's going to be a crazy year in announcements of people
• 15:58
  adopting Bitcoin and obviously that's that's good for number go
• 16:01
  up. But it it means that we have to
• 16:04
  ensure that more people take Bitcoin in custody.
• 16:06
  Don't leave their Bitcoin on exchanges running nodes.
• 16:09
  Like I said yesterday, I'm still I'm still flabbergasted that 70%
• 16:14
  of the people that hang out with us don't run a node.
• 16:17
  So we're going to be harping on you guys for the next couple of
• 16:19
  weeks. You need to run a node.
• 16:21
  You need to take Bitcoin into custody because hey, that the
• 16:24
  third party institutions, the middleman, they want some
• 16:27
  Bitcoin. So don't let them and don't give
• 16:29
  it an opportunity to actually take your Bitcoin.
• 16:32
  You want to hold that in personal custody?
• 16:35
  Amen to that all right everybody, if you guys are
• 16:36
  enjoying this show so far, make sure to smash that like button.
• 16:40
  We just passed 1500 live viewers across YouTube rumble and X so
• 16:46
  again, smash the like button if you guys are enjoying the show
• 16:48
  before we start the show, I do want to give a shout out to
• 16:50
  simply Bitcoins lead sponsor guys.
• 16:52
  Simply Bitcoin would not be possible without our sponsors.
• 16:55
  If you guys want to support the show, check out our sponsors,
• 16:58
  and we're very picky on who we choose to partner with because
• 17:01
  we choose to partner with companies they're going to help
• 17:03
  you reach financial sovereignty. All right everybody, I want to
• 17:06
  tell you guys about our lead sponsor Bitcoin.
• 17:07
  Well, best place to build your automatic self custody Bitcoin
• 17:10
  stack. Enable your independence with
• 17:11
  the fastest and safest way to buy Bitcoin on chain or via the
• 17:14
  light network in Canada or the USA.
• 17:17
  To get started, you put in your e-mail address.
• 17:19
  It takes 2 to 5 minutes to get to get signed up and bada Bing
• 17:23
  bada boom, you're ready to buy Bitcoin.
• 17:24
  What makes Bitcoin Well different is that it's a
• 17:27
  completely non custodial platform.
• 17:31
  So what does that mean? That means that when you buy
• 17:32
  Bitcoin on Bitcoin well, as soon as the funds clear, it goes
• 17:35
  straight to yourself. Custody Bitcoin wallet address,
• 17:38
  which perfectly aligns with the simply Bitcoin ethos of the
• 17:41
  separation of money and state. Also, for higher net worth
• 17:43
  individuals that are looking to buy $50,000 worth of Bitcoin or
• 17:46
  more, check out their Bitcoin Well Infinite product.
• 17:49
  It's a Bitcoin OTC desk that is essentially a a like.
• 17:54
  If you're tired of dealing with Coinbase UI, you're tired of
• 17:57
  dealing with support emails. They never get back to you.
• 17:59
  You actually want to have the ability to call a real human
• 18:04
  being. Every time you want to buy or
• 18:06
  sell or you have any questions or concerns about Bitcoin, you
• 18:09
  got to go check out Bitcoin Well Infinite.
• 18:11
  To get started, go to bitcoinwell.com/OTC.
• 18:14
  Every time you buy Bitcoin on Bitcoin Well, you earn something
• 18:17
  called Bitcoin Well points, and you could use those points
• 18:21
  towards the Bitcoin wishing Well contest, which we're going to do
• 18:24
  live for you guys right now. Get your lightning while it's
• 18:27
  ready. First person to scan the QR code
• 18:30
  has one 210 Satoshi's. So every time you toss a coin,
• 18:36
  you're going to win no matter what, but you have an
• 18:38
  opportunity every time you toss a coin to win up to 1,000,000
• 18:42
  Satoshi's. If you use promo code Simply
• 18:45
  BTC, again, Simply BTC to sign up to bitcoinwell.com today you
• 18:51
  get 3 tosses into the Bitcoin wishing well.
• 18:55
  All right everybody, let's hit the numbers.
• 18:57
  We have tons to talk about. Let's check it out.
• 19:08
  I want to tell you guys about our sponsor Stamp Seed.
• 19:11
  Is your Bitcoin and cold storage really secure?
• 19:14
  Are your seed words really secure?
• 19:17
  Stamp Seeds Do it Yourself Kit has everything you'll need to
• 19:21
  hammer your seed words into commercial grade titanium plates
• 19:26
  instead of writing them down on paper.
• 19:29
  Don't do that. Paper sucks.
• 19:32
  You want to literally stamp your seed into this plate of
• 19:36
  titanium. Your words are actually stamped
• 19:39
  into the metal plate with this hammer, so once your words are
• 19:43
  in, they aren't going anywhere. No risk of the plate breaking
• 19:47
  apart and your pieces falling everywhere.
• 19:50
  Titanium stamp seeds will survive nearly triple the heat
• 19:53
  produced by a house fire. They are also crush proof,
• 19:57
  waterproof, non corrosive and most importantly because this is
• 20:01
  generational wealth time proof all things that paper is not
• 20:07
  allowing you to huddle your Bitcoin for the long haul I
• 20:11
  mean. Here is the plate that they
• 20:13
  crushed, they put in water, they put a blowtorch to it, and as
• 20:17
  you can see the words have survived.
• 20:20
  Stamp your seed on stamp seed and you can use promo code
• 20:25
  simply to get 15% off anything on their store.
• 20:32
  All right, everybody, you want to make it over the finish line
• 20:35
  with your generational wealth, and that's exactly why you want
• 20:39
  to store your Bitcoin seed words properly.
• 20:43
  You don't want to write down your seed words on paper papers
• 20:46
  prone to water damage, fire damage.
• 20:49
  You want to stamp your seed into one of the strongest metals on
• 20:53
  planet earth, titanium. Use promo code simply to get 15%
• 20:57
  off. Again, don't write down your
• 20:59
  seed stamp it onto Titanium Stamp se-ed.com promo code
• 21:03
  simply at the At the time of recording, the recording price
• 21:08
  is $96,230 is block high 879,251.
• 21:13
  So that's per dollar. 1039 market cap 1.91 trillion Bitcoin
• 21:17
  versus gold market cap 10.26% percentage issued 94.33% decline
• 21:23
  from all time high -11.1% realized monetary inflation
• 21:28
  1.08% Again, continuing to take Fiat currencies to absolute
• 21:35
  school. Anyways, talking about taking
• 21:37
  people to absolute school, here is Joe Kernan, host of Squawk
• 21:42
  Box and People. You had Gary Gensler on the
• 21:47
  show. The name of the interview is
• 21:49
  called the Exit Interview, which I find hilarious.
• 21:52
  I have no idea why Gary Gensler would agree to it, but I mean,
• 21:58
  it gives us something to talk about.
• 21:59
  Let's check out the interview and then we'll talk about it.
• 22:03
  What you think is going to have or whether you're thinking has
• 22:05
  evolved. It almost sounded like you, you
• 22:07
  wanted to, to separate Bitcoin from the rest of the industry.
• 22:12
  And I'm wondering whether you're actually warming to the idea of,
• 22:15
  of, of at least Bitcoin and whether, yeah, again, people are
• 22:20
  tweeting you that I said you either stood in the way of an
• 22:23
  extraordinary industry or were utterly unable to prevent a
• 22:26
  massive bubble. What do you think the future
• 22:30
  holds? Do you have a feeling on which
• 22:33
  it is? Do you think Bitcoin has
• 22:36
  inherent value and is a store of value?
• 22:38
  Or do you feel that that when we look back on a 10/15/20 years
• 22:42
  from now, it's going to be something from the 18th century
• 22:46
  with tulips? Joe, it's it's hard to predict.
• 22:51
  I think I really do like you because I know that you think
• 22:56
  I'm going to out you think negatively on many of these alt
• 23:00
  coins you Joe, but in terms of in terms of Bitcoin, we at the
• 23:05
  SEC have never said it's a security.
• 23:08
  What do you think it's? You taught at MIT, I think, you
• 23:10
  know, I think you've got to have some kind of feeling.
• 23:13
  You read. You've read the books Bitcoin
• 23:15
  Standard. Yeah, I think, I think that
• 23:19
  Bitcoin is a highly speculative volatile asset.
• 23:26
  But with 7 billion people around the globe, 7 billion people want
• 23:31
  to trade it. Just like we do have gold for
• 23:34
  10,000 years, we have Bitcoin. It might be something else in
• 23:38
  the future as well. These other thousands of
• 23:42
  projects need to show their use case and show that they actually
• 23:47
  have fundamentals underlying them or they won't persist.
• 23:52
  Joe. Oh my God, you own.
• 23:53
  That's where the public, that's why the public needs disclosure.
• 23:57
  That's what it's I don't. I've never owned.
• 23:59
  I've never. You don't like those other
• 24:01
  coins? I've never owned any of these
• 24:04
  and I've been consistent for seven or eight years on this.
• 24:08
  Well, now. Could you imagine talking about
• 24:14
  Bitcoin for seven to eight years, teaching a class on
• 24:17
  Bitcoin and not owning Bitcoin? I mean, dude, I got so I I've
• 24:23
  been here nine years. Holy cow, can't believe it feels
• 24:26
  weird saying that. And then next year's gonna be 10
• 24:28
  like the year of the bear market.
• 24:29
  That's crazy. Anyways, 7 effing years ago, you
• 24:33
  could have got Bitcoin for a couple $1000 a coin, dude.
• 24:37
  I mean, like, and Can you imagine that like upward
• 24:40
  volatility, like, Oh my God, I would be bitter too.
• 24:45
  And again, like, oh, Bitcoin, is this highly speculative, highly.
• 24:49
  OK, in 2017, you could have made that argument with a straight
• 24:54
  face. You can't make that fucking
• 24:56
  argument. Oh my God, For the first time
• 24:58
  I've cursed on the show in a really long time.
• 25:00
  You cannot make that argument anymore.
• 25:04
  You can't make that argument anymore.
• 25:05
  Does not fly. Excuse my language by the way,
• 25:07
  everybody, but you can't make that argument anymore.
• 25:11
  You can't like when the largest Bank of Italy is buying Bitcoin,
• 25:17
  right? When BlackRock is buying
• 25:19
  Bitcoin, when MicroStrategy is buying Bitcoin, when all the
• 25:22
  tech companies are being pressured by their shareholders
• 25:24
  to potentially buy Bitcoin, when a nation state has made it legal
• 25:29
  tender. Like you can't use the 2017.
• 25:35
  Bitcoin is an index for money laundering.
• 25:37
  It's a highly expected, you know, what is a what is a
• 25:40
  terrible asset to hold that is guaranteed to lose purchasing
• 25:44
  power forever? The dollar, the dollar, the
• 25:49
  dollar, the dollar is. So, yeah, I mean, boring, but
• 25:54
  you could make a really good argument because a huge
• 25:59
  percentage of the Democratic Party tend to be people that are
• 26:02
  younger, and younger people tend to own Bitcoin and crypto, to be
• 26:08
  fair. And I don't think it was wise
• 26:12
  for them to go after the industry, especially if a big
• 26:17
  part of their demographic owns something related to that
• 26:22
  industry. I don't think that was a wise
• 26:24
  move. So yeah, I mean, that's my take
• 26:28
  on all this. And you know, shout out to
• 26:31
  Squawk. Opti was the one that pointed it
• 26:33
  out, pointed this out to me at first and then now I can't Unsee
• 26:37
  it. Squawk is hardcore Bitcoin maxi.
• 26:41
  That dude has coins and cold storage right now.
• 26:45
  I'm telling you, he acts like it.
• 26:47
  I feel the vibe. I feel the energy coming off of
• 26:50
  him. Brandon, What do you think, bro?
• 26:52
  I mean, that feels good. That feels really good.
• 26:55
  They they even trolled him a little bit.
• 26:56
  The exit interview, you know, and like Joe is basically saying
• 27:00
  like, you're like, dude, you're a moron.
• 27:01
  What are you doing? So anyways, thank God Trump won.
• 27:05
  I think it would have been a very rough year, a very rough
• 27:09
  couple four years if Kamala won the presidency.
• 27:12
  Anyways, Mr. Green Candle, what? What are your what's what are
• 27:16
  your opinions, brother? Yeah, man, how could you not be
• 27:19
  bullish? I mean, Joe seems to be on our
• 27:21
  side at this point. He seems like he's the only one
• 27:24
  in the traditional media that is extremely bullish on Bitcoin and
• 27:28
  seems to be a maxi as well. He's done his homework.
• 27:31
  He's been very critical of the alt coins.
• 27:33
  He seems to be diving head 1st. And thank the Lord that we
• 27:37
  finally get somebody like Gary Gensler on a traditional media
• 27:42
  outlet and he's not given a softball interview.
• 27:45
  I think that's one of the bigger things to take away from this as
• 27:48
  well, is that Joe is up there challenging him.
• 27:50
  Like, come on, man. You've been talking about
• 27:52
  Bitcoin for eight years. What are you doing?
• 27:55
  How do you not get it? You've read the Bitcoin
• 27:57
  standard. You're a smart guy, allegedly.
• 27:59
  You have a piece of paper from MIT.
• 28:01
  I mean, what are you doing here? How can you not see the light
• 28:04
  with Bitcoin at this point? And I think Joe is finally
• 28:08
  voicing all of our frustrations in the Bitcoin space that we've
• 28:11
  had for multiple years at a time.
• 28:14
  And now he's finally coming out and challenging Gary Gensler.
• 28:17
  I mean, we've barely had any traditional media outlet
• 28:21
  challenge anybody in power for the past four years.
• 28:25
  But it seems like now that tide is starting to shift, people are
• 28:29
  starting to question the traditional media outlets more
• 28:31
  and more. That's why shows like Simply
• 28:33
  Bitcoin, like my show as well, are becoming more popular
• 28:36
  because we've had just Gary Gensler go up there.
• 28:39
  Oh, like, what's your favorite ice cream here, Joe?
• 28:41
  What's your favorite ice cream? And when he says vanilla,
• 28:44
  everybody like claps. Oh, great.
• 28:46
  You know, everything's all great.
• 28:48
  But now they're actually challenging people like Gary
• 28:51
  Gensler. So people like my parents who
• 28:54
  have no idea how to even use YouTube are going to be seeing
• 28:57
  this and be like, hey, this Gary Gensler guy seems to be getting
• 29:00
  really defensive. Why was he making all these
• 29:03
  mistakes? He's seen Bitcoin, like Nico
• 29:05
  said, go from like 1000 dollar a coin to literally 100 X and he
• 29:10
  doesn't own any. He thinks that it's full of it.
• 29:13
  I mean, how can you deny the facts at this point?
• 29:16
  Like you lined out, we got MicroStrategy, the best
• 29:19
  performing stock in the S&P 500, essentially a Bitcoin holding
• 29:23
  company. We got Amazon, Microsoft and
• 29:26
  Meta all talking about putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet.
• 29:30
  We've got nation states stacking Bitcoin already and the United
• 29:34
  States talking about it. I mean, at this point, how can
• 29:36
  you not be bullish? And Gary, thank God this guy's
• 29:40
  getting out of here. Let's don't let the door kick
• 29:43
  the tail on the way out. I'm not going to curse like Nico
• 29:45
  out here. I know this is a kids show so
• 29:47
  I'm not going. To take family friendly it is.
• 29:49
  Family friendly. That was the first time I've
• 29:51
  cursed on simply for a very long time.
• 29:54
  I don't know what I just and. The chat the chat is saying that
• 29:58
  that's the passion they want from you so.
• 30:02
  Check out the early simply Bitcoin episodes.
• 30:05
  I used to go ham. Now I've pulled it back a ton
• 30:08
  anyways guys, if you guys are enjoying the show so far, make
• 30:12
  sure to smash that like button. I think we're only at roughly
• 30:15
  170 likes or so on YouTube, so smash that like button if you
• 30:18
  guys are enjoying the show. Opti, I know you're a huge fan
• 30:22
  of Joe and I know you're a not a big fan of Gary Gensler.
• 30:26
  So what's what it mean? Dude?
• 30:28
  How did he agree to that interview?
• 30:31
  I I don't know where he thought that was a good idea and they
• 30:34
  trolled him in the chyron the exit interview.
• 30:38
  Like dude, oh rough rough Opti it's called.
• 30:42
  Chyron. Wow.
• 30:43
  Big words, chyron. Or lower third, either or.
• 30:46
  Yeah, OK. Anyways, off topic, I've been
• 30:49
  saying it for a while. Joe Kernan is literally the
• 30:52
  biggest Bitcoin podcaster in the world.
• 30:55
  You know, all of us don't don't even come close to Joe Kernan on
• 30:58
  Squawk box. He is, I would say the watermark
• 31:01
  for Bitcoin podcasters out here. Shouts out to the bugle because,
• 31:05
  you know, we all know that there needs to be more Bitcoin
• 31:08
  podcasters. And Joe Kernan is taking the top
• 31:10
  spot here. So I love seeing him troll Gary
• 31:14
  Gensler, though I am kind of pulling back a little bit.
• 31:17
  Nikko. I'm.
• 31:17
  I'm starting to become a fan of Gary Gensler now that he's
• 31:20
  leaving, you know, that position in SEC.
• 31:23
  It's starting to sound like even though he is salty.
• 31:25
  Well, let me let me back that up.
• 31:27
  I would also be salty if I was watching Bitcoin for eight years
• 31:31
  and seeing it go from what? I don't know when.
• 31:33
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 31:34
  I don't even know what that is. I would be salty if I was Gary
• 31:37
  Ginzer as well, if I taught a class at MIT on Bitcoin.
• 31:41
  I don't remember when that class started, but I'm guessing he saw
• 31:45
  Bitcoin go from like $500 to 1000, you know, roughly around
• 31:49
  that, that price range to 100,000.
• 31:53
  Like I would I would be as salty as him and I would be calling it
• 31:57
  a bubble as well. And we see the the Bitcoin
• 32:00
  derangement syndrome from a lot of people that are academics and
• 32:03
  they're in these positions of power.
• 32:05
  They they dig their heels in the sand and they make their
• 32:09
  positions known and they actively fight to keep that
• 32:12
  position even when all the data is proving them wrong.
• 32:15
  And so, you know, shout out to Gary Ginzer here.
• 32:18
  Like, hey, if you really believe Bitcoin is trash, well, as the
• 32:22
  saying goes, you know, it's not nice anymore to say, but have
• 32:24
  fun staying poor. Also, when you hear that clip,
• 32:27
  guys, again, I'm I'm reverting back to my hate on Gary Ginzer.
• 32:31
  He he's kind of sounding like a Bitcoin maxi.
• 32:33
  I'm not going to lie. He's saying everything and we're
• 32:36
  saying, yeah, you know, there's Bitcoin and then there's shit
• 32:39
  coins and none of these, what, I don't even know how many shit
• 32:42
  coins there are now, 10,015 thousand of these other coins
• 32:46
  are trash. You should not be buying them.
• 32:48
  And, you know, like being a little less cynical.
• 32:51
  Maybe. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold
• 32:54
  on. Maybe Gary Ginzer was holding
• 32:56
  back the shit coin. Maybe he actually did some good
• 32:58
  here. You know, I'm going to be kind
• 33:00
  of nice since he's leaving, but obviously I I think we we can
• 33:05
  all see that Gary Ginzer in in actuality wasn't very good for
• 33:09
  the Bitcoin industry, even though he did teach a course on
• 33:11
  Bitcoin. But if you watch Bitcoin go 100
• 33:14
  XI would be salty as well if I knew everything that you that we
• 33:18
  know he knows. So hey, you know, I guess we
• 33:21
  could give him some leeway. I'm going to be nice today,
• 33:23
  Nico. The time's up.
• 33:26
  OK, So all right, all right in regards to the the alt coins,
• 33:33
  right there's kids in the chat OP, We we got to be nice.
• 33:37
  Someone said they're. Watching with their kids.
• 33:38
  This is a professional. This is a dictionary term.
• 33:41
  This is a. Family friendly show.
• 33:43
  So this is what I got to say though I'm a libertarian at
• 33:48
  heart. If you want to buy whatever you
• 33:51
  know altcoin under the sun, that's your problem.
• 33:54
  Obviously we recommend Bitcoin only for obvious reasons.
• 33:59
  I mean whole shows about that. But I do want to, I want to
• 34:03
  specify Opti because we can't tell people what to do with
• 34:05
  their money, bro. They want to, they want to buy,
• 34:08
  you know, steaming pile of garbage.
• 34:10
  That's OK Nico, this is a family friendly show.
• 34:13
  The Chad is telling us they're watching with their kids, so
• 34:16
  we'll we'll keep it clean. I do I haven't cursed in a long
• 34:19
  time actually, you know, so it just it kind of slipped out
• 34:22
  because I, I, I was feeling passionate feeling passionate.
• 34:25
  Anyways, everybody stay tuned. We have a lot to talk about.
• 34:28
  We're going to talk about the Mika regulations in Europe and
• 34:33
  essentially, you know, one of the things I'll, I'll preface
• 34:37
  before we switch over to the news segment.
• 34:39
  So Opti's ex-girlfriend, Chrissie Lagarde, head of the
• 34:43
  European Central Bank, when she she has this viral video of her
• 34:47
  calling Bitcoin an escape valve and then she's like, you know
• 34:51
  what, it's OK, the Mika regulations are going to take
• 34:54
  care of it. So the reason we like to cover
• 34:56
  these types of topics, and especially in the United States
• 34:59
  with the favourable regulatory environment with the incoming
• 35:02
  administration is beware of the regulations that are dressed up
• 35:11
  with the idea that, oh, they're here to help you, they're here
• 35:18
  to protect you. Beware of that and ask yourself
• 35:25
  why. Like and remember, they haven't
• 35:30
  been really sincere with Operation Choke .2 Point O.
• 35:34
  That wasn't something that was happening publicly.
• 35:36
  That was something that was happening behind the scenes with
• 35:41
  the proposed 30% Bitcoin mining tax, the attack on self custody,
• 35:45
  Elizabeth Warren using the attack in Israel to eventually
• 35:50
  spin this narrative that Bitcoin was being used for money
• 35:55
  laundering and terrorism and whatever.
• 35:57
  And then it came out to light that essentially the vast
• 36:00
  majority of illicit finance has done within the traditional
• 36:04
  financial system. So I just, I just want you guys
• 36:07
  to be wary of any time you kind of hear these, oh, these
• 36:14
  regulations, they're for your protection.
• 36:16
  And I'll, and I'll explain, I'll give another reason as to why
• 36:21
  the regulators part of the government, right, also stand a
• 36:27
  lot to lose if Bitcoin succeeds. Now, that's not to say that
• 36:34
  government can't benefit from Bitcoin.
• 36:36
  I think absolutely. I think it's going to make
• 36:38
  government better in the long term.
• 36:41
  However, the current, the current established form of
• 36:51
  government today had to think about that for a second, how to
• 36:54
  phrase that and the way that they're financed by the money
• 37:00
  printer. The more Bitcoin succeeds, the
• 37:04
  more that's adopted, the more that model is essentially going
• 37:10
  to be forced to change. That essentially shrinks the
• 37:15
  size of government inevitably. So anyone who's really
• 37:19
  benefiting from the money printer is not going to be a fan
• 37:23
  of Bitcoin. And I think a lot of the
• 37:27
  motivations between this hostile regulation that I don't think
• 37:32
  it's meant to protect the people, it's meant to protect
• 37:35
  the system. And I think they're going to
• 37:37
  continue down that path just as they initially attacked the
• 37:45
  freedom of speech that was enabled by mass scale
• 37:49
  peer-to-peer communications, AKA social media.
• 37:53
  Remember, Remember, we heard a million times disinformation,
• 37:57
  disinformation, disinformation. No, it wasn't disinformation.
• 38:00
  You guys said it was disinformation because it was
• 38:03
  inconvenient to the narrative that was being sold on the
• 38:06
  public. So had to preface that a little
• 38:09
  bit before we talk about Mika. I'm not saying that you know, a
• 38:12
  lot of these politicians, their heart isn't in the right place.
• 38:16
  I'm saying be wary anytime you hear about regulations and
• 38:21
  Bitcoin because remember, governments think they're going
• 38:24
  to regulate Bitcoin, but at the end of the day, it's going to be
• 38:28
  Bitcoin that ends up regulating governments.
• 38:31
  All right, everybody, let's hit the news.
• 38:33
  We have tons to talk about I want to give.
• 38:35
  A very special shout out to our sponsor Compass Mining.
• 38:39
  They make Bitcoin mining accessible to everyone from
• 38:43
  beginners to experienced investors.
• 38:45
  Their. Turnkey Miners gets you online
• 38:48
  and hashing within 48 hours, making it easier than ever to
• 38:52
  start your mining journey. Plus, with their active
• 38:56
  marketplace, you can resell your miner at anytime, adding
• 39:00
  flexibility and value to your investment.
• 39:03
  Visit their website to access a wealth of resources.
• 39:06
  Learning everything you need to know about Bitcoin mining.
• 39:09
  Take your first step into the world of Bitcoin mining with
• 39:13
  confidence. Discover more at Compass Mining
• 39:16
  dot IO. Again, Compass Mining dot IO and
• 39:20
  see how Compass Mining can power your success.
• 39:31
  I want to give a shout out to our sponsor foundation.
• 39:34
  It's self custody done right. They've built a premium grade
• 39:38
  hardware wallet called Passport right here in the US, and it
• 39:42
  integrates seamlessly with their free app called Envoy.
• 39:46
  Passport is fully open source and verifiable.
• 39:49
  It's the most intuitive Bitcoin wallet design with a UX
• 39:52
  reminiscent of a classic feature phone, so you'll know how to
• 39:55
  navigate it and use it the moment you pick it up.
• 39:58
  It's also air gaps, meaning Bitcoin stays offline, never
• 40:02
  touching an Internet connection. It's Bitcoin only open source,
• 40:06
  verifiable air gap security model, gorgeous design, craft
• 40:10
  premium grade materials. Get your Bitcoin off exchanges
• 40:13
  and into your own hands in just a few minutes.
• 40:16
  With passport at foundation dot XYZ slash simply get Peace of
• 40:20
  Mind. All right, everybody here is
• 40:26
  Opti and Opti is thriving because he's holding the
• 40:29
  passport by foundation devices. Opti doesn't let someone else
• 40:33
  hold his Bitcoin. He takes self custody of his
• 40:35
  Bitcoin. Guys, if it's not your keys,
• 40:38
  it's not your cheese. Check out passport by foundation
• 40:42
  devices, scan the QR code on your screen and you could use
• 40:44
  promo code simply to get a discount.
• 40:48
  It's a beautiful looking harder wallet.
• 40:49
  Look at that. Completely open source, easy to
• 40:51
  use. All right everybody, let's talk
• 40:53
  about Opti's ex girlfriend's revenge.
• 40:57
  You can make a very good case that central bank digital
• 41:01
  currencies and the Mika regulation all come from the
• 41:05
  root of Opti, breaking Chrissy Lagarde's heart.
• 41:09
  So technically, you can make a very good argument that Opti is
• 41:13
  responsible for central bank digital currencies.
• 41:16
  Anyways, in other news, Mika reshapes crypto regulations in
• 41:22
  Europe. So goes on to say the European
• 41:24
  Union's landmark crypto regulation, the Markets in
• 41:28
  Crypto Assets framework, took effect on December 30th, 2024.
• 41:33
  It promises to streamline the industry across all 27 member
• 41:38
  states. Mika streamline what?
• 41:42
  What is there to streamline? Mika introduces a unified
• 41:45
  regulatory approach to replace the fragmented national laws
• 41:49
  that previously governed the sector.
• 41:51
  The The goals include boosting transparency, reducing risk for
• 41:55
  investors, fostering innovation in an industry often marred by
• 41:59
  scams, and market instability. Under Mika, crypto token issuers
• 42:04
  must meet strict disclosure. Your standards exchange and
• 42:07
  wallet providers are required to register with the European
• 42:12
  Banking Authority. So that's the part that I want
• 42:17
  to focus on. On today's episode.
• 42:20
  I gave a very, very thorough context and preface before we
• 42:25
  talked about the news because this is where I actually saved
• 42:31
  this to drafts the other day. The reason that governments were
• 42:34
  able to control the narrative before social media is because
• 42:37
  there was only a handful of legacy media outlets.
• 42:41
  With the rise of social media came the rise of independent
• 42:44
  content creators like us, me and Opti, and of course Brandon on
• 42:48
  on the show today. And essentially, it's allowed
• 42:51
  the average everyday individual to do this, talk directly to
• 42:55
  their audience and build an audience.
• 42:58
  Before, if you wanted to essentially break a news story,
• 43:02
  you had to go to a handful of legacy media outlets or you had
• 43:06
  to go to a handful of TV channels.
• 43:08
  There wasn't open dialogue and open discourse like there is
• 43:12
  today. And what we found out with the
• 43:15
  adoption and rise and of popularity of social media and
• 43:19
  especially with a lot of things that happened during the
• 43:22
  pandemic is that those legacy media outlets don't really feel
• 43:28
  like they're news outlets. They kind of feel like
• 43:31
  propaganda outlets, right? And when you question their
• 43:35
  authority and their facts, they would just, instead of owning
• 43:38
  it, they would say that you're disinformation and they're
• 43:42
  essentially the single authority of truth.
• 43:48
  So governments were essentially able to control because there
• 43:52
  were these information intermediaries.
• 43:56
  That same concept applies to money.
• 44:00
  There are these money intermediaries known as banks.
• 44:06
  In the Bitcoin community we have this very famous phrase that a
• 44:09
  bank account is essentially a two of three multi sig where the
• 44:13
  bank holds a key, the state holds another key, and you hold
• 44:17
  one key. In the Bitcoin world, this idea
• 44:21
  of self custody is a very radical concept.
• 44:25
  I would say it's such a game changing, pivotal innovation in
• 44:34
  human history that it's going to change how societies organize
• 44:39
  themselves. And we just lived through the
• 44:42
  disintermediation of information that lasted like 8 years.
• 44:46
  It was extremely messy. I think it, we kind of reached
• 44:49
  the final chapter when Elon acquired X and then The X-Files
• 44:53
  came out and then the rise of Rumble, right?
• 44:56
  The rise of protocols like Noster.
• 44:58
  So that's just accelerating. But I feel like we've gone over
• 45:00
  the bump. We have not gone over the bump
• 45:04
  of the disintermediation of money and state.
• 45:07
  I don't think we've even start. We've started like the very
• 45:10
  early rise of the bump that was Operation Choke .2 point O.
• 45:15
  But we haven't got into the where governments are like, Oh
• 45:19
  my God, like, damn, this thing is really going to change
• 45:22
  things. We're seeing a little bit of
• 45:25
  foreshadowing in developing countries.
• 45:28
  For example, Nigeria, they have a CBDC called the Enaira, and
• 45:32
  they rolled it out and there was very little adoption.
• 45:36
  In fact, what was being adopted instead was stable coins and
• 45:40
  Bitcoin. And instead of changing the
• 45:43
  monetary policy, instead of like, OK, guys, maybe we got to
• 45:46
  stop printing because people are seeking alternative currencies.
• 45:51
  They literally arrested one of the executives from Binance that
• 45:55
  was in the country. And I think the guy is still in
• 45:57
  jail. So they they blamed like the off
• 46:01
  ramp rather than take responsibility for them printing
• 46:05
  too much money, which is of course is it's a lot easier to
• 46:08
  do. Like it was that guy.
• 46:09
  It wasn't us. So anyways that I had to give
• 46:13
  all that context before this leads me up to beauty ONS post
• 46:21
  again. Big fan of beauty on we've had
• 46:23
  him on multiple time. Akin is is the man, love the guy
• 46:27
  and big fan of him as an entrepreneur in what what he's
• 46:30
  been able to build. That being said, he goes on to
• 46:34
  say 1. Mika is not proof of Bitcoin's
• 46:36
  success. Mika shows that Bitcoin is a
• 46:39
  threat, not that it has succeeded in fulfilling the
• 46:42
  terms of that threat. Bitcoiners who think changing
• 46:45
  the meaning of words changes reality are not facing reality.
• 46:51
  Bitcoin is not money I and it is not freedom technology.
• 46:55
  Bitcoin is not technology. It is a database, just like a
• 46:59
  piece of paper with a grid of rectangles.
• 47:02
  Bitcoiners believing in made-up catch phrases are not facing
• 47:05
  reality. Decentralization is not a cult.
• 47:09
  Decentralization and saying that word over and over will not help
• 47:14
  build tools, neither will it get Bitcoin into the hands of
• 47:17
  billions of people who need it. Ignoring problem doesn't make
• 47:21
  them go away. Neither does repetitive chanting
• 47:25
  of catch phrases and buzzwords politics.
• 47:29
  And this is something, by the way, that we've, we, Opti and I
• 47:32
  got a lot of crap for it, for literally simply Bitcoin
• 47:36
  endorsing Trump and RFK because the Biden administration was
• 47:42
  extremely hostile towards our industry.
• 47:45
  It was never about Democrat, Republican, it was never about
• 47:47
  left or right. It was the fact that they
• 47:49
  attacked our industry. And as an industry, we were
• 47:55
  forced to get into the political discussion.
• 47:58
  Now, what is the definition of politics?
• 48:01
  The definition of politics is the organization of power.
• 48:05
  We talk about the disintermediation of money and
• 48:08
  state. I'm not going to curse, but what
• 48:12
  is that? But not political and politics,
• 48:16
  right? So this was an inevitability.
• 48:19
  As Bitcoiners, we've operated in the shadows for a very long
• 48:23
  time. But when push comes to like
• 48:27
  eventually, just like what happened with social media and
• 48:31
  traditional media, the rise of social media overtook the use of
• 48:37
  traditional media. And that's when the
• 48:40
  misinformation and censorship started happening.
• 48:43
  I really recommend watching the podcast between Mike Benz and
• 48:46
  Joe Rogan. One of the things that Mike Benz
• 48:48
  said was that governments were not prepared for social media.
• 48:52
  They weren't prepared for millions upon millions of people
• 48:55
  talking amongst each other and questioning narratives that that
• 49:00
  was that was, that was unreasonable a decade ago,
• 49:04
  right? So anyways, only delusional
• 49:07
  people believe that politics is irrelevant.
• 49:09
  The state has a monopoly on violence and administration of
• 49:12
  the law, and ignoring this doesn't make the facts
• 49:14
  disappear. Common to many Bitcoiners is the
• 49:17
  thinking that doesn't take anything real into account.
• 49:20
  You can always tell people who will not put their big toe in
• 49:24
  the water out of fear. They talk the big talk but then
• 49:27
  refuse to do anything to spread Bitcoin, even to the extent of
• 49:31
  recommending a single tool or service.
• 49:34
  Building tools is important, but direct confrontation with the
• 49:38
  state is. I don't know if I could say that
• 49:40
  word. Not a good idea for people who
• 49:43
  will with no stake in bitcoins future.
• 49:46
  It's easy to remember not doing A or B, much harder for people
• 49:51
  taking the big risk with their lives.
• 49:53
  Now it goes on to say attacking the centralized paradigm is
• 49:57
  dogma. Once again, the magic word
• 50:00
  decentralization that doesn't take reality into account.
• 50:04
  What these people also fail to grasp is that in order to win,
• 50:08
  Bitcoin must be delivered at scale.
• 50:11
  No normal person will use decentralized services.
• 50:15
  Even if they did, without a means of getting Bitcoin, those
• 50:18
  services are nothing more than empty virtue signal receptacles.
• 50:23
  Quote. Undermining the ideology of
• 50:25
  state control is teenage fantasy and nothing more.
• 50:29
  It goes on to say what these people could reference if they
• 50:33
  knew what they were talking about is the proliferation of
• 50:35
  BitTorrent clients that are all installed by default on Unbutu.
• 50:41
  It could be possible that Bitcoin clients could be widely
• 50:44
  distributed in this way, but these Bitcoiners are all on
• 50:47
  Windows and do not torrent and know nothing about Linux
• 50:50
  distros. So it just keeps going.
• 50:53
  But I think the point here is, you know, the Mika aspect.
• 51:01
  And one of the things again, that concerns me about the Mika
• 51:05
  aspect is, and I've been making this case for a long time, and I
• 51:10
  think this would have been the case eventually in the United
• 51:13
  States with Mika, there is essentially a law that every
• 51:21
  transaction over €1000, you must report the name and the address
• 51:28
  of that person or the the identification of that person of
• 51:32
  that money that you're sending to.
• 51:36
  And you can enforce laws effectively within the
• 51:44
  traditional financial system. But what happens when the
• 51:48
  majority of people are holding Bitcoin and they're using
• 51:52
  Bitcoin peer-to-peer? That's why they came up with the
• 51:57
  term unhosted wallet. That's where it came from
• 52:00
  because that term is very insidious.
• 52:02
  The way it's phrased. Unhosted wallet, it's trying to
• 52:06
  make it seem like Bitcoin in self custody is abnormal.
• 52:12
  And a hosted wallet, meaning Bitcoin that's on an exchange or
• 52:17
  Bitcoin that's with a custodian, an intermediary, is the norm.
• 52:22
  The unhosted is abnormal. So I'm making a prediction here.
• 52:30
  I think eventually the Mika is like a foot in the door.
• 52:35
  And I think eventually what's going to happen is they're going
• 52:39
  to pass a law in Europe and they're going to say, listen,
• 52:44
  you can own Bitcoin. We can't stop you from doing
• 52:47
  that. But because we can't effectively
• 52:54
  enforce Mika regulation on unhosted wallets, you got to
• 53:01
  leave your Bitcoin with a custodian.
• 53:03
  You got to do that. Sorry guys, but this is for your
• 53:06
  safety. And I would make the argument
• 53:09
  that that's BS. That's for the safety of
• 53:13
  politicians. That's not safety for, that's
• 53:16
  not safety for the people. Because there's been so many
• 53:19
  times, so many times throughout human history where people did
• 53:26
  not leave their situation because they couldn't take their
• 53:30
  wealth with them. And the banks rugged.
• 53:35
  There was a bank run. They say, hey, you know, can't
• 53:39
  do this anymore. I mean, our own sponsor, one of
• 53:42
  our sponsors, Bitcoin Way sponsored Dante and Ruston show
• 53:49
  Tony, that guy, you know, love the guy, but basically he's
• 53:54
  like, look, I've built 2 successful businesses.
• 53:57
  And then one day I woke up and my money was gone in the bank.
• 54:02
  It was just gone, disappeared. And they said, sorry, that's
• 54:06
  happened. That's happened even in the
• 54:08
  United States in American history.
• 54:11
  So like this idea that somehow taking self custody is abnormal
• 54:19
  or is dangerous is not set on historical, you know, pretext or
• 54:25
  whatever. It is set solely for the benefit
• 54:29
  of the central bankers and solely for the benefit of the
• 54:33
  politicians that, to use Christine Lagarde's own words,
• 54:38
  don't want you to have an escape valve.
• 54:41
  They don't want you to be able to take money out of the system.
• 54:44
  They want your money in the system because that's how they
• 54:48
  control you. So that's my bit.
• 54:52
  That's my bit on Mika. That's my bit on where I think
• 54:55
  this regulatory thing is going. I think we have to be wary of
• 55:00
  all regulation and we have to ask who and what the incentive
• 55:06
  and what the motivations are behind those said, quote UN
• 55:11
  quote, regulations. I think that as long as a
• 55:14
  government has a money printer, it's not a government by the
• 55:17
  people for the people. It's a government by the
• 55:20
  government for the government. So just want to tell you guys
• 55:23
  that I'm going to pass it on to Brandon.
• 55:25
  I've been rambling on for quite a bit, Brandon.
• 55:28
  What are your thoughts on this brother?
• 55:31
  Yeah, man, I can't believe Opti just started all of this
• 55:34
  revolution here by breaking the lizard's heart.
• 55:37
  I mean, it's a kid show, so I'm not going to ask how it was
• 55:39
  dating a lizard, but you know, you got it.
• 55:42
  You got to watch what you're doing here with all these people
• 55:45
  in power. I'm just kidding.
• 55:47
  But anyway, I I agree with you 100%, Nico, I think that ranch
• 55:50
  you went on was beautiful. I think you really have to watch
• 55:53
  politicians on what they're doing and not necessarily what
• 55:57
  they're saying thing. I think I've kind of had this
• 56:00
  stance for a while that I really think that the US government
• 56:03
  doesn't necessarily hate Bitcoin.
• 56:05
  They just are attacking it in a very unique and in my opinion,
• 56:09
  if they're trying to attack Bitcoin a smart way, they want
• 56:13
  to track every single transit transaction that you make.
• 56:17
  They want to know when you send one set to your friend over here
• 56:20
  or you know, buy a cup of coffee so they could tax you on it.
• 56:24
  And that's the way that they're taxing it.
• 56:26
  That's why we've seen, you know, non hosted wallets or whatever
• 56:30
  they're calling it now, leave the United States because
• 56:34
  that's, you know, their way of attacking it so they can track
• 56:37
  it. They want to have KYC, they want
• 56:39
  to be able to shut down your bank accounts.
• 56:41
  They want to have that control and that cog and obviously
• 56:45
  bitcoins the opting out of that. And so, you know, I think from
• 56:49
  politicians just around the globe, they're realizing that
• 56:52
  this is a revolution that they cannot stop.
• 56:55
  They're realizing like how much power the Bitcoiners have.
• 56:58
  I mean, you mentioned it earlier in the show, 1/3 of Donald
• 57:01
  Trump's donations came from the Bitcoin in the crypto industry.
• 57:05
  And I think at this point, we cannot be denied.
• 57:07
  So they're going to try to indirectly weasel their way
• 57:10
  around and try to attack our privacy.
• 57:12
  And I think that that's their way to attack Bitcoiners is to
• 57:17
  use it as a almost a Trojan horse to get the normies to say,
• 57:21
  hey, it's this more private and secure thing.
• 57:23
  It's used for criminals, but in reality they just want to know
• 57:26
  where you send every single sat. They'll have you use it and then
• 57:29
  at the end of the year you'll be slapped with a giant tax bill
• 57:32
  and you'll have no idea how you got there.
• 57:34
  So I think that they're just trying to play chess.
• 57:37
  But the reality is is bit corners are smart and we're
• 57:40
  going to build tools around it and avoid all these, in my
• 57:45
  opinion, terrible policies that all these politicians are trying
• 57:48
  to roll out in the back. End 100%.
• 57:49
  I think beautifully, beautifully said from Brandon again, guys,
• 57:54
  go check out his YouTube channel at Green Candle.
• 57:57
  Great, great content. Opti, what's your take on this?
• 58:01
  I mean, dude, like you got to apologize to the audience right
• 58:04
  now for being responsible for for being solely responsible for
• 58:09
  central bank digital currencies. Well, you know, I do not believe
• 58:14
  in regret in life, so I will not actually apologize, but I am
• 58:18
  moving on from Lizzie Lagarde to Maloney.
• 58:23
  So, you know, that's my new announcement here.
• 58:25
  You heard it here first. No?
• 58:27
  So talk about the Mika laws and really kind of piggybacking off
• 58:33
  what Brandon was saying, we've been seeing this play out in the
• 58:36
  Bitcoin space, especially in the US, You know, Operation Choke
• 58:38
  Point two point O got completely devastated in 2024.
• 58:42
  We've seen the attack vectors. Obviously they can't actually
• 58:46
  control the Bitcoin network, but they can't control the on and
• 58:48
  off ramps. And this is what we're seeing
• 58:50
  play out in Europe. And This is why I've been so
• 58:53
  bearish on the EU in general is because they seem to be
• 58:57
  panicking at this point. And of course, you know,
• 58:59
  bureaucrats are going to bureaucrat and so they're trying
• 59:02
  to stop Bitcoin adoption with paper.
• 59:04
  You know, laws make it basically almost damn near impossible able
• 59:09
  to follow these laws so that people won't actually use
• 59:12
  Bitcoin. And I think this is just kind of
• 59:14
  the last gasp of the, the dying Fiat system.
• 59:17
  Obviously this is going to play out for years, maybe even
• 59:20
  decades, but I don't think that this stuff will actually be here
• 59:24
  for the long run. I, I'm, I'm even convinced that
• 59:27
  once they even tried to implement this stuff.
• 59:29
  It it's not even, it's not even going to be any like it's all a
• 59:33
  noise. Essentially is, is kind of the
• 59:34
  thinking that I, that I see, or as we all know, capital is
• 59:38
  treated best or where capital is treated best, that's where money
• 59:41
  flows. And so it looks like you can't
• 59:43
  be an entrepreneur in the EU. It looks like you can't be a
• 59:46
  Bitcoin entrepreneur in the EU. And Bitcoiners and people with
• 59:50
  capital are looking for other jurisdictions.
• 59:52
  So as much as they want to bureaucrat out there and make
• 59:56
  new laws and new regulations and try to fit Bitcoin into the trad
• 1:00:00
  5 box. People are just going to either
• 1:00:03
  one, ignore it or two, move out of their jurisdiction and you
• 1:00:07
  know, there goes their their tax cattle out there.
• 1:00:10
  So I think this is obviously a bad move for the EU.
• 1:00:14
  We are biased here. We are simply Bitcoin.
• 1:00:16
  We think that any country embracing Bitcoin is better not
• 1:00:20
  only for the citizens, but for the nation at large.
• 1:00:23
  And so if they want to fight Bitcoin, then they're shooting
• 1:00:25
  themselves in the foot, of course, metaphorically here.
• 1:00:27
  And and I'm I'm obviously super bearish on these laws.
• 1:00:32
  I'm super bearish on what's coming out of the EUI think we
• 1:00:35
  are going to see the game theory play out in less than a week, or
• 1:00:38
  rather, yeah, less than a week. And I think as we see stuff get
• 1:00:43
  rolled out. And of course, again, I'm I'm
• 1:00:45
  sound like a broken record on today's show because I'm I'm
• 1:00:48
  actually talking about Orange man on the show.
• 1:00:49
  And I know some people don't like it, but we will see what
• 1:00:52
  comes out of the US. And if we do get favorable
• 1:00:55
  regulation, you know, favorable laws, or rather just bashing all
• 1:00:58
  of the unfavorable stuff we've had to go through, I think this
• 1:01:01
  is going to fundamentally change the game worldwide.
• 1:01:04
  And so these Mika laws I don't think are going to stand long
• 1:01:07
  term. I think you know that they're
• 1:01:09
  DOA. And so, hey, if they want to try
• 1:01:13
  to control Bitcoin or rather try to control capital,
• 1:01:17
  historically, we know where that goes.
• 1:01:19
  And now we're in a new era to new paradigm.
• 1:01:22
  Bitcoin is here for the 21st century and it's never going
• 1:01:24
  away. You can't put the cap back in
• 1:01:26
  the bag. Hold up.
• 1:01:29
  Sorry, this cold, this mucus is coming up and I think they're
• 1:01:33
  going to have an uphill battle here.
• 1:01:35
  And so look, I wouldn't be happy if I was in the EU.
• 1:01:39
  You know, Nico and I were kind of joking, well, rather almost
• 1:01:42
  seriously considering having to leave the US, But I think it's
• 1:01:46
  it's even more detrimental if you're in the EU, if you're a
• 1:01:49
  Bitcoiner in the EU right now, I don't know really what's keeping
• 1:01:54
  you. You must have some really long
• 1:01:55
  roots there. But man, they're fighting
• 1:01:57
  Bitcoin at every turn. And it looks like this stuff is
• 1:02:00
  finally, you know, actually in place.
• 1:02:02
  So it's going to be interesting to see if Bitcoiners and Bitcoin
• 1:02:06
  businesses either one leave or actually follow through.
• 1:02:09
  Like we saw, you know, the the reporting stuff that we saw, you
• 1:02:12
  know, supposedly going to come through in the US and now it's
• 1:02:15
  been pushed back. I think something similar might
• 1:02:17
  actually happen if if it turns out that, you know, this is all
• 1:02:21
  noise and no one's actually following this stuff.
• 1:02:23
  And it actually makes transacting in Bitcoin or even
• 1:02:25
  saving in Bitcoin that much harder.
• 1:02:27
  And so I think the the world, or rather these nation states are
• 1:02:31
  going to have to adopt to a whole new paradigm that is, of
• 1:02:33
  course, Bitcoin, a Bitcoin and the traditional financial
• 1:02:37
  system, They are damn near incompatible here.
• 1:02:40
  So, you know, have fun bureaucrating, but I think
• 1:02:43
  Bitcoin's going to route around this, and of course Bitcoiners
• 1:02:45
  will too. Absolutely.
• 1:02:47
  I think that was beautifully, beautifully said.
• 1:02:49
  Now, guys, this is information, information, narrative trench
• 1:02:52
  warfare on the battlegrounds of the Internet.
• 1:02:55
  And again, this is a revolution that is not necessarily kinetic.
• 1:02:59
  It is a information. It's information warfare, right?
• 1:03:03
  It's about winning over the hearts and minds of individuals,
• 1:03:06
  bridging the gap between the left and the right and really
• 1:03:09
  waking, waking people up to the idea that a lot of societies
• 1:03:13
  woes are directly caused by inflation, right?
• 1:03:17
  And the way that you do that is content creation, right?
• 1:03:21
  How you do it. So I have a, we have a Bitcoin
• 1:03:25
  content creator joining us on the show today, Brandon, and
• 1:03:28
  we're going to talk about. Him, what he does, why he ticks
• 1:03:32
  and his YouTube channel on the culture segment.
• 1:03:34
  So stay tuned, we'll be right back.
• 1:03:37
  I want to give a shout out to our sponsor, Hive Digital
• 1:03:40
  Technologies. As the first ever public miner,
• 1:03:44
  Hive's been battle tested through every possible market
• 1:03:48
  and as the first with an AI strategy, Hive continues to
• 1:03:52
  redefine the future of sustainable energy.
• 1:03:55
  Also got to casually drop this in here.
• 1:03:58
  Hive consistently tops the industry in Bitcoin mine per
• 1:04:03
  exahash. They're lean and mean, they're
• 1:04:05
  green and clean, and they're changing the game.
• 1:04:08
  Learn more by following them. At Hive Digital.
• 1:04:11
  Tech or check out their website hivedigitaltech.com.
• 1:04:27
  All right everybody, I do want to give a shout out to our
• 1:04:30
  sponsor, Bit Block Boom. Guys, this is one of the best
• 1:04:34
  Bitcoin conferences of the year. This is the first conference
• 1:04:37
  where me and Opti actually met each other in person.
• 1:04:40
  You can make a really strong argument that simply Bitcoin
• 1:04:43
  would not be simply Bitcoin today if it wasn't for the Bit
• 1:04:47
  Block Boom Conference and Surfer Jim.
• 1:04:49
  So guys, you definitely don't want to miss it.
• 1:04:51
  It's April 3rd through the 6th, 2025, the year of the Parabola.
• 1:04:56
  You definitely don't want to miss this Bitcoin celebration.
• 1:05:00
  Now the prices do go up on the ticket, so you want to get them
• 1:05:03
  to it quickly. The whole simply Bitcoin crew
• 1:05:05
  will be there Opti Nico, Dante, rustin, Jacob whole crew.
• 1:05:09
  It's going to be a great time. Hope to see you guys there.
• 1:05:12
  You can use promo code BBB 21 again BBB 21 to get $100 off of
• 1:05:20
  your ticket. All right, everybody, we have
• 1:05:22
  Brandon Green from Green candle YouTube channel believe he's on
• 1:05:27
  Twitter as well. He's had some incredible
• 1:05:29
  interviews recently and and of course he's he's on the content
• 1:05:33
  game. We know how hard it is making
• 1:05:36
  that quality, consistent content.
• 1:05:38
  I'm going to pass it on to Opti. Opti very happy about Brandon
• 1:05:41
  today. Yeah, man.
• 1:05:43
  And you know, Brandon was on a couple weeks ago, so we're going
• 1:05:46
  to try not to rehash what we talked about last week or
• 1:05:49
  whatever less than a month ago. And there's been a lot of
• 1:05:52
  developments in the last couple of weeks.
• 1:05:54
  And so the first thing actually, I do want to talk about Brandon,
• 1:05:56
  you brought it up earlier in the show, is how bullish you are on
• 1:06:00
  businesses adopting Bitcoin. And I've been saying this as
• 1:06:03
  well, that I think 2025 is going to be the year where, whether
• 1:06:06
  it's a Magnificent 7 or even just the top corporations in the
• 1:06:09
  world, I think we're going to get a huge announcement soon.
• 1:06:12
  So what's your take on all that stuff?
• 1:06:14
  And I know that this is kind of one of the angles that you've
• 1:06:16
  been extremely bullish on lately.
• 1:06:20
  Yeah, 100%. Like politicians, I'm always a
• 1:06:23
  little skeptical when it comes to big giant business owners,
• 1:06:26
  especially the ones that we've seen in the Magnificent 7.
• 1:06:30
  I know Opti, you love the lizard people with lizard with Lagarde
• 1:06:34
  over there. But the other lizard person here
• 1:06:35
  is Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, he's going through the
• 1:06:38
  biggest rebrand since maybe El Salvador and Bouquet has gone
• 1:06:42
  through where he's now popping out the chain.
• 1:06:44
  He's got the Gen. Z little hair going crazy.
• 1:06:48
  He's surfing with the American flag and all that, trying to be
• 1:06:51
  cool. But on the flip side of things,
• 1:06:53
  I think it's extremely bullish that now Meta is talking about
• 1:06:57
  potentially putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet.
• 1:06:58
  I know you guys talked about this yesterday, but Mark
• 1:07:02
  Zuckerberg has the potential to be maybe bigger than Michael
• 1:07:05
  Saylor in the Bitcoin space because of how big Meta Yeah, he
• 1:07:11
  has majority control. I'm I covered with that name.
• 1:07:14
  Nico, you know, I got a brief. Hey, Brandon, can you unpack
• 1:07:17
  that a little bit 'cause I think we kind of glossed over that
• 1:07:19
  yesterday. So let let's give the numbers
• 1:07:21
  for the people here, because that that does sound like a big
• 1:07:23
  statement. Yeah.
• 1:07:26
  So obviously Meta is in the Magnificent 7.
• 1:07:29
  I don't have the numbers right in front of me of their true
• 1:07:31
  market cap, but they've got leaps and bounds more of cash
• 1:07:35
  reserves than micro strategy has.
• 1:07:37
  And theoretically, because they're part of the Magnificent
• 1:07:40
  7, if they were to copy the Michael Saylor's playbook, they
• 1:07:44
  would be able to access a ton more debt and follow the Michael
• 1:07:48
  Saylor flywheel and essentially accelerate that adoption.
• 1:07:52
  And now Mark Zuckerberg is the only CEO that has a higher
• 1:07:57
  market cap than MicroStrategy and Michael Saylor that has
• 1:08:01
  majority control and is able to do that.
• 1:08:03
  Now, I don't trust this lizard guy one bit, right?
• 1:08:06
  I think that he's going to potentially flip and just ride
• 1:08:09
  the wave as he did with that suit and the American flag
• 1:08:12
  wherever he sees fit. But on the flip side of things,
• 1:08:16
  it is extremely bullish that you know, he's got his goats,
• 1:08:19
  Bitcoin and maxi that he could potentially be implementing this
• 1:08:23
  strategy for Meta shareholders in the near future.
• 1:08:27
  And I predict that at least two of the magnificent 7 will
• 1:08:32
  implement some sort of Bitcoin strategy here in this next year
• 1:08:35
  with most likely meta leaving leading the way and maybe
• 1:08:38
  Amazon. I mean, Amazon's voting on this
• 1:08:40
  on in April, I believe April 13th ish time.
• 1:08:44
  And we've seen Jeff Bezos and his new wife or whatever he's
• 1:08:48
  got going on trying to tan himself on Michael Saylor's
• 1:08:51
  yacht. So I think all of this
• 1:08:53
  connection here, the billionaire and the corporate FOMO is now
• 1:08:57
  about to be off their races. And to be honest, a lot of these
• 1:09:01
  guys have more Skrilla Manila have profited a little bit off
• 1:09:05
  this Fiat system a little bit better than Michael Saylor in
• 1:09:07
  the past. So sailors influence to get more
• 1:09:11
  influential people could be very drastic here.
• 1:09:15
  And I think if you ask the normies, I know a lot of you
• 1:09:18
  guys here in the chat are not the normies, right?
• 1:09:20
  Everybody in the chat here knows Michael Saylor.
• 1:09:23
  But if you go ask your friend down the street who Michael
• 1:09:25
  Saylor is, 99% of them have zero clue.
• 1:09:29
  But if you ask them who Mark Zuckerberg is, majority of
• 1:09:31
  people know. So if they say, hey, Mark
• 1:09:33
  Zuckerberg is buying Bitcoin, Elon Musk is buying Bitcoin, all
• 1:09:36
  these other people are buying Bitcoin, it adds a little bit
• 1:09:39
  more validity and that starts the the, the FOMO that we've
• 1:09:44
  never necessarily seen before. So I think with all this, I know
• 1:09:48
  it's a hot take, but Mark Zuckerberg, who knows, man,
• 1:09:51
  maybe he could be a little bit more influential than Michael
• 1:09:55
  Saylor, at least this year for the.
• 1:09:56
  Normal I don't think. Like you could really Taylor's
• 1:10:01
  entire influence, but you know, because he's been orange peeling
• 1:10:05
  Trump and all of but I think he's really getting in the ear
• 1:10:08
  with a lot of these influential. People put on the air siren
• 1:10:12
  cause Brandon is Brandon's trying to cause chaos, trying to
• 1:10:16
  get these billionaires to outbid each other in Bitcoin.
• 1:10:19
  That's, I mean, dude, I, I, I, I, you know, even with, with
• 1:10:24
  Zuck and the amount of money he has and, and Meadow, which is an
• 1:10:28
  enormous company, I, I think it's going to be very difficult
• 1:10:31
  for anybody to catch Sealer, maybe the, the, the Bitcoin ETF.
• 1:10:37
  But like, 'cause essentially, like you're just going to make
• 1:10:41
  the price go up and it's just going to get more expensive,
• 1:10:43
  right? It's going to be like kind of
• 1:10:44
  like this, like bidding war, in my opinion.
• 1:10:48
  But anyways, Opti, what's your take on this?
• 1:10:50
  I mean, we were talking a little bit about this yesterday.
• 1:10:54
  Yeah, no, I mean, I think, I think Brandon is actually kind
• 1:10:59
  of like hitting the nail on the head.
• 1:11:00
  There's literally probably only two corporations, whether that's
• 1:11:04
  Apple and Meta, I would argue unless it's like someone in the
• 1:11:08
  Middle East, you know, one of these big pension funds or
• 1:11:10
  something like that. There's really only two
• 1:11:13
  corporations in the US that could pull off something as big
• 1:11:17
  as Sailor and actually catch up the Sailor, because we've been
• 1:11:19
  talking about this for a while on the show like this idea.
• 1:11:22
  Can anyone ever catch up the sailors holdings in Bitcoin?
• 1:11:25
  And for the most part you're kind of like no, because they
• 1:11:29
  have to have the conviction of a Michael Saylor.
• 1:11:31
  But there's really only two companies, in my opinion that
• 1:11:33
  could do that and that's Apple and Meta.
• 1:11:35
  The, you know, the some of the biggest companies in the world.
• 1:11:38
  And you know, we did see that clip of Zuck yesterday or not
• 1:11:43
  yesterday. It was over the weekend of, of
• 1:11:45
  him on Joe Rogan dunking on Apple.
• 1:11:47
  So there is this billionaire competition going on.
• 1:11:50
  So hey, if, if Zuck really wants to cement this 3 brand, then he
• 1:11:55
  has to do exactly what Brandon said.
• 1:11:57
  So that would be, I forget there's kids here, but a BD
• 1:12:02
  move, that would be a huge move here.
• 1:12:05
  And man, I'd be waiting for it. So I do want to pivot a little
• 1:12:09
  bit, Brandon, unless you want to chime in a little more.
• 1:12:10
  I think we hit that topic really good.
• 1:12:13
  Let's go to the next one, man. Let's keep hammering, man.
• 1:12:15
  I got a lot of it. Going let's go, you're you're
• 1:12:17
  doing you're doing great. All right, so next one is a
• 1:12:20
  topic we did cover on today's show.
• 1:12:22
  It's really, you know, maybe Bitcoin is not favorite topic
• 1:12:26
  here, but it's banks getting into Bitcoin.
• 1:12:29
  And I know you wanted to hit on this, This is one of the recent
• 1:12:31
  developments. So what's your takes on banks
• 1:12:33
  adopting Bitcoin? Yeah, I mean, I think banks
• 1:12:36
  adopting Bitcoin, it's more of a watch what they do, not what
• 1:12:40
  they say. I mean, we've had Jamie Dimon
• 1:12:42
  come out here recently and talk about Bitcoin is for drug
• 1:12:46
  dealing, it's for sex trafficking, it's for all of the
• 1:12:49
  terrible things under the sun. But on the same day or maybe
• 1:12:53
  even a week before, he released a report from JP Morgan saying
• 1:12:56
  it's smart to have at least 1% of your portfolio into Bitcoin
• 1:13:00
  just because it adds a level of diversification.
• 1:13:03
  And so banks have been extremely bearish just in the media.
• 1:13:08
  And you know, I know we talked about Joe Squawk earlier, but
• 1:13:12
  all these other interviews for all these high level bankers are
• 1:13:15
  essentially softballs. They're just able to say
• 1:13:18
  whatever they want about Bitcoin Willy nilly.
• 1:13:20
  And on the flip side of things, they're offering Bitcoin
• 1:13:23
  services to their clients and they've been doing it for years.
• 1:13:27
  And JP Morgan even said offering Bitcoin as A to their clients is
• 1:13:32
  a quote gateway drug to the crypto industry.
• 1:13:36
  And so I think that bankers are listening to their clients.
• 1:13:40
  Their clients want money or want Bitcoin and they have no choice.
• 1:13:44
  But they do understand that, you know, essentially, hey, if your
• 1:13:49
  mom leaves this, your one of your great sponsors, the stamp
• 1:13:52
  seed on their foundation device sitting and they're safe and
• 1:13:55
  forgets about it for years on end.
• 1:13:57
  They're absolutely crushing this guy sitting here at JP Morgan
• 1:14:02
  trying to crunch all these numbers and all he's really
• 1:14:04
  doing is buying the S&P 5 500 for them.
• 1:14:06
  So I think at the end of the day, all these people are
• 1:14:09
  realizing that they're being bamboozled when it comes to
• 1:14:12
  these traditional financial people telling them, hey, listen
• 1:14:15
  to me, I'm this big banker. I'm big and smart.
• 1:14:18
  I'll come in with a suit and I could tell you what what's going
• 1:14:21
  to be the best use of your money?
• 1:14:22
  When in reality, it's been Bitcoin and it's been Bitcoin
• 1:14:25
  for 15 years. That answer has been plain and
• 1:14:28
  simple. And finally the bankers are
• 1:14:30
  starting to see it. So they're trying to sway
• 1:14:32
  everybody in the media, but in reality, they're realizing, hey,
• 1:14:35
  like there's no stopping it. If we tell our clients no
• 1:14:39
  Bitcoin whatsoever, we're going to lose all of them.
• 1:14:41
  So I think they're slowly going to start coming to them and
• 1:14:45
  eventually all their clients are going to get smart and hold it
• 1:14:47
  in self custody. But that time is coming soon.
• 1:14:51
  Well, we did see that with the Vanguard CEOI forget Tim.
• 1:14:54
  I forget what his last name Tim Scott, maybe I forget his name,
• 1:14:57
  but we literally saw this play out already.
• 1:14:59
  And we're going to see more of this, I think in 2025.
• 1:15:02
  And I I think that's the writing on the wall.
• 1:15:04
  You're 100% right on that. Like they're going to capitulate
• 1:15:08
  and they're going to capitulate hard.
• 1:15:09
  Obviously they're still doing the billionaire flood playbook,
• 1:15:12
  which we constantly cover on this show.
• 1:15:14
  So next topic, next topic. Spicy take.
• 1:15:17
  But me and Luke were talking about this the other day and we
• 1:15:20
  have the same view as you do. I know you're down there in
• 1:15:23
  Medellin with Luke. So maybe this is just your Intel
• 1:15:26
  you're going through, Luke to us and we agreed on the same topic.
• 1:15:31
  But this idea basically like nation state adoption
• 1:15:36
  announcement fatigue until something materializes it, it
• 1:15:40
  seems like nothing burgers. So what's your take on that?
• 1:15:44
  Yeah, man, I think we're definitely getting to that a
• 1:15:45
  point. I mean, it's like the breaking
• 1:15:47
  and the announcement of the potential of an announcement.
• 1:15:50
  Everybody's getting in on it, right?
• 1:15:51
  I mean, there's 25 countries talking about it.
• 1:15:54
  I'm about that action, boss. So let's see it, man.
• 1:15:57
  Let's see something happen. Until something happens, I don't
• 1:16:00
  want to hear about it anymore. I mean, I'm of course it's
• 1:16:03
  bullish going forward. And hey, the fact that I'm even
• 1:16:06
  saying this, I feel spoiled as a Bitcoiner being fatigued from
• 1:16:10
  hearing about too many nation states wanting to adopt Bitcoin.
• 1:16:13
  Hell, we beat all of them guys. So, I mean, at this point, it's
• 1:16:17
  like, all right, well, we're well in front.
• 1:16:19
  We're waiting. We're turning around, waiting
• 1:16:21
  for all you guys to catch up. So yeah, Opti, I'm sure you, me
• 1:16:25
  and my friend Luke with the lesbian haircut are all agreeing
• 1:16:28
  on all of this here. Yeah, hold on, hold on, Hot Tig.
• 1:16:37
  Love it. Did not.
• 1:16:38
  That comment did not come from simply.
• 1:16:40
  That's funny. Oh man.
• 1:16:42
  OK, this is. Good.
• 1:16:42
  So I had to keep it a little. Peaky that's good OK, all right
• 1:16:47
  next, next topic and then maybe we'll do a little free flowing
• 1:16:50
  at the end. You know it's simply Bitcoin.
• 1:16:53
  We, we do our best to avoid price speculation, but we are
• 1:16:57
  not against our guests doing some price speculations here.
• 1:17:01
  And I know this is obviously something everyone's talking
• 1:17:04
  about. This is something you wanted to
• 1:17:06
  talk about, something that you could rant on for a little bit.
• 1:17:08
  So I guess here on Simply Bitcoin, I'm going to ask you,
• 1:17:11
  Brandon, what is your price predictions for 2025 and beyond?
• 1:17:17
  Hey, man, I've been hinting at it this entire time.
• 1:17:19
  I'm extremely bullish, but I'm waiting to see that action,
• 1:17:23
  boss. So I think with all of these,
• 1:17:25
  the Fazbee, I think that's going to be monumental.
• 1:17:28
  We're going to see multiple companies put Bitcoin on the
• 1:17:31
  balance sheet. Hell, even JP Morgan, they said
• 1:17:33
  they're looking and evaluating companies that huddle Bitcoin
• 1:17:37
  differently, actually holding them as carrying them as a
• 1:17:40
  multiplier effect, seeing that Bitcoin on the balance sheet as
• 1:17:44
  an extreme positive. So I think we're going to, I see
• 1:17:47
  at least a couple of the magnificent 7 put Bitcoin on the
• 1:17:50
  balance sheet, maybe a couple nation states.
• 1:17:53
  But even if that doesn't happen, I think we're going to see Trump
• 1:17:56
  really put Powell's pressure on Powell to lower interest rates
• 1:17:59
  and we'll see at a base case 250K for Bitcoin.
• 1:18:04
  But with all this FOMO that we're talking about here, Opti,
• 1:18:06
  I'm, I don't think $1 million a coin this year is out of
• 1:18:11
  question because of everything that we're seeing sitting on the
• 1:18:14
  sidelines, trillions and trillions of dollars just
• 1:18:17
  waiting to buy Bitcoin. And we're going to be off to the
• 1:18:21
  races here shortly, folks. So buckle up because I think
• 1:18:23
  2025, like we say, every cycle is going to be different.
• 1:18:29
  Let's go. Hey, shout out to Doctor Jack
• 1:18:32
  Cruz. Bitcoin is going higher and
• 1:18:33
  that's all we need. Bars.
• 1:18:36
  Let's go, let's do. Jack in the chat, man, I have my
• 1:18:39
  orange, I have my blue blocking glasses.
• 1:18:42
  Doctor Jack would be so. Proud.
• 1:18:43
  Hold on. Hold on, Nico.
• 1:18:45
  Nico. Bring them every single.
• 1:18:46
  Night Doctor Jack Nico, you know, you literally say that
• 1:18:49
  every time doctor Jack is in the chat and you're never wearing
• 1:18:52
  them so I, I. Wear them.
• 1:18:54
  I, I wear them hell, you're. Larping.
• 1:18:56
  You're Larping. Listen, when the sun goes down,
• 1:18:59
  they're on. They're on my face, Okay, So
• 1:19:01
  that blue light is that blue light is evil.
• 1:19:03
  It's bad. Yeah, and chats out to Doctor
• 1:19:06
  Jack Cruz recent appearance on Breedlove channel here at Simply
• 1:19:10
  Bitcoin. Literally our whole team was
• 1:19:12
  like, we all have to watch this. So pressing that to everyone, go
• 1:19:15
  watch it as well. Anyways, back to Brandon.
• 1:19:18
  Well Brandon, I hit all the topics we wanted to talk about,
• 1:19:20
  but I'm sure you're fired up so I don't know.
• 1:19:22
  You want to do one last rant for the audience out of here?
• 1:19:25
  What's the last message you want to hit on?
• 1:19:27
  Or rather, you can go on another rant and then do a TLDRI don't
• 1:19:30
  know whatever you want to take this.
• 1:19:33
  I don't know, I was cutting out. I got this terrible Colombian
• 1:19:36
  Internet here. Maybe somebody, maybe Luke's
• 1:19:38
  over there trying to hide hide all my bandwidth.
• 1:19:41
  But you know, the last final message that I got for you guys
• 1:19:45
  is hey, we're are on the brink of potentially the biggest year
• 1:19:50
  in Bitcoin with all the things that we've been talking about
• 1:19:53
  here, the Italians to start the beginning.
• 1:19:55
  We got a lot of pasta cooking up here and I'm extremely bullish
• 1:19:59
  on everything going forward. So hey, smash the like button
• 1:20:02
  for my boys over as simple. Please smash the subscribe
• 1:20:05
  button, tell a friend to tell a friend to join in on the next
• 1:20:08
  chat. And boys, thank you so much for
• 1:20:10
  having me on. Appreciate you joining us edgy
• 1:20:18
  with the language. None of that language came from
• 1:20:22
  simply just want to tell YouTube, but I appreciate
• 1:20:25
  Brandon joining us today, guys, this is January.
• 1:20:29
  Wait, wait, wait, Nico, Nico, let's let, let's give Brandon a
• 1:20:31
  a chance to plug all his socials for the people 'cause they're
• 1:20:33
  asking about it in the chat. Yeah.
• 1:20:38
  Did you hear us, Brandon? Plug your socials.
• 1:20:39
  Plug your socials. Ah, my bad boss.
• 1:20:43
  I'm at Greek candle. It like I said a little earlier,
• 1:20:47
  if you know the guy that's got the green candle, tell him and
• 1:20:49
  kick him in the chest for me so I can get him and that green
• 1:20:53
  candle on YouTube so kids show. So not not quite the Spartan
• 1:20:57
  kick in the chest. I'll just give him a little love
• 1:20:59
  tap. You guys enjoyed today's show.
• 1:21:05
  Make make see the subscribe button, hit the like button.
• 1:21:12
  Today is January 14th, 2024. This is simply Bitcoin live.
• 1:21:16
  I'm your host Nico. This is my legendary co's
• 1:21:19
  Optimus Fields and our guest today, Brandon from Greenlit
• 1:21:22
  Candle. We're simply Bitcoin live.
• 1:21:24
  We'll be we'll be back tomorrow for a brand new episode.
• 1:21:27
  Today's episode was brought to you by bitcoinwell.com, a
• 1:21:31
  Bitcoin only platform on a mission to enable financial
• 1:21:34
  independence.