Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Did Vivek Orange Pill Trump on Bitcoin? | EP 910

Transcript

Did Vivek Orange Pill Trump on Bitcoin? | EP 910 · Simply Bitcoin

0:03
It's. All.
0:04
Going to zero against Bitcoin. It's going on forever.
0:08
You're against Bitcoin. You're against freedom.
0:20
Yeah. Welcome to another episode of
0:22
Simply Bitcoin Live. You're your number one source
0:24
for the peaceful Bitcoin revolution.
0:26
Color breaking news culture. Matic Warfare will be your guide
0:29
through the separation of money in state.
0:31
Today is one of those episodes where we're going to talk about
0:34
the separation of money in state.
0:36
You guys know the deal. We'd only left, right?
0:38
Republican, Democrat. We lean.
0:42
Team Orange versus Team Green. Right.
0:44
Party of Orange, the party of Bitcoin.
0:46
Peace, prosperity, opportunity, optimism versus A-Team of
0:51
central bank, digital currencies, nihilism, slavery,
0:54
all that bad stuff. You definitely want to be on
0:56
team Orange. But in terms of you know a a
1:00
historic moment in terms of moving the Overton window.
1:02
We touched upon this lightly last week, but Donald Trump has
1:08
for multiple times, has now admitted because he's seen that
1:11
it's popular. Of course it's politicians.
1:12
At the end of the day, he's he's advocated against central bank
1:17
digital currency. So central bank digital
1:19
currencies are on the ballot in the 2024 election.
1:24
I know a lot of bitcoiners are like Nico, but he's not on
1:27
bitcoin's team and I I don't think he's on Bitcoin's team.
1:30
I'm sure Vivek has brought that up to him but he didn't bite.
1:33
And we know his previous thoughts on Bitcoin, but I still
1:38
think it's a really, really big step in the right direction.
1:41
Because if you're against CBDCS, you're essentially buying
1:45
Bitcoiners time, right? That's that's the deal, right?
1:48
If they don't roll these out quickly and fast enough and with
1:53
enough coercion and just, you know, shoving it down people's
1:57
throat, and they give time for Bitcoin to do its thing, number
2:00
go up, technology to do its thing, incentives to do its
2:03
thing, they're gonna have a much harder time down the road,
2:05
right? So if you could slow CBDCS
2:08
that's just going to allow a more seamless adoption of
2:11
Bitcoin. So we're going to explore all
2:13
those topics today and of course we have a very, very special
2:16
guest and my legendary Co host Opti who is smiling.
2:20
So he's optimistic today and Kent from SAS Mining and he we
2:27
were talking backstage. Kent, it seems like you're
2:31
running a node from a particular place on earth that not that
2:34
many people are running nodes from.
2:37
Dude, don't dock him like that, Nico Well.
2:40
It's it's a big area. It'd be hard to to pinpoint me.
2:43
Yeah, I'm running a node here in the Amazon.
2:46
That is absolutely badass. Yeah, we got to get more Node
2:50
Runners. Sweet.
2:50
There's a it's rookie number. Ken's telling me there's not
2:53
that. How did you know?
2:54
Are you checking from that website?
2:55
I know, I know. There's like a website with like
2:57
a global map or something. You know, I I get interact with
3:01
quite a few people in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and every
3:04
time it's a first time call, I tell them, hey, I I think I'm
3:07
the only human being running a Bitcoin node in the Amazon.
3:10
And I say that intentionally to be provocative, to see if
3:12
anybody can challenge me 'cause I'd like to meet somebody else
3:15
in my neck of the woods. I'm sure, I'm sure there's
3:18
another one. I'm sure there's like, you know,
3:21
a a bitcoiner we're winning when like indigenous tribes are
3:24
running nodes. Give me time.
3:28
There's like a little start nine like in the, you know, like one
3:31
of the back huts with the solar panel and they're just like
3:34
running their own Bitcoin node in the middle, fucking nowhere.
3:37
So, like, that's when we win, that's when we win, but yeah.
3:41
Starlink makes the all things possible these days.
3:43
Man, that's awesome. Crazy, Yeah.
3:46
That's awesome. That's really cool.
3:47
So what are we gonna talk about today?
3:48
Opti with our friend? With our friend and our guest
3:52
Ken. You guys know the deal on the
3:54
culture guys we feature our guests so we're gonna talk about
3:57
SAS mining what they're working on over there and and Kent kind
4:00
of TLDR me in the beginning what what makes them different from
4:03
other Bitcoin hosting companies. So this should be interesting
4:06
and and actually I I'm going to ask you maybe what I keep asking
4:10
all the Bitcoin miners that come on the show about just like
4:13
mining economics in general moving after the halving.
4:16
So I might, I might sneak that one in there depending on how
4:19
long we go. So just prepare for that.
4:21
And then actually, before we go on, Nico, you already know my
4:23
view. You're against Bitcoin.
4:25
You're against freedom. Boom.
4:28
Exactly. So, yeah, I mean, it's going to
4:30
be a great, you know, great episode.
4:33
You know, this is election season.
4:34
You have Elizabeth Warren on the sidelines, right?
4:38
This ETF, you know, dump, which we're going to cover on
4:40
tomorrow's episode price. Bitcoin dumped like 10%.
4:44
Why is that happening? Well, there's been a lot of
4:46
speculation. Essentially, it's just grayscale
4:48
dumping all this Bitcoin on the market.
4:50
It's pushing the price down. But the TLDR is, I think Wall
4:55
Street's trying to get your Bitcoin.
4:56
I think they're trying to shake you out.
4:58
So this is an opportunity to get a 10% discount on, you know,
5:01
whatever Bitcoin you stack. And that's a good thing, right?
5:05
That's a good thing. And if you look at it from, like
5:07
a historical perspective, there's been many, many, many
5:10
dips like this throughout Bitcoin's history.
5:12
And it actually kind of reminds me of a tweet out from Mandrake
5:18
this morning. And dude, did it hit so effing
5:21
hard. This guy's such an absolute
5:24
legend. But sometimes when you're going
5:26
through this specifically, if you know this is your first
5:30
time, sometimes it's useful to look in the past, right?
5:33
So Mandrix and OG, this man was sold baklava for Bitcoin in
5:38
2011. He's an absolute legend.
5:40
His baklava is delicious. Magic's a dear friend.
5:43
He's a good friend of simply Bitcoin.
5:46
And check this out. So the scariest dip of my life
5:50
yoloing MY4O1K at $130.00 and then watching Bitcoin sink to
5:55
60. Bitcoin climbed to 1000 a few
5:59
months later, right? It And then March 13th crack.
6:03
My stomach hurts just to think of it.
6:05
And then I said it was I was working at bit instant getting
6:08
paid in Bitcoin and thinking, oh cool, I'll get 2X the Bitcoin
6:11
this week, right? So yeah, this is, you know, they
6:14
don't call the Bitcoin roller coaster for no reason.
6:17
We're still in the very infancy of this thing.
6:19
So remember, when you get in, you know you think you're buying
6:22
Bitcoin high. But when we're sitting pretty at
6:24
$1,000,000 Bitcoin, you'd be like, oh man, you know, I could
6:27
have, I could have stacked that 39 K, that $50.00, that 50% dip
6:32
really wasn't that big of a deal anyways, everybody.
6:35
Wait, you guys are still looking at the Fiat price?
6:37
What's going on here? I don't look at the price.
6:40
Oh, man. So, yeah.
6:42
All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's start the show.
6:44
We got a lot to. We got.
6:45
We got a lot. We have a lot to cover today.
6:48
Let's check it out. Here we go the Bitcoin numbers.
6:53
Is your Bitcoin and cold storage really secure?
6:56
Is your seed phrase really secure?
6:58
Stamp seeds? Do it yourself.
7:00
Kit has everything you need to hammer your seed words into
7:04
commercial grade titanium plates instead of just writing them on
7:08
paper. Don't store your generational
7:11
wealth on paper. Papers prone to water damage,
7:14
fire damage. You want to put your
7:16
generational wealth on one of the strongest metals on planet
7:19
earth, Titanium. Your words are actually stamped
7:22
into this metal plate with this hammer and these letter stamps.
7:26
And once your words are in, they aren't going anywhere.
7:28
No risk of the plate breaking apart and pieces falling
7:32
everywhere. Titanium stamp seeds will
7:34
survive nearly triple the heat produced by a house fire.
7:37
They're also crush proof, waterproof, non corrosive, and
7:40
time proof. All things that paper is not
7:43
allowing you to huddle your Bitcoin with Peace of Mind for
7:46
the long haul. Stamp your seed on Stamp Seed.
7:51
Incredibly easy for you guys. You can scan the QR code on your
7:56
screen right now. Take you directly to the Stamp
7:59
Seed website where you can use promo code simply to get 15% off
8:03
anything on the Stamp Seed website.
8:05
Make sure to store your generational wealth properly so
8:09
you can make it over the finish line and you don't have to
8:11
explain to your great, great grandchildren while you lost
8:14
your generational wealth because you stored your seed phrase on
8:17
paper anyways. At the time of recording the
8:20
Bitcoin price is 39,395 SATS per dollar 2538 block height 820
8:27
eight 827,023 blocks to having 12,977 having estimate April
8:35
20th 2024 Total Lightning Network capacity 4838 Bitcoin
8:41
capacity value 190 million Realized monetary inflation
8:45
1.74% The market capitalization of Bitcoin $772 billion Bitcoin
8:52
versus gold market gap 5.61% In the grand scheme of things
8:57
Bitcoin is still a tiny little baby.
8:59
Anyways, what I want to cover today is again the general theme
9:04
of the news and the numbers is going to be the great battle of
9:07
our time. Are we going to live in a future
9:10
of central bank digital currencies?
9:13
If you guys want to have an outlook of what that's going to
9:15
look like, just take a look at China and their Social credit
9:19
system, how they punish citizens.
9:22
Even the Fed, in that paper that we read from you guys last week,
9:26
admitted that money could be used as a form of social
9:30
control. Those are their words, not mine.
9:33
Check out the episode and last week's.
9:36
Check out the episode. It's from last week and we have
9:39
the source and the video description and everything.
9:41
It's from thefederal.gov website.
9:43
Like they're even saying the choir part out loud.
9:45
That's why you have Elizabeth Warren so hell bent on, you
9:49
know, promoting CBCS and attacking Bitcoin.
9:53
She wants for, she wants it for politicians to be able to
9:57
maintain that privilege of being able to create money for free
10:01
that everyone else has to work for.
10:03
And if you have like a more malicious she has a more
10:05
malicious outlook also being able to control people.
10:08
I mean, Javier Malay said this at the Davos speech that he that
10:13
he that he made that went absolutely viral.
10:15
He said, look, governments don't need to control the means of
10:19
production anymore. All they that, you know, they
10:21
can just inflate the currency and they can control people that
10:24
way. Like, that was such a strong
10:25
base statement, you know, that guy did not suicide himself.
10:30
Anyways, President of, God forbid, President of the
10:33
European Central Bank Christine Lagarde, also known as Opti's
10:36
ex-girlfriend, admits that without CBD CS central bankers
10:40
run the risk of becoming obsolete.
10:42
Let's check out the clip. There is clearly an aspiration,
10:46
a desire for digital payments, much more so than it was in the
10:51
past and this is growing. We are now in the service that
10:54
we've conducted across the 1919 members of the euro area.
10:58
We have more than 50. Percent of the respondents who
11:01
say. We want digital payments.
11:04
Well, let's use of cash demand for secure and riskless
11:11
payments. Where do we stand, we central
11:15
bankers? We have been operating as a
11:17
monetary anchor in relation to the commercial banks and the
11:20
private money, if we are not in that game, if we are not
11:24
involved in experimenting, in innovating, in terms of digital.
11:29
Central bank money. We risk losing the role of
11:35
anchor that we have played for many, many decades and we have
11:40
historical examples of period where the central bank monetary
11:44
anchor was not there. And that precipitated crisis
11:49
after crisis. That certainly was the case at
11:51
the time of the free banking in the 19th century.
11:54
Do we want to go back to those days?
11:56
Probably not, I would say certainly not from our vantage
11:59
point as a result of which we have to respond to the demand
12:02
for those digital payment in order to maintain the role of
12:06
anchor that we have been playing regularly.
12:10
So a couple things like, I think she's just wrong about, you
12:14
know, that. And that was that's one of the
12:16
talking points. And the Biden administration
12:18
used that as one of the talking points as well about this free
12:21
banking era, right? Look, the biggest financial
12:26
crises have happened during the era of central banking, right?
12:31
The Great Depression, at least in the US 1930, that Federal
12:34
Reserve was established 1913, right?
12:37
The biggest world wars, right? You know, you had the black
12:41
market crash in the 1980s, you had the Great Recession in 2000.
12:45
That was all during central banking.
12:48
So like, what is this stability? And I I love how she says she
12:52
calls it an anchor, 'cause she's right.
12:54
The price of Fiat sinks compared to Bitcoin, right?
12:58
And another thing, right, which is why people are seeking an
13:03
alternative in the 1st place. It has nothing to do with
13:06
efficiency of payments. Like if you live in the US, you
13:09
have Zelle Cash app, PayPal, Venmo, you know, they they put
13:16
like limits essentially. But you know, for small payments
13:20
it's pretty seamless. It's not difficult, right?
13:24
Why are people seeking an alternative to Bitcoin?
13:27
I mean, Michael Saylor's screaming this from the rooftop
13:31
because they don't want their purchasing power to decrease.
13:37
Like, it's as plain and simple as that.
13:39
And if you're in the lower middle classes, that affects you
13:43
the most, by far the most. You save in dollars, you save in
13:49
your Fiat, local Fiat currency and you earn in that local Fiat
13:53
currency. Therefore you get hurt the most
13:56
when they print. And actually it's the very
13:58
wealthy that do have the means to save an assets that do
14:02
benefit from that because of the asset inflation, right.
14:05
So it it it, it widens the gap between the rich and the poor
14:10
even more, right. So is that what she means by
14:13
anchor? Right.
14:16
Like this has been a catastrophic century from a war
14:20
standpoint, from a, you know, from a depression and a
14:24
recession standpoint, like here in the US, throughout the world
14:28
as well. I mean, look at Argentina, look
14:30
at the central Bank of Argentina.
14:32
Like, is that what she's, you know, promoting?
14:35
I think it's time to try something new.
14:38
And if you look at bitcoins history, this thing has gone up
14:42
forever, Laura, so far. And I think it's going to go up
14:45
forever because of its absolute scarcity.
14:47
So I think it's time to try something new.
14:49
But in order for something new to be tried, unfortunately for
14:54
Opti's ex-girlfriend and other central bankers, they're going
14:57
to have to come to terms with the fact that they are now
15:01
obsolete, which has happened many the technologies have
15:05
become obsolete many times throughout history, right?
15:08
Just this time. This specific technology happens
15:12
to be a technology that governments have used to enrich
15:18
themselves, make themselves more powerful, spend money they don't
15:21
have at the cost of their citizens.
15:24
So it's a little bit different this time, right?
15:27
This a little bit bigger deal than, for example, the telephone
15:31
or the Internet or electricity or whatever, just because of how
15:35
much it changes the power, the power dynamics between the
15:39
individual and the state. So it's a little bit different
15:41
this time and that's why there's a little bit more pushback from
15:46
the likes of certain politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Co,
15:49
right? So anyways, how do you protect
15:51
yourself against all this? You take Bitcoin into self
15:53
custody or you move into the Amazon, right?
15:56
No fucks given in the middle of the Amazon with your Bitcoin.
15:59
No one's going to say shit over there.
16:01
So yeah, there's this is going to be a bumpy ride.
16:04
It's going to be a roller coaster.
16:05
But that's what we're here for. We're we're here to cover it
16:07
while all this stuff is going down.
16:09
Anyways, I want to get Kent's take on this real quick and then
16:12
we'll move on to Opti. Well, First off, apologize about
16:16
the dog in the background. Not much I can do about him when
16:19
the neighbors go by. That is, one of the joys of the
16:21
Amazon is dogs barking or a. Dog.
16:26
It's it's a dog. Jaguars are deeper in the jungle
16:29
than we are. But but you know, I I actually
16:32
think it's doublespeak when when when she says monetary anchor.
16:38
I actually think it should be worded probiscus because I see
16:43
this as a parasitic system sucking the life force from
16:47
humanity. And they've been able to do it
16:49
for about 100 years. And I think Bitcoin is calling
16:52
their bluff and starting to call them out and bring them into the
16:56
light. So I think they're worried.
16:58
I think that they're on the ropes and I think as long as we
17:01
continue to purchase and hold our Bitcoin in self custody or
17:06
mine it even at a discount, then we're going to win like the
17:10
incentives are on our side. And like you said, humanity is
17:14
in need of a change here, and I'm excited to be on the right
17:18
side of history for this one. 100% Humanity is in need of a
17:21
change. They see it.
17:23
The doublespeak is strong. Opti, clearly you guys had a
17:26
tough breakup. Something happened there, bro,
17:30
But clearly she hasn't learned her lesson.
17:33
I don't know, man. What's your take?
17:34
What's your bro like? She just keeps coming back.
17:38
Yeah. You know spiteful lovers.
17:40
You know they they can't stop. No.
17:42
But I I fully agree with Kent in all seriousness, I I do my best
17:47
to not, you know, denigrate the central bankers and the
17:50
politicians. But it is a very parasitic
17:52
relationship here. And if you know anything about
17:54
monetary history, if you studied money at all since the central
17:58
bank, Federal Reserve, what's created or the purchasing power
18:02
of the dollar that last 100 years, you can very clearly see
18:06
that the purchasing power of the dollar has completely been
18:09
decimated. And you you might wonder where
18:12
is all that value going to? Well, it's not going to us.
18:14
We're all getting poorer. So someone is profiting off
18:17
this. And I just, I doubled down on
18:21
the idea that Kent just said this is complete doublespeak.
18:25
Because it's very simple to say that bitcoins are here just
18:29
because of digital payments. But like most of us don't really
18:33
care about digital payments, especially if you're in the
18:35
first world. Like we can all probably send
18:37
money around on PayPal, cash out, Venmo.
18:39
All that stuff like digital payments is not the reason why
18:43
Bitcoin is taking over the world.
18:45
It is not about moving money more efficiently.
18:48
It is about saving and using a money that doesn't steal from
18:52
you. This is why the 21 million hard
18:54
cap is such a solid meme. This is why we always come out
18:58
here on the show and and say the same thing about like, it's all
19:01
about stopping you guys from debasing our currency.
19:05
We are getting poorer by using Fiat money.
19:08
This is the reason why people want to use Bitcoin.
19:11
And you can see especially from their own rhetoric, you know,
19:13
Davos just happened last week and and we've been covering this
19:17
for years now that there has been a very strong push against
19:22
people using cash. And it's very simple.
19:25
Why? It's because they cannot control
19:27
you using cash though they can essentially steal your wealth
19:31
when you save in cash. And This is why we constantly
19:34
come out here and say like the 21 million hard cap is so
19:37
important. The digital scarcity aspect of
19:39
Bitcoin is so important. This is why number will go up.
19:42
This is why all of us are here to basically save in something
19:46
that cannot be stolen from us. Like, this is not about digital
19:49
payments because digital payments work very well,
19:52
especially in first world. Like, yeah, you know, there is a
19:55
very real argument towards digital payments needing to be
19:59
more efficient and like say the digital South or whatever.
20:02
But like the real problem here is that the unproductive class,
20:07
you know, as as Kent was saying, the parasites out there, the
20:10
central bankers and their ilk, they are stealing from you.
20:14
And if you don't understand the mechanism of Fiat money, then
20:17
you're just going to continue to go around the hamster wheel.
20:20
And we know that they want to move us away from hard cash.
20:25
They they want us to end up in a digital system like our money's
20:30
already digital. They are constantly trying to
20:35
eliminate cash from society and This is why we always say it is
20:39
Bitcoin or slavery. It is Bitcoin or CDC.
20:42
Like there's an active push by the globalist, by the powers
20:44
that be out there to get us and corral us all into a digital
20:49
monetary system even more so than we are right now.
20:52
And there is 2 choices. It's either freedom, money, a
20:56
money that is permissionless that you can transact freely
20:59
with whoever you want, whenever you want, or a system where they
21:02
have total control and they can stop you from sending money
21:05
wherever that you want. They want to put term limits on
21:08
your money. They they won't even let you
21:09
save your money anymore. Like they they want expiration
21:12
dates on your cash. Like, it's absolutely ridiculous
21:15
where these academics, intelligentsia want to send our
21:20
money and it's like, yo, it's it's absolutely terrifying.
21:24
And they they must be sniffing their own farts over there
21:26
because if they think this is a good idea, like, what is going
21:29
on here? It's it's absolutely dystopian
21:31
and it's terrifying. Like, you know, I I try not to
21:35
fall into the fear of all of this stuff, but it absolutely is
21:38
terrifying where these people go out there at Davos and they talk
21:42
about like, Oh yeah, let's put time limits on your money.
21:44
You're like what? What are you talking about?
21:46
Like this is just turning this into like coupons or like you
21:49
know, like it's just absolutely crazy.
21:52
Like, this is the point of money.
21:53
So I can store value through time and space without people
21:55
stealing from me. Like, how is this so difficult
21:58
here? It's it's absolutely incredible
22:00
that it's always framed the same way.
22:02
Oh yeah, the world wants better digital payments.
22:05
Like, that's not what we're doing here.
22:06
We just want to stop getting stolen from.
22:09
It's so simple. 100 percent, 100%, dude.
22:13
Like, you know, but again, like, they're not incentivized to
22:15
understand, you know, and that's what it is.
22:19
But you can't. What's that saying?
22:21
Like you can't stop an idea whose time has come.
22:23
And I think that's where we are right now in the movie.
22:27
Anyways, guys, if you're enjoying the show, make sure to
22:29
smash that like button. Really helps with the YouTube
22:32
algos. Help us break 100 likes within
22:34
the first hour of the show. Help us maintain that streak.
22:37
And of course, if you want to listen to the audio only version
22:40
of the show, you can check us out on Anchor, Spotify, Apple
22:43
Fountain, and also join our Telegram chat.
22:45
It's popping off. You can find it at Here We Go.
22:49
dot T dot me simply Bitcoin TV. All right, everybody, no more
22:53
delay. Let's jump straight into the
22:54
news. We have a lot to talk about
22:55
today. Let's check it out.
22:56
Here we go. I wanna give a shout out to our
23:00
sponsor. Have you ever wanted to get into
23:02
Bitcoin mining and don't know where to start?
23:04
That's why I wanna introduce you to Scott's Build a Mine Boot
23:07
Camp. He will show you how to build
23:10
your own Bitcoin mine, how to get the project funded, how to
23:13
get your facility filled with miners as quickly as possible.
23:16
With a little luck and by putting all his techniques and
23:19
strategies to work that he's developed mining Bitcoin for the
23:22
last six years, you could be mining 5 million Satoshi's per
23:25
day or .05 Bitcoin in less than three months.
23:30
On the free webinar he will give you a high level road map that
23:34
will help you get on your way to building, owning and operating
23:37
your own Bitcoin mining farm. Begin your mining journey today.
23:42
Register for the free webinar now.
23:44
Click the link in the description of the video below
23:47
or contact Scott directly on Telegram using his handle at
23:50
Offered Scott and learn how to mine those precious precious
23:54
Satoshi's. The Daily News.
24:00
I want to give a shout out to our sponsor, Foundation Devices.
24:04
It's self custody done right. They built a premium grade
24:07
hardware wallet called Passport right here in the US.
24:10
It's fully open source and verifiable.
24:13
It's the most intuitive Bitcoin wallet designed with the UX,
24:16
reminiscent of a simple feature phone so you will know how to
24:20
navigate it and use it the moment you pick it up.
24:23
Get your Bitcoin off exchanges and into your into your own
24:26
hands in just a few minutes. Experience the Peace of Mind
24:29
that comes with taking ownership of your own keys.
24:32
After a massive sell out during Bitcoin Miami 2023, the passport
24:36
is back in stock at foundationdevices.com.
24:39
Bitcoin only, open source. Verifiable completely.
24:43
Air gap security model. Gorgeous design, craft premium
24:46
grade materials. If you're thinking about getting
24:48
your Bitcoin off exchange changes, this is the one for
24:51
you. Check out the passport link in
24:53
the show notes below to learn more.
24:56
All right guys, I'm incredibly easy for you guys.
24:59
You can scan the QR code on your screen right now.
25:01
It'll take you directly to the Foundation Devices website where
25:03
you can get yourself a Passport hardware wallet.
25:05
Remember guys, not your keys, not your keys, not your queso.
25:09
Anyways, so let's talk about what's happening, guys.
25:13
I just want to emphasize it's simply Bitcoin.
25:16
We don't give a flying F about Fiat politics.
25:19
I think they're fundamentally broken, regardless of what
25:22
political parties in power, they both do the same.
25:24
They both print more money and they spend more money than
25:28
they're collecting tax revenue. So it's just deficit spending.
25:32
It's impoverishing people that are earning and saving in Fiat,
25:35
which is a majority of the population.
25:37
So just to emphasize that in the very beginning, it is not the
25:42
party, it's not red versus blue, it's not left versus right, it
25:45
is a party of orange versus party of green.
25:47
That being said, CBDC's are on the ballot this year in the
25:52
United States, which is crazy. And I made a prediction the
25:57
other day when this news initially came out actually in
26:02
January 17th, 2024. And I said that having an anti
26:06
Bitcoin stance will be politically unviable by 2028.
26:10
And just take a look at the candidates that that isn't just
26:12
me speculating or whatever. You had the runner up in the
26:17
Democratic primary, RFK Junior, he was a staunch proponent of
26:22
Bitcoin. He was anti CBDC.
26:24
On the Republican side you had Ron DeSantis who recently just
26:27
dropped out who was anti CBDC pro Bitcoin.
26:31
So you guys are like it's very clear where we're going, right?
26:36
That's why you know Opti's ex-girlfriend Christine Lagarde
26:38
is freaking out the way she is. Anyways, we did play you guys
26:41
this video on January 17th and I said, I said there it is, looks
26:46
like he had a talk with Vivek. Having an anti Bitcoin stance
26:50
will be politically unviable by 2028.
26:51
The reason I said that is because Vivek dropped out when
26:56
the Iowa caucus concluded and it was obviously clear that Trump's
27:00
probably most likely 95% going to be the Republican
27:04
presidential candidate. And Vivek dropped out and Ron
27:08
DeSantis dropped out. Vivek dropped out and he
27:12
endorsed Trump and he went to Trump's speeches and he would
27:15
just go on stage with him and just, you know, start speaking
27:18
well about Trump. But I I said, OK, why is Trump
27:21
bringing up CBDC's after Vivek spoke with him?
27:24
And I was like, of course they talked about it, but that was
27:26
speculation until it was fully admitted by Donald Trump about
27:32
12 hours ago when this clip was posted.
27:34
I'll let you guys hear the videos.
27:36
Check it out. And this I do for Vivek, because
27:40
he's very big into it. I happen to agree with him.
27:42
But he said, could you mention this?
27:43
I will never. He said I love Vivek.
27:46
We I love him too. Now I didn't love him when he
27:48
was running, but I like him now. It's amazing the way you can
27:51
like somebody. When you win, right, But Vivek
27:57
is great, he's really great, but he wanted this and I'll give him
28:00
full. Credit for it, it's very
28:01
important actually. I will never allow the creation
28:04
of a central bank digital currency.
28:09
So big effing deal, right? You know, like you guys had to
28:14
endure 30 seconds of Fiat politics to get to the signal at
28:17
the very end, which was, you know, I will never endorse, you
28:22
know, CBD, CS. And like I said, this is a big
28:25
deal. If you take a look at the
28:27
betting odds, which the betting odds are always a lot more
28:30
accurate than any type of poll because people have money on the
28:33
line right now. As it currently stands, Donald
28:37
Trump has the highest probability according to the
28:39
betting odds of winning the the presidency in the United States
28:44
and he would be against central bank digital currencies.
28:48
This would be a massive win for freedom, and it's definitely a
28:53
step in the right direction. However, that being said, we
28:58
also know that that Trump doesn't like Bitcoin, so we'll
29:02
get to that in a second. But first, I do want to read the
29:04
tweet by Vivek, he says I respect Trump and give him full
29:07
credit for being a strong leader who is willing to listen to the
29:11
right ideas, Right. Again, it's not only Vivek that
29:16
supported this. Ron DeSantis.
29:18
He was one of the front runners as well for the Republican
29:21
presidential candidacy. And you know, if he promised
29:25
that if he was elected, he would, to use his words, accused
29:30
Biden of the war on Bitcoin. I agree with that statement.
29:32
The current administration has not been open to Bitcoin.
29:37
Look at how the SEC handled the ETF approval, Dropped the ball
29:41
on an in an epic fashion. But he also said he would
29:44
protect Bitcoin if you were to get elected, right?
29:46
So again, guys, Overton window. Huge, huge shift, right?
29:50
And for anyone who doesn't know what the Overton Window is, the
29:52
Overton Window is the range of policies politically acceptable
29:56
to the mainstream population at a given time.
29:59
It is also known as the window of discourse.
30:02
So again you're that that CBDC thing right now is going from
30:09
somewhat acceptable right like a year ago or so or two years ago,
30:13
you know no one was covering it to now on the ballot it's going
30:17
to a radical to unthinkable if Donald Trump were to get
30:21
elected. Now you know it's not all great
30:24
news but before I get to that I do want to give a shout out to
30:29
Vivek Ramaswamy. Not only does the guy walk the
30:32
walk, but he talks to talk and at least he accomplished half of
30:36
what he was trying to accomplish.
30:39
Obviously one stance is pro Bitcoin.
30:41
I mean to be frank, he was pro shit coin too, But again, step
30:45
in the right direction. So he was pro Bitcoin, pro shit
30:47
coin and then on the other side he was anti CBDC.
30:50
So these are the specific things that he promised.
30:54
So first it's notable that a presidential candidate is making
30:57
cryptocurrency a part of his platform and its users a part of
31:00
his coalition. He promised a crypto policy, and
31:02
here it is. It goes on to say since the
31:07
inception of Crypto, the shadow government in the administrative
31:10
state in Washington DC and its cronies on Wall Street have
31:13
tried to quash its rise. That ends on my watch.
31:19
So this is something that we've predicted on simply Bitcoin, not
31:23
based on what was coming out in the media, are not based on what
31:26
they were saying, but based on their actions, right.
31:29
It was very obvious, you know, Operation Choke .2 point O.
31:32
We had Caitlin Long on the show and she said such a strong
31:35
statement, she's like Nico. This Operation Choke .2 point O,
31:38
from my sources, it's coming straight from the White House,
31:42
these orders, right? That is a very strong statement,
31:45
right? Caitlin Long is, you know,
31:47
started the custodia bank that she's trying to get a federal
31:51
banking charter for in Wyoming and for her to say that like,
31:55
she means it. Right.
31:58
So, And there's three points according to his policy.
32:02
So treat code as speech and criminals as criminals.
32:05
In other words, Ramasami's policy would not, would not be
32:08
to sanction software, Right. We told you guys that was a very
32:11
dangerous precedent. Once that was established, I
32:14
said that this has never happened in U.S. history, that
32:17
the US government is not sanctioning an individual or a
32:20
government, a foreign government.
32:22
They're they're sanctioning software, which could set a
32:25
precedent, right? What is Bitcoin but not
32:28
software, right. It goes on to say, affirm the
32:31
right to self custody, right. We know that the right to self
32:34
custody is under attack. With the current bill introduced
32:37
by the Senator Elizabeth Warren, she has 20 senators signed up
32:40
for it. So self custody is under attack.
32:43
And the last thing he promised is stand down to regulators.
32:46
This is, this is basically Ramaswami's whole campaign.
32:50
His idea is that federal officials go much further than
32:53
Congress has authorized. So, you know, to give this guy
32:57
credit, I don't think Trump bought into the crypto stuff.
33:00
I don't think Trump bought into the Bitcoin stuff.
33:02
I'll be perfectly blunt and frank with you guys.
33:05
If he would have had, he would have said it by now.
33:08
Why? Because it's popular and it
33:10
would get him votes. And we know in the past he's
33:13
been very blunt about Bitcoin. He's like this is a competition
33:16
for the dollar, at least he's like Frank and honest about it,
33:19
right. Versus like some politicians
33:21
that try to like, you know, off you skate that a little bit and
33:24
like just like, no, it's about money laundering.
33:26
No. Trump's like this is a
33:27
competition for the dollar. It's like, yeah, you're
33:28
absolutely right. But that's not a bad thing,
33:31
right. So again, it's a step in the
33:33
right direction. Let's see if Trump comes out
33:37
with anti Bitcoin policy because at that point you know, then we
33:41
would change our stance. But so far this looks like it's
33:43
a step in the right direction. Shout out to Vivek.
33:46
There's there's supposedly there's talk, but it hasn't been
33:49
announced yet that Vivek could potentially be his VP.
33:54
And if that were the case, Trump has only one term that he can
33:58
serve as president. And historically, if you look at
34:01
American politics, the VPS have a really good shot at winning
34:05
the presidency specifically if the president does a good job
34:08
during their term, right. That's what that's what happened
34:10
during the Reagan administration.
34:11
I mean that's what happened with Obama, right?
34:13
Obama's VP was Joe Biden. Look he got elected with Reagan,
34:16
it was Bush, right? So VPS have his has a history of
34:19
being elected presidents after the presidential term is over.
34:23
And if that were the case, if V if Trump does tap Vivek who is
34:27
extremely popular right now, you have a pro Bitcoin and anti CBDC
34:33
president in the White House by 2028.
34:36
I'm not saying it's 100%, but that is a possibility.
34:39
There's a non zero chance for that.
34:41
So again, put all that aside 'cause maybe there's some, you
34:45
know, Trump haters in the audience and I respect you guys,
34:48
'cause I'm on that boat. I don't really care left right?
34:50
I care about Team Bitcoin. But the Overton window is
34:55
shifting dramatically. This is a big deal because now
34:59
CBD CS is in the political discourse and there's someone
35:02
who staunchly against that. How is Joe Biden going to
35:05
support that? Like essentially he would have
35:08
to go on stage and make the case for a central bank digital
35:11
currency like like there is like there's no case there.
35:15
I mean they they could try to misrepresent the data like
35:17
Christine Lagarde and you know Yellen and Elizabeth Warren
35:21
saying how it's so efficient, it's going to be great and we're
35:23
not going to use it to freeze your payments and spy on you and
35:27
try to control you. We're not going to.
35:28
You could trust us with that. But I'm sure there are people
35:31
that will buy into that. But again, like, I wouldn't want
35:34
to be on that side trying to defend slavery money.
35:36
Personally, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't want to be on that
35:38
side anyways. That's my take.
35:41
I want to get Kent's Take and then OPTI.
35:45
Yeah, I think, you know, I think you're pretty much nailing it
35:47
here as far as I can tell. You know the the overturn the
35:50
window shifted. It's great that we've got an
35:52
anti CBDC candidate now in the highest or running for the
35:57
highest office in the country. And where does that position
36:01
Biden and how is he going to respond?
36:03
You know, I think when I read the tea leaves on Trump, I'm not
36:07
so certain that he is against Bitcoin as it's not quite
36:11
politically tenable for him to broadcast being pro Bitcoin at
36:16
this point. I think that Bitcoin is still
36:19
quite controversial to a lot of regular people out there that
36:24
haven't taken the time to study it.
36:26
And that's where, you know, us and Team Orange have our work
36:29
cut out to continue to drive adoption and tell people the
36:34
truth of this because there's so much misinformation out there.
36:37
So I think as soon as in in my read of the situation, as soon
36:40
as political, it's politically expedient for Trump to embrace
36:44
Bitcoin, I won't be surprised that he does.
36:47
That's my my take on the situation.
36:50
I've heard that before as well, right?
36:53
This is a guy that is selling NFTS, right?
36:56
So he has profited from some type of shit cornering and we
37:01
all start most bit corners. 99% of bit corners that I know and
37:04
me and Phil Geiger were going back and forth the other day.
37:07
You start off as a shit corner. Most bit corners I know start
37:10
off as shit corners and then you come to realize after wrecking
37:13
yourself and it's like, OK, yeah, it was Bitcoin all the
37:16
time but all along, right. So like you know, expecting a 80
37:20
year old man essentially to just, you know, skip over that,
37:23
be like yeah, it's been Bitcoin the entire time.
37:25
I think he's a bit naive. Anyways, I I do want to get
37:29
Opti's take. Opti, what's your take on this?
37:33
Yeah. Yeah, well, you guys know up
37:37
front like Trump is a Fiat maxi. Like we, we can all agree on
37:41
that point. He's a Fiat maxi.
37:43
He's super entrenched in the Fiat system.
37:45
So of course, you know, like Kent was saying, it's not
37:49
politically viable for him to fully endorse Bitcoin.
37:53
Bitcoin is still kind of this fringe idea as far as politics
37:56
is concerned. But I mean, like, if we're
38:00
looking into what Trump's been dealing with since he was
38:05
president, like, it's very obvious why he would go out
38:09
against a CBDC is because the CBDC would most likely shut
38:13
Trump off of his own money. So of course he's like, yeah,
38:15
this is not going to happen. If I'm president, obviously he's
38:19
against a CBDC system because they'll do whatever they can to
38:22
try to stop Trump. And that's not even like
38:25
endorsing Trump in general. But I think, you know, just
38:29
doubling down on the memes, like it's not enough to be anti CDC,
38:33
he needs to be pro Bitcoin. And it is very interesting that
38:37
CBDC's are becoming such a hot button topic so quickly.
38:42
And I think this is going to ramp up as the year goes on.
38:45
More and more people are going to choose sides.
38:48
They're either for CBDC's or they're against CBDC's.
38:50
And it's only a matter of time until more people come out and
38:53
just go completely pro Bitcoin. I say it all the time.
38:56
I think, you know, it's especially we're talking about
38:58
America. We are, you know, Nico and I
39:00
both live in America, and Bitcoin is as American as a pot.
39:05
We'll be in the Amazon soon, bro.
39:07
Yeah, we'll see about that one. But anyways, you know, I I do
39:11
like hearing politicians come out against CBDC.
39:14
So on that that note, like I think this is absolutely great
39:18
and moving the Overton window and and I know, like Trump is a
39:22
very polarizing figure. And so there's people on one
39:27
side that hate Trump and literally just say the opposite
39:31
of what he says. So maybe there will be more
39:33
people coming out that don't like Trump that are pro CBDCS
39:37
because like the Elizabeth Warrens of the world are like,
39:39
oh, CBDCS are going to help us and protect us.
39:41
And then, you know, the Trump army is going to go staunchly
39:45
against CBDCS. So maybe that's something that
39:48
we'll see in the works start to heat up.
39:50
But on that note, you know, shout out to Vivek for pushing
39:55
and stressing this issue because CBDC's is a way to control human
39:59
behavior and if we get trapped in a CBDC system, like it's
40:03
horrible for everyone around the world.
40:05
And this is not what I thought America was about, which was,
40:09
you know, we still have the meme of home of the brave, land of
40:12
the free. Well, if our politicians are
40:15
pushing a CBDC it, it's starting to really go against that idea
40:20
of land of the free if you can't transact freely and even on that
40:23
note like. You know, we don't need
40:25
politicians to ensure custody of Bitcoin like it.
40:30
It's not illegal. You don't need their permission.
40:33
It is a free speech issue. Bitcoin is code.
40:36
Bitcoin is literally just text messages.
40:38
Like how? Why do we need them to protect
40:41
this? Because obviously they don't
40:43
fully understand what's going on here.
40:44
It's literally just messages. It's just a messaging system.
40:47
It's just a database, like it's protected under the First
40:50
Amendment. But again, these politicians
40:53
don't even follow the Constitution.
40:55
They don't follow their oath. So like this is, this is the
40:58
rabbit hole we are in. But you know, just love to see
41:03
that this is the conversation. And I'm, I'm being reminded Nico
41:06
of when Nolan came on the show and I think he's coming on this
41:08
week about how the Bitcoin conference in Nashville is going
41:12
to be directly in the middle of, you know, the Republicans and
41:16
the Democrats choosing their candidates.
41:18
And it's going to really show what freedom is about.
41:21
And and you know, we say it all the time, It's not left versus
41:23
right, it's orange versus green. And as much as I dislike
41:28
politicians and I try to be as neutral as possible, I
41:32
understand that there is an active attack on our freedoms.
41:36
And I I don't want to say that I'm a single issue voter because
41:40
I I don't vote anymore. And Nico yells at me all the
41:42
time about this. And I don't think I will vote
41:44
again. Maybe I will.
41:45
I don't know. I want to see people come out
41:49
density he's. Admitted that he doesn't take
41:51
self custody. Now I vote with my cash and my
41:54
feet, but I reserve the right to not leave America until it is
41:59
really the last dig effort. I'm not going to leave America,
42:02
but I'm also not going to vote. Yeah, I vote with my money like
42:07
I don't look, I've been scammed. I got.
42:10
Scammed public service announcement.
42:12
It is an election year ladies and gentlemen, so we want to
42:15
tell you guys the importance of voting.
42:17
And you could do that when fighting, writing down a 12 word
42:21
and 24 word seed phrase and then taking your Bitcoin into self
42:24
custody. That's the most important vote
42:26
you can make. That's my public service
42:29
announcement. Yeah, with your money.
42:31
Literally just dump your Fiat for Bitcoin.
42:34
And once enough of us do this, it doesn't matter what they say.
42:37
They have no power. They'll wake the F up.
42:39
They'll be like we fucked up. So yeah, guys, if you're
42:42
enjoying the show, make sure to smash that like burn.
42:43
We're almost at 100 likes on YouTube, 258 live viewers on
42:48
rumble rumbles popping up, 50 live viewers and like, I think
42:50
3040 live viewers on Twitter. So shout out to all of
42:54
everybody. If you're enjoying the show,
42:55
smash the like button. It really helps with the algos.
42:58
Anyways, I do want to give a very special shout out to our
43:02
sponsor, Bitcoin Evangelism Planting seeds for the
43:07
decentralized revolution We have 10 Million People to Orange
43:09
Pill. Bitcoin Evangelism by Brian De
43:12
Mint is an absolute beast of a resource for orange Pilling, no
43:15
coiners and all corners alike. This is a book for bitcoiners
43:18
who know Bitcoin but have a hard time explaining it to their
43:21
friends. It's a book for bitcoiners who
43:23
are trying to explain Bitcoin only to all coiners.
43:26
It's available on Amazon if you have a brother, a mother, a
43:29
father, a sister, an aunt and uncle.
43:32
We're just like I I don't F with this thing cuz Elizabeth Warren
43:36
said it was poison. Buy yourself Bitcoin evangelism
43:40
and it will arm you with the right tools to orange pill them.
43:43
Anyways, I do also want to give a shout out to our sponsor,
43:46
Cabin Rex. They're the most trusted place
43:49
to buy, sell and host mining equipment.
43:52
You can check out the QR code in the in the thing that we pulled
43:57
up. It will take you directly to
43:58
their Telegram marketplace where you can connect with a member of
44:00
their sales team. They make purchasing their
44:02
products easy and transparent and you could also sell your
44:05
mining equipment. With them you can access their
44:07
vast network of domestic and international customers.
44:10
Check out kaboom racks today. All right, everybody, let's get
44:13
to the culture. Let's talk about SAS Mining.
44:15
We have a lot to talk about today.
44:16
Let's check it out. Here we go.
44:20
The Daily Culture. Brought to you by Swan
44:23
bitcoin.com Swan is the best way to build your Bitcoin stack with
44:27
automated Bitcoin savings plans and instant purchases serving
44:31
clients of any size from $10 to $10 million.
44:35
We love Swan because they incentivize self custody and
44:39
dollar cost averaging. What are you waiting for?
44:41
Visit swanbitcoin.com today. All right, guys.
44:46
Let's go Kent. Let's start with what is SAS
44:49
Mining and then we can get into some of the details.
44:53
Yeah, absolutely. So SAS Mining makes Bitcoin
44:57
mining accessible. We are a service provider, so we
45:00
are not a miner ourselves. And what we do is we help people
45:06
choose the mining rig of their choice if they want to go most
45:08
efficient or if they want to go most affordable and acquire
45:13
their Bitcoin in a clean carbon freeway at a cheaper price than
45:18
they can get from going to the exchange.
45:20
So that's our our promise. We've built a lot of software to
45:24
make that experience simple. So kind of like Uber made the
45:28
rideshare experience easy, we're doing the same for Bitcoin
45:33
mining. And so our model is slightly
45:34
different than most providers out there.
45:37
So we don't have desire or we don't mark up our mining rigs,
45:42
we don't mark up our electricity prices.
45:44
We pass those through at cost to our clients and instead on the
45:48
back end, we take a portion of the block reward.
45:52
So Luxor is our mining pool. We have an integration with them
45:56
and we received just 15% of the block reward and that's our
46:00
margin. So it's completely transparent.
46:03
It also aligns our incentives with our clients.
46:05
So now we care about getting their rigs turned on quickly, we
46:08
care about uptime and we care about cycling rig repairs
46:13
quickly as well because we have the same incentive that we want
46:18
to acquire Bitcoin in the most expedient fashion possible.
46:23
So yeah, a different approach, different model than what's
46:26
currently been out there. And thus far, clients have been
46:29
loving it, but we're still, you know, relatively small and
46:32
growing and have a small but rabid customer base right now.
46:37
And we think moving into the bull market, we're gonna see a
46:40
lot of folks come in our direction cuz we've really
46:42
focused on the customer experience above everything
46:45
else. Yeah, absolutely.
46:46
And I love that approach to hosting specifically from the
46:51
aligned aspect because you're right, the flat fee, I'm not
46:58
gonna name any names, but let's just say the last cycle there
47:02
was some big F UPS by certain companies and the reason that
47:08
they that happened was because of misaligned incentives.
47:11
Selling Rackspace they didn't have selling minors they didn't
47:14
have. It's so attractive when you have
47:16
that very convenient button on a website and you have all these
47:19
people like just pressing that button you're like, no, we'll
47:22
we'll we'll figure it out as we go after these sales and they're
47:25
like, Oh no, we didn't. And then one thing led to
47:29
another, and I'm sure you guys know who I'm talking about at
47:32
this point. No idea.
47:35
No idea. Yeah.
47:36
So you know, I love the aligned incentive structure.
47:39
The aspect of it's not really a flat fee, it's a, you know, we
47:43
take out, we take a percentage of the hash rate and then and
47:48
then that's your profit, right. And then what, what that causes
47:52
is if you guys don't get your act together, you guys don't get
47:55
paid either, right? So that's pretty cool.
47:58
So walk me through one of the big things in hosting also is
48:02
the sites, so sites and capacity, right.
48:05
So walk me through if you can, where are the sites located?
48:09
Does the user is the user aware where his his mining equipment
48:13
is gonna be? Etcetera, etcetera.
48:17
Yeah, absolutely. So we we've got two sites, our
48:21
first was in Wisconsin, we filled it in the first quarter
48:24
of last year kind of depths of the bear market and that's when
48:27
we knew, OK, yeah this this has got legs our business model if
48:32
we could do this during the depths of the bear market, I
48:35
think we we're on to something here.
48:36
So went out and searched around and after analysing a few
48:40
different sites, we landed on going to Paraguay.
48:44
Just the the cost of power, it being all hydro and the
48:50
alignment of incentives with the way that the grid works there,
48:54
it just made it a kind of a no brainer.
48:56
And then I'm located in Latin America too, So understand how
48:59
the dynamics of doing business in Latin America speak a bit of
49:02
Spanish. Other members of my team do as
49:03
well. And we said, look, there's all
49:05
this jurisdictional risk right now in the US So this was like
49:08
Q2 last year, right, when Texas was looking at some mining,
49:13
restrictive mining legislation. There's New York going on,
49:15
there's White House Energy Fund which just said, look let's just
49:19
diversify a little bit and check out Paraguay here.
49:22
And we've been pleasantly surprised with the experience.
49:24
I mean hit hit a fair share of challenges along the way and I
49:27
think that's that's normal. But you know we're up and
49:31
operational. We've we've got about A5 MW
49:33
facility there. It's about 60% at capacity right
49:37
now and you know continuing to deploy more mining rigs almost
49:42
on a weekly basis right now. So excited about the opportunity
49:45
and I mean frankly, the price is one of the biggest reasons why
49:50
we went there. I mean the power costs are quite
49:52
cheap. We're able to offer hosting
49:54
rates at just 4.7 cents per kWh, and that's including the
49:57
maintenance. That's incredible.
49:59
And I just got to say that site you guys nailed the timing on
50:03
that one and the Paraguay like it, it it's, it's a great
50:10
experience. I would say like right now great
50:12
time. You know a good friend of mine
50:15
C-Suite, one of the public mining companies.
50:17
The way that he described it to me is like mining is a leverage
50:19
long on Bitcoin, right. So yeah, I'd like right now is a
50:24
great time just ramping into the bull we're heading straight into
50:27
it and if you don't have the know how or the kind of
50:32
infrastructure in place, you know SAS Mining could provide
50:37
that hosting solution for you guys kinda turnkey get the
50:41
benefits of mining and like I said the aligned incentive
50:44
structure is awesome instead of that flat fee on top which kinda
50:48
misaligns incentives, do you guys make a markup on the sale
50:52
of the machine? No, we don't.
50:55
We we pass through. So we actually if you go to like
50:58
a broker and see what the price of a rig is versus a website,
51:01
you will see a difference. And the difference is because
51:02
we've got to pay for the power up front.
51:04
So we build that into the cost. But there's no margin that we
51:08
make or take on the mining rig sales themselves.
51:11
Instead we just make it all in the back end.
51:13
And I think actually doing that over the long run as we scale
51:18
will will turned out to be a distinctive advantage because
51:23
we're removing any friction in the relationship with our
51:25
clients. Gotcha.
51:28
OK. So it's very interesting.
51:30
So you guys, you guys don't take the risk off the client takes
51:34
the risk, but of course you're facilitating that hosting
51:39
experience by making it turnkey. And I'm, I'm assuming there's a
51:44
support element to that. You guys are really on top of
51:47
that. Why don't like let's say someone
51:50
has a question or let's say you know my some mining is, you know
51:55
it sounds easy but sometimes those puppies turn off and
51:58
especially if you're getting into it, you're like, hey, I
52:00
just spent, you know five $6000 on the machine.
52:03
This thing is off. What is the process of support?
52:06
Can they reach someone? Because that was another thing.
52:08
Last market right is this support just disappeared off the
52:11
face of the planet for a certain country company that was very
52:15
popular with the hosting in the in the hosting industry.
52:19
Well, you you will notice we've leaned into customer support,
52:22
that's intentional. So on our website you can chat.
52:26
We've got a couple of agents that are not quite 24/7.
52:30
We've got one in Europe and one in in in Peru and they answer
52:35
most questions on the spot. But then we've also got AVIP
52:38
Telegram community that's customer only and answer
52:41
questions most of the entire organization is there so that
52:45
our customers can get to know most of us that are running SAS
52:48
mining and so that's there. And then lastly, you know we are
52:52
building our software to create more and more transparency so
52:55
that clients don't have to ask, they can see, hey look, this is
52:59
the status of what's going on right now.
53:01
And you know I I can see that you know, if I want to know like
53:05
why the status is the way it is, I can certainly ask about that.
53:08
But just knowing what's going on I think answers most of the
53:11
questions. And so we've been doing that
53:14
whether it comes to shipping and deployment times, notifications
53:18
on up time or downtime. I mean we are experiencing some
53:21
curtailment in, in Paraguay more than we anticipated because we
53:26
launched into the summer there which high heat loads.
53:29
So let me just say a bit about Paraguay because I don't know
53:33
that people know the story of Paraguay and I do think it's
53:36
important to get that message out there.
53:38
So Paraguay has an unbelievable amount of power that they
53:42
export. It's all hydro.
53:44
And it was. It was created because of the
53:46
Otapu Dam. And the Otapu Dam is this dam
53:49
that goes across the river that is the border of Brazil and
53:53
Paraguay. And the way it was designed, it
53:56
was built in the 1970s. But the way that the agreement
53:59
was designed is that Paraguay would get half the power, Brazil
54:02
would get half the power. And so Paraguay under utilizes
54:06
their power by about four to five gigawatts each year.
54:09
And so they wind up exporting it to Brazil and selling it at cost
54:14
or even at a loss. And so Bitcoin miners showing up
54:17
there in Paraguay have this enormous opportunity to acquire
54:20
all this hydropower that runs the entire grid at a very low
54:25
rate because it's better to repatriate that electricity and
54:28
and bring the GDP up in in Paraguay than it is to export it
54:33
to Brazil that cost or even at a loss.
54:36
And so we're helping with that. The, the the other side of it
54:39
though is the grid itself because they haven't had the
54:42
demand for all that power is having to be upgraded by minors
54:45
like us. And so during that process, the
54:48
pipes, if you will, of the grid are sometimes just not big
54:52
enough to to pull down all the electricity.
54:54
And so that's kind of why we have curtailment.
54:56
Where we are is, you know, the grid itself needs to upgrade.
54:59
And the beauty of what's going on there by the mining community
55:02
is like new stub stations are being built in new locations.
55:06
And at some point I'm certain that I'm certain that mining
55:09
won't make sense there. But Bitcoin miners are going to
55:12
have left behind all this infrastructure for other
55:15
industries. And is, is is very much like,
55:18
you know, Brandon Quidom laid out in his pioneer species
55:22
thesis thesis. It's actually playing out there
55:24
in Paraguay from what I can see and you know Brandon is a is an
55:28
advisor so to SAS Mining. So maybe maybe that helps me to
55:32
see it a little easier, but it's it's such a cool thing to be,
55:36
you know, on the on the forefront in another nation to
55:40
see how it's helping people. 100% And the aspect of, you
55:45
know, because it's a very fascinating right, is the the
55:49
idea that Bitcoin is going to change the entire energy
55:53
industry. Bitcoin is going to make it so
55:56
that if you live in a stranded village in the middle of
56:00
nowhere, Central Africa, and you just have a very very, you know,
56:06
attractive energy source nearby, but it's just isolated enough
56:10
from a major metropolitan area that it's essentially can't
56:13
transport, it can't, whatever. I I think just like in the you
56:18
know early 1900s Americas you're gonna see kind of like this like
56:22
gold rush but with with you're going to see a Bitcoin rush
56:26
Bitcoin miners essentially hunting down stranded energy
56:30
sources all over the world and whatever makes you know it's
56:33
going to be whatever is the most economical makes sense.
56:36
And and the process of doing that, they're going to be
56:39
they're going to build, they're going to bring prosperity,
56:41
they're going to bring opportunity, they're going to
56:44
build out the infrastructure there, right.
56:46
It's all about aligned incentives.
56:48
So IA 100% agree with that And a couple more questions.
56:51
So you said you had you guys had a site in Wisconsin and you guys
56:55
you said you guys had a site in Paraguay.
56:59
How do you guys own these sites yourself?
57:02
Or this is something that is owned by the operate over there
57:05
and you guys have a deal with them?
57:08
Yeah. We've got local operators that
57:10
own and maintain the site. So we are running a capital
57:13
light model and how it works is that instead of paying for
57:17
infrastructure, we pay large deposits up front for power and
57:22
that allows us to sort of have a credit on file for when the the
57:26
agreement ends. But that's basically our value
57:29
proposition, right, is to come in to figure out who's a good
57:33
operator to work with, aggregate the the power that we can deploy
57:37
into and then build operating procedures with our partners.
57:41
And you know we've got like this Bible of standard operating
57:43
procedures. This is not my my first rodeo
57:46
either. I guess that should probably be
57:47
mentioned. I actually come from the rooftop
57:49
solar sector. So I got into Bitcoin 2015 the
57:53
end of the year, bought my first Bitcoin, got totally entranced
57:56
by it, and tried my hand at a few entrepreneurial activities
58:00
before I realized cow the the cost curves for solar and
58:03
Bitcoin mining are going to collide.
58:05
I need to get involved with Bitcoin mining.
58:06
And so that was end of 2020 when I joined up with SAS Mining.
58:11
And it took me a while to realize.
58:13
But rooftop solar I think is the only analogous industry to
58:16
Bitcoin mining that I found. And that may sound odd to a lot
58:19
of people, but if you think it through, I think you'll agree
58:22
with me, which is OK. First of all, it's distributed
58:25
rooftop solar is is decentralized, is disruptive.
58:29
Profits are also constrained by an energy network.
58:32
And by the way, most of the equipment that you need to
58:35
procure is all manufactured in China.
58:37
So you know, I'm able to pull through a lot of lessons and in
58:40
in my career there in the rooftop solar sector, we're
58:43
building hundreds of rooftop solar systems across the US and
58:46
coordinating all that activity. And so you know, taking those
58:49
lessons and how to operate at scale with lots of clients has
58:53
been something that we've really focused on because there's no
58:56
way that you know all the nuance this business if you don't
59:00
figure out ways to optimize process that you're gonna be
59:03
able to manage it without just blowing up the customer
59:06
experience. Absolutely.
59:07
I I love your line incentive structure model, a big fan of
59:10
that. I think you guys very, very
59:12
clever the way that you guys set that up and I like the you know
59:16
the the, I like the fact that you guys focused on you know the
59:22
user experience, right. That's so important.
59:25
And that's something that you know, the hosting industry.
59:28
I'll be frank and I I. So I don't know if a lot of
59:31
people know. Some people notice, some people
59:34
probably know this by now, but I got into the industry through
59:37
Bitcoin mining. I started hosting first.
59:40
I was hosting in Venezuela and then I transferred to media, you
59:43
know, around 2020. I kind of did like you know,
59:46
kind of find the place that you you like the most, right.
59:50
So you know, I, I love what I love how the how you guys are
59:53
approaching it. Now a couple more questions for
59:56
you, Ken, before we wrap it up. Question number one is we
59:58
obviously know that there's strong property laws here in the
1:00:02
United States, right? But that is not applicable
1:00:06
everywhere around the world. Paraguay is pretty stable
1:00:09
country, right? It's not like Venezuela or
1:00:11
something like that. But what's the political
1:00:14
situation there? What are the property laws?
1:00:16
Are you guys, like, actively lobbying on the ground?
1:00:19
Are you guys you know in good? Do you have good relations with
1:00:22
local officials, all that stuff? Yeah, I I mean, as you know,
1:00:27
Nico, if you're coming from Latin America, what I've
1:00:31
realized is the heuristic I sort of live by here is OK.
1:00:34
If the rule of law is going to be a little less than a country,
1:00:37
then the value of the relationships goes up
1:00:39
accordingly. And so you really need to focus
1:00:41
on having quality relationships. And that's one of the reasons
1:00:44
why we chose the partnership that we did is because we could
1:00:47
see that they had relationships with senators, with the head of
1:00:51
the utilities. And these things matter.
1:00:54
And it's not, it's not even that it's corruption.
1:00:56
It's just if you your buddy grew up with the guy that's in charge
1:01:00
of something you can pick up the phone and things get done versus
1:01:03
like chasing your tail and red tape land.
1:01:06
And so relationships are are important and we found those
1:01:10
with our with our operator. Secondly, you know I look at at
1:01:14
at incentives driving human behavior much more than any law
1:01:18
will ever do. And when I saw the incentives
1:01:21
there, I realized, look, repatriating this electricity
1:01:25
and being part of that adds value to the local economy and
1:01:28
that means votes for the politicians.
1:01:31
So there's no way that they're going to crush the the golden
1:01:33
goose here and kick Bitcoin mining out because have a
1:01:36
political incentive to help us. And indeed that's what we've
1:01:40
been seeing is that, you know, it's been a little bit of toss
1:01:43
and turn as people have gotten used to and start to understand
1:01:46
it. And the populace at at large
1:01:48
doesn't necessarily understand Bitcoin.
1:01:50
And so I've been having conversations with other miners
1:01:52
in the region about, you know, some PR and education campaigns
1:01:56
that way, you know the when when folks don't know something, they
1:01:59
fill in the gaps with the story and we think it's better that we
1:02:03
help them understand what things are.
1:02:05
So yeah, yeah, we are in conversations with doing some of
1:02:08
that education. It is important, but I'm not
1:02:12
worried about the state of law there turning on Bitcoin mining
1:02:17
because of that natural incentive.
1:02:19
And you know, for instance, we know our, our operators have
1:02:23
also helped out other politicians mining, excuse me,
1:02:27
mining Bitcoin, which is quite funny.
1:02:29
There's a lot of politicians that are actually mining Bitcoin
1:02:31
there because they can see the incentive themselves.
1:02:34
Of course, of course. Yeah, that's really the key in
1:02:37
Latin America. It's really those relationships,
1:02:39
100%. And of course, we have a
1:02:45
question from the Bitcoin Maxis in the chat.
1:02:48
I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this question.
1:02:51
Do you guys, KYC your customers? No, we we need, we need some way
1:02:55
to communicate with our customers, but it's not a KYC
1:02:58
process. We've got, we've got a couple
1:03:00
folks that I think that have named themselves in our platform
1:03:03
on your business. So you know it's it's perfectly
1:03:07
acceptable if that's what you want to call yourself.
1:03:08
But we do ask for a phone number and e-mail so we can get a hold
1:03:11
of you something something's going on with your mining rig.
1:03:15
We don't. There's no KYC with Luxor, our
1:03:17
mining pool provider. And you know the way that we we
1:03:22
don't save any credit card information on File 2 if you're
1:03:24
paying that way. So we've intentionally designed
1:03:27
ourselves to try to mitigate that risk.
1:03:30
And I'd say, you know, as bitcoiners we tried to hold as
1:03:33
true as we can to the Bitcoin ethos.
1:03:36
But there is an element of control that you are giving up
1:03:39
with it working with the business provider like ourselves
1:03:41
and that's why the reputation is so important.
1:03:44
And one of those elements is at this point you know we are only
1:03:47
integrated with Luxor and because we instruct Luxor to
1:03:51
split the block reward when it's paid out, we can't simply allow
1:03:56
our clients to go to any mining pool until we've built out a
1:03:59
full integration. So right now that is one of the
1:04:02
trade-offs is Luxor, but the the pool fee is quite low, you know
1:04:07
just just a bit over a percent working with Luxor at this
1:04:11
point. Yeah, Nick and the crew are
1:04:13
great. Big fan.
1:04:14
I, I, I literally remember when they started, you know, so it's
1:04:18
back in the, you know, 2017 kind of era and stuff.
1:04:22
So they've come a very long way. Anyways, so yeah.
1:04:26
Kent, thank you so much for coming on the show.
1:04:28
It's been an honor. Great to see that you guys are
1:04:30
crushing over at SAS a different approach to hosting, which you
1:04:35
know it's name was tarnished this last cycle.
1:04:38
So hopefully SAS, you know takes takes that top spot and you know
1:04:43
brings back some of that reputation to the industry.
1:04:46
I'm a big fan. I love innovation, you know, and
1:04:48
I love aligned incentives as a Bitcoiner.
1:04:50
So I love what you guys are doing and great to have you on
1:04:53
the show today and keep kicking ass in the Amazon and orange
1:04:56
peeling people down there, man, that's that's incredible.
1:04:59
That's right, man. Yeah, There's actually a
1:05:01
circular economy near where I'm at by motive.
1:05:04
I don't know if folks have heard of motive, but there's about 16
1:05:07
circular economies going here in Peru, and that's exciting to see
1:05:11
and be able to go witness on my front door here.
1:05:13
But yeah, thank you so much, Nico and Opti for allowing me to
1:05:17
join you, share what we're up to and participate in the in the
1:05:20
fun about the news. You guys have a lot of fun here
1:05:23
and I can't wait to do this again someday.
1:05:25
Appreciate it, Ken, Someone asked in the chat.
1:05:27
I just joined. Sounds really.
1:05:28
There's a link, yes. So you guys, you can go, it's we
1:05:30
have it pulled up on the screen right now for
1:05:32
audiolistenersitssasmining.com, sazmining.com.
1:05:37
So, Ken, thank you so much for joining us.
1:05:39
Really appreciate it. Yeah.
1:05:41
Thank you. All right guys, if you enjoyed
1:05:44
the show, you know what to do. Smash that like button and
1:05:45
consider subscribing if you feel like we provided you value.
1:05:48
And of course, TuneIn. Tomorrow for another episode of
1:05:51
Simply Bitcoin Live. I'm your host Nico, my legendary
1:05:54
Co host Opti. He's a little bit sad today cuz
1:05:57
Chrissy misbehaved, but hopefully we'll get a giant
1:06:00
smile on his face tomorrow. Anyways, love you all.
1:06:03
We'll see you tomorrow for another episode of Simply
1:06:05
Bitcoin Live. Peace out, y'all.