Latest / Simply Bitcoin / NEW REPORT: The Iran War is a Strategic Bitcoin reserve Battle, Here's How | EP 1483

Transcript

NEW REPORT: The Iran War is a Strategic Bitcoin reserve Battle, Here's How | EP 1483 · Simply Bitcoin

0:01
Today, we're going to dive into a new report that reveals how
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the Iran war could affect America's strategic Bitcoin
0:09
reserve. And funny enough, it comes back
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to America's plan to be the global Bitcoin superpower of the
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world. Pay close attention to
0:18
everything mentioned in this clip, and then we'll connect the
0:21
dots to show you how Bitcoin is playing an even bigger role in
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the Middle East than most people think.
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Here we go. Signed an executive order
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officially creating our strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
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This is something. I haven't heard anybody talk
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about Iran was one of the top Bitcoin miners in the world due
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to their subsidized energy program, some of which were
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subsidized by Biden relieving sanctions.
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By the way, they were trading on Bitcoin to avoid other sanctions
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too, just like how they're demanding it in tolls through
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the Strait of Hormuz. But since Trump started this
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bombing campaign, 77% of their crypto mining has stopped, which
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in conjunction to the Clarity act when Congress ever gets off
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the rear end will be an explosion in the cryptosphere,
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literally making millionaires overnight and potentially
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generating enough revenue to partially offset our national
1:17
debt. It's not just a war with Iran.
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Sure they can't get a nuke but there are so many moving parts
1:22
here. This is why I keep telling you
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just guys like I'm, I'm putting my neck out there by supporting
1:27
this. I I I realize that and I'm in.
1:29
Like, I'm not, I'm not BS ING you like just please hold out a
1:32
little bit longer. Well, interesting.
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I don't know what it means by the end.
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Just hold out a little longer. I I don't know if he's saying
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huddle or if he's saying, you know, trust Trump in the plan.
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But I do like how he framed this, that there are a lot of
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moving parts currently happening in the Middle East.
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And as we've been discussing on the show, and I think everyone's
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vaguely aware of this idea that that, and I don't mean to maybe
1:56
put this in negative light, but it seems like misdirection is a
2:00
part of how these operations are playing out in the Middle East,
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part of the kind of status quo. The the way that this works is
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you don't really know what's going on.
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A lot of people call it the fog of war, etcetera, etcetera.
2:14
But it seems like misdirection coming from the Trump
2:17
administration is, and I know I got a little heat from it
2:21
yesterday. This idea of Opti's a plan
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truster now. No, I'm just saying if you're
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looking at everything objectively, there's some
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interesting stuff happening. So that is a clip from Newsmax
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and they have 3.6 million followers on Twitter.
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It it was a beginning clip of a longer clip.
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It my friend actually sent this to me and he's like, yo, check
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this out. This is very interesting and and
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I saw him like, oh, wow, I might actually use that for the show.
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Then I watched a clip and I think on the surface you're
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like, man, that that's some that's some high level BS here.
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But I went to the article that they were quoting in this video.
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It's from Yahoo Finance. And of course, the title Iran
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Bitcoin hash rate dropped 77% over the past quarter mid
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conflict. And in this first paragraph is
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where I found their source material, and I'll read that for
3:13
you and then we'll go to the source material and it goes.
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Iran's Bitcoin hash rate fell approximately 77% over the past
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quarter, from roughly 9 Exa hashes per second to two Exa
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hashes per second, as US and Israeli military strikes
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disrupted power infrastructure and forced an estimated 427,000
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active mining machines offline, according to a hash rate index
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report published Monday by Ian Philpott, marketing director at
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Luxor Technology. Now you guys are probably
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familiar with Luxor, so I went over to their website and I was
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looking for this report and I am almost positive actually.
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I'm like completely positive. I can guarantee you that this is
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what they were quoting and this is titled Global hash rate heat
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map update Q2 2026, the latest update to hash rate indexes,
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Global hash rate heat map. Again, I'm not going to read the
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whole thing, but I will just kind of read some of the
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highlights and then the parts that are particular to what is
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happening in Iran. Here's the TLDR. Global hash
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rate declined to 1004 XA hashes in Q2 of 2026 from 1000 and then
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66 exa hashes in Q1 of 2026. Mine is 5.8%.
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Quarter of 1/4 decline reflects ongoing down cycle.
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Bitcoin price decline roughly 50% from October peak push hash
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price to all time lows forcing older equipment offline.
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Mining profitability, not energy or policy, is the primary driver
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of current geopolitical shifts. Mining concentration is stable
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at 65.2% in the top three, which is of course US, Russia and
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China. Composition shifting as marginal
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equipment goes offline. Modern hardware deploys
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selectively. Pakistan moderated from plus
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1233% year over year to roughly 3 Exa hashes.
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Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan I I I can't say that
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guys sustained plus 167% quarter over quarter.
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Ethiopia holds #8 despite permit freeze, policy clarity
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increasingly matters in down cycle, but only as a secondary
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factor to machine profitability. Now that's the overview.
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Let me go down here and you can see the top ten countries by
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market share. Of course, US is still leading
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this. We have roughly, you know, 37%
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of the global hash rate and then followed by Russia at 16.9% and
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China at 12%. Now a big leader I think here is
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Paraguay, which we talk about here constantly.
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A lot of miners are moving down to Paraguay and then to.
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Paraguay. Dude, I sound like a valley
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girl. All right, we're we're not going
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to do my Hispanic accent on this.
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But anyway, the last five is the United Arab Emirates, Oman,
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Canada, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and Indonesia.
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Now #9 is interesting because as we I know, if you've been in the
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space for a while, a lot of the miners that left China or not a
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lot of them, but a significant portion of the miners that left
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China went to Kazakhstan. And I do have the heat map for
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you guys. So I will, I will show you guys
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kind of the breakdown here, but here we go.
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Notable declines. Iran is down .6% quarter over
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quarter from geopolitical conflict in the region, which is
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an interesting metric to just look at on itself.
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Remember last week, we got the big news coming out that Iran
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wanted to get payments for toll fees paid in Bitcoin, which made
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all of the headlines. And then we're seeing that
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there's another secondary effect here.
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And you could say, I mean, I'm sure if we wanted to go full
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clickbait on you, we could say that, hey, you know, the Trump
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administration is bombing Iran's Bitcoin mining infrastructure.
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Bitcoin. Yeah, Bitcoin mining
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infrastructure. I don't think that's necessarily
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the case per SE. I think this is probably a side
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effect at again, as the clip said, there's a lot of moving
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parts here. I would make the case that most
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likely, and this is probably like the easiest connection
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here, a lot of the state backed mining that the IRGC was doing,
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that Iran was doing was basically hooked up to their
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more traditional energy infrastructure.
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If you got cheap energy, if you got almost free energy basically
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and you have excess energy, then a good way to profit off of that
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is of course to plug in some Bitcoin miners.
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Now going further down here, there is another little blurb
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here where it talks about the Middle East and I think there is
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an interesting little nugget in this paragraph and it goes
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Middle East geopolitical conflict in the region has had a
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clear impact on the rod loss of seven XA hashes quarter of 1/4
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and it could have a ripple effect for neighboring
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countries. The UAE and Oman each hold 3% of
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global hash rate with with flat. This growth patterns both
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reflect government back long term infrastructure positioning
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rather than competitive expansion urgency.
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And I believe there's one more segment here, maybe not.
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Oh yeah, here we go. Very end.
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Geopolitical shocks create localized disruption, not
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systemic risk. Iran's loss of roughly 7 Exa
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hashes, quarter of 1/4 from regional conflict demonstrates
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mining vulnerability to geopolitical events which we
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talked about. And we will spend a little bit
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on that last point in a minute. However, the impact was
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contained to Iran and neighboring neighboring UAE and
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Amman remain stable. Global hash rate at roughly
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1000. Exa hashes persist because no
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single region control. There's enough capacity to
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threaten network continuity. Regional disruptions
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redistribute hash rate rather than destroy it.
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Which obviously goes into the larger picture that as
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Bitcoiners, we all know Bitcoin is decentralized.
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There is no single point of failure here, which even if
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we're watching this happen, you could say, hey, look, war is bad
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across the board. But if we had a single point of
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failure and we saw a significant portion of hash rate come off
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the network, then that would lead to a more existential
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threat to the Bitcoin network at large.
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But we're not seeing that. Obviously, hey, Iran is getting
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hit right now. A lot of the a lot of the hash
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power is coming offline. Who knows if that will be able
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to come back online. Who knows if they were not
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destroyed. Now, I do have the heat map here
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and then Nico and I will kind of discuss maybe the broader
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picture here. So I'm going to start with the
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2026 heat map of Q1. And again, this is
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data.hashrateindex.com from Luxor, so shouts out to them.
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So Q1 of 2026, I'm going to, I'm going to pick some notable
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countries here that have been in the news in regards to
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operations coming from the Trump administration.
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Of course, we have Iran here with a market share of almost 1%
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at .84% hash rate amount, 9 EXA hashes.
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And then of course, Venezuela with .469% of global hash rate
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at about 5 EXA hashes. And then again, you know the US
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here at 37 1/2% of global market share with 400 EXA hashes.
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Now let's update to the latest numbers of Q2.
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And and we have Iran at .2% of market share again, the 70%
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drop. Now they have about two extra
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hashes at least according to the research done by Luxor.
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And then we have Venezuela down to just .5% at still 5X5 extra
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hashes and the US is at 37.4. So a little bit of a decline
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from the US, marginal if insignificant decline from
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Venezuela and then a huge decline from Iran.
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Now, why am I bringing up the Venezuela in this context?
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Well, as we all know, the US government did a 24 hour.
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Was it, it wasn't it maybe like, oh, it was a weekend operation
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where they took down Maduro. And we are seeing some of the
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significant geopolitical ramifications of this as I was
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covering yesterday with oil tankers leaving the Strait of
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Hormuz and coming into the Gulf of America.
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Still feels weird. I I still feel like it's Gulf of
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Mexico. But anyways, the real story here
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is in the context of Iran. As we know, the Trump
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administration has said we want the US to be the Bitcoin
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superpower of the world. Now, I don't think this was a
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direct operative from the Trump administration to basically say,
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hey, we're going to bomb Iran so that we can take off their
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Bitcoin mining infrastructure. Because as we know, there has
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been a big political push on the idea of Iran using Bitcoin or
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cryptocurrencies and stablecoins to around sanctions.
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I think that conversation is only going to increase as we are
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starting to see this slowly evolve.
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And who knows how long this is going to happen.
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But we are seeing more news stories about this idea of, hey,
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maybe we need to put more guardrails on Bitcoin and stable
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coins because of sanctions, because this is making Ofac's
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job harder that, well, hey, you know, if people go to Bitcoin,
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then it's almost like, you know, the traditional financial
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guardrails don't work anymore. Now we are seeing that there is
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some debate over whether Trump really allowed Iran to get paid
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in Bitcoin over these payment fees.
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The last couple of days. If you're following along on
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this, that has been one of the big points of contention that
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Trump basically said, hey, we did not agree with Iran on them
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taking fees for boats going through the Strait of Hormuz.
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And if you're a bitcoiner, what are you hearing?
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They're like, Oh, no, maybe they didn't agree on this idea, but
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now they're realizing, wait, we can't actually let Iran get paid
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in Bitcoin for you know what, what they say, they said we
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can't let Iran extort boats to get fees for oil tankers going
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through the Strait of Hormuz for, for oil to, you know, get
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out of the Middle East. And obviously, if you follow the
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story, even just. A.
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Semblance of, you know, understanding here, how are they
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going to get paid? Stable coins and Bitcoin, that's
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what they wanted. They're like, you know, we don't
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really want to touch dollars anymore.
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Unintended side of fact, a lot of the boats are coming to the
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US. So the dollar hegemony, the
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Petro dollar system almost got stronger overnight, if you're
14:09
kind of being honest. Now we're seeing on the flip
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side, another aspect of the quote Bitcoin superpower of the
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world is Iran was close to getting 1% of global hash rate.
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Now it's seem seemingly decimated there.
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Who knows if they got burnt up, bombed, What's going on?
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Maybe that just energy infrastructure isn't there
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anymore. But the implications here are
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very interesting. Anyways, Nika, jump in here.
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Yeah. I mean, look, I wanted to make
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this today's video title, but perhaps it was too spicy.
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Which one would like AB? 2 bomber and Trump just smiling
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like did Trump bomb Iran to decrease again?
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Kind of a stretch, but hey, it's it's.
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It's it's what happened the. Incentives are there, ladies and
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gentlemen. Did Trump bomb Iran to basically
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destroy Iran's capability of Bitcoin mining?
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Of course, that wasn't the primary reason.
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But again, as that new and we're not the only ones thinking this
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like we played that news clip in the very beginning and the guy
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connected. Maybe the guy's been watching
15:16
simply Bitcoin, who knows. But the point that we're trying
15:20
to make is like look like at the end of the day, Trump's son owns
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one of the largest Bitcoin mining companies in the world,
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American Bitcoin. I actually.
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Didn't think about that, right? Wow, Trump, His whole initiative
15:32
was about Bitcoin being the strategic Bitcoin reserve in the
15:35
world. It doesn't look good for the
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Trump administration to go and go back and basically say, hey,
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listen, guys, by the way, Iran is only taking payments, toll
15:49
payments to cross the Strait of Hormuz and Bitcoin, right?
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So again, lots of coincidences, right?
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And there's this very famous quote that I love to say by
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someone that I don't even I could mention on YouTube.
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But it's like, there are no conspiracies, but there are no
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coincidences. And again, no one is better than
16:06
their incentives. So is it too much of A stretch
16:08
to say that they're at least part of the motivation for
16:12
bombing Iran was to destroy Iran's electrical infrastructure
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so they wouldn't mine as much Bitcoin as they've been mining?
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Because at the same time, right, Trump's kid owns one of the
16:24
largest Bitcoin miners in the United States.
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And if anyone doesn't understand how Bitcoin mining works, ladies
16:31
and gentlemen, the pie stays the same.
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But if you have a decrease in hash rate, if that hash rate
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goes away, you have less competition.
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If you have less competition, you mine more coins, right?
16:42
So again, is it too much of A stretch to say that?
16:45
No, at the same time, as Opti mentioned about the Office of
16:49
Foreign Asset Control and the whole sanctions narrative that,
16:53
you know, is going to be propagated by the Elizabeth
16:57
Warren camp? Elizabeth Warren sits on the
17:00
Senate Banking Committee, right? And we're going to be covering
17:03
this later on today's show. The Democratic Party does not
17:08
want a competition to what they see is going to be a future
17:14
central bank digital currency. So we know they're against
17:17
Bitcoin for that reason. X just announced a payment
17:21
platform. Of course Elizabeth Warren went
17:23
on X and saying we can't allow that to happen.
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They don't want an alternative to the US banking.
17:31
They don't want an alternative to the US financial rails of
17:35
which politicians control, of which politicians can censor,
17:39
because if politicians can't censor, politicians can't
17:42
control, then you can't have a Canadian truckers protest type
17:46
of situation. 2 point O because if they can't freeze the bank
17:49
accounts of people because most people are using using Bitcoin,
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then guess what happens? They can say, oh, stop doing
17:55
that. But people are like, yeah, but
17:57
like, I don't want to because what you're doing is wrong.
18:00
And they, they don't have a tool to freeze their money.
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That's like one of the strongest tools politicians can use to
18:09
incentivize a certain type of behavior.
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And we know that they're willing to do this not only with the
18:13
Canadian truckers protest, but also with what happened in
18:17
Russia, with when the Ukraine and Russia conflict started.
18:21
What? It was one of the first thing
18:22
that the Western government started to do.
18:25
They started seizing all the assets of not only Russia, but
18:29
Russian citizens, right? So what happens if that power
18:33
gets taken away from them? They don't want that power to
18:36
get taken away from them. I don't think any politician
18:39
wants any semblance of power taken away from them.
18:42
So what? Again, what's fascinating to me
18:45
is how Bitcoin is now involved in this geopolitical, you know,
18:52
type of situation that we're seeing worldwide.
18:55
It's it's fascinating to see. And again, this plays into a lot
19:01
of the theories and a lot of the things that we've been talking
19:04
about for years now. And look, I I I I really want to
19:10
post up. I opti take it while I yeah, I
19:12
want this thing by by Nick Zabo. It's a really yeah, while.
19:15
You were talking it actually, when I initially saw this story,
19:19
it it reminded me of, I forget what he was in the military, but
19:25
of Jason Lowery's sophomore thesis.
19:27
And I look, I was a little skeptical on on his thesis.
19:31
I never read the book. I kind of got the SparkNotes of
19:34
it, but he was basically saying that where we are going from
19:39
here, we're going to see nation states battling over hash rate.
19:43
We're going to see countries battling over not only securing
19:48
the mining capabilities of Bitcoin or sorry of, you know,
19:54
decentralize money, but they would try to attract as much
19:59
capital as possible. And I forget when that book came
20:02
out, but it was about two years ago at at minimum.
20:04
And now he is in, I believe, higher, a higher position doing
20:10
other things that are still, you know, connected with the, you
20:14
know, the military or the army or what I, I don't know exactly
20:18
what his rank was or, you know, and what.
20:22
Corner of the military or army he was in but.
20:26
This is Nick Zabo's direct quote.
20:28
He says, quote, Iran is no no longer effectively under
20:32
sanctions. Do try to keep up with events.
20:35
Yeah. Facts.
20:36
And that's that's like the crux of it, ladies and gentlemen,
20:40
right. Is like, this is the crux of it
20:42
is like this is what we're going to go and experience, you know,
20:48
as the human race, as society. I told you guys that we're
20:52
living through this very tumultuous, pivotal
20:55
technological shift in human history.
20:59
And the book The Sovereign Individual made this thesis back
21:03
in the 90s, right, about information technologies.
21:06
And what we saw during the first Trump administration, then the
21:11
Biden administration, and then the second Trump administration,
21:14
which I think it's it's all, it's all over now since Elon
21:17
acquired X was I told you guys what we were going to see?
21:21
What I coined is the disintermediation of
21:24
information, right? And we saw that.
21:27
We saw how much the Biden administration, they even tried
21:29
to like release their own version of the Ministry of
21:31
Truth. And you had that crazy lady that
21:34
was like singing and she had like the googly eyes and she
21:36
looked like. What's that one with the little
21:39
songbird and Jennifer Lawrence? Yeah.
21:41
She, she. She was.
21:42
She was like singing. Like, you know, disinformation,
21:44
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
21:46
blah, blah, blah, blah. Like it was like it was, it was
21:48
crazy. But the, the point that I'm
21:49
trying to make is like, who gets to define what is
21:51
disinformation, right? And governments had this unique
21:55
ability before the Internet to be able to control the flows of
22:00
information, and they would do that through mainstream media
22:02
sources. I said this the other day, if
22:04
you're watching mainstream media and if you're consuming your
22:08
media on alternative media, which I would make the case is
22:11
now mainstream media, you are getting a totally different
22:17
reality. You live in two different
22:19
alternative realities. And governments were able to Co
22:22
opt and control the legacy media outlets.
22:25
So the handful of media channels, the handful of
22:29
publications, right? But they can't do the same on
22:33
the Internet. Now you have Tucker, you have
22:36
Candace, you have other content creators that are the OG Nico
22:40
Jones that exactly aren't, you know, you know, towing the party
22:44
line. They're not exactly going along
22:46
along with the current events. And they're they have massive
22:50
audience. They have younger audience, they
22:52
have the new generation that are listening to them.
22:55
And again, it's a lot harder for the US government to sell the
22:59
war in Iran. It's a lot harder for the US
23:02
government to sell something like central bank digital
23:05
currencies as long as alternative media existed.
23:09
I once read a very powerful quote, I think it came from Jack
23:12
Posobik, and it was something along the lines of the war in
23:15
Iraq in two 2003 wouldn't have happened if social media would
23:20
have existed. Now why am I saying all this?
23:23
How does this connect? Well, what we are on the verge
23:27
of entering into is the disintermediation of money.
23:31
And that is truly for all of the marbles.
23:35
Look at how they reacted to the disintermediation of
23:38
information. Look at how much they pushed
23:40
back. Look how much they censored.
23:42
Look at how much they deplatformed anybody that that
23:46
didn't have an approved narrative talking point was
23:50
other distant, was banned, was de platformed, was villainized,
23:55
was sued. And then it that is in that is
23:59
completely against the 1st amendment.
24:02
First Amendment specifically protects the right of U.S.
24:04
citizens to speak freely. What we find out, what we found
24:08
out with the Twitter Files when Elon acquired X was that the US
24:12
government was specifically putting pressure on social media
24:15
platforms to censor the free speech of Americans.
24:20
So they lost that war and I and, and Europe, they're still
24:23
doubling down. They still have a little bit
24:25
more control, but as as as as soon as Elon acquired X, he
24:32
freed the bird. Now you have open communication
24:35
now platforms like Rumble. We're huge fan of huge fan of
24:38
Rumble as live streamers. It's very difficult now to once
24:43
control the narrative like they have in the past.
24:46
Now we're trying to get ahead of it again.
24:49
We are tomorrow's Bitcoin news today as we like to call
24:52
ourselves if you guys have been watching simply Bitcoin for
24:55
years. You guys have noticed that we
24:57
have literally predicted a lot of the things that were going to
25:01
happen, not because we're geniuses, but because of the
25:04
game theory and the incentive structure.
25:06
So what is going to happen over the next five years, what we're
25:11
going to see is the disintermediation of money.
25:15
There was a major announcement yesterday that I think a lot of
25:19
people didn't pay attention to, but Tether announced their
25:23
wallet. They call it the People's
25:26
wallet. It's a self custodial wallet
25:28
that allows you to send and receive Bitcoin, Tether Gold,
25:33
and Tether USDT. So all of a sudden, no matter
25:37
where you are around the world, you have the ability to receive
25:42
U.S. dollars. You can convert those U.S.
25:44
dollars to Bitcoin, you can convert those U.S. dollars to
25:47
gold, and now you can send those U.S. dollars anywhere around the
25:50
world, right? So if you are from the political
25:54
philosophy of Elizabeth Warren, who wants a central bank digital
25:59
currency very similar to the European Union, it's very
26:02
similar to Christine Lagarde, very similar to the European
26:06
Central Bank, you are freaking the F out.
26:09
You don't want your central bank digital currency to have an
26:13
alternative because to use Christine Lagarde's own words,
26:18
they see that alternative as an escape valve.
26:22
If people have an alternative, if people have an alternative to
26:26
leave the system that steals from them through currency
26:30
debasement, that censors them at the whims of a politician, and
26:35
they have the alternative of something like Bitcoin, which is
26:39
censorship resistant and can't be debased, what do you think
26:43
people are going to do over time?
26:46
They're going to pick Bitcoin because it is the better
26:50
alternative. And this isn't just the theory
26:52
anymore. I've been saying it for years,
26:54
but now we're seeing it play out.
26:56
Now we're seeing it play out in Iran.
26:59
Now what's fascinating though, is again, how the military plays
27:03
into this, how the economy plays into this, how the whole
27:06
geopolitical situation plays into this, because I couldn't
27:09
say. I can't say with 100% certainty
27:13
that there was no, there was no thoughts in the back of Trump's
27:19
head when he decided to go and bomb Iran thinking that, wait a
27:24
second, if we bomb Iran and their hash rate drops, my son's
27:28
Bitcoin mining company is going to become that much more
27:31
profitable. This is where we are in the
27:33
movie, ladies and gentlemen. But as Alex Gladstein wrote in
27:39
his very famous article, which I keep referencing, Bitcoin is a
27:42
Trojan horse for freedom. Everyone is going to be
27:47
inevitably attracted to number go up technology.
27:50
What they don't realize is that with number go up technology
27:55
comes freedom go up technology, and they're inextricably linked.
27:59
You can't separate the 2. So if Trump is letting Bitcoin
28:05
into the US financial system and if people continue to take self
28:11
custody of their Bitcoin, again, he can't resist the incentives
28:15
of number go up. What he's not realizing is
28:19
ultimately people are going to start saying, hey, wait a
28:22
second, why don't I just take self custody of this?
28:25
This Bitcoin is actually like kind of like better money.
28:28
Like it's, it's not a question of if, if this will happen.
28:33
It's a question of when this, when this will happen, how long
28:37
will it take to happen? And it's also a question of what
28:40
is going to happen during the process.
28:42
And I'm really excited because this is going to give us a ton
28:45
of things to talk about for the next 5 years.
28:47
And again, we're going to be your guide through the
28:49
separation of money and state because ultimately that's what
28:52
I'm witnessing. We saw it with the separation of
28:55
information and state and we saw how much they fought back with
28:58
that. Guys, you have no idea how much
29:02
they're going to fight this. They're going to fight.
29:05
This is going to be like the Battle of Stalingrad, man.
29:09
This is going to be like building, building to building
29:14
close quarter battle, literally that type of warfare, like very,
29:21
you know, extremely, you know, day by day, very messy, taking
29:29
one inch at a time. It's not going to be something
29:32
that they're going to be like, oh, you guys found better money
29:34
that requires rules without rulers.
29:36
Well, you know what? We're just going to go gently
29:39
into that good night. They're not going to do that.
29:41
They're going to fight. They're going to fight to retain
29:44
their power to create money for free that everyone else has to
29:48
work for. And I have an article for you
29:51
guys later on in the show that even shows you that Elizabeth
29:55
Warren is now even worried about X.
29:58
And again, remember where Elizabeth Warren stands,
30:01
Elizabeth Warren stands. She is the head of the central
30:05
banking of the Banking Committee for the Democratic Party.
30:09
Now, because Trump went against his base, which is why I was so
30:14
against the Iran war, there is a high probability that we will
30:19
have a Democrat president in the White House in 2028.
30:24
And there's an even higher probability that the Democrats
30:27
will not only take the House in November, but they'll also take
30:32
the Senate, right? So again, they haven't changed
30:36
their stance. They want a central bank,
30:38
digital currency. They want a continuation of the
30:41
Federal Reserve System. And the reason for that is not
30:44
only to be able to control the flows and the issuance of money,
30:50
but also it is a core necessity for them in order to continue a,
30:58
a big part of a big part of their, their, their a big part
31:05
of their political philosophy. Printing money allows wealth
31:11
redistribution and it allows wealth redistribution in a very
31:15
kind of nefarious, kind of like under the table type of
31:19
mechanism. What is that mechanism?
31:21
Well, essentially every time the government prints money, it's a
31:24
wealth redistribution from the lower and middle classes back to
31:28
the wealthy and back to the government.
31:30
Now, the government uses that, of course, to fund welfare, to
31:34
fund political programs. And essentially they go to their
31:38
voters and say, hey, guys, you guys want free healthcare, You
31:41
guys want free college. We got, we got we, we could
31:44
promise you all of these things that are quote UN quote free
31:47
that, of course the US government can't afford because
31:49
it's like $40 trillion in debt. But they can continue to offer
31:53
those things as long as they have the power of the money
31:56
printer. So again, it's so fascinating
32:00
here because it's not only the Iran story, right, but it's also
32:04
Bitcoin getting integrated into these global geopolitical
32:10
massive events. We saw a little tiny inklings of
32:13
that little, tiny little tidbits of that during the, during the
32:20
Russia and Ukraine conflict, but now it's just accelerating with
32:25
the Iran, United States and Israel conflict.
32:29
So that to me is absolutely fascinating.
32:32
And if you still think that Bitcoin is not here to stay,
32:35
ladies and gentlemen, despite all of this happening, you have
32:39
Morgan Stanley, Citibank and other banks, which I can't name
32:42
right now that are all saying, hey, we are offering services to
32:47
custody Bitcoin on behalf of our clients.
32:50
And then you literally have the head of Morgan Stanley that is
32:52
going to be making an appearance at the, sorry, the head of
32:56
digital assets at Morgan Stanley that is going to be making
32:59
appearance at the Bitcoin conference.
33:01
She literally went on legacy financial mainstream TV and
33:04
said, hey, the Bitcoin ETF was the most successful ETF in
33:09
Morgan Stanley's history, right? So right now what Bitcoin is
33:13
doing is that it's incentivizing Wall Street with number go up
33:17
technology while simultaneously freeing the world in the
33:22
process. Bitcoin is literally the Trojan
33:26
horse for freedom. They can't resist number go up,
33:29
but they don't realize that if you allow number go up through
33:33
the door, you also allow freedom go up through the door.
33:36
So that's going to be the battle of our time.
33:38
That's going to be the battle of the next decade.
33:41
You're going to be you're going to see the continuation of Fiat,
33:44
which is central bank digital currencies.
33:47
Those players are going to fight.
33:49
They're going to fight to keep that power of being able to
33:52
create money for free. And then you have the
33:55
alternative, the non sovereign alternative, which is Bitcoin.
33:59
And I could even make the argument that is stable coins as
34:02
well. I would say stable coins is a
34:04
non sovereign alternative. I know it's a digital dollar,
34:07
but again, think about the differences between opening a
34:11
traditional bank account, all the steps that you need to go
34:13
through versus literally just downloading a wallet and having
34:17
the ability to send and receive U.S. dollars in the digital
34:21
form, be a USDT, right? And not to mention the fact that
34:26
the tether guys are hardcore bitcoiners, so they believe in
34:30
the ethos of Bitcoin. So anyways, all of this is
34:33
extremely exciting. It gives Opti and I tons of
34:36
things to talk about, which were super hyped because we were, we
34:40
were definitely going through like a it was a.
34:42
Little slow. It was slowish, period.
34:45
So I'm glad that this type of news is picking up.
34:48
And also to to kind of throw a curveball, ladies and gentlemen,
34:52
I'm going on record and I'm saying this guys, just like this
34:57
bull market was different, this bear market might be playing out
35:01
differently as well. Sailor went sailor.
35:05
Went. We got him.
35:06
We got him, Sailor Went. On the bank List podcast and he
35:09
said verbatim he believes that we might see 100,120 thousand
35:16
dollar Bitcoin by the end of the year, which again would be
35:20
unprecedented, would break the four year cycle theory and we're
35:25
in completely uncharted territory now.
35:28
If you think about what a bottom usually and typically feels
35:31
like, it usually typically feels like despair.
35:35
It feels like boredom. You get these types of comments
35:38
like, oh, you know, I could find better returns somewhere else.
35:41
You got you get this general apathy, right?
35:44
We definitely felt that. We've definitely been feeling
35:47
that for the last two months. Opti the the backstream turned
35:50
off. So you know, this is very
35:54
exciting times, very uncharted territory.
35:58
And we're right in the middle of all this.
36:01
Ladies and gentlemen, if you're a Bitcoiner and you're taking
36:04
Bitcoin in self custody, you're literally, you literally have a
36:07
front row seat to the revolution.
36:10
You are partaking in this revolution, which is extremely,
36:14
extremely exciting. And again, revolution implies
36:18
that you know you have people rising up.
36:20
No, no, no, no, no, Bitcoin is a peaceful revolution.
36:24
You are voting with your wallet. You're voting to opt out of the
36:29
very said system. Anyways, guys, we're going to
36:31
have a guest joining us in about 3 minutes or so.
36:34
So we're going to be right back after the commercial break.
36:38
We have tons to get to. We have two people joining us
36:42
from Bitcoin Magazine. We're going to be talking about
36:45
the conference that's coming up. Very, very exciting stuff.
36:48
We're going to be right back just after the break.
36:52
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stampseed.com store. All right, everybody, before we
39:03
jump into it, I do want to welcome our special guest on
39:06
stage. We got Brandon, CEO of Bitcoin
39:09
Magazine. Brandon, how you doing?
39:10
Welcome to the show. I think you're muted, my friend.
39:15
There we go, There we go. How's it going?
39:17
Man, thanks for thanks for joining us, man.
39:20
Dude, this is the first time we've spoken since you've been
39:23
appointed CEO. So congratulations.
39:26
Thank. You.
39:26
Thank you. No, it's been I guess now we're
39:29
on month 6:00-ish of it. It's been a a wild ride so far.
39:33
But yeah, thank you man. It's been exciting.
39:35
I can imagine man. CEO of, of the world's largest
39:39
Bitcoin media company, Bitcoin BTC, Inc, Bitcoin Magazine and
39:44
of course, the world's largest Bitcoin conference, the, the
39:47
Bitcoin conference, which is just coming up around the
39:50
corner. And that's one of the things I
39:52
wanted to talk to you about, Brandon.
39:53
One of the things that I was like, I'm like, I have no idea
39:56
how, because every single year, ladies and gentlemen, this is
39:59
what happens, right? Is they just won up the year
40:02
prior, right? So, you know, it was like
40:04
President Trump and then last year it but, but it was
40:07
President Trump. He wasn't elected yet.
40:09
He was just a candidate. And then last year it was the
40:12
vice president of the United States.
40:14
I made it to the conference. So that this this year I was
40:16
like, dude, like, like, what are they going to get like Cristiano
40:20
Ronaldo? Are they going to get like Elon
40:22
Musk or something? Like, how do you one up, you
40:24
know, the, the the year prior and the lineup looks really
40:29
effing good, man. And, and it it's interesting
40:31
because it connects with a lot of the stories that we've been
40:34
covering on simply Bitcoin. So of course you got Afroman.
40:37
For anyone who doesn't know, we were covering this the other
40:39
day. Afro Afro man came famous, His
40:42
house got raided. He made an album about it.
40:46
Then the police station that he made an album about sued him.
40:49
Then he won that lawsuit. Like speaking about the cultural
40:53
zeitgeist, like Afroman was on top of it, right?
40:57
And then right now. He is the zeitgeist.
40:59
He is the. Zeitgeist exactly right.
41:02
And then also I saw the time of which his, his keynote's going
41:06
to be, it's going to be at 4:20 on the mainstage.
41:09
Wink, wink. Of course that it wasn't on
41:11
purpose. Guys, of course you have total
41:14
accident. Of course you have Michael
41:16
Saylor, the Chad Saylor, he needs no introduction.
41:19
And then you have Paul Adkins, which is the head of the SEC.
41:24
And then you have Mike Zillig. I hope I pronounced that
41:26
correctly. Who's the chairman of the CFTC.
41:29
Now, on its surface, you'd thinking you're like Nico, you
41:33
know, like, why is that so important?
41:35
Well, if you guys have been paying attention, the recent
41:39
announcements from Paul Atkins coming out of the SEC have been
41:43
extremely pro Bitcoin, pro kind of alternative to the
41:49
traditional banking system, even took a couple of jobs at the
41:52
Federal Reserve, which I found quite interesting.
41:55
So I'm really excited for, for his, for his keynote for, for
41:59
what he's talking about. And again, Mike Silig, again,
42:03
head of the CFTC, again, these are both 2 agencies that during
42:08
the previous administration were so hostile towards Bitcoin.
42:12
And now it's crazy to see that now under the Trump
42:15
administration, you have not only these two agencies, not
42:21
only two, these two agencies having a pro Bitcoin stance, but
42:25
these two agencies are actually even appearing at the Bitcoin
42:28
conference, which is absolutely crazy.
42:31
And then of course you have David Bailey, the CEO and
42:33
chairman of Nakamoto Inc and the chairman of of of BTC Inc as
42:37
well. And then you have the
42:38
president's son, which we were just talking about, Eric Trump,
42:41
the Co founder and chief strategy officer at American
42:44
Bitcoin. And then of course, you have
42:46
Jack Mahler's follow Arduino, Senator Lummis, Adam back and
42:49
many, many more. So Brandon, just teeing you up
42:52
here, man, This is, this is a, this is a, this is a good
42:55
conference. I'm really, really excited to
42:57
hear what these two gentlemen have to say.
42:59
And of course, Afroman and Michael Saylor.
43:02
I, I don't know how he's going to one up his, his previous
43:05
keynotes, man, because the keynote that he made when, when
43:09
Trump was speaking, when there was like millions of people
43:12
watching the Bitcoin magazine live stream that happened to be
43:15
on the live. That's, that was awesome.
43:16
That was fantastic. He said $13 million per coin and
43:21
then he went up to it and he said, oh, no, no, no, it's going
43:23
to be $21 million per coin. So is he going to like say $50
43:27
million per coin? I have no idea how he's going to
43:29
one up the previous thing. It could I, I have, I have a
43:32
suspicion he's going to talk about Stretch, which has been an
43:34
absolute success. Anyways, Brandon, just providing
43:38
a little bit of context. Welcome to the show, dude.
43:41
What has you the most hyped 6 months as the CEO of Bitcoin
43:44
Magazine? How you doing?
43:46
Are you sleeping all right? Are you sleeping at night not?
43:48
Yet not yet. Give me two more weeks until
43:51
after the conference and maybe, maybe I'll sleep.
43:53
All right. But no, it's it's been a lot of
43:55
fun. You highlighted a lot of really
43:57
important narratives that we have kind of going into the
44:00
event. If I could just first of all,
44:02
there's three speakers that we have confirmed that are all
44:06
headliners that we haven't been able to announce yet.
44:09
So, you know, even when I'm looking at that, I'm like, oh
44:12
man, just wait, we've got more in store.
44:15
Not to mention, could you? Could you give us a simply a
44:19
simply Bitcoin exclusive? There's over 1000 people
44:21
watching live brand I'm going to put you on the spot.
44:24
Little tidbit, little bit of a hint.
44:26
I I. Can't give you a hint yet,
44:28
except that they will be spicy. Some people will love it, some
44:33
people will be up in arms, but you know, that's, that's how we
44:38
we play a little bit with the conference.
44:39
You know, we want to bring in ideas, we want to bring in folks
44:43
who, you know, can challenge people, can make them think
44:47
about Bitcoin differently, can embolden their beliefs on
44:49
Bitcoin, etcetera, etcetera. So, yeah, some, some exciting
44:53
folks that again, like we, we already have them locked in.
44:55
We're just waiting to announce them a couple more that, you
44:59
know, we haven't locked in yet, but we're close to locking in.
45:01
That would be even even bigger announcements too.
45:04
So you know, the, the thing with running these conferences is a
45:06
lot of times you just chip away at it, chip away at it, chip
45:10
away at it. And then right towards the end,
45:12
the FOMO period hits and it all comes together at the same time.
45:15
So this is going to be one of those events and but but you
45:19
know, even outside of that, what you've already talked about I
45:22
think is incredibly important. You know, this year going into
45:25
it was definitely a year of like, now that the admin is in
45:31
place, how do we build a better industry and how do we not just
45:34
do it via executive order? How do we have better
45:36
regulation? How do we, you know, keep
45:40
Bitcoin building here? So that's been, I think, a major
45:43
theme and something that we're going to cover quite extensively
45:46
in in the conference. On top of that, you know, you
45:49
cut off right, right when you got to her.
45:51
But Amy Oldenburg from Morgan Stanley, she's the one, you
45:55
know, heading up their ETF that just launched last week, last
45:57
week and, and you know much, much more.
46:02
David Marcus told us he's got a really big announcement.
46:04
So I'm very excited. Some of the stuff we we are
46:08
getting the tidbits ourselves and and we're strapping in
46:11
alongside you guys and and ready to see a show that's.
46:13
Fantastic. Yeah, guys, you definitely don't
46:15
want to miss this. The Bitcoin conference has a
46:17
very special place in my heart. It was the first time I ever had
46:23
a conference appearance. I was on the mainstage of
46:25
Bitcoin 2021. And it was right after Ross made
46:31
his he he recorded something from prison.
46:35
The Bitcoin conference played it and our panel was right after
46:38
that. And that was actually when all
46:39
the media went in there and there's this epic picture of me,
46:44
Svetsky, Nick Hoffman, who's the this was the.
46:49
The toxic Bitcoin maximum. Yeah, toxic Bitcoin doc.
46:52
Yeah, yeah. And it, it, we got this epic
46:55
picture of Rolling Stone and it's just all of us, all four of
46:59
us on stage. One of the things that I said
47:01
was quoted in the Financial Times like it was, it was like
47:04
it was wild guys. And I, I never forget.
47:06
I was, I was like so nervous backstage because I've never
47:10
done, you know, I've never spoken on stage before.
47:12
Now I can do it with my eyes closed.
47:13
But back then, it was like the first time, you know, it simply
47:16
had like, what, like 200 subscribers.
47:18
And I remember going up to Alex Gladstein and I, and I went up
47:23
to him. I was like, dude, like, I've
47:24
never done this before. Like, do you have any advice?
47:27
And he looks at me dead in the eye, and he's like, Nico, not
47:31
that many people have. And he just turns around and
47:33
walks away. And that just made me even more
47:35
nervous. But no, it turned out all right,
47:38
you know? No, it was.
47:40
It was. One of the best conversations of
47:41
the whole event. Yeah.
47:42
So, you know, I was especially excited for that one and it went
47:46
off great. So yeah, no, it's these events.
47:50
If I could like draw a large narrative along them, it's like
47:54
the first couple of them, our, our wins were really that you
47:59
had to pay attention to us. You had to pay attention to
48:01
Bitcoin, right? You know, Bitcoin was not yet in
48:04
the mainstream. It was so easy to ignore.
48:06
And we were able to put together a a massive event that forced
48:11
the world's attention on Bitcoin for a couple of days.
48:14
And that was a huge win. But then it wasn't enough.
48:18
So then we had to be like, OK, now that we have this big flat
48:20
platform, how can we use it in order to further Bitcoin in, in
48:26
this case, you know, United States, but but even some of our
48:28
international conferences in other, in other countries around
48:31
the world. And so, you know, that's been
48:33
the, I think the most recent phase we've been in is like,
48:36
yes, you know, we can get the world's attention on Bitcoin for
48:38
a couple of days. But now how can we make that
48:44
work in Bitcoin's favor and, and not just be sort of a, a check
48:47
box with the media, but truly try and change the world.
48:50
I mean, as crazy as sounds like, try to change the world every
48:53
year for Bitcoin, it's, it's like a monumental task.
48:56
But you know, so far it's, it's worked.
49:00
We've we've had some real wins and I'm really proud of it.
49:02
Absolutely. And I, I definitely think too,
49:04
like we're, we're entering into kind of where Bitcoin is like,
49:11
for lack of another expression penetrating the kind of
49:15
mainstream cultural zeitgeist. Like, you know, I think you guys
49:19
did such a great job bringing in Trump.
49:21
And then last, Ross's speech last year, for me, it was full
49:25
circle because again, I saw his recording, you know, right
49:29
before I went on stage. And then seeing him close out
49:32
the conference, for me, it was like a full circle in my Bitcoin
49:35
career, in my Bitcoin journey, seeing that happen.
49:38
And then of course, it was so emotional, so heartfelt.
49:41
And this was all part of it. Guys, like this is something
49:44
that you guys have to understand.
49:45
And we were talking a lot about this last year during the
49:47
election. Like if it wasn't for the
49:50
Bitcoiners voting bloc, Ross would still be in prison today,
49:55
right? Like, I, I like that is
49:57
something that people don't understand.
49:58
Like Operation Choke .2 point O would still be in full force.
50:03
Now, I know not everything has been fixed, but we've made a
50:06
tremendous amount of progress. Like Opti and I were joking, you
50:10
know, before the election, like we were seriously considering
50:13
moving to El Salvador because we were like, dude, they're going
50:15
to like literally put us in a gulag because of, you know, the,
50:18
the amount of, of, of regulatory hurdles that was being thrown at
50:23
our industry. So, yeah, it was it was the
50:25
epicenter of, you know, the epicenter of of what was the
50:30
latest going on with Bitcoin Trump the the year before
50:35
Nashville, then the the vice president in Vegas.
50:38
And then this year, I think it's going to be huge.
50:41
Again, the head of the SEC, the head of the CFTC and as you
50:45
mentioned, the head of digital assets for Morgan Stanley, which
50:49
I think is going to be enormous. That's major news, everybody.
50:52
Morgan Stanley when she went on TV and she said like black
50:55
BlackRock, like, I don't think people understand the
50:57
significance of this. Morgan Stanley admitted that
51:01
their Bitcoin ETF was the most successful ETF launch that
51:04
they've ever had. Right.
51:06
That is why they're at the conference.
51:07
It's not because, you know, they, they read the Bitcoin
51:09
standard and they're like, OK, you know, fix the money, fix the
51:12
world. No, they're like the, they're
51:14
attracted to number go up technology.
51:16
They can they, they think they can make a they, they think they
51:18
can make money on this. Yeah, man, all of the.
51:21
All of the like, Twitter trolls and, you know, like the black
51:24
pill sort of Bitcoin plebs that are like, oh, you know, Bitcoin
51:28
is getting captured by Wall Street.
51:31
It's like no, Bitcoin is capturing Wall Street.
51:34
Like we are pulling them in. They went from ignoring us, they
51:39
don't care about Bitcoin to laughing at us, to fighting us.
51:42
And now they're joining us because they have to, because
51:46
the, the Bitcoin ETF for BlackRock, that's the best
51:48
performing ETF, you know, in, in the history of ETFs.
51:51
Now Morgan Stanley's got theirs. Now even you saw this week
51:54
Goldman Sachs is tiptoeing in with their, you know, first
51:58
Bitcoin. I guess I don't, I don't know,
52:01
it's not exactly a Bitcoin ETF, but it's some sort of return or,
52:03
or income ETF on Bitcoin. So it's like it's slowly but
52:07
surely happening right now before our eyes.
52:10
And and with the crazy part is too, it's like we're in a bear
52:13
market, you know, like this is supposed to be the the slow sort
52:16
of pick up the pieces. Let's let's move forward as an
52:20
industry after another kind of crazy cycle.
52:23
And instead you're seeing all this happen in real time in
52:28
blend, like what's supposed to be the bear market.
52:29
So that's also a a really crazy trend in all of this.
52:33
It makes me wonder about like the four year cycle and, and
52:36
just how that's going to match up to previous cycles.
52:38
But yeah, man, it, it's, it's truly nuts.
52:42
Yeah. And, and by the way, guys, the
52:44
bank that I, I couldn't name, but Brandon named it So I'm,
52:47
I'm, I'm out, I'm out of the woods.
52:49
It, it is Goldman Sachs. It, it was Goldman Sachs.
52:52
Goldman Sachs has been working on, you know, a Bitcoin related
52:55
product. This is what I've been hinting
52:57
for about for many, many weeks now.
53:00
Brandon made it just public knowledge, so now I can comment
53:03
on it. Well, it.
53:03
It came out. It came out on Twitter like
53:05
yesterday. Perfect.
53:06
But yeah, that's what I was talking about for the many, many
53:09
weeks. And again, the fact that Goldman
53:12
is is releasing a Bitcoin related product is a very big
53:15
deal because again, this is one, this is the most prestigious
53:19
wealth management bank in the world, I would say.
53:22
And they're very conservative, right?
53:24
So the fact that they are basically saying, listen, you
53:28
know, in a way, this is like a, a, a stamp of approval, right?
53:31
So Brandon, can you talk to me a little bit about any other kind
53:35
of activities that you guys have around the conference?
53:38
What's going to make this conference special?
53:40
Because every single year you guys do something different
53:44
every, every single year. You guys try to up the bar like
53:48
always and you guys do it very successfully.
53:50
So anything that you have in your mind that you know, you're,
53:54
you're, you're really excited about in terms of Bitcoin 2026
53:58
and guys, you do want to get your tickets quickly because the
54:01
prices do go up again, if you use promo code simply when
54:04
you're buying your tickets, you will get a 10% discount.
54:07
But are there any special events that you're looking for other
54:11
than of course, the fantastic speakers?
54:13
Of course, simply Bitcoin's going to be there.
54:15
We're going to have a podcasting booth.
54:17
Very excited about that as well. Maybe you get Brandon to do an
54:21
interview with me. But I know you're going to be
54:23
super busy, but hopefully I can get Brandon to do an interview
54:25
with me. Is there any other type of like
54:28
special kind of side events or special events that you guys
54:30
have planned for Bitcoin 2026 this year in Vegas?
54:34
Yeah. No, it's a great question.
54:35
So there's a few things going on that I would say are like broad
54:39
theme tracks, we'll call them around the event.
54:43
Obviously we're we're kicking things off with code and country
54:45
again this year. Again, last year it was very
54:48
sort of, hey, we're from the government and we're here to
54:52
help. This year, it's very much like
54:54
a, hey, what are you guys doing for us?
54:57
And, and you know, we're, we're having round tables with these
54:59
folks. We're having, you know, long
55:01
discussions. They're not just showing up and
55:03
leaving like they are there for the event to learn from the
55:06
industry and to make sure they're building the right way.
55:08
I mean, one thing I'll just add, Atkins was on the board of, of,
55:13
you know, some of the major crypto companies in the space
55:16
already. Mike Selig was, I think he
55:19
worked at etoro and Paradigm before he became CFTC chairman.
55:24
Like these guys are not just talking heads like, oh, Bitcoin
55:29
is good. These guys are like legit
55:31
Bitcoiners in and of themselves. And and so like they want to
55:36
create wins for the industry and and you know, there's other
55:39
folks like I can't mention yet who, you know, will also be
55:42
having similar conversations that are going to be there.
55:45
So that's a massive track. We also have Deal day this year,
55:50
which is, you know, our first time in trying to sort of
55:53
leverage the mainstream sort of Wall Street attention on Bitcoin
55:58
to help a variety of different companies that are in the
56:03
process of doing major deals, going public, underwriting,
56:06
investment, what have you. And there's going to be some
56:10
some pretty important meetings and presentations on that that I
56:14
think are are going to be great for the whole industry.
56:17
Outside of that, you know, for the regular plebs, there's some
56:19
really fun side events this year.
56:21
I know there's another hostile takeover.
56:23
I think there is like an awards show that's being put on, you
56:27
know, we try and like we'll have an after party every night, but
56:29
we try and let people build their own post event, you know,
56:33
sort of side event schedules and happy hours and all of that.
56:36
We want we want everyone to be involved in however they want.
56:39
So there's tons going on. I think there's already a bunch
56:43
of excel sheets floating around. They're kind of our every year.
56:46
So if you're coming, you want to make sure that you get your eyes
56:49
on that. And we should, we should have,
56:51
you know, at least a short list of them on the website.
56:54
And then, yeah, I mean, dude, the the beauty of the event is
56:57
you could go all day, all three days and not manage to see
57:00
everything we're putting on, not manage to see all the companies
57:03
that are there. There's just so much.
57:05
I mean, this industry is so massive.
57:06
And so you know, it's it's going to be a great experience.
57:10
And the other thing I'll say is like this is a bear market
57:14
event, right? You know, this is, it doesn't
57:16
feel like a bear market for a lot of ways, but it is a bear
57:18
market. And what that means is, is this
57:20
is the best event, for instance, to get a job in the industry.
57:23
The jobs that are available now are going to be the, you know,
57:27
working on and building the products that are going to fuel
57:29
the next cycle. You're not entering in, in the
57:33
in the period of sort of a bull market where there's tons of
57:35
crazy money flying around and those jobs end up getting like,
57:39
you know, removed or laid off in the bear market.
57:41
Like this is foundational growth moment.
57:45
So this is the best time to go network.
57:47
It's also when the egos are a little bit chopped down of some
57:52
of the biggest folks in the space, you know, during during
57:54
the bull market, there's just so much happening, it's hard to get
57:58
in contact. Everyone's kind of running to
57:59
the next meeting in these bear market events.
58:02
You get to actually hang out, get to know people, get to build
58:07
your network and and ultimately like leverage that to I, I've
58:12
heard time and time again, you know, life changing sort of
58:14
moves that people make for themselves based on, you know,
58:17
who they meet and, and what they do at the Bitcoin conference.
58:20
Absolutely love it. Opti, you want to chime in here
58:22
bro 'cause you've been well, I just.
58:24
Want to add that literally Nico came to me at 2022, I believe it
58:31
was, and was like, hey, do you want to join Simply Bitcoin?
58:35
He had like a whole spiel. Literally after like 2 minutes
58:38
I'm like yeah dude, like I'm in, I'm totally in.
58:40
And here we are now, I don't know what four years later.
58:44
So like whether it's you're going there to get a job, you
58:49
know, from the companies that are there or you're just meeting
58:51
friends that you've built relationships on the Internet.
58:54
You never know. It could build something like
58:56
this. That's literally how I am here
59:00
today is because Nico came to me at 2022 in Miami was like, join
59:04
me at simply. And I'm like, all right, dude,
59:07
say less, I'm in. And yeah, here we are.
59:10
Like we are literally a living testament to that idea.
59:13
Yeah. Absolutely.
59:13
I I think you, you, you have to go to it.
59:15
It's a rite of passage. I see so many people on Twitter
59:19
guys, this is and then I, I love Tatum's like like response to
59:24
someone Brandon, I'm sure you saw it, right.
59:26
Just like everyone was like, oh man, like, you know, like like,
59:30
you know, the, the whole pleb narrative, which is like, I have
59:32
these sellouts and like whatever.
59:34
It's like, dude, like this is like the one time in the year I
59:37
get to like actually meet my online friends in person in the
59:41
sick venue and city and we get to party and drink and have a
59:45
good time. If you want to stay at home
59:47
because of your, you know, quote UN quote principal pleb,
59:51
whatever, this is not, you know, have fun, right, You're going to
59:54
end up watching the conference online anyhow.
59:57
So well, dude, and and like as well.
1:00:00
I'll just add there are. So many bitcoiners who have like
1:00:05
different ideas or different backgrounds or, you know, what
1:00:09
got them into Bitcoin. I mean, just think about like
1:00:11
the the plebs in, you know, the US versus the ones in Europe
1:00:16
versus, you know, the ones in the Middle East versus.
1:00:18
The one in China? You know, the CE OS, Wall Street
1:00:23
countries, nation states, I mean, you know, energy
1:00:26
providers, the list goes on and on.
1:00:28
There's so many people that intersect with Bitcoin in their
1:00:31
own individual, you know, for their, for their own reasons.
1:00:34
And our job is the conference is to try and cover all of those
1:00:38
stories all like get every single person who's into Bitcoin
1:00:41
one step further on their Bitcoin journey.
1:00:43
And So what that means is like, dude, we're going to have
1:00:46
speakers and we're going to have content that, you know, on the
1:00:50
optimistic side, you couldn't care less about.
1:00:52
And on the, you know, downside, you probably hate, you know,
1:00:54
frankly, like we're going to have stuff that you as a
1:00:57
Bitcoiner and how you look at Bitcoin, you are completely
1:00:59
opposed to. That's OK.
1:01:01
Like you don't have to go see that content.
1:01:03
You don't have to listen to them.
1:01:04
You can disagree with them. You can listen to them and
1:01:07
sharpen your own sort of steel man opposition.
1:01:11
Like we're a marketplace of ideas.
1:01:13
That's what Bitcoin's all about. And so, you know, it's, it's OK
1:01:16
to not like every speaker that you see.
1:01:18
It's OK to not like every session that's in the agenda.
1:01:21
It doesn't mean that you shouldn't show up and be part of
1:01:24
this community. And like, you know, we're
1:01:26
entering into a world where, you know, everyone likes to talk
1:01:30
about AI, Everyone likes to talk about how it's changing
1:01:32
everything. But dude, I mean, between AI and
1:01:35
just the algorithms out there, it is so hard to connect as a
1:01:39
community anymore. You just get blasted with
1:01:42
thoughts and, you know, algorithmic just headwinds of
1:01:46
trying to talk about Bitcoin. And this is the one place where
1:01:50
you actually get to go talk to 20,030 thousand other Bitcoiners
1:01:55
all at the same time and, and just hang out and like build
1:01:58
relationships. And so that's what that's what
1:02:00
life's all about. You know, it's like you just
1:02:01
want to meet people that are interesting, that are aligned
1:02:04
with you and build a relationship with them and live
1:02:06
your life. So I it's, it's just, it's, it's
1:02:09
not even the same realm as like a a Twitter pleb sort of
1:02:14
dispute, I would say. Absolutely.
1:02:16
I 100% agree with that. It's totally worth it.
1:02:19
Guys, if you guys are trying to meet, again, some of your
1:02:22
favorite Bitcoiners or trying to get a job in the industry,
1:02:25
there's literally no better event to do that than the
1:02:29
Bitcoin conference. And every single year it
1:02:31
continues to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
1:02:34
So hope to see you guys in Las Vegas, NV at Bitcoin 2026.
1:02:39
It's coming up literally in 11 days.
1:02:44
So it's right around the right around the corner.
1:02:46
I, I, I, I maybe I coined this term, I call it the Bitcoin
1:02:50
Super Bowl weekend, right? Because it's, it really is that
1:02:53
like it's three days of just non-stop networking panels,
1:02:57
interviews, at least for me, it's just interview, interview,
1:03:00
interview, panel, whatever. But again, it depends like what
1:03:04
what are you trying to get in the industry?
1:03:06
This is the place to be. This is the this is the event
1:03:08
that you have to go for. This is the biggest Bitcoin
1:03:10
conference on the face of the earth.
1:03:12
Don't want to miss it this year. Brandon, thank you so much for
1:03:14
joining us on Simply Bitcoin Live, man, Really appreciate it.
1:03:17
And I'll see you in Vegas in a couple days.
1:03:20
See. You soon, man.
1:03:21
Thank you. All right.
1:03:23
Everybody well, we still got a ton of news for you guys we have
1:03:28
a video from Larry leopard coming up and I I do want to
1:03:33
break it down it in it's interesting the way that he
1:03:36
framed it. He was talking about the paper
1:03:39
Bitcoin narrative and how paper Bitcoin is.
1:03:43
You know how despite there being paper Bitcoin, it could actually
1:03:48
work in two ways. You could actually see paper
1:03:50
Bitcoin being used to suppress the price.
1:03:53
But eventually, like a beach ball, eventually, you know, you
1:03:57
might see an explosive run up. So there's a very, very
1:04:00
interesting clip of Larry Leopard.
1:04:02
I want to play it for you guys and we will play it for you guys
1:04:04
just right after the break. We're going to be right back in
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All right everybody, I told you guys I have a clip of the one,
1:07:19
the only legendary Larry Leopard.
1:07:22
Let's check out what he has to say.
1:07:24
Paper Bitcoin by definition involves A counterparty, the
1:07:28
only form of pure money that is, well, the only two forms don't
1:07:32
involve A counterparty are Bitcoin in self custody and gold
1:07:35
in self custody. And so, you know, you can play
1:07:38
all these paper games until, you know, somebody's arm gets shot
1:07:42
off or blown off and then it's not fun anymore, right?
1:07:45
And so as Caitlin Long says, you know, some G sib is going to
1:07:48
fail because they're going to be on the wrong side of the Bitcoin
1:07:50
paper trade. And I think that's possible.
1:07:52
And so, you know, that's and it's the paper, by the way,
1:07:55
that's creating the rough ride and the ups and downs.
1:07:58
And I mean, we should probably be higher right now than we are,
1:08:01
but the paper, you know, the paper Bitcoin has suppressed us.
1:08:04
But guess what? That works in both directions.
1:08:07
When the paper when when the people who are short that paper
1:08:09
realize they're in a world of fucking trouble and have to turn
1:08:12
around and buy coins that don't exist, That's how you go from 67
1:08:16
to 400 and that's and that's common.
1:08:19
I mean that that move is common. So you know.
1:08:21
When tell me when you know. Soon, sooner than sooner than a
1:08:27
lot of people think. And I, I mean, really the only
1:08:29
remaining criticism of Bitcoin as money is its volatility.
1:08:33
That's really the only remaining 1.
1:08:35
And I think it is generally speaking, going down over time.
1:08:39
But you know, the paper games are going to have to die and
1:08:41
we're going to have to see more and more organizations that are
1:08:45
involved in paper coming, coming a cropper.
1:08:47
And they will, I think they will.
1:08:51
And I, you know, so I, I don't, I don't worry about, you know,
1:08:54
Bitcoin becoming gold 2 dot O from a paper point of view, I
1:08:58
don't think it'll happen. So.
1:09:01
So. Very similar.
1:09:02
Also shout out to our boy Adam O'Brien, CEO and founder of
1:09:06
Bitcoin. Well, asking the question that
1:09:09
everyone was thinking, Yeah. When, when, when when is this
1:09:12
going to? Happen and I think everyone is
1:09:14
thinking that or at least it's in the back of their minds.
1:09:17
But what I will say ladies and gentlemen, is this is exactly
1:09:22
what I've been saying right in regards to the paper, the the
1:09:25
the paper Bitcoin right So yes, I I definitely do believe that
1:09:29
there is paper Bitcoin. But here's the thing about paper
1:09:30
Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is absolutely scarce, unlike gold,
1:09:35
unlike gold, eventually people are going to be like, wait a
1:09:41
second, why is there 25,000,000 Bitcoin 42?
1:09:46
Why is there, why is there 42,000,000 Bitcoin, as Opti
1:09:49
says, like that doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
1:09:53
And what is going to happen as Larry Leparte just described,
1:09:56
you're going to have a lot of people there's it's just going
1:09:59
to be a digital bank run. That's what's going to happen,
1:10:03
right? And with a digital bank run,
1:10:05
guess what? All those companies that are
1:10:07
holding paper Bitcoin and their depositors are going to say,
1:10:11
wait a second, like I don't actually believe that you.
1:10:13
This is what happened with FTX, by the way.
1:10:17
I don't believe you have the Bitcoin that you said you have.
1:10:20
Give it to me. Yeah.
1:10:23
Yeah. That that's what happens with
1:10:24
paper Bitcoin, right. And I think that once that plays
1:10:27
out for the first time, I think a lot of these institutions that
1:10:30
are potentially playing paper bit paper Bitcoin games, I think
1:10:35
you're going to be a little bit hesitant about doing it next
1:10:38
time for sure. Right.
1:10:41
So absolutely, master class piece.
1:10:45
And Larry just dropping the sauce.
1:10:46
I think we're going to have him on the show in May.
1:10:48
I think it'd be great to just pick Gary, pick Larry's brain on
1:10:53
this. And maybe we get Caitlin and and
1:10:56
Larry. I think that'd be a dope.
1:10:57
That'd be dope. Opti, I want to get your
1:10:59
thoughts on all this. Yeah.
1:11:00
Obviously we we've talked about this, but I think when like
1:11:04
Larry said, when a lot of people think about paper Bitcoin, they
1:11:08
usually only think about it in terms of price suppression and
1:11:11
saying it's, it's a bad thing. And look, I'm not for fractional
1:11:15
reserve banking by any means. But there is a positive here, at
1:11:20
least for us holders that take our Bitcoin into self custody is
1:11:24
when there is a bank run on Bitcoin, which we know
1:11:26
eventually will happen again. How Finney said this pretty much
1:11:31
like a week after Bitcoin was created.
1:11:34
Eventually there will be fractional reserve Bitcoin banks
1:11:37
and full reserve Bitcoin banks. But when that does happen, and
1:11:41
if you aren't using these products and you do have Bitcoin
1:11:44
in self custody, that's when we see I don't I don't even know
1:11:47
what's bigger than a Omega candle, Godzilla candle, God
1:11:50
candles, what whatever, whatever the candle's going to be, it's
1:11:53
going to be very violent. Now I think the most interesting
1:11:57
part was the very end of this where and and you might not
1:12:01
understand kind of what he was, what Larry was saying, but when
1:12:05
he said. The.
1:12:07
Reason Bitcoin will not end up as gold 2 point O is for this
1:12:12
very reason and I get a lot of Flack for this on the show.
1:12:16
I get a lot of Flack from a lot of gold bugs or people that are
1:12:19
kind of Bitcoin and gold centric is I usually say, hey, look, I
1:12:23
like gold, I wear gold. I just don't think it's money
1:12:26
for the digital, you know, 21st century.
1:12:31
And in my opinion, and maybe it's cynical, maybe it's a
1:12:35
little misguided, maybe it's just biased because I am a
1:12:37
Bitcoiner and it's a good talking point.
1:12:39
But from my vantage point, gold failed and that's why we got
1:12:44
Fiat money in the 1st place. So that's literally what Larry
1:12:47
was saying with that idea that Bitcoin isn't going to be gold.
1:12:50
2 point O yes, we are seeing a lot of products and vehicles to
1:12:56
add more paper Bitcoin into the system, but bitcoins inherent
1:13:01
scarcity and I mean you can you can argue the idea of inherent
1:13:04
and you know, inherent value or incent.
1:13:07
Wait, yeah. Is it inherent why I'm blanking
1:13:09
right now? But you can.
1:13:11
You can argue. Not enough nicotine?
1:13:15
They don't know my secret power. It's caffeine and nicotine.
1:13:20
Anyways, I do not endorse that for the children watching one of
1:13:25
the very strong mechanisms and I was actually having this
1:13:28
conversation this morning is when the market, when all of the
1:13:33
investors in Bitcoin, and I I mean that by the term investors
1:13:37
in Bitcoin, not people that think Bitcoin has money, but
1:13:39
investors in Bitcoin that just want Fiat games.
1:13:42
Once they understand what scarcity means, what 21 million
1:13:47
hard cap actually means and the implications of that, then
1:13:51
you're going to really start to see AI think a stronger move
1:13:55
into Bitcoin narrative of it being a hard money just, you
1:14:01
know, hard cap hard money, full stop.
1:14:04
What we're seeing right now is a lot of people are still playing
1:14:06
Fiat games with Bitcoin and there is a potential for
1:14:10
creating even more paper Bitcoin or or creating Fiat on top of
1:14:15
Bitcoin, which some very prominent Bitcoiners are, you
1:14:19
could argue pushing sort of that narrative.
1:14:21
But once the world wakes up to what scarcity means and that
1:14:26
they can't actually get away with these games for that much
1:14:28
longer, it will also add another Omega God candle on top of it.
1:14:34
And so I I truly agree with what Larry said that we are not
1:14:38
building, you know, digital gold here.
1:14:40
This is not gold 2.0. We are not going to fall into
1:14:44
the same problem, the same trappings that gold fell into
1:14:47
and recreate Fiat. Once people fully transfer to
1:14:55
the Bitcoin standard, lot of us call it hyper bitcoinization,
1:14:59
you know, the Bitcoin standard. Then a lot of that old thinking
1:15:04
will fade away and we will be living in a world that just uses
1:15:08
Bitcoin as money. Now it could, it could be
1:15:11
towards the end of our lives, who knows?
1:15:13
That's why I keep saying we might be in this for a long
1:15:15
time. It might not happen in our
1:15:17
lives. It could be our grandchildren.
1:15:19
But at a certain point, there will be a collective
1:15:22
consciousness this, you know, collective consensus on the idea
1:15:26
of like, wow, what were we doing with Fiat money?
1:15:29
Like, what? What, what crazy experiment did
1:15:33
we get ourselves into? Yeah, exactly.
1:15:36
Like we're not there yet because a lot of people are still
1:15:39
looking at Bitcoin as an investment, but there will be a
1:15:44
point where we fully let go of the old thinking and it's
1:15:48
Bitcoin as money. It's not gold, 2 point O, it's
1:15:50
not digital gold or whatever the narratives.
1:15:53
It's just Bitcoin as the hardest money in the world. 21 million
1:15:57
hard cap, you know, SAT to the standard everything priced in
1:16:00
SAT, but it'll be a little bit I want.
1:16:03
To talk about this last comment, self custody will be illegal and
1:16:07
that's a perfect segue for the next news segment where we're
1:16:13
we're going to be covering this. We covered it kind of in the
1:16:15
beginning of the show where I was, I was talking to you guys
1:16:18
about where we are in the movie. So essentially we kind of won
1:16:24
the war of the disintermediation of the information and state.
1:16:28
What we're heading into is, I would say the war between the
1:16:32
disintermediation of money and states.
1:16:36
But it's, it's interesting because essentially Bitcoin has
1:16:42
infiltrated and has incentivized many people that are part of the
1:16:50
state, right? So again, this is a bottom up
1:16:54
peaceful revolution. This isn't when I say
1:16:57
revolution, revolution has this like connotation where it's like
1:17:00
has to be like, you know, you have to pick up the rifles, you
1:17:03
have to rise up, you have to bring the pitchforks and the
1:17:05
torches. No, no, no, no, I'm not talking
1:17:07
about that type of revolution. This is a peaceful revolution.
1:17:10
And the way that we win this is literally getting other people
1:17:14
to see the benefits of Bitcoin. They benefit from them too.
1:17:19
It's aligned incentives. Everybody wins, right?
1:17:22
And again, you want people that are Bitcoiners within the
1:17:27
government, within the state, because again, they're not going
1:17:30
to act against their own self-interest.
1:17:33
And at the end of the day, human beings are driven by incentives.
1:17:37
Ultimately, no one is better than their incentives.
1:17:40
So I do want to cover this topic.
1:17:41
It's a perfect segue where someone said in the chat Bitcoin
1:17:46
and self custody will eventually be made illegal.
1:17:49
That is 100% what they're going to try and I'll make the case
1:17:52
for that just right after the break.
1:17:56
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1:19:35
now. Why am I talking about this?
1:19:38
Like why should you care? Like why does this matter?
1:19:42
Like what is Nico being a panican is?
1:19:51
Nico being a. Panican lol So guys, part of the
1:19:57
reason that simply Bitcoin, we were the first by the way, I
1:20:01
remember my tweet I said. And I had it in saved in drafts
1:20:05
for the longest time, but I didn't believe that the Overton
1:20:08
window had sufficiently shifted enough for me to send out that
1:20:11
tweet without getting major bull black.
1:20:14
And I posted, I said it's probably not a good idea that
1:20:17
the Biden administration wins another election if you're in
1:20:21
the Bitcoin industry. And that tweet absolutely blew
1:20:24
up. And then shortly shortly after,
1:20:27
you had Trump going out on stage saying basically, hey, you know,
1:20:32
I'm going to free Ross Albrecht. And then he says I'm going to
1:20:34
get central bank digital currencies.
1:20:36
And then he got such good feedback from the crowd on those
1:20:39
things that he tested it. I never forget.
1:20:42
It was like yesterday he tested a little bit.
1:20:44
He was like, And also by the way, I will protect your right
1:20:51
to self custody. I'll protect your Bitcoin.
1:20:53
And the crowd went wild. And then that led one event, led
1:20:56
to another. And then he ended up at the
1:20:57
Bitcoin conference. And we were just talking to
1:20:59
Brandon about that, right? But unfortunately, Trump's
1:21:04
presidency hasn't gone exactly the way that his base wanted it
1:21:12
to go. And one of the main issues here
1:21:16
is that Trump, Trump won on specifically running on no more
1:21:22
wars in the Middle East. He didn't want any more wars in
1:21:27
the Middle East. He said specifically no more
1:21:30
wars in the Middle East. That was like one of his
1:21:33
campaign promises. And now we find ourselves in a
1:21:38
war in the Middle East. And that led to rising gas
1:21:41
prices. So these are all things that he
1:21:43
ran on that he walked back, right?
1:21:47
Now I have to give President Trump a lot of credit because
1:21:50
from the Bitcoin industry perspective, he's done a lot of
1:21:54
good. But from his core voter base,
1:21:58
right, it does seem kind of like a, you know, it, it does seem
1:22:05
kind of like a betrayal, right? And also not to mention the fact
1:22:09
that now he's going like back-to-back with the Pope,
1:22:14
right? So if you're a Catholic, right?
1:22:17
Like it's probably not a good idea to put a, a truth social
1:22:20
post of you as Jesus healing someone and then you basically
1:22:25
calling out the Pope because a major part of Trump's voter base
1:22:31
were Catholics, right? So like that probably wasn't
1:22:35
good a good idea. So there's a lot of things that
1:22:38
the Trump administration did that exactly weren't very good
1:22:43
for his voter base, right? Like what it does is it's, it's
1:22:47
not that his voter base is going to vote for the other side.
1:22:51
It's that they're going to, they're not going to feel
1:22:54
motivated to get out to vote. So why am I turning orange?
1:22:59
Sorry. You look white.
1:23:00
I'm trying to. I'm trying to adjust.
1:23:02
And like, what's happening now is essentially, we're heading
1:23:08
into the midterms. I would say Trump did not do as
1:23:12
good of a job as he could have done in terms of making his
1:23:17
voter base happy. I think he made Washington
1:23:21
happy. I definitely think he made the
1:23:24
bureaucracy, not all of the bureaucracy, but some of the
1:23:26
bureaucracy happy. And then you can get into, you
1:23:30
know, the rabbit hole of what him him attacking Tucker Carlson
1:23:36
and Candace Owens and Alex Jones, which were some of his
1:23:39
biggest, some of his biggest proponents.
1:23:42
I don't think Trump would have got elected if it wasn't for the
1:23:45
support of these people and then going out there and basically
1:23:48
calling them out again, like, regardless of who's right and
1:23:53
who's wrong. Yeah, that.
1:23:54
Post was actually hilarious like like.
1:23:56
It was all these posts were bro the posts of him act like it is
1:24:00
blasphemous, blasphemous, but the posts of him like as Jesus
1:24:04
healing someone like dude like you know.
1:24:08
I don't know, I like the Alex Jones checker game.
1:24:09
This post better. That shit was so funny.
1:24:11
If. You're if you're if you're, you
1:24:13
know, a Christian, you're looking at that.
1:24:15
You're like dude, like you think you're God and then the the.
1:24:22
Let's not talk about the truth. Let's let's keep it moving, OK?
1:24:25
So the reason I'm saying all of this is Trump is dividing his
1:24:28
base. That's not good.
1:24:30
Half of his base. They feel disillusioned.
1:24:32
MAGA, I, I, I don't even know if that's the thing anymore.
1:24:36
And now it is. If you're like over 50 like.
1:24:39
Now it looks like the Democrats like they had it so in the bag,
1:24:44
you know, now it looks like the Democrats, according to
1:24:47
Polymarket, have a 61% chance of winning the US presidential
1:24:52
election in 2028 and they have an even bigger chance of winning
1:24:58
the House and the Senate in November.
1:25:00
Now, the reason I'm bringing all of this stuff up is Senator
1:25:04
Warren stands is the head of the Senate Banking Committee for the
1:25:11
Democrats, and she is not a fan of Bitcoin.
1:25:16
So if you think Operation Choke .2 point O is done, it might be
1:25:21
done, but we might start seeing Operation Choke .3 point O.
1:25:26
And then this time I think it's going to be a much bigger deal
1:25:29
because Bitcoin is so heavily integrated into the traditional
1:25:34
financial system. By 2028, by 2028, it will be
1:25:39
undeniable, so for them to kind of reverse a lot of these
1:25:43
things, they're really going to have to pull out all the stops
1:25:46
and they're going to have to be a lot more aggressive than they
1:25:49
were during Operation Choke .2 point O.
1:25:52
Now what's working against them is that the youth by and large
1:25:59
completely support Bitcoin. They're 100% behind Bitcoin,
1:26:05
they support Bitcoin, they believe in Bitcoin.
1:26:08
So they're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place.
1:26:11
And this is what they tried to do during the Kamala election.
1:26:14
During the Kamala election, they realized how unpopular it was to
1:26:18
be anti crypto, right? Like Elizabeth Warren released
1:26:22
her thing, anti crypto army. Like, dude, like that's not
1:26:25
going to connect with anybody under the age of 40, right?
1:26:30
And then they were like, yeah, Kamala kind of accepts Bitcoin.
1:26:34
What kind of whatever. But there was never an official
1:26:37
release by the Democratic Party. They never had an official
1:26:41
stance on Bitcoin. So that's the that's the crux of
1:26:48
the issue. So anyways, why am I bringing
1:26:51
all this up? This is kind of like a
1:26:52
foreshadowing of this. US Senator Elizabeth Warren
1:26:56
warns X money poses risks to consumers, national security and
1:27:00
financial stability ahead of launch.
1:27:01
Where have we heard that before? It's like she copy pasted the
1:27:06
same exact excuses that she used for Bitcoin and she's using that
1:27:10
for X money. Now, the reason that's a problem
1:27:13
for X money is because X is a centralized platform.
1:27:17
The reason that's not a that's not a risk for Bitcoin is
1:27:19
because Bitcoin is a decentralized protocol.
1:27:24
That doesn't mean, though, that they won't go after Bitcoin
1:27:28
companies and Bitcoiners, right? Think about it.
1:27:31
It was CZ Arthur Hayes so many, you know, Bitcoin slash crypto
1:27:37
entrepreneurs were literally jailed during not to mention the
1:27:41
samurai guys who were literally jailed under the previous
1:27:45
administration. So I'm just giving you guys a
1:27:50
taste of what I think is going to happen over the next, you
1:27:57
know, 2223 years or so. And I got to say, as much as I
1:28:04
love what Trump has done, I think this pendulum swing back
1:28:11
is going to be like brutal to say the least.
1:28:15
And it it doesn't help that he launched meme coins.
1:28:18
It doesn't, it doesn't help that his kids are so heavily involved
1:28:22
in, in the industry and, and all of that stuff.
1:28:25
Because when this pendulum swings back, like, boy, oh boy.
1:28:29
I don't think it's just going to be Elon under investigation.
1:28:31
I think it's going to be Bitcoin companies under investigation.
1:28:34
I think anything, anything related to Bitcoin slash crypto
1:28:37
is going to be villainized, demonized and they're just
1:28:42
they're going to be 10 times more aggressive than they were
1:28:45
during operation Choke .2 point O.
1:28:47
That was the that was the ending story of of today's show.
1:28:52
It's just it's it's important to keep an eye out as single issue
1:28:55
voters, guys, I'm going to continue supporting the parties
1:29:00
that, you know, obviously support the Bitcoin slash crypto
1:29:05
platforms, but or policies. But again, it doesn't effing
1:29:12
help when you go against your base doesn't help, doesn't help.
1:29:19
And it's unfortunate that it's bipartisan in this manner.
1:29:22
Hopefully that changes in the future.
1:29:25
But I see a freight train, I see a policy, regulatory freight
1:29:28
train coming at full speed out for vengeance.
1:29:32
And they're going to use everything and anything to, I
1:29:37
think, I think Trump's going to get impeached again.
1:29:41
And especially if they take the House, they're definitely going
1:29:42
to impeach him. So any type of crypto policy,
1:29:46
forget about it. That's going to be frozen
1:29:49
essentially. So anyhow, I'm going to leave it
1:29:52
at that, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in
1:29:53
if you guys. Can I make a joke here real
1:29:55
quick? Yeah, sure.
1:29:57
Remember when they used to fight Bitcoin and Bitcoin went up and
1:30:00
then we had a president that embraced Bitcoin and Bitcoin
1:30:02
went down. So maybe, just maybe, numbers
1:30:06
going up. Hey, we're going to be in the
1:30:07
gulags, but number is going to be ripping.
1:30:10
I'm here for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:30:13
Anyways, if you guys enjoyed the show, you know what to do.
1:30:14
Smash the like button, consider subscribing.
1:30:16
Of course, Check out our sponsor, which we talked a whole
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We'll see you on the next episode of Simply Bitcoin Live.
1:30:40
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