Latest / Simply Bitcoin / LEAK: Trump Insider Revals The US Bitcoin ENDGAME | EP 1203

Transcript

LEAK: Trump Insider Revals The US Bitcoin ENDGAME | EP 1203 · Simply Bitcoin

• 0:00
  Yo, a new leak from a closed door meeting from the White
• 0:04
  House is declaring that the Trump administration wants to
• 0:08
  buy as much Bitcoin as possible. I kid you not, this is not
• 0:13
  clickbait. This is literally a Forbes
• 0:16
  article declaring this. So we're going to dive into all
• 0:19
  the details, but this should not come as a surprise whatsoever
• 0:24
  based on the language that has been coming out of not only the
• 0:28
  White House exec account that says I quote the the United
• 0:32
  States, the essentially the Trump administration wants to
• 0:35
  make Bitcoin the Bitcoin the United States a Bitcoin capital
• 0:40
  of the world. And also Trump during the first
• 0:44
  ever White House crypto summit, he says that the United States
• 0:48
  that the administration has every intention of acquiring
• 0:52
  more Bitcoin in a budget neutral fashion.
• 0:55
  So none of this is surprising, but I mean, this leak, if it was
• 0:59
  intentional, if it wasn't intentional, I think further
• 1:02
  emphasizes how serious they are. And again, if you're paying
• 1:06
  attention to what Trump said at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville, he he
• 1:11
  indicated all of this, right? So he's just following up with
• 1:14
  it, which is extremely exciting, at least from a price
• 1:16
  perspective. So could this be the biggest
• 1:19
  news of 2025 considering the number of Bitcoin on exchanges
• 1:24
  is hitting an 8 year low? So today we're going to be
• 1:27
  explaining why you're chance to buy Bitcoin under 100K could be
• 1:32
  rapidly getting away from you and why you need at least .1
• 1:37
  Bitcoin ASAP. Before we jump into the article,
• 1:41
  I do want to welcome our guest today.
• 1:44
  We have John Glover joining us. He is the CIO of Lettin.
• 1:49
  John, thank you so much for joining us on the show.
• 1:53
  Thanks for having me Nico, great to be here.
• 1:57
  Appreciate it. Let's.
• 1:57
  Jump straight into the article, ladies and gentlemen, to share
• 2:00
  it. It's from Forbes.
• 2:02
  This isn't a YouTube title. This is a Forbes article.
• 2:05
  The Forbes article is White House leaks sparks wild
• 2:09
  speculation Trump is about to blow up the Bitcoin price.
• 2:15
  The Forbes article is coming from the decrypt article.
• 2:18
  The decrypt article is Trump admin wants to acquire as much
• 2:23
  Bitcoin as possible White House A White House official told a
• 2:27
  room of crypto industry insiders this week that the Trump
• 2:31
  administration wants to acquire as much Bitcoin as possible at a
• 2:35
  closed door roundtable hosted by the Bitcoin Policy Institute on
• 2:40
  Tuesday. Bo Hines, executive director of
• 2:42
  the Presidential Working Group on Digital Assets Assets, told
• 2:45
  participants the White House is intent on acquiring as much
• 2:49
  Bitcoin as it can when it When asked by someone in the room
• 2:54
  exactly how much Bitcoin the US government might ultimately
• 2:57
  acquire, Heinz joked the question was akin to asking
• 3:01
  someone how many dollars they want, one Round Table attendee
• 3:05
  told Decrypt. A White House official confirmed
• 3:08
  to Decrypt that Heinz indeed made the statement about
• 3:12
  acquiring as much Bitcoin as possible, but added the caveat
• 3:16
  that such acquisitions would be made quote in a budget neutral
• 3:20
  way that doesn't cost the taxpayer a dime.
• 3:23
  The private roundtable, which followed a public quote Bitcoin
• 3:27
  for America policy summit hosted by Bitcoin heavyweights
• 3:31
  including Strategy Co founder Michael Saylor, Michael Marathon
• 3:34
  Digital CEO Fred Teal, Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley and
• 3:39
  Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey.
• 3:41
  It also featured 3 US Senators, including Senator Cynthia
• 3:45
  Thomas, Bill Haggerty, and Bernie Moreno.
• 3:48
  At one point during the roundtable, a participant asked
• 3:51
  Bo Hines whether the White House supports the Bitcoin Act, a
• 3:54
  piece of legislation reintroduced into the White
• 3:57
  House by the Senate. It goes on to say the by the
• 4:05
  Senate on Tuesday that would require the US government by up
• 4:08
  to 1,000,000 BTC worth roughly $80 billion and would enshrine
• 4:13
  into law the strategic Bitcoin reserve established by President
• 4:16
  Donald Trump's recent executive order.
• 4:19
  After receiving the question, according to One Round Table
• 4:22
  attendee, Heinz then turned to Lummus, whom he was sat next to
• 4:27
  and said that the White House plans to support legislation
• 4:30
  that puts a strategic Bitcoin reserve into law and will apply
• 4:33
  pressure to make sure it passes Congress.
• 4:36
  A White House official emphasized to Decrypt that Heinz
• 4:39
  did not, however endorse any specific piece of legislation
• 4:43
  during the event it it. It is currently estimated the US
• 4:47
  government holds nearly 200,000 BTC acquired via civil and
• 4:52
  criminal forfeiture. Senior White House official have
• 4:55
  pushed the line in recent days that they support the government
• 4:58
  purchasing additional Bitcoin as to add to the strategic reserve
• 5:03
  so long as the acquisitions are quote, budget neutral.
• 5:07
  I think that's the key point here everybody.
• 5:09
  And if Trump really, really wants to solidify this past his
• 5:14
  presidency, the Bitcoin Act must be passed.
• 5:17
  That was the bill that was introduced by Senator Lummis.
• 5:21
  I had a recent interview with her in Washington, DC.
• 5:24
  Go check out that video. It's on the simply Bitcoin
• 5:26
  channel. And here is another follow up to
• 5:28
  see how much of these legislators, how much of these
• 5:31
  politicians are serious and committed to making the
• 5:35
  strategic Bitcoin reserve last. Remember the infamous six one O
• 5:39
  2 order that all Bitcoiners are familiar where FDR made it
• 5:43
  illegal for American citizens to own and hold gold?
• 5:46
  That that originally was an executive order that happened in
• 5:49
  1933. It wasn't until 1934 that
• 5:54
  Congress actually codified that into law because when you do
• 5:58
  something via executive order, it can be reversed by the
• 6:02
  following administration. So everyone everyone has their
• 6:05
  eyes on the Bitcoin Act by Senator Lummis.
• 6:08
  It's also there's some other efforts to coming from the
• 6:11
  House. Check out this article from Coin
• 6:13
  Telegraph. US Representative Brian Donalds
• 6:16
  to introduce bill codifying Trump's Bitcoin Reserve A new
• 6:20
  bill set to be introduced in Congress aims to formalize
• 6:23
  President Donald Trump's executive order establishing AUS
• 6:27
  Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, a move that could further
• 6:30
  integrate Bitcoin into the nation's financial strategy.
• 6:34
  Trump signed an executive order on March 7th to use Bitcoin
• 6:38
  seized in in government criminal cases to establish a national
• 6:43
  reserve. I mean, this is absolutely
• 6:46
  incredible news. This is extremely exciting.
• 6:49
  And again, I love how they keep doubling down on this.
• 6:53
  You know, it has to be budget neutral and they're doing that
• 6:56
  on purpose because they don't really have the the legislative
• 6:59
  ability to just start using tax, tax payer tax money to start
• 7:05
  buying Bitcoin. But what they can do is they
• 7:07
  could do it in a budget of neutral fashion to acquire
• 7:11
  Bitcoin via the via the presidency, via the executive
• 7:14
  order. Now what I'm really excited
• 7:16
  about and let's see what happens, let's see if Senator
• 7:19
  Lummus has the votes, is if the Bitcoin Act gets passed.
• 7:23
  And that essentially would open the door for the US government
• 7:26
  to acquire, to acquire up to 1,000,000 Bitcoin.
• 7:30
  But what was really interesting during the the Bitcoin Policy
• 7:34
  Summit that was hosted by Michael Saylor was that Michael.
• 7:37
  Saylor and Senator Lummus was literally standing right behind
• 7:41
  Saylor when he said this. But Michael Saylor basically
• 7:43
  said in his presentation there, the keynote, he's like, that's
• 7:46
  not enough. the US government should buy way more.
• 7:49
  It should double down. It should triple down, which I
• 7:52
  found absolutely hilarious. I'm also joined here today
• 7:55
  filling in for Opti. Opti's finally taking a day off
• 7:59
  with my beautiful wife Internet Sophie in the house.
• 8:01
  Thanks Sophie for joining. Thank you.
• 8:03
  Thank you so much for having me. I just have one question.
• 8:07
  Is money printing neutral here in budget neutral?
• 8:12
  I don't know. I don't, I don't think, I don't
• 8:15
  think they're, they're, I'm going to pass it on to.
• 8:17
  I'm going to pass it on to John. John, this is.
• 8:19
  Incredibly exciting news changing the administration.
• 8:22
  The end of Operation Choke .2 Point O.
• 8:25
  We have a favourable administration towards Bitcoin.
• 8:29
  What's your take on this? I'm absolutely blown away when,
• 8:35
  when the strategic reserve was put on the table, to me it was
• 8:38
  really clear they were just talking about the 200,000
• 8:41
  Bitcoin that they'd already had through seizures.
• 8:43
  And I thought, you know, all additional seizures would just
• 8:46
  go into that strategic reserve and there it wasn't going to be
• 8:49
  really aggressive buying. For them to come out and say
• 8:51
  that they're going to aggressively buy Bitcoin is, is
• 8:56
  kind of mind blowing to me. Whether they can do this in a
• 9:00
  budget neutral way. I think it's going to be a
• 9:02
  really interesting question because, you know, there's been
• 9:05
  a lot of discussion and promises about change that was going to
• 9:09
  come from the the Trump administration and that it
• 9:12
  wasn't going to add to the add to the national debt.
• 9:16
  So it'll be interesting to see if they can do this in a budget
• 9:18
  neutral fashion. Sophie, I think your question is
• 9:20
  a great one. I don't know that printing cash
• 9:25
  is a, a under their remit because I'm not sure the, you
• 9:30
  know, Trump administration could have much impact on that.
• 9:32
  And the central bankers, I think, are in control.
• 9:35
  But it'll be interesting to see how they do this.
• 9:38
  And I also thought, you know, the comment from Sailor I found
• 9:41
  really interesting too, because a, you know #1 he's talking his
• 9:44
  book a little bit, right? The guy's got over 1% of all
• 9:46
  Bitcoin in the marketplace today.
• 9:48
  So say buy, buy, buy, buy and drive this price up.
• 9:52
  But you're wondering if he was aware this story was going to
• 9:57
  come out because I read, I watched your podcast from the
• 10:00
  other day where Sailor had, you know, let it drop that bitcoins
• 10:04
  going to be the largest asset class in the world in 48 months.
• 10:09
  So, you know, pretty, pretty amazing if that the asset value
• 10:13
  gets up to $1,000,000 a coin. But that would be very good for
• 10:17
  him. He sounded so confident when he
• 10:21
  said that. He said it in a very nonchalant
• 10:23
  way. He and it was like he and again,
• 10:26
  he's in these closed door meetings.
• 10:28
  So he's hearing those things and it's coming out and and I'm and
• 10:31
  I'm. Telling you I said leak, but it
• 10:33
  seems like it was one of those leaks where the White House
• 10:36
  couldn't fully because I think they have their hands tied and
• 10:39
  they have to say that it has to be in the budget neutral way.
• 10:42
  But they do want to indicate to the world that, hey guys, we
• 10:45
  have every intention of acquiring Bitcoin.
• 10:48
  I do want to give a shout out to the stream because it's
• 10:50
  absolutely popping today. We have 976 people watching live
• 10:54
  on X, 500 people watching live on YouTube, and 500 people
• 10:59
  watching live on Rumble. So we're hitting out.
• 11:02
  We're running out of the gate really, really fast today.
• 11:04
  John, I want to ask you a question in regards to budget
• 11:07
  neutral. What does that mean when the
• 11:09
  White House says, listen, we have every intention of
• 11:12
  acquiring Bitcoin, but it has to be done in a budget neutral
• 11:15
  fashion? What does that mean, John?
• 11:19
  Well, to me, it means he's got to find money from elsewhere
• 11:22
  besides just the taxpayer, the US taxpayer in order to make
• 11:25
  those purchases. His tariff program is definitely
• 11:30
  pointed to that. You know, he was talking during
• 11:33
  his campaign that he was going to make all of those countries
• 11:37
  that were, you know, kind of riding the coattails of the US
• 11:42
  through through all of the but the trade surpluses around the
• 11:49
  world with trade deficits for the US around the world and make
• 11:52
  them make them pay for that. So you know, maybe this is just
• 11:55
  more of the same. OK.
• 11:57
  And so, OK, so it's essentially basically like, look, we we want
• 12:02
  to buy Bitcoin, but it it has to be done in a way where it
• 12:05
  doesn't increase it, you know, it's not on the US taxpayer
• 12:09
  dime. How, what, what would be the
• 12:12
  some of the mechanisms, John? So does that mean reallocating
• 12:15
  resources from one thing to another?
• 12:17
  Does that mean selling gold to buy Bitcoin?
• 12:20
  Because technically if they sell gold to buy Bitcoin, that isn't
• 12:23
  a budget neutral, that is technically budget neutral.
• 12:27
  So, you know, and again, I know we're speculating, nothing is in
• 12:30
  concrete, nothing's concrete as of yet.
• 12:33
  We don't really have any details of that.
• 12:35
  But you know, but what are your thoughts on that, John?
• 12:39
  Yeah, I, I think you're absolutely right, Nico.
• 12:41
  They got to find the money from somewhere else.
• 12:42
  That money's money's either going to come from reallocation
• 12:45
  of a budget that's already been approved for spending somewhere
• 12:49
  and moving that over to purchase Bitcoin.
• 12:52
  Or as I said, the the one of the things that he's been touting
• 12:56
  for the tariffs is the money that's going to come in from the
• 12:59
  tariffs that are being imposed upon other countries are going
• 13:02
  to be used to help the US taxpayer.
• 13:05
  So maybe that's going to be used to to purchase Bitcoin instead.
• 13:10
  I think he's got a lot of levers he can pull in that regard.
• 13:13
  And he does want to reduce government spending.
• 13:18
  And with, you know, the efforts that Musk is doing with Doge, if
• 13:21
  he's able to find, you know, billions in savings that he's
• 13:24
  been talking about there, that billions could be reallocated to
• 13:28
  buy Bitcoin and not change the budget.
• 13:30
  So I think there's a number of things that he can possibly
• 13:32
  absolutely. I think it's going to be
• 13:34
  incredibly exciting to see how this plays out, but they're
• 13:37
  definitely signalling, make no mistake, stake.
• 13:39
  They're definitely signaling that they have every intention
• 13:43
  of acquiring more Bitcoin. And they kind of explained
• 13:47
  sailors confidence when he says that he's like, look, this is at
• 13:50
  least going to reach the market cap of gold within the next 48
• 13:53
  months of the next four years. And he said it with such
• 13:55
  confidence. So maybe maybe sailor knows
• 13:58
  something we don't. One of the things also too that
• 14:00
  we picked up on Sailor as well is he went on legacy media.
• 14:03
  On Thursday, the day before the White House Crypto Summit.
• 14:08
  And the smile on his face. You know we.
• 14:11
  We were speculating that day we played you guys a clip on Simply
• 14:14
  Bitcoin Live, and you said, look, we've never seen sailors
• 14:16
  smile that hard before. And then the next day, you know,
• 14:19
  that you had this amazing news coming out of the White House,
• 14:22
  right? So, yeah, absolutely historic.
• 14:24
  Sophie, there. Any thoughts, opinions on this?
• 14:26
  I mean, you've been, you've been at this as long as I have.
• 14:29
  You've been by my side for a while now.
• 14:31
  You know, I think initially you thought I was crazy.
• 14:33
  But look, here we are. The White House is talking about
• 14:36
  buying Bitcoin. Sophie, what are your thoughts?
• 14:38
  This is unreal. I never thought I'd see the day
• 14:42
  where we would be buying Bitcoin as a nation.
• 14:47
  I also think that they're definitely going to print money
• 14:50
  to to buy this Bitcoin, which you know is fine.
• 14:54
  It's a it's a cheat code. It's better than giving all of
• 14:58
  this money to foreign countries abroad.
• 15:00
  So if, you know, that's the budget neutral that we're
• 15:04
  discussing here, if we're going to take money that we're already
• 15:08
  spending and actually buy Bitcoin with it, then I think
• 15:12
  that that's a great thing for the country.
• 15:14
  I think that's the best investment that we could make.
• 15:16
  It would also be great if we sold off some buildings that,
• 15:20
  you know, people don't work in anymore.
• 15:22
  Maybe reduce the size of government, use that money to
• 15:25
  buy Bitcoin. You know, anything we can do to
• 15:28
  just make less government, more Bitcoin is a positive in my
• 15:33
  opinion. Wow, so so so Opti.
• 15:36
  Opti takes a day off. I'm like, OK, I got I got my
• 15:39
  less intense person on the show and Sophie's more.
• 15:43
  Wrong. Sophie's more intense than Opti.
• 15:46
  Oh my God, yeah. It's going to be really exciting
• 15:49
  to see how how they do it. I don't think printing money
• 15:51
  money is considered budget neutral.
• 15:53
  I don't I don't think that's that's the case, right.
• 15:56
  But it is going to be quite interesting to see what happens
• 15:59
  when money printer. Gobert.
• 16:00
  John, I have a question to you. I have a question for you.
• 16:03
  So, you know, we're in this environment that a lot of people
• 16:05
  were speculating. I wrote the I I read some
• 16:07
  amazing articles by various people in the industry.
• 16:11
  A lot of people are saying that essentially, you know, Trump is
• 16:14
  talking about tariffs and is essentially creating.
• 16:17
  Uncertainty in the markets with the goal of putting pressure on
• 16:21
  the Fed to lower rates. What are your?
• 16:24
  Thoughts on that? I I think he's got a number of
• 16:30
  reasons he's doing it. One, I think #1 he's trying to
• 16:33
  renegotiate all the trade deals with all the countries around
• 16:36
  the world that he's putting tariffs on.
• 16:38
  I sit up here in Canada. So I can, you know, it's a, it's
• 16:41
  been a big top of, of discussion here, not just the tariffs, but
• 16:44
  the fact that he keeps referring to Canada as the 51st state,
• 16:47
  etcetera, which is his kind of negotiating tactics.
• 16:50
  So I think that's a, that's a, a big reason that he's doing it.
• 16:54
  The pressure on the Fed to reduce rates.
• 16:57
  I'm not, he's really, I'm not sure that that's going to be the
• 16:59
  outcome that he's looking for because the tariffs are going to
• 17:02
  be inflationary at least to start with and probably in the
• 17:06
  near term, which puts a lot of pressure on the Fed to not cut
• 17:10
  rates as inflation pressures are going up.
• 17:12
  So I'm not really sure that his desired outcome from the tariffs
• 17:17
  is going to be realized in the, in terms of reduced rates, at
• 17:21
  least in the short run. As a matter of fact, if you look
• 17:23
  at the the futures markets right now, all of the cuts that were
• 17:27
  priced in for this year are gone and there are potential hikes
• 17:31
  being priced in now towards the end of the year in 2026.
• 17:35
  So I don't think we're going to see the, you know, the the
• 17:39
  pressure, the downward pressure on rates that he was hoping for
• 17:41
  from tariffs. Gotcha, gotcha.
• 17:43
  Well guys, if you guys are enjoying the show, we're about
• 17:45
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  Help us break 300 likes within the 1st 30 minutes of the show.
• 18:02
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• 18:06
  the 1st 30 minutes. Guys, we have a jam packed show
• 18:10
  for you guys. Tons of content to cover.
• 18:13
  We're gonna be playing clips from the Bitcoin Policy Summit.
• 18:18
  We have a clip of Howard Lepnick, the commerce secretary
• 18:22
  for the Trump administration, talking about this idea that the
• 18:25
  Trump's been talking about this moving the Overton window.
• 18:28
  They're talking about editing, auditing Fort Knox.
• 18:30
  You know, Elon's in there with Doge.
• 18:33
  And once again, you're hearing this talk of ending certain
• 18:38
  income tax. So Howard Lutnick on a legacy
• 18:42
  media interview, he said that he wanted that the Trump
• 18:45
  administration has the goal of essentially ending tax for
• 18:49
  anybody who makes less than a certain amount every year.
• 18:53
  So is this going to happen? I don't know.
• 18:55
  But in terms of moving the Overton window, it's absolutely
• 18:58
  moving, that's for sure. And then during the news
• 19:01
  segment, we're going to be talking about Russia.
• 19:03
  Russia apparently is using cryptocurrencies, I'm sure the
• 19:06
  majority of which is Bitcoin for oil trade.
• 19:09
  I mean, this is something that we've been talking about for a
• 19:11
  very, very long time. Bitcoin is an open censorship
• 19:15
  resistant monetary network that's global, it's worldwide.
• 19:19
  So this doesn't surprise me whatsoever.
• 19:21
  And of course, during the culture segment, we're going to
• 19:24
  take advantage of the fact that we have the CIO of Leaden, John
• 19:29
  Glover, joining us today. We're going to be talking about
• 19:31
  all things Leaden. So it's an incredible show for
• 19:34
  you guys, incredibly jam packed. And if you guys are enjoying it
• 19:37
  so far, make sure to smash that like button.
• 19:40
  Anyways, before we move on to the numbers, I do want to give a
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• 23:31
  At the time of recording, the Bitcoin price is $84,710.
• 23:36
  Block Height 887,795 Satsburg Dollar 1181 Market cap 1.68
• 23:45
  trillion Bitcoin versus Gold Market cap 7.93% Percentage
• 23:50
  issued 94.46% decline from all time high.
• 23:54
  You get a you get a 22% discount if you buy the dip right now.
• 23:59
  And my favorite stat out of all this because it continues to
• 24:02
  take Fiat currencies to absolute school.
• 24:04
  The realized monetary inflation rate is currently sitting at
• 24:07
  .93%. Even if Fiat that currencies get
• 24:11
  back to 2%, Bitcoin is still way better and it's going to
• 24:15
  continue to go down forever. When we started covering this,
• 24:18
  this stat was at like 3. You know, it's crazy how far
• 24:21
  down it's come. Anyhow, here's a clip of AUS
• 24:24
  congressman at the Bitcoin Policy Summit.
• 24:28
  Some interesting things that he says regarding self custody.
• 24:31
  Let's check it out. This initiative is designed to
• 24:35
  be fiscally responsible. Not a single taxpayer dollar
• 24:39
  will be used. Instead, we will leverage
• 24:41
  Federal Reserve remittances, which exceeded $76 billion in
• 24:45
  2023, gold certificate revaluations, unlocking
• 24:50
  additional funds to finance Bitcoin purchases, and the
• 24:53
  Exchange Stabilization Fund, a fund with the mandate to manage
• 24:57
  currencies outside of the United States dollar.
• 25:01
  Bitcoin is open. It is censorship resistant, it
• 25:04
  is immune to geopolitical manipulation, and it embodies
• 25:07
  the principles of economic freedom, innovation and self
• 25:12
  determination that define America's leadership.
• 25:15
  I want to be very clear about one thing.
• 25:17
  The Bitcoin Act is not infringe on private ownership of Bitcoin
• 25:21
  explicitly protects the rights of individuals and businesses to
• 25:24
  own, hold and transact Bitcoin freely.
• 25:27
  It recognizes self custody as a fundamental right of financial
• 25:31
  sovereignty. This bill affirms that Americans
• 25:33
  should never fear government overreach.
• 25:36
  So I mean, it's, you know, again, we went from thinking
• 25:41
  that our industry was essentially going to be shut
• 25:43
  down last year to a. Complete 180.
• 25:48
  You know where the White House is basically indicating that
• 25:50
  they have every intention to buy Bitcoin and then at least in in
• 25:53
  Congress too, they're saying saying listen, we're we're going
• 25:55
  to pass a bill not only for the US government to buy Bitcoin,
• 25:58
  but it actually protects your right as an individual to take
• 26:01
  self custody as well. There are some dark times last
• 26:04
  year with operation choke .2 point O many Bitcoin companies
• 26:09
  were debanked the attack on the Bitcoin mining industry.
• 26:13
  You could say a a lot of the arrests, you could say we're
• 26:17
  politically motivated. You can make an argument for
• 26:18
  that. So, you know, the arrests of the
• 26:22
  samurai wallet developers, the attack on privacy like it, it
• 26:26
  was, it was some dark times, right?
• 26:28
  And this election was was absolutely historic.
• 26:30
  And it just, you know, completely changed things
• 26:33
  around. And again, I want to emphasize
• 26:35
  too, that Bitcoin isn't a part should not be a partisan issue.
• 26:39
  And hopefully, you know, with the results of this recent
• 26:41
  election, you could also make a very solid argument that, you
• 26:45
  know, potentially being so anti Bitcoin, anti crypto might have
• 26:52
  caused the the. It might have caused the cost
• 26:55
  the opposing party the election. You could have you could make
• 26:58
  that argument, right? Because a a big part of their
• 27:00
  voting demographic is the younger generation.
• 27:02
  The younger generation tends to hold a lot of Bitcoin and
• 27:05
  crypto, right? So yeah, I mean, hopefully, you
• 27:07
  know, this doesn't become a partisan issue.
• 27:10
  Hopefully this becomes a a bipartisan thing where both
• 27:13
  party support it. And I think the passing of the
• 27:16
  Bitcoin Act would send shock waves all across the world
• 27:20
  because essentially every country would be put in a
• 27:23
  position where they would have to buy Bitcoin for fear of being
• 27:26
  left behind by the United States, right?
• 27:28
  So very, very positive, at least from a price perspective.
• 27:31
  But I love how he emphasized, hey, listen, self custody is
• 27:35
  going to be protected by this law as well.
• 27:38
  And again, self custody is incredibly important in Bitcoin
• 27:42
  and that's that's absolutely incredible from moving the
• 27:46
  Overton window perspective. I'm I'm going to pass it on to
• 27:48
  John. John, you know you were you.
• 27:51
  You are. Working.
• 27:52
  Or you were working at a Bitcoin business last year.
• 27:55
  From a regulatory perspective, how were things on your end?
• 28:01
  Oh, it was, it was tough. You know, we, we, we got
• 28:05
  debanked as you mentioned. And so that was really really,
• 28:10
  you know, caused a big challenge for us industry.
• 28:14
  So, you know, that was damaging to all, all crypto companies,
• 28:19
  regardless of what they did. So we impacted by that as well.
• 28:25
  But, you know, here, when we started to see that the Bitcoin
• 28:29
  price rally, that was really kind of based on what was
• 28:32
  happening in, in the polls and, and the, and the, you know, the
• 28:38
  statements that were coming out of the, the Trump administration
• 28:41
  or the Trump camp while they were campaigning, just set
• 28:45
  everything back on course again. And it's been an incredible
• 28:50
  year. You know, we've seen volumes go
• 28:52
  way up. We've been able to help a lot of
• 28:54
  people access some liquidity from their their Bitcoin
• 28:59
  holdings around the world. And you know, we've seen a lot
• 29:03
  of the bad companies that didn't survive because they were doing
• 29:06
  things poorly back in 20/22/23 now being replaced by other
• 29:11
  companies that are doing things the right way.
• 29:13
  So I think the the ecosystem as a whole is in much better
• 29:16
  position than it was. Absolutely, 100%.
• 29:19
  Sophie, do you? Do you want to follow that up?
• 29:23
  I mean, I couldn't have really said it better myself.
• 29:25
  I think that the addressing the issue of self custody is going
• 29:29
  to be incredibly important. And you know, the most fiscally
• 29:33
  responsible thing that this country can do is just buy more
• 29:36
  Bitcoin. I think Sailor is right in
• 29:38
  saying that we're not buying enough, but at least we're on
• 29:41
  the way to codifying it into law.
• 29:44
  And I think that as Bitcoin goes up, the government is just going
• 29:49
  to be more and more incentivized to come together in a bipartisan
• 29:54
  coalition for Bitcoin. I think it's an incredible take.
• 29:58
  And what I'll say too is, you know, I, I think people, I, I
• 30:02
  think it's, it's important to, to, to remember as well as like,
• 30:06
  you know, great from a, from a number grow up perspective.
• 30:08
  I think it's going to be incredible if the US government
• 30:11
  starts buying Bitcoin, but I think it's important to
• 30:14
  remember, you know, the importance of self custody,
• 30:17
  right? I think self custody is
• 30:19
  incredibly important as an individual, Of course, you know,
• 30:21
  you can use many different products where you give up
• 30:25
  custody. But again, I think the, the
• 30:27
  core, your core holding should be in self custody.
• 30:30
  None of that should change like just because there's ETFs, just
• 30:33
  because there's MicroStrategy and you can, you know, buy
• 30:36
  Bitcoin through your Charles Schwab account.
• 30:37
  I I still think that nothing replaces spot Bitcoin in your
• 30:42
  own self custody in my opinion, and I'm really really glad that
• 30:45
  part of this. Bill is going to explicitly
• 30:48
  protect that, right? That's incredibly important.
• 30:50
  So the next clip I do want to share is a, A, a clip from
• 30:55
  Howard Lutnick. Again, he is the commerce
• 30:57
  secretary for the Trump administration.
• 31:00
  And again, Trump has been saying this for many months now.
• 31:04
  They're moving the Overton window slowly.
• 31:07
  The Overton window for anyone who's new to simply Bitcoin, I
• 31:09
  say this almost everyday is essentially the the acceptable
• 31:12
  window, the the acceptable window of discourse, right.
• 31:16
  So if you thought, if you mentioned the idea of of self
• 31:20
  custody, you know. Two or three years ago it was
• 31:23
  radical. If you mentioned the idea of
• 31:25
  Bitcoin, it was radical. So every time you know, you, you
• 31:29
  have these types of things being said publicly, it moves the
• 31:33
  Overton window like ever so slightly.
• 31:35
  And our goal as Bitcoiners is to move that Overton window to the
• 31:39
  point where Bitcoin is normalized.
• 31:41
  Like the idea of Bitcoin is normalized, the idea of self
• 31:43
  custody, Bitcoin is normalized, the ethos of Bitcoin is
• 31:47
  normalized. And I think, you know, it's
• 31:49
  moving slowly, it's moving in the right direction.
• 31:51
  And I think this is another example, all of that essentially
• 31:55
  questioning the income tax like look like what's going on here
• 31:58
  and specifically, you know, the income tax for people making
• 32:02
  under a certain amount. So here's the clip from I
• 32:05
  believe this was 60 minutes or this was just ACBS interview.
• 32:08
  Let's check it out. Is to have external revenue.
• 32:12
  You know, the way I think about it, we all are so used to paying
• 32:15
  taxes. We're so used to it.
• 32:17
  We have like Stockholm syndrome, you know, don't stop the
• 32:20
  Internal Revenue Service, God forbid.
• 32:23
  How about this? The rest of the world leans on
• 32:27
  our economy, breathes off our economy.
• 32:30
  Not only is our economy $29 trillion GDP, but we consume $20
• 32:36
  trillion a year. We are the buyer of everybody's
• 32:40
  stuff. We buy everybody's stuff.
• 32:43
  So who's more important, the people who sell stuff or the
• 32:47
  people who buy stuff? So we are the buyer of
• 32:50
  everybody's commodities, products, goods and services.
• 32:55
  Everything comes from us, right? Let them pay a membership fee.
• 33:02
  We all understand that model. Let them pay.
• 33:06
  How about we, you and I, and every single person we know
• 33:10
  payless? How about no tax on tips?
• 33:12
  How about no tax on overtime? How about no Social Security?
• 33:15
  How about all those things? These are the kind of thoughts
• 33:19
  that will change America. I know what his goal is.
• 33:22
  No tax for anybody who makes less than $150,000 a year.
• 33:26
  That's his goal. So that's incredible.
• 33:31
  So let's put the political talk aside for a second, but let's
• 33:35
  focus on the tax component of it, right, which is this idea of
• 33:39
  ending the income tax. A lot of people in the US forget
• 33:42
  that the Federal Reserve was established 1913, which was the
• 33:48
  same year that the federal income tax was.
• 33:52
  It was introduced as well. Do you think that's a
• 33:54
  coincidence? Maybe.
• 33:55
  But again, in terms of moving the Overton window, I think it's
• 33:59
  incredibly they, the Trump administration has been
• 34:03
  incredibly successful. Now, in terms of pissing a lot
• 34:06
  of people off worldwide with all this talk of tariffs, I think
• 34:10
  they've definitely done that as well.
• 34:13
  But you know, again, as a Bitcoiner, you know, as a
• 34:16
  Bitcoiner that knows the history of money, that knows the history
• 34:19
  of, of central banking, that knows the history of the Federal
• 34:22
  Reserve, you're listening to that and you're like, wow, I
• 34:25
  think a lot of people are waking up and they're starting to ask
• 34:28
  the question, what is money? And again, like when, when Elon
• 34:32
  was discovering all this stuff with Doge, you know, it, it's
• 34:36
  funny how that works, right? So, you know, essentially
• 34:39
  government is allowed to audit you whenever you whenever they
• 34:41
  want. You know, if they, you know,
• 34:43
  it's they, they feel like you're not paying your taxes correctly,
• 34:46
  they could audit you. But you know, when, when Elon
• 34:49
  went in there and started auditing the government, you
• 34:51
  know, they're, they're screaming from the rooftops and saying,
• 34:53
  Hey, what the hell is going on here?
• 34:55
  Right? So anyways, I want to get John's
• 34:57
  thoughts on this. John, other than the talk of the
• 35:00
  political talk in the beginning, what are your thoughts about the
• 35:03
  income tax? Is that even possible?
• 35:05
  Can a modern government? Run without people paying income
• 35:09
  tax. Well, I mean, if, if you look
• 35:13
  back to the history of income tax, it was a, it was a
• 35:16
  temporary measure to help fund wars.
• 35:20
  And, and you know, that temporary measure has become
• 35:23
  absolutely ingrained in everyday life.
• 35:26
  And you know, I know as Americans, you hate income tax.
• 35:29
  You try being Canadian, you hate income tax a whole lot more
• 35:32
  because our income taxes are a hell of a lot higher up here.
• 35:35
  So, you know, I'm a big fan in, you know, the the challenge to
• 35:40
  the Overton window. I'm a big fan of, you know,
• 35:42
  looking for alternative ways to fund essential government
• 35:47
  services. And I'm really keen on somebody
• 35:50
  going in and determining what really is essential in terms of
• 35:54
  government services. You know, I, as much as I, I'm
• 35:57
  not a big fan of governments and I'd love governments to be a lot
• 35:59
  smaller. There's just more efficiency in
• 36:02
  having a centralized body take care of some things, whether
• 36:05
  it's at a municipal level or at a state level or a federal,
• 36:08
  federal level. And that needs to be paid for by
• 36:10
  something, but I don't necessarily think it needs to be
• 36:13
  paid for off the backs of, you know, the the typical working
• 36:17
  class citizen who's really not the one who can afford to do
• 36:20
  that. So any change that can be done
• 36:23
  to the tax system, I think is going to be a positive change if
• 36:26
  that ends up in lowering taxes overall.
• 36:28
  And efficiency is a huge part. Absolutely.
• 36:30
  And I think I think you you hit the nail on the head head there,
• 36:33
  John. So essentially, and what a lot
• 36:35
  of people don't know as well is that the vast majority of income
• 36:38
  taxes actually paid by, or maybe maybe not the vast majority, but
• 36:42
  the majority or a big chunk of the income tax is actually paid
• 36:46
  by the 1% tax bracket, right? The top 1% of the income pays
• 36:52
  like a big portion of the income tax.
• 36:55
  So I agree, like if you're making under, if you're making
• 36:58
  150 KA year, you're making 100K or 50KA year you.
• 37:01
  Need all of that money to live right it.
• 37:03
  It makes a dent. On your, on your lifestyle, on
• 37:07
  your ability to save for the future, on your ability to pay
• 37:09
  for your family. But you know, if you're making,
• 37:12
  you know, you know, a couple $1,000,000 a year, $1,000,000 a
• 37:16
  year, again, it's not, it's not going to be as impactful, right?
• 37:20
  The taxes a lot of people still disagree with it, OK, this and
• 37:23
  that, but I think I think Howard Lubnick is absolutely spot on
• 37:27
  regarding especially the the lower tax brackets, the people
• 37:30
  making less income, they need all of that money.
• 37:33
  Is it really efficient for that money to go to the government?
• 37:37
  OK, I agree with I agree with you, John.
• 37:39
  I think I think that the government is necessary in in
• 37:43
  some respects, but it definitely needs to be a much smaller
• 37:46
  government. I think it's reached such the
• 37:47
  size that the inefficiencies of government are becoming apparent
• 37:52
  for anyone who's paying attention.
• 37:54
  So let's see what happens. It's incredibly exciting.
• 37:56
  So usually I get a little bit worried.
• 37:58
  When I pass it on to Opti when it regards it when it in regards
• 38:01
  to these types of subjects. But now that I know, Sophie's in
• 38:04
  the hot seat. Sophie, what are your thoughts?
• 38:08
  Look, I don't, I don't want to use your own tweets against you,
• 38:11
  but one of my favorite, actually my favorite tweet that you've
• 38:15
  ever had was when you said we started the conversation with
• 38:19
  what is money? And now we're going to end the
• 38:21
  conversation with what is government.
• 38:23
  And I think that Doge, the Department of Government
• 38:27
  efficiency has really tackled that question and made it so
• 38:32
  that we can reduce that government and kind of ask the
• 38:37
  question, why are we paying so many taxes?
• 38:40
  Taxes, especially the income tax is particularly evil because it
• 38:45
  de incentivizes people from doing a good job.
• 38:49
  And so when you take that away, when you actually give people
• 38:53
  the incentive to do a good job and to be the best that they can
• 38:56
  be, you're living up to the best values of capitalism.
• 39:00
  And when you take that money and you store it in the hardest
• 39:03
  money that there has ever been, then you know, you can you
• 39:07
  actually like you have a more productive and well meaning
• 39:11
  society. So I love that they're taking
• 39:14
  these steps to reduce the income tax.
• 39:17
  I believe it's for people. To to be clear, so there hasn't
• 39:20
  been any legislation introduced yet to reduce the income tax,
• 39:24
  but they are moving the Overton window, the fact that they're
• 39:26
  talking. It's being talked about.
• 39:27
  They're they're talking about doing this for people who are
• 39:29
  earning under $150,000. So right off the bat there,
• 39:34
  that's great. But I think they need to take it
• 39:36
  a little further because like I said, it's or how you said, it's
• 39:42
  the top 1% that pays the majority of our taxes.
• 39:48
  I want to verify that while while you keep talking Sophie, I
• 39:51
  want to, I want to verify, I want to.
• 39:52
  I actually want to pull the the actual data of what the
• 39:54
  breakdown is. And you also have Florida
• 39:58
  talking about reducing the property tax, not abolishing it
• 40:01
  completely, but definitely reducing it so that you aren't
• 40:05
  in danger of losing your home. So like I said, because we've
• 40:11
  started to involve Bitcoin in government, we've ended up by, I
• 40:18
  think no coincidence, making government more efficient and,
• 40:23
  you know, having a better store of wealth, talking about
• 40:27
  abolishing taxes. These are all the things that
• 40:30
  happen when you start to slowly adopt Bitcoin.
• 40:34
  And you know, of course, El Salvador is the best example of
• 40:36
  this. Look at how they cleaned up
• 40:39
  their crime rate. I just, I don't think that there
• 40:42
  is a coincidence here. I think that when you have
• 40:44
  better incentives, that leads to a better society as a whole.
• 40:47
  I think that's an incredible point.
• 40:49
  Yeah, absolutely. You fix the incentive structure
• 40:51
  and and and things start to work out better for sure.
• 40:54
  So I just want to read the breakdown.
• 40:55
  I was AST ChatGPT in the background while Sophie was
• 40:58
  talking. So the top 1% of earner.
• 41:00
  So people who are making 55140 thousand or more pay about 45%
• 41:07
  of all federal income tax. The top 10% of gainer of earners
• 41:12
  pay 70. 5% of federal income tax the bottom 50.
• 41:16
  Percent only pay about two to 3% of the federal income tax.
• 41:21
  Why don't, why don't we get rid of the of of why don't we get
• 41:24
  rid of the, the, the people on the why do we get rid of that?
• 41:27
  They need it the most, right? It makes absolutely no sense
• 41:30
  from a percentage perspective. So I think Sophie, you made
• 41:34
  incredible points. John, do you have any?
• 41:36
  Thoughts before we move on to the next segment?
• 41:41
  Well, I think another really important point that supports
• 41:43
  your argument there, Nico, is that the people who are in the
• 41:47
  kind of the, the lower income earner, they're also the, the
• 41:50
  ones who consume a lot 'cause they don't, they don't tend to,
• 41:54
  to save, they tend to be spenders.
• 41:56
  And so if you save them their tax dollars, those tax dollars
• 42:01
  are going back into the economy for the most part.
• 42:02
  They'll, you know, they'll invest, they'll buy Bitcoin,
• 42:05
  they'll do some with it, but they tend to spend whatever
• 42:09
  additional funds they have available to them.
• 42:12
  So it's not like this is going to damage the economy if you, if
• 42:15
  you get rid of taxes for those people.
• 42:22
  So they get injected back into the economy.
• 42:24
  So it's, you know, overall even though it's and that could be
• 42:27
  absorbed by the higher income earners very easily.
• 42:31
  Absolutely 100% agree. I want to give a shout out to
• 42:35
  the live stream. We're at 3000 live viewers
• 42:38
  between X and YouTube, 727 live viewers on YouTube and 572 live
• 42:46
  viewers on Rumble. If you guys are enjoying Simply
• 42:48
  Bitcoin Live, make sure to smash that like button we're about to
• 42:52
  blow. Past our goal of 300 Likes
• 42:55
  within the the beginning of the show so I'm going to I'm going
• 42:58
  to up that I'm going to up the goal let's try to break 400
• 43:01
  likes by the time the the show ends so smash that like button.
• 43:05
  If you guys are enjoying simply Bitcoin live for today, we're
• 43:09
  going to hit the new segment. We have tons to talk about.
• 43:12
  We're really talking about Russia essentially using crypto
• 43:15
  currencies for oil trade. We're going to be exploring,
• 43:19
  exploring the article by Reuters and then during the culture
• 43:22
  segment, we're going to take advantage of the fact that we
• 43:25
  have John Glove in the house. John Glover is the CIO of
• 43:29
  Leaden. So we're going to be talking
• 43:30
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• 46:08
  All right, everybody, we are back.
• 46:10
  Before we jump into the news, Sophie just reminded me.
• 46:14
  Guys, the new Simply Bitcoin merch just dropped.
• 46:18
  Sophie is wearing it right now. She's wearing the.
• 46:20
  Very comfortable hoodie with the Simply Bitcoin logo and
• 46:24
  everything. It's absolutely awesome.
• 46:26
  It's incredibly comfortable. We should have ordered more.
• 46:29
  This is not drop ship. We literally order the
• 46:32
  inventory. We keep the inventory and then
• 46:34
  we ship it out. Not drop shipped at all.
• 46:37
  And we really, really pay attention to quality.
• 46:40
  It literally says like if you look at the tags, it says Simply
• 46:43
  Bitcoin. The quality is incredible, the
• 46:45
  hoodies incredibly comfortable, but you got to get yours while
• 46:48
  supplies last because this has been flying off the shelves
• 46:52
  since we made this go live. So if you guys want to support
• 46:54
  the show, we get this message all the time.
• 46:56
  If you guys want to support the show, first of all, check out
• 46:58
  our partners. Second, you can buy our merch
• 47:01
  and that really, really means the world to us.
• 47:04
  So anyways, no more delay. Let's jump into today's news
• 47:07
  segment. The headline for the audio
• 47:09
  listeners is Russia leans on crypto currencies for oil trade.
• 47:14
  It goes on to say Russia is using crypto currencies and it's
• 47:17
  oil trade with China and India to skirt Western sanctions,
• 47:21
  according to four sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
• 47:24
  While Russia has publicly encouraged the use of crypto and
• 47:27
  last summer passed the law to allow digital currency payments
• 47:30
  in international trade, it's use in the country's oil trade has
• 47:35
  not previously been reported. Some Russian oil companies are
• 47:38
  using Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins such as Tether to
• 47:42
  smooth the conversion of China yuan and Indian rupees to
• 47:46
  Russian rubles, the sources said, adding that it is a small
• 47:50
  but growing part of Russia's overall oil trade, which
• 47:53
  according to the International Energy Agency was worth about
• 47:57
  192 billion last year. All the sources declined to be
• 48:01
  identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
• 48:04
  Cryptocurrencies have already helped enable countries under
• 48:07
  U.S. sanctions, such as Iran and Venezuela, to keep their
• 48:10
  economies running while avoiding use of the dollar, the preferred
• 48:14
  currency for transactions in the global oil market.
• 48:16
  Russia's move comes after Venezuela accelerated its use of
• 48:20
  digital currency in crude and fuel exports after Washington
• 48:24
  imposed sanctions. Russia has set up a variety of
• 48:26
  systems in USD T. It's just one of them, said a
• 48:30
  fifth source. Fifth source A researcher at an
• 48:33
  investigations firm which tasked the use of cryptocurrencies for
• 48:36
  sanctions circumvention, who asked not to be named because of
• 48:39
  an NDA. The Russian central bank did not
• 48:43
  respond to a request for comment.
• 48:45
  It said last year that delays in payments due to sanctions have
• 48:48
  become a major challenge for the Russian economy.
• 48:51
  U.S. President Donald Trump is
• 48:52
  seeking to improve relations with Russia as he pushes to end
• 48:56
  the war in Ukraine, but whether sanctions will be lifted remains
• 48:59
  unclear. Reuters reported that the White
• 49:01
  House was draft drafting options for sanctions relief, but Trump
• 49:05
  posted on March 7th that he's strongly considering more
• 49:07
  sanctions on Russia. Crypto will likely continue to
• 49:10
  be used in Russia oil trading, one of the four sources said.
• 49:14
  Even if sanctions are lifted, the dollar can be used again.
• 49:17
  It is a convenient tool and helps run operations faster and
• 49:22
  an example of how the trade works.
• 49:23
  A Chinese buyer of Russian oil pays a trading company acting as
• 49:27
  a middleman in yuan into an offshore account.
• 49:30
  Two of the. Sources with knowledge of the
• 49:31
  transaction said the middleman converts this into crypto and
• 49:35
  transfer it to another account and from there it is sent to a
• 49:38
  third account and Russia converted to rubles for one
• 49:41
  Russian oil trade trader sales to from one Russian oil trader
• 49:46
  sales to China. Crypto transactions are in the
• 49:49
  10s of millions of dollars per month, according to one of the
• 49:52
  sources who is familiar with the traders operations.
• 49:55
  Traditional currencies still account for the bulk of Russia's
• 49:59
  oil transactions with other workarounds including the use of
• 50:03
  the UAE DRAM. For example, one Russian crypto
• 50:07
  exchange, Gentex, was placed under U.S. sanctions in 2022 by
• 50:11
  the European Union. Last month, the platform
• 50:14
  suspended services last week after Tether block digital
• 50:17
  wallets on its platform. So what's really interesting to
• 50:20
  me about this article again is you always hear that, you know,
• 50:25
  Bitcoin has no use case. That was like one of the
• 50:27
  narratives that you always hear like Bitcoin has no use case.
• 50:31
  You know, Bitcoin isn't going to be used by anyone.
• 50:33
  You know, it's, it's volatile existence, not?
• 50:36
  Forget about the whole Russia situation, but I've heard from
• 50:39
  many other countries like there's this story of this woman
• 50:43
  in Afghanistan who was essentially using Bitcoin
• 50:46
  because she's not allowed to open a bank account, which is
• 50:50
  absolutely incredible. You, you hear stories like where
• 50:52
  Meet Sophie and I are originally from your stories of, of, of
• 50:56
  people in Venezuela. Essentially they want to leave
• 51:00
  the country. They can't do it using
• 51:03
  traditional the traditional system.
• 51:06
  And what they do is they put they they put all their wealth
• 51:09
  in Bitcoin, they take it into self custody and then they
• 51:11
  leave. I've heard that story multiple
• 51:14
  times over and over and over again.
• 51:16
  Now, of course, you know, sometimes you get, you know, you
• 51:19
  sometimes you get hostile governments, right?
• 51:21
  Like, obviously, you know, what's the war in Ukraine is
• 51:24
  absolutely horrible what's happening with Russia.
• 51:26
  But I think a lot of people get caught up in the sanctions,
• 51:30
  right? Like, I, you know, Sophie and I
• 51:33
  were from South Florida and, you know, Cuba is very, very close.
• 51:37
  And, you know, the US has had sanctions against the Cuban
• 51:40
  government for a long time. But what a lot of people don't
• 51:42
  talk about? Is the indirect consequence of
• 51:46
  that is the Cuban people, the Cuban people are limited like in
• 51:49
  their ability to access dollars. The Cuban people are limited in
• 51:53
  their ability to open AUS dollar bank account, right?
• 51:56
  And that's where really Bitcoin comes in, right?
• 51:59
  So yes, that is the recent news, right?
• 52:01
  And again, it's not surprising. I've said this for many, many
• 52:03
  years now specifically. When the war broke out, I said,
• 52:06
  look, eventually, you know, they're going to wake up to the
• 52:08
  reality. They're going to be able to use
• 52:09
  an open monetary network. And one of the quotes that I
• 52:13
  love about Jeff Booth that has really stuck with me is like,
• 52:16
  the thing about Bitcoin is that you're going to have to be OK
• 52:19
  with even your worst enemy using the network.
• 52:22
  And there's pros and there's cons to that.
• 52:25
  I think the pros are the things to.
• 52:27
  Highlight because for the first time, if you live in a
• 52:30
  totalitarian country, you have the ability to not only save,
• 52:34
  but you have the ability to vote with your feet because you could
• 52:38
  take your wealth with you. And that is absolutely
• 52:41
  incredibly powerful. So that's what I want to.
• 52:43
  Focus on. I'm going to pass it on.
• 52:44
  To John, John, what are your thoughts on this?
• 52:47
  I mean, it's not surprising. It's not surprising.
• 52:49
  But you, I, I want to focus on the stories of hope.
• 52:52
  I want to focus on the stories of the individual people living
• 52:55
  in these countries, because it's always about governments, right?
• 52:58
  It's like this government did that, this government did that.
• 53:00
  But what's never talked about is the collateral damage.
• 53:05
  What's never talked about is the people in those countries, the
• 53:09
  individuals of those countries, what's the vast majority are
• 53:11
  innocent. They're just like you and me.
• 53:13
  Trying to get by. And they get caught up sometimes
• 53:17
  with when this stuff when when all this politicking is
• 53:20
  happening. So, John, what are your
• 53:21
  thoughts? Yeah, you're, you're absolutely
• 53:26
  right. And that's really why Len was
• 53:28
  formed. You know, one of our Co
• 53:30
  founders, Maurizio is, is Venezuela himself and even saw
• 53:35
  the the challenges people had in trying to save money.
• 53:38
  And that's why he became a Bitcoin miner and, you know,
• 53:42
  improved his life and his family's life.
• 53:44
  But then the the other thing is there's no banking system.
• 53:47
  There's no ability for the average person to access any
• 53:51
  banking services. And that's really was the
• 53:53
  genesis of Len was to help people do that.
• 53:56
  And you're absolutely right, Nico.
• 53:58
  You know, we talked about, you know, trying to keep governments
• 54:02
  in control or keep other countries in control through
• 54:04
  sanctions. We really seldom talk about the
• 54:07
  impact on the people that those decisions have.
• 54:10
  And sanctions, you know, may be effective from a, from a trade
• 54:14
  perspective or an economic perspective, but they're almost
• 54:18
  always devastating for, for the individuals living in those
• 54:22
  countries. And so when you, you look at,
• 54:25
  you know, Russia getting around that or Venezuela getting around
• 54:29
  the sanctions using, using Bitcoin, it's just logical, you
• 54:32
  know, they're just continuing to do their business.
• 54:35
  The locals are continuing to try and thrive and continue to try
• 54:39
  and live their life in a, in a, in a positive fashion, and
• 54:42
  they'll find ways to do that. And Bitcoin and cryptocurrency
• 54:45
  in general, Bitcoin specifically, is a solution to
• 54:48
  that. And I, I love that statement
• 54:50
  that you've got to be happy doing, you know, being on the
• 54:53
  network with people you don't like.
• 54:56
  Bitcoin is agnostic to all of that and it'll help us to pursue
• 55:01
  our own goals without, you know, really caring what governments
• 55:05
  are doing to to each other and to other countries.
• 55:10
  So I think it's a, you know, it's an be really great if
• 55:13
  governments have kind of stepped aside and let things move the
• 55:15
  way they should. But you know, I like your your
• 55:19
  focus on the positivity, Nico. Thank you, thank you.
• 55:23
  I I appreciate it, John. And and, and because that's what
• 55:25
  people forget, right? Like it's like this is this is
• 55:28
  world, you know, you all this is what you hear in the headlines,
• 55:31
  like Russia, like Cuba, like whatever.
• 55:32
  It's like no, no, no, no, no, the Russian government, the
• 55:35
  Cuban government, but the vast majority of people in Russia are
• 55:39
  in Cuba. They're just trying to get by.
• 55:40
  They're just trying to put food on the table, right, like, why
• 55:43
  are they stuck? They're stuck in between this
• 55:45
  like, you know, international, you know, thing that's
• 55:48
  happening, but in reality, they're just, they're just like
• 55:51
  you and I right. So that's really, really.
• 55:53
  Important. I think that's where Bitcoin
• 55:54
  shines because Bitcoin is is hope and Bitcoin provides, you
• 55:58
  know, the opportunity for safe to save and also to interact
• 56:02
  with the global economy too, right?
• 56:04
  Like a lot of people were not able to do that before the
• 56:07
  introduction of Bitcoin. They're kind of like stuck
• 56:09
  within their own local Fiat currency kind of economy.
• 56:13
  And it was complicated to send money and reminiscence and all
• 56:16
  that stuff. So yeah, it's.
• 56:18
  You know, it's incredibly hopeful depending on how you
• 56:20
  look at it. I'm on a Bitcoin standard.
• 56:22
  So I'm, I have, I'm very hopeful about the about the future.
• 56:24
  That's what Bitcoin does anyway. Sophie, what are your thoughts
• 56:27
  specifically regarding that as well?
• 56:29
  I know, I know we're both from there.
• 56:30
  I know you definitely have a little bit more stories than I
• 56:33
  do. Sophie, what are your thoughts?
• 56:35
  I love that individuals can rely on Bitcoin to overcome the the
• 56:42
  sanctions. Of course, initially when you
• 56:45
  were reading that story on Russia, the first thing I
• 56:47
  thought is, wow, the United States actually needs to drill,
• 56:51
  baby drill. And Donald Trump needs to come
• 56:54
  up on that promise and sell oil for Bitcoin.
• 56:58
  That's another budget neutral way that the the country can be
• 57:02
  acquiring Bitcoin and compete with Venezuela.
• 57:05
  Because what's happening is that Bitcoin is going straight to the
• 57:09
  Venezuelan government. But then I thought Bitcoin, as
• 57:14
  you said, is for enemies, but it's also for the individuals
• 57:18
  overcoming the sanctions. So what happens when those
• 57:20
  individuals start to demand that the government start paying them
• 57:24
  in Bitcoin? That kind of levels the playing
• 57:27
  field, right? It actually reminds me of the
• 57:30
  Second Amendment in this country and how firearms create a polite
• 57:34
  society. When everybody has equal access
• 57:37
  to currency and they all have the power, they don't have the
• 57:43
  power to create it for free. You actually level the playing
• 57:47
  field and you level the amount of corruption that the
• 57:51
  government can get away with. It reduces the size of
• 57:53
  government inherently because you are all able to provide
• 57:59
  value and and take control of society.
• 58:02
  You know, I, I was like, OK, I don't have Opti on the show
• 58:05
  today. You know, the, the, the, the
• 58:07
  radicalness is this is not going to happen today.
• 58:09
  We're going to be fine. But Sophie comes in swinging,
• 58:12
  which is absolutely hilarious. So guys, we still have a loaded
• 58:18
  show for you guys. We're we're going to transition
• 58:20
  to the culture segment where we're going to be talking to
• 58:23
  John Glover. John Glover is the CIO.
• 58:26
  Of leaden and we're going to be talking about all things leaden
• 58:29
  drop your questions in the chat we'll be able to ask John so
• 58:33
  we'll be. Right back after this quick
• 58:36
  commercial bake. I want to give a shout out to
• 58:39
  our partner Hive Digital Technologies.
• 58:42
  As the first ever public miner, Hive's position to quadruple
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  their global footprint in 2025 and as the first with an AI
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  performance computing. They consistently topped the
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  green and clean, and they're changing the game.
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  Tech or check out their website at Hive digitaltech.com.
• 59:31
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  5% off anything on the store. All right everybody, we are
• 1:00:41
  back. I do want to give a show to a
• 1:00:42
  shout out to the live show. Holy cow 3000 live viewers on
• 1:00:47
  Rumble. Let's break down the other 2700
• 1:00:51
  live viewers on X and 647 live viewers on YouTube.
• 1:00:57
  If you guys are enjoying the show, make sure to smash that
• 1:00:59
  like button. We're on the verge of hitting
• 1:01:01
  our goal on YouTube. We're at 367 likes.
• 1:01:05
  Let's see if we can hit 450 likes by the end of the show.
• 1:01:08
  So if you guys are enjoying the show so far, smash that like
• 1:01:12
  button. Anyways, we are joined with
• 1:01:14
  John. John is the CIO of Leaden.
• 1:01:17
  He is our guest for today. We're going to talk about all
• 1:01:19
  things Leaden. So John, I'm going to pass it on
• 1:01:22
  to you. What is Leaden?
• 1:01:24
  Who's it for? Why should people look into it?
• 1:01:28
  Yeah, Thanks, Nico. So Leaden is a, a lender that
• 1:01:33
  where we lend retail clients dollars against their Bitcoin
• 1:01:37
  collateral. It gives people a way of taking
• 1:01:40
  their idle assets and being able to monetize those without having
• 1:01:43
  to to sell their Bitcoin. So you can continue to huddle,
• 1:01:47
  you can avoid capital gains tax if you're in a in a country that
• 1:01:51
  has capital gains tax. And so it allows you to, you
• 1:01:56
  know, use your Bitcoin to pay for everyday expenses or to go
• 1:02:00
  on a trip or to start a business or to buy a house or whatever it
• 1:02:04
  may be. We have clients in 127 countries
• 1:02:09
  around the world and 1:00 So it doesn't matter US or Ireland or,
• 1:02:18
  you know, South Africa, you're going to be borrowing at the
• 1:02:21
  same rate as anyone else. Whereas if you, you know, if you
• 1:02:26
  consider interest rates being paid by someone in, I don't
• 1:02:30
  know, Venezuela right now, I think interest rates in
• 1:02:34
  Venezuela are like, I don't know, 38 and if you can even
• 1:02:38
  access them. So it really does kind of level
• 1:02:41
  that playing field. We also have an earned product
• 1:02:44
  where you can earn on stable coins.
• 1:02:47
  So where your bank is going to pay you, I don't know, maybe 1
• 1:02:50
  1/2 or 2%, we're paying 7 1/2 to 8 1/2 percent for stable coins.
• 1:02:55
  Those stable coins are utilized to help fund our retail loan
• 1:02:59
  book. So it's being used for in a
• 1:03:01
  very, very safe manner because all of that is over
• 1:03:04
  collateralized. And so it's, it's a way for
• 1:03:07
  people to be able to, to utilize their Bitcoin to, to deal with
• 1:03:12
  real world expenses. I, I, I love that.
• 1:03:15
  And let's talk about that too, John, because I think that is,
• 1:03:18
  that's very, very interesting, right?
• 1:03:20
  The idea that everyone is getting the same rate regardless
• 1:03:24
  of their jurisdiction. That's awesome.
• 1:03:27
  And I I think. That could only happen with
• 1:03:29
  Bitcoin. What are your thoughts on that?
• 1:03:34
  Yeah, I, I think that's absolutely true because it
• 1:03:36
  allows us to take the funding that we get in, you know,
• 1:03:39
  wealthy countries like in the US and be able to use that to fund
• 1:03:45
  loans in Venezuela or, you know, wherever it may be.
• 1:03:48
  Whereas those people in Venezuela don't have access to
• 1:03:51
  that capital. So Bitcoin allows us to do that
• 1:03:54
  because Bitcoin is used as the collateral and then the
• 1:03:57
  blockchain is used as the distribution methodology.
• 1:04:01
  So it's, it's allowed for a levelling of the, the financial
• 1:04:05
  playing field and allowed people to hold on to that Bitcoin asset
• 1:04:08
  that they want in order to build wealth, but still be able to,
• 1:04:12
  you know, to meet their payments that they need to make.
• 1:04:14
  So it's been, yeah, it's been great to be a part of it.
• 1:04:17
  We've done, I think we've done over 60,000 loans now and over
• 1:04:22
  $1.2 billion worth rolled. And it continues to grow as
• 1:04:26
  people continue to to find utility in that.
• 1:04:32
  And let's talk a little bit about the, the, because I think
• 1:04:36
  this was, you know, this is perhaps a little bit little bit
• 1:04:41
  radical for people. So, you know, the idea of, and
• 1:04:44
  we talked about this during the, the, the ad that we read for you
• 1:04:47
  guys, like the idea of being able to tap into the wealth of
• 1:04:51
  your Bitcoin without selling your Bitcoin.
• 1:04:53
  Like how does that work? Like what is the advantage of,
• 1:04:58
  of, you know, taking out a loan versus selling your Bitcoin
• 1:05:01
  other than, of course, the, when you take out a loan, there's no
• 1:05:04
  tax on it because it's a loan, It's not income.
• 1:05:07
  Other than that, like what are the advantages, John?
• 1:05:12
  So I mean, there's a couple of them.
• 1:05:14
  Number one, I think all of us on this channel are huge believers
• 1:05:17
  in Bitcoin, huge believers at the value of Bitcoin is going to
• 1:05:20
  continue to go up. And so this allows you to hold
• 1:05:23
  on to that Bitcoin while taking a loan against it versus selling
• 1:05:27
  your Bitcoin and then maybe missing the opportunity for the
• 1:05:30
  price rally. And then #2 is if you've held
• 1:05:33
  Bitcoin for a long time, as a number of the people on this
• 1:05:37
  that podcast have your, your purchase price is a lot lower
• 1:05:40
  than the current price. So if you were to sell that,
• 1:05:42
  you're going to be hit with capital gains tax.
• 1:05:44
  And you know, we've been talking about tax and the challenge the
• 1:05:47
  tax, you know, incurs upon people in their inability to
• 1:05:52
  continue building. Well.
• 1:05:54
  So it's a way to avoid that taxable event, hold on to your
• 1:05:58
  Bitcoin, but still get utility of by being able to borrow
• 1:06:01
  against it to make, you know, make payments that you need to.
• 1:06:04
  Love that, love that. And so let's talk about the
• 1:06:06
  process, right. So I know a question that we got
• 1:06:10
  the other day was will they run my credit right?
• 1:06:14
  What is the process of initiating a loan at leaden dot
• 1:06:17
  IO John? So we don't do any credit checks
• 1:06:23
  on individuals. And the reason for that is that
• 1:06:26
  you're over collateralizing your loan.
• 1:06:28
  So if you want to, if you want to borrow $10,000, you need to
• 1:06:31
  place $20,000 with a Bitcoin on, on collateral with, with Leaden.
• 1:06:37
  And so we don't need to because we're, we're, we're secure.
• 1:06:41
  So we're not being secured by your creditworthiness, we're
• 1:06:45
  being secured by your Bitcoin. And it's a very, very simple
• 1:06:48
  process. You go on to lend dot IO, you
• 1:06:50
  register, you get a wallet address, you send your Bitcoin
• 1:06:54
  to the wallet address, and your loan is funded within 24 hours.
• 1:06:58
  And so, OK, so you you send your Bitcoin as collateral and then
• 1:07:04
  you get a cash, essentially just cash wired directly to your bank
• 1:07:08
  account. And you know, that sounds great.
• 1:07:11
  What what are what are the what are the the downsides?
• 1:07:14
  Like what? What?
• 1:07:14
  What should people? What should people?
• 1:07:16
  Really pay attention to, especially because a coin is an
• 1:07:19
  extremely volatile asset. Yeah, it's a great question and
• 1:07:25
  you know it. There is there is a chance that
• 1:07:27
  your Bitcoin is going to be sold and that Bitcoin, the only way
• 1:07:31
  that will happen is if you hit your liquidity LTV.
• 1:07:34
  So the LTV is your loan to value.
• 1:07:36
  So the loan to value starts at 50%, which means you're put
• 1:07:40
  placing double the amount of Bitcoin as the size of the loan.
• 1:07:43
  If Bitcoin prices drop, that loan to value is going to creep
• 1:07:46
  higher. If it hits 70%, we send you
• 1:07:49
  notification saying your your loan is getting up towards
• 1:07:53
  liquidation thresholds. You may want to top up or pay
• 1:07:57
  down part of your loan and we also have some tools that allow
• 1:08:00
  you to do that within the platform.
• 1:08:02
  If it ever hits an 80% loan to value, which means Bitcoin
• 1:08:06
  prices come off significantly and you haven't added more
• 1:08:09
  collateral, then your collateral will be sold in an amount
• 1:08:12
  sufficient to pay back the loan and interest owing and the
• 1:08:15
  balance of the Bitcoin will be returned to you.
• 1:08:18
  So we when we look at the behavior of our clients and
• 1:08:21
  we've had, you know, lots of big sell offs in Bitcoin over the
• 1:08:25
  last six years. As you can imagine, that would
• 1:08:28
  have been liquidity events. The vast majority of our clients
• 1:08:32
  add more collateral to avoid being liquidated because they
• 1:08:35
  want to maintain the loan, they want to keep their their Bitcoin
• 1:08:38
  secure. So that's the downside is if you
• 1:08:43
  don't keep that healthy, there is a chance that your bitcoins
• 1:08:45
  going to be sold to repay the loan.
• 1:08:47
  So when you look at it like a any other kind of asset backed
• 1:08:52
  loan. So look at it like a mortgage.
• 1:08:54
  You're putting your house up against the mortgage.
• 1:08:56
  If the mortgage, if you fail to repay the mortgage, you're
• 1:09:00
  you're, you're the, the bank takes your house.
• 1:09:03
  In this case, we're not taking your entire asset.
• 1:09:06
  We're just taking the amount to repay your obligation to then
• 1:09:10
  you get the the balance back. So it's very similar to a
• 1:09:15
  mortgage that you would take out on your house.
• 1:09:17
  And I've seen some commentary in the, in the chat about the rates
• 1:09:22
  being high. The rates are high and I can
• 1:09:24
  tell you the reason why. And when I say hi, they're high
• 1:09:27
  relative to, you know, somebody who's got access to, to, to go
• 1:09:32
  and get a mortgage in the US. And mortgage rates in the US are
• 1:09:35
  right now, I think somewhere around 5 or 6%.
• 1:09:37
  I'm not depends where you are. And that's a good low rate
• 1:09:41
  because you're dealing with banks that have Federal Deposit
• 1:09:44
  Insurance and you know, they're backstopped by the US
• 1:09:47
  government. So, you know, your tax dollars
• 1:09:50
  are backstopping your your mortgage loan.
• 1:09:53
  That doesn't exist in Bitcoin because there is no central
• 1:09:55
  authority for Bitcoin, which is why it's such a fantastic asset
• 1:09:59
  class. But it also means that it, you
• 1:10:01
  know, we don't have that insurance of the government
• 1:10:04
  stepping in to bail us out if there's a problem.
• 1:10:07
  The other reason that rates are are higher than in traditional
• 1:10:09
  finance rates is we don't, we haven't had to date a lot of
• 1:10:14
  traditional finance players coming in to be willing to fund
• 1:10:19
  companies like ourselves to give us the loans that we can then
• 1:10:22
  turn around and lend to others. So those that have come in are
• 1:10:26
  coming in at higher rates. They're coming down, which is
• 1:10:28
  great. And we're going to see them come
• 1:10:30
  down and that will also bring our lending rates down.
• 1:10:35
  But it's taking some time. So, you know, when we look at
• 1:10:38
  where we're getting our funding from, it's usually high net
• 1:10:41
  worth individuals or, you know, players that are already in the
• 1:10:45
  crypto space. And they, you know, their, their
• 1:10:48
  access to capital is better than ours and they're making a decent
• 1:10:51
  yield on it, but that those are coming down and our rates will
• 1:10:55
  come down with it as well. All lenders in the.
• 1:10:57
  Space gotcha. No, and this is a great question
• 1:10:59
  too as well. So I, I do, I, I did want to
• 1:11:02
  bring up a couple topics, right? So John, this and we've heard
• 1:11:06
  sailors say this over and over and over and over again and I
• 1:11:10
  want to get your thoughts on it. The idea that Bitcoin is
• 1:11:14
  pristine cap, pristine collateral, what does that mean?
• 1:11:21
  Well, when you look at the other collateral that's used in the
• 1:11:23
  traditional financial marketplace, it's going to be
• 1:11:27
  stocks, it's going to be your house, it's going to be, you
• 1:11:30
  know, some other asset. You have it maybe your car for a
• 1:11:32
  car loan. And you think of the challenge
• 1:11:35
  if there is a failure of the loan so that that person doesn't
• 1:11:39
  make their car payment, you need to repossess their car.
• 1:11:42
  You need to then try and sell the car.
• 1:11:44
  You have no idea whether the car has been maintained.
• 1:11:46
  So you have no idea whether that collateral value is what you
• 1:11:49
  thought it was. If your house gets repossessed,
• 1:11:53
  government needs to try or the bank needs to try and sell your
• 1:11:55
  house. And depending on what's
• 1:11:57
  happening in the, in the, in the real estate market, that may be
• 1:12:00
  very difficult to do. If it's a stock price that
• 1:12:06
  you're or a stock that you're, you're posting as collateral,
• 1:12:09
  that stock only trades from 9:30 in the morning to 4:30 in the
• 1:12:12
  afternoon, Monday to Friday in your time zone, you know,
• 1:12:15
  whatever country you're in. And so if there's a failure on
• 1:12:19
  the loan, you have to go out and try and sell that stock.
• 1:12:22
  But it could be that that loan failure could happen at, you
• 1:12:25
  know, Friday afternoon at 5 O clock.
• 1:12:28
  And so you then have to wait until the next week to be able
• 1:12:31
  to sell that. And you don't know what's going
• 1:12:33
  to happen to that stock price. With Bitcoin, it's 24/7 365.
• 1:12:38
  It's very deep liquidity. You're going to be able to
• 1:12:41
  liquidate that collateral if you need to.
• 1:12:45
  It's very quick to be able to top up collateral because it's
• 1:12:48
  on the blockchain. So it's not like you have to go
• 1:12:51
  into your bank and send a wire to add more collateral,
• 1:12:54
  etcetera. It's just perfect collateral
• 1:12:58
  that you don't have to. You're not at risk of price gaps
• 1:13:02
  because of market being closed. You're it's very, very easy
• 1:13:06
  because one Bitcoin in Latin America is exactly the same as
• 1:13:10
  one Bitcoin in the UK. So you don't have to worry about
• 1:13:14
  local markets and what that means for that asset.
• 1:13:17
  The collateral is pristine. It's the best collateral that's
• 1:13:20
  ever been in existence, and so that's what sailors talking
• 1:13:24
  about with pristine collateral makes it very, very safe to lend
• 1:13:27
  against. That that that's it almost sound
• 1:13:30
  like if it's, if it's pristine collateral, it almost sounds
• 1:13:33
  like the industry is in its infancy.
• 1:13:37
  Could you talk a little bit about that, John?
• 1:13:42
  Oh, it, it definitely is in its empathy.
• 1:13:44
  So when you look at, you know, I've, I've referred to, to
• 1:13:48
  mortgages a couple Times Now because that's another asset
• 1:13:51
  class that people really understand that they can borrow
• 1:13:54
  against. 60% of houses in North America have a mortgage against
• 1:13:59
  them. If you look at Bitcoin and how
• 1:14:01
  much Bitcoin has been posted as collateral for loans, that
• 1:14:05
  number is somewhere around 1%, maybe as high as two.
• 1:14:09
  But there's no, you know, there's no central data
• 1:14:12
  collection point where you can really find that out.
• 1:14:14
  But if you think about that, you know, we think that the Bitcoin
• 1:14:18
  retail loan market right now is somewhere around $2 billion.
• 1:14:23
  If that grows to the same point as the mortgage market, think
• 1:14:27
  about 60% of all Bitcoin having a loan against it.
• 1:14:30
  That's a huge opportunity in the marketplace and it's huge
• 1:14:33
  untapped capital that people will then have to spend and
• 1:14:38
  spend into their economy. So it's, you know, there's a
• 1:14:41
  huge opportunity here to help people that you know, don't know
• 1:14:45
  that this is available, but also to create a, an economic impact
• 1:14:51
  which is going to be really, really positive.
• 1:14:53
  Absolutely. So where can they go to learn
• 1:14:56
  more about this? So let's say they're not
• 1:14:58
  familiar with this, they're like, OK, wait a second.
• 1:15:01
  So I'm just going to send my my Bitcoin to this platform like,
• 1:15:05
  you know, like it it where where could people get educated?
• 1:15:08
  So they go to leaden dot IO. Where could they find more
• 1:15:11
  information? Yeah.
• 1:15:14
  So leaden dot IO, we have a lot of educational tools on there
• 1:15:17
  and we think that it's super important for people to be
• 1:15:21
  educated. Just like if you're, you know,
• 1:15:23
  getting involved in any kind of financial product, you should be
• 1:15:26
  have full understanding of of what it is.
• 1:15:30
  So if you go on to leaden dot IO, we have a lot of videos, we
• 1:15:33
  have a lot of tutorials that really helps you to understand
• 1:15:36
  exactly how this works. And there's also, you know,
• 1:15:41
  we've got lots of podcasts that that we've been on.
• 1:15:45
  If you just look at my name, John Glover Leaden news, you'll
• 1:15:48
  see a whole lot of different articles that have been written
• 1:15:51
  in interviews that I've done. Same thing with Mauricio.
• 1:15:57
  Mauricio has been called because of Bitcoin, which is a lot of
• 1:16:03
  really good educational materials in there.
• 1:16:06
  So yeah, there's there's a lot of good places to go to, but
• 1:16:08
  Leaden dot IO is a great starting point for that.
• 1:16:11
  Absolutely. And then we I saw someone in the
• 1:16:13
  comments just want to go through some of these.
• 1:16:16
  So first up from Winston Alexander says, I have some
• 1:16:19
  loans with Leaden since early 2024, just reduced some excess
• 1:16:22
  collateral pretty fast. Also, the custodial rate
• 1:16:25
  slightly came down for newer loans to 13% in New Jersey.
• 1:16:30
  Want to pull up this one from SpongeBob SquarePants with AZ
• 1:16:35
  loans should be offered at longer terms, not just one year.
• 1:16:38
  So I believe, and John, please correct me if I'm wrong here, I
• 1:16:43
  believe that it there's an, it's, there's an automatic
• 1:16:46
  rollover. Is that correct?
• 1:16:51
  Yeah. So all of our loans are one year
• 1:16:53
  term, but they can be repaid at any time.
• 1:16:55
  So the huge flexibility in the loans and repaid at any time
• 1:16:58
  without penalty. You can roll those loans at the
• 1:17:02
  at the maturity date and you don't have to even repay the the
• 1:17:05
  interest that's owed. You can roll that into the
• 1:17:08
  principle of the new loan and keep doing that AD infinitum if
• 1:17:12
  you wish to. So it's not a, it's not a, you
• 1:17:15
  know, beyond a one year loan to start with, but you can continue
• 1:17:17
  rolling that. And we've had people that have
• 1:17:19
  been rolling the same loan for five years.
• 1:17:21
  So it's, you know, it's up to you how long you want to remain
• 1:17:25
  within that loan. Spongebob's been quite active on
• 1:17:29
  the on the chat. And so it's interesting that he
• 1:17:32
  wants a longer term loan because he's not a big fan of the loans
• 1:17:34
  at all from what he's been talking.
• 1:17:36
  So I, I forgot to, you know, I, I, I like that kind of disc.
• 1:17:39
  I forgot to tell you before we go live because usually Opti
• 1:17:42
  does this, but the the simply Bitcoin chat box is notoriously
• 1:17:48
  the troll box. So I forgot to tell you that.
• 1:17:51
  But yes, our, our, our, our, our chat box is quite lively.
• 1:17:55
  So I do see some people in the chat mentioning that Leaden is
• 1:17:59
  not available in certain states. So I saw California, I saw
• 1:18:03
  Tennessee, I think was another one.
• 1:18:05
  Are you guys planning to expand to different states, especially
• 1:18:09
  with the Trump administration going into power?
• 1:18:15
  We are. So we're in the process right
• 1:18:17
  now of expanding into California and into New York.
• 1:18:21
  It, it takes time because each one of the states has different
• 1:18:26
  requirements and different regulatory hurdles to get over.
• 1:18:30
  So we're, we're moving as quickly as we can to be in as
• 1:18:32
  many states as we're as we're possibly able to.
• 1:18:36
  We'd love to be in every single state immediately, but it just
• 1:18:39
  takes time and resources. Yeah, No, I can imagine that
• 1:18:42
  the, the, the regulatory, the, the, the regulatory hurdle must
• 1:18:46
  be, you know, must be, must be big.
• 1:18:49
  I do want to read the poll. So we dropped the poll about
• 1:18:52
  half an hour ago. I said, do you believe the
• 1:18:54
  Bitcoin bull run is over 377 of you guys voted, 91% of you guys
• 1:19:01
  voted no and and 9% of you guys voted yes.
• 1:19:06
  I'm going to end that poll. Sophie, do you have any thoughts
• 1:19:08
  or questions for John regarding Lennon?
• 1:19:11
  I was actually going to ask if there is a limit to how many
• 1:19:14
  times you can roll it over, but if it goes below 50% of you know
• 1:19:19
  the price that you. So, so the the loan to value
• 1:19:23
  ratio is if it goes above 80% then they liquidate and I
• 1:19:26
  believe you guys send out a warning at 70%, is that correct?
• 1:19:32
  We'll send out a warning at 70 and we'll continue sending out
• 1:19:35
  those warnings as long as it's above 70%, about 80%, it'll be
• 1:19:39
  liquidated. So you can keep rolling, Sophie,
• 1:19:41
  as long as you want to, as long as you have sufficient
• 1:19:43
  collateral in there or if you top up collateral to allow
• 1:19:46
  yourself to continue. But yeah, there's no, there's no
• 1:19:50
  limit to how many times you can do that.
• 1:19:52
  And there's really no limit to how much you can borrow either.
• 1:19:54
  We've got loans, our average loan size is around $30,000, but
• 1:19:59
  we $500 is our minimum loan size and we've got loans that are as
• 1:20:04
  big as $7,000,000. So it's, you know.
• 1:20:08
  It's really for everybody, regardless of where you are.
• 1:20:12
  It's giving you access to to some capital against you and
• 1:20:14
  collateral. So if you had to time, when
• 1:20:17
  would be the best time to get a loan?
• 1:20:21
  I don't think he can answer that, but.
• 1:20:25
  Well, yeah, I guess however, however, there's there are
• 1:20:30
  there's two products that we have Sophie, which I think
• 1:20:33
  really kind of leads into the question you have one is our
• 1:20:36
  just standard loan. You, you know, put up your
• 1:20:38
  collateral and you borrow dollars and you use it for
• 1:20:41
  whatever you want to that you want to use it for, whether
• 1:20:44
  that's, you know, go on a vacation or buy a car or
• 1:20:46
  whatever. The other one is called B2X.
• 1:20:48
  And in that case, you put up your Bitcoin, we buy, we issue a
• 1:20:55
  loan in that same amount and we use that to buy more Bitcoin.
• 1:20:59
  So you end up with a 50% loan to value because let's say you put
• 1:21:02
  up half a Bitcoin, we give you half a Bitcoin worth of dollars,
• 1:21:06
  so call it 45,000 bucks and another half a Bitcoin.
• 1:21:09
  So now you've got a full Bitcoin against your $45,000 loan.
• 1:21:12
  So you're at about a 50% LTV. So that allows you to double
• 1:21:18
  your Bitcoin. And what people, what our
• 1:21:20
  clients use that for is when they believe that Bitcoin is
• 1:21:23
  going to rally again, then they start doing B2X loans.
• 1:21:26
  And when it rallies and hits whatever their target is, they
• 1:21:30
  repay that loan by selling that additional Bitcoin that they got
• 1:21:33
  and they still have their core holding.
• 1:21:35
  So you know the question as to when is the right time to take
• 1:21:38
  out a loan. Most of our loans, the vast
• 1:21:41
  majority of our loans are just people who need it when they
• 1:21:43
  need it. And that's for, you know, paying
• 1:21:45
  a bill or going on a vacation or buying a house or whatever it
• 1:21:48
  may be. But with B2X, people are using
• 1:21:50
  that opportunistically. We see a lot of activity when
• 1:21:54
  there's a new high set. So people think it's going to
• 1:21:56
  really rally quickly. So we see a lot of people
• 1:21:58
  entering B2X then and also when we see a dip and it starts to
• 1:22:02
  bounce. So we're we're starting to see a
• 1:22:04
  lot of B2 XS now after we saw that move down into into the
• 1:22:08
  kind of high 70 thousands that are now having, you know,
• 1:22:11
  rallying back up. And with all this news, I
• 1:22:13
  wouldn't be surprised at all if we, you know, see a lot more
• 1:22:16
  activity in that area. And to your pole, Nico, we are
• 1:22:20
  nowhere near the. Oh man, I, I it's this, this
• 1:22:27
  bull has definitely been underwhelming.
• 1:22:29
  So I hope, I hope there's. Just a little slow.
• 1:22:35
  Oh, has it really been underwhelming?
• 1:22:36
  Look at we were $15,000 only two years ago.
• 1:22:40
  That's not an underwhelming bull run.
• 1:22:41
  That's a pretty damn good bull run.
• 1:22:43
  But we've got a lot more room to go.
• 1:22:45
  Absolutely. So yeah, guys, appreciate you
• 1:22:48
  guys tuning in to Simply Bitcoin Live Today for March 14th, 2025.
• 1:22:54
  I'm your host Nico. This is my Co host for today, my
• 1:22:57
  beautiful wife, Internet Sophie, and our special guest for today,
• 1:23:01
  John Glover in the house. John Glover is the CIO of.
• 1:23:05
  Leaden Leaden is a partner of Simply Bitcoin.
• 1:23:07
  I personally use them before they were a partner.
• 1:23:10
  They're freaking awesome. Head over to leaden dot IO to
• 1:23:13
  find out more information. Guys, of course.
• 1:23:15
  Smash the like button and have an amazing weekend.
• 1:23:19
  And John, if you can hang out backstage, well, we're going to
• 1:23:22
  wrap up the show. Take care, everybody.
• 1:23:25
  Today's episode was brought to you by bitcoinwell.com, a
• 1:23:28
  Bitcoin only platform on a mission to enable financial
• 1:23:31
  independence.