Latest / Simply Bitcoin / The worlds largest exchange is SUFFERING A Bank Run?! | EP 1432

Transcript

The worlds largest exchange is SUFFERING A Bank Run?! | EP 1432 · Simply Bitcoin

• 0:00
  The bank runs have officially begun, just not the bank runs we
• 0:05
  were expecting. We saw the first bank in America
• 0:07
  collapse last Friday, but now we have some rumors circulating
• 0:12
  that the world's largest Bitcoin exchange could be a experiencing
• 0:17
  a bank run as we speak. I'm not making this up, guys.
• 0:23
  I'm gonna parse through the signal from the noise.
• 0:25
  There's a lot of rumors speculating and it, it really
• 0:30
  goes into the point that we've been talking, we've seen this
• 0:32
  happen in Bitcoin a lot. This is why we always tell you
• 0:35
  the same thing. Buying Bitcoin is not enough.
• 0:38
  You have to take the Bitcoin off the exchanges.
• 0:41
  But what am I talking about? I am, you know, circulating the
• 0:46
  CZ drama. The CZ Zaga saga continues.
• 0:49
  And of course, I'm not alone. I got Kent, our boy Kent from
• 0:53
  SAS mining CEO and Co founder. He's gonna update us on what's
• 0:57
  going on in the mining space later on the show.
• 0:59
  But before we do that, let's let's get into the CZ Zaga.
• 1:02
  So I know a lot of people still say, and actually this is kind
• 1:07
  of like on paper, the official story is that CZ doesn't
• 1:10
  actually run Binance. But as I was telling Kent behind
• 1:13
  the scenes, CZ is the majority owner of Binance.
• 1:17
  Actually like significant majority owner of finance.
• 1:20
  He did have to step down to CEO when he went to prison or jail.
• 1:24
  Actually it was prison and then his wife became the new CEO who
• 1:28
  holds a minority stake in Binance.
• 1:31
  So technically he doesn't run Binance, but in reality, you
• 1:35
  know, he's probably controlling Binance to his wife on the back
• 1:38
  end. That's that's just kind of the
• 1:40
  context to this. Now, yesterday we did do the
• 1:42
  show about CZ saying super cycles off because the
• 1:46
  community's being mean. You know, they're fighting
• 1:49
  Binance, they're fighting CZI. Played you this clip yesterday.
• 1:53
  I showed you, you know, the troll tweet here that CZ said
• 1:56
  he's going to buy a billion, ends up dumping a billion, and
• 2:00
  then they say they're going to buy 100 million.
• 2:02
  Now the reason I'm bringing this up is because there is or rather
• 2:07
  there seems to be a lot of distrust in in CZ and Binance
• 2:13
  currently. And so this I think is kind of
• 2:15
  the root of this story and what we're seeing, I think the
• 2:19
  timeline from what we saw with CZ dumping on retail saying
• 2:24
  super cycles off because you're being mean, all this happened,
• 2:27
  you know, over the weekend and on Monday.
• 2:29
  And now we have another wrinkle to the saga, which is Binance
• 2:36
  yesterday posting that they are having issues, technical
• 2:42
  difficulties on withdrawals. So here's the Binance official
• 2:45
  post. We are aware of some technical
• 2:47
  difficulties affecting withdrawals on the platform.
• 2:50
  Our team is already working on a fix and services will resume as
• 2:54
  soon as possible. We appreciate get your patients
• 2:57
  and we'll keep you posted. So that's the official, you
• 3:01
  know, Binance PR view here. Hey, guys, we're just having
• 3:06
  some issues with withdrawals. We you know it, it will we'll
• 3:08
  get this fixed. We do hear a lot of similar
• 3:12
  narrative or PR coming out of Coinbase all the time.
• 3:15
  Whenever the price goes up, somehow magically withdrawals
• 3:20
  are affected on Binance. The the platform goes down.
• 3:25
  This isn't something that is new.
• 3:27
  This is almost like a tried and true way to basically try to
• 3:33
  minimize Bitcoin withdrawals going off the the platform try
• 3:38
  to in some some ways manipulate the amount of buying, selling so
• 3:42
  that they can essentially catch up to demand.
• 3:46
  So that's like my initial take. They say officially, oh, hey,
• 3:50
  we're having some tech issues we're going to resolve this
• 3:52
  soon. Usually this, this probably a
• 3:56
  lot deeper than this now. Why do we think that it's
• 3:59
  potentially a bank run going on Binance?
• 4:02
  I'm not going to say that Binance is going down today or
• 4:05
  tomorrow even this year. Maybe there's a non zero chance
• 4:09
  that that is going on, but it does stem from the idea that the
• 4:15
  Binance community or the users of Binance are starting to
• 4:19
  become distrustful with CZ, with the Binance leadership.
• 4:24
  And this does have parallels to other bank runs we've seen in
• 4:28
  the past, which, as someone that has been in Bitcoin for a while,
• 4:32
  we tell you guys constantly you need to take Bitcoin off the
• 4:36
  exchanges. This is the stuff that should be
• 4:39
  worrying you. Now again, I'm I don't want to
• 4:41
  be spreading FUD that Binance is collapsing per SE, but it does
• 4:45
  seem like there is a community bank run going on with Binance
• 4:48
  right now. Here is again, I am going to be
• 4:51
  using some shit corner as source material here for tweets.
• 4:54
  So forgive me guys, I'll, I'll tell you up front, of course,
• 4:57
  the shit corners are going to be commenting on Binance.
• 5:00
  They they're a shit coin casino. So you know, the, you know, hold
• 5:03
  your tomatoes on that one. But here is where it starts to
• 5:06
  make the round on Twitter we have this guy at 30 and prez.
• 5:12
  It looks like he might be a Kraken chill, so you could take
• 5:15
  the source with a grain of salt here, but he goes.
• 5:17
  Breaking news, Binance is experiencing A withdrawal crisis
• 5:21
  on chain Data and market tracker show Binance has seen billions
• 5:25
  of dollars of assets withdrawn in a short period, including
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  stable coins like USDT as well as other major cryptos,
• 5:32
  including capital moving off the exchange rather than rotating
• 5:35
  internally, which you we would see if there was just kind of,
• 5:40
  you know, technical issues if people weren't mass exodus from
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  Binance. And of course, CZ Binance and
• 5:47
  his wife, hey, Binance are causing a bank run with their
• 5:49
  fraudulent activities. That's I guess a, a big
• 5:53
  accusation here. But there has been a lot of
• 5:56
  concern over CZ over what Binance leadership has been
• 6:00
  doing, as as most people know, CZ did go to jail for, you can
• 6:07
  say, criminal activities, to put it nicely.
• 6:10
  And recently, a lot of people are not feeling that comfortable
• 6:14
  with the finance leadership. And for better or worse, they
• 6:17
  are the world's biggest Bitcoin exchange.
• 6:19
  Coinbase probably has the biggest reputation in Bitcoin,
• 6:23
  but finance has the most liquidity.
• 6:25
  They're the biggest exchange. Anyways, they go on to say get
• 6:28
  your money off finance before it's too late.
• 6:31
  Now of course this is just speculation, but there is data
• 6:35
  to back this up. We have Marty party here going
• 6:38
  Binance exchange while it's down 6000 Bitcoin in February as
• 6:42
  users withdraw off the exchange continue withdrawing hashtag
• 6:46
  drain Binance. Now you know you might be saying
• 6:49
  OK, 6000 Bitcoin not that much. Remember we are three days into
• 6:53
  the month of February. OK, so in the last two days 6000
• 6:58
  Bitcoin have left Binance. Now, you could speculate of
• 7:02
  where this is going, who this actually is, but from what I'm
• 7:05
  seeing on Twitter, it does seem like a lot of users are trying
• 7:09
  to get out of Binance, which you know, is, is a bit concerning
• 7:14
  when they're having quote UN quote glitches and technical
• 7:17
  difficulties on their withdrawals.
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  Here's another tweet. So many people are closing their
• 7:21
  Binance accounts that it is causing a withdrawal crisis.
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  Again, get your funds out of Binance and, and here is
• 7:29
  probably where you, you kind of relate this to what we've seen
• 7:34
  in the past. Remember the 2021 bull run?
• 7:40
  You can pinpoint a few different things that happen.
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  You know, we've seen bull runs end in the past because of
• 7:47
  similar scenarios, particularly when FTX blew up, you know,
• 7:51
  Celsius, wow, I'm blinking block five.
• 7:56
  I was going to call it Bitlock Block 5 had their issues it we
• 8:01
  all found out that in reality they didn't have the Bitcoin
• 8:04
  that they claimed and that's what caused a major draw down.
• 8:08
  Now this is where you start to connect the dots and maybe I'm
• 8:11
  reading into things. Maybe I'm connecting dots that
• 8:13
  aren't there. Maybe I'm just a paranoid
• 8:15
  bitcoiner that only feels safe when Bitcoin is in cold storage.
• 8:19
  Again, we have Leonidas. Here goes.
• 8:21
  Thousands of people are posting screenshots on X showing they
• 8:24
  closed their Binance accounts. Binance had to halt withdrawals
• 8:27
  due to the outflow. This is exactly how the FTX
• 8:31
  collapse started. Again, get your money out of
• 8:33
  Binance. So I don't want to necessarily
• 8:37
  say that Binance is going to explode.
• 8:40
  I don't, I don't want to necessarily say that Binance is
• 8:43
  going down, that they are collapsing as we speak.
• 8:46
  But there does seem to be a bank run right now currently from
• 8:50
  Binance users on the exchange and the parallels that we've
• 8:54
  seen or we're seeing currently with Binance to what we've seen
• 8:58
  in the in the past. It is very eerie.
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  It, it doesn't make you feel good.
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  If you have a lot of Bitcoin on Binance, These are the things
• 9:05
  that should be concerning to you.
• 9:06
  And like I say, we are huge advocates of it's not just
• 9:10
  enough to buy Bitcoin or get Bitcoin exposure.
• 9:13
  You can't leave your Bitcoin on exchanges.
• 9:15
  You need to take that Bitcoin into code storage.
• 9:17
  So when you see things like this and if you have money on
• 9:20
  Binance, I wouldn't, I wouldn't just be like, oh, this is just
• 9:23
  rumors and speculations. I would try to be taking my
• 9:27
  Bitcoin off the exchange if they let you, if the fix is coming
• 9:30
  in. These are the things that do
• 9:32
  concern you as a bitcoiner, as a quote UN quote Bitcoin maxi, as
• 9:37
  someone that doesn't want to get scammed, doesn't want to get
• 9:39
  scared out and hurt out of this industry, this ecosystem.
• 9:43
  These are the things that are definitely concerning.
• 9:45
  So again, who knows what's actually going on, but when
• 9:50
  there's smoke sometimes and usually there is fire and you're
• 9:54
  seeing these conversation, these rumors, it could be overhyped,
• 9:58
  it could be blown out of proportion, but I, I wouldn't, I
• 10:02
  wouldn't risk it. That's kind of my biggest view
• 10:04
  here. I'm not the biggest fan of
• 10:06
  Binance. I don't even use Binance.
• 10:07
  I use Binance in like 2017. I haven't been back in years.
• 10:11
  But if you are using Binance, if you, if you for whatever reason,
• 10:16
  like Binance, maybe your shit coin, you know, gambling a
• 10:19
  little bit, these are the things that that you should be watching
• 10:22
  and be concerned about. Because if finance goes down,
• 10:26
  not only are you going to lose Bitcoin, but then we're really
• 10:29
  going to be in a prolonged bear market.
• 10:31
  We've seen this play out in the past, whether it's Mount Gox,
• 10:34
  whether it's FTX, when the exchanges that are essentially
• 10:39
  the lead of the liquidity in Bitcoin, when they're the
• 10:41
  biggest exchanges in the time, in the in the industry, in the
• 10:45
  ecosystem, it hurts much more than just the users on these
• 10:49
  platforms. If Binance did go down right
• 10:52
  now, I I think we would be in a very huge correction.
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  It would be very bad for the industry and we would be getting
• 11:01
  Bitcoin on discount for a significant period of time.
• 11:04
  So that's why I don't want it to go down.
• 11:06
  I'm just saying we're seeing the signs that there potentially
• 11:09
  might be some issues. This could be overblown.
• 11:12
  I don't necessarily want to be fighting Binance right now.
• 11:15
  I don't want to add into the fact that CZ doesn't want to
• 11:18
  pump our bags into a super cycle because I'm fighting.
• 11:21
  But I would be, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't show
• 11:25
  you stuff like this and you have Bitcoin on Binance and you get
• 11:29
  absolutely wrecked. And there you're like, oh, Opti
• 11:31
  didn't tell us this is going to happen.
• 11:33
  I'm telling you don't. I'm not fighting.
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  This isn't Opti fighting. I'm just saying we've seen this
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  happen. Don't take the chance take the
• 11:41
  Bitcoin into cold storage. This is the best way to protect
• 11:44
  yourself. So there's the CZ Binance news
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  guys, not really making me feel good about where we are.
• 11:51
  It it is making me feel like damn, we really are in a bear
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  market like we really are going to get dumped on, aren't we?
• 11:58
  It's it's a it's an interesting time, man.
• 12:00
  Also, I'm I'm still really bullish guys, so hold your
• 12:03
  tomatoes anyways, cat, what's your thought seeing this?
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  Am I, am I putting, you know, am am I reaching here?
• 12:09
  Am I connecting dots that aren't there?
• 12:11
  Or if you see this, are you thinking the same thing that I'm
• 12:14
  thinking as a bitcoiner? Well, I, I, I like to think of
• 12:18
  myself as a good Boy Scout. And part of that means that in,
• 12:22
  in the crypto industry, you want to be the first to panic, not
• 12:25
  the last. The the ones that are last to
• 12:26
  panic are the ones that wind up holding the bag for everybody.
• 12:31
  So yes, if you do have Bitcoin on exchange, there are enough
• 12:34
  worrying signs that it's worth getting out.
• 12:36
  And I'm going to say all that. And at the same time, I'm also
• 12:39
  going to say that I'm actually not particularly worried about
• 12:42
  it because, you know, having got into the industry in 2015, even
• 12:46
  before Binance launched and then watching the career arc of CZI,
• 12:52
  mean, I, I, I like to think of him as like our industry's
• 12:56
  pirate. And, and it's, he's sort of
• 12:58
  endearing in a weird sort of way because he's just been so good
• 13:02
  at rating and looting and doing it all while not falling off of
• 13:07
  that thin, thin line that he walks.
• 13:09
  Don't ask me how, but he's managed.
• 13:11
  If you if you look back at history during the FDX days, he
• 13:15
  was the one that poked the the pop the bubble between FTX,
• 13:20
  right? And he did it cleverly to bring
• 13:21
  down his lead competitor. If you watched him on stage, he
• 13:25
  made Peter Schiff look like a fool with a gold bar.
• 13:29
  I mean, the guy is incredibly clever.
• 13:31
  So I wouldn't even be putting it past him right now that he's
• 13:33
  intentionally creating all the smoke so he could scoop up a
• 13:35
  bunch of cheap bit cheap Bitcoin here, right?
• 13:39
  I mean, the guy is just incredibly clever.
• 13:41
  But that said, yes, in this industry, if you see the warning
• 13:45
  signs that are currently on display, it is wise to remove
• 13:47
  your Bitcoin. Take it to cold storage.
• 13:49
  It'd be the first to panic. Do not leave it on exchange.
• 13:52
  And I agree with you Opti here that we don't want to see
• 13:58
  finance fall over. I, like I said, I would be
• 14:00
  shocked if it happened just because of the survivor bias
• 14:05
  that I put towards CZ here to keep everything is, is ship in
• 14:09
  order, even though technically he's not in charge of the ship,
• 14:12
  but we all know he is. And you know, let's see what
• 14:16
  transpires. But these are the hallmarks of
• 14:19
  bear market, which saddens me to say, you know, is I think it was
• 14:23
  back in December that I, I made the ungainly call that we'd
• 14:26
  actually found our bottom been proven horribly wrong.
• 14:29
  So I apologize. I did caveat that and said
• 14:31
  better men than me have been wrong.
• 14:33
  And I, I I fall into that camp once again.
• 14:36
  So, you know, when we look at bitcoins price action here, it's
• 14:39
  not particularly inspiring and it's right at the point where,
• 14:44
  you know, if you're going to see a macro bottom to continue any
• 14:47
  sort of bullishness, we're there.
• 14:49
  So I'm not surprised that sentiments horrible, but kind of
• 14:52
  at a binary point in time from where I sit on what the markets
• 14:56
  going to do here. And yeah, so much of it, it's
• 14:58
  just so ugly across the board. And you layer that in right now
• 15:02
  with what's going on macro scale with Epstein files and
• 15:06
  everything else. And, but man, it feels like
• 15:09
  we're in some sort of crazy wormhole experience together.
• 15:12
  So hang on tight. We know the truth in Bitcoin.
• 15:16
  We're going to come out the other side.
• 15:17
  And this is where where the holders are made is whether in
• 15:20
  these downturns. So I'm I'm eternally optimistic
• 15:23
  for Bitcoin in the long run, but here at the particular moment
• 15:26
  things are a bit dicey. Yeah, 100%.
• 15:31
  You know, I've been holding out on being like the last, you
• 15:34
  know, the last bull tarred. But I'd be lying to you guys if,
• 15:39
  if I'm not looking at everything and being like, man, this, this
• 15:42
  really does feel like a bear market.
• 15:44
  Now, what does that mean? The bear market's going to go
• 15:46
  any lower? Is is you know what, what do I
• 15:48
  really know? But when you're seeing all the
• 15:51
  signs it, it definitely feels like a bear market.
• 15:55
  And like you said, there is like a fork in the road currently
• 15:58
  where if something like this were to occur, then all hopes of
• 16:04
  a bounce, you know, from here is is completely out the window.
• 16:08
  We will see the price collapse. So I'm not here cheering on the
• 16:12
  potential for Binance to go down.
• 16:14
  It's just, hey, when you see this things and you've been in
• 16:17
  Bitcoin for a long time, these are, this is what makes you
• 16:20
  concerned and you, you got to take your Bitcoin off the
• 16:23
  exchanges. I, I'm not really like the
• 16:26
  biggest Binance hater at all by any means.
• 16:29
  I do kind of agree with what Kent was saying.
• 16:32
  You know, what's the the devil you know versus the devil you
• 16:35
  don't know? Like C ZS been in the trenches
• 16:37
  for so long with us. Maybe he's on the opposite side
• 16:40
  of the trenches, but he's still in the trenches with us.
• 16:43
  And he has been a very good advocate in, in, in some
• 16:46
  respects, in, in terms of crypto at large and building something
• 16:50
  in the crypto industry ecosystem.
• 16:52
  You know, it's hard to really look at what by CZ has done.
• 16:56
  And, and just like hate on him. It's like, you know, hey, got to
• 16:59
  give the devil his due to, you know, put it bluntly.
• 17:02
  But yeah, it's, it's very interesting to see.
• 17:05
  Obviously, I hope this doesn't happen, but the fact you're
• 17:08
  seeing so many people talk about it on Twitter and saying that,
• 17:11
  yeah, hey, we're getting out of Binance right now.
• 17:14
  I don't know. It doesn't really make me feel
• 17:18
  good of where we are right now. I'm like, man, we really might
• 17:20
  be seeing a 80% draw down if this happens for a prolonged
• 17:24
  period of time. Even though I'm in my
• 17:26
  perspective, in my analysis, I'm I'm more on and I think the
• 17:30
  macro might be shifting in our favor, but the macro really
• 17:34
  wouldn't mean a thing if the biggest Bitcoin shit coin casino
• 17:38
  exchange blew up on us guys. So let's hope and pray that CZ
• 17:43
  has it all on control. Let's hope it really was just a
• 17:46
  technical glitch and no, or maybe it's really the the
• 17:49
  Binance or sorry, the Coinbase scenario where you know,
• 17:52
  whenever, whenever the price starts going up, the platform
• 17:55
  goes down magically and you're like, oh, bull run territory,
• 17:58
  like let's go, OK, we finally are back.
• 18:01
  So hopefully it is, you know, it's more of like a managed
• 18:05
  problem versus like a huge gaping hole in their balance
• 18:08
  sheet, which really I think maybe we still have PTSD because
• 18:12
  of what happened with FTX. And we realized like literally
• 18:15
  FTX had no Bitcoin on their platform.
• 18:17
  They were just trading, you know, paper Ious on top of
• 18:21
  Bitcoin and they had absolutely nothing in it.
• 18:23
  So as I've been saying for a while, we haven't as a industry,
• 18:28
  as an ecosystem, really put Sam Bakeman freed behind us in the
• 18:32
  past or the FTX story in the past.
• 18:34
  That still looms big on everyone in Bitcoin and crypto right now.
• 18:39
  And if this were to happen again, guys, we we're never
• 18:44
  going to live that down. That's going to be another,
• 18:46
  what, 234 years of us having to be like.
• 18:49
  No, but like there's still some good people in the space.
• 18:51
  We're not all criminals here. It's just it, it wouldn't be
• 18:54
  good PR it it would be absolutely horrible for everyone
• 18:57
  here. So I'm, I'm not really, I'm
• 19:00
  cheering this on. I'm just saying we're hearing
• 19:02
  rumors and speculations should probably get your Bitcoin off
• 19:06
  all exchanges at this point, which is what we constantly tell
• 19:09
  you guys, we're constantly beating that drum.
• 19:12
  That's that's like the most important thing to be doing is
• 19:15
  taking your Bitcoin off the exchanges because you know,
• 19:18
  there's only 21 million. Once you lose it, you can't get
• 19:21
  it back. Guys, it's gone.
• 19:22
  OK, So you can, you can deal with your own risk profiles
• 19:26
  here. If you if you feel comfortable
• 19:28
  with your Bitcoin on Binance or any other exchange, then by all
• 19:31
  means. But we, we don't, we don't take
• 19:34
  that risk here and we don't advocate for that on simply
• 19:37
  Bitcoin. So that's the first part I do
• 19:41
  for the rest of the show. I got a good Caitlyn Long clip
• 19:45
  about how Wall Street and paper Bitcoin is created.
• 19:48
  She was just on what Bitcoin did.
• 19:50
  Really good clip. We've been talking about that
• 19:52
  theme here on the show as well. And then we got an update, guys.
• 19:55
  We got an update from the US Marshals on that stolen $40
• 20:00
  million Bitcoin. And then Trump did a clip
• 20:02
  yesterday that we'll talk about a little bit.
• 20:05
  And then to end the show, like I said.
• 20:08
  Kent's gonna give us an update on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem.
• 20:11
  There's some interesting stuff happening in Bitcoin mining
• 20:14
  currently. It could potentially be an
• 20:16
  opportunity for you guys out there if you are on the fence of
• 20:19
  Bitcoin mining, if you are currently Bitcoin mining, it
• 20:23
  might, it might be a, it might be a good time for you guys to
• 20:26
  to double down on your Bitcoin mining journey right now.
• 20:29
  So that's the layout for today's show.
• 20:31
  Quick commercial break and we will be right back.
• 20:35
  Today's episode is brought to you by Bitcoin Well Infinite.
• 20:38
  If you're a serious Bitcoin buyer, you've probably hit the
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  same wall. Most platforms make you give up
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  se-ed.com store. Chat chat saying they lost me to
• 22:47
  the bears guys, I'm still bullish I'm just saying it's not
• 22:50
  looking pretty right now OK like I'm human too.
• 22:54
  I, I, I got eyes. They're not just rose colored
• 22:57
  tinted glasses all day every day.
• 22:59
  Sometimes you know reality. You got to be pragmatic about
• 23:02
  reality. And I'm like, I still think 2026
• 23:05
  is going to be a bullish year. I'm just saying, man, the short
• 23:08
  term it's not looking good. Like can we, can we acknowledge
• 23:12
  that enough? OK, I'm I'm going to crash out
• 23:14
  on the chat anyways. The current Bitcoin price is
• 23:17
  75,000 and $60.00, which is a 40.5% discount from all time
• 23:24
  guys. Like just look at that.
• 23:26
  We're we're down 40% now. Hey, I've been bullish all the
• 23:30
  way down. Now I'm like, man, maybe maybe
• 23:33
  we are at the bottom of the bear market.
• 23:35
  That's what makes me even more bullish.
• 23:37
  I'm seeing everyone be bearish and I'm like, you know, I got AI
• 23:39
  got AI got a white knuckle through the bull tardedness.
• 23:42
  OK guys. Anyways, the market cap
• 23:44
  currently at 1.5 trillion flat and the block height.
• 23:48
  The only time that matters on planet Earth is the block
• 23:51
  height. It's currently at 934,860.
• 23:54
  I rather maybe the only universal time besides UTC is
• 23:59
  the block I 931,868 OK so Caitlin long was on what Bitcoin
• 24:07
  did with Danny shouts out to Danny.
• 24:09
  You know, he took his lumps with sailor, but he's coming back
• 24:11
  strong. He's coming back strong making
• 24:13
  good content. And Caitlin Long explains how
• 24:17
  the Wall Street paper Bitcoin games are played, the mechanisms
• 24:21
  that are being worked out, things to, to basically keep an
• 24:24
  eye on. We've been keeping an eye on
• 24:26
  this for the last six months, basically since paper Bitcoin
• 24:29
  summer was coined. And I, I think as the year
• 24:32
  progressed, as we see the amount of ETF inflows, the amount of
• 24:36
  institutional interest it, it is.
• 24:39
  And, and rather, when you kind of compare this idea with the
• 24:43
  stuff that Tom Luongo has been saying, with what Simon Dixon's
• 24:45
  been saying, you start to get a more, I guess, holistic view of
• 24:50
  what is actually going on, where we currently are in bitcoins
• 24:53
  maturity and you know what, what we can expect.
• 24:57
  So this this clip is a little longer, but it it signals.
• 25:00
  So I'm going to play that for you guys right now.
• 25:03
  You know, the gold price suppression schemes, Wall Street
• 25:06
  is here in Bitcoin in a very big way, right?
• 25:08
  And they're doing it with the ETFs.
• 25:10
  And as I warned at the time, yours actually, I think I wrote
• 25:14
  a piece in Forbes in 2016 warning that when Wall Street
• 25:18
  arrives for Bitcoin, it's going to be a double edged sword,
• 25:21
  including when Wall Street gets Bitcoin ETFs because it's going
• 25:25
  to bring in a new demand, new source of demand, but it's also
• 25:29
  going to bring in all these derivatives.
• 25:31
  And just today we're recording this, this, this, this session
• 25:35
  on Monday the 26th of January, BlackRock filed an an ETF that
• 25:43
  is going to provide some downside protection is how it's
• 25:46
  designing it on the I bit, but also providing some yield by
• 25:51
  selling call options to monetize bitcoins.
• 25:55
  I saw this just. Before we started.
• 25:56
  Recording. It's like an income generates an
• 25:58
  ETF. Right.
• 26:00
  But Bitcoin itself doesn't generate any income.
• 26:02
  So if you are getting, if you're investing in something that
• 26:06
  generates income, you are taking taking some counterparty credit
• 26:09
  risk with your Bitcoin because they're monetizing the
• 26:13
  volatility, which is a classic Wall Street strategy.
• 26:15
  But what's the impact of all of that?
• 26:17
  It has a, it, it creates paper claims that are not backed by
• 26:23
  the real thing. And what does that do?
• 26:25
  It creates a, an artificial suppression of the price because
• 26:30
  the there's an artificial increase in supply.
• 26:33
  Think about your supply demand curves.
• 26:35
  When the supply curve moves out to the right, the price goes
• 26:37
  down, but it also creates demand substitution.
• 26:41
  And I can go back and find an old tweet thread that I put out
• 26:45
  a few years ago on this very topic that draws the supply and
• 26:48
  demand curves and knows why when you when you get paper claims
• 26:53
  that people accept as substitutes for the real thing,
• 26:56
  which of course has been happening for decades in gold
• 26:59
  and silver and it's only been happening for a few years in
• 27:02
  Bitcoin. But that that suppresses the
• 27:04
  price. So this is where Larry and I may
• 27:06
  have a little bit of a difference because I actually
• 27:10
  think that that all these derivatives games are
• 27:13
  suppressing the price. A lot of people think they're
• 27:15
  buying real Bitcoin. They're not buying real Bitcoin.
• 27:17
  And there was just a kerfuffle over the weekend with with
• 27:21
  Jameson Lopp and Michael Saylor talking about the biggest threat
• 27:25
  to Bitcoin. Michael was making the point
• 27:26
  that it's people who want to change the I think it's
• 27:30
  ambitious developers who want to change the code.
• 27:33
  And Jameson's response was no, it's concentration of ownership
• 27:37
  in centralized institutions that that are not engaging in self
• 27:42
  custody and that are engaging in these sort of, you know, yield
• 27:46
  plays. If that if you're engaging in a
• 27:48
  yield play on Bitcoin, you don't own real Bitcoin.
• 27:50
  You want to claim to Bitcoin. And in the event that there is a
• 27:54
  short squeeze, guess what? There may not be a chair for you
• 27:57
  in the game of musical chairs. Big claim, big claim.
• 28:02
  The first big claim that I heard from Caitlin Long is that the
• 28:05
  ETFs, these institutions aren't actually buying real Bitcoin.
• 28:09
  We've been seeing, you know, at least from on chain data that
• 28:12
  they are actually scooping in a lot of that Bitcoin.
• 28:15
  So that's, that's an interesting claim to start off.
• 28:18
  And then the second claim I that I fully agree.
• 28:22
  I'm actually on the Jameson lop side of this.
• 28:24
  I, I think the biggest attack on Bitcoin currently is the Wall
• 28:27
  Street attack on Bitcoin. Like, like Jameson Lopp was
• 28:30
  saying, or rather Kaitlyn Long was saying Jameson Lopp was
• 28:33
  saying that the centralization of Bitcoin into these Wall
• 28:35
  Street products is the biggest concern going on.
• 28:38
  It is a way for Wall Street to try to Co-op Bitcoin.
• 28:41
  If they can own a whole bunch of it and then they hold it, they
• 28:44
  don't plan on ever selling it. And then they sell you a paper
• 28:47
  claim to that Bitcoin. It's almost like we're
• 28:49
  recreating the system that Bitcoin was designed to, you
• 28:52
  know, to fight. And there is a huge concern
• 28:55
  about paper Bitcoin. This is why again, connecting
• 28:59
  this with the first part of the show, we always tell you you
• 29:02
  need to take the Bitcoin into custody, verify it with your
• 29:06
  node so that you know you're owning real Bitcoin and not fake
• 29:09
  Bitcoin or fake coin. This is this is all this stuff
• 29:13
  plays in in concert with each other.
• 29:16
  This is why we constantly say the same thing.
• 29:18
  You need to buy Bitcoin. You need to take that Bitcoin
• 29:21
  into cold storage and you need to run a node to verify your
• 29:24
  Bitcoin because that's how you know that you're actually owning
• 29:28
  Bitcoin. It's I, I really like my boy Mr.
• 29:32
  Hoddle on, on Twitter and he's always saying if you aren't
• 29:35
  running a node, then you aren't actually using Bitcoin.
• 29:38
  And it, it makes everyone freak out, it makes everyone's heads
• 29:41
  explode. But I totally agree with that
• 29:43
  sentiment. Now, obviously I don't think
• 29:45
  everyone's going to necessarily run a Bitcoin node, but if you
• 29:49
  aren't verifying your Utxos, do you really own Bitcoin?
• 29:53
  And a lot of people are are willing to make that trade off,
• 29:56
  but personally I'm not. So these two beginning story and
• 30:00
  the Caitlyn long story, I think play, you know, hand in hand
• 30:04
  here. They're all saying the same
• 30:06
  thing. There is a lot of claims on
• 30:08
  Bitcoin and when the music stops, you do not want to be
• 30:13
  left dry on the beach with no clothing.
• 30:15
  So make sure you're you're taking your Bitcoin into cold
• 30:19
  storage into a bit key or you know, whatever your hardware
• 30:22
  wallet of choices and you're verifying it with a Bitcoin
• 30:26
  node. This is how you eliminate all of
• 30:29
  the different risk and counterparty risk.
• 30:31
  This is how you know for a fact 100% guaranteed that you
• 30:34
  actually have Bitcoin. So anyways, Kent, what's your
• 30:38
  thoughts hearing Caitlin Long? Obviously she has a little more
• 30:41
  insight than most people with the custodia bank, fully backed
• 30:45
  Reserve Bank that they shut down at that the Fed shut down and
• 30:48
  now she's coming out. It's like, look, there's a lot
• 30:51
  of paper claims on Bitcoin and this will not end well.
• 30:56
  Well, I mean, simple, simple fact of the matter is everybody
• 30:59
  wants the Bitcoin, right? So everybody's going to be
• 31:02
  attacked and everybody as much as they possibly can.
• 31:06
  And so the only wise move in that game is to do self custody,
• 31:09
  right and to be anonymous with that self custody as much as you
• 31:13
  possibly can, or at least diversify it so it's spread out
• 31:17
  like a multi sig or some other sort of arrangement so that you
• 31:21
  can't be just by yourself, you know, with a $5 wrench attack
• 31:25
  and and let loose of it. So if you look at it, only
• 31:28
  Fahrenheit survive here. And I think that both are valid
• 31:31
  attack factors and both are happening right now, both the,
• 31:36
  the, the core side of things with the way things are going
• 31:39
  development mentally, you know, regardless where you stand in
• 31:42
  the core knots debate, like there's, there's definitely tons
• 31:45
  of smoke there and there's an attack going on.
• 31:47
  And Wall Street, you know, I think Wall Street, I don't know,
• 31:51
  I think there's a lot of people on the Wall Street side that
• 31:54
  there is some coordinated attack going on there.
• 31:56
  But I also think that a lot of what's going on from the Wall
• 31:58
  Street side is just them running back to playbook, right?
• 32:01
  This is the playbook. They know, this is how they
• 32:03
  financialize assets and they're just playing the the playbook
• 32:06
  that they know and they think as a result that they're going to
• 32:09
  wind up with ownership. But if you listen, I actually
• 32:11
  got a chance to listen to this podcast coincidentally over the
• 32:15
  weekend. And if you listen further in the
• 32:17
  podcast, Caitlin says the main distinction and why this won't
• 32:20
  work the same way it did with gold is because every 10 minutes
• 32:24
  you can audit all the Bitcoin that's available.
• 32:27
  Like you couldn't do that with gold.
• 32:29
  So you couldn't create these paper claims over time in such a
• 32:32
  way that you actually could separate like how much gold
• 32:34
  actually exists from how much paper claims are out there.
• 32:37
  I mean, astounding. She talks about it, but it's
• 32:40
  like 100 to 1 leverage I believe right now for the number of
• 32:43
  claims that are on vault backed gold.
• 32:46
  Like you can't do the same thing in Bitcoin because some other
• 32:50
  really smart whale is going to come along and say, oh, hey, too
• 32:53
  much leverage in the system. I'm going to just start buying
• 32:55
  until we pop the leverage and suddenly Jack up, right.
• 32:59
  So I think there is this weird countervailing force that
• 33:02
  happens with Bitcoin because it is Bitcoin and because you can
• 33:06
  see and audit the total supply at any one time, somebody's
• 33:10
  going to get caught off sides. And I do believe, you know, call
• 33:13
  this, you know, maybe another wrong headed prediction, but I
• 33:15
  do believe there's gonna be a couple players that blow
• 33:19
  themselves up because they don't understand absolute scarcity and
• 33:22
  its impact. No, I actually can't.
• 33:26
  I, I've been saying that for a minute that I, I truly believe,
• 33:29
  you know, right now we're kind of in the Tragify go shit
• 33:33
  coining, you know, like I, I don't know if you heard the
• 33:35
  Larry Fink at Davos, He's like tokenize all the things.
• 33:39
  And if you've been in Bitcoin for multiple years, you're like,
• 33:42
  Oh my God, we are back to like the Internet of Things and
• 33:45
  everything's going to be tokenized and on the blockchain.
• 33:47
  And so right now it does feel like Wall Street or the
• 33:49
  institutions are in their shit coining phase currently.
• 33:53
  And we know that usually the next iteration is something of
• 33:57
  a, you know, fractional reserve paper Bitcoin claim and then
• 34:02
  they blow up. And that's going to be a brutal
• 34:04
  day when we see one of these. Well, actually, it could be a
• 34:07
  little bittersweet, you know, seeing a huge Wall Street
• 34:10
  institution blow up because they don't have the Bitcoin they
• 34:12
  claim. It'll be like a, a very good,
• 34:15
  you know, smug, Hey, we told you, we told you this would
• 34:19
  happen, but it would also be a probably a brutal day in price
• 34:23
  action. So we'll get some good
• 34:24
  discounts. Do we know when that's going to
• 34:26
  happen? You know, it could be when
• 34:29
  bitcoins at like $1,000,000 and then we get AI don't know, a 50%
• 34:33
  discount from there. And we're like, thank you very
• 34:35
  much. I appreciate it.
• 34:36
  Wall Street, not only did you show your own hand and blow
• 34:39
  yourself up, but you gave us a good discount.
• 34:41
  So thank you very much. But I, I also believe that a
• 34:44
  certain point we will see one of these legacy named Wall Street
• 34:49
  institutions do some kind of fractional reserve paper Bitcoin
• 34:53
  claim and then get caught off sides.
• 34:56
  And it's gonna, it's gonna be a, you know, a marvelous day for us
• 34:59
  Bitcoin maxies that have been saying the same thing for years.
• 35:02
  Hey, buy Bitcoin wherever you want, you know, get Bitcoin at
• 35:05
  whatever price you can get, whatever deal you can get, But
• 35:09
  make sure you're, you are securing that Bitcoin because
• 35:12
  you, you never want to be on the wrong side of this.
• 35:14
  And we've seen a lot of bit corners throughout the years.
• 35:16
  This is probably one of the biggest lessons that all
• 35:20
  Bitcoiners learn very early. And it's been playing out over
• 35:23
  the history of Bitcoin that you just, you can't trust anyone.
• 35:27
  You do not want counterparty risk.
• 35:29
  Buy Bitcoin wherever you can, but make sure you're securing
• 35:32
  that Bitcoin because it's not pretty.
• 35:34
  When these exchanges blow up, whether it's a Bitcoin exchange
• 35:39
  or whether it's a Wall Street legacy name, it's going to be
• 35:42
  brutal and a lot of people are going to get hurt.
• 35:45
  And again, remember, there is no bailouts in Bitcoin.
• 35:48
  So you got to protect yourself. That's what we always say here.
• 35:52
  You know, there is no safety net in Bitcoin.
• 35:54
  It's a blessing and a curse, but you just got to know what you're
• 35:57
  getting yourself into. So I, I couldn't agree more with
• 36:00
  you, Kim. I 100% think that at some point
• 36:04
  Wall Street will blow up because of not having the Bitcoin they
• 36:08
  claim to do. I, I think it's almost a I, I
• 36:11
  don't want to say a 100% guarantee, but it's a very high
• 36:14
  like, you know, very high likely that it's going to happen at
• 36:18
  some point and we'll be here. We'll be here to cover that news
• 36:22
  for you guys. Anyways.
• 36:23
  Let's let's keep it moving because we do have some
• 36:26
  interesting updates coming out of the Federal Reserve level in
• 36:31
  regards to Bitcoin. I want to give a shout out to
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  for a limited time. I think it might just be for the
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  month of February. So anyways, if you need a
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  hardware wallet, if all of this, you know, get your Bitcoin off
• 39:48
  exchange isn't scaring you enough, then I'll have to come
• 39:52
  back and and get you guys a little more concern so that you
• 39:56
  take your Bitcoin into cold storage.
• 39:58
  Anyways, we got an update for you guys.
• 40:01
  We did this story, I believe it was last week or maybe a week
• 40:04
  ago it or maybe 2 weeks ago, but we did finally get an update on
• 40:09
  this. So for, for context here, a
• 40:12
  couple of days ago, there was a story going around Twitter that
• 40:17
  some kid scammed $40 million from his dad, who happened to be
• 40:22
  the company that was contracted out to secure the US Marshals
• 40:28
  confiscated Bitcoin. We, we did the whole on chain
• 40:32
  tracking. We, you know, we brought this on
• 40:34
  to the show, but we finally got an update here.
• 40:36
  We got a confirmation here, guys, that the US Marshals has
• 40:41
  in fact confirmed to Coindesk that it is investigating claims
• 40:45
  that more than $40 million in confiscated digital assets were
• 40:48
  siphoned from government leaked wallets.
• 40:51
  Which like, man, I, I know we used to say this a lot, but
• 40:58
  really the thing that hurts us the most is just government
• 41:01
  incompetence. A lot of people are afraid of
• 41:03
  the state. You know, what's the saying
• 41:06
  there? It's not red versus blue.
• 41:08
  It's the state and it hates you. Well, really, the state's just
• 41:13
  seemingly incompetent at almost everything they do.
• 41:16
  But here's Pierre Rochard tweeting he goes, who hired this
• 41:19
  no name contractor to implement the US Strategic Bitcoin
• 41:22
  Reserve. There needs to be
• 41:23
  accountability. The government should have at
• 41:25
  least used reputable custodians or sovereign grade CIG with
• 41:29
  DOJDHS and treasury. We can't tolerate incompetence
• 41:34
  anymore. So the US Marshals finally
• 41:37
  confirmed that yes, in fact $40 million of crypto was stolen
• 41:42
  from the seas assets. It was exposed on Twitter by
• 41:46
  Zach XBT. Now, we have heard from the US
• 41:51
  Marshals and they have also confirmed that they are
• 41:53
  investigating this. So who knows how much Bitcoin
• 41:57
  the US strategic Bitcoin reserve actually holds at this point.
• 42:01
  It has been a just trust us bro moment.
• 42:04
  They've been saying they own over 300,000 coins.
• 42:07
  Now. We really have no clue.
• 42:10
  We know some of it's been lost, some of it's been stolen.
• 42:13
  We're we're still up in in kind of uncertainty of whether the
• 42:17
  Biden administration sold Bitcoin before they left.
• 42:21
  It's a lot of confusion on how much Bitcoin the US actually
• 42:24
  holds. And this confirmation just
• 42:27
  doesn't make it look any better. So before we move on to the next
• 42:30
  story, can what what's your thoughts on this?
• 42:32
  Did you hear the initial story break?
• 42:34
  And yeah, OK, so I guess, hey, we got confirmation.
• 42:38
  It wasn't just Bitcoin Twitter speculation, engagement farming.
• 42:44
  It's in fact, 40 million has been stolen from the US State
• 42:49
  Marshals. Incredible.
• 42:52
  Incredible. Yeah, I mean, I, I love that one
• 42:55
  of our own called it out though. At least it it seems like a
• 42:58
  crypto Twitter guy that that discovered it.
• 43:00
  I don't know him specifically, don't follow him so, but I like
• 43:04
  that, you know, some investigative journalism within
• 43:06
  our community discovered this and I'm not surprised.
• 43:09
  I mean, I've heard crazy numbers ever since Elon was in there
• 43:13
  with Doge trying to gut all the waste and fraud.
• 43:17
  The upwards of 50% of the federal budget is just that
• 43:21
  waste and fraud. Who knows?
• 43:23
  But, you know, we've got this culture that I don't know if
• 43:27
  anybody's tracked on the idea of, of the US being a late stage
• 43:30
  empire. But boy, if it doesn't resonate
• 43:32
  here. If I think about like the Roman
• 43:34
  Empire and you know, moving from a Republic to like the Senate
• 43:37
  and the oligarchs kind of overseeing things and then just
• 43:40
  sucking too much out of the system and then people going
• 43:43
  crazy and, you know, at the same time the denari being inflate or
• 43:47
  debased. So the money's going bad.
• 43:50
  It just it resonates too much with historically how these
• 43:53
  sorts of things play out. So I'm not surprised to see the
• 43:58
  the the fraud or the corruption, the theft.
• 44:02
  I mean, is anybody totally. And I do hope, you know, like
• 44:06
  the silver lining here is that I can just put some egg on the
• 44:09
  face of the administration and they get their ducks in a row
• 44:12
  and actually figure out how to custody Bitcoin and get the
• 44:16
  strategic Bitcoin reserve set up in an appropriate way.
• 44:19
  I mean, Trump, I think just recently came out and continuing
• 44:23
  to advocate for Bitcoin here. And holy cow, like the guy
• 44:26
  hasn't even got the strategic Bitcoin reserve set up in a way
• 44:29
  that, like I think they said within 60 days, all the Bitcoin
• 44:32
  that's available needs to, it needs to be like reallocated to
• 44:36
  this reserve. I don't think that that's even
• 44:38
  happened. So yeah, I, I just hope this
• 44:40
  sort of thing just is a bit embarrassing for the government.
• 44:43
  It causes them to actually get their get things sorted out, but
• 44:46
  I'll also be shocked if they actually do.
• 44:48
  Yeah, now whatever. And Chef told me who doesn't
• 44:51
  think about the Roman Empire daily?
• 44:53
  The parallels to the the crumbling.
• 44:56
  Yeah, what just dudes thinking about the Roman Empire
• 44:58
  constantly. I, I honestly do probably think
• 45:01
  about the Roman Empire like every day.
• 45:03
  I'm not, I'm not not even Larping or making that up.
• 45:05
  I like, I really do. I mean, man, you know, it really
• 45:09
  does seem like we are at the end of an empire.
• 45:12
  And like you said, one of the things that you did see is one,
• 45:15
  of course, the, you know, destruction of the purchasing
• 45:18
  power of their money. And then 2, the politicians or,
• 45:23
  you know, the, the leaders of the Roman Empire, essentially
• 45:27
  just robbing the coffers and just scrambling to try to take
• 45:31
  as much as possible while the empire crumbled.
• 45:35
  And man, the parallels are, are absolutely insane.
• 45:38
  You know, you just need a little bit of history to realize where
• 45:41
  we are. But Kent, you did bring up Trump
• 45:44
  and I do want to play his recent comments.
• 45:46
  He made some comments last night.
• 45:48
  I'm going to play that for you guys here.
• 45:49
  And then we'll, we'll kind of continue this conversation.
• 45:52
  So here's the comments we heard from Trump last night.
• 45:56
  Crypto's a big thing and they like it.
• 45:58
  A lot of people like it. The people behind me like it.
• 46:01
  My sons are handling that. My family is handling it, and I
• 46:07
  guess they get investments from different people, but I'm not.
• 46:09
  I have all I can handle right now with Iran and with Russia
• 46:12
  and Ukraine and with all the things we're doing.
• 46:15
  So I don't know. I don't know exactly other than,
• 46:18
  you know, I'm a big crypto person.
• 46:20
  I'm the one that probably helped crypto more than anybody because
• 46:23
  I believe in it. And the reason I believe in it
• 46:26
  is because if we don't do it, Scott, I think we can say then
• 46:29
  China's going to do it. If we don't do crypto, then
• 46:32
  China's going to do it. And it's just like AI.
• 46:34
  We're leading AI by a lot. And if we weren't leading, China
• 46:38
  would have led. You know, they're very capable,
• 46:40
  they're very good. What do you have to say about
• 46:42
  that? You.
• 46:43
  You've made America the digital asset capital of the world.
• 46:47
  We did the genius act for stable coins.
• 46:50
  Many of the people standing up here working on the clarity bill
• 46:52
  to. I hope it's.
• 46:54
  Market structure and we're bringing US best practices to an
• 46:59
  exciting the new industry digital assets innovation and it
• 47:04
  it spreads every well first of all, Trump's hilarious about
• 47:08
  what the company's like. I like crypto I love crypto.
• 47:11
  I'm a really big into crypto. I you guys probably, you know,
• 47:15
  tributed success to me, man, you got to love it.
• 47:18
  It's hilarious. I know out and they'll be like
• 47:21
  Bitcoin doesn't need Trump, you know Trump needs Bitcoin.
• 47:24
  Yeah, I I totally agree, But man, his hubris sometimes it's
• 47:27
  just hilarious. Now, if you if you weren't
• 47:30
  familiar with the beginning portion.
• 47:31
  So the reason they were kind of bringing it up the the reporters
• 47:35
  asked him a question about this Wall Street Journal article.
• 47:40
  I don't know if you guys saw this, but this hit the, you
• 47:43
  know, headlines over the weekend.
• 47:45
  Basically the title from the Wall Street Journal.
• 47:47
  Spy chic bought secret stake in Trump company $500 million
• 47:51
  investment for 49% of world liberty came months before UAE
• 47:55
  won access to tightly guarded American AI chips.
• 47:58
  So there, there is some, I, I guess some, I don't know if I
• 48:02
  want to call it Fudd per SE, but there is some exposes happening
• 48:05
  in the corporate press. Essentially they're saying like,
• 48:08
  hey, there might be some concerns of conflicts of
• 48:11
  interest. The UAE is investing in World
• 48:13
  Liberty Finance, which has the Trump name.
• 48:15
  Trump's like my kids are getting, you know, my kids
• 48:18
  handle that. I guess they got some money from
• 48:20
  somewhere very nonchalant about it.
• 48:22
  But the secondary or the Third Point here is probably what
• 48:25
  Trump said about the Clarity Act.
• 48:27
  Yes, there's been a lot of conversation about whether the
• 48:30
  Clarity Act will pass, whether the banks are fighting it, you
• 48:34
  know, what is actually going on. We did see part of it passed the
• 48:38
  Senate Business Council, I believe it was last week.
• 48:44
  It kind of stumbled in the agricultural area of the Clarity
• 48:49
  Act where they both have to come, you know, pass something
• 48:52
  in the market bill and then they combine it and then it goes to
• 48:54
  Trump. But it sounds like Trump is very
• 48:56
  willing to pass that. So if we can get past the
• 48:59
  initial hurdles and it finally gets to Trump's desk, then maybe
• 49:04
  we might be seeing the Clarity Act now again, I am holding my
• 49:07
  breath on it. I'm I'm fearful that it's going
• 49:11
  to be an even bigger monstrosity than what we currently have.
• 49:14
  I am kind of on the side of I'd rather have no bill than a
• 49:18
  really bad bill as we've seen this happen in New York with the
• 49:21
  BIT license. It just it makes things way
• 49:24
  worse. So look, it looks like Trump
• 49:27
  wants to pass the Clarity Act. I know it could just be
• 49:30
  rhetoric. It could just be, you know,
• 49:32
  basically campaigning going into the midterms.
• 49:35
  But it sounds like they want to pass it.
• 49:38
  And so that that happened yesterday, but I, I to me, the
• 49:42
  Trump's just hilarious. It's like he's like, he's like,
• 49:47
  I push Bitcoin the most. You guys should be thankful to
• 49:51
  me. He just cracks me up sometime.
• 49:53
  Anyways, Kat, what what's your thoughts here in that clip?
• 49:56
  I know we were talking about the, the collapse of the Roman
• 49:59
  Empire. Maybe, maybe this is literally
• 50:03
  both those conversations in one. Maybe they are robbing the
• 50:06
  coffers using Bitcoin. Hey, I mean, it's it's it's it's
• 50:11
  hard to say exactly what's happening up at the top.
• 50:13
  Like what's the old George George Carlin quote, like a the
• 50:17
  there's a lot of room at the top, but you're not in it.
• 50:20
  You know, none of us really know that are on this call exactly
• 50:23
  what's playing out. I still love the idea, you know,
• 50:26
  with Besson there right behind Trump as he's saying all this
• 50:30
  and and Besson being the architect of like crack in the
• 50:33
  pound in the 90s with George Soros that he is invested
• 50:39
  saying, hey, I want a seat at the table for like a monetary,
• 50:42
  the monetary change. And you know, so far there is a
• 50:47
  monetary change under foot. Now it's not the one we wanted
• 50:50
  being in Bitcoin, right. But gold is the global reserve
• 50:53
  asset no longer the dollar like that happened in the last couple
• 50:55
  months. So the game is changing here and
• 50:58
  there is still the possibility that they just pulled it the
• 51:01
  biggest end around ever and just reprice all the gold and the
• 51:04
  Federal Reserve or the in Fort Knox and then turn around and
• 51:08
  use all that value to go buy Bitcoin.
• 51:10
  So that's not completely off the table here in my opinion.
• 51:13
  Now it's a dark horse theory. Is that actually going to
• 51:15
  happen? I have no idea.
• 51:17
  But things are getting weird out there in in monetary land.
• 51:21
  You know, it doesn't make sense to me that bitcoins dropping as
• 51:25
  much as it is even right now on the call.
• 51:27
  This is kind of the the go no go moment for where I'm like, all
• 51:31
  right, well, if you know, on a monthly basis, like I'm looking
• 51:35
  at the macro bowl structure, like 74 K was the was the low
• 51:38
  that was set back in April of last year, right.
• 51:41
  So by the end of the month, we need to be back over that in my
• 51:43
  mind for us to continue to be in a bull market here.
• 51:46
  Very well could be. But you know, you look right now
• 51:49
  and this is this is the time of the market.
• 51:51
  Freak it out. So, you know, do I know what's
• 51:54
  playing out? I mean, I I can definitely say
• 51:56
  Trump is is the grand Poobah. He's he's the one that's made
• 51:59
  all of the the Bitcoin price move up in the last couple
• 52:02
  years. And I mean, sailor had nothing
• 52:05
  to do with it is ridiculous buying spree.
• 52:08
  It's all Trump. But you know, the fact that the
• 52:10
  administration is so positive on Bitcoin and crypto.
• 52:14
  I mean, I, I know he doesn't like to say Bitcoin so much, but
• 52:16
  I think he does mean Bitcoin when he says crypto.
• 52:19
  The fact that he continues to be so positive on it, I think is a
• 52:22
  good thing right now to help the masses sort of continue to have
• 52:26
  faith that, hey, this isn't all lost.
• 52:28
  I mean, there's a lot of fun out there around like Epstein
• 52:30
  connected to Bitcoin, which is OK.
• 52:32
  So who who cares? It's open source code.
• 52:35
  It doesn't really matter. And like, you know, what other
• 52:38
  fun is out there? Oh, this the CZ thing, the run
• 52:41
  on the banks, like, you know, maximum FUD is a hallmark of, of
• 52:45
  bear market bottoms. So you know, if you're around
• 52:48
  this, if you're around for a few cycles, like you get to know the
• 52:51
  signs and clearly the signs are there right now.
• 52:54
  My my fingers are just crossed that the bear mark at the bottom
• 52:57
  is 74 K here and not further down.
• 53:00
  Yeah, Yeah. I think what you said at the end
• 53:04
  is, is kind of the sentiment that I currently have as well
• 53:08
  that if you've been around for a while, you're seeing a lot of
• 53:12
  the bear market signals right now.
• 53:14
  And I know we we're all trying to fight that feeling and be
• 53:16
  like, no, it's not over. But looking at the chart, as you
• 53:20
  guys said, the price is dumping. We're at 74 K.
• 53:22
  We are back to here actually. We'll we'll we'll do a little
• 53:26
  quick chart boy before we get into the culture here with with
• 53:29
  Kent. But we are back to what is this
• 53:33
  the March 24 top, the March 2024 top.
• 53:37
  So a whole year of games completely wiped out.
• 53:43
  It's been fun, guys, it's been fun.
• 53:47
  It's over Bitcoins never coming back.
• 53:49
  Nah, I'm, I'm trolling obviously, but yeah, we, we,
• 53:52
  hey, no one ever said hotline was easy.
• 53:55
  Bitcoins on discount keep stacking.
• 53:57
  Now's the time to keep stacking. Anyways, we are going to talk
• 54:01
  with Kent about some mining updates there.
• 54:05
  You know, not only is the Bitcoin price dumping, but it
• 54:10
  looks like hash rate has also dumped as well.
• 54:13
  And Kent's take is pretty interesting.
• 54:15
  It could be a very good opportunity for you guys out
• 54:17
  there. So last commercial break and we
• 54:20
  will be chatting about all things mining.
• 54:23
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  digitaltech.com. I want to give a shout out to
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• 56:18
  Kent, before we move on, I, I, I like this comment right here.
• 56:21
  No more winning, please, Mr. President, please, I I've had
• 56:27
  enough of winning. OK, I've had enough of winning.
• 56:29
  Anyways, Kent, thanks for being on today.
• 56:32
  Let me pull up the Bitcoin hash rate so people can look at it
• 56:37
  and then let people know what you're seeing here.
• 56:41
  Of course, if you guys aren't familiar with Kent, we like to
• 56:43
  call Kent our Bitcoin mining expert here on monthly kind of
• 56:47
  gives us an update of what he's seeing on the Bitcoin mining
• 56:50
  side. So first of all, I'm here on
• 56:52
  bitinfocharts.com and this is the Bitcoin hash rate for the
• 56:56
  last three years. So Kent, looking at this, what
• 57:01
  what is going on here? What, what should the people
• 57:03
  know about this? The hash rate as you can see has
• 57:07
  gone down. It did have a huge correction.
• 57:09
  What was this day, the 25th of January seems to rebound a
• 57:14
  little bit, but yeah, the hash rate seems to go down.
• 57:19
  And actually also while while you go, I do like Ron P's
• 57:24
  comment here and and I'd like to see what your thoughts on this.
• 57:26
  He goes, price follows hash rate and the hash rate has plummeted.
• 57:30
  So before we do all that, let's just give people when you're
• 57:34
  looking at the hash rate currently as a Bitcoin miner,
• 57:37
  what what is your thought process?
• 57:38
  What are you seeing and what are you thinking?
• 57:41
  Well, yeah, change that down to just one year, so we can just
• 57:44
  look at the last year. A.
• 57:45
  Little bit more closely, but if you look at it, yeah, I wanted
• 57:48
  to sort of highlight that big digger you see there on the
• 57:50
  right. So that big digger was like Jan
• 57:54
  25. So that was the big Arctic storm
• 57:57
  that came into the US. Now when I saw that happen, I
• 58:02
  thought, great, this is proves the use case.
• 58:05
  Texas needs power to the grid. Miners shutting off like this is
• 58:09
  a great use case for mining. Now what's happened since then
• 58:13
  is the surprising part, right? So that was like a 20% pullback.
• 58:16
  So if you can see from clear back in October, we've basically
• 58:19
  been starting to trend down in the hash rate, which is a
• 58:22
  welcome thing for all of us to start to see that, you know, the
• 58:26
  hash rates and all of us that are mining, right?
• 58:28
  Because this hash rate goes down, the difficulty drops.
• 58:31
  That means everybody that's mining gets to pick up more
• 58:34
  SAT's per Bitcoin. And we've seen the last like 5
• 58:36
  difficulty adjustments would have, which happened roughly
• 58:39
  every two weeks, right? Have all been down.
• 58:42
  Now you'll have to excuse me if you hear the, the chickens in
• 58:44
  the background of the, the Roosters crowing.
• 58:47
  We've got a power outage. So I'm running off battery
• 58:49
  backup at the moment. The joy of the living in Amazon,
• 58:52
  which means my windows are open. But the, the, the, the flip,
• 58:57
  what's going on there is you're not seeing miners plugged back
• 59:01
  in. And so the next difficulty
• 59:03
  adjustment, which would be I believe the fifth in a row is
• 59:06
  estimated to be nearly 15%. That's the biggest difficulty
• 59:09
  adjustment down since the mining ban happened clear back in 2021
• 59:14
  in China. So this is a massive opportunity
• 59:17
  for everybody that continues to be plugged in to suddenly get
• 59:19
  15% more SAT's for the same hash rate that they're delivering to
• 59:24
  secure the network, right. So it's a huge opportunity and
• 59:27
  it's odd how Macrobottom so often coincide with with sort of
• 59:34
  minor capitulation events, which is what it looks like we're
• 59:36
  going through. You know, I'm talking to an
• 59:38
  advisor somebody deep in mining and having the same thought here
• 59:43
  is that this is a good thing. Overall nature is healing.
• 59:47
  The hash rate was too overheated and as mine unplug and
• 59:52
  capitulate use more for the rest of us.
• 59:54
  So I think it's a perfect time actually to deploy and we are
• 59:58
  seeing that actually if you look the last year of the last month
• 1:00:04
  of of our sales even as a business we had our best month,
• 1:00:08
  month of any month and it's because the.
• 1:00:11
  Hardest miners in the space wind up deploying capital at the
• 1:00:16
  absolute worst time. Well, it appears in the moment
• 1:00:19
  that it's the worst time to deploy it.
• 1:00:21
  It's because they know that getting plugged in while hash
• 1:00:25
  rate is coming down means that they're going to get as much
• 1:00:28
  Bitcoin as they possibly can, and stacking those those SAT's
• 1:00:31
  is the name of winning the game here.
• 1:00:36
  Yeah. So Ken, what what is the macro
• 1:00:40
  Bitcoin view for you 'cause I mean, obviously the price is
• 1:00:43
  crashing right now. We are seeing as you, as you
• 1:00:47
  mentioned constantly when you come on the show, a lot of
• 1:00:49
  Bitcoin miners pivot to AI. Obviously as the price goes
• 1:00:53
  down, it does get closer to the cost of, you know, cost of
• 1:00:57
  production to actually mine a Bitcoin.
• 1:00:59
  Last time you were on the show, we were kind of, you know,
• 1:01:03
  loosely talking about or maybe, you know, grazing over the idea
• 1:01:07
  that a lot of public Bitcoin miners are going to be finding
• 1:01:11
  themselves in trouble if the Bitcoin price doesn't go up.
• 1:01:13
  And how long till we see some of these big, big public companies
• 1:01:17
  net like essentially have to wind down?
• 1:01:20
  So, you know, we're seeing a huge difficulty adjustment.
• 1:01:23
  As you said, seems like a lot of people aren't plugging back in
• 1:01:26
  the network. It could be an opportunity for
• 1:01:28
  home miners. But what is the the, you know,
• 1:01:30
  the big picture of you here? We know you probably have closer
• 1:01:34
  or more conversations than I do with public Bitcoin miners or at
• 1:01:37
  least with the mining industry. So like, what is the vibe from
• 1:01:42
  the, you know, the mining industry at large?
• 1:01:45
  Is there a concern? Are there like, man, we need the
• 1:01:47
  price to start pumping? Like what?
• 1:01:49
  What is the thought process going on behind the scenes?
• 1:01:53
  Yes, I just two weeks ago was in Nashville for the Nashville
• 1:01:56
  Energy Mining Summit and there's Chatham House rules on that
• 1:01:59
  event. So I'm not going to disclose any
• 1:02:01
  personal conversations I had, but the general theme was AI is
• 1:02:05
  grabbing the mining community's attention and for good reason
• 1:02:09
  because a lot of the publicly traded mining companies, they
• 1:02:12
  have a fiduciary responsibility to return more dollars than
• 1:02:16
  investors put into the business, right.
• 1:02:17
  So there are more dollars on the table right now for AIHPC.
• 1:02:22
  And so at the very least they have a fiduciary obligation to
• 1:02:27
  pivot at least part of their business towards AIHPC.
• 1:02:31
  And with this downturn in price, I would expect that that if it
• 1:02:34
  happens more quickly than than slower.
• 1:02:37
  So this downtrend that we're seeing this 15% reduction, I
• 1:02:40
  wouldn't be surprised if maybe not bigger, maybe not another
• 1:02:44
  15% like difficulty adjustment over difficulty adjustment here.
• 1:02:47
  But I would not be surprised to continue to see a downtrend here
• 1:02:51
  as the, as a mining, the, the publicly traded mining community
• 1:02:56
  shifts more of the revenue stream from Bitcoin to AIHPC.
• 1:03:01
  So you're right, I mean, fundamentally that leaves more
• 1:03:03
  opportunities, opportunity for the little guy out there and for
• 1:03:07
  the Bitcoin community basically take back over the Bitcoin
• 1:03:10
  network because right now the majority of the Hatch rate is
• 1:03:12
  being secured by folks that are looking to get more dollars, not
• 1:03:15
  more Bitcoin. They see dollars as their money,
• 1:03:18
  not Bitcoin, and they have a fiduciary responsibility for
• 1:03:21
  that. So you know, great opportunity
• 1:03:23
  for all of us. Again, nature is healing.
• 1:03:26
  I think this is one of those moments though where people are
• 1:03:29
  going to look back and say that was a historic time in the
• 1:03:32
  mining community, this AIHPC compute shift, along with like
• 1:03:37
  the resurgence of the Bitcoin community coming into mining
• 1:03:40
  because it becomes economically more valuable.
• 1:03:43
  People have a desire for wild sats instead of procuring them
• 1:03:46
  through the bank surveillance state.
• 1:03:47
  You know, people can see that there's easier solutions to
• 1:03:50
  acquire sats through mining, like SAS mining.
• 1:03:53
  There's hash rate heating that's going on out there.
• 1:03:55
  So if you're heating with electricity anyway, why not get
• 1:03:58
  some Bitcoin? So what I'm seeing here is just
• 1:04:00
  quite simply a revival of the Bitcoin community coming back
• 1:04:04
  into mining. Because if you look at the
• 1:04:05
  history of Bitcoin mining, everybody that was running
• 1:04:09
  Bitcoin software was running a node from 2010 to 2013.
• 1:04:13
  If you were running that node software, you just clicked the
• 1:04:15
  little toggle and you were mining.
• 1:04:17
  So most people in that era, they acquired their Bitcoin by
• 1:04:20
  mining. And then the timeline split when
• 1:04:22
  ASICS came out made it more difficult and Coinbase made it
• 1:04:25
  more easy because they open their doors around that same
• 1:04:28
  time. So people, people started to
• 1:04:29
  just naturally buy rather than mine and that's led to kind of a
• 1:04:32
  bifurcation in the industry. But now is the price of Bitcoins
• 1:04:35
  going up and people are trying to get as many SAT's for their
• 1:04:38
  dollars they possibly can. And there's easier solutions
• 1:04:41
  like SAS mining for people to do just that.
• 1:04:44
  I think we're going to see those those timelines collapse into
• 1:04:46
  one another again and the Bitcoin community come back to
• 1:04:49
  mining is the best way to acquire their stats.
• 1:04:52
  Got it. OK, awesome.
• 1:04:56
  I don't necessarily want to pivot the conversation, but it
• 1:04:58
  is a, you know, a good additive to this conversation.
• 1:05:02
  There's been a lot of talk in the last year or so as the hash
• 1:05:06
  rate continued to go exponential of just how secure Bitcoin, you
• 1:05:11
  know, the blockchain is because of the miners.
• 1:05:13
  Now that we're seeing the hash power kind of go off the
• 1:05:18
  network, it could be just because of the storm and they
• 1:05:20
  have it plugged back in. You know, that's that's
• 1:05:22
  definitely a variable here. But what would you say?
• 1:05:25
  And I think we've actually had this conversation in the past
• 1:05:27
  before on the idea of is the amount of hash rate we're seeing
• 1:05:32
  right now is this is this is Bitcoin over secured?
• 1:05:35
  You know, is this a concern that you know, now hash rates going
• 1:05:40
  off the network? Does that mean that Bitcoin the
• 1:05:42
  network is losing security here? Like what what is your thinking
• 1:05:46
  on this? Obviously it is a like an
• 1:05:50
  organic balancing system that if Bitcoin hash rates going off the
• 1:05:54
  network, then maybe there was way too much hash rate on the
• 1:05:57
  network. And this is just, you know, the
• 1:05:59
  natural course of things. And as you said, man, wow, I'm
• 1:06:03
  blanking on what the saying is that nature healing itself, you
• 1:06:07
  know, this is nature healing itself and Bitcoin was over
• 1:06:09
  secured. But is there a concern at AI?
• 1:06:13
  Don't know what the level would be.
• 1:06:14
  Obviously I'm not the Bitcoin miner here, but is there a
• 1:06:17
  concern at at a certain level for Bitcoin not being secure
• 1:06:21
  enough if enough hash rate leaves the network and never
• 1:06:24
  returns so? There is at the end, and my
• 1:06:30
  audio's still good. You still hear me?
• 1:06:32
  Yeah, yeah, I got you. I got you.
• 1:06:33
  OK, The there is still plenty of security on the network, so I'm
• 1:06:38
  not overly worried about it from a security standpoint.
• 1:06:42
  I think, you know, there was a comment that you made and asked
• 1:06:44
  me to address on like, hey, does price follow hash rate or does
• 1:06:47
  hash rate follow price? And in my mind the price follows
• 1:06:51
  the hash rate here. And because we didn't see the
• 1:06:54
  price really take off, I think that seeing it roll over, I
• 1:06:58
  think now we're starting to see the opposite where hash rate is,
• 1:07:01
  is the following price to a lesser degree.
• 1:07:04
  And that would just say that we are over secured for the current
• 1:07:07
  price of Bitcoin. Now I think what is the level
• 1:07:11
  your question sort of implies like what is the level at which
• 1:07:14
  like the security of the Bitcoin network comes into question from
• 1:07:18
  like a nation state attack. I don't have that answer off the
• 1:07:20
  top of my head, but I am not losing sleep over a 15%
• 1:07:24
  reduction. I mean, if you look at it in
• 1:07:26
  general, the the increase in hash rate has been about 3 1/2%
• 1:07:31
  per month since like 2020. I mean, it's unbelievable and
• 1:07:35
  it's still worked to be a miner because the price has gone
• 1:07:38
  faster up. The compound annual growth rate
• 1:07:41
  of Bitcoin itself has been faster than the house rate grows
• 1:07:43
  growing. But having some relief here for
• 1:07:46
  the mining community is very welcome.
• 1:07:48
  This keeps people in it keeps the the people that are really
• 1:07:52
  in it or Bitcoin in it and let's the the folks that are in it for
• 1:07:57
  Fiat kind of like, OK, you know, go, go deal with AI.
• 1:08:00
  So I again, I just continue to see that this is nature as
• 1:08:03
  healing and creates a better value opportunity for those of
• 1:08:06
  us that look at mining as a way to acquire Bitcoin, not more
• 1:08:10
  dollars. Got it, got it.
• 1:08:12
  OK, on that note, obviously the chat's freaking out right now
• 1:08:16
  about the price dropping, but I did notice on the site, you
• 1:08:19
  know, today, I obviously this is to some extent a general
• 1:08:25
  generalization. If, if your electricity costs
• 1:08:29
  are higher or lower than, you know, this price isn't, isn't
• 1:08:32
  set in stone here. But from the SAS mining site
• 1:08:37
  today, currently it looks like it cost $42,800 to mine a
• 1:08:42
  Bitcoin. So, you know, currently, yeah,
• 1:08:44
  we're dropping, but it's around 73 K.
• 1:08:47
  So there's still a little bit of a gap there.
• 1:08:49
  There's still some arbitrage opportunities to take advantage
• 1:08:52
  of if you are thinking about Bitcoin mining.
• 1:08:54
  So I'm guessing you as a Bitcoin miner, you're like, you know,
• 1:08:58
  wake me up when we're down at 40K.
• 1:09:01
  Until then, like whatever. Well, I mean, it does impact the
• 1:09:05
  business, right, Because our revenue comes from Bitcoin.
• 1:09:07
  So, so is the, as the price comes back, it's like, OK, well,
• 1:09:11
  I've got less Fiat dollars to to pay for goods and services with
• 1:09:14
  to run the business. So that is an unfortunate part
• 1:09:17
  about it. But this is the mine of Bitcoin
• 1:09:19
  today is just the energy cost of Bitcoin, right?
• 1:09:22
  So that means, hey, how many sats do I get and how much did
• 1:09:25
  it cost me to get those sats? That yields a $42,800 price for
• 1:09:30
  our current best valued opportunity, which is in
• 1:09:33
  Ethiopia, which the units, their first units will be going live
• 1:09:37
  in a couple weeks. So we've got that's the driving
• 1:09:41
  factor though is people are looking for more sats for their
• 1:09:45
  dollar and you can find them in mining.
• 1:09:47
  Now that doesn't include the hardware price, I will say that.
• 1:09:49
  But the ticket to get on the hardware ride tends to vary
• 1:09:54
  depending on where we are with the price cycle here.
• 1:09:56
  So it currently looks like the four year price cycle is playing
• 1:09:59
  out. I was an advocate for it
• 1:10:00
  extending, but you know, if we don't end over 74 K on the month
• 1:10:05
  here, I'm going to be rethinking that and thinking, OK,
• 1:10:08
  traditional bear market rules apply here.
• 1:10:10
  But at the moment, if you look at this, it is the best time to
• 1:10:14
  get into mining because the hardware margins have been
• 1:10:17
  squeezed as hard as they possibly can.
• 1:10:19
  I mean, hearing rumors of maybe some of the mining hardware
• 1:10:23
  producers starting to starting to do some different things to
• 1:10:27
  get into the market to get more of their, of their hardware
• 1:10:30
  deployed because they're in their manufacturing lines, they
• 1:10:32
  have to sell this equipment, right?
• 1:10:34
  So how do you, how do you make use of it?
• 1:10:36
  Well, maybe you just decide to mine some yourself.
• 1:10:39
  So all of this is going on right now.
• 1:10:41
  This is leading to massive opportunities and the best
• 1:10:44
  investors, you know buy when there's blood in the street.
• 1:10:47
  Yeah, and look, just taking a pulse check of the chat, it
• 1:10:54
  looks like the blood is on the streets right now.
• 1:10:57
  It looks like it's our own blood guys.
• 1:10:59
  So, hey, as I've said in the past, I think I said in the
• 1:11:02
  beginning of this show, no one said Hodling was easy.
• 1:11:05
  This is when you should be buying dips.
• 1:11:07
  Now, again, I did caveat that last week you guys were asking
• 1:11:11
  me opties. This is a good time to buy.
• 1:11:13
  I'm like, well, you know, maybe wait till we get some
• 1:11:16
  confirmations. I don't want to tell you guys to
• 1:11:18
  buy some falling knives here, but if you're like me, you
• 1:11:21
  capitulate your Fiat as soon as you got it or else I spend it.
• 1:11:24
  So there's there's different trade-offs here.
• 1:11:27
  But anyways, Kent to wrap up the show, let's let's let's talk SAS
• 1:11:32
  mining. As you guys know, Kent, SAS
• 1:11:38
  mining, you guys did go to Ethiopia.
• 1:11:41
  Let me I'm trying to find the dashboard here for people that
• 1:11:45
  wanna wanna get themselves if if this if Kent sold you on maybe
• 1:11:51
  getting into. There we go.
• 1:11:52
  There you go. Shop rigs.
• 1:11:55
  Yeah, there we go. Is my Internet acting up?
• 1:11:59
  Here we go. All right, Kent floor is yours.
• 1:12:04
  You're muted. You're muted bro.
• 1:12:08
  Yeah, the good old background noise here, I'm trying to spare
• 1:12:11
  everybody. So the hardware we've gotten,
• 1:12:14
  most available at the moment is in Ethiopia.
• 1:12:17
  As I said, last month was unbelievably big for us.
• 1:12:21
  I was somewhat surprised myself, but just seems to be that the
• 1:12:25
  thesis of wise miners deploying capital and in bear market
• 1:12:28
  conditions is playing out here. But you're able to get deployed
• 1:12:31
  in Ethiopia in a few weeks here and that has very low cost
• 1:12:35
  power. It's a very stable environment
• 1:12:37
  actually to mine in. And you're able to get, I think
• 1:12:40
  if we're going up 15% on the next decline here, you know, you
• 1:12:44
  get able to get over 300,000 cents for our highest efficiency
• 1:12:47
  mining league each month. So 350 I think could be close to
• 1:12:52
  what the next difficulty adjustment is.
• 1:12:55
  So it's a great way to stack sats and do it outside the
• 1:12:57
  system, secure the network so you're a bit more sovereign and
• 1:13:01
  participate in security as well as, you know, acquire sats that
• 1:13:05
  are outside the banking system. So more bang for your buck is
• 1:13:09
  kind of how I think. About it?
• 1:13:11
  Yeah, catch some wild sats, as Kent loves to say all the time.
• 1:13:18
  All right, Ken. Well, actually before we go is
• 1:13:21
  you, you want to maybe give the people one last word of wisdom.
• 1:13:25
  Chad's freaking out right now. As someone that's been in
• 1:13:28
  Bitcoin for a while, What, what would you tell people right now?
• 1:13:31
  You know, your two-minute elevator pitch if someone came
• 1:13:33
  up to you like man, Bitcoin prices dump in.
• 1:13:37
  What's the advice you got for them?
• 1:13:38
  Oh. Man, you know that.
• 1:13:44
  Embrace the sock. It doesn't.
• 1:13:47
  It doesn't. You know, it never get, it gets
• 1:13:49
  easier, but it never gets easy. You know, I'm, I'm eleven years
• 1:13:53
  into my journey here and I've been through many of these
• 1:13:56
  moments and I'd be lying if I said that I, I felt totally
• 1:14:01
  great right now. I mean, it sucks to see the
• 1:14:03
  price pull back like that and your, your head starts going,
• 1:14:05
  oh, how do I recalculate things that are going on in my life
• 1:14:08
  with my purchasing power? But the reality is that
• 1:14:11
  inevitably it will go back up again.
• 1:14:13
  And that's just because Bitcoin is the hardest money and
• 1:14:16
  surviving these downtrends is actually where the conviction
• 1:14:19
  to, to hold comes from. So, you know, in the same way
• 1:14:22
  that you go to the gym and embrace the suck of doing a
• 1:14:24
  workout and come out the other side and they're a bit stronger.
• 1:14:27
  That's kind of what I see with Bitcoin.
• 1:14:29
  And you know, the, the beauty is that we are unparalleled in our
• 1:14:33
  ability to embrace the suck here in the Bitcoin community, which
• 1:14:37
  is why the holders here, when we get across the finish line, and
• 1:14:41
  it will happen at some point, you know, Bitcoin will be over
• 1:14:43
  $1,000,000 a coin and we'll be able to cheers our champagne
• 1:14:47
  glasses and, and, and, and, and laugh about all the pain we went
• 1:14:51
  through. But we'll certainly deserve it.
• 1:14:53
  And for everybody that's hanging in there on days like this, the
• 1:14:57
  main thing I recommend is shut off the computer.
• 1:15:00
  Just quickly look at it, walk away, go touch grass, and you'll
• 1:15:05
  enjoy life a whole lot more. Yeah, agreed.
• 1:15:08
  Agreed, I do like the embrace the sack, but I was just doing a
• 1:15:12
  little chart one guys, we're only down 7% on the day.
• 1:15:15
  Like what? What is this?
• 1:15:16
  It's a dump for ants and watch literally I say that and it just
• 1:15:19
  absolutely craters. But yeah, no, I, I mean, as, as
• 1:15:26
  you said, I, I was totally, totally born in the 2018 Bitcoin
• 1:15:32
  bear market. And even though bear market suck
• 1:15:36
  in terms of price, they're usually the funnest in terms of
• 1:15:39
  sentiment. You know, everyone goes away.
• 1:15:41
  That's when you really have the most fun.
• 1:15:43
  As I was saying yesterday, it does feel like it's a bear
• 1:15:45
  market. We're getting all these crazy
• 1:15:47
  news. It's like, man, you're seeing
• 1:15:48
  all the bear market signals and right now it's like, hey, look,
• 1:15:53
  this shouldn't be like, I know. And I'm not to counter your take
• 1:15:58
  here, Kent, but this shouldn't be pushing you away from
• 1:16:01
  Bitcoin. Yes, you don't have to ingest
• 1:16:04
  like be on Bitcoin Twitter everyday monitoring the price,
• 1:16:07
  but you definitely have to continue to stack Bitcoin when
• 1:16:10
  you in bear marks. If we have officially entered
• 1:16:13
  the bear market, this is when you can build a really good
• 1:16:16
  position. So make sure you don't take your
• 1:16:18
  foot off the gas. Continue to acquire stats,
• 1:16:21
  whether it's wild stats with stats or you know, just smash
• 1:16:24
  buying DCA ING, whatever works for you.
• 1:16:26
  Just make sure you continue to accumulate Bitcoin in a, in a
• 1:16:29
  few short years or maybe at this point for me in a few long
• 1:16:33
  years, because I got to show up every day with you guys, we'll
• 1:16:37
  all be looking back at this time and being like, man, that was
• 1:16:40
  the best time to be buying Bitcoin.
• 1:16:41
  So there's a buying opportunity. Anyways, Kent, I don't know if
• 1:16:46
  you see the chat. Kent's dog is pissed about the
• 1:16:48
  price too, so, well, I. I as soon as I'm out of here,
• 1:16:51
  I'm going to go play with that. We, we just got a, a German
• 1:16:54
  shepherd puppy guys. And it, it likes it likes to act
• 1:16:57
  up a bit so hard, hard to keep it totally muted, but we'll do
• 1:17:00
  my best. And that's actually what I'm
• 1:17:02
  going to go do is go, go hang out with family.
• 1:17:04
  I've got my purchasing in for the day.
• 1:17:06
  Let's go. Yeah.
• 1:17:07
  So Kent's, Kent's iteration on go touch grass is go touch
• 1:17:12
  puppies. I guess that's, that's actual
• 1:17:14
  therapy out there. I think we all need to go do
• 1:17:17
  that like you go and get swarmed by puppies so your DOPA bead
• 1:17:21
  receptors reset. Anyways, Kent, really appreciate
• 1:17:24
  you coming on, love when you come on, especially as they're
• 1:17:27
  Bitcoin mining expert. All right, guys, on that note,
• 1:17:30
  we will be back tomorrow. I believe Nico should be back
• 1:17:33
  tomorrow. And look, we'll see what happens
• 1:17:37
  today. We'll see how low we go.
• 1:17:39
  Dude, we're playing limbo right now.
• 1:17:40
  How low can we go? All right, guys, I'll see you
• 1:17:43
  tomorrow. Have a good rest of your day.
• 1:17:45
  Today's episode was brought to you by bitcoinwell.com, a
• 1:17:48
  Bitcoin only platform on a mission to enable financial
• 1:17:51
  independence.