Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Scott Bessent BLAMES COINBASE For Bitcoin Crash | EP 1440

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Scott Bessent BLAMES COINBASE For Bitcoin Crash | EP 1440 · Simply Bitcoin

0:01
Yo, the Treasury Secretary Scott Besson might have just revealed
0:07
who caused the recent Bitcoin crash, and it's not who you
0:11
think. Well, everyone is focused on
0:13
Binance and CZ. What if Coinbase is to blame for
0:17
the Bitcoin crash? As crazy as that sounds, you'll
0:21
need to listen in very carefully to what Scott Besson just said
0:25
on CNNBC this morning. Let's check out the clip.
0:30
Crypto bills moving forward? Bitcoin a little bit dicey here
0:35
at this point. You wonder about the leverage in
0:37
the system. Any comments?
0:41
Yeah, Joe that that the history if we take bit Bitcoin as a
0:45
proxy for crypto, Bitcoin has a history of volatile movement.
0:50
See we went back and looked, I believe the average sell off has
0:54
been about 58% and we're coming into that zip code right now and
1:00
crypto holders are mostly in it for the long term.
1:05
They are used to the volatility. So it's it's important that
1:09
everyone knows what what they're buying.
1:13
But part of the volatility here is self induced because, and
1:19
this is one thing where there has been by a bipartisan working
1:24
group and Democrats, there is a group of Democrats who want to
1:31
work with Republicans on getting a market structure bill.
1:34
It's called the clarity bill. But there are a group of crypto
1:40
firms who have been blocking it. They said, well, we'd rather
1:43
have no legislation than this legislation.
1:46
And that doesn't seem to have been good for the overall crypto
1:50
community. So, you know, in a time when we
1:52
are having one of these historically volatile sell off,
1:56
I think some clarity on the clarity bill would give great
2:02
comfort to the market. And you know, we, we could move
2:05
forward from there. So it's very important to get
2:07
this done. And I, I think if, if the
2:12
Democrats were to take the House, which is far from my best
2:15
case, then the, the prospects of getting a deal done will just
2:20
fall apart. I mean, look, look what the
2:22
Democrats did to crypto under the Biden administration.
2:25
It was almost an extinction event, and President Trump has
2:28
worked to make the US the digital asset capital of the
2:31
world. There's a lot of innovation that
2:33
goes on adjacent to crypto and in the blockchain and defy.
2:39
So I think it's important to get this Clarity Belt done as soon
2:43
as possible and on the president's desk this spring.
2:48
So a couple things to unpack there.
2:49
First, it's crazy cause Opti and I were watching CNBC this
2:54
morning, believe it or not. And at towards the end of that
2:58
interview with Joe Kernan, they asked him like, hey, what's
3:01
going on with the Bitcoin price? And Treasury Secretary Scott
3:05
Besson was essentially blaming some of the downward volatility
3:11
on the fact that there is to use that.
3:13
He used the pun, I'm going to use the pun that there is no
3:17
regulatory charity. I don't know how much I believe
3:20
in that. I mean, it could play a little
3:23
bit into the price, but I think that this is a great opportunity
3:27
to take, you know, an event that's happening and to
3:30
potentially capitalize on it politically and again, you know,
3:35
assigning the blame, right? So basically saying, look, the
3:39
Trump administration has done everything in its power to try
3:42
to get this bill passed. However, because of the opposing
3:47
political party and because of some other Bitcoin slash, I
3:51
would say crypto, not really Bitcoin, crypto companies, the
3:56
bill basically has grinded to a halt.
3:58
And then he confirmed what I've been saying for the last week or
4:01
so that if the Democrats, and it looks like there's a high
4:04
probability that they do take back the House, take back the
4:07
House, there is like a zero chance that this bill is even
4:12
going to get passed. But the question is, what is in
4:15
this bill? Why is Coinbase against this
4:19
bill in the 1st place? I'm going to pull up the tweet.
4:21
And what we've been mentioning over the last couple of weeks is
4:25
I haven't been a really big fan of the bill.
4:27
Like they passed the genius actors to the stablecoin Act
4:31
with so much enthusiasm with bipartisanship because again, it
4:35
would it would spread the use of the US dollar worldwide.
4:39
But the Clarity Act, which would be beneficial towards the
4:43
Bitcoin, the Bitcoiners, the Bitcoin industry and the crypto
4:47
industry as a whole, that it seems like Congress has been
4:50
dragging their feet a little bit more on that.
4:52
And specifically, it seems like that bill, this is again, my
4:56
personal opinion here, got hijacked by the banking industry
5:02
to make it so that the bill protects the banking industry
5:06
rather for it to be a favorable piece of legislation for the
5:10
Bitcoin and crypto industry as a whole.
5:13
So again, like I, I understand where Scott Besson is coming in
5:17
regards to listen, if we don't get, if we don't get this passed
5:20
now, if we lose the midterms, there's not this isn't going to
5:24
get passed. I understand the argument where
5:26
he says this actually might be a reason, a 'cause as to why we've
5:30
seen this downward sell pressure.
5:33
Where I disagree with him on is, listen, the fact is that I truly
5:37
do believe this bill got hijacked a little bit.
5:40
I, I do believe that this bill is being structured in a way to
5:44
protect the banks. And I'll, I'll put it to you
5:46
guys bluntly and simply. And again, it it's unfortunate
5:49
that for some reason Bitcoin has to get involved into all of
5:54
this, because the big stop on this bill is banks don't want
6:00
crypto companies, crypto tokens to offer interests to their
6:05
users, because that would be competition for the banks.
6:10
Banks right now offer a lot like it.
6:14
It, it's a miniscule amount of interest, right?
6:17
If you have money in a bank, they're supposed to pay you for
6:19
that because they're taking that money and they're lending out to
6:22
they're lending that out to other people.
6:23
They're not paying that that that to you today, if you have
6:27
below, I think it's like a $1500 balance in a bank account, you
6:31
actually have to pay the bank a maintenance fee to, you know,
6:34
keep your money in the bank. And that's really what's
6:37
stopping this bill. It's unfortunate that Bitcoin
6:40
gets lumped into all of this because as, as a Bitcoiner, the
6:44
thing that I'm really focused on in this bill is that if this
6:47
bill gets codified, it protects the right of Bitcoiners to self
6:51
custody. And on a federal level, it's not
6:54
an executive order from a president.
6:56
On a legislative level, it protects the right to self
6:59
custody. And that's incredibly important.
7:02
You guys know how I feel about self custody, how important self
7:05
custody is to our movement. And that's really what I'm
7:08
focused on as a Bitcoiner. The other thing that would be
7:11
focused on, but it's not included in the bill is again,
7:14
getting rid of capital gains or at least having a limited
7:18
amount. So like if you spend $1000 worth
7:20
of Bitcoin or $500 worth of Bitcoin, you don't have to pay
7:23
capital gains on that. That was discussed.
7:25
I don't know if it's in the final version of the bill, but
7:28
as a bitcoiner, those are the really only two things I I
7:30
really care about. Yes, the regulatory clarity is
7:33
good for the business environment in the United States
7:36
without a shadow of a doubt. But again, it sucks that Bitcoin
7:39
is getting dragged in to this whole, you know, defy slash
7:43
crypto slash. You know the argument, right?
7:48
Which which is kind of unfortunate.
7:50
Anyways, I'm going to show you guys the official reasons as to
7:53
why Coinbase is giving as to why they don't want to pass this
7:58
bill and let's check it out. So here's Brian Armstrong.
8:03
Brian Armstrong is obviously this the Co founder and CEO of
8:08
of the Co founder and CEO of Coinbase.
8:12
And what he's saying is after reviewing the Senate Banking
8:15
draft text over the last 48 hours, Coinbase unfortunately
8:19
can't support the bill as written.
8:21
Now let me tell you a little bit about Coinbase guys.
8:24
Coinbase is the largest crypto exchange and or business that's
8:31
publicly traded on the stock market right now.
8:34
And they hold about 12% of all the Bitcoin in their custody.
8:40
That doesn't mean it belongs to them, but they hold it on behalf
8:43
of the ETF, on behalf of institutions, on behalf of their
8:46
customers. So they're a major player and
8:49
they played a, they have played a major role in all of the
8:53
legislation that has been happening in Washington DC.
8:57
They're all lobbying behemoth, right?
8:59
That's why you see pictures of Brian Armstrong in Washington,
9:03
DC, in the imperial capital, you know, in his suits, and he's
9:06
talking and he's talking and he's shaking hands and, you
9:09
know, he's making, you know, he's, he's, he's doing what he
9:11
needs to do right for the betterment of his company.
9:14
But anyhow, let's get to what his official reasons are.
9:18
And then we'll kind of compare and contrast that with what
9:21
Scott Bessette said. So he said there are too many
9:24
issues, including a de facto ban on tokenized equities as a
9:29
bitcoiner. Why do equities need to be
9:32
tokenized? I understand from coin bases
9:34
perspective why they need to be tokenized because they decided
9:38
to go down that route right? But as a bitcoiner don't really
9:41
care about that. D5 prohibitions, giving the
9:44
government unlimited access to your financial records and
9:47
removing your right to privacy. Again, I do kind of care about
9:51
that. Maybe not the D5 side of things.
9:55
I'm not really AD 5 type of person.
9:57
I'm a I'm a bitcoiner. But at the same time, again,
10:00
it's what I was saying earlier, it's like they took this bill,
10:04
they they judoed it and they made it about protecting the
10:08
government and protecting the big banks rather than it being
10:12
beneficial towards the industry and most importantly, allowing
10:16
innovation to happen, right? Because at the end of the day,
10:20
whether you like it or not, as a Bitcoiner defy, which I don't
10:24
really actually define as decentralized, but defy allows a
10:29
lot of things to happen without any central party involved,
10:34
without any middleman involved, Better said, right?
10:37
So you can like, you know, transact between altcoin 1 and
10:40
altcoin A and etcetera, etcetera.
10:43
So, you know, they obviously don't want that to happen.
10:46
They want a middleman. They want, you know, a
10:48
centralized exchange because with the centralized exchange
10:52
with the middleman, you could put, you know, regulations on
10:55
that erosion of the CFT CS authority stifling innovation
10:59
and making it subservient to the SEC, which is again, kind of the
11:03
opposite of what we heard initially.
11:05
Initially, the whole thing was actually that the industry was
11:09
going to move away from the SEC and actually towards the CFTC,
11:13
specifically Bitcoin. And this is where it's
11:15
unfortunate because Bitcoin is seen as a commodity.
11:18
So Bitcoin would fall under the CFTC.
11:20
But again, because Coinbase is involved in a lot of altcoin
11:25
trading and a lot of altcoin volume, again, we kind of get
11:29
dragged into this. And the last part, he says draft
11:32
amendments that would kill rewards on stable coins,
11:36
allowing banks to ban their competition.
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This right here, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the
11:43
issue. This is literally forget about
11:46
all of this stuff up here. Yes, it's important, etcetera,
11:49
etcetera, but This is why it's at a standstill right now.
11:53
This is the crux of it. And it also reveals the
11:56
incentives of the banks, which is crazy.
11:59
This is this reminds me of the Andreas Antonopoulos days like,
12:03
you know, where he calls the banks, you know, the C word that
12:08
I don't want to say, but it, it, it, it looks like they're not in
12:12
the business of competing. They don't want to compete,
12:15
right. They want to use their Moat to
12:18
retain to retain the power and to to retain the power the of
12:23
influence that they have over the US financial system.
12:26
And the the the worst thing that could happen to them in their
12:32
eyes is if people started to use alternatives than regular
12:37
checking accounts. I've, I already know, I
12:39
personally know people that have already done this.
12:42
I personally know people that don't have bank accounts.
12:44
They literally use their cash app account as their bank
12:48
account, right? I already know people that fall
12:50
into this category. Now, the reason that stable
12:53
coins freak out banks so much is because ultimate, the way that
12:58
these stable coins work is if you buy $1.00 worth of Tether or
13:04
USDC, what happens is that they buy the US dollar equivalent of
13:09
that. That doesn't necessarily mean
13:11
that they're going out and getting $1.00 worth of cash.
13:14
What they're doing is that they're buying U.S.
13:16
Treasuries and those U.S. Treasuries actually give you
13:20
interest, they give you return, right?
13:23
So what better way to incentivize clients then instead
13:28
of those stable coin companies collecting all the interest
13:31
themselves, giving some of that interest back to their clients.
13:35
And all of a sudden those stablecoin that those stablecoin
13:38
companies and those stablecoin wallets would actually be
13:42
extremely competitive to a regular checking account, A
13:46
regular checking account which charges you a maintenance fee if
13:50
if you have a balance under a certain amount.
13:52
And just a stable coin wallet which you could download off the
13:57
Internet. You can send and receive
14:00
payments globally all around the world.
14:02
And it's paying you for you to keep your money there.
14:06
Like that sounds fantastic. Banks don't want that to happen.
14:10
They want the status quo to remain.
14:13
They want to be able to use money that you leave in their
14:16
checking account or you leave in the savings account to lend to
14:19
other people. And they want to retain the
14:21
ability of not having to, not having to pay you interest to do
14:25
just that, right? This isn't competition.
14:28
This is not capitalism. I would consider this a form of
14:32
crony capitalism because they're using the government to
14:35
basically protect their Moat. Again, this is not unprecedented
14:39
in American history. This has happened in American
14:42
history where you've had giant Titans like Standard Oil or AT&T
14:47
or some of the big airlines that use their political influence to
14:52
get certain types of rules and regulations passed in law to
14:57
protect their businesses. But this isn't competition.
15:00
This is not free market capitalism.
15:02
This is using the government to try to get your way.
15:05
But it's funny and there's like a there's an irony here.
15:09
And the irony here is that it's the banks that are doing this
15:12
right. The same banks that are
15:13
lecturing us about how bad Bitcoin is and how did Bitcoin
15:18
is a danger to the financial system and that Bitcoin, you
15:22
know, is, is useless and it it won't be used for anything else.
15:26
These are the same banks that are lecturing us about how, you
15:29
know, they're holier than thou, you know, and that they have the
15:32
moral high ground and then that they are the ones that
15:35
ultimately, you know, know what's best for you.
15:38
And at the same time, when competition comes because of
15:42
technological innovation, instead of them adapting and
15:47
competing on the free market, what do they do?
15:49
They go to big government and they say, please, Daddy, protect
15:53
me, Protect me from the crypto industry.
15:56
So, you know, this is essentially what's happening.
15:58
This is the reason that the Clarity Act is out of
16:01
standstill. And, you know, I love what Scott
16:03
Besson has done. I love what the Trump
16:05
administration has done for the Bitcoin industry as a whole.
16:09
It's unfortunate that the Clarity Act not only includes
16:14
protections for bitcoiners and the Bitcoin industry, but it
16:18
also includes protections for the crypto industry as a whole.
16:21
We're conjoined at the hip when it comes to the Clarity Act
16:24
because I think if some of the things were separated in a
16:27
separate bill like the protect, the right to self custody or any
16:31
of the pro Bitcoin things, I think they would have passed by
16:33
now. I think the only reason that the
16:36
Clarity Act Act is is being held hostage essentially is this last
16:40
part that Brian Armstrong posted.
16:43
And I think that he put it as the last part on purpose.
16:46
Draft amendments that would kill rewards on stable coins,
16:49
allowing banks to ban, ban their competition.
16:52
So when he says rewards, he really means interest.
16:55
He's using a different word, but that's what he's talking about,
16:57
interest. So he goes on to say we
17:00
appreciate all the hard work by members of the Senate to reach a
17:03
bipartisan outcome, but this version would be materially
17:06
worse than the current status quo.
17:09
We'd rather have no bill than a bad bill.
17:11
Hopefully we can get, we can all get to, to a better draft.
17:16
We'll keep fighting for all Americans and for economic
17:19
freedom. Crypto needs to be treated on a
17:22
level playing field with the rest of the financial services
17:25
so we can build this industry in a safe and trusted way in
17:28
America. And I got to say, as much as I I
17:31
disagree with Brian Armstrong's platform and you know what they
17:35
do I I agree with that. Like this prohibitions, giving
17:40
the government unlimited access to your financial records and
17:43
removing your right to privacy. It's simultaneously, you know,
17:47
the daycare situation happens. Like it, it's kind of like, you
17:50
know, rules for thee and not for me, rules for thee but not for
17:54
you guys. Get the point?
17:55
So yeah, I mean, it, it, it's that's the situation.
17:59
That's the TLDR. Scott Besson is obviously acting in his own
18:03
self-interest. He wants the bill to get passed.
18:06
Coinbase is basically saying, look like, Nah, this isn't cool,
18:10
this isn't fair. You're essentially giving the
18:12
bank special treatment. That's true.
18:14
But it also reveals, it pulls back the curtain, right?
18:16
And it also tells you that we're winning, right?
18:19
If if you're being attacked, that means that you are worthy
18:24
of being attacked, that means that you are a threat, right?
18:28
Which is a good thing. But again, as Bitcoiners and a
18:31
Bitcoin only show and a Bitcoin focus show, it's unfortunate
18:36
that a lot of this stuff gets, you know, commingled together.
18:39
Anyways, I'm going to pass it on to Opti.
18:41
Opti, what are your thoughts on this?
18:42
You did see this clip of Scott Besson live with me this
18:46
morning. We were watching.
18:47
We're like, whoa. And it was immediately posted on
18:51
Twitter right after the fact. I got to say, man, the fact that
18:55
regularly, regularly programmed financial legacy media has to
19:01
talk about Bitcoin is fantastic. That's, that's insane.
19:06
That's that's the that's the Treasury Secretary of the United
19:09
States on prime time financial networking and media.
19:15
And they're literally asking him about Bitcoin.
19:18
They're asking him why is the price going down?
19:21
What's the cause of this? And of course, he smartly and
19:24
intelligently used that as a platform to make his case as to
19:28
why the Clarity Act should be passed Opti.
19:31
Yeah, well, First off, if if you guys saw the beginning, of
19:34
course it was Joe Kernan, which we always joke is the best
19:37
Bitcoin podcaster in the space because he's on national news
19:41
and he does speak to people outside of the Bitcoin echo
19:44
chamber. So I think it was fitting also.
19:47
So some context for this CNBC or Squawk Box this morning was
19:50
very, very hyping or we're hyping this up a lot.
19:55
They're like, we got a special interview with Scott Besson.
19:58
It was a 30 minute interview. We were all sitting there like,
20:00
man, this is so long. Like usually it's like 5
20:02
minutes. And of course Joe Curtin even
20:04
said like very last minute, he's like, I got to ask you one more
20:07
question. And then of course, you guys saw
20:09
the clip. Now I do want to unpack a few
20:11
things here. It is pretty interesting.
20:13
The first part of that clip, Scott Besson, was like, look, we
20:16
are. In a 50% kind of pullback
20:20
correction, historically on average the pullback's around
20:24
58%. So you could read that as saying
20:27
what Nico's been saying. Maybe the dip is it is going to
20:30
dip more and we got a little lower to go.
20:32
You could read that one way as well.
20:34
You know, that's one of the things you can take away from
20:36
that clip. Now the second part, which it
20:39
was a little cryptic, hence why you we told you to really listen
20:44
to what Scott Besson was saying. He obviously obviously didn't
20:47
specifically pinpoint Coinbase as being the culprit here, but
20:52
he but everyone that has been watching the news that we've
20:54
been covering, if you watch the show with us, we all kind of
20:57
know who who are the the main players in the space right now.
21:01
And as Nika read the Coinbase tweet, that was the big kind of
21:04
smoking gun around the last Clarity Act arguments that we
21:09
saw the last two weeks or so. And to that story as, as I said
21:15
a couple of weeks ago, or yeah, about I think it was 2 weeks
21:18
ago. I, I do, I do agree with what
21:21
Brian Armstrong said. And like me and Nico, we don't
21:24
really agree with Brian Armstrong a lot.
21:27
But at at a certain point, as I said a couple of days ago, it is
21:31
almost like I, I'm siding with the people that are in the
21:36
industry. Maybe they're not, you know
21:38
what, they're not passing the purity test.
21:40
But to some extent Brian Armstrong does have he, he needs
21:46
to be favourable to Bitcoin. So maybe he's not perfect and
21:49
maybe a lot of times he does more damage than good.
21:52
I I I don't know if. I think I'm siding with Brian
21:54
Armstrong, yeah. Yeah, let me get to that.
21:56
Yeah, So the enemy of your enemy.
21:59
Exactly. Exactly.
22:00
And I'm not saying Brian Armstrong is 100%.
22:04
My enemy. But that's what I'm saying.
22:05
Too, but but ultimately. He's on our side.
22:08
Ultimately, you know, like whether you guys like this or
22:12
not and fine, give me all the shit.
22:15
Listen, guys, we are literally the number one Bitcoin only live
22:19
show on the planet. OK?
22:21
So I'm saying it, I'm coming out, I'm coming out and I'm
22:24
saying, all right. The the matter of, of a fact is
22:28
that the Bitcoin and crypto industry right now, they're tied
22:31
at they're tied at the hip, right?
22:33
Like Bitcoin isn't crypto. Like it's not crypto.
22:36
It's a totally different asset. It's a it's, it's totally
22:39
different. Bitcoiners think differently.
22:41
We have Bitcoin only businesses. We have an entire ecosystem that
22:46
is literally for Bitcoin and not crypto.
22:49
Well I I would maybe go further fighting crypto.
22:51
But but exactly like, but, but the market, the, the people that
22:57
are not in the trenches consuming Bitcoin content like
23:00
you guys are right now, their perception is that we are one in
23:05
the same, right? That that's the perception they
23:08
use Bitcoin and crypto interchangeably, right?
23:13
So that's the perception of it. So, and from a regulatory
23:17
perspective, from a legislation perspective, the fact is that
23:21
these pieces of legislation are not Bitcoin focused.
23:25
They're crypto focused, which a lot of that overlaps with
23:30
Bitcoin. This is why we have to cover
23:33
these things and This is why we have to say, listen, Brian, it's
23:36
better to have Brian Armstrong than having someone that's anti
23:42
Bitcoin, anti crypto all together.
23:44
So that's why we say the expression the enemy, the, you
23:47
know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?
23:51
So, you know, it is what it is for better or for worse.
23:55
But you know, hopefully when this I, I, I, I agree with Brian
23:59
Armstrong, man, like I, I, I, this, this bill got hijacked.
24:03
I can't emphasize that enough. I, I saw, I saw this happening
24:07
in slow motion. It got hijacked.
24:09
It went from a bill that was supposed to provide clarity,
24:13
regulatory clarity for the industry was supposed to provide
24:16
protections for users was was was meant to protect the right
24:22
to self custody and it essentially got Co opted to
24:26
protect the banking industry and to protect the you know, to
24:31
basically take away some of your privacy as a as AUS citizen.
24:36
And again, it it it it keeps the title clarity.
24:39
It reminds me of the of the ACT that was passed during the Biden
24:43
administration that was like the like the anti inflation.
24:47
I don't remember what the exact name is.
24:49
And then like the actual bill literally meant that they were
24:52
just going to print billions of dollars, which is like the
24:55
opposite, right? It like a cut.
24:56
No, I can't. I can't talk about the other.
24:58
Well, let let me, let me, let me let me jump in here and add some
25:01
numbers here to kind of further your, your point here.
25:04
The you know, the main crux of the Coinbase fighting this
25:09
Clarity Act Bill is of course the stablecoin yield.
25:12
And I know I talked about it a couple of days ago and I, I
25:16
didn't have the numbers on the top of my head, but I did look
25:20
back into it. And if the if basically Coinbase
25:24
or the crypto industry get their way with the stable coin yields,
25:28
then that is potentially like I think it was 6.
25:33
I think it was 6 trillion dollars that they would lose.
25:36
It could be billion or trillion. So maybe if I don't have the
25:39
numbers exactly off the top of my head, it is it's a lot of
25:41
money. It is mission.
25:43
They are in dire straits. So it might be 6 trillion I
25:46
think and and keep take a look at the rewards the wording that
25:50
Brian Armstrong. Used in in.
25:53
In that wording, he used the word rewards on purpose because
25:57
he couldn't use the word interest, right, Because if you
26:00
use the word interest, it's like that's the smoking gun.
26:04
So he's using the word rewards, but ultimately it functions the
26:08
same way, right? If you leave, you know, your
26:11
quote UN quote, whatever crypto on Coinbase and they offer you
26:15
rewards for that. Like, you know, what is that if
26:18
not a form of interest, right? And, and this is what they're
26:21
freaking out about. So part of the genius act again,
26:26
was it was to to, to forbid that.
26:29
But the way that a lot of these crypto exchanges found a way to
26:33
circumvent that was to offer rewards, right?
26:37
So we're not going to offer interest, but we're going to
26:39
offer rewards. And then the banking industry is
26:43
stepping in and they're saying we can't, we, we, we can't let
26:45
that happen. Because you know, this would be
26:48
this again, a, a lot of people would pull their money out of
26:52
the banking system and just operate natively within these
26:57
new financial apps. Like, you know, like I, I,
27:00
again, I, I know someone very close to me that literally does
27:05
not have a bank account and literally uses cash App, which
27:09
is, I love cash app. Like what Jack Dorsey's doing
27:11
with block and, and Bitcoin and the products they're building,
27:15
like the bit key, like it, it, it's, it's fantastic.
27:19
It's great. But this is what the banks are
27:22
scared of. But at the same time, it's like,
27:24
does cash App charge you $10 a month for you to leave your
27:29
money on cash App? No, right.
27:32
So this is what they're concerned about.
27:34
But they're not playing the fair game.
27:36
They're not playing, oh, let's compete.
27:38
They're playing. Oh, we're the big banks and we
27:40
make the laws here. We we make the rules, right?
27:44
Remember, in 2008, even though we made mistakes, ultimately it
27:49
was Main Street that bailed out Wall Street.
27:52
All right, everybody. Wait, wait.
27:53
One, one more thing to add, and I'm not going to go along, but
27:55
there was, I don't know if you guys caught the Coinbase Q or
28:02
25-A2025Q4 update, but Brian Armstrong, which is I think it,
28:08
it's about a week or so after that initial post that Nico was
28:11
talking about where Brian Armstrong was saying, I can't
28:13
support this bill. A couple days later, they did
28:16
come out and say, hey, actually what?
28:17
We'll come back to the table. We'll have this conversation.
28:20
And Nico and I were both on the show like the Clarity Act's
28:22
over. It's done, it's a wrap.
28:24
But we did get a snippet from Brian Armstrong where now he's
28:27
bullish on the Clarity Act passing.
28:30
And he said the same thing that Scott Besson said, if this
28:33
passes, it's going to send Bitcoin higher.
28:35
So who knows what the conversations have been behind
28:38
the scenes, but there does seem to be a new cohesion over the
28:43
narrative here. There, there does seem to be
28:46
some momentum. Anyways, guys, it's going to be
28:48
an incredible show. We have the chairman of Hive
28:52
Digital Technologies joining us on the show later today, Bulldog
28:57
Homes, AKA Frank Holmes. He's going to be joining us at
29:00
1:45. Before that, we got jam packed.
29:02
We got, we got a, a whole entire show full of content for you
29:07
guys today. We're going to be right back
29:09
just after the break. Today's episode is.
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31:36
At the time of recording, the Bitcoin price is 69,000 and $20.
31:44
That's per dollar 1449 block height 936,410 realized monetary
31:51
inflation .83%. The grand scheme of things,
31:54
we're just getting started. Market capitalization of Bitcoin
31:58
currently sitting pretty at 1.38 trillion.
32:01
We're we're just getting the party started.
32:03
Ladies and gentlemen, the market cap of gold.
32:08
Is 30. $5 trillion, dude, Nico, I I'm more.
32:13
Depressed. Remember when we were at 2
32:15
trillion and now we're at one point?
32:16
I'll take it. That's a.
32:18
Discount, baby. I'll take it.
32:20
I'll take. It I mean 30. $5 trillion market
32:24
cap for gold and bitcoins only 35 X.
32:28
No, dude, it. It's it's less, it's 1.38, it's
32:32
not one. What?
32:34
OK, 30? 3X whatever.
32:39
Maps is hard. All right, 30X whatever.
32:41
Bitcoin, Bitcoin versus gold marketing app four, 4.61% and
32:48
percentage issued out there. I can kind of do the math just
32:51
on the Bitcoin versus gold, it's like roughly 20 something X.
32:56
Maps hard. Percentage issued 95.18%.
33:03
Almost all the Bitcoin. That's, that's crazy.
33:05
That's crazy. Anyways, I got a clip for you
33:08
guys. Do we have it uploaded?
33:10
Give me one second. But cover the tweet and then,
33:12
and then it should be done. All right, let's.
33:14
Check out this tweet by of course, the one the only, the
33:18
Chad Sailor went on on Charles Payne and it said some
33:25
interesting things. I'll play it.
33:27
I'll play it. There are millions of Bitcoin.
33:31
We do have a a crypto friendly administration, but recently
33:35
there, I think maybe it's the banking industry.
33:37
There have been some setbacks down in Washington DC.
33:40
What's your feelings with respect to policy and maybe some
33:44
of the pressures on the on on on Bitcoin right now emanating from
33:47
the fact that maybe you've hit a few speed bumps in DC?
33:51
Well, you know, I mean the nation.
33:53
Bought Alaska, bought Texas, bought California, bought the
33:56
Louisiana Territory, They're all very good investments.
33:59
We think about Greenland right now.
34:00
That's on the top of everybody's tongue.
34:02
What's pretty clear is that you're going to want to be the
34:06
leader in digital intelligence, that's AI, and you're going to
34:08
be the leader in digital assets if if the nation doesn't buy
34:13
most of the Bitcoin network. At the very least, what we want
34:16
is constructive policies so that United States companies and
34:21
United States investors buy digital assets and that way the
34:25
taxpayers and the nation benefits from their efforts at.
34:29
Last. Read micro strategies or or
34:32
strategy rather had over 700,000 Bitcoin 22.8% yield in fiscal
34:38
year 2025. Are you still How profitable has
34:43
the overall trade been the the the company?
34:47
'S 100 times bigger than it was five years ago, Charles.
34:50
It's been an extraordinary achievement.
34:54
The stock's up by a factor of 10.
34:56
We've outperformed every mag 7 company except for NVIDIA, so
35:00
it's extremely profitable I think I think the company's 3X
35:04
the performance of the S&P index over that time frame.
35:07
So we're very pleased with with the Bitcoin strategy this ship
35:12
to to the. So I mean a lot a little bit
35:17
more positive. It's it's what's it though?
35:19
What's it though? I mean you do your.
35:22
Take and I'll I'll do my take. I might be a little more cynical
35:24
on it. It's so interesting when.
35:25
They have Charles Payne, he's a go doing the interview versus
35:30
yeah, he's not attacking them like the other reporters, which
35:33
like full like full on, you know, massacre essentially.
35:39
So, you know, a little bit more empathetic, but he did ask
35:46
something very similar in terms in terms of the regulatory
35:49
environment of EU s s involvement in in Bitcoin.
35:53
You guys know how I feel about that.
35:55
We talked about that, you know, a couple of, you know, a a
35:59
couple episodes ago, but I'm going to get your take.
36:03
What, what, what? What did you see that I didn't
36:05
see, obviously. I think your initial gut
36:09
reaction, like Sailor does seem a little happier.
36:12
You know, maybe maybe he's like, the pressure's off.
36:15
It's the Miami sunshine. Yeah, maybe.
36:17
Yeah, he did have a tan, you know, vitamin D and he's just
36:20
getting happier. Well, maybe it was the freezing.
36:23
Temperature had all of us on edge last week.
36:26
No, But what? What I kind of?
36:27
Heard is it and I look again I'm mind reading I'm speculating
36:34
here, but it it almost felt like he backtracked on the idea of
36:38
the US government actually buying Bitcoin.
36:41
He's like the US needs to buy Bitcoin basically for like
36:44
national security reasons, which we've been hearing for a long
36:47
time. But he did kind of temper that
36:50
with like, if that doesn't happen, they have to at least
36:53
pass good Bitcoin regulation so that American Bitcoin companies
36:57
can buy Bitcoin. So look, I, I mean, maybe we're
37:01
all just being super bearish about the US actually buying
37:04
Bitcoin at this point, but he has been very adamant about like
37:08
the US is going to buy a bunch of Bitcoin and now he's like,
37:11
like at least. Pass some good regulations, bro.
37:15
We we wait, we show we showed you guys that picture of Ivanka.
37:19
You know of that's true. That's true.
37:21
Instagram and maybe they told him.
37:24
To back off on the on the narrative.
37:28
Like, you know, like, like caught in 4K, right?
37:32
Yo, that tweet might have been bad on my end.
37:35
Yeah, yeah, you blew its. Cover bro.
37:37
That's probably why he's pulling back.
37:39
That tweet might have not. Been the the most intelligent
37:42
thing to to hey, it was good reporting.
37:46
I blew the fuck up. Hey, it was it was, it was good.
37:48
Reporting good it's. Some good yellow journalism.
37:51
What do you mean yellow journalism?
37:52
Bro? That's just I'm just drawing.
37:54
I'm drawing crazy that Bitcoin has paparopsy now, bro.
37:58
It's like, I'm like, bro with Ivanka.
38:00
Oh my God, sailors with Ivanka, bunch of nerds.
38:03
Sailors with sailors with the Trump family.
38:06
Sailors are the Trump family. That means my, my bags are going
38:08
to be pumped. Yo, just pump my bag, sailor.
38:11
Trump sailors with the Trump. Family Trump if you.
38:13
Can hear me? If you can hear me, can you pump
38:15
my bags already? Man, oh man, oh man, oh.
38:18
Man, oh, man. Alright, everybody, it's gonna
38:21
be a great show. We're gonna be talking about
38:22
Elon Musk. Elon Musk.
38:24
And again, in about 20 minutes or so, the chairman of Hive
38:27
Digital Technologies, Frank Holmes, Bulldog Holmes, is gonna
38:30
be joining us on the show. It's gonna be great.
38:32
But before we get to that, I found out the reason as to why
38:36
Elon Musk has not been talking about Bitcoin.
38:40
Remember a couple years ago, Elon was like, listen, if you go
38:45
to Tesla, Tesla now accepts Bitcoin so you can buy your car
38:50
using Bitcoin. Then he backtracked.
38:52
He said, we can't do that anymore unless we know that that
38:55
more than 50% of Bitcoin mining is being powered by renewable
39:00
energies. More than 50% is coming from
39:02
renewable energies at this at this point.
39:05
But Elon never reintroduced Bitcoin.
39:07
Also, there's been so many pictures of Elon with members of
39:12
the Trump administration. He was there when President
39:16
Trump signed the all these bills that were pro Bitcoin.
39:21
I mean, sorry, all these executive orders that were pro
39:23
Bitcoin. There was Howard Lepnick in the
39:25
back. There was Elon in the back.
39:27
And Elon was like going like this, you know, like doing his
39:30
thing. So he was present in the room
39:33
when the strategic Bitcoin reserve executive order was
39:38
signed. He was there.
39:39
He was in the photo shoot when that was signed, right?
39:43
And of course, you had Howard Lubnik there and Howard Lubnik
39:46
was very vocal about it. AI Cryptozar, David Sachs, David
39:51
Sachs was there, but Elon remained quiet.
39:54
And guys, you have to understand something about Elon.
39:57
Elon, SpaceX owns, I think it's like 10,000 Bitcoin.
40:01
Tesla is one of the Mag Seven that owns.
40:06
Like I think it's like 10,000 Bitcoin or something.
40:08
We have to check out Bitcoin treasuries.net.
40:09
Yeah, I'll, I'll pull it up. I haven't.
40:11
Refreshed myself but they own Bitcoin.
40:13
And I'm like, why isn't Elon going out?
40:15
Remember during the 2021 bull market, this dude was going out
40:20
and talking about doge left and right and it it, it, it
40:24
perplexed me. I'm like, why isn't he talking
40:26
about Bitcoin? Like I don't understand.
40:27
It doesn't make sense. So how much?
40:29
How much does Tesla own 11? Point. 511 K 11.
40:35
Point 11,500 Bitcoin I don't know where SpaceX.
40:39
Is on here. It's a private company inside
40:42
so. It it like it's a lot of
40:44
Bitcoin. So why isn't Elon talking about
40:46
Bitcoin? I think I just might have found
40:48
out why. We're going to be right back in
40:50
just a bit. I want to give a shout out to
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Anyways, let's get to today's story before Frank.
44:56
I took myself off air by accident.
44:57
Sorry about that. Anyways, let's talk about the
45:00
one, the only Mr. Elon Musk, the the world's almost trillionaire.
45:05
He's he's $150 billion away from being a trillionaire.
45:09
That's crazy. Yeah.
45:10
That is absolutely. To give you guys a perspective,
45:13
the total GDP of El Salvador's $32 billion.
45:17
This man is worth $850 billion. Anyways, tech billionaire Elon
45:22
Musk issues serious dollar warning, sparking wild Bitcoin
45:26
regulation after price crash. We're going to get to.
45:29
I'm going to connect the dots for you guys.
45:32
So the reason I, I, I want to talk about this in the 1st place
45:35
is Elon had, I think it was like a a, a.
45:40
Presentation. On X essentially not too long
45:43
ago, and he was talking about X money and that's when it clicked
45:50
to me. That's when it all made sense.
45:52
So I'm going to play you guys the clip of Mr. Elon talking
45:56
about this, and then Opti and I will chat about it for X.
46:01
Money we're we, we actually had X money live in closed beta
46:06
within the company and we expect in the next month or two to go
46:11
to a limited external beta and then to go worldwide to, to all
46:17
X users. And this is really intended to
46:20
be the place where all the money is the, the, the central source
46:23
of of all monetary transactions. So it's, it's a, it's really
46:28
going to be a game changer. There you go.
46:32
You want to know why? Elon isn't talking.
46:34
About Bitcoin, there you go. He wants the X app to be the
46:39
everything app, which he's said many, many times.
46:42
And part of being the everything app where you consume content,
46:46
you get your news, you know, you make payments is essentially a
46:51
way to pay people right now over messaging.
46:54
It's encrypted. You can message people, you can
46:57
call people on XI. Don't know if you guys knew
46:59
that. So he's really designing it to
47:03
be the everything app. And I my theory, I finally
47:07
figured out it finally clicked for me as to why he hasn't been
47:10
talking about Bitcoin. Jack Dorsey, on the other hand,
47:13
he's been designing his whole company.
47:16
Block is essentially building towards a world where Bitcoin is
47:21
going to be the money. Elon is not building towards
47:24
that world. He wants X to be, to use his
47:28
words, the central entity where all payments are made.
47:31
Now The thing is this has been tried before, right?
47:35
This has been tried with PayPal, which again, Elon was involved
47:38
with. This was this was in which again
47:41
was originally called X. This was this was been tried by
47:45
Libra, right? Which was like the Facebook
47:47
version of this. And it all failed.
47:52
And the reason it all failed was because of the centralization of
47:57
these platforms. Because of the centralization of
48:01
these platforms, essentially they they folded to government
48:07
pressure. Ultimately, governments don't
48:11
want a platform like X, which has already taken a free speech
48:16
stance, to have that much power and influence over payments.
48:21
That's what it comes down to now.
48:24
Is he going to take a different approach than Libra, where Libra
48:27
tried to create their own currency out of nothing?
48:30
Is he just going to be the rails right?
48:32
Is he just going to facilitate payments between U.S. dollars
48:36
and EUR and all of that stuff? Perhaps.
48:38
But I'll tell you what, there's going to be limits.
48:41
There's going to be censorship and I'll tell you, I'll tell you
48:44
guys something. I'm sure not going to keep a
48:46
balance of money on my ex account, right?
48:49
Like think about that. What if you have a, you know, a,
48:54
a, a political thought, right, Like a political opinion.
48:57
And the place where you're, you have your political opinions is
49:01
the same place that you're sending and receiving money.
49:03
And it's a centralized entity and it's a centralized company,
49:07
right? That's already that already
49:09
wants to be shut down by the EU. I mean, like you hear about
49:12
these Spanish politics politicians and what they're
49:14
saying about X and how much they want to shut it down, right?
49:17
Like I just don't think the two mix.
49:20
I like, I don't think the two mix.
49:22
I don't think, I don't think it will work because of its, of its
49:26
centralization. The reason that Bitcoin was such
49:29
an innovation in the 1st place is because it's decentralized,
49:33
peer-to-peer, cash, money, Bitcoin, whatever you want to
49:37
call it, that is the innovation of Bitcoin.
49:40
Nobody can, nobody can control it, Nobody can shut it down.
49:44
Therefore, if you're an entrepreneur building on top of
49:48
Bitcoin, you can't shut down the base layer, right?
49:52
And I told you guys this the other day during the Canadian
49:54
truckers protest when a lot of accounts were frozen because of
49:58
political opinions, when they tried to go after the multi
50:02
state, the collaborative custody provider Nunchuck.
50:05
Nunchuck was like, listen, we can't give you the keys, can't
50:08
give you access to these people's accounts even if we
50:11
wanted to because we don't have the keys, right?
50:15
You know, that's why building on Bitcoin is going to work.
50:18
If not, I don't think governments are ever going to
50:22
allow it. And it reminds me of the Hyatt
50:24
quote. I think the Hyatt quote really,
50:27
really reminds me of this, of the situation is like, you're
50:30
never going to get money out of the hands of government if you
50:34
don't find a sly roundabout way. Bitcoin is that sly roundabout
50:40
way. And that sly roundabout way is
50:43
pure peer-to-peer decentralization.
50:46
It's decentralization. The decentralization is what
50:51
makes Bitcoin unique. It's a differentiating factor.
50:54
No other cryptos have the decentralization that Bitcoin
50:58
has. It doesn't even come close,
51:01
right? So This is why this is my
51:03
thesis, this is my theory as to why Elon has not been talking
51:07
about Bitcoin because he wants X to be the payment platform.
51:11
He wants X to be the payment platform.
51:14
And I think as much as as much of a fan as I am of Elon and the
51:20
products that he makes, Tesla's a great SpaceX, what he's doing
51:23
is amazing. Since he's taken over X, like
51:26
the free speech stuff has been fantastic.
51:28
I just don't think having a social media platform where
51:32
people are talking and speaking freely and making opinions about
51:37
things, having that tied to a bank account, having that tied
51:41
to a payment platform, I just don't think that's a good idea.
51:44
Opti yeah, I might go a little. Harder, I mean, it sounds like
51:48
he's building, you know, the social credit score for the
51:52
Internet here. That's kind of my view of this,
51:54
though, The, the, the dichotomy between Jack Dorsey, what he's
52:00
building and what Elon Musk is building.
52:02
I, I, I think it's becoming like very prevalent and very blatant
52:06
for everyone. Like Jack Dorsey, you know, say
52:08
what you want about him when he was in control of Twitter, but
52:11
now he's all in on Bitcoin. And now we see what Elon Musk is
52:16
building. And of course he's building this
52:17
X money. And let's not forget Elon Musk
52:19
came from the PayPal kind of, you know, the PayPal group.
52:25
And then also he has said very publicly that he wants to build
52:30
the WeChat of the West. That's what that's what they're
52:32
doing here with the X money. And when I hear that, I want to
52:35
centralized all the payments. Maybe it's just the bitcoiner in
52:38
me. When I hear the the C word, I'm
52:40
just like, oh man, this is going to be a giant disaster.
52:43
Like Nika said, we saw what they did with Facebook, or we rather,
52:46
we saw what Facebook tried to do.
52:49
And then David Marcus had to completely pivot go on lightning
52:51
because they realized it was extremely hard to do and he's
52:54
crushing it. Yeah.
52:56
Light spark. Yeah, exactly light.
52:59
Spark solved and I asked. I had the honor of being able to
53:02
interview him and and, and Lugano at Plan B and I asked him
53:06
this question and it blew my mind.
53:07
I was like, and I said, dude, because that's what I do.
53:11
I was like, dude, like you solved the custodial problem
53:15
because one of the issues with lightning was that it was
53:18
custodial, right? So like wallet of Satoshi's
53:21
fantastic, but it's custodial lightning light sparks solve
53:26
that. So now you have if you download
53:28
wallet of Satoshi, which is now available in the US, it's non
53:32
custodial lightning. That's awesome, right?
53:36
And the reason that David Marcus pivoted, he went from PayPal to
53:41
trying to build out Libra at Meta.
53:43
And he realized, Oh my God, like, I'm not going to be able
53:47
to build these things that I want to build.
53:49
I'm not going to be able to make these innovations unless it's on
53:54
a decentralized base layer, right?
53:57
And that is Bitcoin, right? So that's why people are
54:00
building on Bitcoin. Jack Dorsey sees the light.
54:03
David Marcus saw the light. Well, Elon, see the light.
54:07
I, I think, Elon, I think. Elon's really, really hell bent
54:10
on remember this X app, by the way, this x.com, that was the
54:16
original name of PayPal. Yeah, I was going to say that
54:18
that was the. Original name of PayPal.
54:20
He hasn't let that go, right? And I, and I commend him.
54:23
He's a, he's a heck of an entrepreneur, but he hasn't let
54:26
that go. So he's marching full force
54:29
towards, you know, releasing this X money.
54:33
And that's my theory as to why he that's my theory as to why he
54:38
hasn't talked about Bitcoin. I thought about it.
54:40
I don't know if you disagree with that.
54:41
No, I I agree with that one. I couldn't.
54:42
Figure it out, but that. I I put two and two together
54:45
When I, when he, when I saw that presentation, I'm like, oh,
54:48
obviously this makes sense. Like now I get it.
54:52
I understand. Right.
54:53
Yeah. And did you see?
54:55
The the grok post that everyone was was circulating and saying
54:59
like, oh, X money is going to be peer-to-peer and maybe use
55:02
something like Bitcoin. Everyone's like, oh, you know, X
55:05
money is going to use Bitcoin and me and you're like, Nah,
55:08
dude, that's that's not what's gonna happen.
55:10
That's not how it's gonna work out.
55:12
Let's not fall into that kind of idea that, oh, maybe they'll use
55:16
Bitcoin. Maybe he will be forced to
55:18
eventually because it's not gonna work how he wants it to.
55:21
Yeah, let's see what happens. Anyways, we got the one, the
55:24
only Bulldog Holmes, Frank Holmes, executive Chairman of
55:28
Hive Digital Technologies. He's joining us on the show
55:31
today. Frank, thank you so much.
55:33
How you doing? Outstanding that.
55:35
I'm talking to you guys. We got Frank in the.
55:40
House Frank A a huge announcement, amazing
55:43
announcement coming out of Hive this morning.
55:47
A press release that I read mentions that you guys signed a
55:50
$30 million customer agreement over the next two years.
55:54
How big of a milestone is that for Buzz?
55:58
It's it's part of the. Journey that the buzz is going
56:01
to 140 million. So in context a year ago it was
56:05
about $1,000,000 a month of revenue and and now Craig
56:11
Tavares has been able to take that up to 2,000,000, three
56:15
million. This new deal takes us from 1 to
56:17
3 million in a year in revenue. Our goal is to get it up to $10
56:22
million by this time next year, every month in revenue and it's
56:27
nice high margin business. We're the biggest player in
56:30
Canada and then we think there's huge opportunities and also for
56:34
HPC and Paraguay just come out with a brand new mandate to
56:40
offer long term contracts, inexpensive energy for 15 years.
56:46
So it makes it very competitive and we feel there's lots of
56:50
runway there that that's, that's.
56:52
That's fantastic news. And Frank, I'll also say as well
56:56
that seeing essentially the, the kind of the, the, the mining
57:02
industry being perfectly positioned to take advantage of
57:07
this AI wave and then Hive being at the forefront of that, being
57:12
able to see it, being able to experiencing it, seeing these
57:15
sites, seeing what you guys have been able to accomplish has been
57:19
incredible. It has been incredible to
57:21
witness. I, I mean it, what, what does
57:24
this entail for just the overall energy demands that is going to
57:29
be needed over the next 10 years?
57:31
Where does Bitcoin fit into all of this?
57:34
Where does AI fit into all of this?
57:36
And how is Hive positioning itself?
57:39
Well, that's a long. Essay to answer but I think
57:42
what's really for hives positioning is that we're not
57:46
chasing these AI fairy tales of big contracts, big construction
57:51
long term with hyperscalers and you still have to build and
57:55
people don't realize that tier 3 data centers cost a lot more.
58:01
It's like driving a Jeep. Now all of a sudden you're in a
58:04
Ferrari, you're in a Lambo, Bugatti's.
58:08
You have to think of that level of complexity that when you're
58:11
building Tier 3, we're just doing it in a very conservative
58:15
way. We haven't funded with these
58:18
$500 million convertible notes, etcetera.
58:21
We've not done any of that with our balance sheet.
58:24
We're very, I would say, ultra, ultra conservative in managing
58:28
that. And we still able to deliver the
58:30
lowest SGNA of all the Bitcoin ecosystem when you look at how
58:35
much Bitcoin we produce and now AI revenue.
58:38
I, I don't when I look at the other companies that not all
58:41
done their announcements this quarter, but I don't think
58:45
anyone's going to be beating this run rate.
58:48
But they have lots of construction, maybe 2-3 years
58:51
old. With all this big construction
58:53
risk. We're very cognizant.
58:56
Nickel, it's very hard to get. They call chillers.
58:59
You have to pay in advance. It could wait nine months to two
59:03
years. Transformers, all this equipment
59:07
in addition to NVIDIA chips everyone wants to talk about,
59:10
but the electrical infrastructure necessary for
59:14
those NVIDIA chips, there's a huge backlog.
59:18
We get calls on a regular basis that come March at our data
59:22
center in Toronto. Can you be ready?
59:24
March 1st, we'll give you a multi $1,000,000 contract for
59:28
for five years. We just need it.
59:31
We just need it. So then we go back and look at
59:34
this infrastructure build that there's lots of action, but
59:39
getting all the equipment, there's been more delays and
59:41
disappointments, which I think will take place.
59:45
And we're just going to go methodically, conservatively in
59:48
our growth of the dual engine model, the the dual engine.
59:53
The Navy Seals of, of the, of the Bitcoin mining industry, as
59:57
I like to call you guys, Frank, what where is the bottleneck?
1:00:01
I, I, I want to kind of get a, a, an understanding, right,
1:00:04
because you were, you were describing A bottleneck.
1:00:06
Where's the bottleneck happening?
1:00:07
Is it the energy infrastructure? Is it the actual manufacturing
1:00:13
of these GP us of these AI chips?
1:00:15
Like what? What what's?
1:00:17
I don't think it's the. Chips, nickel.
1:00:19
I think that what we're wrestling with is that when you
1:00:22
want to go build a substation, so you have this big voltage
1:00:26
electricity and you cannot plug your hair dryer into that, it'll
1:00:30
explode. So you have to have these called
1:00:32
step downs. And you saw when you're a
1:00:35
Paraguay, those substations are big.
1:00:37
And so they're taking that electricity down and then it
1:00:40
goes to another step down for Transformers.
1:00:44
And then you get the plug it in, the electricity comes into your
1:00:48
tier three data center or tier one data center.
1:00:51
But these step downs, they use a lot of copper, they use
1:00:55
aluminum. They the, the, the manufacturer
1:00:57
of that is a long lead time. So what you're witnessing today
1:01:02
is get the electricity, get the land and the permitting to go
1:01:07
and build and those permits by different states.
1:01:10
So we're seeing a bit of a backlash in, in Pennsylvania, I
1:01:13
believe. And the NGOs are running around
1:01:17
with worried about 3 eyed frogs and things like that.
1:01:22
I'm being facetious, but there was such a big NGO anti nuclear.
1:01:26
Well ever since 8 AWS went did a nuclear deal, it's all gone
1:01:30
quiet. So this group of of NGOs have to
1:01:34
go find something out there and now it's data centers.
1:01:38
That's where the the attack is. So companies like Google
1:01:42
etcetera have to be very sensitive of the neighborhoods
1:01:45
where they're building. And so it's not easy.
1:01:48
You just can't run the build and plug them in.
1:01:52
You have commodities, commodity prices, copper make it all time
1:01:56
high or there's many reasons that one of them is the big data
1:01:59
center build out because you have a lot of copper going into
1:02:04
that infrastructure. And then there's human beings
1:02:06
that go and manufacture. I was talked to some of the guys
1:02:10
from the Bitcoin ecosystem that are manufactured Transformers
1:02:14
now in Houston because you they don't want to come in from
1:02:17
China. Well, that takes still takes
1:02:20
time. So I got the electricity, I got
1:02:23
the land, but all these heavy equipment components before the
1:02:27
NVIDIA chips get put in. That's where the delays are
1:02:30
taking place. Gotcha.
1:02:33
OK, so it's. Building out the infrastructure,
1:02:36
it's itself and that's the, that's where the, the bottleneck
1:02:40
is. Frank I, I, I want to pivot the
1:02:43
conversation a little bit too. And for anyone who doesn't know,
1:02:46
ladies and gentlemen, hive represents a big portion of the
1:02:50
overall global Bitcoin hash rate and the, we have the executive
1:02:54
chairman joining us on today's show.
1:02:56
Frank, I, I, I want to ask you what's going on with Bitcoin
1:03:00
that gold had this historic dork performance in 2025.
1:03:05
I know you come from the, the, the gold industry is silver had
1:03:10
a great year. You know, Bitcoin, I would say
1:03:14
it did OK. It did reach an all time high.
1:03:18
What, what are you seeing in 2026 that perhaps other people
1:03:22
are not seeing? Well, what I didn't.
1:03:24
See was a significance and the magnitude of 10/10 Biden right
1:03:31
now our CEO, he's at the Bitcoin conference in in Hong Kong and
1:03:37
that was a lot of conversation of the ramifications.
1:03:40
So I started doing research. He and I start talking about it
1:03:44
and and sending me in what the interviews were saying what Nico
1:03:49
is, it's really quite incredible.
1:03:50
If you look at 22 when we had Celsius implode for us, then
1:03:55
Ethereum went to proof of stake from proof of work and then we
1:04:01
had FTX in a six month period. We had to weather all that those
1:04:05
stories. Well, so did the whole crypto
1:04:07
ecosystem have to really weather FTX blow up the magnitude of the
1:04:13
Binance algos allegedly hitting every bid that they blew out $19
1:04:21
billion they took money from this is what's alleged out there
1:04:26
from accounts that were not part of this algo to take and they
1:04:31
were sold out by Nance only at the end of January comes out and
1:04:35
says I think the $300 million they gave money back.
1:04:39
But what happened to the other and who the guys that make
1:04:42
money? So the retail component there
1:04:44
lost their money. They got tapped out.
1:04:47
And I've seen this happen back in the in the early 80s in the
1:04:52
futures market where they would be able to determine on the
1:04:56
Chicago Board that there's a lot of people having stop losses at
1:05:00
this level. And the market makers would then
1:05:02
turn around and knock it down. And then they'd all get hit, get
1:05:06
blown out, and then they take the prices back up.
1:05:09
And that it's evolved that that doesn't happen.
1:05:13
It happened in the gold market. I know that JP Morgan's had
1:05:16
traders got found guilty in in court, they've had to pay 10s of
1:05:21
millions of dollars in fines where they would call spoof the
1:05:25
market. They would look when the
1:05:26
market's quiet and say, well, we've got a gazillion ounces of
1:05:30
gold to sell and they really haven't sold it.
1:05:32
But then the market bids all dried up and prices fell.
1:05:36
They quite often did that when the Chinese were going through
1:05:39
the Chinese New Year or it was in the first week of October
1:05:42
when they celebrate Communist year.
1:05:44
So we we know this from the gold world and we know this from the
1:05:48
commodities trading with copper. But it doesn't happen in that
1:05:52
evolution today, but it is happening when you have an
1:05:56
exchange like finance, it also has accounts.
1:05:59
So you got to think up the stock, the New York Stock
1:06:01
Exchange also having institutional retail trading
1:06:05
right beside it. So there's where's that
1:06:07
transparency while it front running is easy to do.
1:06:11
So they see oh it's an algo and they go and blame the Trump for
1:06:17
going anti China. The question begs itself why
1:06:20
didn't it happen April the 2nd last year?
1:06:22
Why does it just happen at this time, $19 billion is 10 times
1:06:27
the size, 10 times of FTX where Sam bank and Friday industry.
1:06:34
So it's a big deal and it breaks trust.
1:06:38
And the other part is that the ETF world of retail investors
1:06:43
and institutional investors in America had put piled in almost
1:06:47
$200 billion into the ETF space. And just after Bitcoin runs to
1:06:53
$126,000, etcetera, this happens.
1:06:58
And and then some supposedly one hedge fund made of 1.2 billion.
1:07:03
Well, what did they know? You know, it just makes you so
1:07:05
suspicious. Well, when you have too much
1:07:07
suspicion like that, you have lack of trust and the integrity
1:07:13
of the system. So I think that this whole thing
1:07:16
and what finance did and how they did the meal culpa, they go
1:07:20
and blame it's on Trump. It's just not I I don't believe
1:07:24
that, but it did hurt the overall industry and it creates
1:07:27
this thing called a contagion. It's a COVID type of virus start
1:07:31
spreading through where trust, the element of trust of the
1:07:36
Bitcoin ecosystem was severely damaged by the what they call
1:07:41
was a bad algal. And I'd like to know, did they
1:07:47
change the algo? Like what, what, what is the oh,
1:07:50
it's the infrastructure of what was taking place.
1:07:52
I think that's something if this happened in America in an
1:07:57
exchange that's in a brokerage firm that's regulated that fact
1:08:01
figure, there would be a big investigation to basically
1:08:04
foster trust within the ecosystem of capital markets.
1:08:09
That's not happened yet with finance and and exactly the
1:08:14
what's taking place. So we know $19 billion gets
1:08:18
backed out. Someone allegedly makes 1.2
1:08:21
billion, someone's made hope, a bunch of hedge funds for 300
1:08:25
million. All those nuances create doubt
1:08:30
and they knock this thing down. And then we have in the month of
1:08:34
January, the Japanese carry trade as Japanese rates rise.
1:08:40
Then hedge funds have borrowed cheap money from Japan and go to
1:08:46
the more speculative investments start unwinding that trade.
1:08:50
It's happened many times in the capital markets is trying to
1:08:53
understand how long does it last.
1:08:57
Usually these bear cycles, what we just saw are four months.
1:09:01
So if it happened October the 10th, this week was like was
1:09:05
February the 10th. So maybe the markets are going
1:09:08
to get some love. They're going to be Valentine's
1:09:10
Day weekend. We got presents Day weekend
1:09:13
coming up long weekend and and looking at the math of markets,
1:09:17
forgetting all these nuances and who did what wrong, forget all
1:09:20
of that. Just look at the the, the
1:09:23
volatility, we're down to standard deviations.
1:09:26
Well, what does that mean? When we look at Bitcoin down to
1:09:29
standard deviations, mathematically, that means we
1:09:33
have a high probability of a 17 to a 35% rally.
1:09:38
What is that and how often has that happened in the past five
1:09:41
years? Twice.
1:09:43
It happened when China went and attacked the Bitcoin ecosystem
1:09:48
by miners and traders, etcetera, and it happened when FTX blew
1:09:52
up. So now we're four months later,
1:09:55
I think that the worse is is in the capital markets is behind us
1:10:00
and I remain bullish from that context that breakdown.
1:10:05
Was fantastic and the the the Binance aspect of it.
1:10:10
Frank to me is is the most fascinating because how much
1:10:15
frank the the clarity act is is is a, is a hot button issue
1:10:19
today, right? Scott Besson was on CNNBC this
1:10:22
morning talking about it, advocating for it.
1:10:25
How much do you think, how important is the Clarity Act for
1:10:29
it to be passed? Because if it, if something, if
1:10:32
that piece of legislation passes, you would think that
1:10:35
Binance wouldn't be able to do what they did.
1:10:38
Is that correct to say, yeah, there's, there's, there's,
1:10:40
there's. Negligence or gross negligence
1:10:43
in their operations. That's clearly and they don't
1:10:46
care. They're he's worth 80 billion,
1:10:48
the CEO and and they trade trillions of dollars.
1:10:50
So that's what that's what you're wrestling with.
1:10:54
But I would believe that if it was in a homicide here, there'd
1:10:59
be a big investigation. That's I think, but it's an
1:11:03
unregulated world there. And and so that's you have to be
1:11:08
very nimble about it. I.
1:11:11
Think that. What's happening that only adds
1:11:14
to the down to standard deviations is this drama over
1:11:19
the stable coin. So at first when I was here, the
1:11:21
October 10th, I've become OK, put on your conspiracy hat
1:11:26
because for me it's China and China.
1:11:30
We know in San Antonio, TX, where the NSA is a big operation
1:11:35
that the MSS, which is the KGB of Russia has been attacking and
1:11:42
cybersecurity attacks on the power systems in America, the
1:11:46
telecom system. And and so maybe they went to
1:11:50
attack this that that chip or that that code they had sorry
1:11:57
for the bot that the algo bot that made a big error.
1:12:02
Maybe they hacked that to to create that because China is at
1:12:06
war with the US dollar. You and I know this so well for
1:12:11
my world of gold. It's, it's, it's a war and they
1:12:15
have weaponized the BRICS nations from handful of five
1:12:19
countries to now over 12 to not do any commodity trading.
1:12:24
That is, if they buy commodity China from Chile or Peru, they
1:12:29
have to be in Chinese Juan. And, and, and so this war
1:12:33
continues with those countries. So now those central banks that
1:12:37
are part of the BRICS group, they become fearful and they've
1:12:41
been selling down the US dollar and owning gold.
1:12:44
And that's part of the big rally last year was more, more central
1:12:48
banks do not want to get in between their foreign currency
1:12:53
reserves between China and the US.
1:12:56
So China is basically weaponizing the Brex and then
1:13:00
they do something else. Their one belt, one Rd. for the
1:13:04
Marco Polo was about also 12 countries of the Silk Road
1:13:08
trade. Well, that's grown to 150
1:13:12
countries, not 12 as originally planned.
1:13:15
And and they've now let money to through 75% of the countries
1:13:22
that represent the United Nations.
1:13:24
So there's moral suasion for not to for those central banks that
1:13:29
are in there to be in U.S. dollars and it's showing up in
1:13:33
buying of gold. And so that this idea of hurting
1:13:38
the US dollar and along comes Tether stable coin and they show
1:13:43
that all emerging markets love the US dollar and they become
1:13:47
very, very wealthy because they collect the interest on that
1:13:51
stable coin and billions and billions of dollars go into the
1:13:55
US dollar. And this administration
1:13:57
recognizes significance of stable coins and there's a push
1:14:02
to pay a coupon on that. They're pulling it rewards, but
1:14:07
really it's like a money market fund and.
1:14:11
If you go back. In the mutual fund history.
1:14:14
I hope you haven't had too much Nico on this, but no.
1:14:16
I'm loving this, Frank. Keep going, keep going.
1:14:19
If you go back and. And Steve Jobs, great line about
1:14:23
looking in the back. You can't predict the future.
1:14:25
So what you do is you go back and you see it, connect the
1:14:28
dots. So if you look at the mutual
1:14:32
fund industry, it really didn't take off until interest rates
1:14:36
with the 20%, the banks could pay those high yields and money
1:14:40
market fund, mutual fund companies could.
1:14:43
So all of a sudden billions of dollars go into mutual funds and
1:14:48
it becomes 30% of all mutual funds.
1:14:52
And then those money market funds are paying high yields and
1:14:56
they S and LS are able to get bailed out and they can pay
1:15:00
higher yields or so money leaves the banks to go to S and LS and
1:15:05
that becomes a crisis. But not with mutual funds.
1:15:08
It doesn't become that crisis, but they go into mutual funds
1:15:11
and then those investors start buying stocks and technology ETF
1:15:15
and before ETFs. Now we have the evolution of
1:15:19
mutual funds going into ETFs and that's been now the fact last
1:15:25
year that there's more ETFs than there are stocks.
1:15:29
So that's a big, you know, tipping points that happen in
1:15:33
capital markets. So it's recognizing the stable
1:15:37
coin is very important to this administration and and Coinbase
1:15:44
and other people are pushing that they can have rewards for
1:15:47
that stable coin. That is, they will be look like
1:15:50
a money market fund paying you interest, but they'll be called
1:15:53
rewards. Yeah, and and.
1:15:56
From my understands, don't. Want it?
1:15:58
Yes. And my and my.
1:15:59
Understand, So we, we actually talked about this in the
1:16:02
beginning of the show, Frank. My understanding is that the
1:16:04
biggest hurdle that the Clarity Act has right now is the fact
1:16:08
that the banks don't want Coinbase to offer those rewards
1:16:13
for customers because banks are freaking out that they see it as
1:16:17
competition. They're not just doing that.
1:16:19
This is a delayed process. This is a process to get ahead
1:16:23
of the curve. So Coinbase and and circle, all
1:16:27
these other entities are much further along in, in fintech and
1:16:32
in the digital fintech and digital money.
1:16:36
And so they're trying to stifle that momentum they have so they
1:16:41
can get their stable coins out and so that they can get
1:16:44
traction with that ecosystem. And and so we saw this, you
1:16:49
know, I wrote about this with Facebook.
1:16:51
Facebook was like anti Bitcoin on the first big run and apply
1:16:57
everything we know why because they were coming with their own
1:16:59
stable coin and and and that upset the banks and they
1:17:04
immediately got the regulators everyone to attack Facebook.
1:17:08
Facebook end up changed their name to Meta Facebook turn
1:17:11
around and, and but their idea was called the Libra coin and it
1:17:15
was brilliant because it would be transformative for the whole
1:17:19
world because they have billions of followers on Facebook and all
1:17:24
of a sudden they would have have the liberal, the Libra digital
1:17:27
coin and, and the government did not want that and the banks
1:17:31
clearly didn't want that. So they end up selling their
1:17:35
assets and it went through this process and it comes out they
1:17:39
were anti. We have that JP Morgan and
1:17:43
they're anti Bitcoin. They're anti they're the crypto
1:17:46
ecosystem. Well, we find out there wasn't a
1:17:49
lawsuit that the one of the biggest miners of Ethereum was
1:17:53
JP Morgan and and they were using AWS.
1:17:57
So what were they doing? They're trying to get this big
1:18:00
enough to make Ethereum to pivot into staking so that they would
1:18:04
be the biggest player in the sandbox for for Ethereum staking
1:18:09
coins. So this is what we're
1:18:11
witnessing. But you know who throws a punch?
1:18:16
China, China comes out with their one stable coin and it
1:18:21
will pay interest. And that's once again, this is
1:18:25
the the fight the global war is on.
1:18:28
It's not nuclear missiles coming back and forth and drones
1:18:32
hitting and play to God. It doesn't happen.
1:18:34
But there is this financial war and what there is behind that is
1:18:40
as Xi Jinping became dictator for life in 2000, I think 18 it
1:18:45
comes into power 2012, He's he's got total control.
1:18:50
So he has no institutions to hold him accountable.
1:18:54
He will just do his purges like he did a few weeks ago, Anyone
1:18:58
that disagrees with him. So he is at his war.
1:19:02
And what they've done within that, that sort of growth is
1:19:05
they've increased their military Navy that is now has more
1:19:09
warships than America. There's all this espionage of
1:19:14
stealing from Raytheon and Grumman and Boeing, their
1:19:18
technology for Air Force weaponry.
1:19:22
And so we're on this battle and, and the Trump administration is
1:19:27
really elevating. This is saying, look at Europe,
1:19:29
you have to cover your say, because if you don't cover your
1:19:33
at least 2%, we're not going to cover you when merely they go to
1:19:36
2%. And now he's pushed 5%.
1:19:39
So we are seeing this huge military spending and it's about
1:19:43
protection. And countries like Poland, whose
1:19:46
stock market was up about 60% last year, they know darn well
1:19:50
that they have to have a huge wall to stop all the illegals
1:19:54
coming across from Belarus. And they know that Russia was
1:19:58
weaponizing human beings. They were taking people from the
1:20:01
Middle East to basically go in as illegal immigrants into
1:20:05
Finland, into Poland and Hungary.
1:20:10
So these countries, it doesn't meet the main.
1:20:12
So they're now becoming a protectionist and what the
1:20:17
administration did at the World Economic Forum a couple weeks
1:20:21
ago, they redefined what is taking place.
1:20:24
So at like 95, we create the World Trade Organization, like
1:20:29
2003. I think China has brought into
1:20:32
this World Trade. It's globalization.
1:20:35
It's a brilliant idea because it did work at the beginning where
1:20:39
if trade is first, then it creates jobs and takes people
1:20:44
out of poverty. And it did that until China's Xi
1:20:48
Jinping becomes dictator for life.
1:20:51
And, and so we've seen this sort of pivot and now it's becoming
1:20:57
what globalization is, is going to be take a backseat.
1:21:01
It's going to be sovereign national security that is first
1:21:05
and foremost. So 5% of GDP of NATO countries
1:21:10
have to spend, they're all looking for also data centers.
1:21:13
We know this, that they're, they need data Centers for high
1:21:17
performance computing because all the new weaponry is NVIDIA
1:21:21
chips and they need high performance chips.
1:21:23
So that is the new wave. It's not just open chat that
1:21:27
everyone talks about, is the big demand.
1:21:29
No, it's also military for national security.
1:21:33
So what the world what the US government really showed at the
1:21:36
World Economic Forum is that globalization, global trade, is
1:21:41
now taking a back seat to national security.
1:21:47
And and and China. Is is only helped under Xi
1:21:51
Jinping to create this drama by attacking the US dollar.
1:21:56
And, and so it's just what it is.
1:21:59
So how do you manipulate these capital markets and where
1:22:02
they're going? I think that the, the Bitcoin,
1:22:07
there's a space, you know, there's a guy named James Turk.
1:22:09
You got to get him on your show of gold, but he always had this
1:22:14
idea that the value of gold is the total FX and two of the
1:22:20
world. And if you did that, then gold
1:22:23
should be like $11,000 if you because there's 8 billion ounces
1:22:30
of gold known above surface around the world.
1:22:33
So, so simple math out of the numbers, divide 1 or the other.
1:22:37
Well, when you do Bitcoin, we're talking 5 million.
1:22:42
No way but but. Wait, wait, hold on, hold on.
1:22:45
Frank, I want to unpack all of this.
1:22:47
First of all, you just you just let me you just let me connect
1:22:50
the dots as to why the Trump administration keeps saying this
1:22:54
over and over again. Listen, if we don't get ahead of
1:22:58
the curve on the crypto stuff and the AI stuff, China or
1:23:02
Russia will. So you just you just connected
1:23:04
the dots for me on that end, But I want to get back to the the
1:23:08
gold, the it's really. Interesting if James Turk, I
1:23:13
love this guy, you know, just, he uses simply monetary
1:23:16
aggregates that gold would be overvalued if it was above
1:23:19
11,000. And and so you can turn around
1:23:23
and say, OK, just in the ecosystem of of America, America
1:23:27
still has the most gold backing its currency and China knows
1:23:32
that become a global power as a currency, they have to have more
1:23:36
gold. So they're continuing to buy the
1:23:38
gold. What happens if America goes
1:23:41
mark to market because their goals carried on the books of
1:23:44
$35.00 an ounce, not 5000? What does that do to the money
1:23:51
printing? So I think you know that during
1:23:54
this Trump era, we're probably going to get this push.
1:23:57
I'm speculating now. This is just wild speculating
1:24:00
for an old guy looking back and trying to connect the dots that
1:24:05
that if you did go mark to market with your gold, because
1:24:08
China's mark to market, these other central banks are
1:24:10
basically they're not buying gold at 5000, marking it down to
1:24:14
35, they're going mark to market.
1:24:16
So if we mark the market, what would that mean?
1:24:19
It would make our debt to equity really attractive compared to
1:24:24
these other countries. And, and I will tell you that if
1:24:28
Canada all of a sudden starts buying gold, they have big gold
1:24:32
players. At one time they sold it all
1:24:34
because of Modern Monetary theory and the eagle that
1:24:38
central bankers work at outsmart gold with, with earning interest
1:24:42
on foreign currencies. Well, that hasn't proven out
1:24:45
well, especially when you get a leader like Justin Trudeau, who
1:24:49
is who really hurt the country. The new guy, you know, Carney's
1:24:55
a really smart guy. You know, he was Goldman Sachs.
1:24:58
He was chairman of one of the largest infrastructure
1:25:01
companies, the savviest players called Brookfield.
1:25:05
Brookfield owns one square kilometer downtown Dubai, which
1:25:09
is under common law, not Sharia law in the United Emirates.
1:25:14
It's really interesting. This is a smart guy that was
1:25:17
also the head of the Central Bank of Canada and the only
1:25:21
Canadian to become the head of the Central Bank of England.
1:25:24
So he understands the capital markets and what happens if
1:25:28
Canada all this starts, starts saying we are going to buy all
1:25:32
this gold that is mining Canada for their own central bank.
1:25:37
Well, that would create a re rating of the Canadian dollar
1:25:39
immediately because they're the trust factor around the world of
1:25:45
paper currencies has really gone down.
1:25:48
The concept of stable money, Bitcoin, gold, alternative
1:25:52
assets, they're growing and these are sort of the big
1:25:56
changes that are taking place. Frank I.
1:26:01
I love having you on this show so much signals being dropped.
1:26:05
People are loving it as well. Thousands of people watching
1:26:08
live across YouTube, Rumble and X.
1:26:11
Guys, you're listening to Frank Holmes, executive.
1:26:17
Chair, executive chairman of five digital technologies.
1:26:20
So you understand that it's it's, it's a very 5000 year old
1:26:28
concept of owning gold because it's so difficult to mine.
1:26:31
The one thing common with Bitcoin is that it's
1:26:34
electricity. You need to have energy and
1:26:36
refining to make that ounce of gold.
1:26:38
You need to have the same, you need energy to mine that
1:26:42
Bitcoin. So really I love when I hear
1:26:45
Jensen talk and Elon Musk that it's a bundle of electricity.
1:26:50
The value of a Bitcoin is really the value of being able to
1:26:54
create this movement around and it's a bundle of electricity.
1:26:59
And if you said, OK, it is a real wealth currency, then you
1:27:03
could talk that it's worth millions.
1:27:06
It'll take a lot more time than people think in the adoption.
1:27:09
I think the US government has to worry more about China that on
1:27:14
the currency battle. But I never underestimate when
1:27:18
America gets us everyone involved in in solving a
1:27:22
problem. It's an incredible nation that
1:27:26
pulls together. So I think that that's what we
1:27:29
have to deal with. I just wish the President Trump
1:27:32
would stop making attacks on Canadians the way it's being
1:27:36
done. They'd never become the 51st
1:27:39
state. If he did, the Republican Party
1:27:41
would never become the Republican Party, become the
1:27:44
Democrat Party forever. I, I'm share this with you
1:27:48
because what we're seeing in Canada and being Canadian
1:27:52
American and I just spent last week at Harvard, I spent 60
1:27:57
hours case studies late at night going this stuff and a lot was
1:28:01
AI and a lot was a lot of Canadians were there.
1:28:05
So there's 180-CE OS from 80 countries around the world.
1:28:10
Many self-made billionaires that built up a business outside of
1:28:15
America, some inside. So you have to really respect
1:28:18
them. And you have the Air Canada
1:28:21
sitting beside me and you have the chairman of other companies.
1:28:25
So I am so humble to be around these really smart people and
1:28:30
they give you what's taking place.
1:28:31
Well, the Canadians are so upset about attacking.
1:28:35
You can touch Justin Trudeau and everyone would cheer.
1:28:38
You attack a Canadian and his gloves off and it's a hockey
1:28:42
fight. So what have they done?
1:28:44
They canceled 3,000,000 flights to America, to Florida, to to
1:28:50
South Carolina, to Texas, all the snowbirds, they're going to
1:28:55
Latin America. They do not want for any penny
1:28:58
to be in this country. And that's not good.
1:29:01
That's not that's not good karma.
1:29:04
Canadians will not buy the largest buyer of liquor in the
1:29:08
world is is the LCBO in Ontario. It's the biggest.
1:29:13
No American wines? None.
1:29:17
Can't get them in the restaurants.
1:29:19
No bourbons, nothing from America.
1:29:22
I mean, it makes sense, right? It makes it makes sense.
1:29:24
They're voting with their wallet.
1:29:26
They're making decision and what blew me away was as impacting
1:29:31
locally in San Antonio, guys that own the three star hotels.
1:29:34
I own the Hampton Inns over here.
1:29:36
I have the Holiday Inn over here.
1:29:38
Their rates are down really low. The only place that the rates
1:29:42
that they can get that are profitable as Abilene, TX, where
1:29:46
the biggest Stargate AI boom from Bitcoin miners to tier
1:29:51
three, $500 billion spend. Those hotels, they're very
1:29:55
profitable. But they're telling me about the
1:29:57
tourism. So they used to get this
1:29:59
tremendous traffic coming South, which I wasn't.
1:30:03
It's not on Bloomberg yet. It's not on and same thing with
1:30:07
I want to share with you on 10/10.
1:30:10
Why didn't this make make the fun page of the Wall Street
1:30:13
Journal? I really shocked me.
1:30:15
It didn't make bearings. You know, it's so it's going to
1:30:18
make it on your program. You know, it's and So what we're
1:30:23
what we're seeing is that we have to be we need allies.
1:30:27
America just can't. I understand sovereignty.
1:30:30
I understand the protection security, but we still need
1:30:33
allies and there's favorite, there's favorite nation status
1:30:38
is really important, especially when they have common law and
1:30:43
they speak the same language. It can be Spanish and English in
1:30:48
America, and it could be French and English, but the common
1:30:51
element is English and the common element of the rule of
1:30:56
law is common law. We have cultures, the.
1:30:59
Cultures, Frank. The cultures are, are are are
1:31:02
are are very, very similar. Like I, I, I go to Canada at
1:31:06
least twice a year to Alberta and again, you know, the
1:31:10
cultures between and I live in the very, very tip of of the
1:31:14
United States and, and South Florida.
1:31:16
But again, the, the cultures are very similar.
1:31:18
It's the similar language. You can understand each other,
1:31:21
similar cultures, similar infrastructures, very similar.
1:31:24
It's it you don't feel like you're in Latin America if
1:31:28
you're in Canada, It's it's, it's very similar type of
1:31:31
infrastructure vibes, culture and and you know what they.
1:31:36
Export besides, you know, crazy guys like me, they export
1:31:40
comedians. You know how many comedians in
1:31:44
Hollywood, you know that were Canadians and Saturday Night
1:31:48
Live? They have the same program live
1:31:51
theater for stand up comics in downtown Toronto and Chicago.
1:31:56
I mean, it's it's but any rate, I'm venting.
1:31:58
I don't want to. No, no, Frank, no.
1:32:00
But you're on. Frank, you're on to something
1:32:02
because, and I've noticed this about the Bitcoin industry in in
1:32:06
particular, it's the the ratio, meaning the amount of Bitcoin
1:32:11
entrepreneurs that are Canadian, right, based on the population
1:32:16
of the country is extremely high.
1:32:19
Like if you look at a lot of these companies, you know, in
1:32:22
the Bitcoin industry, a lot of these, you know, hardware wallet
1:32:25
manufacturers, a lot of these exchanges, a lot of these
1:32:28
Bitcoin miners, they're Canadian, right?
1:32:31
And the, the ratio versus American, you know,
1:32:34
entrepreneurs and American companies, it's, it's, it's very
1:32:37
high if if you compare the, the populations of the two
1:32:41
countries. So I've noticed, I've noticed
1:32:44
and the first crypto. Mining company it went public in
1:32:49
Canada and and Novakratz's company it followed right behind
1:32:53
us. Hot 8 came right behind us.
1:32:56
I found out that one of these money disrupt events and this is
1:33:00
about five years, four years ago and they said that they they
1:33:04
really learn about using flare gas.
1:33:06
They went to Alberta and they came back to Texas and they
1:33:09
scaled it bigger because there was more flare gas.
1:33:13
But they went up and saw these small operators in Alberta that
1:33:17
were using flare gas to mine Bitcoin and be very profitable.
1:33:21
And I got a chuckle out of hearing that the shout out the
1:33:25
upstream. Data guys they're they're also
1:33:28
based based in Alberta and they they use the the the flared gas
1:33:32
to to to turn that into Bitcoin anyways Frank Holmes blow my
1:33:37
mind every time you come on the show.
1:33:39
It's been an honor you've get you dropped so much signal for
1:33:42
the chat. People were loving it.
1:33:44
People asked some questions specifically about where they
1:33:48
can see some videos on Bitcoin mining.
1:33:51
Well guys, go follow the Hive Digital Technologies X account.
1:33:56
There's a pin tweet. You can see an amazing video
1:33:59
about Hives, Bitcoin mining operations and also you you.
1:34:06
You guys did a phenomenal job. Thanks Frank and and you can.
1:34:10
See it you guys could see you can you guys can see what Frank
1:34:13
is talking about because once you see it, you're like, Oh my
1:34:15
God, like this is a big deal. And then we got I want to end
1:34:19
the show with this Frank. We got a question on Rumble and
1:34:23
it really stuck out to me. And this is the last question
1:34:26
from C-Suite. And he asked the question, why
1:34:29
Hive? Why high?
1:34:33
Well, there's a whole litany of reasons why high, I would think
1:34:36
it's just that we're the discipline on capital.
1:34:40
We have the consistently the highest returns on invested
1:34:43
capital. We have the lowest SG and A to
1:34:47
mine a Bitcoin. We are fleet of foot.
1:34:51
We're the first to do AI. When you look at the first,
1:34:54
we're very innovative company. We function over think of this,
1:34:59
we function over 9 time zones, 5 languages, 3 continents and we
1:35:06
have the lowest SGNA and we have always in the top 1-2 or three
1:35:11
most efficient minors. So you think of that, that was
1:35:16
what makes Hive special. And and so Hive, I think has
1:35:20
this incredible future and we're looking for opportunities in
1:35:23
America where we can get the electricity in the land and
1:35:27
we'll land something that's very attractive.
1:35:29
Like we've been able to build it in Paraguay and they also make.
1:35:33
Opti can you do? Could you change your shot
1:35:35
please? And they also make the best hats
1:35:38
ever. Frank, thank you so much for
1:35:42
joining us on Simply Bitcoin Live Today.
1:35:44
Always a pleasure stay. Bullish stay.
1:35:47
Positive. Always a pleasure.
1:35:49
So much signal, so much sauce. From Bulldog Homes, AKA Frank
1:35:53
Holmes, executive chairman of Hive Digital Technologies.
1:35:56
Frank, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
1:35:58
Thank you. All right, everybody.
1:36:01
Well, that was. The Friday show, if you guys
1:36:03
enjoyed the show, make sure to smash that like button, consider
1:36:07
subscribing. Go check out Hive.
1:36:09
Go follow them on Twitter at Hive Digital technologies.
1:36:12
Go check out their stock on the NASDAQ.
1:36:14
It's Hive, very easy to spell and again, it's a dual engine.
1:36:20
Not only do they focus on Bitcoin mining, they're also
1:36:23
focusing on the AI revolution as well.
1:36:26
If you guys enjoyed today's Friday show as much as I did,
1:36:29
Frank was dropping so much, so much signal.
1:36:32
Make sure to smash that like button again.
1:36:34
Consider subscribing to simply Bitcoin.
1:36:36
Go enjoy the weekend, go outside, touch some grass, get
1:36:39
some sun, enjoy some steak, enjoy some family.
1:36:43
And then of course, we'll see you back on Monday for a brand
1:36:45
new episode of Simply Bitcoin live.
1:36:49
Take care, everybody. Today's episode was brought.
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1:36:55
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