Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Is Bitcoins Bull Run Over? (Will BlackRock Save Us?) | EP 1182

Transcript

Is Bitcoins Bull Run Over? (Will BlackRock Save Us?) | EP 1182 · Simply Bitcoin

• 0:00
  Is Bitcoin's bull Run over Bitcoin is having its worst bull
• 0:05
  run in history, significantly underperforming every previous
• 0:10
  cycle, and a lot of people are wondering what's happening.
• 0:13
  The launch of Blackrock's Bitcoin ETF and the election of
• 0:17
  Donald Trump sent Bitcoin flying to new all time highs before the
• 0:22
  halving for the first time ever in early 2024.
• 0:26
  For the past 13 months, Bitcoin's prices only increased
• 0:30
  30%. Why is this happening?
• 0:33
  Is Bitcoin finally being tamed by Wall Street?
• 0:36
  Is retail being distracted by the meme coins?
• 0:40
  Or is Bitcoin boring us to death until it finally breaks out to
• 0:45
  the upside? We're going to discuss all that,
• 0:47
  but before we do, I want to bring up my legendary Co host
• 0:50
  who's always optimistic Optimist Fields, our special guest for
• 0:54
  today. We have Bobby and we have Graham
• 0:57
  from Voltage. Gentlemen, thank you so much for
• 1:00
  for joining us on the show. Let's jump straight into the
• 1:04
  comparisons. I think a lot of people are not
• 1:07
  aware of this. Like I'm, I'm saying, you know,
• 1:09
  is, is the bull run over? Is, is, is Bitcoin boring now?
• 1:12
  Is it being tamed? Is someone in the chat is saying
• 1:15
  Bitcoin is taking a nap? But if you compare the cycles, I
• 1:19
  mean, like it, it's, it's kind of it's a little depressing.
• 1:23
  I'm not going to lie, it is a little depressing until it's
• 1:26
  not. So the blue line on the top is
• 1:29
  obviously the first cycle, but Bitcoin's market cap was much
• 1:32
  smaller back then. That was the 2013 cycle and it
• 1:36
  just went bananas right then. The orange line was, I believe,
• 1:40
  Bitcoin's third cycle. So it was 2021 at this point.
• 1:44
  Actually, 20/20 was 2021 was actually outpacing the 2017
• 1:49
  cycle. And then as you can see the 2017
• 1:52
  cycle, you know, it was like a 20X in one year did incredibly,
• 1:56
  incredibly well. So yeah, I mean, if you compare
• 2:00
  it to every other cycle in Bitcoin's history, Bitcoin has
• 2:04
  definitely started off pretty slowly.
• 2:07
  However, however big, however, this is a comparison since the
• 2:13
  halving, the performance of Bitcoin since the halving.
• 2:15
  But if you compare the performance of Bitcoin since the
• 2:18
  bottom, it's actually on on par with 2017.
• 2:24
  It's extremely similar to to 2017.
• 2:28
  In fact, it was outpacing 2017 at some points.
• 2:32
  So it depends on where you're looking at it from, from the
• 2:36
  having underperformed. But it could it be that it
• 2:39
  underperformed because, you know, it kind of got ahead of
• 2:42
  itself with the approval of the spot Bitcoin ETFs since the
• 2:46
  bottom. It's kind of on par with what
• 2:49
  2017 was right? I think 2021, I think a lot of
• 2:52
  people didn't anticipate that the bull market was going to
• 2:56
  start as quickly as it did. And then it ended up becoming a
• 2:59
  double top. A lot of people are speculating
• 3:02
  that it was because of the China mining ban is because of all
• 3:05
  these reasons. So it really depends on how you
• 3:07
  look at it. But I will say, I mean, we will
• 3:10
  we, we have been solid dating for the last three or four
• 3:16
  months now just going sideways, channelling between 108 K and I
• 3:20
  think the bottom was like a 92K and we just been going sideways.
• 3:24
  It's been quite boring. Let's get other opinions from
• 3:27
  the community. Here is British Huddle, he says.
• 3:30
  I think the fundamentals of this Bitcoin cycle have changed.
• 3:33
  They're much closer to what I've been saying over the past three
• 3:35
  to four months on Bitcoin Podcast.
• 3:38
  Boring as hell, but with a 29 to 50% annual kagar forever.
• 3:44
  I mean, that's still absolutely incredible.
• 3:46
  Here's Bob Lucas. He says, as has been the
• 3:50
  character of the of this Bitcoin bull market, the next leg up is
• 3:54
  likely to be violent and unforgiving to those second
• 3:58
  guessing be positioned and sit back and then he said five hours
• 4:03
  ago good morning final phase of the Bitcoin 60 day and weekly
• 4:07
  cycles 2 weeks less two weeks left then next big leg up any
• 4:14
  loss slash capitulation of the 90K bottom range should be
• 4:18
  bought for AV bottom but feeling like this cycle ends via time
• 4:22
  and said as price is coiling here and last but not least of
• 4:27
  course we got checkmatey. He's extremely well known for
• 4:31
  his newsletter. He goes on a lot of popular
• 4:33
  podcasts, including Peter Mccormacks.
• 4:36
  And he's known to have some some good analysis on all this stuff.
• 4:40
  And I don't have the entire newsletter.
• 4:42
  I'm just going to read you guys the beginning.
• 4:44
  But he says time to move. Bitcoin has now chopped wood for
• 4:47
  three months and this process has loaded the market to sleep
• 4:51
  more often than not. This signals that a burst of
• 4:54
  explosive volatility is very similar to what Bob Lucas is
• 4:58
  saying is just around the corner.
• 5:00
  Good day folks. The the gas tanks are refueled
• 5:03
  enough wood has been chopped and Bitcoin is now ready to move.
• 5:07
  Several of you have probably noticed that the weekly
• 5:11
  Choppiness index has blasted to new all time highs, effectively
• 5:15
  completing the digestion period I flagged as a likely scenario
• 5:20
  way back in November. When the choppiness index is
• 5:23
  juiced up like this, it tells us that the market is ready to
• 5:26
  trend again. The question is in which
• 5:29
  direction. Here's a picture of of the
• 5:32
  choppiness index that he is talking about.
• 5:36
  So I think a lot of us are are kind of bored.
• 5:38
  A lot of us are saying, you know, like Bitcoin is a stable
• 5:41
  coin Bitcoin is acting like a stable coin.
• 5:43
  What is going on? This is boring.
• 5:46
  We're hearing all this good news.
• 5:47
  We're seeing Metaplanet essentially, you know, 48X in 12
• 5:52
  months. We see MicroStrategy in 2024
• 5:56
  five X right. It's it, it almost feels like
• 5:59
  Bitcoin is boring, but I, I've been, I've been in this for a
• 6:02
  while now. It's my ninth year in Bitcoin.
• 6:04
  And I remember many, many times throughout, you know, just my
• 6:09
  Bitcoin journey, my Bitcoin career, being in this, these
• 6:13
  moments of boredom, right? And I think that's the, if
• 6:16
  you're holding Bitcoin, the vast majority of the time you're
• 6:20
  just, you're just, it's going sideways or it's going down.
• 6:24
  You really only live for like two or three months out of a
• 6:29
  four year cycle. That's really where all the
• 6:31
  excitement has happens. I don't think that's happened
• 6:34
  yet. I don't think this cycle is
• 6:37
  over. I think we're going sideways and
• 6:39
  I think as more and more people get distracted, as Bitcoin
• 6:42
  becomes so-called boring, as more and more people just get
• 6:45
  bored, they sell Bitcoin tends to do something really exciting
• 6:50
  after that. Now I agree with Checkmatey.
• 6:53
  I don't know if that's going up. I don't know if that's going
• 6:55
  down, but a quick update on, you know, this topic because I know
• 7:00
  it's a lot. I know it's on a lot of your
• 7:02
  guys's minds and we figured we would cover it today and we have
• 7:06
  an awesome set of guests to join us to talk about this.
• 7:10
  So I'm going to pass it on to my legendary Co host, always
• 7:13
  optimistic optimist Fields. Starting off with you first bro,
• 7:17
  is is it over? Is the party over, brother?
• 7:20
  Dude, it's been over wrap it up, pack it up.
• 7:23
  Bitcoin is dead. No, I mean, honestly, I, I'm,
• 7:27
  I'm kind of in the camp of I'm just kind of bored to death with
• 7:30
  the price action 100K was cool for like what one day and now
• 7:33
  we're all just bored with it. And it really does kind of feel
• 7:37
  where we were at 10K. You know, it kind of chopped
• 7:39
  around 10K for a long time and then we all got really bored
• 7:42
  with it. And then it kind of happened
• 7:44
  again at 6970 K. We all got bored with it again.
• 7:49
  And it's just, I think it's just part of the part of the way that
• 7:52
  it is with Bitcoin where you hit a certain price.
• 7:54
  If it doesn't start running, you just kind of get bored with
• 7:57
  what's going on. But I'm kind of leaning towards
• 7:59
  what Checkmatey's been saying. I've been saying this for a
• 8:01
  while that I think this chopped solidation, this consolidation
• 8:05
  around 190K right now, I think it's very healthy in the face of
• 8:09
  all the crazy uncertainty going on in the world right now.
• 8:12
  I know people are seeing gold start to go skyrocket.
• 8:15
  We're seeing, you know, metaplanet start to skyrocket
• 8:17
  and strategy start to go up really, really insanely.
• 8:21
  And in the face of everything going on, I think Bitcoin
• 8:24
  holding up around 190K right now is is very healthy for the
• 8:28
  market. Obviously, I'm biased.
• 8:30
  I think that once it does break, once it does have a move, it's
• 8:33
  going to be up to the upside here.
• 8:35
  And yeah, I'm just, I'm, I'm just being bored to death with
• 8:38
  the price action. I think this is just what
• 8:40
  Bitcoin does it, you know, it hits a number, kind of bores you
• 8:43
  to death. And then once everyone is really
• 8:45
  bored to death or really just like, man, it's over, is when
• 8:47
  it's going to start running. And I think this is kind of
• 8:50
  where we are. So I do like these metrics of it
• 8:52
  being more of a time based thing.
• 8:54
  So hey, I would love to see the Bitcoin price start running in
• 8:57
  two weeks. That would be great.
• 8:58
  You know, we'd have fun again. We had a lot of things to talk
• 9:00
  about. Right now we're just kind of
• 9:02
  bored and everyone's kind of just waiting for something to
• 9:05
  happen. And I don't know, man, I, I
• 9:08
  think it's still going to be a really strong end of the year.
• 9:11
  But right now we're all just really bored.
• 9:13
  I'm, I'm like, where's retail? You know, is it isn't BlackRock
• 9:17
  here is institutional capital here supposedly pumping our bags
• 9:20
  like what's going on? But you know, in reality,
• 9:24
  Bitcoin isn't a get rich quick scheme.
• 9:25
  It's a not get poor scheme. And so even if Bitcoin was a
• 9:29
  stable coin at 100K forever, I think that's still better than
• 9:32
  losing 2% a year in, you know, holding Fiat.
• 9:35
  So hey, I am absolutely bored to death with this price action,
• 9:39
  but this is just kind of how the game goes.
• 9:41
  Absolutely. I'm really glad that you brought
• 9:42
  that up and I kind of want to share my screen and talk about
• 9:45
  this. So this is obviously Google
• 9:47
  Trends, so essentially pretty self-explanatory.
• 9:51
  You know, this is what people are searching for on Google.
• 9:55
  And really this peaked out in 2017.
• 9:59
  That was the last time Google Trends went explosive when it
• 10:03
  came to Bitcoin. And then back in 2021, it did
• 10:08
  half of what it did in 2017. And of course, you know, in
• 10:12
  2024, November 2024 almost got to where 2021 levels were.
• 10:17
  But as you could see, like, you know, all is quiet on the
• 10:19
  Western Front. You know, this is, it's not
• 10:22
  really getting a lot of eyeballs.
• 10:24
  I think it's a combination of factors.
• 10:26
  So I think a lot of people, you know, that there's, there's the
• 10:30
  unit bias, they see 100K. They're like, you know, that's
• 10:33
  completely out of my reach. I would, you know, rather, you
• 10:36
  know, try my luck on Trump coin or whatever.
• 10:39
  I think meme coins are, are getting a lot of attention.
• 10:42
  Also the I, I think you can make an argument that perhaps Wall
• 10:47
  Street is getting involved. Bitcoin is becoming more
• 10:51
  institutional. The days of those large
• 10:54
  volatility swings are, are over. They're behind us and it, you
• 10:59
  know, instead of it doing like these crazy speculative bubbles
• 11:02
  every four years, it just becomes this, you know, this
• 11:06
  grind up year after year. But I mean, you know, if you
• 11:10
  take a look at sailors predictions from Bitcoin 2024,
• 11:14
  you know, I think his base case was $13 million Bitcoin by the
• 11:18
  year 2045 S exactly 20 years from now.
• 11:22
  And in order to get that, it would need like, I think a
• 11:24
  annual appreciation rate of I think between 60 and 30%
• 11:28
  compared to any other investment.
• 11:30
  That's ridiculous. And compound interest is
• 11:33
  extremely, extremely powerful, right?
• 11:36
  So it's just kind of like save, earn, buy Bitcoin, you know, put
• 11:40
  it into savings, set it, forget it.
• 11:42
  You know, look back, you know, five years from now, 10 years
• 11:45
  from now, I think you're going to be very, very happy that you
• 11:48
  you did that. So anyways, I do want to include
• 11:50
  our guests that have been just sitting around while me and Opti
• 11:53
  have been talking. Of course, we got Bobby from
• 11:56
  Voltage and we got Graham from Voltage.
• 11:58
  I'm going to start off of Bobby. Bobby, is Bitcoin boring?
• 12:01
  Is it? Is it done?
• 12:02
  Is, is the life out of Bitcoin just being sucked out by all
• 12:05
  these institutional and nation state players?
• 12:09
  What's going on? Hello gentlemen.
• 12:12
  Good afternoon. And I'd like to say Bitcoin is
• 12:14
  anything but boring. What I find interesting is, you
• 12:19
  know, whoever loves money never has enough, and whoever loves
• 12:21
  wealth is never satisfied with his income.
• 12:24
  And our life does not consist of the abundance of our
• 12:27
  possessions. So is Bitcoin dead?
• 12:29
  Is Bitcoin boring? No, not at all.
• 12:31
  What is going on in the world? We see people across all walks
• 12:35
  of life adopting Bitcoin, the doubters and the bankers, the
• 12:39
  finks and the CEOs. People need it and the story and
• 12:43
  the education and understanding of Bitcoin is spreading far and
• 12:46
  wide. Now for those who are
• 12:48
  emotionally tied to the price, you might be bored, but is the
• 12:51
  world bored? Is Bitcoin boring?
• 12:54
  Less than ever. I love that I'm.
• 12:56
  Taking strays from. Bobby, that is a great that is a
• 13:00
  that is an amazing, amazing response.
• 13:02
  Also want to give a shout out to the the live, the live chat and
• 13:06
  the live show. If you guys are enjoying the
• 13:08
  show so far, make sure to smash that like button.
• 13:11
  Help us break 100 likes within the 1st 30 minutes of the show.
• 13:17
  And of course, shout out to the Rumble audience and the X
• 13:19
  audience as well. Bobby, that was such a wholesome
• 13:23
  answer. Man, I absolutely love that
• 13:25
  Bitcoin is not boring. It's being adopted by everyone
• 13:29
  worldwide, whether that's CEOs, whether that's the blue collar
• 13:33
  worker, it's being adopted and that's very, very positive
• 13:36
  message. I'm going to pass it on to our
• 13:39
  guest today, Graham. Graham, is Bitcoin boring?
• 13:43
  Should we pack it up? Should we change the name of
• 13:45
  simply Bitcoin to simply Fiat? What's going on, Graham?
• 13:49
  Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm very similar to you, Nico.
• 13:51
  I've been in Bitcoin for over a decade now.
• 13:53
  And I mean by this point I've just completely learned to
• 13:56
  ignore price entirely and just focus on building.
• 13:58
  So I mean, I've been having a great time.
• 14:00
  I've been having the time of my life building products and
• 14:02
  services, getting Bitcoin to be used and it was, it's actually
• 14:05
  pretty amazing that we're here talking about is a price of
• 14:08
  around 100K boring or not? Because I mean, shoot, think
• 14:11
  back to 8 years ago, we would have been like just begging for
• 14:14
  something like this. So, you know, I obviously do not
• 14:17
  think it's boring at all. I think that there is a lot of a
• 14:20
  lot of things happening around, around the whole ecosystem that
• 14:23
  is a lot to be excited about and a lot of things that are getting
• 14:26
  it put to use. I mean, I think that from like
• 14:28
  the price action that's happening, I'd be very I, I
• 14:32
  obviously don't do any kind of deep research into the markets
• 14:35
  or anything like that. But I mean this this time is a
• 14:38
  little different with the, with the amount of like Wall Street
• 14:40
  activity that has come into Bitcoin and I think it's obvious
• 14:43
  that it's having some effect. I think is it completely
• 14:45
  stifling, you know, any leg up from here?
• 14:48
  You know, I definitely don't think that I think that there's
• 14:49
  a lot more, a lot more opportunity to go.
• 14:52
  And, and so I mean, ultimately, I think that there's a lot of
• 14:55
  new factors at play here in the current market.
• 14:58
  But that is to say, I don't really care either.
• 15:01
  I want to build, I want to build products and I'm all about the
• 15:03
  usage of Bitcoin and getting into the hands of as many people
• 15:06
  as we can. And, and that job is never
• 15:08
  boring. That is still it's it's, it's at
• 15:11
  the peak of all time and it's going to continue to rise from
• 15:13
  here. Absolutely, yeah.
• 15:16
  And can you talk a little bit about that?
• 15:17
  Can you talk a little bit about, you know what you're dedicating
• 15:20
  your, your, you know, your, your life on, which is just making
• 15:24
  Bitcoin adoption easy, like making the making the ability
• 15:29
  for people to use Bitcoin easier?
• 15:33
  Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's like, I guess like
• 15:34
  just a quick kind of breakdown on voltage.
• 15:36
  I mean, we are, we help businesses incorporate Bitcoin
• 15:39
  into their products and services.
• 15:40
  We do a lot with the Lightning Network because we see that that
• 15:43
  is the one of the greatest abilities of us to get into the
• 15:46
  hands of of the entire world on the, you know, everyone in the
• 15:49
  world being able to actually access Bitcoin and be able to
• 15:52
  transact with it. So that's what we basically
• 15:54
  focus on is helping businesses incorporate it and understand
• 15:57
  it. I mean, there's a lot of
• 15:58
  businesses that we talked to that are just like, hey, I heard
• 16:01
  that Bitcoin is fantastic at sending money from, you know,
• 16:04
  here to France, you know, faster and cheaper than anything else.
• 16:06
  What do I actually do to make that happen?
• 16:08
  And so we've been able to bring, you know, kind of build a
• 16:10
  product around that and actually be able to to solve that both
• 16:14
  from the technical side as well as, you know, kind of all the
• 16:17
  the business functions that exist around that.
• 16:19
  So that's what we've been doing. We're trying to get Bitcoin as
• 16:23
  used as we can across the world and then being able to, you
• 16:27
  know, create a platform that enables that.
• 16:29
  Not everyone having to, you know, when, when I first got
• 16:32
  into Bitcoin the way you did all this is building it all from
• 16:34
  scratch over and over and over again.
• 16:36
  And that was kind of why I started Voltage in the 1st place
• 16:38
  was, you know, we got to stop building it from scratch.
• 16:40
  We got to help shepherd this next generation, and that's
• 16:42
  ultimately what we're doing. Absolutely.
• 16:45
  And my little Palmer and my wife's Palmer, and he's going
• 16:48
  crazy. So I apologize about that.
• 16:50
  But yeah, man. Bobby, do you want to add to
• 16:52
  what Graham was talking about? Yeah.
• 16:55
  I think the the thing that's very exciting is Bitcoin, like
• 16:59
  any other technology, is just going through cycles of
• 17:02
  adoption. And the cool thing about
• 17:04
  lightning right now is enterprises are learning how to
• 17:06
  leverage its value. One thing we know about
• 17:08
  individual people and just like businesses in general is like
• 17:12
  75% of businesses like fail and never make it to a million in
• 17:15
  revenue. So to think that an average
• 17:17
  person is going to, you know, scale the Lightning network is
• 17:22
  almost naive in some ways. Now there's been a lot of talk
• 17:25
  and Tony, a great developer in the space, has brought up
• 17:28
  there's going to be two Lightning networks.
• 17:29
  Maybe there's like the business enterprise version and the Pleb
• 17:32
  1 where like individuals run. The thing we're seeing with
• 17:35
  enterprises and lightning is that they are learning how to
• 17:37
  run this infrastructure and create incredibly reliable
• 17:40
  payments experiences. River has put out a report about
• 17:43
  this, multiple reports. We saw a breeze report in the
• 17:46
  last week discussing like what's going on with Lightning and the
• 17:48
  growth and voltage. We've got some great content in
• 17:52
  a report coming out later this month that you will be very
• 17:55
  excited to see. And I think it's just becoming
• 17:57
  clear to the world that lightning works and functions
• 18:00
  and the the use case for lightning and instant settlement
• 18:03
  payments is going to be businesses.
• 18:05
  That doesn't mean individuals won't use it, but we're going to
• 18:07
  see rapid acceleration via lightning.
• 18:09
  And the thing I find interesting with Bitcoin treasury becoming
• 18:11
  more popular and folks learning about Bitcoin like the stage of
• 18:15
  adoption, you know, is what is it collectible medium of
• 18:17
  exchange, excuse me, collectible store value, medium of exchange
• 18:22
  and then unit of account. We're starting to just inch in
• 18:25
  on the medium of exchange portion of this, of this
• 18:27
  adoption wave. So it's exciting to see.
• 18:29
  It's fun to be a part of. It's going to be an amazing
• 18:34
  show, jam packed full of amazing content.
• 18:37
  We're going to talk a variety of things.
• 18:40
  Natalie Burnell had Colonel McGregor and he's thinking that
• 18:45
  the strategic Bitcoin Reserve will happen this year.
• 18:48
  And then during the new segment, we have a quick update.
• 18:52
  Trump is having second thought, second thoughts about his crypto
• 18:56
  council. So what's going on there?
• 18:58
  And then JP Morgan warns Tether may sell Bitcoin amid US stable
• 19:03
  coin regulation. So even more potential cell
• 19:07
  pressure down the pipeline. We shall see.
• 19:10
  And of course, during the culture segment, we're going to
• 19:12
  talk to the boys from Voltage, Bobby and Graham, what they're
• 19:16
  working on. Any special announcements?
• 19:18
  I think there's an announcement that's coming in 13 minutes that
• 19:21
  we're going to be able to talk about, which is extremely
• 19:24
  exciting as well. So guys, stay tuned.
• 19:26
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  At the time of recording, the Bitcoin price is $95,940.
• 23:04
  Block height 883,606 That's per dollar 1042 market cap 1.9
• 23:11
  trillion Bitcoin versus gold market cap 9.31% Percentage
• 23:16
  issued 94.39% decline from all time high -12.1%.
• 23:22
  Realize monetary inflation. I can't wait for that to go
• 23:24
  under. 1% is currently at 1% and that's defined as the money
• 23:30
  supply increase over the prior 365 days.
• 23:33
  That's been continuing to take Fiat currencies to absolute
• 23:37
  school, right? So Bitcoin is obviously superior
• 23:41
  money. Anyways, Natalie Burnell had a
• 23:45
  Colonel Douglas McGregor on, on her podcast, you go check it out
• 23:49
  coin stories, check out Natalie on YouTube and he had some some
• 23:54
  words, some some some thoughts about the potential strategic
• 23:58
  Bitcoin reserve. I think a lot of people were
• 24:00
  expecting this to happen with a, with an executive order.
• 24:06
  I think the executive order was underwhelming.
• 24:09
  It said digital assets instead of Bitcoin.
• 24:12
  To be fair, it did say that the administration was going to
• 24:16
  protect the right to self custody, to protect the the
• 24:19
  right for people to run nodes, to protect the right to mine.
• 24:22
  It was also going to be staunchly against central bank
• 24:26
  digital currencies. So it was very, very positive.
• 24:30
  But there was no mention of Bitcoin.
• 24:32
  We found out after, I mean, during, while this was happening
• 24:37
  and I had some sources in DC tell me that, that the reason
• 24:40
  that it said digital assets and not Bitcoin specifically was
• 24:44
  because of tremendous amount of pressure from the altcoin lobby,
• 24:49
  specifically from Ripple, which I found quite interesting.
• 24:53
  Now, according to David Sachs and one of his recent press
• 24:57
  conferences, there's actually a reporter who asked him said,
• 25:01
  hey, what's, what's the, what's going on with the Strategic
• 25:04
  Bitcoin Reserve? And David Sachs responded to the
• 25:07
  reporter We are looking into, to use his words, not mine, into
• 25:11
  the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve. We're waiting for appointments
• 25:15
  to get confirmed, but according to the executive order, I think
• 25:20
  there's supposed to be some type of resolution within 180 days of
• 25:24
  that executive order. A lot of people in the Bitcoin
• 25:27
  community still think that's a strategic Bitcoin reserve is
• 25:29
  happening. Polymarket is not feeling so
• 25:31
  good about it. But if you look at David Bailey,
• 25:34
  if you look at this gentleman here, you know, they're thinking
• 25:37
  it's going to happen. And of course, we have to also
• 25:39
  take into account that a lot of members of the administration,
• 25:42
  including the vice president, RFK, who was just confirmed,
• 25:46
  they own Bitcoin. And according to David Bailey,
• 25:49
  Trump owns Bitcoin as well. And at the end of the day, no
• 25:52
  one is better than their incentives.
• 25:54
  Anyways. I'm going to play you guys a
• 25:55
  clip and then we will all discuss it.
• 25:58
  I wanted to ask you about Bitcoin because there has been
• 26:00
  talk of potentially a strategic Bitcoin reserve and Trump is the
• 26:04
  very first Bitcoin friendly president.
• 26:06
  Do you think that this could happen?
• 26:08
  Yes, I think it can. I think it probably will.
• 26:13
  And I also think that Bitcoin will continue to fall.
• 26:17
  And when the stock market crashes, I think Bitcoin will go
• 26:20
  down with it. The stock market will not
• 26:23
  recover because it's grossly overpriced and it's going to
• 26:26
  take years for us to recover from what's coming.
• 26:29
  But Bitcoin will recover, it'll recover, and I think it'll
• 26:32
  recover quickly. And so it will be this store of
• 26:35
  value in addition to gold and silver.
• 26:38
  That is indisputable. So I think that will happen
• 26:41
  again. I'm not, I'm not Nostradamus.
• 26:44
  That's my view, that's my gut. And and I would urge people to
• 26:48
  think in those terms, but I think President Trump was quite
• 26:52
  serious when he said we're going to look at a Bitcoin strategic
• 26:55
  reserve. So was RFK Junior.
• 26:57
  So I think we'll. So shout out to Natalie, always
• 27:03
  making great content. Of course.
• 27:05
  I mean, what are your thoughts, Opti?
• 27:07
  Like, I think a lot of us had high expectations, you know this
• 27:12
  and I think a lot of people are also getting their first taste
• 27:14
  of, of politics as well, right? We got a lot of wins like the
• 27:18
  freedom of Ross Ulbricht. You know, the executive order
• 27:21
  was a +1 the end of operation Choke .2 point O.
• 27:25
  If you're a Bitcoin entrepreneur in the United States, that was
• 27:27
  no fun. There's a lot of regulatory
• 27:29
  uncertainty. We saw a lot of Bitcoin
• 27:32
  companies exit the United States because of of, you know, the,
• 27:36
  the, the regulatory pressure from the Biden administration.
• 27:40
  So there is a lot of positives, but I think the negatives are,
• 27:44
  you know, the, the shit coin degeneracy, to put it very
• 27:47
  nicely, right. But anyways, Opti, what's your
• 27:50
  take on this? Is a strategic Bitcoin reserve
• 27:54
  happening in 2025? Well, what do I know really?
• 27:59
  Yeah, I'm just here to speculate on it.
• 28:00
  But I think we will be seeing something in regards to that.
• 28:04
  Maybe it's not the big strategic Bitcoin reserve that Cynthia
• 28:08
  Lummis has been proposing, but either way, I think the
• 28:11
  narrative around a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the US will
• 28:14
  be a positive thing for Bitcoin to make ripples around the
• 28:17
  world. And so I, I really do think that
• 28:20
  Trump is kind of serious about what he's doing, or rather what
• 28:23
  he's saying, because as he said multiple times, and, and that
• 28:27
  clip kind of confirms the same idea.
• 28:29
  It's like Trump is looking at, at Wall Street and NASDAQ and he
• 28:32
  wants it to pump. And that's kind of an indicator
• 28:35
  of him being a good president. And now he's got basically like
• 28:37
  a second Wall Street to pump essentially the Bitcoin coin
• 28:40
  price. And if both of these things do
• 28:41
  good, then obviously he's going to claim, claim these as wins
• 28:45
  for him being a good president. So I think he is really invested
• 28:48
  in Bitcoin doing well and of course, the economy doing well.
• 28:51
  And let's not forget his his children, even though they are
• 28:54
  kind of shit corners, they, they are seemingly falling down the
• 28:57
  rabbit hole and very serious about what is going on in the
• 29:00
  crypto space. Though there was something that
• 29:02
  what I'm I'm going to butcher what the general that we just
• 29:06
  had on or the clip we just had on.
• 29:08
  He said something that I've been saying for a while as well is
• 29:10
  that like right now, Bitcoin is kind of highly correlated to
• 29:14
  traditional markets. And if Bitcoin, or rather the
• 29:17
  the stock market drops, then Bitcoin will probably also drop.
• 29:20
  Though it is very interesting now that we're seeing people
• 29:23
  kind of fall into Bitcoin and then be like, well, you know,
• 29:26
  hey, the Wall Street or NASDAQ might fall down and Bitcoin
• 29:30
  might follow it. But Bitcoin's going to, you
• 29:32
  know, flashback upwards very quickly.
• 29:34
  And it, you know, it's seemingly becoming that everyone is
• 29:37
  getting the orange signal right now and people are starting to
• 29:39
  wake up to this fact that Bitcoin is uncorrelated from
• 29:42
  everything else. So, you know, I, I love to see
• 29:45
  that people are kind of learning and hey, we'll see what happens.
• 29:48
  But it really does feel like right now Bitcoin is correlated
• 29:51
  with a lot of macroeconomic movements.
• 29:54
  And that's just because Bitcoin is still growing up.
• 29:56
  We, we can't forget that Bitcoin is only about a $2 trillion
• 29:59
  asset. It's basically tiny in
• 30:01
  comparison to every other global asset macro market.
• 30:05
  Like there's a lot of global liquidity and it hasn't found
• 30:07
  its way into Bitcoin. So until Bitcoin does kind of
• 30:11
  mature and get get bigger in in terms of market cap, then
• 30:15
  Bitcoin will kind of be at the whim of a lot of different macro
• 30:19
  liquidity moments. But that doesn't mean that
• 30:21
  Bitcoin won't break away at a certain point.
• 30:23
  And so it is very interesting to see that these trad 5 people,
• 30:27
  you know, people that also wear suits, Nico are starting to wake
• 30:29
  up to the fact that, hey, this Bitcoin thing is is serious and
• 30:34
  you got to take it seriously. And here we are.
• 30:38
  So I think we are going to find ourselves in an era where maybe
• 30:42
  it's not this cycle, but by next cycle, people I think are going
• 30:45
  to really, really start to understand like, wait, this
• 30:48
  Bitcoin thing is a risk off asset.
• 30:50
  It is uncorrelated from everything else.
• 30:52
  It is the most liquid market in the world.
• 30:54
  So things do start to kind of get uncertain and people are
• 30:58
  panicking then yes, there will be quick sell offs, but it will
• 31:01
  react and and and jump back very quickly.
• 31:03
  Because once you understand that big Bitcoin is the only thing to
• 31:07
  be storing, it's a no brainer that yeah, this is what I want
• 31:11
  to buy when there is a lot of uncertainty in the world.
• 31:14
  So hey, at least the signal starting to get out there.
• 31:16
  I think the biggest thing we've been talking about for a long
• 31:19
  time on this show is the fact that these conversations are
• 31:22
  even happening. And I think this is kind of a
• 31:25
  testament to how big Bitcoin is becoming and that we are
• 31:28
  entering the mainstream consciousness.
• 31:31
  But hey, we still have, you know, like the teenage years of
• 31:36
  Bitcoin to mature. And it seems like Bitcoin right
• 31:39
  now is kind of, you know, it's like it's it's that it's that
• 31:42
  teenage puberty moment where like it's voice is changing.
• 31:45
  We're starting to get, try to get approval from certain
• 31:48
  sectors that maybe we shouldn't be.
• 31:50
  It reminds everyone of being like, you know, 1516 You, you
• 31:54
  know, you try to hang out with the cool kids and you realize
• 31:56
  that, yeah, maybe they aren't aligned with what you believe.
• 31:58
  And then you start to forge your own path.
• 32:01
  And I think this is kind of a a good parallel to where we are
• 32:04
  right now in the Bitcoin space. Absolutely 100%.
• 32:08
  Graham, what are your thoughts, brother?
• 32:09
  What is what? What's going on here?
• 32:11
  Is this strategic Bitcoin reserve happening in 2025?
• 32:17
  Yeah. I mean, I think, I think I echo
• 32:19
  a lot of what you guys have said.
• 32:20
  I think that there's, I think overall, I think the people that
• 32:23
  were thinking that it would be like a day one executive order
• 32:26
  was like, I definitely wasn't that hopeful.
• 32:29
  I think that there's that would be pretty amazing to see that
• 32:31
  happen and obviously we did it, But I think that the moves that
• 32:35
  they're making are like very good to see.
• 32:38
  Like like you guys mentioned, like just their their stance on
• 32:41
  actually approaching these things with some seriousness.
• 32:43
  Like this isn't even this isn't even a joke that they're
• 32:46
  actually considering this, which is I think that again, what I
• 32:49
  said earlier of thinking back to, you know, nine years ago,
• 32:52
  this would have been absolutely insane that we were even talking
• 32:55
  about this in a serious context. So I think we've come a long way
• 32:58
  from like the actual, the way that I think that they're going
• 33:01
  to execute on this. In just my personal opinion, I
• 33:04
  think that I'm, I'm less hopeful on it being a Bitcoin strategic
• 33:08
  reserve. I think it will be a crypto
• 33:09
  strategic reserve and it'll be a basket of, oh, we're going to
• 33:12
  add in some Ethereum. There's going to be Bitcoin, but
• 33:14
  there's also going to be Ripple. And like, I think it's going to
• 33:16
  be a big mix of a lot of different things.
• 33:19
  That's not what I want to see, but I think what I put my kind
• 33:22
  of realistic hat on, I think that that is probably what would
• 33:25
  be the reality. And, and I think that, you know,
• 33:28
  overall, if we can get Bitcoin on the US government's balance
• 33:32
  sheet, even if there's some little, there's some other
• 33:34
  things in there, I think that's still a huge win.
• 33:36
  And I think that that's going to be a huge validation point for,
• 33:39
  for, for the industry for what we're doing.
• 33:42
  So I mean, I'm, I'm super hopeful.
• 33:44
  I do think for 2025, I think it's totally possible.
• 33:46
  I mean, we're talking about this pretty seriously in, in middle
• 33:49
  of February. I think that there's still a lot
• 33:50
  of time to, to push things through.
• 33:52
  And he's obviously has a task force that's like that's looking
• 33:54
  at it specifically. So, you know, I'm pretty hopeful
• 33:57
  all of it getting it happening in 2025.
• 34:00
  I think that the the reality like how it actually looks is
• 34:03
  maybe going to be a little bit different than what a lot of a
• 34:05
  lot of the a lot of the listeners want to see.
• 34:08
  But overall, I would be super happy if we had some kind of big
• 34:11
  what exposure from a government perspective.
• 34:14
  Absolutely. I think it's a incredible, very,
• 34:16
  very well put. Also want to give a shout out to
• 34:18
  the live audience, 1400 live viewers between YouTube and X
• 34:23
  and shout out to the 70 or so of you guys watching live on
• 34:27
  Rumble. If you guys are enjoying the
• 34:28
  show so far, smash that like button.
• 34:30
  We RIP through 100 likes. Help us break 100.
• 34:34
  Let's let's help us break 200 likes by the end of the show.
• 34:38
  So if you guys are enjoying the show so far, smash that like,
• 34:41
  but I'm going to pass it on to Bobby.
• 34:42
  Bobby is the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve happening in
• 34:46
  2025. Gosh, it's so hard to say.
• 34:51
  You know, it seems like things are changing every day.
• 34:54
  I saw the digital assets committee may or may not happen
• 34:57
  because Trump is afraid of what, like toxicity or people being
• 35:00
  combative. And it, it makes sense.
• 35:03
  One thing I will say is I've met a lot of folks who work directly
• 35:08
  with the government educating about digital assets.
• 35:11
  And some of these people have said the government is almost
• 35:14
  forced to take a position of being unbiased as to which asset
• 35:19
  should be held or educated about.
• 35:20
  So having heard that the last three years, it's perfectly
• 35:24
  reasonable to see like some teetering back and forth of
• 35:27
  Trump. Now, this is different than like
• 35:30
  a strategic reserve. Now, when it comes to like the
• 35:33
  strategic reserve, I think it does make sense in the of the
• 35:36
  odds of it happening, I will put at 40%.
• 35:39
  And why is because what we are seeing across corporations and
• 35:44
  what we're seeing across nation states is adoption of Bitcoin.
• 35:48
  We're not seeing other assets discussed.
• 35:50
  And if they are being discussed, it is not a headline.
• 35:53
  It is kind of a bullet at the bottom of a press release.
• 35:56
  So, you know, will it happen? Very unsure.
• 35:59
  But the one thing that is certain is game theory is real
• 36:02
  and other countries are adopting it.
• 36:04
  And, you know, let's hope Trump really knows how to get a deal
• 36:06
  across the line. Absolutely, absolutely, 100%
• 36:10
  hundred, 100% agree with you guys.
• 36:12
  All right, everybody, we are going to move on to the news
• 36:14
  segment. We have tons to talk about.
• 36:17
  Bobby mentioned it about Trump is having second thoughts about
• 36:21
  his crypto council. So we're going to dive into the
• 36:24
  detail details of that. And if we have time today, we'll
• 36:27
  get into the news of JP Morgan warns Tether may sell Bitcoin
• 36:32
  amid US stable coin regulation. So we have a jam packed show for
• 36:37
  you guys. We'll be right, right back.
• 36:38
  We're going to hit the new segment.
• 36:40
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• 39:21
  let's jump straight into today's news stories.
• 39:24
  Let's start off with first. Trump is having second thoughts
• 39:28
  about his crypto counsel. I mean, look, I'll be honest
• 39:32
  with you guys. Like there's some things that
• 39:34
  I've been very happy with. The freeing of Ross, he kept his
• 39:38
  promise. That was awesome.
• 39:40
  That was a huge win for our movement.
• 39:44
  The repeal of SAB 121, I think that was a big deal as well as
• 39:48
  well. The end of Operation Choke .2
• 39:51
  Point O. When I was having a discussion
• 39:53
  with Senator Lummus in DCA couple weeks ago, she is very,
• 39:59
  very committed to getting to the bottom of what happened during
• 40:02
  the Biden administration regards to Operation Choke .2 Point O.
• 40:06
  So I think we're going to see a lot of things being revealed in
• 40:09
  terms of the previous administration's.
• 40:12
  Motivation or or or goal to essentially neuter the industry
• 40:17
  in the United States. So anyways, this is one of the
• 40:20
  things I'm a little bit disappointed about, just like I
• 40:22
  was a little bit disappointed about with the executive order.
• 40:25
  But there's definitely a lot of pressure from the altcoin lobby
• 40:28
  in the United States, without a shadow of a doubt.
• 40:31
  And I think that This is why all of this is happening.
• 40:34
  So here's the headline. Trump is having second thoughts
• 40:36
  about his crypto council. The Trump administration may Nix
• 40:40
  his promised executive council in favor of informal industry
• 40:44
  summits. This new plan is is seen as a
• 40:47
  way to avoid rife tribalism and infighting within the crypto
• 40:51
  industry. The Trump administration may not
• 40:53
  launch a formal crypto crypto council after all, and said the
• 40:57
  White House will likely gather a rotating group of crypto leaders
• 41:02
  for a series of summits on specific crypto policy issues,
• 41:06
  according to three sources familiar with the decision
• 41:08
  making process. It is unclear how many summits
• 41:11
  there would be or or when they would occur.
• 41:14
  Initial meetings will likely focus on topics such as banking,
• 41:18
  payments, data centers and Bitcoin mining.
• 41:21
  Two sources confirm that trade associates associations have
• 41:26
  been providing input on the different ideas.
• 41:29
  Avoiding conflict between industry supporters.
• 41:31
  These ad hoc crypto summits are thought by the administration as
• 41:36
  a way to avoid conflict between warring factions within the
• 41:40
  crypto industry. A diverse set of policy
• 41:42
  disagreements have arisen between centralized and
• 41:46
  decentralized crypto projects, Bitcoin maximalist and altcoin
• 41:50
  executives, those in favor against integration with
• 41:53
  traditional finance, and simply individual executives vying for
• 41:57
  power. A representative for the Trump
• 41:59
  administration declined to comment.
• 42:01
  Trump promised a crypto council in December.
• 42:04
  Many industry leaders were working under the assumption
• 42:07
  that a crypto council would collaborate with the working
• 42:09
  group in dividing devising crypto policy, referencing a
• 42:15
  post Trump made on Truth Social in late December suggesting as
• 42:19
  much. In the post, Trump said that
• 42:22
  there would be a, quote, Presidential Council of
• 42:24
  Advisors, Advisors for Digital Assets, a new advisor group
• 42:27
  composed of luminaries for the crypto industry.
• 42:32
  Chef chief executives from coinbasecrypto.com and Ripple
• 42:35
  are just some of the key leaders who have met with Trump in
• 42:38
  recent months, According to new reports, Unchained was unable to
• 42:42
  confirm which executives would be called to participate in the
• 42:46
  crypto summits. If this new plan moves forward,
• 42:50
  Trump said that crypto czar David Sachs would chair this
• 42:53
  council and that Bo Heinz, a young politician from North
• 42:57
  Carolina who tried and failed to win a seat in the House of
• 43:00
  Representatives in 2024, would serve would serve as executive
• 43:04
  director. Though he has kept a low profile
• 43:07
  since the announcement, Heinz has been meeting with
• 43:09
  politicians and lobbyists on the Hill in recent weeks, according
• 43:13
  to one source Directly familiar Directly familiar.
• 43:17
  Unchained was unable to compile a list of who Heinz had met
• 43:20
  with, but was able to confirm that Heinz has been helping the
• 43:24
  Trump administration way alternatives to a crypto council
• 43:27
  by shopping around alternative ideas in some of his meetings.
• 43:32
  So I mean, this kind of confirms what we've been talking about
• 43:36
  for a while now. And I actually, I can't reveal
• 43:39
  who the source was, but I have confirmation without a shadow of
• 43:43
  a doubt. I actually had an IRL with
• 43:45
  Pierre Richard and we were talking about this.
• 43:48
  Make no mistake, the reason that there wasn't an executive order
• 43:53
  directly mentioning Bitcoin was because of Ripple.
• 43:57
  The lobbying efforts from Ripple were enormous and they didn't
• 44:02
  want that to happen. So essentially, they wanted
• 44:05
  Ripple included in this strategic Bitcoin reserve.
• 44:09
  They wanted Ripple including all this stuff.
• 44:11
  I mean, if you look at the price of Ripple, well, compared to
• 44:13
  Bitcoin, especially if you, if you don't compare Ripple and
• 44:16
  U.S. dollar terms, But if you compare Ripple and Bitcoin
• 44:19
  terms, it's just been going down.
• 44:21
  It's just been a straight line down.
• 44:24
  Like it's anyone who's holding Ripple has been absolutely
• 44:28
  wrecked. And essentially they, I think
• 44:30
  they own like 80% of the supply. They just print this money out
• 44:34
  of thin air. And like anyone who's in the
• 44:36
  money printing business is extremely wealthy because you're
• 44:40
  just creating bika like essentially money out of
• 44:43
  nothing. So what the government does and
• 44:45
  look at all the corruption that this this whole USAID, you know,
• 44:50
  expose with Elon and Doge has discovered.
• 44:53
  Like, I mean, I don't think I think what Bitcoiners
• 44:55
  fundamentally understand is that no one should have the God like
• 44:59
  power of being able to create money for free that another
• 45:02
  human being has to work for. So yeah, it's not surprising.
• 45:06
  It's further confirmation that there's a huge, you know,
• 45:10
  there's a huge fight for what's happening.
• 45:13
  And also it gives me a lot more appreciation for what happened
• 45:16
  to El Salvador. El Salvador is solely focused on
• 45:20
  Bitcoin. They have a Bitcoin reserve.
• 45:23
  It's completely transparent. It's public.
• 45:26
  Anyone could, anyone could audit it, you know, but it, it's, it
• 45:30
  seems like there's a tremendous amount of pressure from the
• 45:33
  altcoin lobby using their own money printers to influence the
• 45:39
  policy that's happening in Washington.
• 45:41
  So, yeah, it's quite interesting, not surprising.
• 45:45
  And I think there's going to be a battle.
• 45:46
  I, I think this is just going to continue to happen.
• 45:49
  There's a tremendous amount of love lobbying of money involved.
• 45:53
  I mean, imagine if Ripple is able to convince the US
• 45:57
  government to put Ripple on the strategic Bitcoin reserve, like,
• 46:01
  like it would just pump their bags of which they own the
• 46:04
  majority of the supply of. Like, you know, what a deal
• 46:07
  would that be, right? So anyways, I'm going to pass it
• 46:10
  on to Opti. Actually, you know what, I'm
• 46:11
  going to pass it on to Bobby first.
• 46:13
  Bobby, what are your thoughts on this?
• 46:14
  You actually were commenting about this in the previous
• 46:17
  segment. I mean, is this surprising at
• 46:19
  all? What are your thoughts?
• 46:22
  It's not surprising. I was talking to a gentleman
• 46:26
  earlier today who messaged me and said, Bobby, I should have
• 46:29
  bought Bitcoin at 995 and I didn't.
• 46:32
  And I need to learn and catch up all about it.
• 46:33
  And there's so many tokens, what do I do?
• 46:37
  And I had to go through talking through history and all of the
• 46:40
  things that these altcoins have done and the only reason they
• 46:43
  have legs thanks to Bitcoin solving the problems it did
• 46:46
  because digital money and cryptocurrency is just in no
• 46:50
  means new. You know, it was around like 30
• 46:53
  years before Bitcoin, something like this.
• 46:55
  So like, why all of a sudden do all these altcoins have like a
• 46:58
  reason to exist? And it's due to Bitcoin having
• 47:01
  product market fit being truly decentralized and allowing
• 47:04
  individuals to run their own node, verify the supply and send
• 47:08
  and receive their own transactions, being their own
• 47:11
  central bank. And you know, thank God for Adam
• 47:13
  back and proof of work. But I don't think the the
• 47:17
  attacks from all coins are going to stop or slow down.
• 47:20
  If anything it will pick up as Bitcoin becomes the chosen
• 47:23
  asset. And this is because there is an
• 47:25
  incentive from like a capital allocation standpoint to invest
• 47:29
  in something that may or may not overthrow Bitcoin.
• 47:31
  So therefore, will more money be thrown at crypto as it
• 47:34
  intersects with AI in the energy market?
• 47:36
  Absolutely. And I think it's just going to
• 47:39
  get a little bit harder. But luckily Bitcoins doing a
• 47:42
  pretty darn good job and I think we have some incredible boots on
• 47:45
  the ground. Just, you know, whether it be in
• 47:47
  DC here digitally on the Internet, or just looking back
• 47:50
  on the writings of, you know, the Bitsteins and the Pierre
• 47:53
  Rashard's of the world from the last decade.
• 47:56
  Absolutely. I think incredible, incredibly
• 47:58
  well put, Bobby. I'm going to pass it on to
• 47:59
  Graham. Graham, what are your thoughts?
• 48:01
  Man, a lot of some political warfare, they're all trying to,
• 48:04
  they, they want to be part of this strategic reserve.
• 48:07
  Man Ripple, Ripple wants to get in there.
• 48:09
  Graham, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, the the when I,
• 48:11
  when I saw the headline, I read that article.
• 48:13
  I mean, the first thing I thought is just welcome to the
• 48:15
  club. Like the infighting, like the
• 48:17
  people, like, like fighting left and right stating their opinions
• 48:20
  about which coin is good. It's like, welcome to the club,
• 48:23
  man. It's been happening for a long,
• 48:24
  long time. But then I also think it's like
• 48:27
  one of those things where it's it's when So one of the things
• 48:31
  that was was big take away for me when Trump spoke at the
• 48:34
  Bitcoin conference this last year.
• 48:35
  And it was kind of obvious that he didn't.
• 48:37
  I think that he understood some of the value of Bitcoin and
• 48:40
  things like that, but he really wasn't 100% bought in.
• 48:43
  And I think that this is still like kind of showing that.
• 48:46
  And the ways that I think that if, if, if Trump himself and you
• 48:51
  know, some of his like, you know, closest advisors were
• 48:53
  really like understood the values here, they would, they
• 48:56
  would have no question on what is the right thing to do and who
• 48:59
  do we need to talk to? And how do we get this kind of
• 49:01
  in, in place? The fact that they're like, man,
• 49:03
  everyone's yelling at us and we don't know what to do.
• 49:05
  We're just let's just stop this whole thing and like go in a
• 49:08
  different direction with it just kind of proves that they have
• 49:10
  no, they have no sense of direction.
• 49:13
  They have no sense of direction and they're just kind of being
• 49:15
  swayed, you know, push in these particular directions and it And
• 49:18
  so it's kind of like it's a little.
• 49:20
  I wish that they had a little bit more of their own opinions,
• 49:24
  like at the highest level of the administration, that they could
• 49:26
  have more of a say and kind of go in a in a particular way.
• 49:29
  But I think overall, this is not surprising to me at all.
• 49:33
  I think that, yeah, like the all of the, the people like ripples
• 49:37
  of the world, you know, you anyone could have seen from a
• 49:40
  mile away that they're going to try and get their hands all over
• 49:42
  this because that's exactly what you just said.
• 49:45
  If they can get into kind of a crypto strategic reserve or
• 49:49
  something, it just makes them so much, you know, money that it's
• 49:52
  ridiculous. And that's just because they own
• 49:55
  so much of their own supply. And so it's, you know, it's not
• 49:57
  surprising at all. This is one of the most
• 49:59
  frustrating parts about, you know, the industry and what we
• 50:02
  do, even though, you know, us in in the Bitcoin space, like to we
• 50:05
  like to separate ourselves as much as we can.
• 50:06
  But at the end of the day, they're like people like this
• 50:10
  administration lump us together. And so we are, you know,
• 50:13
  associated with these like ripple people as much as we
• 50:15
  don't want to be and we are completely like, you know, arm's
• 50:18
  length with them. So it's just one of those really
• 50:21
  frustrating things that is not surprising.
• 50:24
  I we've seen this been happening for years.
• 50:26
  This is just, it's just, you know, instead of Ripple, you
• 50:28
  know, trying to go and conquer some company, they're trying to
• 50:31
  conquer the government now. And so it's just, it's just
• 50:34
  same, same story, just a a new target. 100% I think a
• 50:38
  beautifully beautiful, if you put Graham and I, we also asked
• 50:42
  the chat, by the way, we, we, we, we, we have a poll right now
• 50:46
  on YouTube. The question is, will a
• 50:48
  strategic Bitcoin reserve happen in 2025?
• 50:51
  Seventy 7% of the chat believe or 77% of the people who voted
• 50:56
  180 two, 183 votes so far believe that it will happen. 23%
• 51:01
  of you guys voted that it won't happen.
• 51:04
  So I'm going to end the poll right there.
• 51:05
  I'm going to pass it on to Opti Opti.
• 51:07
  I mean, this is this political warfare, man.
• 51:10
  All these shit coiners are like, no, we want to be in the
• 51:12
  strategic Bitcoin reserve too. What's going on here bro?
• 51:16
  What's your take? Yeah.
• 51:18
  Well, actually, I might take a slightly different view than
• 51:22
  everyone around the panel right now.
• 51:23
  I kind of think that this might actually be a good thing right
• 51:26
  now because as we've been covering Ripple has been
• 51:29
  lobbying the government, you know, spending a lot of dollars
• 51:32
  to basically get their name in the conversation.
• 51:35
  And and as Bobby was saying, you know, having people like maybe
• 51:39
  bit senior Pierre Rochard go to the summit and and argue against
• 51:43
  Brad garlic house. Like I think that would be
• 51:45
  absolutely amazing to see kind of what Graham was saying,
• 51:48
  though, it would it is kind of interesting that they they don't
• 51:51
  really know what's going on. So obviously if there is people
• 51:55
  that are making this decisions and we have like Pierre go go up
• 51:58
  there and debate Brad, maybe they won't actually get the
• 52:01
  signal. But I actually think this might
• 52:04
  be better than having, you know, a crypto czar console that is
• 52:08
  basically staffed by a lot of shit coiners right now.
• 52:10
  Like, you know, as much as I think David Sacks is a bitcoiner
• 52:14
  and he also has a lot of ties with Solana and he's going to be
• 52:17
  the crypto czar here. Obviously we know that there's a
• 52:20
  lot of push through AI and so I think this might actually be
• 52:24
  beneficial for us Bitcoiners. Obviously, I think Bitcoin will
• 52:27
  win on the free market. I think Bitcoin is the superior
• 52:30
  asset. I don't think shit coins can
• 52:32
  hold a candle to Bitcoin. And obviously I don't want to
• 52:35
  see the government necessarily pick favors or, you know,
• 52:37
  winners and losers here. But I think having these these
• 52:40
  summits, who knows how many there will actually be.
• 52:43
  But if we could get a lot of the really strong Bitcoiners going
• 52:46
  to the summit arguing against shit coins, I think this might
• 52:50
  be even more beneficial than just having a council staff with
• 52:52
  people that we all know really do have ties to the shit coin
• 52:56
  space. Especially as I said, you know,
• 52:58
  David Sachs is tied up in Solana and he was going to be the one
• 53:01
  that's pushing through this regulations.
• 53:03
  I'm like, I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing.
• 53:05
  Obviously they, they are basically forced to have Bitcoin
• 53:10
  be added to a strategic Bitcoin reserve because everything rides
• 53:13
  on bitcoins coattails. But I, I'm, I'm kind of looking
• 53:16
  for, hey, I would love to see, you know, some of these debates
• 53:19
  right here and we get our our best debaters, you know, Pierre
• 53:23
  Rashard, Bitsteins, all of those guys go up there and just
• 53:26
  destroy all of the shit coin narratives.
• 53:29
  Like to me, I think this might actually be more beneficial.
• 53:32
  But as kind of Graham was saying it is, it is a little worrying
• 53:37
  that the the Trump administration, you know, really
• 53:41
  hasn't done their homework yet. They're kind of getting into it.
• 53:43
  And so maybe even if they hear the Bitcoin pitch, maybe they're
• 53:47
  still going to go down the crypto pitch here.
• 53:50
  And so like I'm, I'm kind of taking a more positive view on
• 53:53
  this. I think this is probably the
• 53:55
  best thing we could be saying. Yes, you know, people in the
• 53:57
  chat are saying, oh, we're getting rugged because there
• 53:59
  isn't a crypto console, but I think this is beneficial.
• 54:02
  I want to see the Bitcoin Maxis go up there at this summit,
• 54:06
  really give the Bitcoin pitch here and hopefully be able to
• 54:10
  kind of sway the conversation here and show that there is
• 54:13
  Bitcoin and then there's shit coins and and then they're not
• 54:16
  the same thing. And so honestly, I'm kind of
• 54:19
  taking a more positive view on this.
• 54:20
  I think this this might be a better scenario than what we
• 54:23
  had, absolutely. I think incredible points by
• 54:26
  Optimus Fields guys, we still have the culture segment of the
• 54:30
  show. Want to give a shout out to
• 54:32
  everybody watching. We're at 400 and almost 420 live
• 54:36
  viewers on YouTube alone and almost 2000 live viewers across
• 54:41
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• 54:43
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• 54:45
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• 54:50
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• 54:58
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• 55:01
  So smash that like button. Anyways, guys, we're going to
• 55:03
  hit the culture segment. We're going to talk to Bobby and
• 55:06
  Graham about what they're working over on at Voltage.
• 55:11
  Voltage is a hold on, here we go.
• 55:14
  Voltage is a global lightning payments platform.
• 55:17
  So we're going to talk about this and they're going to tell
• 55:20
  us the latest and greatest on what's happening with Lightning.
• 55:23
  Lightning, I think is an incredibly important, you know,
• 55:26
  thing being built on top of Bitcoin.
• 55:29
  Second layer is very important. If we want this mass adoption,
• 55:32
  if we want people using Bitcoin to transact, lightning is
• 55:36
  incredibly important. So they're going to have an
• 55:38
  update for us on that as well. Anyways, guys, we're going to
• 55:41
  hit the culture segment. We'll be right back.
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  your success. All right, we're back.
• 57:24
  Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to Simply Bitcoin
• 57:26
  Live. We just reached the culture
• 57:28
  segment, Opti's favorite segment of the show.
• 57:31
  We're going to talk to our boys from Voltage, Bobby and Graham
• 57:36
  Opti. It's all yours.
• 57:37
  All right, cool. All right.
• 57:38
  So before we get into some of the stuff Voltage working on, I
• 57:41
  know Graham really wants to start this with just a general
• 57:45
  overview of where the Lightning Network is.
• 57:47
  And I think that's a good place to start before we start talking
• 57:50
  about the cool stuff that you guys are working on.
• 57:53
  And I think at this point, Bobby, we might be able to do
• 57:56
  that announcement. So if if we can, you know, at
• 57:59
  least tease it. OK, we got a thumbs up.
• 58:00
  We'll tease that after this. But Graham, you take the floor.
• 58:03
  So just a general overview. What's your take on the
• 58:06
  Lightning Network? Where we are?
• 58:07
  There has been a lot of fun around lightning the last couple
• 58:10
  of months. We haven't really had some
• 58:12
  lightning people come on and and break it down for the, you know,
• 58:15
  since around Christmas time, you know, the holiday season.
• 58:18
  So floor is yours. Where are we right now with
• 58:21
  lightning? Is lightning, you know, going to
• 58:23
  help Bitcoin scale? I know Bobby touched on it a
• 58:25
  little earlier. Like what's your guys's general
• 58:27
  take on lightning at the current moment?
• 58:30
  Yeah, I mean, absolutely we're we're obviously, you know, us at
• 58:33
  voltage, we're focused on building around lightning and
• 58:35
  we're, we're continuing continually doing that.
• 58:38
  And so I think that we're, we're, we see the, the start of
• 58:41
  this year as a really big pivotal moment for the, for the
• 58:44
  growth of lightning and Bitcoin in general.
• 58:46
  As you know, there's been a lot, I see the second-half of last
• 58:48
  year. There's a lot of yeah, FUD
• 58:50
  people like unsure of like, oh, is this the solution?
• 58:52
  Is it working? Are people using it?
• 58:54
  And that's one of the the hardest things that we hear over
• 58:56
  and over and over again is like, how do you know how much
• 58:59
  lightning is being used? And that's one of the biggest
• 59:02
  challenges because it's a peer-to-peer network.
• 59:04
  It's not a public blockchain. So with all public block chains,
• 59:06
  you can see exactly how many transactions that are happening,
• 59:10
  volumes, all those different things.
• 59:11
  With lightning, it's inherently private because it's
• 59:13
  peer-to-peer. That's one of the great benefits
• 59:15
  of it is there is not a big public Ledger.
• 59:17
  You can see all those things. So it's hard to quantify.
• 59:19
  It's hard to publicly defend it is being used.
• 59:22
  It's really powerful without having actually, because there's
• 59:25
  no data to point that's publicly available.
• 59:27
  Service providers like us have, you know, some, some unique data
• 59:30
  that we can see to actually know like, oh, this is actually
• 59:33
  working or this is actually not working and we can say that it
• 59:36
  is absolutely working. We have some, we have a report
• 59:39
  that's probably coming out in a few weeks that will kind of shed
• 59:41
  some light on some of those more private metrics and trying to
• 59:44
  give some data to this whole argument around like is
• 59:47
  lightning used or not? That I think will be really
• 59:49
  exciting and really well received because it's kind of
• 59:52
  been like ominous for a while of like, oh, how much is actually
• 59:55
  happening here and how important, how useful is the
• 59:58
  light network actually? So we, we're trying to shed some
• 1:00:01
  light on that. And so, you know, we've seen
• 1:00:04
  we're, we're at a point right now where we've seen a huge
• 1:00:07
  amount of over half a billion users have access to lightning
• 1:00:10
  via like platforms like Kraken or cash app or things like that.
• 1:00:15
  So we have a huge amount of users that are.
• 1:00:18
  Have access to be able to use lightning and we see that
• 1:00:21
  continuing to grow throughout this year.
• 1:00:22
  We think that this year is going to be a very, very pivotal
• 1:00:24
  moment with a lot of some new protocol enhancements like
• 1:00:27
  tappered assets and, and stable coins and things that we can
• 1:00:30
  talk about as well as just the, the, the value that we, we
• 1:00:34
  provide to businesses is you can move Bitcoin faster and cheaper
• 1:00:38
  than you can on, on the base layer.
• 1:00:39
  And that's a huge value add to people and people are waking up
• 1:00:42
  to that and really adding it in. And so there, I'm sure Bobby
• 1:00:45
  will all pass it to Bobby to give his, his kind of take on
• 1:00:48
  this too. But overall, I mean, we're
• 1:00:49
  seeing it really succeed in a, in a really big way where we're
• 1:00:53
  seeing more, more users than ever having access, but then
• 1:00:56
  also the usage of it is skyrocketing as well.
• 1:00:59
  And we're going to shed some light on that pretty soon.
• 1:01:04
  OK, Lynn, let's got let's get Bobby's take.
• 1:01:06
  And then you did mention, you know, Taproot Bassett stable
• 1:01:09
  coins. I know that's another another
• 1:01:11
  tricky conversation for people on Twitter.
• 1:01:14
  But Bobby, let's get your overview on lightning.
• 1:01:17
  And then I know you've been talking about how Tether going
• 1:01:20
  on lightning as a stable coin might be a game changer here.
• 1:01:24
  So let's do general overview of lightning from your perspective
• 1:01:27
  and then we can transition the combo.
• 1:01:30
  Yeah, you know, Bitcoin's slow and rightfully so.
• 1:01:34
  It's been created with, you know, blocks that can only hold
• 1:01:38
  so much data. And if you're willing to bid,
• 1:01:40
  your transaction will go through fast.
• 1:01:41
  If you're not, you are subject to market forces and your
• 1:01:46
  transaction will go through for what you pay.
• 1:01:48
  Now with the Lightning Network, what's great is you can do 1
• 1:01:51
  Unchained transaction, open a channel to someone and send an
• 1:01:54
  infinite amount of payments back and forth and completely go
• 1:01:57
  around these fees and and slow speeds.
• 1:02:00
  So what does the Lightning Network bring people instant
• 1:02:03
  global low fee payments. And who's taking advantage of
• 1:02:06
  this? Well, individuals, plebs, you
• 1:02:08
  know, people at home have been running their own node taking
• 1:02:10
  advantage of this now for you know, 4-5 plus years.
• 1:02:13
  But now it is being leveraged and enterprise used by
• 1:02:17
  enterprises. There are over 650 million
• 1:02:20
  people globally who have access to the Lightning Network via an
• 1:02:24
  exchange of their own wallet. And what Lightning is really
• 1:02:28
  enabling and doing is just for no chargebacks to happen, You
• 1:02:32
  know, instant settlement, solving cash flow problems.
• 1:02:36
  You know, it's it's a multi trillion dollar problem where,
• 1:02:39
  you know, payments go unpaid or they take over 30 days and
• 1:02:43
  Lightning allows these novel payment experiences where
• 1:02:46
  payments can settle instantly, money can stream and most
• 1:02:49
  importantly, you know, money can move at the speed that we expect
• 1:02:53
  information to pass, right. So it's it's such a a fun time
• 1:02:57
  and you know, tether being on lightning, anyone who tries to
• 1:03:02
  fade the stable coins or say they're not necessary likely
• 1:03:06
  lives in America. You know, we talk with exchanges
• 1:03:08
  and neo banks and businesses across the planet with our like
• 1:03:12
  global go to market strategy. And I've entered these
• 1:03:15
  conversations with assumptions from a westerners view.
• 1:03:18
  And these people who run these companies, they kind of like
• 1:03:21
  tilt their hat and lean back in their chair and they're like,
• 1:03:23
  Bobby, you're wrong. People do not care about
• 1:03:26
  Bitcoin. They simply need stable money.
• 1:03:28
  And it puts me back and humbles me as a maxi bitcoiner.
• 1:03:31
  And I and I realized people in other parts of the world just
• 1:03:34
  want stable payments so they can live their life right.
• 1:03:37
  And it is a humbling thing to hear and learn that.
• 1:03:40
  So to hear Tethers coming to the Lightning Network is a big deal
• 1:03:44
  and I want to call out something Tether put within their press
• 1:03:47
  release themselves. This isn't me, this isn't a maxi
• 1:03:50
  saying it, This is Tether. They said Tether coming to the
• 1:03:53
  Lightning Network improves efficiency and speed and lower
• 1:03:58
  fees. So what does that improve
• 1:04:00
  against? Well, it improves against the
• 1:04:01
  chains that they are choosing to run on top of like Etherium,
• 1:04:04
  Solana and Tron. So the fact that Tether says
• 1:04:08
  this to me, what it what it whenever I read their language
• 1:04:12
  saying that as it means they're choosing to come to lightning
• 1:04:15
  and saying that all things come back to Bitcoin is Tether
• 1:04:18
  believes that the lightning network is ready and equipped
• 1:04:21
  more than any other technology to support their stable coins.
• 1:04:25
  And I think they have a a good insight into the lightning
• 1:04:28
  network because bit Fenix was one of the earliest adopters of
• 1:04:30
  the lightning network. So that's a lot.
• 1:04:33
  I'll pause there, but very bullish on Lightning.
• 1:04:36
  Very good insights and sorry to hijack this Opti, because we've
• 1:04:40
  been actually saying that for a long time now, Bobby, which is I
• 1:04:43
  think a lot of us Bitcoiners expected, you know, developing
• 1:04:48
  countries to adopt Bitcoin. That was like the expectation,
• 1:04:52
  right? But what we saw is essentially
• 1:04:55
  stable coin adoption going viral around the world.
• 1:04:58
  And Alex Gladstein wrote an amazing book.
• 1:05:02
  You know, it's called the title of the book's called Financial
• 1:05:04
  Privilege. And I think it absolutely nails
• 1:05:06
  it. Like, we have to understand that
• 1:05:08
  most people are living paycheck to paycheck.
• 1:05:12
  They're living, they don't have the privilege to save, right?
• 1:05:18
  So for them, you know, having a stable form of money is, is, is,
• 1:05:25
  is a way to survive, right? And you know, is stable coins
• 1:05:30
  are, are, are fulfilling that need.
• 1:05:32
  I think Bitcoin right now, even though hasn't been volatile in
• 1:05:35
  the last three months, but Bitcoin right now, I think
• 1:05:37
  people still perceive it as too volatile in order to serve that
• 1:05:40
  function. Now, I will caveat that with
• 1:05:43
  saying that I think Bitcoin is a Trojan horse.
• 1:05:46
  I think it, I mean, I, I believe stable coins are a Trojan horse.
• 1:05:49
  I think they're a stepping stone towards Bitcoin because it gets
• 1:05:53
  people used to the idea idea of using kind of like a non
• 1:05:56
  sovereign alternative. It gets people to used to using
• 1:06:00
  a digital wallet rather than opening a traditional bank
• 1:06:04
  account and using that traditional wallet to transact,
• 1:06:07
  right. So I think it all roads lead to
• 1:06:10
  Bitcoin eventually because the reason that a lot of us are so
• 1:06:13
  attracted to Bitcoin in the West is and if you're a Venezuelan,
• 1:06:18
  you know, like originally I'm from Venezuela.
• 1:06:20
  If you're from Venezuela, like, you know, and you're dealing
• 1:06:24
  with double digit inflation, you know, the dollar to you is like
• 1:06:29
  gold, Like the dollar is like, Oh my God, it's this perfect
• 1:06:32
  money, right? Like we're in the US and we're
• 1:06:35
  like the dollar's flat. You know, it's 5% inflation, 3%
• 1:06:39
  inflation. But if you're used to dealing
• 1:06:40
  with double digit inflation, you know, it's like, it's
• 1:06:43
  significantly better, like you could actually live on it,
• 1:06:46
  right? But then eventually what happens
• 1:06:49
  when people transition to stable coins right in mass, eventually
• 1:06:53
  they're going to wake up to the reality that Bitcoin is better
• 1:06:56
  money as well. So I think it's incredibly
• 1:06:58
  exciting news. And I was actually in El
• 1:07:01
  Salvador for that keynote for that, the Plan B forum, when
• 1:07:04
  they made that announcement that Tether was going to be coming to
• 1:07:08
  the Lightning Network or stablecoins are coming to the
• 1:07:11
  Lightning Network. So very exciting stuff, Opti.
• 1:07:16
  Yeah, let's I'm going to kind of pivot here and just keep going
• 1:07:19
  and running through some of these topics.
• 1:07:21
  Bobby, you did bring up something and I do want to kind
• 1:07:23
  of get into the voltage news here, not just a general
• 1:07:26
  lightning stuff, but you brought up your what, what is it that
• 1:07:29
  your go to market playbook for lightning?
• 1:07:31
  Could you kind of explain for the people what that means and
• 1:07:34
  then we'll maybe do your announcement and then we can do
• 1:07:36
  a general plug of voltage? Yeah, One thing just about early
• 1:07:41
  stage technology and like very niche things that are that are
• 1:07:46
  new in the technology world, it's hard to do it right the
• 1:07:49
  first time. You know, we saw that with
• 1:07:51
  search engines. We saw it with social media
• 1:07:53
  apps, grocery delivery being 20 years early.
• 1:07:55
  And now it's like widely accepted when new technologies
• 1:07:58
  deployed, it's rarely done right the first, second or third time.
• 1:08:02
  And what our team is like gone through is just, you know, 30 to
• 1:08:06
  50 hours of research, studying global exchanges, global
• 1:08:10
  wallets, Who's doing it well, Who's doing it wrong.
• 1:08:14
  And we put together, you know, guides and a go to market
• 1:08:17
  playbook of not only how to design it and implement it, but
• 1:08:21
  also we've created the voltage product so that it makes it
• 1:08:25
  simpler for businesses. Because through our kind of
• 1:08:28
  sales and marketing process over the last nine months, we've had
• 1:08:31
  a lot of people that come to us and say, we did Lightning
• 1:08:34
  before, no one used it. And you guys have heard that
• 1:08:38
  sentiment. We have heard it.
• 1:08:39
  And the thing that happens is often when people design or
• 1:08:43
  create these new experiences for consumers, it's not done maybe
• 1:08:46
  in the in the best way with the level of intention that's
• 1:08:49
  necessary. And we have built this playbook,
• 1:08:52
  we've shared it with people, they have followed it and they
• 1:08:55
  are telling us this is actually incredibly effective, like it's
• 1:08:58
  working. Or people who believe Lightning
• 1:09:01
  has failed, they review it and they're like, we should have
• 1:09:04
  known this the first time we implemented lightning.
• 1:09:07
  And it's exciting to see because now, just like any other
• 1:09:11
  technology that's in a very early stage, there's a
• 1:09:14
  methodical and intentional way to approach it to where when you
• 1:09:17
  do go to market, it's effective. So that's really exciting to
• 1:09:21
  see. And there's a design guide we
• 1:09:24
  have, which Stephen DeLorme, our head of UX, did a webinar today
• 1:09:27
  with like 60 people where we literally just open source and
• 1:09:30
  showcase how to do design. And I'll just live share the
• 1:09:34
  link right here. We've never shared this with
• 1:09:35
  anyone online, but it's design.voltage.cloud.
• 1:09:40
  So if you want to build on Bitcoin, you're a designer,
• 1:09:42
  you're in charge of UX, go look at it.
• 1:09:44
  And you can just steal the 30 hours of research we've done and
• 1:09:47
  just, you know, make incredible experiences for those who you're
• 1:09:49
  designing for. Let's go.
• 1:09:52
  Awesome. OK, here.
• 1:09:53
  Actually, maybe I'll maybe I could do a little screen share
• 1:09:56
  here as I pivot. I'm going to pivot to Graham.
• 1:09:59
  How about let's do just the general voltage plug because I'm
• 1:10:02
  sure some people aren't familiar with what voltage is working on.
• 1:10:05
  I'll pull up your guys's website and then we can talk about that.
• 1:10:08
  And then to wrap up the show, we'll do the the last tease and
• 1:10:11
  then we'll give you guys last words.
• 1:10:13
  So Graham, I'm going to pull up the website here.
• 1:10:16
  What is voltage? What are we even talking about
• 1:10:18
  here? What?
• 1:10:18
  What are you guys working on? For the people that don't know
• 1:10:21
  Voltage, actually first, before you do, that shuts out Nate.
• 1:10:24
  I love Nate. You know, B for Bitcoin or B for
• 1:10:26
  bacon. Love him.
• 1:10:28
  But yeah, what is voltage? What are you guys working on?
• 1:10:30
  What is voltage all about? Yeah, I mean, absolutely.
• 1:10:34
  So So what voltage is is we're an infrastructure provider for
• 1:10:37
  Bitcoin in the Lightning Network.
• 1:10:38
  So we help companies incorporate Lightning into their products
• 1:10:42
  and services, you know, faster and cheaper than doing it either
• 1:10:45
  via some other provider or doing it all yourself.
• 1:10:48
  So what like kind of like I mentioned at the beginning of
• 1:10:50
  the show, what we really aim to do is just make the technology
• 1:10:53
  much more accessible than this. We have a lot of customers that
• 1:10:57
  are, you know, we talked to that are like, man, Lightning sounds
• 1:11:00
  great. We have people asking for it,
• 1:11:01
  but like we don't even know where to start.
• 1:11:03
  This whole thing is just so kind of new and unique that we need a
• 1:11:06
  lot of help. And that's basically what we do
• 1:11:08
  is we help as being kind of like an outsourced lightning team for
• 1:11:11
  our customers and being able to easily guide them into adding
• 1:11:15
  and lightning both from the technology perspective.
• 1:11:17
  That's where we are are, you know, focus, we started our
• 1:11:21
  focus that is on the technology side, but we really help in all
• 1:11:24
  areas of kind of the go to market, the design, like all
• 1:11:26
  those things to make lightning really, really successful.
• 1:11:28
  Because like ultimately what we're competing against is in
• 1:11:31
  kind of the Bitcoin space is those people like ripple and all
• 1:11:34
  these things that are like a quote, you know, chain, but it's
• 1:11:36
  like it's just a company at the end of the day that's owning all
• 1:11:38
  these things that have huge amounts of budget and money to
• 1:11:41
  throw it. People using them.
• 1:11:43
  Well, Lightning and Bitcoin don't have that.
• 1:11:45
  It's obviously very decentralized.
• 1:11:46
  There's no one that owns the lightning network or the Bitcoin
• 1:11:49
  network. So we are trying to be kind of
• 1:11:51
  the shepherds to bring this into companies and helping them
• 1:11:54
  actually use it and making it successful.
• 1:11:56
  And that's The thing is like Bobby said, there's some, you
• 1:11:59
  know, been some iterations previously where people like,
• 1:12:00
  man, I did it, but I just don't know what I'm doing.
• 1:12:03
  It wasn't successful. We're trying to take it, you
• 1:12:05
  know, for the full the from, you know, start to finish, really
• 1:12:08
  helping companies incorporate Bitcoin and lightning because we
• 1:12:12
  see it as this is what needs to happen for the mass adoption,
• 1:12:15
  for people to be able to use it in a very real way and, and
• 1:12:18
  making this all very approachable.
• 1:12:20
  I mean, at the end of the day, that's what we want is just to
• 1:12:22
  be able to have people come and be like, wow, that wasn't that
• 1:12:25
  hard. And this is incredibly
• 1:12:26
  successful for my business. So that's what we aim to do and
• 1:12:29
  and that's what we're building. Love it.
• 1:12:31
  Absolutely love it. Yeah.
• 1:12:33
  And I, like I said, Charlotte Denade, I love him.
• 1:12:35
  He's a good guy, a toxic bit corner to say the least.
• 1:12:39
  OK, all right, so Bobby kind of dropped it in the chat.
• 1:12:41
  I do have your your tweet up here.
• 1:12:44
  Let's talk about the juicy news announcement that you guys were
• 1:12:47
  just literally just announced basically halfway through this
• 1:12:50
  show. Yeah.
• 1:12:54
  So, yeah, I mean Graham mentioned our report that's
• 1:12:57
  coming out. You know, it's it's literally in
• 1:12:59
  six days. So that's going to be great next
• 1:13:01
  week. But the news from today unbank
• 1:13:04
  one of the longest standing a Bitcoin ATM companies in
• 1:13:08
  America. They got over 40,000 ATMs
• 1:13:10
  nationwide across like Walgreens, CVS.
• 1:13:14
  They've chosen us to deploy Lightning into their solutions.
• 1:13:17
  So you know, right now when you go to buy, you can imagine on
• 1:13:20
  chain, we were touching on that earlier, you know, 10 minute or
• 1:13:23
  longer transformation times, folks are going to be able to
• 1:13:26
  withdraw or sell Bitcoin and, and deposit instantly with
• 1:13:30
  lightning. So this is huge.
• 1:13:32
  You know, like what's great about umm bank is they really
• 1:13:35
  just require your name, e-mail and a phone number.
• 1:13:38
  So as long as you've got a phone, as long as you got an
• 1:13:40
  e-mail, which nearly everybody has access to, you can actually
• 1:13:45
  get access to Bitcoin. So like their name unbanked,
• 1:13:47
  they're literally helping the unbanked.
• 1:13:49
  And it's probably one of the the coolest companies I can imagine
• 1:13:52
  who could be using the Lightning Network.
• 1:13:53
  But it's, it's super exciting because you know, I know Bitcoin
• 1:13:56
  well, I was researching them. They got ATMs all over Canada.
• 1:13:59
  Now we got ATMs all over America leveraging the Lightning
• 1:14:02
  Network. It's just a very exciting time
• 1:14:04
  having it accessible for, you know, citizens across the
• 1:14:06
  country. So this is live right now.
• 1:14:10
  People go to a Walgreens or CVS and they have a unbanked ATM
• 1:14:14
  there. They can use lightning on it.
• 1:14:17
  It's live as we speak. It's not live yet.
• 1:14:20
  They're just sharing that they've chosen us, They're
• 1:14:22
  working on actively getting it live and they're they're
• 1:14:24
  prioritizing it and I know getting through it pretty fast.
• 1:14:27
  So you can stand by for their announcement when they
• 1:14:29
  officially have it live. But yeah.
• 1:14:31
  Very cool, man, very cool spread spreading it, you know,
• 1:14:34
  spreading lighting usage, extremely exciting.
• 1:14:37
  It's really, really awesome. And go check out our boys from
• 1:14:41
  Voltage go to voltage.cloud. Give these guys a follow on X
• 1:14:46
  and to stay up with the latest and greatest news.
• 1:14:51
  Before we wrap up the show, I do want to give a very special
• 1:14:55
  shout out to our sponsor Bit Block Boom is going to be one of
• 1:14:59
  the best Bitcoin conferences of the year in Dallas, TX April 3rd
• 1:15:04
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  And if you use promo code BBB 21, you get $100 off of your
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  tickets. All right everybody, that was
• 1:15:49
  simply Bitcoin live for February 13th, 2025.
• 1:15:53
  I'm your host Nico Morand is my legendary Co host Optimus
• 1:15:57
  Fields. And of course our special guest
• 1:16:00
  for today, Bobby and Voltage. Sorry, Bobby and Graham.
• 1:16:05
  Bobby and Graham from Voltage go check out voltage.cloud today.
• 1:16:10
  All right everybody, love you all.
• 1:16:12
  We'll see you guys tomorrow for brand new episode of Simply
• 1:16:15
  Bitcoin Live. Today's episode was brought to
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  you by bitcoinwell.com, a Bitcoin only platform on a
• 1:16:22
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