Yo, the largest central bank in the world.
Just expose that no matter how badly they destroy your money,
they can never be fired. Many libertarians and Bitcoiners
believe we need to end the Fed. But today we're going to discuss
an interesting thought experiment from Tom Luongo, who
says that maybe the Fed is fighting for US against the
globalists at Davos. Before we get into all that,
let's play this video that has basically broken the Internet.
Here we go. Politico.
Some of the president's elect's advisors have suggested that you
should resign. If he asked you to leave, would
you go? No.
Can you follow up on it? Is it, do you think that legally
he did? You're not required to leave.
No. I guess the other other question
is to follow up on Victoria's question.
Do you believe that the President has the power to fire
or demote you? And has the Fed determined the
legality of a president demoting at will any of the other
governors with leadership positions not permitted under
the law? Not what not permitted under the
law. My first take on this, this was
me kind of trolling on Twitter, is it shows that so many people
haven't read The Creature from Jekyll Island.
And if you did, you know the very simple heuristic that the
Federal Reserve is not federal and has no reserves.
It's a private corporation whose business it is to create money,
literally the money creation leviathan that Bitcoin is here
to stop. Anyways, let's get the first
Bitcoin take. Let's get the standard Bitcoin
take here. Of course, I got a tweet from
Bellagi where he's kind of, you know, recapping all the things
seen in the last couple of months since the election and
the media, you know, Trump win. Next is end the Fed.
And this is a Bitcoin trope that we've been talking about for a
long time. If you've been in Bitcoin for a
couple of years, maybe if you're new to Bitcoin, you might know
who Ron Paul is. Of course, he is the libertarian
candidate. He's a libertarian politician
who's been on the beat. He's been saying this for like
50 years that we need to end the Fed.
And here we go. This is a little recap of the
Creature from Jekyll Island. If you haven't read that book,
highly recommend when you read it, it is a big book, but it
does kind of open your eyes on what exactly is the financial
status of the world and how the Fed was created.
Anyways, here we got a little recap from Bellagio. the Fed was
it was created by Congress in 1913.
Again, if you read the creature from Jekyll Island, you'll
remember and you'll understand that the Fed was created
literally in the cover of nine and forced through Congress in
1913. So hey, again, it's not federal
and it has no reserves. Anyways, Bellagio continues.
And so since it was created by Congress, it can be shut down by
Congress and Republicans now have the power to do this.
They have ex executive, legislative and the judicial
branch. They have the support in tech,
finance and media. They have a population sick of
inflation. And above all, they are bit
corners and they have bitcoins. So you know, they're they're on
the path to what we've been talking about for a while of
ending the Fed and Ron Paul has endorsed Donald Trump in this
election cycle. Now, there's a a couple of
different takes you can take. You know, some, I saw Lynn Alden
post this morning basically saying like there's no chance
that the Trump administration will end the Fed.
We're not there. But it is very interesting that
we are having these conversations and that, you
know, Jerome Powell, the head, the president of the Federal
Reserve, is essentially saying what we tell you guys all the
time, that this is a private corporation.
The president doesn't have the power to fire Jerome Powell.
Anyways, moving forward, which is I think a little more of a
nuanced take is by Tom Luongo. And if you're not familiar with
Tom Luongo, he holds a a great podcast.
He's kind of AI mean. You might say he's a little
contrarian, but I think he's got a good grasp on what's going on
in the global landscape. Of course, his podcast is Gold
Goats and wait, it's Gold goats, man.
I'm blanking on the title of his his podcast, but highly
recommend you look into Tom Luongo.
Anyways, he recapped it this morning and this is his take on
it. I'm not going to read the whole
tweet here, but this is kind of an interesting take.
I've heard a couple other Bitcoiners talk about this.
You know, there's a meme going around on Twitter that, you
know, Daddy Jerome Powell is actually doing a good thing.
So, and this is kind of Tom Luongo thinking.
So recapping a little bit of this tweet.
Here we go, Tom Luongo on Twitter.
A lot of people are waking up this morning to force feed
narratives. Chairman Powell saying he
wouldn't step down if asked to by Trump.
Now going into this a little bit, he's saying that this was
kind of a setup and powers. Powell's response wasn't a flex.
It was a statement to Davos that the Fed doesn't work for them
anymore. It's independence under Powell
won the US election. The commercial banks that Trump
is going to activate to rebuild America took a punch in the
mouth as the Fed raised rates hard to drain the world.
The howls you hear this morning are all in Europe, not China,
not Russia, not Iran, the UK, they're in the UK and the EU.
And he goes on to say we'll end the Fed, but after we've broken
the Bank of International Settlements, the IMF, the ECB
and most importantly the Bank of England.
And Tom Malonga has been on this beat for a while.
That essentially all the interest rate dance we've seen
in the past year is not so much about, you know, us necessarily
just trying to control our economy.
It's really aimed at trying to bankrupt the Davos globalist
crowd and and the creation of dollars outside of the US
system. So as much as I am a just a
classic, you know, G Edward Griffin creature from Jekyll
Island Bitcoiner, I find it very interesting.
Tom Luongo is kind of saying like, look, Jay Powell was
actually doing some good stuff for the US.
Is he a friend or is he an enemy?
I think only time will tell. But what we're seeing, and this
is the Tom Luongo train of thought, is that now we've
separated ourselves from the globalists at Davos and we know
what the World Economic Forum at Davos thinks about Bitcoin, what
they think about the global landscape.
They want you to own nothing and be happy.
And now it seems teams like the US potentially is trying to find
its own independence, separate ourselves from all of the crazy
nonsense going on across the pond.
And I just find it very interesting, You know, the
standard trope of Bitcoiners is and the Fed.
But this is a very interesting thought process or thought
experiment from Tom Luongo that hey, maybe Fed is actually
fighting to separate us from the Davos globalist crowd.
Do we know? I don't know.
But if you want more info on this, check out Tom Luongo's
work. And I think I'm going to pass it
over to Curtis. Oh, wait, before I go on, of
course, I have our fearless leader in the Co host seat again
today, Nico, And we have Curtis Harris from Compass today.
So we got a jam packed show for you guys.
But Curtis, first of all, what's your thoughts on Jerome Powell
saying, you know, he'll never be fired?
And then maybe go on, on, on. What's your thinking behind the
End the Fed meme? Oh my goodness, Opti, your, your
enthusiasm is contagious. This is so exciting to be here
as a part of your guys's show today and even the comments that
the simply Bitcoin community is blowing up in the comments.
This is a a a lot of fun. My, my, my initial, you know,
reaction is just discussed. It's our federal government is
disgusting. They they they've overreached.
They, they're not responsive to us.
Obviously the, the reality that the Fed is neither federal nor
do they have reserve is real. But just to see him up there
shaking his head, no, I wouldn't be responsive to the elected,
you know, to the elected president.
I do love that the first response you went to was
biology. I got a picture of biology
behind me. He's been very influential in my
my thinking about how I look at America and national and
international politics. I think I'll try to make one
good point and then give it back to you or, or over, over to
Nico. I listen to Michael Saylor.
I believe you talking. He was speaking to Robert
Breedlove. This is probably 6-8 months ago.
So it was a good in depth podcast conversation with
Michael Saylor. And basically you could hear
sailors saying in context is that we we understand Bitcoin is
looking to replace the dollar in a variety of ways.
But we're never going to have a financial system that doesn't
have all of these tools and functions that it's not going to
be all Bitcoin, it's going to be Bitcoin and all these other
things are going to be dramatically influenced by it.
They're never going to completely go away.
So as much as I'm a pleb, I'm a coiner like in the Fed could
literally be tattooed on me. I'm not sure that it's ever
going to go away. And so maybe some of this is
just positioning. The last thing I'd say is I I
wouldn't want to position against Trump, though, if you're
going to, if Powell's going to get up there and say, oh, you
can't fire me, that's back in Trump into a corner.
And it'd be interesting to see what happens.
Those are my brief thoughts. Curtis, I agree with you, Curtis
So and then it's quite interesting.
So I actually tweeted this out yesterday.
Completely coincidental. This is the most viral tweet
I've ever had. 2 million views, less than 24 hours, 46,000
likes. And I just asked a very simple
question and it seems like it resonated with some people.
Wait, so if the chairman of the Federal Reserve can't be fired
and isn't elected, who is he accountable to?
I mean, it's a it's a pretty like important question.
Now, there was a lot of people that chimed in.
Apparently Congress does have the authority to, you know, fire
Jerome Powell. But the kind of pomp in that
answer, right? You know, it's like, no, I, you
know, I, what are you talking about?
No, you know, was, was very, I, I don't think he realized how
much he said in what he didn't say.
It was, it was, it was quite revealing.
And I agree with Curtis. I don't think right now in terms
of the Overton window, you know, it would be socially acceptable
or popular for most of the American, you know, electorate
to, you know, go along with ending the Federal Reserve.
However, I think with Trump getting elected into office, the
Overton window has shifted dramatically in the last year in
terms of Bitcoin policy. Talking about a a potential
strategic reserve. Trump is talking about ending
the federal income tax. Trump is talking about ending
capital gains taxes on, on, on Bitcoin.
I mean, talk about moving the Overton window.
And here's the thing. The federal income tax was
introduced the same year that the Federal Reserve was
established in 1930. 13 So I think once you start going down
the rabbit hole of the federal income tax, it leads to the Fed,
right? So, you know, Elon is talking
about, you know, potentially rolling out this what he calls
doge, the Department of of government efficiency.
And here's the thing, you know, even if you get in in, you get
in Elon in there and you clean up, you know, the overspending
and the inefficiencies, the problem remains the same.
As long as the government has the ability to print money, all
it takes is another administration to come in there
and turn on that money printer again.
And we're back at square one, right?
So I think the Overton window is shifting.
I agree with Curtis. We are not there yet, but it is
definitely moving in that direction.
And I would not be surprised if this whole end the Fed talk
starts to become kind of mainstream within the in the
next decade or so. I mean, you know, Elon was
discussing the idea of of having Ron Paul join him on the
Department of of government efficiency.
And we all know how Ron Paul feels about the Federal Reserve.
So I definitely believe that the Overton window is shifting.
Anyways, I do want to to give a shout out to we just broke 1000
live viewers between YouTube and X.
So if you guys are enjoying the show so far, make sure to smash
that like button you're listening to simply Bitcoin live
Opti's in the host seat today. I'm Co hosting and of course our
special guest today is Curtis from compass mining.
Anyways, before we start the show, I do want to give a
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Let's go. OK guys we are over here of
course on Clark Moody's dashboard, one of the best
dashboards out there. The current Bitcoin price is
currently at $76,300. The SAT per dollar, AKA how much
the dollar is worth in Bitcoin, AKA how much Bitcoin you can buy
in a single dollar is currently 1311 SAT and the current block
hype is 869,458. And the market cap in Fiat
terms, in dollar terms is $1.51 trillion for Bitcoin.
And the Bitcoin versus gold market cap, look, it's it's
still inching up a little bit guys, is that 8.09%?
We're almost at 10% of gold's market cap.
So much room to run in the hard money game.
And of course, the total percentage of Bitcoin that will
ever be issued is currently at 94.18%, which means 19.7 million
Bitcoin are currently circulating right now.
You might want to get some just in case it catches on, boys and
girls. All right, this next video guys
is this is a topic that Nico and I talk about here on the show
constantly that the fundamental question you need to ask
yourself, I think before you fall like besides just seeing
the Bitcoin price go up. When you really fall down the
rabbit hole is when you ask yourself a fundamental question
of wait, what is money? What is this that I work and I
slave over for? Like, what am I getting paid in
what, what are the actual mechanisms going on with the
money that I use, the currency that I use?
And once you ask yourself that question of what is money?
You, you, you're never coming back to the Fiat system.
You're a bitcoiner. Once you have that epiphany
moment, you are a bitcoiner. Well, we got a clip here, which
is very interesting. This is the former CEO of Sue
the Bees, which is, of course, you know, a big company about
art and Valium. And this guy just just fell down
the rabbit hole. I think it was like a year or
two ago, but he asked himself the fundamental question of what
is money? And now he's coming out as like,
This is why I'm a bitcoiner. So couple things here, Of
course, ask yourself, what is money?
And you're never going to go back to Fiat dollars.
And two, it is never too late to start and become a bitcoiner.
So let's play this clip here. Let's see his thinking here, and
let's see how quickly you can become a bitcoiner if you ask
yourself the question of what is money?
Oops. I can sell you a $20 million
painting, but I can't tell you why a piece of code is money.
That's an interesting paradox. So that was the journey.
And so I dove deep and began to question what, why, what is
money exactly? I thought it was currency.
I was wrong. And then what, what creates
value? Why do things have value?
What, what is it about us that ascribes value to things?
And and then I and I literally went down a rabbit hole and it's
actually not too far off what Michael Saylor or some of these
people talk about, about, you know, do 100 to 1000 hours on
it. And you really dive into
podcasts and dive into the books and ask yourself, go on an
intellectual journey about what does all this stuff mean and why
is it important? And then they're startling
insights that I have now at age 59 that I didn't have at age 57
that came from this journey. You want an example?
I didn't realize that if the average year the money printer
goes, call it eight to 10%, even in the Western countries, even
in the OECD nations, and the average return on the S&P 500 is
call it 9:00-ish percent including dividends, maybe 9.7,
maybe a little less. That it means that all of the
work of the S&P 500, all of the value created there is actually
the money printer. That to me was startling.
I mean, to think about that, the fundamental notion that in a
closed system, or even an open system, when you're printing
money at the rate of eight to 10% a year, everything is losing
value. And the things that appear to be
gaining value are not gaining value.
They're just keeping you even. So you can put all your money in
the S&P 500 and you're not gaining any relative wealth at
all. Absolutely incredible guys.
This guy is literally was the former CEO of the auction house
for all the richest people. We talk about this constantly.
You know, if you can't save in dollars, then you start looking
for alternative means to store your value.
And one of those is of course art.
And we're seeing that there's what billions of dollars of of
capital going into art to store their value.
And here we are as Bitcoiners where we're just like, hey, man,
like just start buying and saving in Bitcoin.
This is the way. But it is very interesting that
he was even asking himself like, wait, what is value?
I literally sell you art to maintain your purchasing power
as a store of value. And even these incredibly smart
people don't understand money as well as a lot of Bitcoiners do.
And we talk about this constantly that once you change
your operating system to a Bitcoin standard and you look at
the world through a Bitcoin lens, you start to understand,
wait, where is the undervalued assets out there in the world?
Where is the best money in the world?
And of course, we're Bitcoiners. We think it's simply Bitcoin.
But it is also very interesting that he did mention Michael
Saylor himself. Yes, Michael Saylor got a little
bit of Flack last week or two, but Michael Saylor, I think has
been pivotal, pivotal in exposing the world, the
corporations and the high value asset people to why Bitcoin is
important. And now we're seeing that it's
starting to catch on and people are asking themselves a
fundamental question. Wait, what is money?
You know, he was 57 years old, spent his whole life working for
dollars, spent his whole life in a Fiat standard of Fiat
programming. And now he's like, wait, I asked
myself the question of what is money?
And I ended up a Bitcoiner. But it is also interesting that
we talk about this constantly. You know, you probably have
friends out there that are in real estate and they're like,
man, you know, your, your parents may be like, what I'm
good. You know, my house went up and
whatever, you know, it went up 100% in the last couple of
years. And we always say the same
thing. It's like, no, it didn't really
go up in value per, it's just that the denominator, the
measurement of it is going down, hence why it looks like your
assets are increasing. And once you can understand that
simple, simple formula, you start to look for alternatives.
And we always do our best to try to hit this from a different
angle and show that, look, it's a very simple switch.
You just got to switch your money, your denominator to
Bitcoin. Again, everything divided by 21
million, your life is going to be simpler.
Your life is going to get better, Your purchasing power is
going to increase because there's only one real money in
the world as far as I'm concerned.
And of course, that is Bitcoin. Anyways, Nico, I'm going to pass
it on to you because you say this every single day, OK?
Basically on the show that the first step is asking yourself
what is money? And the second step is you start
to ask yourself, wait, what is the role of government here?
What is the role? So let's jump on the 1st
question of are you surprised that we're seeing incredibly
rich people? You know, wealthy people start
to ask themselves what is money? And it's really interesting that
they can acquire so much wealth and yet still not understand the
very basic mechanism of how money works and what is
currency, etcetera. Yeah, absolutely.
And look, so this is a continuation of the trends, like
we've been seeing this for, you know, a couple years now in
Bitcoin, right? Even Michael Saylor was kind of
hesitant in the beginning. You know, the there's been so
many examples of just people, very influential people,
including Trump, right? Trump was basically saying that,
you know, that this Bitcoin thing, he wasn't a fan of it.
And then all of a sudden, you know, he's at the Bitcoin
conference, You know, at the very end of the speech, it was
so funny what he said. He's like, have fun with your
bitcoins. So, you know, number go up
technology is very powerful. And the thing with number go up
technology is that it proves that money can exist without
inflation. And if money can exist without
inflation, it calls into question Fiat money itself.
And if Fiat money itself is called into question, then you
kind of start to ask yourself like, wait a second, like if
Bitcoin is better money, then why have they been telling us
that inflation is some like, like it's like part of Mother
Nature. It's like it's almost as if it's
just, it's just, it's just there And it it kind of it kind of
wakes you up in a way and it starts to make you ask questions
in terms of wait a second. So I pay income tax.
That's the social contract. I never agreed to the money tax.
And make no mistake, inflation is tax.
I mean, Elon said this the other day, you know, on, on, on one of
the campaign speeches that he was doing to get Trump elected.
He he was making the case like, look, inflation is a form of
taxation because that is how they're paying for things. the
US government last year in, in, in 2023, they spent 1.7
trillion. That's trillion with AT that's
more than the GDP of most countries on planet Earth.
Then they collected in tax revenue.
How did how were they able to spend more than they collected?
They printed the difference. What people have failed to see
yet, even though that Overton window is shifting and shifting
very fast, is that the, it's not free.
It's not free like the, the, the all this funding all this, you
know that you hear the government saying, oh, you know,
we spent $10 billion on that. That is directly coming out of
your pocket if you're holding dollars.
The thing about Bitcoin, though, if you're holding Bitcoin, it
actually highlights the fact that not only can money survive
without inflation, but it also highlights the fact that the
world should actually be getting progressively cheaper as time
goes by, as you see increases in productivity due to technology.
I mean, this is the case that Jeff Booth makes in the book The
Price of Tomorrow. Bitcoin is the only money, the
only unit of account that is properly reflecting that with
Fiat. I mean, Sailor puts it
beautifully. He says if you're saving and
earning in Fiat, it's like you're literally holding a
melting ice cube in your hand. And this is precisely why
Michael Saylor, when he adopted a Bitcoin strategy, is
outperforming the rest of the S&P 500.
Microsoft release a press release the other day where they
were asking their investors, should we invest in Bitcoin
because we're a software company, We make more revenue
than MicroStrategy, but MicroStrategy is outperforming
our stock by 313 percent. What's going on there?
Well, it's just clear Michael Saylor has adopted a Bitcoin
strategy. I know what that's done for me
on an individual level. I know what it's done for Opti.
I know what it's done for simply my company.
It's a cheat code in a world where most people are still
living on a Fiat standard. So to kind of weave it back in,
I think you're going to see a continuation of this trend where
people are going to wake up and say, wait a second, you know
what, what is money? What is this thing?
This isn't exactly what we were sold on.
We never agreed to this money tax.
What is going on? And I think number go up.
Technology is just going to continue to, you know, wake
people up to the reality. And again, the inevitable
question where I'm personally at in my rabbit hole journey and
then I want to pass it on to Curtis is like, what is the role
of government, right? What is the role of government?
I think it's a very, very important question.
Should government be in the business of getting to narrate
what is truth? What is not truth?
Should government get into the business of, you know, deciding
to, you know, think about it in terms of EU s s foreign policy
for the last 50 years, it's been endless wars.
And then how are they able to pay for those wars?
Printing money. They can't pay for those wars
via direct taxation. So again, it it it kind of calls
into question, you know, like things are things are radically
going to change in my opinion, and I think it's going to be for
the better. And I think individuals are
going to really, really benefit from this.
I think Bitcoin is middle class money in my opinion, because
Fiat money disproportionately affects the lower middle classes
the most because they don't have the means to save in assets.
So Bitcoin I think is for the middle class.
And I think more and more people are going to wake up to that
reality as number go up does its thing.
Curtis, I mean, are you surprised to, you know, hear
these words for from from another, you know, influential,
powerful person, successful person.
It's not surprising to me. It's a surprising to you.
Are you seeing things on your end?
Are you seeing this trend? Well, the I mentioned in my
first comments how excited I was to be here in Opti's contagious
enthusiasm. You know, another thing that's
contagious in this conversation is your guys is just core
Bitcoin fundamentals. It this is an incredibly
comfortable conversation to to be in.
You know, Nico, I think you mentioned it.
They were going to see more of this.
This is what global adoption looks like.
I I don't fault him. I'm not mad at him, but I can
see in that video and know from his, you know, esteemed position
that he stands closer to the money printer than I do.
People with, you know, high net worth.
They look to art in order to, you know, secure their wealth
and to move it forward And did you know other generations and
also to play strategies and to combat against the government.
So there's there's no doubt in my mind that that man has a
different perspective of our money system than I do.
But obviously I got it asking the real fundamental question,
what is money? And to see him go through that,
I think that is what global adoption looks like.
Nico, you, you mentioned Michael Saylor and the, the you know,
his melting ice cube theory. That's really one of the reasons
that I was here. My my background was
construction, civil engineering, zoning, land use, regulatory
approval. I used to be a suit and tie guy
in front of city commissions. I was really at the top of my
career. I loved what I did, but we got a
bunch of kids. I was being crushed by
inflation, personally crushed by inflation, 1 income family.
I couldn't pay for braces and I just couldn't figure it out.
All this money, I can't afford braces.
I started asking myself that very basic question, what is
money? I think I was being influenced
by a variety of the podcasts around me and it was Michael
Saylor's passion explanation of the melting ice cube theory that
really brought me in. And so now, if we if we
understand, you know, U.S. government printed currency is
not what money is. It's a a fallacy that we've
been, you know, led to believe it works.
We're lucky we're in America. We have, you know, my, my
paycheck gets direct deposited, my credit card works.
The global economy isn't the same.
But if we get to the point where we we know that the money's
broken. And now we get into the bigger
question is what is government? Wow, that that is a a profound
question. I do I, I do see and we just saw
the election. We saw, you know, Elon and you
know, and Trump and you know, fire Gensler.
We, we saw a left, right divide over Bitcoin that I, I wish
wasn't there. I wish that there wasn't that,
you know, liberal conservative divide over Bitcoin.
It it I do see some of that. And it also feels like hardcore
Bitcoiners are, are very interested in reduced government
and shrinking government, less government interference, less
money printing. And so I think I own smaller
government as a part of my core ethos.
But I, I do think that that could just be a part of a, a
Bitcoin culture. What what is your guys's
experience been you interact with this audience daily?
I I I think bitcoiners are by their nature small government
fundamentalist. Yeah, I mean, so I think the
like, I think the, the, you know, and I, you said something
very, very important, Curtis, and I want to echo that, right,
which is Bitcoin is a technology, It's a neutral
technology. It's for everyone.
It's it should not be partisan. I think it was we were forced as
a community to take a more partisan stance because of the
attack on the industry from the current administration operation
choke .2 point O the proposed 30% Bitcoin mining tax.
You know, the the attack on on on self custody, the arrest of
Bitcoin privacy developers. So you know it it kind of forced
us into a corner to have to fight back.
And I do want to give credit or credit is due to all the
organizations, whether is Bitcoin Policy Institute, Coin
Center, Coinbase actually did a pretty good job in terms of
lobbying in Washington to really kind of, you know, fight back
against this overreach. So I don't think it's necessary.
I don't think it's that Bitcoiners are necessarily
inherently against big government.
I think Bitcoiners are Bitcoiners are very vocal
against government overreach in regards to their ability to take
self custody of their Bitcoin and use Bitcoin as, as, as a, as
a form of savings. I, I don't see that.
I, I, I haven't seen Bitcoiners even, you know, this is a
conversation I've had with Opti. I, I haven't seen Bitcoiners
even care about politics. In fact, we got a lot of
pushback when we started talking about politics is because we
were forced to from the audience because they're like, I, I'm
tuning into this to hear about Bitcoin.
I'm not tuning, tuning in to to hear about politics.
Now in that regard, there are some libertarian ethos and
ideals into Bitcoin because I think the, the very idea of
sound money. I think the very idea of kind of
Austrian economics, I think the very idea of of of, you know,
the taking away the government's ability to kind of debase the
currency and kind of have this top down centrally planned type
of economy. I think you can definitely make
the case that that is more kind of libertarian, that is more
like Austrian economics versus Kenzian economics.
And I think that there are some similarities there.
But I think fundamentally, Curtis, what it comes down to is
just most Bitcoiners want to be left alone.
Like that's really what it comes down to.
It's like, look, I want to have my family, you know, I want to
be sovereign, I want my money to be sovereign.
I want to have the, the most important thing I think here and
the reason as to why Bitcoin was created in the 1st place.
And, and you feel this the most if you're in the younger
generation, specifically millennials and Gen.
Z ers that we are poor, our generations are poorer than our
parents, right? So Bitcoin was born out of the
2008 financial crisis. You know, it says in the genesis
block Chancellor on the brink of the second bailout for Bank for
Banks. Satoshi inherently knew that
they were just going to continue printing money.
And he created a system so that the average everyday individuals
can protect themselves from monetary debasement.
And in the process of that, essentially now for the first
time, if you're in the lower middle class and you're earning
and saving in Bitcoin, you have the ability to save for the
future. That that's beautiful, right?
And I think that's really what it comes down to rather than the
traditional, what I call Fiat politics of the left and right
of, you know, these both opposing political parties
really fighting over who gets to control the money printer.
That's my opinion. Well, you're, you're calling out
a Bitcoin as, as middle class money.
That really resonated with me. And like, you know, that where,
where I live in the communities outside of Bitcoin that I'm
involved in, it is, it is a lifeline.
It's the ability to move the, the value created through my
labor into the future. I just want to be able to
protect and provide for my family into the future.
And when my government prints money at 8 to 10% a year that
they're they're stealing directly from me.
Absolutely, 100% and, and, and in a way, Curtis, I would even
make the argument that it's a silent protest, you know,
because you're not, you know, this isn't, this isn't a, you
know, you're not going out there and with picket signs and you
know, you going out there, you're basically saying, you
know what, I, I, I don't wish to participate in this system.
I'm going to opt out and I'm going to opt out into Bitcoin.
I think that's really what it what it boils down to, so.
Anyways, Opti, yeah, I mean, look, I I'm probably the
extremist here on the show, but yeah, I believe in small
government. I think that the reason that the
government is as bloated as it is, the reason we're seeing so
many problems from the federal government is because they are
backed by the money printer. And, you know, I think we should
go back, what's the mean, like go back to tradition and try to
have as small a government as possible without the tool or the
weapon, if you might say that, of the money printer to get away
with a lot of the stuff that the population doesn't agree with.
And so, yeah, I'm a small government maxi here.
I think the federal government's been bloated, way too big.
And it's all fueled by the money printer.
And I think Bitcoin is that valve.
And, you know, maybe not in our lifetimes, but hopefully in our
lifetime, we will see the federal governments are all
governments of the world start to shrink once the money printer
power starts to dwindle. And I, I, you know, we're in the
beginning of this, but I am hopeful that it's going to
happen. But yeah, I'm, I'm the extremist
here. I'm, I'm the one like, yo, I, I
don't think I'm a full anarcho capitalist because I think that
also does come with some, some trade-offs.
But yeah, I would like to minimize governmental power.
Obviously. I, I'm definitely an
individualist in that concern. All right, Nico, let's get into
the news. We do have a lot to talk about.
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right guys 11 quick update just because I think it would be
remiss if I didn't if I didn't talk about this on today's show,
but yesterday remember yesterday I talked about the ETFs in the
news as well. They had incredible amount of
inflows. Well, today actually rather at
at the end of the day, it it became very clear that Bitcoin
is by far the best ETF launch ever.
And so BlackRock Bitcoin ETF has now surpassed its gold ETF in
assets in just ten months. I think that's more signal of
what we've been talking about that institutional capital like
the meme institutions are here, they are here and they want
Bitcoin. They are going, you know, head
first into Bitcoin. So you can see the numbers here.
The BlackRock ETF just passed, what is this 33 billion and the
gold ETF, their gold ETF is at 32.9 billion.
So those numbers are only going to increase.
I just wanted to touch on that real quick.
And another news story that I'm updating you on is we did a
video, I think it was Wednesday about ever since Trump got
elected, that the global hash word, the global race to adopt
Bitcoin is starting to take hold.
And now everyone has to take Bitcoin seriously.
Now I'm not going to play this video for you guys because, you
know, I don't speak Chinese. I I don't think our audience
speaks Chinese, but there is a clip apparently going around
from the China Central TV talking about the Trump
announcement of the Bitcoin strategic reserve stockpile.
And so you can see that the trend is waking up.
And here we have a grok, you know, summarization of this and
shout out to Nolan for doing a clip of this.
And his tweet just goes just think about it.
Trump's strategic Bitcoin reserve trended in China and
caused it to trend globally. There's no way you're bullish
enough. And we literally said this
Wednesday, what's the meme, Nico?
Get your Bitcoin news. Get tomorrow's Bitcoin news
today. And once you understand how the
game theory plays out, it it things become a little easier to
predict. Anyways, here's the growth
summarization of this headline. Trump's crypto strategy sparks
international interest Following Donald Trump's recent
presidential election victory, report from Chinese media
outlets, including China's central TV, have highlighted his
campaign promises to position the United States as the global
leader in cryptocurrency. These reports mentioned Trump
Trump's intention to make the US the world's crypto capital and
to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve aiming to significantly
influence the global crypto dynamics.
The validity and implementation timeline of these promises still
remain speculative, but it's happening and the conversation
is happening. I literally said on Wednesday
that since Trump got elected and this Bitcoin strategic stockpile
is, is seemingly becoming a reality that every other nation
in the world, all of China, you know, all of Russia, they all
have to take Bitcoin very seriously.
Now, we all know 2021 got stomped because of the China
Bitcoin banner. At least that's kind of our
theory here on the show. But we've also seen that in
recent times, China's kind of, you know, tiptoeing back in,
there's a Hong Kong Bitcoin ETFs.
And then further, we've seen that Russia now has legalized
Bitcoin mining. You know, they're talking about,
hey, you can use Bitcoin in our country.
So you can see that the global Bitcoin race is taking off.
And so, hey, look, the US has what about a month or so to
implement this Bitcoin strategic reserve stockpile.
Of course, there's a lot of conversations of the actual
technicalities of how this is going to play out, whether Trump
is actually going to fulfill on his promises.
You know, Cynthia Lummus came out yesterday and reaffirmed
that they are trying to do a Bitcoin strategic stockpile.
So there's still there's still a lot of uncertainty are
surrounding the US and whether they're going to adopt Bitcoin,
whether it's even a good thing. But you can see that the
conversation is happening now. And China for all the what, how
many, how many obituaries has China had like 180 something
times they banned Bitcoin. Now since the US is at least
talking about it, it's becoming almost a real thing.
Every country in the world now has to take this idea, a Bitcoin
strategic reserve, a Bitcoin strategic stockpile very
seriously. And we know the numbers here.
the US holds around 210,000, China holds around 190,000
Bitcoin. So it really is, you know,
winner takes all here. Yes, El Salvador made Bitcoin
legal tender. Yes, they have a Bitcoin
strategic stockpile, but let's not forget GDP is like what, 32
billion? That's not even in like the top
100 of corporate big corporations in the US.
So once we see one of these big one of the big GDP's one of the
larger nations in the world really take Bitcoin adoption
seriously there, there might be too big of a head start to turn
the ship. And it's becoming very
interesting that you're seeing this play out.
It's not just as bitcoiners speculating, they're talking
about it. You see this hitting China's
television network. So the Trump announcement, the
Trump election is starting to make waves.
The Trump effect is in full effect.
You know, Trump pump happening soon.
We're we're looking like it's just it feels so good winning.
What was the mean Manico? You're going to get tired of
winning so hard. I'm, I'm not, it's for Trump,
but I'm just getting tired of winning so hard as a Bitcoiner.
We're able to predict the future.
The price is pumping. We're in price discovery mode.
Man, it feels so good being a bitcoiner.
Like if you're new to the show, you need to start stacking
Bitcoin very seriously and aggressively.
If you've been around for a while, you're like, yeah, I know
I knew this was going to happen. But, you know, here's some more
validation here. We're winning so hard.
Anyways, let's pass it to Curtis because I see you laughing.
Having a good time over there. What's your thoughts on the
fact? I mean, let's let's do the Trump
Bitcoin strategic reserve announcement and that it's
making global interest like it's it's trending globally right
now. So man, are we going to see this
happen in the US or will another country kind of leapfrog and
announcer own Bitcoin strategic reserve strategy?
You, you see, you see me laughing out of just giddy
enthusiasm for being being around you Opti like I do not
have enough Bitcoin. That's what my that's what my
overall issue is. You know, I think it is game
theory. It's it's exactly as you, as
you've laid it out. If other countries believe that
the United States is going to pivot its, you know, financial
system and develop a Bitcoin strategic reserve, they have to
do the same thing and, you know, as fast as we do or at the same
time. So you would certainly expect,
you know, you know, Nico mentioned it earlier.
Is NGU right number go up. I I, I, I think that, you know,
I saw in the comments that a dollar cost average and stay
solvent. And we we all need to just
continue to get more Bitcoin because there's going to be a
point when it'll be out priced and we won't be able to to to
afford more of it. Totally, 100%.
We say that every single time and and it may becomes truer
even when the price starts to pump because everyone gets crazy
and they're like, I'm remortgaging my house.
I'm selling everything to stack more stats.
And it's like, hey, love it. I love the enthusiasm, but stay
humble, stack stats, stay solvent, make sure you pay your
bills, You know, make sure you don't over leverage yourself
because I've seen a lot of friends get hurt doing that.
Just stack SAT and stay humble. This is the way.
Anyways, Nico, what's your thoughts on actually you can
touch both the ETF. Actually, let's not talk about
the ETF. I think we're bored of the ETF
at this point. I just wanted to update people
on that. But that we've been talking
about this throughout the year and especially since Trump came
out, just how the game theory has shifted ever since Trump has
announced his pro Bitcoin stance.
You know, we've seen it on the left and right aisle and now
we're seeing it on the nation state level like it's heating
up, man, 2025 is going to be explosive.
Maybe it maybe the bull run's going to last longer than 2025.
I don't know. Super cycle.
Are we hearing super cycle? I don't know Nico, what's your
thoughts? Yeah, I mean it, it's it's it's
surreal. But first, I do want to give a
shout out to the 1500 of you guys watching live between
YouTube Rumble Annex. So make sure to smash that like
button really, really helps with the algos.
I mean, let's see, let's see if it happens.
I give it a, there's a Polli market.
Did you know that OFTI, there's a Polli market.
Odds on it right now it's at 27%.
So, and the reason for that is so Trump has a, for anyone who
doesn't follow American politics.
So Trump has a slight majority in the Senate.
Looks like it's going to be like 53 Senate seats and he has a
slight majority in the House. So you need a 218 seats to have
a majority in the House. He's going to have about, it's
estimated he's going to have about 222 in the House.
All you need for regulation to get passed is a majority in the
Senate. However, there's something
called the filibuster. And what tends to happen is if
the opposing political party doesn't agree with a certain
law, they can filibuster it. And you actually need 60 votes
to overcome the filibuster. The Republicans only have 53.
So it, you know, that's all kind of intended to protect the
minority when the majority is in power.
So it's, it's Trump is not going to be able to pass legislation
without some type of collaboration with the
Democrats. Now, the good news is that the
Democratic Party as a whole is not monolithic.
And there are Democratic senators that are a pro Bitcoin.
And there is actually a, a, a piece written by Trey Walsh.
Trey Walsh is the host of the progressive Bitcoiner podcast.
And he made the case that, you know, the the Democrats need to
accept Bitcoin and adopt Bitcoin in order for the party to
survive. And what what I would say is,
you know, you had Ro Khanna with Ro Khanna as a congressman from
California from the Democratic Party.
And he spoke at the Bitcoin conference.
So again, Trump's not going to be able to just shove in
legislation because he has a majority.
He's going to have to reach across the aisle and try to
negotiate. That being said, I still think
that he can do a lot from the executive branch through
executive orders. But those, those are temporary,
right? And those could also be
challenged legally as well, even though he does have a mandate
now that because he won the popular vote.
So, you know, I'm really interested to see what he's
going to do. I think that he has two years
specifically to really get as much legislation done as
possible because from a historical perspective, the
incumbent party tends to lose control of the House during the
midterms. So the midterms are about two
years from now. So I'm very, very bullish on a
Trump presidency. I think it's going to be very
positive in terms of getting the executive branch and the
judicial branch of government off our backs, which is great.
It's going to give us breathing room for the next 4 years, which
is very, very bullish. But in terms of legislation,
which is what is going to what is going to be needed in order
for a Bitcoin strategic reserve, I agree with the Poly market ads
27% because he's going to have to reach across the aisle.
He's going to have to convince 7 Democratic senators to sign off
on that bill, right? So Curtis.
I see. You know, I'm not incredibly
bullish on the United States government doing anything, even
with Donald Trump and the Republicans having control of
both houses. However, I'll put beside the the
Bitcoin strategic reserve. And Trump is not alone.
Senator Lummus, is it it? She gets this inherently in her
heart and she is championing it as a massive and real cause.
And she has bipartisan support with, you know, Senator
Gillibrand. I, I think that if, if you have
the support of the president and of the House, I, I think that
the Senate is completely capable of coming along.
So I'm, I'm optimistic. I haven't seen the polymark
itself. So, yeah, and, and I agree
there, there is support, but you know what's what's what's really
there. There's something beautiful
about this, Curtis, is that we're going to find out which
senators are opposed to the Bitcoin movement.
That's what's going to be exposed.
But yes, you can pass a law technically with the majority in
the Senate, but they can filibuster it.
And if they do filibuster it, he's going to need 60 votes in
order in order for that legislation to end up on Trump's
desk for him to sign it. Hey, you, you mentioned 1500
viewers that that's amazing. I just want to compliment your
your incredibly nuanced and detailed understanding of
American politics and the way you related.
This is just a pleasure to be on your guys's show today,
gentlemen. Well, I appreciate it, Curtis.
Thank you so much for joining us.
And we just broke 1600 live viewers, so the live viewers are
ticking up. Guys.
If you guys are enjoying the show so far, make sure to smash
that like button stick around because we're going to talk
about all things compass mining. We have Curtis here today and
we're going to ask him all these questions about compass, about
hosting, all this good stuff. So stick around everybody.
Let's hit the culture. Here we go.
All right, everybody, I do want to give a shout out to our
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the application. You'll only find fellow
bitcoiners. All right, everybody, let's
start out let's start off this conversation with Curtis.
Curtis is with Compass mining. Compass mining is one of our
partners. Like I said, we're very, very
picky on who we who we decide to partner with at simply Bitcoin.
And the mission of Compass mining is to get everyone now
everyone can mine Bitcoin. That's what Compass is all
about. It's kind of like a turnkey
solution. If you're interested in mining
Bitcoin, a lot of people understand specifically now, not
so much in the, in the in the early days.
Mining is very energy intensive and what tends to happen is if
you, you know, residential energy costs.
Oh, sorry, I just, if you bring that up again, energy, energy is
mining is very energy intensive. What happen is if you mine at
home, you're not going to get industrial rates for
electricity. You're going to get residential
rates. Those are significantly more
expensive, especially if you live in certain states.
I live in Florida. It's about 12 to $0.14.
For it to be economical for you to mine, it needs to be lower
than that. And that's where compass mining
comes in, right? So they give you these lower
rates in electricity and it's also turnkey.
So you buy the miners within a couple, within a couple days,
bada Bing, bada boom, the miner is up and running and you're
receiving those sweet, sweet, sweet Satoshi's.
So if you're interested in mining, but you're looking at
it, you know, the compass mining is a great way to to get
started. So is that a good pitch, Curtis?
Oh my goodness, we, we, we got to add those sweet, sweet, sweet
Satoshi's to our, to our marketing material because that
just that just drips that you, you did, you did great, Nico.
It was it, it was actually a lot.
You know, you mentioned us being partners.
It was actually a lot of fun to be in the show when our ad was
read earlier. We're, we're just incredibly
happy to be here and to be a part of your, your community and
your audience. We, we did pioneer and invent
that Bitcoin mining hosting model that you just described
because it is hard. The as as Bitcoin mining the
industry, you know grew, the machines became so much more
louder and hot and used a lot of electricity that it really just
became unreasonable for most people to operate a Bitcoin
mining machine in their house. So what we what we were able to
do is we invented a business model where we aggregated you
and I owning one or two or three or five machines.
And we were able to, you know, put us all together as a large
group and deploy into these massive facilities where we do
get the low cost energy, which helps us to be able to stack
those sweet, sweet, sweet Satoshi's.
Absolutely, absolutely. And I, I, I kind of want to talk
about this like turnkey aspect of it, right?
Listen, IIA, lot of people don't know this about me.
I actually got into the industry via mining.
I transitioned to media in 2020 but actually got into the
industry in mining back in 2620, 2016, 2017.
And you know that there is a room in my house that I
literally, you know, I had a sliding door and I put a dry
panel wall in there and I made holes in that dry panel wall.
And I would, you know, buy these 3D printed vents that you would
screw into the back of the S nine.
So the hot air would, you know, get out.
And I had a whole closet. I think I had like 14S nines in
there. And you can hear this mining
thing from anywhere around the house.
But what tended to happen very quickly is I started getting the
power bills and it was great because it was 2017, you know,
we went from 1K to TO20K and it was phenomenal.
I thought it was a genius. I would buy an S 9 three months
later. This never happens with
hardware, hardware to values. The price would go higher and
I'd be like, wow, I'm a genius. And then 2018 came around and
man, oh man, did I unplug those very, very quickly.
Now, you know, in hindsight, I wish I stuck it out because that
would have been great, but I didn't.
But the point I'm trying to make is when I set up a mine at home,
I quickly realized, first of all, it's not scalable.
There's only so many amps that you can get to your house.
Second of all, it starts to look suspicious when you have these
very thick power cables outside of your house going to a
specific room. And second of all, you want that
cheap electricity because that's the name of the game.
That's where it fundamentally comes down to.
And The thing is specifically now it's very expensive to build
out an entire site, right? So you don't really have a
choice like you mine at home, but you're you have very
expensive electricity cost or you build out a site, you know
to do it. Well, it's going to at least 100
thousand $250,000 all the electrical infrastructure.
This is where Compass mining comes in because essentially it
lowers the barrier of entry, right?
You want to start mining Bitcoin, You don't have to spend
$250,000 to buy a site. You know, you don't have to get
wrecked mining at home, paying those residential costs.
And I live in Florida, right? California and New York, you're
toast. Forget about it's like $0.24 per
kWh. Forget about it.
It's it's not going to happen, right?
So this is where Compass comes in.
You want to mine, you want to mine Bitcoin.
You you turn to these guys to turn key solution and Bada Bing
bada boom purchased the miner and it's it's hashing within how
how many hours Curtis is it 2448?
48 That's right. Awesome awesome.
I know that you guys also because this is another another
thing that I ran into as well personally, which is part of
Bitcoin mining is not only, you know, setting up the machines
plugging them in part of Bitcoin mining as well is selling the
machines, right? And here's the thing that's not
easy eBay. Holy cow, I had nightmares.
You guys have an incredible marketplace where it makes it
incredibly easy to sell the machines whenever the client
wants to and the client doesn't have to get their their hands
dirty. They don't have to do anything.
It's just they go to the marketplace, you know, they sell
their machine, they could, you know, they could buy the
machine. Could you take, could you talk a
little bit about the Compass Mining Marketplace and Opti?
If you can, could you pull that up so everyone can?
Just I, I, I will talk about it. I, I hope we actually get a
chance to talk more about several things.
I'm excited to hear about your your mining with S nines back in
2016. I, I'm I'm mine.
I'm mine at home. I repurpose the heat.
I pay for more, more expensive electricity.
Us bitcoiners are ruthless. We'll do crazy things, but you
know, Sailor says to buy Bitcoin, to mine Bitcoin and to
invest in Bitcoin mining companies in that order.
So, you know, I always start with, if you're investing in
Bitcoin, you should be buying it, right?
But then once you've already adopted Bitcoin as an ethos and
you're looking, how do you get more, You're going to quickly
discover that mining Bitcoin is often one of the cheapest ways
to acquire Bitcoin. You can create Bitcoin at a
lower cost and you traditionally are able to buy it at spot.
And then there's this, the unique thing that probably this
audience gets is that when you mine Bitcoin, you're acquiring
non KYC SAT. So when you're mining directly
to your wallet, you didn't acquire that Bitcoin through an
exchange. You didn't have to give any of
your information to Jerome Powell or or whoever the the the
next president is. And I think that's really
attractive. You're, you're asking about our
marketplace, which we, we invented that a couple years
ago. It's actually just been a
phenomenal tool for our customers for onboarding and
offboarding from different generations of machines.
The idea that you can have a Bitcoin miner and ASIC that's
sitting there, it's running, it's been running in one of our
facilities for a couple years. All the Bitcoin directly to your
wallet. You've been paying a monthly
electricity bill, but now there's a new generation of
machine. It's more efficient.
You want to upgrade your fleet. So what do you do with that old
machine? Do you have U.S. box it up and
send it to you And now you're going to sell it on eBay just
the way you you mentioned? No, you're actually able able to
resell that machine running in its existing place to a new
customer. So now you're typically selling
it for less. You mentioned sometimes machines
do go up in value. We saw that on our marketplace
two years ago. But right now what you see is
that you can, you can go on our marketplace and buy a, a Bitcoin
mining ASIC for a few $100 and dip your toe into that
experience of starting to have those Satoshi's come directly
into your wallet. I think that's a phenomenal
benefit of the marketplace on top of what you led with is that
when it it lets you also have a way to exit.
It's just very phenomenal system it it lets you mine Bitcoin and
then when you're ready to upgrade to a more efficient
fleet, you just sell it right there. 100% And another thing
that I've all also experienced right another pain point Curtis
is you know these these miners, they get shipped from from you
know they get shipped from Shenzhen, they come in, you
know, you open them bit main all that stuff.
There is a point where they only made you buy them in Bitcoin
Cash and they have a very particular smell when you plug
them in initially the the fan Revs up.
You don't know where that hash is going, Jihan.
And yeah, some things happen, right?
But some of these machines there, they've gotten
dramatically better as time has progressed.
But some of these machines tend to break and it tends to be a
little bit of a pain. It's gotten dramatically better.
But initially what you'd have to do if one of the boards break is
you'd have to send that puppy back, right?
And you would get that puppy back six months later and in six
months, six months in mining worlds and profitability is.
So Curtis, I know that you guys do in house maintenance and in
house fixing of these minors. Can you talk a little bit about
that? Yeah, it's just your vertical
integration. What we figured out the same
things that that you, you experience is that if, if we
wanted to deliver the best experience for our customers,
their machines needed to be running all the time.
And like a, a hair dryer or toaster, sometimes even brand
new equipment, it'll come in and it's, and it's bad or it's
broken and you want to be able to have a good relationship with
the manufacturer so you can just immediately warranty that and
replace it. But then these machines sit
there and run at a very high amount of electricity and just
on constantly and they do sometimes have problems.
And so the ability to repair or replace that so that you're back
online and hashing and mining faster is phenomenal.
The most common element to fail on a Bitcoin miner is the fan.
And one of the things that we figured out is that our, our
business model is we do free fan replacements.
The, the, the challenge that we're going to e-mail you and we
need 12 or $20 to replace a fan or that we're going to send it
back to China to get a fan. And we're going to take six
months. And now we've, you know, e-mail
communications for approval. We figured out that if there's a
fan that's failed, we simply just replace it.
You're back, you're online, you're mining.
And now if there's boards, we've also we've, we've gotten really
good at technical mining repairs, in fact, that I want to
use this as a chance to segue into something that I'm excited
about. I'm not sure if any of your
audience is Denver based, but next Thursday, November 14th, we
are launching a brand new monthly Bitcoin mining meet up
focused entirely on technical mining operations.
So if you're a Bitcoin miner who's plugged in 1000 machines
and you need a community to be a part of, we're starting a
monthly meet up in Denver for you.
And in Denver is where we have our service center, where we
have a massive repair facility. It's our large warehouse house
where we clean and repair and prep all the machines when they
move from different, different facilities.
So if you have a machine that needs a detailed repair, it's
getting sent to our Denver service center and being
repaired by our employees. That's amazing.
Love it well also I want to jump in here So what we're.
Trying to say is that it's not sent back over the Pacific
Ocean. That's right.
I, I don't want to dock someone, but I'm pretty sure I know who's
going to be there. We don't have to say any names
there, but I, I think a good friend of ours will be at that
meet up there. So love to hear it.
That's awesome. Absolutely, Absolutely.
Anyway, so I do also want to talk about I want to take
advantage of this opportunity, Curtis that you're here.
So you guys have a a bunch of facilities.
So the ones that I'm looking at your at your website right now,
you have Ohio too, you have Texas.
So the way that I'm seeing it and please step in here from I
misspeaking, but you know, the the customer gets to choose
which facility they would they would like to mine in.
Is that correct? Yeah, that's right.
So having, you know, geographical just distribution
so that you're not, you know, locked all into one region.
So, you know, a storm comes through Florida and now there's
not electricity in your mind's down or there's a heat wave in
Texas and, and now they had your curtail and you're not mining.
So if you have the chance to have your fleet spread out
across the country or even across the the the world or, you
know, different jurisdictions, it provides you a certain amount
of of stability. We've done a couple things we've
we've pioneered a couple of score where we're showing you
how well that facility historically performs.
When you're looking at a facility, I'm going to have my
Bitcoin miner there. You're you're really thinking
about is it going to run? I think that's the biggest thing
is they're going is that machine going to be plugged in running
and Bitcoin coming into my wallet.
So you look at a high amount of uptime and a high amount of
utilization. Uptime is where it's always on
and utilization is, is there is, is there no excuses?
Is it plugged in? Is it running?
Is that slot being filled as my minor running?
And so, so we're very transparent with all of that
information on our website. It lets our customers just make
informed choices 100% about making you know transparent
information available to our customers.
That's great to hear, man. I, I love the, the, the, the,
the freedom of choice, right? And the you, you and the compass
score is very, very cool. I love how you guys are rating
the the different facilities. Well, and we do that with
machines also when, you know, every time a manufacturer comes
out with a machine, they're always touting how efficient it
is. But like, sometimes you don't
know how good a machine is until you've seen them through a few
cycles and repairs. And translating all of that into
a score so that our customers can just easily be able to say,
hey, this one's a 97, this one's a 91.
I'm going to pay a little bit better for a more efficient,
higher performing machine. Yeah, absolutely not that that's
really that's, that's really cool that you guys, you know,
put, put, put your put a lot of focus in that.
Now, Curtis, I do want to ask you about something that you
said earlier on. And I think that's something
that people perhaps don't understand about in terms of
what the benefits of mining is, which is this idea that you can
get, which sounds so crazy is because if someone told you it's
like, listen, Bitcoin's at $76,000 right now. 7770. $7000
right now now, but there's a way for you to get it cheaper than
that spot price. You would look at me and you'd
be like what are you talking about?
Well guys, the whole mining industry operates because of
that. Do you think Bitcoin miners
would plug in those miners if they were getting the same spot
price? No, that that's the whole point
of Bitcoin mining like that's you're getting cheaper sats
that's the whole point, right. So you could you talk a little
bit about that, Curtis, because I don't, I think a lot of people
are aware about that, right, that mining is a way for you not
only to acquire cheaper Sats, but also acquire KYC Sats like
you were talking about earlier? Yeah.
You know that, that that KYC I think is one of the huge
elements that, you know, hardcore bitcoiners understand
entirely. But the that that first concept
that when you're mining Bitcoin, you're generally producing it at
a cost that's well below spot is 100% right there.
You know, you mentioned the Bitcoin mining industry, There's
trillions of dollars of capital deployed into Bitcoin mining
through sites and infrastructure and Transformers, and then all
the millions of dollars of machines.
And the reason you're able to put that much capital is that
there is a return there. And that is the difference at
the cost you can mine Bitcoin versus the cost of of spot
Bitcoin. To speak plainly, because I'm a
bitcoiner, I'm a pleb to speak to other plebs, you shouldn't
have an expectation that you can come into the market one day and
now you've made money on Bitcoin when you're mining, mining is
just like, you know, buying Bitcoin.
You need to be constantly in the market.
There's going to be periods where the majority of your
returns were all made in a seven month period.
But if you're if your machines weren't up and running and fans
fixed and boards repaired and they're just sitting there
chiming during that, you're going to miss the majority of
that value where you had an opportunity to create Bitcoin at
a, you know, economically advantage price.
So what you've got to do is just constantly be in the market
mining Bitcoin and, and historically, you know, you'll,
you'll see, I think Marathon, a publicly traded mining company,
if you see the price of Bitcoin today is at 77,000.
I know this was last week, so it would have been in the 60s, but
they publicly announced that their cost to mine Bitcoin is,
you know, roughly $33,000. So, you know, half off.
Yeah, it's, it's, I think that's where that's where people really
like, they don't, you know, they don't they, it's it like it's
obvious, but it's not obvious to, you know what it is, Curtis.
It's that there's an entire infrastructure behind Bitcoin
that if you are just a user, it like I, I, I have a, have a,
have a deeper appreciation of Bitcoin because I got into
Bitcoin through Bitcoin mining. So I see the infrastructure that
is behind the Bitcoin network and if you're just a user, you
you don't see that right. But you know, people for if
people you know, perhaps don't understand Bitcoin is Bitcoin
miners is the the largest decentralized computing network
in the world. So much computing power.
People don't truly understand, you know, the scope of this and
and people are asking like what secures your money?
That that wall, that firewall of energy that is constantly
hashing 24/7, right. So, oh man, this is you getting
me excited talking about mining. I, I, it's.
I want to go back. Good.
You guys. Yeah, I've, I've said it like
two or three Times Now. You guys have me excited.
I'm glad there's a little bit of Mia Copa here.
You. Yeah, this is a a fun
conversation. So Curtis, we are getting to the
the top of the hour. We're on the verge of breaking
1700 live viewers. Do you have any final thoughts
for everyone watching about Compass, about what you're
excited about in 2025, about any upcoming releases that you guys
are working on? Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll be brief.
I I'm incredibly thankful to be here.
I'm also thankful that you've allowed compass to come and
stand in front of your audience and to be one of your sponsors.
I know that you are highly selective.
We're incredibly happy to be bringing our, you know, Bitcoin
mining, you know, product and opportunity here.
If, if you haven't checked us out, check us out, go to our
marketplace. I think you'd be blown away to
see how easily you can be mining Bitcoin.
The fact that you're mining the Bitcoin directly into your own
wallet. There's no other custodian,
there's no third party and that there's a variety of price
points. I, I hope that you'll, I hope
that you'll check us out. If you're mining Bitcoin, we
are, we are highly competitive. We're good at it.
It's tough to do in your house. If you'll evaluate us, we, we
will win your business. As far as upcoming or exciting
announcements, I mentioned the meet up.
We're looking forward to that. We're going to be at a couple
upcoming conferences. We'll, we'll be in in, in Texas
for the North American Blockchain Summit that's hosted
by the Texas Blockchain Council. And then we'll be at Bitcoin
Magazine's MENA conference in Abu Dhabi.
I'm personally excited about that and look for some exciting
news next week. We've acquired our own site
where we physically purchased the infrastructure instead of
being partnered or hosted. So more to come, more vertical
integration from Compass Mining. Thank you, Nico.
Thank you, Opti. This has been a real pleasure.
Well, thank you so much for joining us on the show, guys.
This was simply Bitcoin. Wait, wait, Nico, before you go,
I think you're gonna have to get the chicken handy every single
day. Now.
Start asking for it. Let me give context to Curtis
though. So this is Satoshi the Bitcoin
chicken. When I started simply Bitcoin in
2020, you know the bull market was 2021.
Satoshi the Bitcoin chicken would cluck every time the price
of Bitcoin reached an all time high.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we just broke 77 K so.
We're going to have to literally cluck the chicken every minute.
We're going to have to cluck Satoshi the Bitcoin chicken
anyways guys, this was simply Bitcoin Live for November 8th,
2024. Your host for today is the
legendary Optimus Fields. I'm your Co host Nico and of
course our special guest Curtis from Compass Mining.
Go check out Compass mining dot IO today again Compass mining
dot IO guys, if you guys enjoy the show, smash the like button,
consider subscribing. Enjoy the weekend.
We will be live from El Salvador on Monday.
So go outside, touch some grass, enjoy the family.
Love you all see you guys on Monday.
Peace out, everybody. Brought to you by
bitcoinwell.com, a Bitcoin only platform on a mission to enable
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