Yo, MicroStrategy is about to be included in the $26 trillion
NASDAQ 100 in just two days. This means that trillions of
dollars will be now will now be buying MicroStrategy by proxy
whenever they want to buy a piece of the QQQ.
This is because of something called passive investing.
Does this inclusion into the NASDAQ 100 and any potential
shorts in on MicroStrategy and blow up billions of dollars of
MicroStrategy a stock price? I don't know we'll see, but
we're going to get into what the NASDAQ 100 is what is about to
happen in the next two days. And I also think anything that's
good for MSTRI think is good for Bitcoin.
I think it goes kind of goes both ways because of the amount
of Bitcoin that MSTR holds. Joining me today have doctor
Bitcoin in the house and of course, my legendary Co host,
always optimistic optimist fields.
So let's get it just jump straight into the news.
So first, what is the NASDAQ 100?
The NASDAQ 100 is a stock market index made-up of equity
securities issued by 100 of the largest non financial companies
listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange.
It goes on to say here's the breaking news.
MicroStrategy expected to be added to the NASDAQ 100.
According to Bloomberg, the official announcement is likely
coming this Friday. Now what are some of the
reasons? What are some of the potential
benefits of being on the NASDAQ 100?
Number one, prestige and credibility.
Inclusion signals that a company that the company is among the
largest and most successful non financial companies listed on
the NASDAQ Stock Exchange #2 increase visibility.
Companies in the NASDAQ 100 gain attention from investors,
analysts, and media, enhancing their public profile #3 attracts
investments. Many index funds and ETFs track
the NASDAQ 101 hundred, resulting in automatic
investment from these funds, which can boost the company's
stock price and liquidity #4 Validation of growth.
Inclusion reflects strong financial performance, market
capitalization, and growth potential #5 investor
confidence. Being part of the NASDAQ 100 can
reinsure investors of the company's stability and
prominence in its industry. Number six, the NASDAQ 100 is
widely followed internationally, offering companies exposure to
global investors. I think the part that I really
want to focus on specifically is the automatic investment from
funds, right? So a lot of people that perhaps
aren't familiar with Bitcoin aren't comfortable getting
exposure to Bitcoin. They see this and they're like,
wait a second, you know, they're just buying the NASDAQ 100, the
QQQQ, and they're getting exposure to Bitcoin whether they
realize it or not. And then this kind of goes down
the something that we've talked about for many months now, this
idea of the game theory, the idea of incentives, right?
All of a sudden, if MicroStrategy is included in the
NASDAQ 100, all of a sudden Bitcoin starts to become a part
of of people's everyday portfolios, whether they like it
or not. So their incentives are going to
be aligned with number go up. They're going to be more against
any type of anti Bitcoin regulation because that
potentially could affect their bags.
This is what we're talking about when we talk about aligned
incentives and when we talk about the game theory.
And once you understand the game theory of Bitcoin and the
aligned incentives of Bitcoin, you inevitably come to the
realization that Bitcoin is going to win.
So anyways, an article by our boy Nick Hoffman from Bitcoin
magazine today, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balkunas and James
Seifart announced that MicroStrategy is expected to
enter into the NASDAQ 100 later this month on December 23rd.
Quote. MicroStrategy will likely enter
the NASDAQ 100 index on December 23rd, and we expect net buying
of at least 2.1 billion in shares by ETFs to flow equal to
about 20% of daily volume. Quote.
Joining the S&P 500 will be tougher because of a lack of
profit, though an accounting rule change surrounding Bitcoin
valuations could make MicroStrategy eligible in 2025.
Net buying of 2.1 billion would be an added boost to MSTR, which
has already outperformed most major stocks and also Bitcoin
this year, up 450% year to date at the time of writing.
MicroStrategy, powered by its relentless Bitcoin acquisition
strategy, has seen its stocks skyrocket to new all time high
this year for the first time since March 1022.
March 10th, 2000 MicroStrategy has already acquired 170,000
bitcoins since announcing its plan to raise 42 billion to
purchase more BTC in late October.
Balcuna stated that the official announcement of MSTR getting
added to QQQ is expected to come this Friday, December 13th.
Quote, again, this is our best estimate of what will go down.
But Kunis concluded, we don't work at NASDAQ, FYI.
So we're hearing different information.
Some people are saying that it's coming this Friday.
Some people are saying that it's coming December 23rd.
But regardless, I think this is a massive, massive, massive win
for MicroStrategy. And just to kind of give you
guys something that we covered earlier on this year, central
banks of Norway and Switzerland disclose massive MicroStrategy
holdings. So they all have indirect
exposure to Bitcoin. A lot of companies and actually
Saylor explained this when he went on legacy financial media.
The reason that a lot of companies and individuals and
institutions are buying MicroStrategy instead of spot
Bitcoin or the ETFs is because they legally cannot do so, but
they still want exposure to Bitcoin.
And the way that they do it is by buying MicroStrategy.
Now the fact that MicroStrategy is going to be added into the
NASDAQ 100, which is going to be massive because I, like I said
in the beginning of the show, it's going to allow this kind of
like passive investing by people that they just want, they just
want something safe and steady. They're not betting on
individual companies. They want something, sure.
They want something stable. And by MicroStrategy being added
into that index of those top 100 companies, a lot of people are
going to be getting indirect exposure to Bitcoin whether they
like it or not. So Bitcoin is continuing to kind
of creep in into the global financial system.
And when and if micro strategy is added into the S&P 500, that
trend is just going to continue. It's actually going to
accelerate, right? So this is the legitimization of
Bitcoin as an asset. This is the legitimization of
Bitcoin as a strategy for companies as an alternative to
cash. And I think the stocks
performance this year is an indication of how successful
that strategy has been. So anyways, I'm going to pass it
on to Doctor Bitcoin. Doctor Bitcoin has been in the
scene for quite a while, but if you guys have been on Bitcoin
Twitter, he goes by the name. I have to get his X account
right or else I'm going to Butch.
He goes by the name of Doctor Bitcoin MD on X.
If you guys are part of the Bitcoin X community, you know
who this man is and he's in a suit.
I was just as surprised. I had to check his verification.
I had to ask for his ID and Social Security number.
So I did KYC him. I checked his identity.
He is who he says he is, Doctor Bitcoin MD.
Welcome to the show my friend. Thanks for having me, it was a
very thorough search. I'm very impressed with your
KYCAML abilities man. Yeah, I wouldn't have let you
come on the show without a thorough KYC.
You know, that's just totally part of Bitcoin culture and what
we're all about here at Simply Bitcoin.
That's a bad dad joke, by the way.
But anyways. Users don't know this but Nico
tested me by forcing me to post 5 different shit posts about
different topics and testing to see if it really fit the
criteria for doctor Bitcoin MD posts a. 100% So man, what's
your take on this? You know you're wearing a suit,
so I'm assuming you're going to give us a really good
perspective on a MicroStrategy added being added to the NASDAQ
100. Apparently this is a huge deal.
I had my father-in-law texting me about it telling me that I
was like, Oh my God, this is this is huge.
So what's your perspective on this?
The things that stand out to me while I was doing research about
this this morning was this idea of people getting by just
passively investing. They're getting indirect
exposure to Bitcoin, right? And I, and I really believe
that's a one way street, right? Like once you open that door,
you don't go back just because of the return, just because of
number go up technology. So what's your, what's your take
on MicroStrategy being added to the NASDAQ 100 later on this
month? I think it's just another check
on the progress for Bitcoin. We've crossed a Rubicon now
where Bitcoin has entered the center stage for all sorts of
different bubbles that are now coalescing around this topic.
So just last year at Bitcoin Nashville, we had the now
president-elect give a speech on Bitcoin and RFK Junior also give
a speech on Bitcoin. So it's definitely in the world
of politics. Now we're seeing it in the
corporate world cross a different threshold as well,
specifically with micro strategy.
I think what Taylor is doing now is going to be looked at in
history books. 102 hundred, 500 years from now, people will talk
about the the gall, the gumption to do what he's done,
considering the position he was in, and to execute with
fearlessness and courage and conviction.
What he's done is put Bitcoin into the hands of people that
would have never interacted with it in the first place, both in
terms of eyeballs but also their wallets.
People like my grandparents, my uncles and aunts who have always
pushed against holding Bitcoin itself.
They might have been interested when a Bitcoin ETF came about,
but now they don't even have to think about it in some sense
because they have tons of index funds.
And the same is true of institutions that hold a lot of
index funds. So we crossed the Rubicon here
where it's a one way door. There's no turning back here.
And this is something that we've all been thinking about for a
while. If you've been on Bitcoin
Twitter for a while, we've we've been talking about these days in
a theoretical sense, like 01 day, this might happen.
We might have a speculative attack on the dollar because XY
and Z might happen and it's playing out exactly like we
imagined. And even better in some sense,
because you have someone like Michael Saylor, who has a
reputation standing in that corporate world leading the
charge. And I think that has been a
lightning rod for a lot of the corporate and institutional
adoption. And you're only going to see
that continue because once MicroStrategy finds success
taking that route, which they clearly have, once they make it
into a top 500, top 100 companies and other companies
that are sitting on large cash reserves are looking over to see
what they're doing, you better bet there are going to be
copycats. And once there are copycats,
there's just a flood into Bitcoin and we just, the
flywheel is in effect. There's no stopping it.
A. 100 percent, 100% agree with with your perspective right
there. This is unstoppable.
The train is You better get on the train or you get left
behind. It's as simple as that.
Everyone gets Bitcoin at the price they deserve.
I think Microsoft's decision yesterday was an incorrect one.
I think they're going to regret it a couple years from now and
they're going to end up buying Bitcoin at a much higher price.
So yeah, I, I 100% agree. I think, you know, it, it this,
this trend is going to continue. I still see like I, I perceive,
you know, I could always be wrong, but I perceive that we
still have many, many months of bull market left and it's very,
it's going to be extremely exciting for Microsoft,
MicroStrategy shareholders, Bitcoin owners, Bitcoin people
that are have it, have Bitcoin in self custody.
So I think this party in 2025 is going to be awesome.
And one of the things that I tweeted out this morning is the,
the returns in 2016 were 125%. The returns for 2024 so far have
been 125%. The returns in 2017, which was
the year after the halving, which was historically when
Bitcoin tends to perform the best was it was it was 20X in
2017. Now am I saying we're going to
get a 20X in 2025? I I don't think so.
And that would be insane and melt faces if it does.
But you know, the larger the law of big number, the law of big
numbers comes into play. It's a lot harder to move as
Bitcoin continues to grow and market cap.
However, I am getting 2016 vibes.
I am getting 2017 vibes. I'm not getting 2020-2021 vibes.
And I think a lot of people still have PTSD from those from
that bull market of 2021 because a lot of people were let down.
A lot of people had higher expectations.
What I see the general consensus within the Bitcoin community now
is we have lower expectations. So with all the positive things
going on, whether it's the institutional acceptance and
adoption of Bitcoin, the regulatory environment, 40X
lightning goes, whether it's the regulatory environment, you know
you I played you guys a video of the president elect's son
talking about the importance of Bitcoin.
What makes Bitcoin different on yesterday's video, you have the
president wishing Bitcoin happy birthday, congratulating
bitcoiners on 100K. We're going to read you guys an
article today where part of the president's goal is to get
Bitcoin to 150 K earlier on in his administration.
Like that is nuts. That is gnarly like you couldn't
you couldn't imagine that in a million years.
So you have all these things falling together, the nation
state adoption as well. You had Russia announced that
they're looking into making Bitcoin a strategic reserve
asset and we're heading into the year after the halving year,
which tends to be the parabola year.
So I think things are going to get crazy.
I think things are going to get wild and Bitcoin tends to do the
exact opposite of what everybody is expecting it to do.
And of course, starting in 2025, me and Opti will start wearing
suits moving forward as Bitcoin continues to become mainstream.
And we we start to have to become, you know, financial
analysts and stuff and we'll wear ties and suits and, you
know, all that stuff. What do you think, Opti?
Yeah, I'm OK with it. My mom would be really happy
with me wearing a suit, probably.
So yeah, I'm OK. With that, it would be super
legit. It would be.
Super. Yeah, well, people would take us
more legit. I mean.
Are we going down the Andrew Tate route?
No, no, no, we're not gonna get fitted suits.
We're gonna. Get suit.
But those aren't just fitted suits.
We're gonna get classic draping suits.
Those are like extremely fitted. Suits, yeah, yeah.
Anyways, anyways, that enough, enough of fashion talk here.
My take on this, I think, I think the real signal here is,
and I've been saying this and I mean it, it does feel kind of
harsh when I say it, but I think even Saylor would say it himself
that MicroStrategy was kind of like a zombie company until he
adopted Bitcoin. If you guys look at the stock,
you know, he had, he was part of the, the Internet bubble, you
know, the, the, the early 2000 stock bubble and then it crashed
and went absolutely sideways and was pretty much dead in regards
to stock price. And then he started did to, you
know, research Bitcoin and Bitcoin has been freaking, you
know, rocket fuel for its stock. And now he's been putting on a
master class for everyone else to kind of follow suit.
It's still interesting that no one is following Michael
Saylor's micro strategy strategy yet, although we are hearing a
lot of rumble. Well, actually, let me take that
back. We have seen some people follow,
but we haven't seen the top corporations in the world
follow. And obviously these
conversations are happening right now.
And I think micro strategy, strategy being added to the QQQ,
you know, top 100 NASDAQ companies, I think that is one
of those like defining moments of like Bitcoin maturing and the
Bitcoin huddle strategy being a successful strategy.
And now everyone is going to have to take notice.
Like literally micro strategy got to the QQQ just because of
the flywheel of adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet.
Now everyone has to take that seriously.
And then the second point is kind of what Doc and and you
were saying goes like now anyone that has exposure to an index
fund has indirect exposure to Bitcoin.
And I think more people are going.
And then first of all, it would be very interesting if we could
get fact checked on like how many people actually do have
exposure to the QQQ. And then that's, you know, a, a
stepping stone into more people adopting Bitcoin.
Obviously this is kind of just like a, a transitory step, I
guess, you know, a baby step into Bitcoin.
Yeah, exactly. That's the part.
That's the part of like where it got my attention the most,
right, which is the Trojan horse aspect of it is fascinating to
me, right? The kind of passive investing,
the it's like you can imagine that there's people that have a
negative outlook on Bitcoin, but you can bet that they have
exposure to the QQQ or you can bet that they have exposure to
the NASDAQ 100. Well, bro, you have exposure to
Bitcoin now, you know, whether you realize it or not.
So it's kind of like this Trojan horse and it's further
legitimizing Bitcoin in the eyes of institutional investors.
And it's further, you know, increasing the prestige and the
credibility of MicroStrategy, which is like, let's be honest,
guys like, like, which is essentially acting like a
Bitcoin index fund because of the, the, the, the, the quantity
of Bitcoin that they hold. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's a
massive deal. And if they're able to get on
the S&P 500 that that that's another massive deal as well.
Because again, how many people have exposure to the S&P 500,
right? Like how many people have
exposure to just these index funds?
You know, they want that safe return of six, 8% a year and now
they have exposure to Bitcoin like that's that to me is
absolutely crazy. Now, to be fair, is this real
exposure to Bitcoin? No, this is this simply Bitcoin
real exposure to Bitcoin is spot Bitcoin in self custody.
However, like Opti was saying earlier it, it does function
like kind of like a Trojan horse, right gets your foot in
the door. It gets you asking questions if
you're getting if you're starting to benefit from number
go up technology, you know you're going to start to ask
questions on what it is that you're holding.
We all came here for the money, right.
Anyone that tells you otherwise is, is like maybe that 1% of
people are telling you the truth, but the vast majority of
people that got into Bitcoin, they came here for the money.
But we have a very famous saying in the industry.
It's like we came for the money, we stayed for the revolution,
right? So I do believe it's a step in
the right direction for micro strategy for Bitcoin, for the
industry as a whole and the further legitimization of
Bitcoin as an asset in the eyes of these massive institutions
and nation states alike, right? So it's very exciting stuff.
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All right everybody, let's get to the numbers.
We have tons to talk about. Let's check it out.
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At the time of recording, the Bitcoin price is 100 a hundred
three 100,340 dollars 360 dollars block height a hundred
874,283 sats per dollar under 1996 market cap 1.99 trillion
Bitcoin versus gold market cap 10.56% percentage issued 94.26%
decline from all time high -3.3% realized monetary inflation 1.1%
and 1.16%. In the grand scheme of things.
We are just getting started anyways.
Rodger VIR went on Tucker Carlson tonight yesterday.
We have the clip for you guys about a three minute clip of the
entire interview. Now, Rodger VIR is a very
unpopular figure here within the Bitcoin community.
Obviously this is one of the people that pushed Bitcoin Cash
hard and he attacked a lot of Bitcoiners for not getting
behind Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash would have been a
terrible idea to increase the block the the the block size.
Because if you increase the block size, you you increase the
barrier to entry for people running nodes.
And if you increase the barrier to entry, making it more
expensive, that means less nodes.
Less nodes means less decentralization.
Less decentralization is bad for Bitcoin.
What makes Bitcoin different and unique compared to all the other
cryptocurrencies is it's decentralization.
So leave Bitcoin as is. Don't touch it.
I'm a big fan of ossification. Maybe you'll hate me for that,
but that's where I kind of stand on things.
Don't fix what ain't broken, and obviously Bitcoin ain't broken.
So anyways, yeah, Roger VER very unpopular figure for doing that
for pushing Bitcoin cash, wrecking a lot of people in the
process. We all know how that ended.
Clearly Bitcoin, the OG Bitcoin, the original Bitcoin V Bitcoin
was the winner of the fork wars. But if you live through the fork
wars, it wasn't so certain at the time.
Why the Bitcoin cash hash rate? They artificially because Jihan
Wu Jihan Wu was the official, the original founder of Bit
Maine, which was one of the and is still is one of the largest
ASIC manufacturers in the world. And between him and Roger, they
had a tremendous amount of Bitcoin.
And what they were able to do is that they were able to
artificially not only pump the price of Bitcoin cash as it
relates to Bitcoin, but also, but also increase the hash rate
artificially of of the Bitcoin cash network to the point that
there was two times during the fork wars that the hash rate of
Bitcoin cash overtook the hash rate of Bitcoin, meaning that
there was a short period of time and this was all artificially.
Now we know this in in hindsight, but there is a point
in time where two or three times where the Bitcoin Cash hash rate
was higher than bitcoins, meaning that the Bitcoin Cash
was theoretically more computationally secured than
Bitcoin. May you can make an argument
that it theoretically had a higher value proposition at the
time. Now we know that was all
bullshit. They did that artificially.
They pumped the price artificially, they pumped the
hash rate artificially, and they burned a ton of Bitcoin in the
process doing all of this right. And both Jihan and Roger, I'm
sure have a lot of less Bitcoin today than they would have had
if they just would have stuck to Bitcoin.
Anyways, all that being said, I had to give a giant preface.
There is some interesting things that were talked about during
the interview that Roger had with Tucker Carlson.
And one of those things that they were talking about, which
is something that we covered on simply and I believe this is
part of the Operation Choke .2 point O that we just lived
through for the last 3 1/2 years that forced the hands of
Bitcoiners to get behind the Republican Party and Trump.
Because I don't think Bitcoiners would have gone in political if
we weren't forced to. But Roger Ruhr was one of the
people that were targeted. And essentially what happened
was that he gave, he gave up his US citizenship it back in 2014.
And he was just charged. It was like this year for
essentially not paying taxes on some of the taxes that he owed
from that era. Which like, if you think about
it, like, essentially what they're trying to do is they're
trying to make an example out of Roger.
And because they see the writing on the wall and they're saying,
like, listen, it doesn't matter whether you give up your US
citizenship. It doesn't matter where you are
in the world. We can find you and we will put
you in a box if you don't pay your taxes, it doesn't matter
whether you give up your citizenship or not.
And this just kind of reminds me of the theory from the book The
Sovereign Individual, right? And they make that theory in
that book, they make the case that essentially what you're
going to start to see is you're going to start to see a mass
exodus of people leaving countries that don't have
favorable tax jurisdiction or they don't have favorable
business regulation because it's so easy to do so in the
information age, right? You can literally just pick up
your laptop and go. If you're taking self custody,
you can bring your wealth with you and you can go to another
country that treats you best. We saw a little like example of
that during the pandemic where you had a mass exodus of people
leaving New York and California, going to Texas and Florida.
You see a lot of people in Europe leaving Europe.
Going to Dubai with Dubai has zero capital gains tax.
And you see a lot of these European countries react with
trying to implement an exit tax, you know, and they're trying to
stop people from leaving, right? So I believe that part of the
motivation from the US government to go after Rodger is
to make an example out of him and say, listen, it doesn't
matter whether you gave up your citizenship 10 years ago.
It doesn't matter even if you're not in the United States.
It doesn't even matter if your businesses are not in the United
States. We will make an we.
We can get you if we want to. Right now, I'm not trying to
justify anything that Rodger did.
I'm not very familiar with the case, but I believe that it was
politically motivated after everything we've seen, you know,
over the last 3 1/2 years. Anyways, guys, so here's a clip
from the interview. I'm not going to play the entire
thing. But let's check it out.
You are being extradited from Spain, an ally in Western
Europe, a NATO country, to the United States by the US Justice
Department to face life in prison 109 years for tax
evasion. You're not AUS citizen.
The period that you're being charged with evading American
taxes, you are not AUS citizen. And so whenever I see a story
that says the US government is extraditing somebody for tax
evasion to put them in prison for 109 years, my first thought
is maybe it's not really about the taxes.
Maybe there's something more to this story.
Could there be another reason the US government is angry at
you and wants to put you in prison for the rest of your
life? Yeah, to be honest, I think
they're not really angry about taxes at all.
I think they're just angry about my lack of obedience and, and
lack of, you know, kissing their ring.
I was the first person in the entire world to start investing
in the Bitcoin ecosystem and investing in businesses that
made it easy for people to use Bitcoin as money and as cash for
people all over the world. And I was promoting it since
2011 is hey, stop using the US dollar, stop using EUR, stop
using yen, start using Bitcoin. We have an alternative in which
each individual anywhere on the planet can be in charge of their
own money completely without needing permission from any
politician or any government anywhere in the world.
And when you're a government that loves controlling people
through the control of the money supply, that's very, very
threatening to their control of the world.
So of course they didn't like that at all.
And I knew that this sort of thing was dangerous.
And I thought the safest path for me would be to not be AUS
citizen. So in 2014, I renounced my US
citizenship and became a, you know, a citizen of the world
effectively. But my new nationality is a
Saint Kitts, which is a wonderful little island in the
Caribbean. And I thought that that would be
safe for me and I could promote Bitcoin from from there and
obey, even though I may disagree with plenty of laws, I do my
best to obey them because I know when you're and advocating for
things that change the world, governments don't like that and
they can come after you. So I I told all my tax attorneys
and everybody else, we have to do everything perfect.
So there's no room for the US government to give me a hard
time about any of this. And more than a decade after I
had already renounced my US citizenship and just a couple of
weeks after I published a book on the hijacking of Bitcoin, how
it no longer works is peer-to-peer cash for the world.
And it's been morphed into to something that's just a digital
asset that people are speculating on the price on,
rather than something that can compete with the US dollar and
the euro and the yen for use as currency around the world.
Suddenly, right after my book it's published that exposes how
people claiming to work for intelligence agencies hijack
Bitcoin to do that. Suddenly I get arrested and
tossed in jail in Spain and trying to be extradited to face
more than 100 years in prison. I'm 45 today.
I I think my odds of being alive with conventional technology in
109 years from now aren't aren't looking too good So effectively
to die in prison is what they want because they're so upset
about the things I've been saying and the way all.
Right. I'm going to leave it at that.
And you know, there's a lot of things that I don't agree with
Roger on as a Bitcoiner. But I will say this, I'm
starting to see a pattern, OK? We had CZ arrested.
We had Arthur Hayes arrested. We had Roger Burr arrested.
You had privacy developers arrested.
Simultaneously, you have banks like TD Bank that just got a
record fine for the amount of money that they laundered.
And there was no one arrested that their executive team was
not arrested. We just lived through Operation
Choke .2 point O and more things continue to come to light.
You know, and, and me and Opti were concerned at various points
just because we are a Bitcoin media business and we are a
Bitcoin business based out of the United States.
And, and I, you know, as much as I, I disagree with Roger on, on
a variety of things, like his opinion on, you know, Bitcoin
cash and, and scaling and all that stuff.
I, I, I believe the arrest of Rodger Burr was politically
motivated. I mean, if it, if it just
happened by itself, I would say no.
Like, you know, this is one thing, but the fact that it all
happened around the time that CZ was arrested, around the time
the Samurai guys were arrested, around the time the Tornado Cash
guys were arrested, The fact that it was happening all around
that same time tells me that it was sending a message more than
more than anything else. Now, that being said, I don't
know the specifics of the case. I don't have a law or tax
background. I don't know what they're
claiming or what he did. But here you have another
example of essentially this guy potentially serving his entire
life in prison. And then this is one of the guys
that has was promoting Bitcoin in the very early days.
And I do agree with Rodger in the sense that, yes, there are
some things that Bitcoin is going to be very unpopular with
governments for sure. I, I 100% agree with that.
You know, the way that he explained it in the beginning,
the reality is that governments get a tremendous amount of.
We have doctor, Doctor Jack Cruz in the chat, by the way, You
should definitely check out his keynote, which we posted on X
from adopting Bitcoin. Doctor Cruz says these
prosecutions remind me of exactly what happened with the
Chicago 8 when Ramsey Hunt and Jordan Mitchell charged the
change the DOJ rules in 1968 and 1969.
Yeah. So I mean, again, I may disagree
with Rodger, but as a Bitcoiner, I'm not a fan of Bitcoiners
getting arrested, right? I'm just not a fan of it.
And why is it that our industry continues to get targeted and
the traditional financial industry gets fines?
Why the double standard? That is the exact opposite of
what justice is supposed. It's like the equal laws of
justice. The justice the, the lady has a
a blindfold and she's holding a scale.
It's supposed to be fair. That's that scale is like going
like the, the scale that has the feel on it.
It's just like tipping to one side like it's bullshit.
So anyways, that that's, that's my take on this is that I think
that this is politically motivated.
He he could have done. I don't know what the the
details of the case are, like I said, but you know, look at all
the things that they did with the various banks, right, with
operation choke .2 point O how they specifically told banks to
stop onboarding, quote UN quote crypto businesses.
And this was all done opaquely. We were not supposed to hear
about this, right? So like the attack from
Elizabeth Warren, capitalizing on the tragedy that happened in
Israel, and then basically using the legacy media to try to
convince the American people that terrorists were using
Bitcoin to launder money. And then it was discovered that
the vast majority of money laundering is done doing the
traditional financial system. But that didn't stop the FinCEN
from introducing even more laws and regulations to kind of go
after the industry. So maybe they're right about
what Rodger did. I just after what I've lived
through as a bitcoiner, as someone who owns a business in
the industry over the last 3 1/2 years, forgive me if I don't
believe you. I, I just, that's where I'm at
right now personally. So anyways, Doctor, Bitcoin,
you've been in, man, you've been in this industry just as long as
we have, man, maybe if not longer.
Roger has done some, you know, some very unpopular things
within the Bitcoin community. But at the same time, you know,
I'm looking at this and I can't help but to think this is, you
know, this is criminally motivated.
I mean, this is politically motivated.
So there's a couple points to touch on here.
I actually think it's a delicate topic that's worth expanding on
here. First and foremost, I do think
when you deal with nascent technologies and networks,
whether it was the Internet of the 90s and prior or Bitcoin
now, there's usually a lag when it comes to regulation.
It takes regulatory bodies a while to figure out what exactly
they're dealing with and how best to deal with it.
And part of it is reasonable in their mind for things like
investor protections and, you know, trying to make sure people
are just not outright fraud, frauding and scamming people.
So trying to steal man, their, their side of things, that's
what they're attempting to do. Now, in reality, what happens is
regulatory bodies end up putting a giant blanket over an entire
industry, and they start taking a scattergun approach where you
don't know when the next domino is gonna fall and who it's gonna
be. And we're all just kind of
waiting and we're surprised at who it is, and we don't really
understand why they. Yeah, we did.
We lose them. Yeah, we might have, might have,
might have, might have dropped. Anyway, Doctor Bitcoin, you, you
were in, you were in the, you were in the matrix for a little
bit. All.
Right, let's let's, let's keep. I'll hit him in the private
chat. Yeah, let's keep rolling it.
Let's keep rolling it. We'll we'll figure out.
This is a live show after all. Guys.
Opti, what's your take on on on Roger, man?
I know he's a very, very divisive figure.
And within the Bitcoin community, there's a lot of
things that he did that were not popular with the community, and
rightly so. But two things could be true at
the same exact time. Now, again, I don't know the
exact details of the case. However, I am not blind and I
kind of do see a little bit of a double standard between how they
treat people in the traditional finance.
No banker went to jail for what happened in 2008, bro.
OK. And that was one of the crimes
of the century, in my opinion, in terms of the amount kind of
damage that caused society and then our industry, you know,
whether it's Ross Ulbricht or, you know, Rodger Ver or, you
know, other people, it, it seems like it's kind of like, let's
lock them in a box and lock away the key, bro.
No matter what it is like, you know, we'll find something, you
know, we'll find a crime, right? So I'm not, again, I don't know
the details of the case. I'm not a lawyer.
I don't have that background. I'm not trying to make excuses
for him, but I'm not stupid. And I see a pattern here.
So Opti, what's your take on all this?
Yeah, well, you know, with the caveat that you just said I'm
just a dude in a hoodie on YouTube.
So I do not have the background to really unpack everything.
But I think considering the context of when this prosecution
came down, I think it's very obvious that it is political.
We were covering it all of all last or all all of this year
rather. And when it happened, we got to
remember how heated things were getting in the US.
That was when we were really talking about, well, Nico was
really saying it all the time, like we might have to leave the
US. And at that point it did very
scary for a lot of his bitcoiners in the US.
We all know now in hindsight that Operation Choke .2 Point O
was a real thing that they have been trying to stop the adoption
of Bitcoin and it's very obviously politically motivated.
They've tried to make an example of Roger ver.
I don't really like Roger ver. I came in after the block size
wars like a month or so after, so I really can only look
backwards. I don't, I don't really know,
you know, the whole story or rather I didn't experience it in
real time, but I think it's very clear now that be cash is trash.
And with that being said, though, I still think that it is
politically motivated. And look, I I don't want to be
in Roger's shoes and it's very obvious that they are trying to
make an example out of him. And so it is very interesting
where we are right now, especially considering that we
are seemingly going to get a more pro Bitcoin administration
in the US. So hopefully we get some we get
some tailwind on it. And like, not to be specific,
right, Because I'm not like this isn't the point of simply, and
now that the election is over, we're going to like completely
just go away from politics. But like, didn't a specific
person just get pardoned and like for tax stuff and stuff
like that? Like, you know, like again, like
it, it, it's what what bothers me is not the law or because if
the law is the law, like the law is the law.
What the, the, what bothers me is that like there's two systems
of justice that, that, that and then that's not, that's not law,
right? That's not a legal system.
That's a hierarchy, right? That's like a that's like
feudalism, dude. It's like rules for thee, but
not for me. We're gonna get to make the
rules, and then we're gonna arbitrarily choose on who we
choose to enforce these rules that we make and who has to
follow them. And we don't have to follow
them, but you have to follow them.
Like, you know, didn't like the one of the senators from like
New Jersey get discovered with like wads of cash and gold bars
in his trunk while simultaneously criticizing
Naimbu Kele, right. Like, isn't Nancy Pelosi like
one of the best stock stock traders of all time?
Like again, like, I'm, I'm not trying to be political or like
whatever, but it's clear that there's certain people within
the country that rules don't apply to them like they apply to
everybody else. And normally we wouldn't talk
about this type of stuff. However, recently it's been
affecting our industry. Recently our industry has been
the one, thank you, Doctor Cruz, Senator Menendez, But recently
our industry has been the one that has been under the bullseye
like, and, and so we have to speak up.
We have to say something. It's not, it's not OK.
We're joined back by Doctor Bitcoin.
Doctor, Bitcoin is back. Men, could you continue your
thoughts? Because it was, it was great
what you were saying. Yeah.
First off, I think they're on to me here.
The second I started talking about that topic, everything
just shut down. That was bizarre.
But anyways, I think the point I was trying to hit on is first
and foremost, I think when it comes to Roger, there's a lot of
negative sentiment towards him from the Bitcoin community and a
lot of it is warranted. Earlier I said we were crossing
the Rubicon. Part of crossing the Rubicon is
having people that have never interacted with Bitcoin get the
first taste of what it's like and hear stories, narratives,
history. And if we are not strong in our
positions as Bitcoiners and we don't protect the narratives,
the stories that are being put out there, that's what happens.
You get Rodger going on Tucker Carlson rather than someone that
can actually tell the story of Bitcoin and be able to represent
Bitcoin properly. Now, despite all that, despite
our feelings for Rodger, I think there is something bigger at
play here, which is the weaponization of the legal
apparatus against individuals. Now when it comes to that
approach, you see that often in 3rd world countries, in
countries that are dictatorships, but you're seeing
it a lot more in the US and a lot more in the light than it
ever used to be, particularly with this last administration.
You're seeing it angled towards the now president-elect.
You're seeing it angled towards anyone involved in January 6th.
You're seeing it angled towards people that are involved in the
Bitcoin and crypto space, crypto space broadly.
So when it comes to rules and regulations, if you want to
steal man, the argument, you would say, OK, these regulatory
bodies are trying their best to protect investors or protect the
average person from getting defrauded or getting scammed.
And there is some merit to that to some extent, right?
If you look at some of the shit coin happenings over the last
few weeks, last few years, look at the hawk to a coin right?
I can't believe I'm saying those words, but should that have ever
happened? Should that have ever gotten out
of the bag? Now there's a libertarian side
of me that thinks, yeah, absolutely.
You know, if people voluntarily choose to invest in those types
of things, then it's their loss, right?
They kind of know what they're getting into.
But this, this goes to the point of informed consent is like, do
people really know what they're getting into here?
I think sometimes they do, and they're gambling, so that's
perfectly fine. And a lot of times they don't.
So we all draw a line somewhere, like if someone defrauded your
grandmother with a phone scam, we'd all be like that person
should be charged and that that that should be illegal, right?
So we all draw the line somewhere.
But where is that line? The problem is for the crypto
industry, and I'm using crypto specifically here, broader than
Bitcoin. It's been a very blanket
approach. So a lot of times when you have
a new innovation, new technology, you have concentric
circles of adoption, you have the inner circle, which is the
the hardcore believers, the cypherpunks in our case, the
types, the libertarian types, the gold bugs that were
converted to Bitcoin. And these people adopt it
because they need it or they feel like they are drawn to it
in a, in a very ideological manner.
And then that concentric circle expands to now you look 15 years
later, we have corporations, we have institutions, we have
individuals, we have nation States and so on and so forth.
So for regulatory bodies like the SEC or FINRA or whoever,
when they look at this, they're trying to deal with an animal
that has already escaped its cage.
And their approach is just a scattergun approach.
Find targets where you can get them and try to take them down.
So what do they do? They go after people that are
loud. They go after people that make
themselves heard. And sometimes, often times,
these are people that deserve to, you know, answer some
questions as to what what they've done and whether it was
above board. But often times it's a
weaponization of a political and legal apparatus.
And I think that's part of what you're seeing here.
And I want to be, I want to be cognizant of that.
And I want to warn Bitcoiners not to be too black or white.
I think a lot of Bitcoiners, myself included, your, your
instinct is to either say it's Roger, he kind of deserves it
or, you know, we should fight for Roger because he's getting
this. And I, I think the answer is
like right in between is like, he probably deserves some
sympathy in terms of the what he's going through from a legal
perspective, but he doesn't deserve sympathy in terms of the
narratives that he spun and the damage he's caused to Bitcoin.
So part of that is getting the narratives right With the block
size wars. We have very little information
on that that we can share with the public.
We have a great book called The Block Size Wars, But other than
that and a few podcasts and a few conversations, I think most
people that come into the space, they see Roger Rehr and they see
him talking about Bitcoin. They have no idea about the
history. They don't know anything.
So that guy goes on Tucker, that's credibility.
Like it's a boomer generation or anyone older than 30.
They're looking at Tucker Carlson, They're looking at some
guy on there that's talking about Bitcoin.
They're like, all right, cool. This guy seems like he knows
what he's talking about. They're going to look him up and
all of a sudden they own Bitcoin Cash and five years later
they're like, wait, what happened?
I thought I owned Bitcoin. Yep.
And that's seriously damaging. So how do we, how do we address
that? I think it's a very delicate
situation, but you have to be able to approach it in a way
that addresses the different avenues of the conversation in a
reasonable way. I think, I think 22, both things
could be true at the same time. And I think it's really
important to like separate like the two.
It's like, yes, as a Bitcoin community, we're not fans of
Roger, but I'm also not a fan of the US government persecuting
another Bitcoiner that has different to put it nicely.
I don't even know how to put it nicely actually, But I'm not a
fan of the US government persecuting us or persecuting
our industry, right? Like, This is why I bring, This
is why I put CZ in the mix. This is why I put Arthur Hayes
in the mix, right? Like CZ, you know, built one of
the biggest altcoin exchanges on the face of the planet.
However, why is it that when banks do the exact same thing
they accuse CZ of, they get fines?
How come when you know exchanges do it like we get locked in a
box you like? How come when you know, Ross did
what he did, he got a triple life sentence?
Like Roger is facing a a life sentence essentially like that
is nuts. And then simultaneously, you
know, I'm not going to repeat myself and beat a dead horse.
But it's like simultaneously there's certain people in
government and certain figures and certain politicians not to
name any names that are that have done and do did do the
exact same things, but they have absolutely no accountability
whatsoever. So my issue my issue.
Here. Sorry, Nico.
It's also important to note here, they're not going after
him for securities fraud. They're not going after him for
embezzlement. They're not going after him for
fraud. They're going after him for
taxes. So it it seems like they're
finding any way to pin something on him, and that seems like the
most reasonable route for them. For sure.
And it was 10 years ago. It was 10 years ago, right.
And again, I'm not, I'm not saying that what Roger did, I
don't know and I don't have a legal background to give you an
assumption of the case. What I am picking attention on
is there's a pattern here that is very noticeable.
Opti was the first one that was like looking at me on the show
and it's like Nico, like stop being a schmuck, bro.
They're obviously targeting us. And I continue to give the
benefit of the doubt until one day I essentially broke on air
and I went all the all the other direction.
And that day was the moment they locked the samurai wallet, guys,
in the moment they arrested the samurai guys, I was like, no,
no, no, no, no. And I remember, and I remember
tweeting out, I said, guys, honestly, it's probably not a
good idea that Biden wins another term.
And the tweet went viral because everyone was thinking the same
thing, right? And then, of course, that
created a political opportunity for the opposing party to
capitalize on it. And then that's why Trump made
Bitcoin part of his campaign, right?
And so it's, it's, it's kind of like like we didn't want to get
political. We didn't want it.
We didn't want any of this. We just wanted to be left alone
to our own devices to build. You know, we have Bitcoin.
But it was kind of like you poked us with a stick for so
long and you kind of forced our hand.
You forced us to be part of the donor class.
You force, you forced us to become a political voice.
You forced us to start inviting some of these politicians to our
conferences. You forced us into that corner
by the actions that you have taken.
And then when we call you out on it, it's just total gaslighting.
Like, you know, I, I, I'm just that that's my opinion on all
this. Anyways, guys, we still got to
get to the news and then we got to talk to Doctor Bitcoin.
So let's get to it. Here we go.
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discount all right everybody so let's talk about this crazy,
crazy world we live in I'm going to continue I I have not deleted
this this note for the last week of doing the show because I'm
going to continue to iterate that just to kind of give you
guys an idea right elections have consequences.
We just talked for like 30 minutes about the Roger Vert
case, about Operation Choke Point 2.0, about essentially
what we had to deal with as an industry and as a community for
the last 3 1/2 years due to this current administration.
Now, because of this upcoming elect, because of this election,
because Trump won, you have a pro SEC chair, you have a pro
Bitcoin president. We paid you guys a video of the
president's son talking about Bitcoin yesterday.
You have the you have Howard Lepnick going into the
administration. He's going on Poms podcast
basically saying that he's planning to buy hundreds of
millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin.
Like it's like, it is gnarly. So This is why we'd say
elections have consequences. And one of those consequences
is, and this isn't going to be a legal one or a regulatory thing.
This is going to be something that I just find absolutely
hilarious because this is something that Trump would say.
I mean, he did take credit for Bitcoin hitting 100K after all.
So this shouldn't surprise anybody.
But basically, quote, Trump is going to be very focused on the
price of Bitcoin. It's another stock market for
him, adding that Trump would love for Bitcoin to hit $150,000
in his early presidency. I find that absolutely hilarious
because it was actually like during the Bitcoin conference
that he was like, if you vote for me, I'm going to make you
very rich, and Bitcoin is going to hit $100,000.
Like he said that, you know, And it was, it was like his Trump
mannerisms and his Trump rhetoric.
But he did say it after all, and I find it hilarious that as soon
as we figured out that he won the election, you know, he like
the price of Bitcoin started pumping now in terms of moving
the Overton window and kind of favorable, like, you know,
regulatory environment. Here's the former S, the CFTC
chair, Chris Giancarlo, and he went on Fox News and he said
some interesting things that we have talked a lot about on
simply. Let's check it out.
Recently climbing more than $100,000.
Per. This is Investors anticipate
Donald Trump will usher in a new era of crypto friendly policies
and legislation during his first 100 days.
What's that mean to you, Chris? John Carlo is the former
chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under
Donald Trump. Good morning to you.
Thanks for coming in here. There's a treasury document
calls Bitcoin digital gold. We've heard that before.
Okay, that, that's one element. Next one, Elon Musk praising El
Salvador's Empresso crypto reserve.
So that's an interesting relationship.
Why is this happening now? What does the incoming
administration see as favorable for Bitcoin?
You know, there's there's a number of reasons why this
happening. One is because the technology
has come about. We finally reached the stage of
the Internet where we can go beyond storing information on
the Internet, actually storing things of value, things of value
like wealth, things of value like ownership of a home.
This is what they call the new wave of the Internet, an
Internet of value and the technologies there.
In fact, when you think about Bitcoin or Ethereum with these
others, what they really are is protocols that allow us to store
value on the Internet as opposed to the way we've been doing it
in human society for only the last 400 years.
Storing value in basically an IOU from a financial
institution. And as we've learned in the last
40 years, during which the Internet has never gone down,
banks have failed, including three banks of America's top 20
just in the last three years. So moving value storage on the
Internet is an idea whose time has come.
OK, you got that. Kind of I'm going to ask you
this. So on call for number 4, this is
the number of crypto millionaires that's been
surging, OK? So I think one of the things
that happens and you had a good question to him initially, which
is what does it mean for you? Because when most people are
thinking about their themselves like, well, I don't understand
this stuff. So I don't know how to invest in
it. One thing you said is crypto is
the umbrella, right? Is that right?
And Bitcoin is one type of crypto and there are lots of
different types of crypto. So there, what's a good crypto
and what's a bad crypto? How do you know?
Right. So just just as there's multiple
protocols for storing information, there's HTMLHTTP.
They all do different things. Some are good for website
establishment, some are good for e-mail.
In a similar way, different cryptos allow you to store
different values. Bitcoin, which is the most
widely known and has had the most spectacular success, might
be the equivalent, as you said, Bill, to digital gold in in the
previous world, the analog world.
What cash was to gold in the digital world, digital money may
be to Bitcoin. Let me give you another example.
We live in a time where one out of every $4.00 has been printed
in the last five years. We are the actively debasing our
currency and at the same time Bitcoin has in into its design
program scarcity. You can never have more than a
certain amount of Bitcoin and so the dollar is depreciating.
Bitcoin is appreciating. Quick factoid, in 2018 the
average American home would have cost you over $260,000 and over
400 Bitcoin. Today, the average American home
is now over $460,000. It would cost you less than 5
Bitcoin. So I'm going to leave it that
mean and just open the the conversation, like just open it
up to the panel and just just discuss about this.
What the F is going on? What like like Doc, could you
have ever have imagined this Brother, back in the 20/16/2017
era, we were in the trenches. We were saying the institutions
were coming. Could you have ever imagined?
I mean, that is the former head of the CFTC basically educating
the Fox anchors, you know, number go up.
This is better than owning real estate.
You know, he didn't get everything right.
You know, in terms of of of I don't think he did a a great job
differentiating Bitcoin with crypto.
He could have done better there. But you know, what world are we
living in? I mean that sounds like simply
Bitcoin when on Fox business, essentially.
What's your take, Doc? I had Opti's like Nah.
I think I'm muted, but so I don't think you're going to get
anything more bullish on that topic than what you just got
from a former CFTC chair. Like it's not perfect, you know,
right, Like the big corner and you just cringes a little bit
when he starts talking about Ethereum and other cryptos and
he doesn't differentiate. I get that there.
It's very instinctual. I get it, as he was talking, I'm
sure you guys did as well, but as a whole, you're not going to
get a better bull case scenario than that guy going on Fox News
with his reputation, his standing, his connection to his
network and basically just raving about Bitcoin.
I mean, he was raving about Bitcoin and talking about how,
you know, it's time has come. He was talking about protocol.
He was talking about a lot of things that you would hear in
Bitcoin or circles. Now, I think this is going to be
a trend where it's very much like that.
I don't know if you guys have ever seen that, That video, It's
almost like a meme of like some guy just dancing out in a field
alone. And then eventually like more
and more people join and then it becomes kind of cool to do it
and then eventually everyone joins.
I think it's becoming cool to do it now, especially with the
traditional financial folks. These people don't want to be
left behind. They don't want to look like
they are Luddites in the modern world.
And one way to not look like a Luddite is to get on the Bitcoin
train, understand what's happening, be an advocate for
it, and say, hey, I was one of the early ones in my field,
which is traditional finance, to advocate for it, to own it, to
support it. I think that's what we're seeing
now. These guys in the traditional
finance world. They're starting to have these
conversations. And let me tell you what guys, I
it's, it's shocking, I know, but I speak to regulators all the
time because we run a financial platform and is registered with
SEC and FINRA. You guys would not believe the
amount of people in those organizations that are
Bitcoiners. You would not believe it.
The people that are in those organizations are individuals
just like you and me and they own Bitcoin.
They talk about Bitcoin. They ultimately are waiting on
the framework to meet the innovation, but very, very
sympathetic to Bitcoin within the organization from very many
individuals. Absolutely 100% man.
And, and I'm, I'm excited to, to, to hear more about it.
And you know, and I'm, I'm sure that a lot of what you just said
motivated you into rolling out your business.
You went stealth mode for a long time, my friend.
You just poof. And you came back with a suit.
What happened in between I wanna know.
Yeah wait wait, Nico, before we get into all that cuz we're
gonna give you doctor Bitcoin MD a whole 20 minutes to do that.
I just wanna mention one thing guys.
All I heard in the beginning was Donald Trump wants 150 K day
one. Let's go.
I fully endorsed this message. I am all with that.
So January 20th, 150K Bitcoin confirmed.
And then the the last part that Doctor Bitcoin MD was saying, it
kind of goes into what we've been saying on the show for a
while that I think everyone kind of understands Bitcoin and
understands the incentives of Bitcoin.
But these big mega corporations that do have, you know, a lot of
stipulations and regulations surrounding them.
They just can't fully, you know, put all their money into Bitcoin
yet. But we're slowly seeing that
change. And just to keep this short.
So I do want to give Doctor MD a couple a good, good moment.
The one thing that I was talking about was thinking the whole
time, I mean, you know, Bitcoin MD kind of mentioned it is the
cringe. And I just realized we're going
to we're going to come up with a whole new round of shit coining.
And now it's not just coming from shit coiners.
It's going to come from, you know, these suits and these
regulated institutions and people with PhDs and, you know,
academic backgrounds and like men.
I, I just, I don't know if I'm ready for all that Nico, but it
seems like we're going to get a whole new round of shit coining
and man, I'm not that excited for it, but hey, it is what it
is. You know there's only Bitcoin
be. A shit coin extravaganza.
But I don't. I don't want.
The thing is, I don't want Bitcoin.
I don't. I don't think Bitcoin needs any
special privileges. I don't want the government to
pick who the winners and the losers are.
Bitcoin is is a superior asset. Bitcoin's going to win on its
own. Listen, look, no altcoin has
made an all time high on Bitcoin terms.
Like they could have made an all time high in dollar terms since
2021. But if you check, if you compare
that you should be, you should be judging your net worth in
Bitcoin, not in dollars. You'll see that every altcoin,
at best it's an oscillator, but it's an oscillator on the way
down. So like, you know, ETH had an
all time high versus Bitcoin. It hasn't broken, it's gone up
and down. Like I said, it's oscillated,
but it still hasn't broken that all time high that it's made a
couple years ago. It's just kind of on the way
down and everything in the world goes progressively down as it
compares to Bitcoin, right? So yes, I think we're going to
be heading straight head first into this shit coin
extravaganza. But we're protected by this
orange field, orange force field of Bitcoin, right?
Anyways, guys, stay tuned. We're going to talk to Doctor
Bitcoin. We're going to find out where he
went. He was, you know, one of the
most hardcore Bitcoin Maxis on X, formerly Twitter for the
longest time. And he just disappeared.
Said in case I'm going to focus on my health, I'm going to focus
on some things disappeared, disappeared off the face of the
planet. And then he messaged me like a
couple months ago, said Nico, I'm back.
You know, he's been working on a company and he shows up today in
a suit. So we're going to find out
what's he what he has been working on.
So everybody stay tuned for the culture.
We will be right back. I want to give a shout out to
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We hope to see you guys there. The entire Simply Bitcoin crew
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flash. We will be doing the production
for the conference. It's going to be a great time.
See you guys at Bit Block Boom. Anyways, I want to pivot the
conversation. What's up bro?
How are you? How have you been?
Where have you been? How's life?
Good to see you're doing well. You're in a suit.
Every time I see someone in a suit, I'm assuming they're doing
well. So what's up dude?
I'm doing really well. I just want to point out that
it's a Sport coat and not a suit.
Not quite there yet. Maybe one day, maybe one day,
you know, I actually want to tell everyone here a story and
Nico's a part of this story. You know, most of most of the
people in chat, most of the people that are listening know
me as Doctor Bitcoin. Yes, I, I was a doctor, I was an
academic. I dealt with that life and that
path for a very long time. You know, COVID happened,
craziness happened. I wrote all, all about that in
Bitcoin magazine. People can read about it there.
I'm not going to rehash that. Eventually I decided I wanted to
leave that and I did it with no plan whatsoever.
The first thing I did was actually go to the Bitcoin
conference in Miami. I believe it was 2021 if I'm not
mistaken. And I was I was on AI was on a
panel in 20/21. It was about Bitcoin maximalism
and it was me, Nico, Alex Fetsky and Bitcoin Twitter OG that that
I love Bitcoin lurk and Nick Hoffman was, was the one that
was coordinating everything. And what people don't know about
that is before everything started, we were all backstage.
We were getting ready to go on and we ended up getting news
that Ross Ross Ulbricht was essentially being punished,
getting being put in solitary confinement.
And we, we had a feeling it had something to do with all the
conversations about him and freeing Ross at the conference.
And so when we were backstage, everyone was just really, really
upset really, you know, it was, it was very difficult.
His mother was back there and it was just, it was tough.
It was tough scenes, to be quite honest with you.
And so we went on stage. It was a little awkward.
We did our best and it was a good panel.
We all enjoyed it. And, you know, now, three years
later, it's just really funny to me how life comes full circle.
You know, I end up launching a company called Time Stamp.
I'm on a show with Nico. Nick Hoffman did an article on
it for Bitcoin Magazine, and Ross Aldrick was set to get out.
And so it's just wild. This world is wild, man.
It's so freaking wild, dude, and I just want to add like that.
So that was my first foray into Bitcoin conferences.
I've never spoken at Bitcoin conference.
And I remember seeing Alex Gladstein backstage and I was
like, dude, I'm kind of nervous. I've never spoken now.
Like you put me in front of 30,000 people, I'll just be
like, yeah, what's up? But like back then, if you, if
you hear that panel, like you can hear my voice quiver because
I was nervous and and it was my first Bitcoin conference and
they put us on the mainstage, right.
And I remember I went up to Alex Gladstein.
I said, hey, man, I'm kind of nervous or whatever.
Like, you know, like this is pretty crazy.
Like I've never done this before.
And Alex Gladstein just looks at me and he's like, not that many
people do. And he just walks away, does
Mike skancha just and then he just walks away and I'm like,
holy shit. And then I remember what you
were saying. They were playing a recording of
Ross over the thing right over, you know, to the mainstage.
And we were following up on that.
And that was the panel. And the name of the panel was
like, why Bitcoin maximism is important?
And one of the things that I said, which is if you're against
Bitcoin maximalism, you're against Bitcoin.
If you're against Bitcoin, you're against freedom went
viral. Eric Voorhees was triggered.
He was like shortly after, and it was actually quoted by the
Financial Times, right? Which is nuts, right?
And mind you, one of the things that Nick asked me during that
panel was he asked me about Simply Bitcoin.
Simply Bitcoin had 600 subscribers on YouTube 600.
And I pitched the idea of Simply to the entire crowd, the Bitcoin
2020 or Bitcoin 2021 crowd. And I said I have an idea about
a YouTube channel. Let's use some of the tools and
track tactics from a lot of the altcoin channels and let's
supply it to Bitcoin. That was just an idea in my
head, right? Fast forward four years later,
right? It's like Holy Bejigas, what is
going on here? And then of course, all the
things that have happened along the way, the ups and downs, But
I think that's normal when you're building a business and
Doctor M doctor Bitcoin MD, it's the same thing.
Brother, you, you were there and you weren't wearing a suit
there, my friend. And you were just like the rest
of us in AT shirt or something. And one of the things that I
remember one of our last interactions was and it wasn't
an interaction with me personally, but one of your last
interactions with X was like, hey, I'm going to I'm gonna
focus on my health. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go full
time into Bitcoin and I'm gonna work on something and I'll be
back. Usually when people say that
they never come back, right, They never come back either.
They're they've hit their goal stack.
I was telling this to Opti, though, I don't care how much
money I have. I'm going to be doing this
forever because I love this. But but you know, either they
hit a goal in their head and and they just they're like, I don't
want to deal with social media anymore.
I've been on social media too much F this and they kind of
just disappear. They kind of fizzle out or, you
know, they're just kind of sick and tired of it or it just
didn't work out. You actually came back and you
came back stronger than F, man. And this is like the perfect
segue to your project, which is called Timestamp.
And by the way, you can go to timestampfinancial.com if you
wanna check it out. So I'm just gonna read this and
I'm gonna pass it on to you, Doctor Bitcoin MD.
So for audio listeners, in the beginning of Time stamp, on the
home page, it says invest in founders pioneering the future.
So I'm going to give you the floor, Doctor Bitcoin.
What is time stamp? Why should our audience care?
What are they looking into? Is this potentially investing in
Bitcoin companies? What's your take?
So I'll give you a little bit more back story as to why I
started Time stamp and then tell you a little bit about what
we're doing now. So directly after that
conference, I was out of medicine, out of academia.
I was taking a break from everything.
I didn't have a plan. I didn't have an idea as to what
I was going to do with my life. But I knew one thing is I wanted
to work in Bitcoin, I just didn't know how.
So I tried a few things. I tried to do like a few small
jobs here, a few small roles here at some Bitcoin companies
that were very gracious to me, but I never found the right fit.
And it was for a couple of reasons.
One, I have an odd skill set, you would say a medical doctor
is not something most startups need.
And two is I realized I needed to be my own boss very much.
I I like the classic Bitcoiner type.
Like I just, I, I couldn't, I couldn't work with people's
visions that were not matching my own.
I needed to go my own way and I was working with some fantastic
people to be quite honest with you and they deserve their own.
Dude, I I learned that the hard way too, brother.
So I feel you. Yeah.
So, so honestly, what, what I ended up doing is I dropped
everything. I, I dropped everything in my
life and I moved to Austin, TX for a bit.
No plan, no job, no friends, just hanging out, going, going
to see Bitcoiners, getting to know them.
And man, it's inspiring because what I ended up doing is
basically putting myself at the bottom of a different totem
pole. You know, I'd spent my whole
life working my way up medicine and academia to the point where
I was comfortable and I was doing well from a professional
standpoint. And so to go from that to
starting at the very bottom in the Bitcoin world in terms of
actually making it a career, that was very humbling.
But I got some good advice early on, which was ask questions,
talk to a lot of people and learn.
Don't, you're not here to start anything just yet.
You need to learn. And that was the best advice I
could have gotten. I talked to a lot of builders in
the space. I talked to a lot of investors
in the space. And the biggest thing I found
was that there was a, a disconnect between the community
and Bitcoin. The ones you see on Twitter and
Auster and a lot of the founders in the space, the capital
markets around Bitcoin and open source companies were lacking.
If if you've ever tried to raise money in the space, you realize
that there's only a handful of people that you generally go to
BCS and Angel investors. And once you're done with those,
once those options are exhausted, you're kind of stuck,
right? And so for me, I was running
into so many founders that were building incredible things.
And I wanted a way for them to be able to put themselves out
there and be able to reach the community and have them be able
to invest in these companies. Now, easier said than done,
right? How do you get normie retail
investors or specifically bitcoiners involved in Bitcoin
companies and open source companies?
Well, I did something that I thought I would never do is go
directly to the regulatory bodies and work with them.
It's like. Oh my God that's wearing the
suit bro. It all makes sense.
So dude, you, you asked me, you asked me 3-4 years ago.
Like would you ever work with any of these regulatory bodies?
I'd say absolutely not. That's insane.
That's not me. But what I realized is in the
Bitcoin space, there are people that build lifeboats and there
are people that build bridges. There are plenty of people that
are building lifeboats, whether it's no KYC exchanges or wallets
or hardware wallets or what have you, right?
And these people are building things that people are using,
especially when they have no other options or they're
desperate or whatnot. And I realized that there also
needs to be people that build the bridges.
And so our goal was to maximize access in this space is to allow
as many people to be able to invest in these companies as
possible and for founders to reach as many people as possible
for investment. So we ended up over a year and a
half, but working with these regulatory bodies and over the
summer of this year, we actually got approved to become an
investment platform for Bitcoin and open source companies that's
open to all investors. So time Stamp financial Time
Stamp is an investment platform for Bitcoin and open source
companies that's open to everyone.
Accredited, non accredited, US international.
Everyone can now invest in these Bitcoin companies.
That's awesome, man. And and it and we see so like
I'm thinking about like something like because he's a
friend of the show too, like something similar to like what
Moz does with Lightning Ventures.
Is that correct? It's it's a similar idea in that
we want to get as many people involved.
We want to build a community, we want to be able to offer options
to people. I think what's exciting with
what we're building right now is that the, the demand, the the
excitement around it has been electric.
We've actually already signed eight companies to the platform
in less than a few weeks. These are companies that are all
over the spectrum in terms of where they're coming from.
But we have two deals that are live now on the platform, JP and
Cascader that are both coming out of Pleb Lab.
We have Open Agents, which is has come out of Wolf and they're
backed by Hive Minds. So some VC backed more mature
companies. We have people like Sovereign
who's coming up in Q1, who is the former CTO of River that
started that. And then we have also a couple
that are not listed there, which I'd like to announce.
One of them, Alex Betsy's companies, Atlantis will be
raising on time stamp in Q 1/20/25 as well.
So we have a lot of companies that are coming through our
doors saying this is something we want.
We want to be able to reach a community of people.
We want to be able to reach Bitcoiners, and we want these
people to be involved. We want them to be investors in
our company because it gives them an access to these
investment opportunities. But they're also builds a
different type of skin in the game where these supporters that
were once just liking and retweeting things on Twitter are
saying, wow, that's cool that you're building that can now
actually be invested in these companies.
That's awesome, man. That's very, very cool.
And you know, Svetsky's a personal friend and friend of
the show and that's been hearing so much about SAT Atlantis.
I think he, I think he first brought up and he did a
presentation about it in my data at that Bitcoin conference over
there. And shout out to Andre and Co.
And you know, it was, it was very interesting.
It's, it's very, I'm very glad to hear that that's going well
that he's going to be raising money on your platform.
And it's very exciting. Like from a couple perspectives,
right from like you're doing good by Bitcoin entrepreneurs.
Like for anyone doesn't understand capitalism or
anything like the world works because entrepreneurs take risks
and they build things that you would like and they take a lot
of risks for that. Nothing is certain.
You know, the majority of them lose and then sometimes some of
their ideas turn out to be great products.
So, you know, the microphone that I'm using right now was
eventually that was an idea of dreamed up about an with an
entrepreneur, the camera, the laptop, the cell phone, simply
Bitcoin, You know, it's I these these things are just hopes and
dreams that people come up with. And part of that process is, you
know, being able to raise money. And by being able to raise
money, you're able to kind of fund operations or grow
operations. And that's just kind of the way
that things go, right? You know, and just being an
entrepreneur myself the last four years, just thinking I was
just going to be, you know, a hobby.
And then, you know, it morphed into a podcast and then now it's
morphed into a media company. And me and Opti are just looking
at each other like, what the fuck?
What did we do, bro? How did we do this?
I have, I have no idea. And just looking back like, you
know, you're, you mentioned that the Bitcoin conference in the
beginning, looking back, you're just like, I cannot believe how
we got here. So, you know, you're essentially
not only funding the hopes and dreams of entrepreneurs, but
you're potentially funding some of the latest and greatest, you
know, simply bitcoins or latest and graded strikes or latest and
greatest, you know, Bitcoin wells, a public company.
So that doesn't make sense. But you know, latest and
greatest passports foundations, right, that are just in the
beginning, the early phases and they're just trying to get on
the ground and you're, you're not only funding their dreams,
but you're also taking a bet on them, right?
So, so this is, this is something I want to touch on
here because I think this is, this goes to why I started this
in the first place. I think the look, we're, we're
all betting on Bitcoin in some sense, we're all saving in
Bitcoin. However, I think there is a next
step to saving in Bitcoin. It's investing in the Bitcoin
standard is how how do you put your money to work.
And there are very few things that are worth investing in that
are going to either out compete Bitcoin or offer you some type
of return, whether it's monetary or not that will make you feel
like you made a good investment. So This is why I say, you know,
you save in Bitcoin, you invest in Bitcoin companies, you invest
in the Bitcoin standard. These are companies that are
building the infrastructure to make the Bitcoin standard
possible. You have education companies,
entertainment companies, you have hardware wallets, you have,
you know, new things like AI agent marketplaces that are
payable in Bitcoin. These are things that are only
possible if these founders get the funds to build their dreams.
And so when I built time stamp, I wanted to be very particular
with how we built the incentive structures because I believe one
of the reasons why Bitcoin is what it is, is the incentive
structures that underlie Bitcoin propelled to success.
So when it comes to time stamp for founders, we wanted to make
it extremely founder friendly. So we charge nothing upfront.
So a founder, even if you're fresh and you and you don't have
funds in the bank account to spend on legal fees and, and,
and all the set up for that, we don't charge you anything
upfront. We make our money on a success
based Commission. And so your success is tied to
our success. And we believe that pushes us to
great heights together. And then for investors, time
stamp is free to join. Everyone has access to these
investments. You can view the investments and
then when you're ready to invest, all you have to do is
sign in and go through the investor flow.
And when you do that, you can do so with relatively low minimums
compared to other avenues. If anyone in the chat or anyone
listening has ever tried to invest in companies before,
they've often found that it's not accessible because, well,
first and foremost, they don't have the funnel to the deal.
So they don't get informed of a lot of these deals often times.
And 2nd and most importantly is oftentimes these investment
minimums are very high. So if you want to invest with a
venture capital fund, you'll have to write a check that's
oftentimes 6 figures, if not more to be a part of that.
And once you do so, the decision is out of your hands.
Those venture capital firms are capital allocators.
They take your money and they invest on your behalf.
The reason they make their money is they're good at it, right?
Supposedly some are good, some are bad, but they take your
money and they invest on your behalf and some are great at it.
And I don't think that this is an either or situation.
I think what's what's going to happen is you're going to see
companies that are raising through their community and also
raising through traditional VCs and getting the best of both
worlds to propel them to success.
I love that. I love that, man.
This is, this is incredible. This is great.
I love what you've built in stealth all these years and this
is this is incredible, man. This is awesome.
Giving the people access to potentially some of the latest
and greatest Bitcoin companies. Guys, go to
timestampfinancial.com. Doctor Bitcoin and I have a long
history. This guy's, this guy's the real
deal. He's a true Bitcoiner.
So even though he's wearing a suit, you can't trust them.
I do vouch. I do vouch for him.
Sport coat but but yeah, guys, go check out time
stampfinancial.com go give doctor Bitcoin MDA follow on X
to to stay tuned with the latest and greatest that he's doing.
I congratulate him on his business.
That's really, really cool. Glad to hear that he's been
building and this was simply Bitcoin live for December 11th
2024. I'm your host Nico.
It's my Co host Optimus Fields and our guests for today, Doctor
Bitcoin MD. We'll see you guys tomorrow for
a brand new episode. Today's episode was brought to
you by bitcoinwell.com, a Bitcoin only platform on a
mission to enable financial independence.