None. It's national.
Cheeseburger day, evidently. Oh, I loved it all.
I've got some burgers and Diet Coke the.
Best. Burger in the City and David's
doing a good job, everybody, right?
I think David does. Everyone know David?
He's doing a good job. You got this whole thing
started? Yeah.
I'll sign that menu. Yeah.
Would you like 1? You want a hamburger?
These burgers are killers. They're really.
They're good. That's great, man.
How's that? Nice.
That's perfect. Amazing, you know, And one more
right here would be fantastic. Don't mind.
If anything, we have some gifts. For you.
Good. I want Bitcoin.
OK, you got it. Appreciate your open mindedness.
Thank you so much for coming here.
It's great. It's a new.
It's a new era. That's what's happening.
It's amazing to see what's happened in such a short period
of time. Congratulations.
Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. This suckers are good too.
Yeah. This is a crypto burger.
You should name them. Name a Bitcoin and a crypto.
Plenty of them. You think you're going to be in
good shape back there? Last bottle though.
Do you want one? Huh.
You want one? She's been great.
I just think Greg Gutfeld, you have to watch it tonight.
Greg, how many people were there?
And Doug, you with it? Yeah, that's cool, right?
He's done a good job. Is everyone no Pulitzer Prize
winner that is one of the greats going to be Saints.
Embarrassed. Embarrassed.
OK, here you go, Doug. You're great.
Always. He makes me look thin.
That's. All I have a good time everybody
yeah Windows 7 Bitcoin live your number one source of the
peaceful Bitcoin revolution company breaking news
culturomatic warfare will be your guide through the
separation of money and state. Here is the first clip of Donald
Trump at pub key in New York City and he did.
This is the first time AUS president completed a Bitcoin
transaction. We have the clip of that
specifically later on in the show, but there you have like
Trump bought burgers for everyone in the bar, just
handing it out. I think at one point he said he
called it a crypto burger. You can just hear the whole
crowd say Boo, Boo. Anyways, from a historical
perspective, this is absolutely massive.
You can never have imagined this.
You know 27 2016 2017 when I got in Ben got in earlier than I did
can never have imagined this right Bitcoin being made legal
tender in El Salvador 20/21/2024 You'd have a potential an ex
president and potential future president, you know saying he'll
protect the right to self custody.
You know he'll protect the right to mine.
He'll stop the operation choke .2 point O and there he is
completing his first Bitcoin transaction at the famous
Bitcoin bar in New York City pub key.
So absolutely crazy historic. Here's the second part of the
clip. Donald Trump, he is in a bar, I
believe in downtown New York called the Pub Key in downtown
Manhattan. Maybe we can play up some sound
here guys. And see if he says anything.
He's. Going to scan this QR code here
with this phone. If you want to take that from
him, scan the QR code right? Here.
Right there. Right there.
Just that one. And fantastic it went through.
So absolutely historic moment as you could say he was having
trouble. There was glare, he tried to
scan it first it wasn't scanned, then they did it for him, but
still it still counts in my opinion.
Yeah, I mean, it's funny looking at that.
It reminds me of the days of old where you would have somebody
like onboarding a, a merchant or something and you'd have the
demo video of like, look, we did the transaction and but now it's
president doing it and it's just history doesn't repeat, but it
rhymes. Yeah, absolutely.
Man, this is such a historic moment, absolutely huge.
And again, also a reminder of something that we've been
talking about for the last couple days, the last couple of
months really about the this upcoming election in the United
States. It will have a major impact in
the regulatory environment for Bitcoin businesses in the US.
You don't want those Lightning wallets to continue to flee like
wallet of Satoshi, like Phoenix wallet and also the persecution
of Bitcoin developers like the Samurai guys.
So yeah, it is going to be the first Bitcoin election and I
think that is definitely a show of good faith.
And I do want to give a shout out to the people that made it
happen, I believe is Anthony Pompliano and David Bailey that
played a big role in getting Trump to pub key to make his
first Bitcoin president. The the first time AUS president
makes a Bitcoin transaction. Absolutely historic moment in
Bitcoin's history. And I do want to go legendary
host who's here on the wings today.
Optimus Field. How you doing bro?
What's up, dude? What's up, Ben?
How you doing? How you doing?
I'm doing. I'm doing well, man.
Everything's great. But yeah, what a what a
interesting clip, to say the least.
First of all, of course, seeing Donald Trump on a superficial
level do a Bitcoin transaction does, as Nikka always say, break
the Overton window. And then I think the most
interesting part is there was a lot of Bitcoiners kind of
talking about the fact that one, you know, didn't even seem like
Trump was doing it himself. It's like, OK, he's like a
boomer learning new technology. Like give the guy a break.
But the the fact that this was on Fox News, like I think that
is a historic event. Of course, for all of us younger
people, none of us are watching corporate press and we probably
don't watch Fox News. And I think the demographic is
like 60 plus. But again, with the idea of the
Overton window and having that transaction take place, yes, it
was a little clunky considering that there was a lot of glare
and there was some QR code issues with the lights and
stuff. And yes, it wasn't necessarily
Trump doing it himself. But again, he's still in his
learning curve. And I think I got to give him a
give him a break a little bit here.
The fact that he's actually doing this, I think it's super
historic. Of course, this is him
campaigning. Like, let's not, you know, go
into who's just a politician. This doesn't matter.
Bitcoin doesn't need Trump or Bitcoin doesn't need
politicians. Politicians need Bitcoin.
We totally get it, guys. Like, of course we all think the
same thing, but it is a historic event.
Now everyone's saying is what was it?
September 18th, official burger day for Bitcoiners.
Like we have pizza day. But Nico, I know you want to get
into the show real quick, but I do want to kind of do a little
update on what the stack was here.
Got this good tweet from Will Cole kind of clarifying a lot of
stuff here. And Will Cole goes so lots of
questions in regards to this transaction.
We'll call this the Trump stack. Donald Trump wielded a strike
wallet paying a Zaprite app Lightning invoice belongs to pub
key who are running their own lightning LND node on voltage
cloud. Very stable and reliable setup.
In fact, everyone, everybody says it's the best thing.
It's the best thing I've ever. And then just to clarify, Mags
responds that was not as smooth as lightning transactions
usually are. What happened?
And Wilco responds lots of flash photography causing glare on the
screen, plus an invoice that had been open for a long time in
anticipation. They take lightning payments
there every night with no hiccups.
Was just a lot going on. And so I did see a lot of people
basically saying like, oh, this was just a photo op.
Of course, you know, like this was just a campaign political
op. Totally was.
Of course it was, of course it was.
But still, I think the point remains the same that this was a
historical historic moment in the in the Bitcoin space at
large. Obviously, as Bitcoiners, we
like to hype everything up. We get super excited about
everything. But let's not take away from the
fact that, you know, technically the 1st U.S.
President to do a Bitcoin transaction at Pub Key in New
York, I think is a legendary moment, which just goes to show
how far this industry has grown. But I get it that, you know, a
lot of anti politicians in the Bitcoin space, like bro, like
when he had, when is he going to have his own lightning wallet,
his own lightning non custodial wallet?
And so there's just a lot of purity test.
But still, guys, come on, he's a boomer.
Like give the guy a break. I know there's boomers out there
that do know how to use Bitcoin, but he's still early in his
Bitcoin journey. And so it's still an important
moment. But you know, I'll get hate on
that. I don't really care.
It is what it is. Yeah.
And and I also got to say like do you remember the first time
that do you remember the first time that you used a Bitcoin
Lightning, I mean a Bitcoin wallet and a lightning
transaction? Like you like it?
It was, it was like somewhat difficult to do right.
So yeah, this is a 78 year old man.
He is pandering, but that's the whole point of politicians.
And some of the things that, like I've been explaining, is
Bitcoiners are now becoming part of his donor class.
And at the end of the day, DC is run by DC.
Politicians are run by their donors fundamentally.
That's why Trump went there because they raised a lot of
money for him in Nashville. And you know, he's he's doing
the favor back. So we want Bitcoiners to be part
of the donor donor base because that's how you actually
influence American politics. Ben, do you want to add to that?
I, I do and the most bullish thing about this, other than the
fact that yes, we have a, a president, you know, that that
is doing a lightning transaction is to me the pub key set up and
what they've done. Because in the days of old,
look, we're doing a Bitcoin transaction and the person would
be receiving like the merchant would be receiving via BitPay,
which is getting dumped to dollars immediately.
And they've got first of all, ZAP rights.
Incredible. I use that myself for invoicing,
but they, they have their own, their own lightning node.
They've got this full set up where they can accept it on the
spot. And I can testify to the way
that they've got it set it up because it's very much the the
way that I use it. And it works beautifully.
And it's and, and you have control over the full stack and
they're stacking those sats, right?
They're not, they're not dumping them to dollars.
So that's the bullish thing here, in my opinion.
Absolutely. And of course, like, you know,
we all work in showbiz, right? But when you have a president
right there, you know, your hands a little bit more shaky
than it normally would. But but yeah, maybe it maybe it
caused a bad impression on Trump, but normally it works.
Florida State anyway, so. The the best part was is like we
brought a gift for you. It's like, yes, I want Bitcoin.
I want. Bitcoin, he definitely knows.
He definitely knows the things to say.
In other news, we're going to talk about Congressman Warren
Davidson continuing to just criticize Gary Gensler and his
attack on self custody. We're also going to talk again
about the RNC platform this year, about their promises about
a the ending, the crackdown on the industry, supporting the
right to self custody, the offend, the right to mine, and
also opposing the creation of a central bank digital currency.
The state of Louisiana becomes the first state to accept
cryptocurrency payment. So we're going to get into the
details of that. And of course, BlackRock
released a report specifically mentioning all these things
about they, they sound like bitcoiners.
It's crazy, but we all have to be very, very wary because at
the end of the day, they don't actually, you know, that what
they're what they're recommending is Bitcoin, but
what they're recommending is ETF Bitcoin, not spot Bitcoin.
So that's something important to keep in mind.
Anyways, during the culture segment we are going to, we are
going to highlight Ben's new company beat Bitcoin mentor.
We're also going to talk about Bitcoin circular economies and
just interview the legend himself, BTC sessions.
So guys, this is gonna be a great show.
Stay tuned and for the guy for everyone who's watching now,
make sure to smash that like button.
Help us break 100 likes within the 1st 20 minutes of the show.
And of course, if you guys are watching us on X rumble and
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on Noster protocols over platforms.
Anyways, before we get into the show, I do want to give a shout
out to simply Bitcoin's lead sponsor.
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In the grand scheme of things, we are just getting started.
Anyways, I do want to show you guys a clip of Warren Davidson
absolutely grilling and questioning Gary Gensler's
leadership. This is the same Gary Gensler
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It was only because of the pressure that was being mounted
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Once they run out, they run out Anyway, so back to Warren
Davidson. This is about a 4 minute clip.
It's absolutely awesome and I just love clips where Gary
Glenzer is getting absolutely wrecked.
Let's check it out. Mr. Reiners, I hope no one's
listening to you about this. Oh, sorry about that, ladies and
gentlemen. Here we go.
Let's try that one more time. Listening to you about this
market, especially as a student trying to understand the space,
it's over a trillion dollars just for Bitcoin.
The markets over $2 trillion. Clearly lots of consumers find
value in this space. And frankly, the idea that you
could point out that there's only one time that the SEC was
even partially wrong has to be willful ignorance.
I mean, I don't know how it could be anything other than
deceit. I don't.
It's hard for me to understand because on August 29th, 2023,
the Circuit Court upheld the position that the SEC violated
the Administrative Procedures Act when it denied Grayscale's
application to convert Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into a Bitcoin
ETP. Following that decision, the SEC
waited until January of 2024 to actually approve the conversion.
And they basically was a was a pure review of of the actions.
If you look at Debt box, another pure review, lawyers would
normally get disbarred for the conduct of SEC in the debt box
case. So there are lots of cases where
they've been caught and told that they were wrong by the
courts, and the market continues to reinforce that there really
is value. Just looking at at Bitcoin
alone, people right now believe that it's a secure way to store
value with a level of confidence of around $60,000.
I mean, that's a, a new security product on the market that you
could digitally secure a unit of value and people believe in it
enough to put almost $60,000 into one unit of measure in a
Bitcoin. And they don't just want to
store it there, they want to be able to transfer it in a
permissionless peer-to-peer way. So if you read the Bitcoin white
paper available at bitcoin.org, you could see the concept even
if you just read the abstract. It's not just meant to be parked
there or speculated on. It's meant to be able to.
Be moved in a permissionless way and we don't know how much of
that trillion dollars of market cap in Bitcoin is self custody
versus third party custody. But the SEC under Gary Gensler's
leadership has willfully undermined the ability for
anyone to custody digital assets, not just Bitcoin but the
rest of the space as well. So they've decided that if they
can't completely end the entire space, they want to push custody
of it to some third party that they can control or manipulate.
They certainly don't want individual American citizens to
custody their own wealth and be able to move it amongst others.
So Mr. Fazzaro, when, when, when you look at this space and the
special purpose broker dealer path that we saw people saying
we'd love to try to custody digital assets for others.
What kind of problems did you find with the current framework
offered by Mr. Gensler? A few of the challenges related
to this framework are that relate specifically to Bitcoin
and crypto exchange traded products that I can mention.
One is that as an issuer an offer of the someone who wants
to offer these products. The larger and well established
custody banks that typically participate in custody of assets
in collective investment vehicles are effectively barred
from participating in the space. They don't have a way to bring
custody services to the market. That's one challenge.
A second one that I'd like to mention is that in the ETF
structure itself or the ETP structure itself, typically the
funds have a creation of redemption mechanism that works
through what is known as an in kind process where the fund
exchanges shares in in exchange for the underlying asset itself.
Because broker dealers are not able to handle Bitcoin and
crypto, we can't have that type of mechanism in the exchange
trader. Is that a consistent way that
it's applied for ETP ETF products?
Are they treating this differently?
In in overseas jurisdictions, we have in kind transactions that
occur in ETFs and Etps, but it's consistently applied here in
that we're not able to bring that type of structure to
market, which is the thing that we we think slightly increases
cost for end users. So I mean, like again, it's the
continuation of Operation Choke .2 point O and the continuation
of like, OK, maybe we can't ban this thing outright, but if we
ban self custody, it still achieves the same thing.
And you could still see them doing this in the background,
right? And this leads me to the
importance of this year's election.
So we have one party that is anti Bitcoin, pro CBDC and we
have another party who is pro Bitcoin, anti CDC.
And now that RFK has bowed out out of the race and supported
Donald Trump, it's literally it's a two party system.
I know it's not perfect. I know Trump is not a pure
Bitcoin maxi. He supports Bitcoin and crypto.
I know that's unpopular with a lot of Bitcoiners, but the the
other option I think is terrible as highlighted in that clip.
And just to continue the continuation of this this attack
on the industry. So this is the official
Republican Party platform on #5 it says champion innovation
specific. There's a specific part that
focuses on Bitcoin and crypto and it says Republicans will end
Democrats unlawful and UN American crypto crackdown and
oppose the creation of a central bank digital currency.
We will defend the right to mine Bitcoin and ensure every
American has a right to self custody of their digital assets
and transact free from government surveillance and
control. So it's very, very clear there.
I know it's very uncomfortable for a lot of people having this
conversation. And the reason for that is
because I think politics are divisive.
I think by definition they're divisive.
It's the organization of power. But what I would say is,
remember Bitcoin is a separation of money and state.
Bitcoin fixes a lot of these problems.
So it's important to put Bitcoin over party and we have two clear
choices ahead of us in this upcoming election in the United
States in November. And I got to say, you know, I
would rather vote for Trump. That's not perfect.
Then vote for the Kamala Harris that will continue their crusade
against the industry as highlighted right there.
You, you, you saw Warren Davidson.
He he, he identified it. He's like, look, even if they
don't get rid of digital assets altogether, they're going to go
after self custody. And the reason for that is
simple. They don't want for people to be
able to hold money of which they can't debase.
That's fundamentally what it comes down to.
But this doesn't surprise me. This is the separation of money
and say this is what it's all about.
But we now have the ability to do something about it as
bitcoiners become part of the donor class.
And if Trump does get elected, I think it will be very, very
positive from a regulatory perspective for Bitcoin and
Bitcoin businesses in the US. Anyways, I'm gonna pass it on to
Ben. Ben, similar in Canada in the
sense that right, you had Trudeau, the the famous Canadian
truckers protest, which you're a part of.
And then you have Poli Rare who's running and he has a pro
Bitcoin stance as well. So this isn't just AUS
phenomenon. This is happening on a global
level. Yeah, and and, and we so Polyev
came out relatively early in in support of Bitcoin and, and you
could you could see him as he navigated the waters of Bitcoin
and crypto. And actually he, he kind of went
the opposite direction of Trump in that he started specifying
Bitcoin specifically of what he he likes.
He's, he's a very free market type person, but he does, he
does have a preference of what he likes and to, to Trump's
burger. I'll, I'll see Trump's burger
and I'll raise you a future Prime Minister of Canada that
bought shawarma at Tahini's with Bitcoin.
So, so yeah, he, he's very likely to be the next Prime
Minister of Canada. So are you saying that Poli bear
he front ran Trump he. Did he definitely did, yeah,
because that was a few years ago that he was buying shawarma at
Tahini's in Ontario. And and yeah, I mean, he, he, I
don't know that he'll, he'll be, that he'll make sweeping
regulatory changes that are, you know, like we're not going to
have legal tender Bitcoin in, in Canada.
However, what I'll say in in what you're talking about, well,
you've got a binary choice here. You want as much runway as you
can to build out the tools so that people can self custody, so
people can continue to transact in a permissionless manner
because at at some point all these tools become too difficult
to crack down upon. But if we can get more time and
yes, if it, if that comes with like a side of crypto,
unfortunately, you know, I prefer that to throwing devs in
jail. So that's those are a choice.
100% right, It is pretty black and white in my opinion.
OPT Do you want to chime in real quick before we move on to news
because we have a lot to cover? Yeah, well, first and foremost,
shouts out to Lauren Davidson. He's been on the beat for a long
time and I think he is without a doubt a bitcoiner.
He's definitely done his homework and love to see that he
is in that position and actively fighting for the Bitcoin
industry. So love to see that.
Second, I've said it before, I think it was very obvious who
Gary Gensler was actually working for.
Everyone knows that he was an MIT professor doing a Bitcoin
and blockchain class. And then he becomes the head of
the SEC and he basically actively fought to stop the
Bitcoin ETF as far as everyone was concerned.
It looked like he was, you know, telling the line for some people
above him. So that's why he gets a lot of
really bad rap. And then the Republican versus
Democrat party. I've said it before, you know,
either way, all roads lead to Bitcoin.
We will accelerate towards Bitcoin adoption whoever gets in
power. I think the four year cycle is
still intact. But when you really kind of look
at both sides, it seems to be 1 is anti Bitcoin pro CBDC and the
other one, and it may not be perfect, but it's pro Bitcoin
and shit coins and wants to accelerate Bitcoin adoption.
So it's all going towards hyper bitcoinization at some point.
But actually before I move on, sorry, Nico Sessions, you
reminded me, did we ever get one?
And maybe I, you know, I have a bad memory.
I have a goldfish memory here guys.
But did we ever see a video of Naibu Kelly doing transactions
with Bitcoin? Because that was one of the big
criticisms that people were saying of Trump.
He's like, oh, he didn't actually do it.
And then I was thinking, I'm like, yeah, and yet we love
Naibu Kelly, but I don't remember him actually doing like
a video. You know, obviously a political
campaign, a political op in doing a transaction, but I don't
that interesting. I, I don't recall seeing that
also like they're, they're pushing the, the Chivo wallet
down there, which it, it, it had its issues out the gate.
So I feel like that demo would have been rockier than than
Trump's. Just there.
So yeah, no, I don't recall having seen it.
I don't know. Nico, do you remember?
I don't recall, but what I will say is I'm going to give Naimbu
Kayla a free pass here. And the reason for that is
simple. I was able to when I landed in
El Salvador, you pay a customs fee and I was able to pay that
customs fee in Bitcoin on chain or Lightning.
It was it was absolutely surreal.
And he did make Bitcoin legal tender, so I'm.
Gonna give a naive but this was more on people talk.
I'm gonna give him that moment. I'm gonna give him a free pass.
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All right everybody let's get to the news.
We have a lot to talk about. Let's check it out.
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All right, so today's news is Louisiana State government
accepts first cryptocurrency payment.
Louisiana State Treasurer John Fleming announces an innovative
transition with state government's plan to accept
cryptocurrency as a valid form of payment.
You can't have it both ways. You can't say Bitcoin isn't
money and then say, hey, we're going to accept it as a form of
payment, right? You can't pick and choose which
laws are convenient anyways. Allowing the integration of
digital currency into Louisiana's public operations,
Louisiana residents will now have the option to pay for state
services with their private secure crypto wallets.
These popular type of currencies will be accepted Bitcoin,
Bitcoin, Lightning and USD coin. That that that isn't
cryptocurrency payments, that is Bitcoin and that is Lightning.
I'm so that is crazy that they're accepting Lightning off
the gate. Hopefully, it will go a little
bit smoother than the Trump one. In fact, the first
cryptocurrency payment was made today to the Louisiana
Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Fisheries, a unique service, converts incoming cryptocurrency
payments, depositing U.S. dollar amounts into state government
accounts like a credit slot or debit card transaction.
The service protects the state from previous worries about
accepting cryptocurrency and promotes the adoption of new
technologies in the state's infrastructure.
I mean, again, this is a continuation of the trend.
This happens literally, I think the day before Trump did that
transaction. So just imagine five years from
now where we'll be. And it makes me incredibly,
incredibly bullish. Anyways, you guys want to
comment on this before we move on to the BlackRock news.
Ben. Yeah, so I, I I do find it funny
though, the following cryptocurrencies will be
accepted Bitcoin, Bitcoin Lightning as if they're like
different, different currencies and and USD coin.
So I'm I'm I'm torn on this because on one hand I'm I, you
know, I'm not a fan of giving Bitcoin to governments, But on
the other side of things, I will say that for somebody, you know,
if somebody's like like myself, a crazy person living on
Bitcoin, things like this where you can just like get your bills
out of the way and just easily pay with Bitcoin and via
lightning from anywhere on the planet, even if you're
travelling, you can like ZAP and pay a bill or something like
that. That is, that is a step above
and beyond and it's, it's a, a, a huge step forward over the
legacy system. So I I think that's important.
100% and and one of the things I I found curious as well is that
they're converting it to Fiat immediately.
So it's like, yeah, we'll accept your Bitcoin, but we're going to
convert it back to we're going to convert it back to something
that we can just print money out of thin air of Yeah, I mean, I
agree with you. It's like don't give money to
the state, but at the same time the state is immediately
converting it back to Fiat, which is absolutely hilarious.
Anyways, Opti, what's your take on this yellow Opti cane some
muscle mass. We got yellow in the house.
Yellow is the CEO of Bitcoin. He is Satoshi.
So any price movements are one hundred 100% caused by yellow.
So if you guys have any complaints or anything at all
about Bitcoin's price, please, you know, tag yellow or message
yellow on Twitter. That's a joke.
But anyways, Opti, what's your take on this?
I mean, it is bullish in the sense that I think we get the
best of both worlds, right? Louisiana's accepting Bitcoin as
payment and lightning as payment, and they're selling it
immediately. So like, you know, I think we
get the best of both worlds as Bitcoiners here.
Yeah, I have to double down on the same thing that session
said. I'm not a fan of giving
governments your Bitcoin, but I think it does go to show that
the Bitcoin industry is maturing.
I know one of the big flood lines that I hear all the time
is that classic like, oh, well, you can't buy things with
Bitcoin or, you know, wait until a government is is taking
Bitcoin for taxes and then we'll talk.
Well, it seems like that point and we've, we're there like
we've crossed that bridge now. And yeah, hey, if they want to
convert, get back to Fiat, like have fun staying poor.
I guess there's still a lot of room to go in terms of education
and teaching people that you want to store the Bitcoin, not
just receive it as payments. But hey, we'll take baby steps.
We'll take baby steps here. And people have to learn this.
So over time, more and more people will learn this, more and
more nations will learn this, more and more states will learn
this. So hopefully more states do
follow. And it really, it really goes to
the next question of how are they going to beat Bitcoin in
returns in, in terms of capital gains tax and all that stuff.
People were kind of saying the same thing with the Trump
transactions, like did he play, did he pay cap gains on that
transaction? What's going on here?
So I think it's it's interesting developments and we're going to
see more and more data points of seeing States and countries try
to figure out how to actually deal with Bitcoin since it is a
whole new money tech. There is a learning curve and it
seems like we're still in the early fax days, the AOL Internet
days. But hey, we'll take slowly but
surely over, you know, catastrophe here any day.
So I think this is, this is, I don't know if I'd say bullish
Nico, but I think this is, this is good signal that things are
improving and politicians and regulators and people in power
are at least at the very lowest terms looking at Bitcoin
differently because it it is maturing. 100% also shout out to
the 1000 of you guys watching live between YouTube Rumble X
and Noster. If you guys are enjoying the
show, make sure to smash the like button, share the video and
Noster. We appreciate all the zaps
coming in Anyways everybody before we move on to the
culture, I just want to talk about Blackrock's presentation
that they released a couple days days ago.
The name of the presentation for the audio listeners is Bitcoin,
a unique diversifier. Why Bitcoins appeal to investors
lies and it's detached from traditional risks and return
drivers. That's right, ladies and
gentlemen. That was BlackRock that said
that not too long ago. They're talking about ESG.
You know, Bitcoin really does fix things, I guess.
Anyways, it goes on to say key points number one, investors
considering allocating to Bitcoin are grappling with how
to analyze it relative to traditional financial assets
given Bitcoin's unique properties and limited history.
2 Bitcoin, with its high volatility, is obviously a quote
risky asset on a stand alone basis.
However, most of the risk and potential return drivers Bitcoin
faces are fundamentally different from traditional risky
assets, making it unfitting for most traditional finance
frameworks, including the quote risk on and.
Risk off framework employed by some macro commentators.
That line is so important because this isn't a report
coming from a rando on Twitter. This is coming from BlackRock
and this is being shown to all the wealth management banks.
This is being that this report is being read by everyone and
they're literally telling you this is not a risk on asset.
You can't treat it as such. This is a completely different
asset. Key point #3 Bitcoins nature as
a scarce non sovereign, non sovereign.
The centralized global asset has caused some investors to
consider it as a flight to safety option in times of fear
and fear and around certain geopolitically disruptive events
#4 over the long term, Bitcoin adoption trajectory is likely to
be driven by the intensity of concerns over global monetary
stability, geopolitical stability, US fiscal
sustainability. Dude this is crazy that
BlackRock is. They're basically saying, like,
look, Bitcoin's gonna go up forever, Laura, because the US
government is putting too much money and US political
stability. This is an inverse of the
relationship that is generally attributed to traditional risk
assets with respect to such forces.
That is so insane because they're basically saying like,
look guys, even if the US political situation and the
fiscal situation gets worse in the US, that's actually good for
Bitcoin and that makes number go up.
And again, this is BlackRock saying this out of everyone
right now. They have this little graphic
here for the audio listeners. It says what makes Bitcoin
relevant? Persistent historical challenges
around money prone to inflation in the basement given a non
fixed supply 2. Difficult to transact across
borders 3. Access limited to one's
particular country controlled by central authority.
Then they said what bit what Bitcoin made possible.
Fixed maximum supply of 21 million, digitally native and
borderless permission permitting, near instantaneous
global transfer of value. First truly Open Access global
monetary system. And then it just goes and shows
the charts. This is insane.
And then of course, you know, it's it's it's saying that the
returns and the XS, the first cycle 592 X, the 2nd 555 X, the
3rd 104 X, the, I think the 4th 21 X and then the upcoming one,
nobody knows. But yeah, I mean, this is crazy.
They're making the case that it's an uncorrelated asset.
And again, guys, the signal here is the fact.
And look, it's showing you all the events and how Bitcoin
performed, right. So US, Iran escalation, the S&P
fell the pandemic, the S&P only did 2% Bitcoin, which is green
on every single thing. Bitcoin does not care.
The honey badger does not care. And again, the signal here is
the fact that this report came from BlackRock.
And this is being read by wealth managers all around the world,
the biggest banks, the biggest institutional investors.
And they're seeing this. And BlackRock, Larry Fink is
making the case as to why Bitcoin is an alternative asset.
Bitcoin is going to go up no matter what.
And actually, despite unstable political situations in the
United States, despite the, you know, the unsustainable fiscal
policy that actually benefits Bitcoin, which is crazy that you
have Larry Fink as admitting to something like that.
Yeah, it's it's funny at this phase of Bitcoins adoption,
watching the suits trumpet the exact same points that
bitcoiners have been making for years.
You know, you have Larry Fink saying while cap supply, it's
meant to stand in the face of money printer go Burr, you know,
in more professional language than that, But that's
effectively what he's saying. He's saying, listen, listen,
Bros, money printer go Burr, that's bad.
We need cap supply. We need censorship.
Like he's basically saying that to, to money managers and it's
wild to see it's I, I, I again, all of the things we just
finished talking about a previous and possibly future
U.S. President buying burgers with
Bitcoin. We're talking about the CEO
BlackRock orange Pilling money managers around the globe.
We're we're in in my wildest dreams.
I didn't realize it would happen this quickly, which makes me
wonder what's in store in the next epoch or two.
Dude, it's going to be absolutely nuts.
Opti. I mean, bro, does this surprise
you? It sounds like they're, they've
been listening to simply Bitcoin and Opti.
And I think they were taking some inspiration while they were
writing that report, my friend, because it's they're saying a
lot of the things that we've been saying for years now.
They've been listening to Piero Shard.
Let let's get this straight. Let's get this.
Straight. Yeah.
I mean, look, I've been saying this for a while and I think the
biggest news to come out of this whole BlackRock ETF was a couple
of weeks ago when they said that they were going to unleash.
I forget what the number is, but like 1500 or actually that might
have been Morgan Chase, I forget.
But essentially the idea is now that BlackRock has finally got
into the space, now that Bitcoin is got that legitimization of
BlackRock, they're unleashing all of their asset institutional
managers out there and sending this out to all of their
clients. And so I look this up real
quick. BlackRock manages assets for
clients in over 100 countries. The company helps over
35,000,000 Americans invest to save for retirement on behalf of
client. BlackRock manages the pension
savings of over 12 million people in the UK alone and of
course has approximately $10.5 trillion in assets under
management. So this isn't just some small
YouTube podcast here they are sending these reports to some of
the wealthiest people out there. A huge cohort of people out
there are listening to what BlackRock is saying.
And I, I venture to guess that they got this in their e-mail on
whenever it came out, what was it yesterday or whatever, Like
it hit all of their client, it's emails.
And now they're all reading about Bitcoin and they're all
getting the same signal that we're saying except for it comes
from the suit. So it holds a little more
legitimacy here. And, yeah, it's beautiful to see
that they're saying exactly what we are saying, which should
really get people to kind of be more concerned about where the
economy really is right now. If they're going this bullish on
Bitcoin and they're sending this these kinds of reports out to
people. I don't know, if I was someone
with a lot of wealth that wasn't a young person, I would probably
listen to them and be like, yeah, maybe I need to get some
Bitcoin right now because things aren't exactly as they seem.
And maybe the traditional financial world isn't as healthy
as I believe it to be. And maybe money printing is a
bad thing. And so as much as BlackRock does
make me feel icky and, you know, it gets me concerned that they
basically own everything on planet Earth, it's good to see
that they're at least spreading that signal out there and more
people are going to look to Bitcoin as a viable investment
option. Of course they're showing their
ETF, but slowly but surely they'll go into spot Bitcoin
once they realize that there's financial trickery that can play
out in the ETF. And also like, like the, the
ETFs, right? So like with people like, OK, so
like you're doing, I guess for convenience 'cause you want to
buy it with like your Charles Schwab account or whatever, but
like, OK, you're, you have to pay a fee when you buy the ETF
number one. And #2 you have third party
custody risk. So there's literally no upside
for buying the ETF instead of buying spot Bitcoin and taking
itself custody. I get it from a legal
perspective, there are some type of institutions that can't buy
spot Bitcoin, They have to buy the ETF there.
I understand. But for the vast majority of
people, BlackRock, I appreciate you being the employee of the
year employee of the month for Bitcoin.
But just keep in mind everybody spot Bitcoin is a real thing.
ETF Bitcoin is is is definitely ruggable.
Anyways guys, stay tuned. To hilari pump my bags.
Stay tuned for the culture. We got BTC sessions.
Coming up, we're gonna talk about Bitcoin, mentor, circular
economy, SAT's market, all that. All right, let's check it out.
Here we go. All right everybody I do want to
give a shout out to our sponsor, the Orange Pull app Stack
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guys. So download the orange pull up
today and scan the QR code or check the link in the video
description. Anyways, we have a very special
guest today. We have BTC sessions in the
flesh right next to me. We are streaming live by the
way, from the Real World Suite at Unconfiscatable 2024 courtesy
of Tone Vase and it's pretty sick.
Sweet man. Me and Ben have been staying in
the same room for the last three days.
Wait. Stay in bed.
Stuff got weird for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely,
definitely. So yeah, no, it's pretty cool.
It's pretty cool. It's love this venue.
I think Tone did an incredible job and really, really enjoying
this event so far. And yeah, man.
So Ben, you've been working on quite, quite a couple things.
I want to start off with Bitcoin Mentor, which is your latest
project. You are Co founder with your
partner Mike. Yeah.
So basically I, I for quite some time I was doing one on ones
with people. You know, obviously there's,
there's eight years worth of, of tutorial content online and that
that does a lot of people a lot of good.
But often times you can kind of encounter hurdles and maybe
maybe you run into a snag that wasn't present in the video or
you just are uncomfortable. You want somebody to hold your
hand while I was doing one on ones with people.
But it got to a point where I was being booked so frequently
that I couldn't keep up with the channel.
And so it it was just kind of meant to be that that I I met my
Co founder Mike Cook in Calgary and he came to me with this idea
of like, hey, let's build out this thing.
And we, we basically put out the word for people who wanted to be
Bitcoin educators and we put them through the gamut.
And, and we had, I think in a couple of weeks, we had well
over 300 people apply to be mentors for Bitcoin mentor.
They went through a series of interviews and then the, the
final boss was me because they had to teach me how to, how to
use something or how, how to use Bitcoin in a wallet or hardware
or whatever. And so we ended up with a team
of, of we really whittled it down to the best of the best.
And now we have this amazing team of educators where if you
are either a newcomer trying to learn something and level up, or
if you've been around Bitcoin for a while and you, you kind of
consider yourself to be a bit of a Bitcoin Luddite where you've,
you've learned your one thing, you know how to do your one
thing. But now you're beginning to
question like, is my setup good enough?
Should I level up? Absolutely.
Always be learning. And and that's what the the team
at Bitcoin Mentor is there to do.
That's awesome, man. Yeah, It's very, very cool what
you guys are doing. And I feel like it's like a
natural continuation of what you've been doing with your
one-on-one sessions, right? But people can still book you,
right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I'm I'm on there. You you can get one on ones with
me. I'm I'm more seldom than the
other guys. And that was.
Kind of that's Ben's very nice way of saying he's the premium.
He's he's premium VIP. You could still get Ben, but
he's top shelf now. I I, yeah, I, I, I, I maybe am
am slightly less less booked because it's it can be a little
bit more expensive because the only thing more scarce than
Bitcoin is is once time and and thus Bitcoin mentor came to
fruition. But honestly, every, every
mentor there not only was already an incredible educator,
but we have weekly calls to make sure one, everybody's up to
snuff. Everybody has their skill set or
they're constantly leveling up and making sure that we, we
basically back and forth teach each other how to be better
educators. And when you get a bunch of
educators in a room and we all and we all do a little scrum on,
on, on what's up, you level up quick, which is amazing.
So where can people start? They, they, they hear this or
that? This is interesting.
I don't know. I don't have the technical know
now. Perhaps I want to set up my
passport. Where?
Where could they go? Yeah, so you go to a Bitcoin
mentor dot IO and what you can do without having to to commit
right out the gate is you can book a free 15 minute discovery
session. And the way that works is you're
going to sit down, you're going to chat with my Co founder Mike,
and you're just going to outline like, Hey, this where I'm at,
this is where I think I might want to go.
And, and he'll basically look at your unique case and say, OK, so
you're looking to do this, that and the other thing, Well, I,
you know, and from our pool of mentors, he'll say, OK, the
person with the best skill set to complement what you're trying
to do is this person. Let's set up your initial
session or your package of sessions, depending on how much,
how much time it's going to take and go from there.
So, you know, even if you're curious, it's worth reaching out
and just saying, Hey, this is where I'm at.
What? What do you think would be a
good trajectory for me? Absolutely, 100%.
And I also, I, I want to pivot the conversation a little bit to
I was up there, I was in Calgary.
I love that part of Canada. By the way, Alberta's dope.
And you did something, I think you went through something
during the Canadian truckers protest.
And I think it, it really, and I think we're seeing this in the
United States. You've seen Warren Davidson
talking about it earlier how they're going after self
custody. The thing is, when you have a
circular economy and you're not dealing with the traditional
financial system, like good luck, bro, right?
It's like you can't like how you going to, you're gonna like you
shut off the entire Internet, like it's gonna be a little bit
more difficult, right? And this is the importance of
circular economies. And you did you, you started
doing these markets, they're called SAT's markets.
And you get different vendors from, you know, people that make
tea, people that make jerky, people that made like mustard.
And I remember I loaded up like a wallet with like 250 U.S.
dollars and I went to each and every single vendor and I bought
something. I don't even know if I took
everything home, but I wanted to support the circular economy.
And I think that is something that's already happening in the
developing world where people just don't trust the traditional
traditional financial system. But that is something that
definitely needs to be more popular in the developed world
where the traditional system is convenient enough for people to
live on on it. But they're working within a
system that is highly political, that can and has been used
against them in the past. And I think the Canadian
truckers protest was an example of that.
Yeah, 100% I'm, I'm, I'm very much on the train now where
where one of my number one missions is not only creating my
own, kind of selfishly creating my own circular economy at home
because I'm one of those crazies that already lives on Bitcoin,
but in, in, in creating that learning lessons and
blueprinting that out for other places to replicate it.
Because you're right, you know, other nations that maybe aren't
first world countries, they're kind of leapfrogging us in that
circular and that community aspect because they, they
already didn't really have access to, to, you know, like
banking, things like that. And so it's easier to, to
leapfrog and create that, that circular economy.
Whereas if you're in a major city and yeah, there's a bunch
of bit corners and everything, but everybody's just using Fiat.
They've got their credit cards, they've got their whatever.
And you may be passionate about Bitcoin, it's tougher to connect
and figure out how to navigate that.
And that's what we're trying to do in my city of Calgary is we
started with the Bitcoiners. We said, listen guys, you
already understand this is the better money.
Obviously you know that you already earn a paycheck and then
you take that paycheck and you you convert some of that to
Bitcoin to save for the long term.
You all have skills, you all, some of you have businesses and
create goods and services for others.
Why would you not accept Bitcoin and just like cut out a step
here? And so that's, that's what we're
doing. The first one that we did was
last Christmas. It was super successful in, in I
think 3 weeks notice. We got 35 vendors together and
just did, did our Christmas market.
It was amazing. We did another one in the
spring. We did another one right before
the Bitcoin Rodeo and we're gearing up for another one this
December for another Christmas market where I think we're going
to do it twice a year. But the point is you don't have
to be at the market to benefit from this because once you once
you've been to the market, you establish those relationships
and then you continue down that path of supporting your local
Bitcoiners. My dad just called me up the
other day. He's like, Oh my God, my
toilet's broken. What did I do?
I called up the Bitcoin plumber. He showed up.
He got shit handled literally. And and and and yeah, my dad has
a a fancy new working toilet paid for with sats.
Shit going, problem fixed. Boom and it's peer-to-peer
right. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
yeah, man, I'm I'm I had a great time guys, if you haven't made
definitely go to that part of Canada specifically, I would say
take advantage of the Bitcoin Rodeo conference and just go up
there. It's it's incredible conference.
This year we did the roast of BTC sessions.
We had a very, very famous comedian, JJP Sears, JP Sears, I
got his name right this time. And no, it was absolutely
hilarious. So it's it's a great time.
Highly recommend the pilgrimage. Highly recommend that
conference. It's high signal, great
production and a great job. Anyways, we are at the top of
the hour. I do want to give opportunity to
Opti to have some last words, then Ben and then we'll wrap it
up. Well, I really want to ask Ben a
question. So it was like a hair in my
mouth 'cause we were trying to bring Ben on a while ago, we got
requests for Ben to come on. And I don't want you to dock
your setups or whatever gets you in trouble here.
So you can plead the 5th if you want to.
But for people out there, they are very curious of how do you
actually live on the Bitcoin standard and how do you connect
to the Fiat world? And I'm, I'm sure you have
videos on this, but just a quick little TTLDR for the people out
there, how do you actually live on the Bitcoin standard?
Yeah. So, so there's a a few things in
practice that I do. So number one is we're very
lucky in Canada that we've got some great companies, some great
Bitcoin companies, one of them Co sponsor of of simply Bitcoin
and and BTC sessions. By the way,
bitcoin.bitcoinwell.com/BTC sessions, great cut.
No, no, no, hold on hold. On hold on
kickerboy.com/thesimply. BTC.
Kick em off the show. But what the main point being in
in Canada is very easy to pay your bills with, with a service
like Bitcoin. Well, they, they do an
incredible job. I can pay lightning and it can
go and it can pay a bill. It can go to a bank account, It
can do all of these things. So, so that bridge is a major
gap for me. Another great service that I use
regularly. And there's a number of them,
but I love bit refill. And so for things like gas and
groceries, things like that, I can just like literally in line
at the grocery store, I pull up my Lightning wallet, I hit a bit
refill, I get my myself a grocery card and I pay for it.
And now they know me. Like they don't know exactly
what's going on, but they're like, there's the guy that
stockpiles gift cards. I'm like, yes, absolutely.
So those, those take care of a lot of it.
But I recognize I'm using services to make that possible.
And thus the impetus for the SAT market is, you know, to be truly
ungovernable, uncensorable, you have to have a community, you
have to know people and be able to say, hey, you know, I, I, I
know my, my local rancher, I've shaken his hand and I bought,
you know, a quarter cow from him.
And, you know, I things like that where you, you can't
prevent people from having relationships with each other.
And that's the true strength. So those, that's kind of the,
the, the three pronged approach that I have right now.
And it seems to be working pretty well.
Love that love that. Anyways, guys, this was a a
special these last three days special edition simply Bitcoin
live streaming from the real world suite at unconfiscatable
2024 courtesy of Tone vase. I'm gonna be heading back to
Miami later tonight. Opti is gonna be taking the host
seat tomorrow with Chris or Brandon Opti.
I think it's Brandon Brandon and I'll be back for the Monday show
guys, this was simply Bitcoin Live for September 19, 2024.
I'm your host Nico. This is our guest for today.
Of course the legendary BTC sessions and of course my
legendary Co host, Optimus Fields.
All right everybody, if you guys enjoyed the show, you know what
to do. Smash the like button, consider
subscribing and go outside, touch some grass and I'll see
you guys on Monday. Everybody peace out everybody.
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