Bitcoin & the Bigger Shovel

[0:00] Yo, welcome back to another episode of
[0:03] the Jack Mer Show. I am your host, Jack,
[0:06] and you are listening to another edition
[0:08] of Mailbag Monday, episode 113.
[0:13] A lot going on throughout the world. A
[0:15] lot going on. Without further ado, let's
[0:19] timestamp this so we can get the show
[0:21] started. Started stoed. Started. That
[0:23] was That was accidental. That wasn't one
[0:25] of my accents. I wasn't talking like I
[0:27] was from Jersey. Bitcoin of Jersey. open
[0:29] a [ __ ] straight. That was an
[0:31] accident. I didn't mean to say it like
[0:33] that. Okay, I'm talking to you all at a
[0:35] Bitcoin price of 73,300
[0:39] US coub. I mean dollars. That gives
[0:42] Bitcoin a market cap of 1.47
[0:45] trillion US. We are now 41.9%
[0:50] down from our all-time high that we made
[0:53] on October 6, 2025. That's a $126,160
[0:59] BTC. We made that 189 days ago.
[1:05] What was the last Bitcoin block mined
[1:09] since I hit stream?
[1:12] That was Bitcoin block height 944,947.
[1:19] Ladies and gentlemen,
[1:22] so much going on. The title of today's
[1:25] show is Bitcoin and the Bigger Shovel.
[1:29] Before I get into it, uh, a few things
[1:32] based on your feedback, you know, this
[1:35] week. So, I have a lot going on this
[1:37] week, both on and off the court, as they
[1:40] say. That means both with work and
[1:44] outside of work. So, for one, I'm a
[1:47] little shorter on time than I usually
[1:50] am. So, this probably won't be a
[1:52] two-hour episode. Sometimes I can't help
[1:54] myself, but it really really shouldn't
[1:56] be. Uh, and then the other is just
[1:59] politics. Okay, let me just say this.
[2:03] You guys get your panties in a bunch
[2:05] about politics. Honestly, it says a lot
[2:09] about the state of political warfare in
[2:13] America that I can't just speak my mind
[2:16] about politics. Mind you, I've never
[2:19] voted. I'm not left, right, up, down,
[2:23] blue, red, blah, blah, blah. You can't
[2:25] put me in that box. I am an open-source
[2:28] software engineer. I'm an entrepreneur.
[2:30] I'm a Bitcoiner. If I bleed a color,
[2:33] it's orange.
[2:35] But it's just so much negativity where
[2:38] you guys are tweeting at me and in the
[2:41] comments and the show just turns into
[2:43] this like negative and I'll admit it.
[2:45] Hey, hand up. You want to know a real
[2:47] man, an honest man, a brave man? When
[2:49] he's wrong, he puts his hand up. Look at
[2:51] me.
[2:54] That's a good man right there. I didn't
[2:56] say it. They said it. Good man. When
[2:59] he's wrong, he puts his hand up and he
[3:01] says, "Yeah, okay. I was yapping about
[3:03] politics. Probably a little too much."
[3:06] So, for this episode, unfortunately, I
[3:08] have to talk about some of this stuff.
[3:11] We live in a world where I say famously,
[3:14] no man should work for what another man
[3:16] can print. But we live in that world.
[3:19] And the men that are printing the money
[3:21] that a lot of you are are working for,
[3:24] like I have to talk about them a little
[3:26] bit. But for this episode, I just don't
[3:29] have the energy to hear all the yapping
[3:32] about politics and I need to look up
[3:34] Trump did this or Biden. I'm I'm I'm
[3:37] this episode now. I might have a
[3:38] different take next episode. That's not
[3:40] a promise for the foreseeable future.
[3:42] I'm just I I'm I want to talk about
[3:45] Bitcoin this episode more than I want to
[3:47] talk about these [ __ ] idiots in the
[3:49] White House. So, there I go. See, there
[3:51] I go. There I go. Didn't mean to do it.
[3:54] That slipped out. Um so, anyways, uh
[3:58] let's get started with all of that being
[4:00] said. So, we are going to have to talk
[4:03] about um the dumb dumber and dumbest. Uh
[4:06] and and again, it's all of them. I mean,
[4:09] Biden was literally a dead guy, and I
[4:12] think Trump is like threatening nukes to
[4:16] a country whose population is like
[4:17] almost 100 million people. Craziness.
[4:20] Um, but anyways, chapter one is the
[4:24] ceasefire, and I put it in quotes. You
[4:26] know, we got to review over the last
[4:29] week what happened, why financial
[4:32] markets are moving the way that they're
[4:33] moving. At the end of the day, markets
[4:35] are information. Prices are information.
[4:40] In large part, money is information. And
[4:43] so, let's review the information. For
[4:45] those living under a rock, President
[4:48] Trump announced a successful ceasefire
[4:51] agreement. And I immediately, like all
[4:54] of these announcements, were like, "That
[4:56] doesn't sit right. That doesn't feel
[4:57] right." knowing who Trump is, knowing I
[5:01] mean, I admittedly don't know him well,
[5:03] but from what I've read, the Iranian
[5:05] regime,
[5:07] there's no way that everyone after all
[5:09] of this huffing and puffing and I'm
[5:11] winning this war. Both sides, I'm
[5:13] winning the war, I'm the best, the other
[5:16] person is foolish, the other person is
[5:18] stupid, there's no way there's just like
[5:20] a snap of the finger peaceful ceasefire.
[5:24] And so as things develop, it becomes
[5:26] clear what Iran is demanding from the
[5:29] United States in order to get a
[5:30] ceasefire. And that was, and I will read
[5:33] it, commitment to non-aggression,
[5:35] continuation of Iran's control over the
[5:38] straight of Hermuz, acceptance over the
[5:41] uranium enrichment program, which is
[5:43] another way of saying Iran can continue
[5:45] towards developing nukes, lifting of all
[5:48] primary sanctions on Iran, lifting of
[5:50] all secondary sanctions on Iran,
[5:53] termination of all UN Security Council
[5:56] resolutions, termination of all board of
[5:59] governors res resolutions,
[6:01] payment of compensation to Iran. So they
[6:05] want payment for the damage that was
[6:07] done during the war. Withdrawal of US
[6:10] combat forces from the entire region and
[6:13] a concession of war on all fronts
[6:16] including against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
[6:19] Okay. And as this came out and it was
[6:22] being reported by the like who you would
[6:26] consider to be legitimate media sources,
[6:28] although those are continuously scarce,
[6:31] it became clear that if this was the
[6:34] case, the US lost the war. And so this
[6:39] tweet from Guyer Capital, let's be
[6:40] perfectly clear, if Trump agrees to
[6:42] these 10 points, Iran won. They
[6:44] leveraged the strait of Hermuse and won.
[6:47] And I I just want to reiterate my
[6:50] opinion is again unfortunately in war
[6:54] people die. And I'm not being like I'm
[6:58] not joking. There are people that are
[7:01] either risking their lives or have had
[7:03] their lives taken due to this war. That
[7:07] is extremely [ __ ] up. I believe
[7:10] wholeheartedly in peace for everyone. I
[7:14] think broken money system helps
[7:17] perpetuate things like war. In order to
[7:20] finance these things, governments can
[7:21] deprive wealth and steal wealth from
[7:24] their citizens by simply printing money
[7:27] instead of having to raise the wealth
[7:29] from us in a way that we approve to
[7:32] finance this type of violence. I think
[7:34] fiat is violent. I just disagree
[7:37] fundamentally with the need to murder
[7:40] humans at scale. So, it sucks. Now, with
[7:44] that being said, it doesn't really
[7:48] matter how many Iranian Navy ships are
[7:53] at the bottom of the sea or how many
[7:55] missiles we've dropped on top of the
[7:58] country.
[7:59] What really matters is can Iran leverage
[8:04] the straight of Hermoose which is 20% of
[8:07] the oil global supply chain and
[8:09] everything in the market is a derivative
[8:12] of energy. We've talked about this on
[8:13] the show. Food is a derivative of
[8:16] energy. Fertilizer is a derivative of
[8:19] energy. Obviously what you put in your
[8:21] car, gas is a derivative of energy.
[8:24] Travel, the whole travel industry is a
[8:26] derivative of energy. Everything is a
[8:28] derivative of energy. So can they has
[8:31] Iran built the capable missile
[8:34] infrastructure and drones to give them
[8:36] effective control over the strait? Can
[8:38] the US enforce the petro dollar system
[8:42] via violence which is via the US
[8:44] military or are we moving to a petroan
[8:47] which is kind of like petro gold or pro
[8:50] bitcoin.
[8:52] Okay. And what I continue to reiterate
[8:54] is if the US cannot reopen the strait, I
[8:58] consider that a loss. Now, put your
[9:02] patriotic flag down. I'm not saying the
[9:05] US is a bad country. I'm not anti acting
[9:08] anti-American. Where am I coming from?
[9:11] from a state of financial markets, from
[9:14] a state of macroeconomics, a loss to the
[9:16] United States would be profound
[9:19] because it would mean that the petro
[9:22] dollar can no longer be unilaterally
[9:25] enforced by the US military.
[9:28] Do you understand? I'm American. I love
[9:31] this country. News flash, I'm still
[9:34] here. I've had plenty of opportunities
[9:36] to leave. I could be living in El
[9:37] Salvador. I could be I could move
[9:39] wherever I want to.
[9:41] I'm here. I'm building. My business is
[9:45] American. We serve Americans. We hire
[9:48] Americans. I'm here. My point is what
[9:52] the show is about. It's about
[9:53] macroeconomics. It's about money. It's
[9:56] about the future of the It's about how
[9:58] can all of us save money and build a
[10:01] base of capital to have family, to have
[10:04] a home, to have experiences in a life
[10:07] that we deem worth living. We are living
[10:09] through an era where government and
[10:11] central banks deprive us of our future,
[10:14] of our time and our energy. How can we
[10:16] survive that? How can we engineer our
[10:19] way out of that? That's what I mean.
[10:21] Okay. Now, Rory, you guys should all
[10:25] follow Rory. He's like a oil analyst. I
[10:28] don't know. He's been one of my favorite
[10:30] follows on Twitter recently. He's been
[10:32] great. and uh he's got just got really
[10:35] good expertise on what is going on in in
[10:38] relation to oil, global supply chains,
[10:40] the straighter hermuz uh he's also done
[10:42] some podcast recently which are good. Uh
[10:45] so you can look them up on YouTube and
[10:46] and follow him on Twitter. Uh and this
[10:50] tweet I thought like reflected my exact
[10:52] thoughts as well. A real ceasefire that
[10:55] even partially reopened the straight of
[10:57] Hermoose, even under suboptimal
[10:59] conditions and effective Iranian
[11:01] control, would be a godsend to supply
[11:03] parched markets on the edge of breaking
[11:06] and would spare considerable economic
[11:08] and human misery. A fake ceasefire
[11:11] announcement meant to plate markets
[11:14] actually worsens the long-term
[11:16] consequences of the crisis by delaying
[11:18] more durable adjustments to ongoing
[11:20] shortages. The straight of Hermoose
[11:23] remains closed. You guys know how I
[11:26] feel. There's one metric right now that
[11:28] matters. Are ships getting through the
[11:31] straight or not? And that's the thing.
[11:34] We can just look it up. We can look it
[11:35] up. It's a metric that we all have
[11:37] access to. I don't need to read what any
[11:39] politician is saying. I don't need to
[11:41] read what some expert economist who went
[11:43] to Harvard and then he went from Harvard
[11:44] to Stanford and Stanford to I don't give
[11:46] a [ __ ] Is the straight of Hormuz open
[11:50] or not? Because there's a quote I use
[11:52] later in this episode. This is inflation
[11:55] in the things we need. You cannot print
[11:58] oil. This is Maslo's hierarchy of needs.
[12:01] At the end of the day, if the oil isn't
[12:03] flowing, everything is a derivative of
[12:05] that of fossil fuels. The story of
[12:08] humanity is commercializing energy.
[12:12] commercializing energy from that bright
[12:14] orange yellow thing in the sky, the sun.
[12:17] That's the story of our species. That's
[12:19] currently fossil fuels, oil, energy. If
[12:23] that isn't flowing, everything changes.
[12:26] And in the same way that you can't print
[12:27] an 18-year-old, you can't print oil.
[12:31] It's just that's just the way it is. So
[12:34] anyways, we fast forward. Iran rejects
[12:37] the proposal to open the straight for a
[12:39] ceasefire. They say this is fake news.
[12:41] [ __ ] you. Trump is trying to play the
[12:44] markets, which admittedly I that's my
[12:46] read. Trump keeps saying things because
[12:49] again, where is Iran hitting Trump where
[12:52] it hurts? Financial markets, the bond
[12:54] market, the stock market. The United
[12:56] States is entirely funded on be money
[12:59] being lent to it and its people being
[13:02] paperw wealthy and realizing that wealth
[13:05] in US assets. If that starts to unwind,
[13:08] then Trump has no choice but to end the
[13:11] war and tend to the country because if
[13:13] the stock market falls 20%, 40%, 50% and
[13:17] the bond market unravels, so does the
[13:19] entire West. And so Trump is going to
[13:22] keep placating towards the idea of, hey,
[13:25] he's going to make an announcement
[13:27] Friday after close, Monday before open,
[13:30] when the volatility starts to hike in
[13:31] the VIX or in the move index. He's going
[13:34] to continue to try ceasefire, ceasefire.
[13:36] Is it real? No, it's not real. He wants
[13:39] the markets to relax. He wants the
[13:40] markets to give him more time. That is
[13:43] his greatest enemy. His greatest enemy
[13:44] is the fact that the US is not
[13:46] productive. The US needs people to lend
[13:49] it trillions and trillions and trillions
[13:51] of dollars to continue to increase its
[13:53] military budget, to do things that are
[13:55] uneconomical. In a in a free market, the
[13:58] United States should not exist because
[14:01] they're not profitable. You understand?
[14:04] So again, another Rory treat tweet which
[14:07] was great. Trump comes out and says they
[14:09] don't have any cards. So he says the
[14:11] Iranians don't have uh they don't seem
[14:13] to realize they have no cards other than
[14:16] a short-term extortion of the world by
[14:18] using international waterways. The only
[14:20] reason they are alive today is to
[14:22] negotiate. And Rory quote tweets and
[14:24] says they have no cards other than the
[14:27] short-term extortion of the world by
[14:29] using international waterways. Those
[14:32] feel like pretty good cards. So again,
[14:36] even Trump is admitting what we've been
[14:38] talking about on the show. Iran's
[14:40] strategy is simple. Use the strait to
[14:42] hit the United States where it hurts.
[14:44] And not only I keep saying economically,
[14:46] but it's it's not only economically.
[14:49] It's real. That's where it hurts
[14:51] America.
[14:53] You guys, Americans don't produce real
[14:56] things. And Trump says, "We produce uh
[14:59] the most oil in the world. this benefits
[15:01] us. Now, that is technically true, but
[15:04] it's not oil in the form that we can
[15:06] consume it. We we we still import on net
[15:10] oil. It's not like we're
[15:11] self-sufficient.
[15:13] So, the US is just been it's been long
[15:16] hyper financialization. It's been long
[15:18] globalization,
[15:20] right? Like I've said before, everyone
[15:22] in the United States optimizes to live
[15:24] their life on the coast or being
[15:27] employed by the coasts. And what I mean
[15:29] by that is either west coast, that's
[15:31] Silicon Valley tech, or East Coast,
[15:33] that's hyper financialization, Wall
[15:35] Street. The brightest minds in the
[15:38] United States are working on things like
[15:40] how to hyper arbitrage trade Robin Hood
[15:43] retail flow like Puff. How do I make how
[15:47] do I make a penny a second and leverage
[15:49] it a billion? That's what the greatest
[15:51] minds are doing. They're not working on
[15:55] our like being self-reliant on oil.
[15:57] They're not working on rare earth mines.
[15:59] They're not working on these physical
[16:01] things that you can't print and that we
[16:03] need to live. And so again, I found it
[16:07] interesting that Trump is now admitting
[16:10] to what we've been talking on the show.
[16:12] The the the chess board is very obvious.
[16:16] And let's see um because what Trump then
[16:19] announced is that he closed the Straight
[16:20] of Hormuz even more. So he closed
[16:23] something that it was already closed to
[16:25] open something that was previously open.
[16:27] But anyways, and then you've seen Trump
[16:30] also say things like, well, we this is a
[16:33] very productive regime change. Because
[16:35] again, I've highlighted I said, why are
[16:38] we in this conflict? The reason why
[16:40] we're in the conflict continues to
[16:42] change. And I'm speculating on this
[16:44] because it I do think it's interesting.
[16:46] you know this Trump has tweeted things
[16:50] like uh or what what's the truth social
[16:53] equivalent to tweeting? he's truthd I
[16:56] don't know whatever he's posted things
[16:58] like um like
[17:02] uh the greatest reset ever and and it's
[17:06] unclear to me like if Trump is doing
[17:08] this to
[17:10] uh weaken the dollar eventually justify
[17:13] money printing like I still don't
[17:15] understand admittedly what is going on
[17:18] and why things are happening. I mean, is
[17:20] it very simply that the US has this big
[17:22] ego and Venezuela was really easy and
[17:25] and they thought this would be easy and
[17:27] it wasn't? I have no idea. You know, is
[17:30] it more sophisticated like this is an
[17:32] effort to be able to justify yield curve
[17:35] control, uh, debase the dollar, start to
[17:38] introduce gold and Bitcoin into global
[17:40] monetary flows? I have no idea. But
[17:43] anyways, on the topic of things like a
[17:45] regime change, I thought this tweet was
[17:46] funny. like very productive regime
[17:48] change you have there. Um, we just added
[17:51] a junior to the Supreme Leader's name.
[17:54] So again, it's you're naive to think
[17:57] that this was all about a regime change.
[17:59] All that happened is the guy's kid is
[18:01] now running the regime, not his dad. We
[18:05] blew his dad up, but the kids now
[18:07] running it. So justifying it as a regime
[18:09] change, highly dubious. Um, clearly Iran
[18:13] is still trying to justify their right
[18:15] to rate uranium uh, production. So,
[18:19] it'll be interesting. I'm really now
[18:21] curious. At this point, the US is too
[18:23] far in um, walking all this back again.
[18:27] Walking the war back and saying, "Fine,
[18:29] [ __ ] it. Let's leave." The reason that
[18:31] that's dangerous is because Iran is
[18:33] saying, "You can get oil. I we have no
[18:36] problem passing certain ships through
[18:38] the straight, but we're not taking
[18:40] dollars. We're not taking the US's
[18:41] shitcoin. And this has really drastic
[18:46] implications for things like the petro
[18:47] dollar, the world reserve currency
[18:48] status. And again, the one is being used
[18:52] because it's effectively goldbacked
[18:56] or not actually because they can print
[18:58] it obviously, but the only way to get
[19:00] one right now is by buying gold. No
[19:04] one's running a deficit with China.
[19:05] China's running a surplus with
[19:07] everybody. They're the world's factory.
[19:08] So they're not exporting Juan on net for
[19:12] countries to use that Juan to then
[19:13] purchase [ __ ] from them. So the way to
[19:15] get Juan is you have and and Chinese
[19:18] goods and services is China's saying
[19:21] we're willing to accept gold. The United
[19:23] States's biggest export over the last
[19:26] four months, I believe, and Luke uh
[19:28] Groman does a good job pointing all this
[19:30] out. Their biggest export, I believe,
[19:32] has been non-monetary gold. And that has
[19:36] has been exported to Switzerland. It's
[19:38] been refined and then shipped onwards to
[19:40] China. And so gold is lubricating global
[19:43] trade right now. And so if the US walks
[19:47] away from this conflict and says
[19:49] whatever, [ __ ] it, never mind. Uh we we
[19:52] regret this. Just open the straight back
[19:54] up. Not only would that be embarrassing
[19:57] and Trump's ego would probably be
[19:58] damaged, but who cares? Whatever. You
[19:59] know, lives should be salvaged. we we
[20:01] shouldn't be killing people and we
[20:02] shouldn't be threatening nuclear stuff
[20:04] in my opinion at least. But it would be
[20:06] dangerous to the petro dollar and the
[20:09] fact that Iran was able to say we're not
[20:12] going to take dollars. We're going to
[20:13] take Bitcoin. We're going to take Juan,
[20:15] which is effectively gold. We're not
[20:17] taking dollars. We're taking non-s
[20:19] sovereign monetary instruments. And the
[20:22] US couldn't do anything about it. They
[20:24] couldn't enforce it with guns and
[20:25] weapons and violence. That would be a
[20:28] really interesting takeaway. Um, also
[20:31] worth noting, as long as we're bitching
[20:33] about government and corruption,
[20:36] um, just the front running of trading
[20:40] going on. So, this from Reuters, traders
[20:42] place large $950 million bet on oil
[20:45] price falling hours ahead of ceasefire.
[20:48] And I like this quote from Luke. Uh,
[20:50] when there's war, uh, there is no free
[20:52] markets. Although I disagree with Luke
[20:54] here, you could argue that this is what
[20:56] free markets is. It's like I I would
[21:00] urge I I actually don't mind.
[21:03] Well, let me let me slow myself down
[21:06] here.
[21:07] If everyone was allowed to insider trade
[21:11] insi quote unquote insider trade, that
[21:13] wouldn't be the worst thing in the world
[21:15] philosophically. What I mean by that is
[21:17] markets are just information. You know
[21:20] what we want at the end of the day is if
[21:23] once someone has information,
[21:25] they use set information in the market.
[21:28] And markets are the best way at
[21:30] organizing information. Why? Because
[21:32] markets, you're forced to put up your
[21:35] time, your energy, your effort, your
[21:37] labor, your capital. It's really easy to
[21:40] just say things like someone could tweet
[21:42] something and there's no repercussions
[21:44] to being wrong in and and spewing out
[21:47] misinformation or bad information. Now,
[21:50] if you're willing to spend a billion
[21:52] dollars on FUD,
[21:55] that's okay because you put up the
[21:56] capital for that. Now, that's not a very
[21:58] scalable thing. If you're using a
[22:00] billion dollars every time you want to
[22:01] voice an opinion on information, you're
[22:03] eventually going to run out of money or
[22:05] you're going to realize your incentives
[22:07] aren't aligned. like I'd rather spend a
[22:08] billion dollars on a yacht or on a
[22:10] sports team or on a bunch of houses or
[22:12] on a bunch of food, whatever. Right? And
[22:15] so it's interesting the the this idea of
[22:19] like what's a free market and what's
[22:20] what's not a free market to me, we could
[22:22] talk about this in the Q&A if you guys
[22:24] want, but you know, I think a perfect
[22:26] world and in what is entirely free
[22:28] markets is once you have information,
[22:31] use it in the marketplace. And we've
[22:32] started to see this, interestingly, in
[22:34] things like prediction markets. And now
[22:36] that we're in this conflict and this
[22:38] idea of when there's war, there are no
[22:40] free markets. I would I would change
[22:42] Luke's quote to when there's war, there
[22:44] are no rules. Like when it comes to life
[22:46] or death, there are no rules. And we've
[22:50] seen, you know, we've seen Congress
[22:52] people like Ro Kana or however you
[22:54] pronounce his name, he's outperformed
[22:56] the S&P 500 by over 100% over the last
[22:59] year. So clearly Washington seems to be
[23:02] okay with them using insider
[23:04] information. Now, either they need to
[23:07] not be allowed to do that or all of us
[23:09] need to be allowed to use any
[23:11] information we have access to to trade
[23:14] and do stuff. Now, I I remember back in
[23:17] the early days when like Coinbase was
[23:19] about to list Litecoin, for example,
[23:21] like this is 10 years ago at this point,
[23:23] Litecoin would start trading like crazy
[23:28] the days be the few days before because
[23:30] the employees at Coinbase knew. And
[23:32] that's just that's just information. And
[23:34] then and then people start trading off
[23:36] that information. They they they
[23:37] register that information. But all this
[23:39] to say,
[23:41] these headlines to me, we are just
[23:43] entering an era where I how do I tie
[23:48] this all together? My interpretation of
[23:49] this is rules and trust and dignity and
[23:54] respect. Uh they're going out the
[23:57] window. It seems very clear to me that
[24:01] we are entering a world where nation
[24:04] states no longer trust each other.
[24:07] They are going to use non-s sovereign
[24:10] monetary instruments for trade.
[24:13] They're going to settle energy and you
[24:16] know commodities at large and things
[24:17] like gold and bitcoin.
[24:20] that the government is extorting wealth
[24:23] from the people, not only via inflation
[24:25] and and uh monetizing the debt and
[24:27] currency printing, but also by insider
[24:30] trading. It seems to me like all the
[24:33] rules are gone. No one's respecting
[24:37] anyone else, anyone's dignity, any form
[24:40] of law that we've been in place, and
[24:42] we're entering more of like a trustless,
[24:44] lawless society, which to me is
[24:46] dangerous. So anyway, I figured I had a
[24:50] pine on this one. I don't think that
[24:53] people use like the most extreme
[24:56] libertarian free market expression of
[24:58] this is like no one should be governing
[25:01] how people use information. But
[25:04] obviously if some people can break the
[25:07] rules and everyone else has to follow
[25:08] the rules, that's [ __ ] [ __ ]
[25:11] Obviously,
[25:12] like, you know, I talk about on this
[25:14] show all the time. I have access to
[25:16] what's called MNPI,
[25:19] material non-public information. I'm the
[25:22] CEO of a public company. I have a lot of
[25:26] information that no one else has in
[25:28] regards to what 21 is going to do, what
[25:31] our strategy is, when we're going to
[25:33] announce stuff. I know all of that, but
[25:36] I can't act on it. I can't tell you guys
[25:39] because that would break a lot of
[25:41] existing rules. But those rules don't
[25:43] seem to apply to people in Washington
[25:45] DC. And that's [ __ ] ridiculous and
[25:48] it's [ __ ] But a and and when you
[25:51] see these polls and you see these
[25:54] studies from the University of Michigan
[25:55] of like, well, it seems like there's
[25:57] been a serious decline in the people's
[26:00] trust in institutions in in governments.
[26:03] Like how is this happening? Why is this
[26:05] happening? We are like gradually then
[26:08] suddenly
[26:10] reaching escape velocity in just I mean
[26:13] what they're doing in our face. I mean
[26:15] our president launched a memecoin,
[26:17] launched a shitcoin. The level of of of
[26:21] just like
[26:23] scamming.
[26:25] It's crazy. So anyway, what is happening
[26:29] with traders frontr running oil and
[26:33] people using what they know Trump is
[26:35] about to tweet? And I mean
[26:38] at this point, if you believe in
[26:40] government, if you trust these
[26:43] politicians, if you think our money
[26:46] should be governed and priced and set by
[26:50] a group of people, like I just don't
[26:53] know what to tell you anymore.
[26:56] And that also just gives further
[26:59] justification to the world that at least
[27:01] I'm building towards and I know a lot of
[27:02] you listening advocate for which is I
[27:06] want to live in a world that's governed
[27:08] by mother nature and that's governed by
[27:11] the laws of the universe the natural
[27:13] laws of the universe where the money has
[27:16] a commodity premium. It's not free to to
[27:18] print. So something like proof of work
[27:20] or having to actually mine the gold out
[27:22] of the ground. Right? I think that our
[27:25] communications between each other should
[27:27] not be at the behest of Elon Musk. I
[27:30] think that we should build and work
[27:32] towards open sourcing the AI LLM models,
[27:35] opensourcing social media algorithms,
[27:38] using distributed systems, using proofof
[27:41] work money. So anyways, I'll end that
[27:44] rant there. So let's check in on the
[27:46] straight now. We're done talking for the
[27:48] most part about these politicians. So
[27:51] Trump announced that the US Navy will
[27:54] begin blockading any and all ships
[27:56] trying to enter or leave the straight of
[27:58] Hermoose. He said, and I quote, "Any
[28:01] Iranian who fires at us or at peaceful
[28:03] vessels will be blown to hell." Um,
[28:08] so anyway, I I don't even know what to
[28:11] say to that. Um, this is the only chart
[28:14] that matters. I actually uploaded a new
[28:16] version. I actually think visually this
[28:18] version is easier to conceptualize just
[28:21] how crazy the fall-off has been. If you
[28:23] guys think the world in the global
[28:25] economy can survive this, you're nuts.
[28:27] So, traffic of the straight of her has
[28:29] fallen off a cliff. So, for people that
[28:31] say, "No, it's kind of still open."
[28:33] Again, I like I don't want to argue with
[28:36] you guys online. I don't want to argue
[28:38] with you guys about politics. I'm just
[28:41] like I'm a I'm a free markets Bitcoin
[28:44] advocate just looking at numbers. Look
[28:46] at this chart and tell me that it's
[28:48] still open or that Iran has had no
[28:51] impact on the global energy markets and
[28:53] aren't using this as leverage against
[28:55] who is an extremely indebted high highly
[28:58] levered Western leader which is the
[29:00] United States. Like you cannot look me
[29:02] in the eye and be serious. So the chips
[29:04] just still aren't getting through.
[29:07] That's just a fact. And Trump, I mean, I
[29:09] I don't totally understand the strategy.
[29:12] Trump is clo more is is now like closing
[29:16] the straight more, which was already
[29:17] closed, to hopefully eventually open the
[29:21] straight, which was before this conflict
[29:23] started, already open. I have no
[29:26] whatever. But I'm not going to sp to be
[29:27] to be candid, I'm not going to spend a
[29:29] ton of my time trying to understand what
[29:30] politicians are doing. I don't care as
[29:33] as long as, you know, I I have a decent
[29:35] idea that Bitcoin is worth working on,
[29:39] that the version of the world that I'm
[29:41] working towards is is positive and and
[29:45] uh productive. That's, you know, this is
[29:47] more validation for me. So, whatever. I
[29:49] I can't explain to you guys what he he's
[29:51] doing. I hope it works out um in a
[29:54] peaceful way for all of us. Um but there
[29:56] is a game of very very very high stakes
[29:59] poker being played right now. And I just
[30:02] hope no one, you know, uh, starts to,
[30:06] uh, claim that they're holding a nuke
[30:08] that they're willing to play and and,
[30:09] uh, and that there's, you know, peaceful
[30:11] resolutions that involve Bitcoin and
[30:13] distributed systems and open source
[30:15] software. We'll see. Um, I thought this
[30:17] was also interesting. This snuck by. Um,
[30:20] so Greer mentioned Trump's trip to China
[30:24] is to simply focus on keeping rare
[30:26] earths flowing. Again guys, remember the
[30:30] US can't do much with China right now,
[30:33] and this is really important to keep in
[30:35] mind. If the US wants to go into a
[30:37] largecale war that's going to last a lot
[30:39] of time, it ultimately needs the support
[30:42] of China. Because in order to build the
[30:44] military weapons that the US needs for
[30:47] combat, they require the rare earth from
[30:50] China. And even if it's not the actual
[30:52] rare earth, once we have rare earths,
[30:53] let's say we're getting rare earths from
[30:55] Argentina or from Venezuela or wherever
[30:57] another country, we still need to refine
[30:59] the rare earth into a state to where in
[31:02] which we can use them to build military
[31:04] equipment. So again, let's take a step
[31:06] back. Why am I saying this? Is it
[31:08] because I'm pro CCP? No. What's the
[31:10] relevance? How does this connect to
[31:12] Bitcoin? Well, this connects to Bitcoin
[31:14] because this has grave implications of
[31:17] global supply chains of geopolitics,
[31:20] macroeconomics,
[31:21] and how if the US is in a position to
[31:26] enforce things like the petro dollar and
[31:28] to enforce
[31:30] what has Trump been trying to do? He's
[31:32] been trying to forcefully say, "You guys
[31:34] are going to pay for our inevitable
[31:36] reshoring through tariffs. you guys are
[31:39] going to pay forth our inevitable
[31:41] reshoring through we're going to come
[31:42] in, bomb your [ __ ] take your oil. Okay,
[31:45] if that isn't going to work, then who is
[31:48] going to pay for the inevitable
[31:49] reshoring for us to undo globalization?
[31:51] Remember that the US uh administration
[31:54] went to Davos and said, "Globalization's
[31:55] over." The idea that we're going to
[31:58] allow you guys to take all the
[32:00] bluecollar jobs, produce all the real
[32:02] stuff, and we're just going to hyper
[32:03] financialize, run these massive
[32:05] deficits, and import it from you. Yeah,
[32:07] we're done with that. That's not going
[32:09] to scale. That's not going to work. Then
[32:11] the inevitable future that I've talked
[32:13] about on the show for a year now is the
[32:15] dollar has to get weaker. US assets have
[32:18] to get weaker. Weaker against what?
[32:20] Debates against what? Neutral non-s
[32:22] sovereign assets, primarily Bitcoin and
[32:25] gold. In my opinion,
[32:27] mind you, when the U dollar is the world
[32:30] reserve currency, it is artificially
[32:32] strong because there is base level
[32:35] demand for the currency. People need the
[32:37] currency for trade. People need the
[32:39] currency for debt. People need the
[32:40] currency for currency exchange. Like
[32:43] when the Nigerian Naira needs to swap
[32:45] for Ganaian SETI, there isn't natural
[32:48] Naira SETI markets. They go Naira to
[32:51] dollar, dollar to SETI. So being the
[32:54] world reserve currency means there is
[32:56] artificial demand for your your currency
[32:59] is stronger than it should be. Without
[33:02] the world reserve currency status, there
[33:04] wouldn't be nearly enough demand. And
[33:06] obviously demand supply imbalance,
[33:08] there's there's a price impact there.
[33:11] And the same goes for US assets. When
[33:13] you run these massive deficits, massive
[33:16] deficits, $2 trillion deficit, all that
[33:19] capital gets recycled back into US
[33:22] markets, primarily buying US stocks, US
[33:24] real estate. And so the stock market is
[33:27] also probably higher than it should be.
[33:29] a lot of luxury US real estate. The real
[33:31] estate market at large is probably
[33:33] higher than it should be. Now, again,
[33:35] the question is higher than it should be
[33:36] against what? Well, in my opinion, it's
[33:40] against things like Bitcoin and gold.
[33:42] How do you debase these things? How do
[33:44] you make them weaker? Well, China seems
[33:46] to have a very clear plan. They're going
[33:48] to buy gold and expect the dollar to
[33:50] fall sharply against gold. So far,
[33:51] they've been right. You know, I've been
[33:54] buying Bitcoin for 14 years almost and
[33:56] with the expectation that Bitcoin uh
[33:58] that the dollar will sh fall sharply
[34:00] against Bitcoin. So far, I've been
[34:02] right. So, the fact that Trump is going
[34:05] to China and his main thing is just to
[34:07] keep the rare earth flowing. We are
[34:10] still at the behest of China. We have
[34:12] not been able to reshore. What does this
[34:14] mean? The dollar is still too strong. US
[34:18] So, I'll put it to you guys another way.
[34:20] This headline to me reads, "Bitcoin is
[34:22] still way too low. The dollar is still
[34:24] way too strong. We are still wholly
[34:27] reliant. We have not reshored. We cannot
[34:29] stand on our two feet." So, we haven't
[34:31] gone through the cycle of really
[34:34] weakening the dollar and starting a new
[34:36] era. Now, whether they're going to still
[34:37] claim that the dollar is the world
[34:39] reserve currency or not, we'll see. But
[34:41] a new monetary era, that's the relevance
[34:44] there. Um, I found this really
[34:47] interesting. I got this from a Bloomberg
[34:49] article. Um, so the oil shock in 1973,
[34:53] Bloomberg uh noted, which I found
[34:55] fascinating,
[34:58] it took a while for the markets to
[35:01] actually decline and appreciate what was
[35:04] happening. So, you can see here uh that
[35:07] you have the oil shock in 73, then
[35:09] you've got an embargo declared, a
[35:11] ceasefire, and then the embargo lifted.
[35:14] And in the blue is the S&P 500. And it
[35:16] took the S&P 500 like a full 12 months
[35:18] to really digest just how bad it is to
[35:22] have, you know, energy markets. I think
[35:25] oil uh went up 300%
[35:30] during the 73 shock, which is still
[35:33] orders of magnitude of the oil price
[35:36] what it's done so far in this shock, in
[35:38] the 2026 shock. So I the end of this is
[35:42] like where are we? Cuz I'm looking at my
[35:44] chart, right? Right now, Bitcoin's back
[35:46] above 74,000 as I'm talking to you guys.
[35:49] The S&P 500 is higher now than it was
[35:52] before the war started. So, markets are
[35:55] clearly excited about something or
[35:57] they're trying to price in something.
[35:59] And to me, I just don't I I don't know
[36:02] if I'm sold yet. Like, is the bull
[36:03] market back? Are we back? Is Bitcoin
[36:06] going to march its way to all-time
[36:07] highs? They're going to give some form
[36:09] of liquidity. the US ha has something on
[36:12] Iran that I I'm not aware of that we're
[36:14] all not aware of. I I don't know. Or is
[36:17] the market just it just takes the market
[36:20] the market's far too optimistic and it's
[36:21] going to take itself time to really
[36:23] unwind and get into a crisis scenario
[36:26] where they're going to have to print.
[36:27] So, let's let's talk more about that. Um
[36:31] just I should have put this slide in a
[36:33] different spot. I should have put this
[36:35] after the China one, but um the CEO of
[36:37] Honda went to China to assess the uh uh
[36:42] supply supplier strength and um some
[36:44] supply chain stuff and he came back and
[36:47] said we don't have a chance against what
[36:49] China's got going on. And again, why is
[36:52] this relevant? In order for the US to
[36:55] unwind from globalization, in order for
[36:58] the US to unwind from this hyper
[37:00] financialized society that we've built,
[37:02] bring bluecollar jobs back, produce real
[37:04] things again, be self-sufficient in our
[37:07] food supply, in our oil, in our rare
[37:11] earth, all of this stuff. The dollar has
[37:14] to go way down, way down. And a lot of
[37:19] ass US assets have to go way lower, way
[37:22] lower. And why is that, guys? It's
[37:25] because the reason the iPhone is made in
[37:28] China and not in Manhattan is because
[37:31] China's weaker currency, weaker labor
[37:33] markets. It's way too expensive to ask
[37:36] Americans to make the iPhone because the
[37:39] dollar is so strong. Because Manhattan
[37:40] real estate is so strong. That's why.
[37:44] That's why with a weaker dollar, if we
[37:47] say I I've said on this uh podcast a
[37:50] million times, I could solve the US's
[37:51] problems in 5 seconds. Any of us can.
[37:54] You just don't be the world reserve
[37:55] currency. If Trump came out and said,
[37:57] "Ah, we're not the world reserve
[37:59] currency anymore." All of our problems
[38:00] would be fixed. Now, it would be
[38:02] immensely painful. That would be a
[38:03] really painful, sharp way for the dollar
[38:05] to fall. Bitcoin would go to the [ __ ]
[38:07] moon. Gold would go to the moon. But
[38:09] that's the problem. The problem is
[38:11] really simple. We're the world reserve
[38:13] currency. We have to run these massive
[38:15] deficits. We have to rely on these bond
[38:17] markets and all this debt. That's the
[38:19] problem. It's right. It's sitting right
[38:20] there. And so the fact that the Honda
[38:23] CEO said, "Yeah, we don't have a
[38:24] chance." Again, what's my interpretation
[38:26] when I read that? Oh, okay. Cool. The
[38:28] dollar has to go way lower. All this
[38:31] stuff that Trump has tried hasn't
[38:33] worked. Doge didn't work. Tariffs didn't
[38:36] work. Uh walking into Iran and basically
[38:39] stealing all their [ __ ] hasn't worked.
[38:42] So cool. We're 0 for three. Three. You
[38:44] know, usually it's three times and you
[38:46] strike out. And there is a clock
[38:48] ticking. There's a credit crisis
[38:50] brewing. And so anyway, the dollar just
[38:53] has to go lower. The dollar has to go
[38:57] lower. And again, lower against what? In
[38:59] my opinion, we're talking gold. We're
[39:01] talking Bitcoin. We're talking neutral,
[39:04] scarce, hard money.
[39:07] Um, okay. Next section. Uh, Iran accepts
[39:10] Bitcoin. Mark. So, uh, for people that
[39:12] didn't see this, uh, this was in the FT.
[39:15] Um, I'll I'll, uh, read the quote. Once
[39:18] the email arrives and Iran completes its
[39:20] assessment, vessels are given a few
[39:22] seconds to pay in Bitcoin, ensuring they
[39:24] can't be traced or confiscated due to
[39:26] sanctions. Um, I tweeted about this. I
[39:30] said, "Is Bitcoin actually competing to
[39:32] be the future world reserve currency?"
[39:34] Yes. When you need money that nobody can
[39:36] debase, that is free to hold and
[39:38] receive, that is cheap to transfer, that
[39:40] is censorship resistant, and that even
[39:42] enemies can settle in, there is no
[39:45] second best. Okay. Um, I just wanted to
[39:48] pine on this really quick. Now, could it
[39:51] be the case that Iran is trolling Trump
[39:54] and America by saying, you know, cuz
[39:57] Trump supported Bitcoin and has the
[39:59] Bitcoin reserve that uh we're not going
[40:01] to take your shitty dollars. give us
[40:03] some of those uh sweet sweet sats from
[40:05] your Bitcoin reserve, you [ __ ] loser.
[40:07] It could be a giant troll. Obviously,
[40:08] what we all want is for a ship to pass
[40:11] through and tweet their Bitcoin uh
[40:13] transaction on the blockchain. Like, we
[40:15] would all love that. Um now, I have
[40:19] heard from
[40:21] sources that I consider to be immensely
[40:25] powerful and ones I would trust on this
[40:27] topic that now they said Iran is using
[40:31] Bitcoin. Now I asked I said what does
[40:34] that mean like actually to transact
[40:36] through the straight or does that mean
[40:40] they're holding it? And obviously
[40:42] there's not a ton of movement through
[40:44] the straight anyways. So has Bitcoin
[40:47] been used to get through the straight?
[40:48] Totally possible. That's what's being
[40:50] reported. Is Iran holding Bitcoin? Are
[40:54] these countries that have sanctions
[40:56] threatened or enforced on them as the
[40:59] world becomes more bifurcated where no
[41:03] one trusts each other? Are these other
[41:05] nation states are they aware of Bitcoin?
[41:07] Are they mining Bitcoin? Are they
[41:09] holding Bitcoin? What's been
[41:10] communicated to me is an affirmative
[41:13] like absolutely yes. What's also been
[41:16] communicated to me is they're not using
[41:17] stable coins. You'd have to be an idiot
[41:19] to use stable coins. And you guys can
[41:21] put two and two together. Like I
[41:22] co-founded a business with Tether,
[41:24] right? Like they're not using stable
[41:26] coins is what I'm being told. You'd have
[41:28] to be an idiot to use stable coins.
[41:29] Stable coins are just dressing on top of
[41:31] the dollar. They Iran would have to be
[41:34] dumb to be using stable coins. I've seen
[41:36] that reported. I I've been told that's
[41:39] not the case. Again, take it for what
[41:41] it's worth. I have no idea. You know,
[41:43] I'm not there, right? So, how how
[41:45] confidently can I speak? But what I did
[41:48] want to opine on is this.
[41:52] Bitcoin's better than gold. It's just
[41:54] better money than gold. That's a fact.
[41:57] Now, does that mean that Bitcoin should
[41:59] be worth more than gold today? Does that
[42:02] mean that the world should transition to
[42:03] a Bitcoin standard before a gold
[42:05] standard? Now, that is fairly debatable.
[42:08] Gold is big enough to absorb something
[42:11] like the sovereign debt markets, the
[42:14] like nation state sovereign debt markets
[42:17] and transition to a standard where China
[42:20] doesn't have to trust the US that much.
[42:22] Bitcoin's not big enough. Like I said,
[42:24] I'm looking at the market cap I read you
[42:26] guys earlier 1.49 trillion. Let's look
[42:29] up companies by market cap. Companies
[42:34] by market cap.
[42:37] So, Bitcoin is currently smaller than
[42:39] Nvidia, smaller than Google, smaller
[42:41] than Apple, smaller than Microsoft,
[42:43] smaller than Amazon, smaller than TSMC,
[42:47] smaller than Broadcom, smaller than
[42:49] Saudia uh Aramico, excuse me, smaller
[42:53] than Meta, smaller Oh, nope. There,
[42:56] that's where we stop. Bitcoin would be
[42:57] the 10th largest company by market cap.
[42:59] At least that is public and known. Um
[43:02] Tesla's market cap is 1.3 trillion and
[43:05] Bitcoin sitting at 1.49 49 trillion. So,
[43:07] Bitcoin's just not big enough, guys.
[43:09] Like, could the world move on to a meta
[43:11] platforms Facebook standard? Of course
[43:14] not. That's outrageous. China's surplus
[43:16] is annually a year is almost the entire
[43:19] size of the Bitcoin market cap. And so,
[43:21] what you have right now, where is
[43:23] Bitcoin in its adoption phase? You've
[43:25] got guys like Sailor that are buying
[43:27] like a billion dollars a week. uh
[43:29] Bitcoin can absorb those flows, but if
[43:31] Bitcoin needed a trillion dollars, like
[43:34] China needed a trillion dollars worth of
[43:36] Bitcoin, I mean, the price would go to
[43:38] $10 million overnight. And so,
[43:41] I just not like I I think what we will
[43:44] live in is this kind of like dual era
[43:46] where um the people will be adopting
[43:50] Bitcoin and chi like sovereigns like
[43:54] China don't have a choice. They'll be
[43:55] adopting gold. Now, why is Bitcoin
[43:57] better than gold? Why is there no second
[43:59] best? Well, I've made this point before.
[44:01] I wanted to take time to make it on the
[44:03] show.
[44:05] Gold, what is So, Bitcoin is uniquely
[44:09] uniquely like the only asset I'm aware
[44:12] of that is both a monetary asset and a
[44:16] monetary network. It's both.
[44:20] What do I mean by that? Bitcoin
[44:24] lowercase Bitcoin.
[44:27] It's a physical commodity.
[44:31] It's a bearer instrument.
[44:34] The data itself acts like a physical
[44:37] token or coin. It is a fixed supply
[44:42] bearer money. Physical. Satoshi's
[44:45] innovation is he turned data and text
[44:49] into a physical commodity. Bitcoin
[44:53] behaves like a bearer token.
[44:57] Bitcoin is also capital Bitcoin, a
[45:01] network, a monetary network.
[45:04] The Bitcoin network can achieve
[45:07] transaction finality between the sender
[45:10] and the receiver without anyone
[45:15] else involved.
[45:18] So I'll say it again. Bitcoin is both a
[45:21] monetary asset
[45:24] and a monetary network. Now let's do
[45:26] gold. Gold is obviously a monetary
[45:29] asset. You can hold it in your hand.
[45:31] It's physical gold. Okay.
[45:34] What is the gold monetary network?
[45:38] The gold monetary network are us humans.
[45:42] And the gold monetary network is in
[45:44] theory fine if the economy is the size
[45:47] of my town. Like if I needed to exchange
[45:50] some gold coins at my grosser or my
[45:52] tailor or my butcher or whatever, my
[45:56] Uber driver and I can hand it to him.
[45:58] That's fine. If I need to transact gold
[46:03] digitally over a communications channel
[46:05] like the internet or globally across
[46:08] seas or across borders, well, the gold
[46:11] monetary network is deposit gold to
[46:13] governments into banks, get a piece of
[46:15] paper that represents said gold and
[46:17] trust them to settle. You cannot achieve
[46:21] gold settlement without the help of a
[46:24] central party in today's in a global
[46:26] economy of 8 billion people. you can't
[46:29] do it.
[46:31] And so, as I tweeted, if you need money
[46:34] that cannot be debased, that is free to
[46:37] hold and receive, by the way, gold is
[46:39] not free to hold and receive. How do you
[46:41] hold a billion dollars of gold for free?
[46:45] You don't. You need an armed vault.
[46:49] I know a lot of people that hold
[46:52] billions of dollars of Bitcoin for free.
[46:54] A lot.
[46:56] It's also free to receive. How would you
[46:58] receive gold at at significant size for
[47:02] free? You can run a Bitcoin node. Okay,
[47:05] maybe not for free. For 100 bucks a
[47:07] month.
[47:12] So, Bitcoin, what Bitcoin innovated on
[47:14] top of gold is it delivered an asset and
[47:16] a network. Bitcoin can achieve
[47:19] transaction finality without any other
[47:22] intermediary being involved over a
[47:24] communications channel like the internet
[47:26] globally.
[47:28] It's like teleporting value because the
[47:31] text the actual data is the bearer
[47:34] instrument itself. So Bitcoin can travel
[47:36] as fast as information can travel. You
[47:41] see?
[47:42] So, you know, anyways, just using this
[47:46] as an example of
[47:49] is Bitcoin going to be bigger than gold
[47:51] tomorrow or next year? Probably not.
[47:54] It's just there there's a natural growth
[47:57] to going from zero to the world reserve
[47:59] currency. These things can't happen
[48:01] overnight. You know, China can't recycle
[48:03] their trade surplus entirely into
[48:05] Bitcoin. It's just too small. But is
[48:07] Bitcoin the inevitable winner because
[48:09] it's just like pound-for-pound better
[48:12] money? Yeah. How the [ __ ] would Iran
[48:15] accept gold in this circumstance
[48:18] without having to trust someone else?
[48:22] Can't do it.
[48:25] Anyways, food for thought.
[48:28] Um, I thought this tweet was also funny.
[48:31] Just a funny meme. Uh, look, this is
[48:33] just this is stay home on stack sats. In
[48:36] 2010 it was 10,000 bitcoin to get two
[48:40] pizzas.
[48:42] Today it's 26 bitcoin to get a super
[48:44] tanker of oil through the straight of
[48:46] harmoose. What a meme. This is why you
[48:48] stay humble and stack sats lad ladies
[48:50] and gentlemen. Number go up as they say.
[48:53] Okay. Um, now let's get into uh some of
[48:56] the like macro liquidity. This is where
[49:00] I think it's a little bit interesting.
[49:01] Um, so the title of this chapter is
[49:04] there just simply isn't enough liquidity
[49:06] and what's been going on despite the war
[49:10] to me is really interesting. Um, Bessant
[49:13] Powell and banks have been having
[49:16] meetings and talking um because there is
[49:18] a credit problem. There just isn't
[49:20] enough filthy fiat to go around in the
[49:22] filthy financial system to survive. So
[49:26] from Bloomberg uh this anthropic model
[49:29] scare sparks urgent Bessent Powell
[49:31] warning to bank CEOs. Okay, I found this
[49:34] interesting to me. This headline did not
[49:39] pass my sniff test.
[49:43] Um I guess Anthropic has a model that
[49:47] can find every security vulnerability in
[49:50] every piece of software.
[49:52] Um,
[49:54] I don't know. Like, yeah, I would want
[49:58] to meet with people about that, but I
[50:00] would want to meet with bank CEOs.
[50:05] My interpretation of this headline was,
[50:07] "Bessenton Powell need to talk to CEOs
[50:10] of banks because the financial system is
[50:12] on the cusp of what could be a serious
[50:15] crisis." And
[50:18] let's not title the meeting that. Let's
[50:22] title it that Anthropic's model was
[50:25] really powerful.
[50:28] I I don't know. I just like I wouldn't
[50:30] want to talk to the CEO of Bank of
[50:32] America if Anthropic had a cool AI
[50:34] model. I don't know about you guys. I It
[50:36] just wouldn't be my first call. I would
[50:38] want to talk to a bunch of other people
[50:40] and tech folks and like I just wouldn't
[50:43] like what is what is the CEO of City
[50:46] going to tell me
[50:47] is is that just me?
[50:51] I don't know. I mean like obviously you
[50:53] could talk to it just to me this read as
[50:56] the Treasury Secretary, the chair of the
[50:59] Fed and the CEO of all the banks spent
[51:02] some time and chatted about serious
[51:04] [ __ ] Now, whether they talked about
[51:06] anthropic a little bit, sure, whatever,
[51:08] I don't know, maybe. But did they talk
[51:10] about the private credit crisis that's
[51:12] brewing? Did they talk about the
[51:14] deflation that AI is bringing to the
[51:16] market? Did they talk about the fact
[51:18] that oil isn't going to come down
[51:20] anytime soon?
[51:24] Do you think that that came up? What do
[51:26] you guys think? Do you think that came
[51:27] up? I do. Right. Didn't pass my sniff
[51:31] test. So, the Fed also I saw this hit
[51:35] the Bloomberg terminal. Uh, Fed seeks
[51:38] details on US banks exposure to private
[51:41] credit firms. Okay, interesting. That
[51:44] wasn't the title of the meeting. The
[51:45] meeting was about AI
[51:48] for whatever reason.
[51:50] But now this is more than my
[51:52] expectation.
[51:54] The Federal Reserve is asking major US
[51:55] banks for details about their exposure
[51:57] to private credit due to a surge in
[51:59] redemptions in a rise in trouble.
[52:01] troubled loans in the industry. Okay.
[52:04] The Fed's queries are intended to assess
[52:06] the level of stress in the private
[52:08] credit industry and the potential for it
[52:10] to spill over into the wider financial
[52:12] system. O
[52:15] Treasury Department is also questioning
[52:17] the insurance industry about exposures
[52:20] to private credit as part of a broader
[52:22] regulatory push to get a handle on the
[52:25] scale of the strains in the $1.8 8
[52:28] trillion
[52:29] private credit industry. Oh. O.
[52:34] The Federal Reserve is asking major US
[52:36] banks for details about their exposure
[52:38] to private credit following a surge in
[52:39] redemptions from the funds and a rise in
[52:41] troubled loans in the industry according
[52:43] to people with knowledge of the matter.
[52:46] Okay.
[52:48] Interesting. Mind you, the Blue Owl uh
[52:51] 22 uh% withdrawal like they are
[52:54] seemingly [ __ ] There was a new one,
[52:57] Carlilele. Carile hit the newswire. Uh
[53:00] they have a $7 billion credit fund and
[53:02] they've now received 16% withdrawal
[53:04] request and they're capping it at 5%.
[53:08] So here's my thing, guys.
[53:10] Um
[53:12] office buildings, this also snuck
[53:14] through the headlines because here's the
[53:15] thing. The Twitter algorithms are now
[53:17] dominated by whatever [ __ ] Trump's
[53:18] talking about. Did you guys catch this?
[53:21] by the Wall Street Journal. A fire sale
[53:23] has US office buildings going for 90%
[53:26] off.
[53:28] Woof. This is deflation. So I this quote
[53:32] from Arthur Hayes I thought was [ __ ]
[53:35] awesome. Deflation in what you want,
[53:38] inflation in what you need. What is he
[53:40] implying here? Deflation in what you
[53:43] want. What do you want? You want your
[53:46] company to be in nice office space. You
[53:49] want a nice car. You want uh a really
[53:53] expensive uh Starbucks Frappuccino,
[53:57] right? This is all the [ __ ] that
[53:59] consumers are spending credit on. But
[54:03] all of these people that have credit
[54:05] cards and have mortgages and have auto
[54:07] loans. So, they don't they didn't pay in
[54:09] cash for their house. They didn't pay in
[54:11] cash for their car. They didn't pay in
[54:13] cash for their weeks of expenses of
[54:16] groceries and Uber rides and coffee at
[54:18] the corner store. They didn't pay in
[54:20] cash for that. They have a credit card.
[54:21] They have a mortgage. They have an auto
[54:23] loan. These are the people getting fired
[54:25] due to AI.
[54:27] So delinquencies in the US is continuing
[54:29] to rise. So this is deflation in what
[54:32] you want. Your office building that your
[54:36] the office building that's now 90% off.
[54:39] Why is it 90% off? One, because of
[54:41] remote work. And two, because AI is
[54:43] doing everyone's job. And guess what? AI
[54:45] doesn't need an office. It doesn't need
[54:46] a bagel bar. It doesn't need a coffee
[54:48] machine. It doesn't need a water cooler.
[54:50] It doesn't need to be on the tippy top
[54:52] floor for recruitment. You need $1,000
[54:55] of [ __ ] anthropic tok to tokens a
[54:57] month. That's what you need. We don't
[54:58] need your stupid office building. Cut
[55:00] that [ __ ] by 90%. So, you're going to
[55:03] get deflation in the this AI is hitting
[55:07] it hard. That's painful. That's really,
[55:10] really painful.
[55:12] You're getting a rise in delinquencies
[55:14] from the American consumer.
[55:16] At what point are people going to
[55:18] default on their credit card, default on
[55:20] their mortgage, default default on their
[55:22] car loan? And what is that going to do
[55:24] to the banking system? Who is
[55:26] underwriting these loans? Who's not
[55:28] going to get paid back? Who's therefore
[55:30] going to be insolvent? The banks.
[55:33] If all of these people, if you're
[55:35] getting fired from your $250,000 a year
[55:37] job, and you went from what is to be
[55:40] considered an elite, productive person
[55:42] in society that can afford the best of
[55:44] the best, but it's all on consumer
[55:46] credit. You have a mortgage, you have a
[55:48] car loan, you have a credit card, and
[55:50] you're now making zero dollars. The
[55:53] banks are [ __ ] They're [ __ ] if that
[55:55] happens. If I was talking to the bank
[55:58] CEOs about AI, now that's what I would
[56:01] be talking about.
[56:02] And when are we going to start getting
[56:04] hints about this? Well, when the private
[56:05] credit markets start to tighten up and
[56:07] seize up,
[56:09] you see office buildings down 90%. You
[56:11] see credit funds halting withdrawals and
[56:13] redemptions. You're seeing people
[56:15] getting laid off left, right, and center
[56:16] due to AI and AI models saying like it
[56:19] is a threat if we launch this [ __ ]
[56:21] thing. Now, deflation and what you want,
[56:24] but what about what you need? What do I
[56:26] mean by need? We need energy. We need
[56:29] oil. We need fossil fuels.
[56:32] Oh, well that's not deflation. That's
[56:34] inflation. The things you need are going
[56:36] up in price. The things you want, you're
[56:39] getting fired.
[56:41] And the the genius of this quote is that
[56:45] what do you do if you are Scott Besson
[56:47] and the Fed on one side? You can justify
[56:50] hiking rates because inflation is going
[56:52] to go through the roof, guys. You need
[56:55] food, you need oil, you need energy.
[56:59] It's going like the prices of the these
[57:01] things are going to skyrocket the longer
[57:04] the straight stays closed. I promise you
[57:06] that. We're already seeing it. I mean,
[57:09] inflation is back. Make no mistake about
[57:12] it. Inflation is back.
[57:15] Stagflation is back.
[57:18] The Fed could also justify cutting rates
[57:21] because of deflation. Hey, we need to
[57:23] make money, access to money easier so
[57:26] that companies feel better about hiring,
[57:29] about growth, so that there's more
[57:31] froth. We need people to be employed
[57:33] again. It's like, hell, I if you're
[57:35] going to fire them from their accounting
[57:37] gig because of AI, employ them to do
[57:40] something. You know, if you if you make
[57:42] the money so cheap
[57:44] and there's just a flow of filthy fiat,
[57:47] that's when, hey, [ __ ] it, fine.
[57:48] Everyone's raising a VC round.
[57:50] Everyone's got a job. Everyone's stock
[57:52] portfolio is up. But the question is
[57:54] which way, Western man? Are you really
[57:57] going to print money in the face of an
[57:59] oil shock? Guys, the last time that
[58:03] these uh central planners printed so
[58:04] much money, oil was negative. Oil was
[58:07] negative $40 a barrel. Do you guys
[58:09] remember during COVID when oil went
[58:11] negative? So oil was negative $40 the
[58:14] last time they printed a bunch of money.
[58:16] They're going to print a bunch of money
[58:17] and oils at $100.
[58:20] That's [ __ ] crazy. This is
[58:22] potentially like a suicide extinction
[58:24] level event for the filthy fiat
[58:26] financial system. That's crazy. You're
[58:28] printing money into an already
[58:30] inflationary period. And if it's like,
[58:33] well, no, we have to combat this
[58:35] inflation. We have to raise rates.
[58:36] You're going to raise rates into the
[58:39] most deflationary trend that we've ever
[58:42] seen, at least in modern era. That's
[58:44] also suicide.
[58:46] If you're going to raise rates and make
[58:47] capital harder to come by and tighten
[58:49] the financial system even further, then
[58:51] guess what? Every company is going to
[58:53] lay off everyone they can and replace it
[58:55] with AI because no one's going to grow.
[58:58] Money's going to get tighter.
[59:01] Like I like Strike's not going to just
[59:03] be hiring willfully whatever give a [ __ ]
[59:06] if they just rate if they raise rates
[59:07] from three and a half to four and a half
[59:09] to five and a half. Are you crazy?
[59:12] So which way? Are you going to raise
[59:16] rates into the most deflationary crisis
[59:18] that we've ever seen? Or are you going
[59:20] to cut rates into the most inflationary
[59:24] crisis we've potentially ever seen?
[59:30] Tell you what, I would not want to be
[59:34] working on this problem. There is no
[59:36] good way out. The way out is by buying
[59:39] Bitcoin. That's the way out. No matter
[59:42] how you slice it, they have to devalue
[59:45] the dollar. I'm telling you guys now,
[59:47] I'm I'm consistent with this. The dollar
[59:50] has to go lower. They have to monetize
[59:52] the debt. Point blank. Period.
[59:56] Um, okay. Now, what do I think is going
[59:59] on in the financial markets? Why is
[60:01] Bitcoin going up? I don't know. I'm
[60:03] never going to sit here and pretend to
[60:05] you guys that I know the answers to
[60:07] everything. I'll always have opinions.
[60:09] You all should too. Highly encourage
[60:10] that. Have your own opinion. Stand on
[60:12] your own 10. But I don't know the answer
[60:15] here. Um to be honest, interestingly, um
[60:19] Arthur Hayes posted this. Powell and
[60:21] Besson provided the cancerous soft drink
[60:22] to go with the Trump taco. That's a
[60:24] hilarious tweet, but his US dollar
[60:26] liquidity index seems to be trending up.
[60:29] So, they are injecting liquidity somehow
[60:31] some way. and risk assets seem to be
[60:34] reacting to that. I don't know what goes
[60:37] into Arthur's US dollar liquidity index.
[60:40] It's unclear to me, but risk is
[60:42] performing well. It's not just Bitcoin.
[60:45] Um, however,
[60:47] global liquidity is falling. So, you
[60:50] guys can see global liquidity generally
[60:52] topped out late 2025 as did Bitcoin.
[60:55] Bitcoin is effectively a global
[60:57] liquidity smoke alarm and it is not
[60:59] trending in the right direction. And uh
[61:02] this is Michael Howell Howell's uh
[61:04] crypto liquidity barometer where he has
[61:07] this you know GLI verse bees and his
[61:12] point is crypto and really Bitcoin but
[61:14] his index includes Ethereum and Salana
[61:17] whatever. Um the point is pretty simple.
[61:20] Bitcoin acts as a liquidity smoke alarm
[61:23] and it should be tracked in accordance
[61:26] to global liquidity and credit trends.
[61:28] Um, and you can see here his version of
[61:30] that with the S&P 500. Now,
[61:33] interestingly, if you pull up Bitcoin
[61:36] verse software, so we've done this
[61:38] before on the show, the IGF, which is
[61:40] the software ETF, it's moving in in lock
[61:43] step here. Now, over the last week,
[61:46] software has continued to puke down. So,
[61:49] the red line, software continues to
[61:51] puke. Bitcoin is trying to reverse. And
[61:53] I like this tweet from Quinn. We will
[61:56] soon find out if software is once again
[61:58] telling us something or if Bitcoin and
[62:01] the broader market for that matter are
[62:02] decoupling. I believe the former. So
[62:06] half my timeline believes that software
[62:08] is continuing to lead us down. It it
[62:11] helped flash a signal down last time and
[62:14] that this relative strength like
[62:16] Bitcoin, let's see, what's Bitcoin at?
[62:19] Bitcoin's at 745. So Bitcoin's up 100
[62:21] bucks since I started the show and it's
[62:22] up it's up a decent amount. um on on the
[62:26] week. Uh is this a new trend? Are we
[62:29] back in a bull market? You know, Arthur
[62:31] seems to suggest that some liquidity is
[62:33] being injected into the system and
[62:35] Bitcoin is acting favorably to that.
[62:37] There are charts though that watching
[62:39] software bleed lower and Bitcoin try and
[62:41] bleed higher suggests that Bitcoin is
[62:44] just margin calling. You know, everyone
[62:46] was so short on it, thought it was going
[62:48] to zero. Uh that shorts are getting
[62:51] liquidated and then Bitcoin will head
[62:53] lower. I don't know. This is something
[62:55] that we will watch and I'll bring up on
[62:56] next show is just trying to figure out,
[62:59] you know, I I still wouldn't put it past
[63:02] Bitcoin to have a giant whoosh down in
[63:04] some capitulation event, which will
[63:06] allow these financial authorities and
[63:08] central planners to print the money. Let
[63:10] me remind you guys, these guys don't
[63:13] print money ahead of a crisis. They
[63:15] print money in reaction to a crisis.
[63:16] Why? Because that's the politically
[63:18] favorable way to do it. They're not.
[63:20] Trump's not going to print a bunch of
[63:21] money and say, "Okay, things were about
[63:23] to fall apart. We're about to introduce
[63:25] even more inflation. The dollar is going
[63:27] to get even weaker." He's not going to
[63:29] do that. He's going to wait for
[63:30] something to blow up and then say,
[63:32] "Here, let me help. I'm here to save the
[63:34] day. Let me bail everyone out." It's
[63:36] just a more like politically palatable
[63:39] way to do it. So, um, I I still think
[63:41] that there's a decentsized chance that,
[63:44] and I'm not just talking strictly about
[63:46] Bitcoin, that financial markets, mind
[63:48] you, let me go all the way back here,
[63:50] mind you, when I pulled up the last uh,
[63:53] serious oil shock in 1973, I said it it
[63:56] took markets here, this one, it took
[63:58] markets a little while to fully digest
[64:01] what it means for energy markets to be
[64:04] choked. It just took a second. markets
[64:06] were far too optimistic about the
[64:09] outcome. And it was probably the same
[64:11] thing back then. I mean, obviously, I
[64:12] wasn't alive, but it was probably
[64:14] politicians lying, speaking out of their
[64:16] both sides of their mouth, uh,
[64:18] bullshitting everybody, and markets ate
[64:20] it up. And so, the question is, you
[64:23] know, is Bitcoin going to go break highs
[64:25] next week or are we due for another
[64:28] whoosh down? um because markets haven't
[64:31] fully appreciated what it means for 20%
[64:33] of the world's oil supply to just be
[64:36] taken offline because of this conflict
[64:38] and Trump clearly isn't willing to walk
[64:40] away yet. I don't know. So, what's my
[64:43] takeaway? Stay humble and stack sats.
[64:45] This is why listen guys, I'm not an
[64:47] active trader. I just buy Bitcoin every
[64:50] single day through our companies. I buy
[64:52] Bitcoin with my paychecks. My
[64:54] recommendation is to continue to stay
[64:55] humble stack sats. Now is a great time
[64:57] to turn on your DCA. Would I be
[64:59] surprised if Bitcoin jumped to 100K on
[65:01] some resolution to the conflict or some
[65:03] giant money printing bazooka that him
[65:06] and the Fed are coming up with in
[65:07] conjunction with the banks? No, I
[65:09] wouldn't be surprised by that. Would I
[65:10] be surprised if Bitcoin nuked lower and
[65:12] we touched the 50,000s because there's a
[65:15] financial crisis that comes to see the
[65:17] light of day? No, I wouldn't be
[65:18] surprised by that. So, what am I doing?
[65:20] I'm staying humble. I'm stacking sats.
[65:22] I'm staying humble, meaning I'm bringing
[65:24] in more money than I'm spending. So, I'm
[65:26] being a productive person. I'm being
[65:28] cautious with my lifestyle. I'm being
[65:31] cautious with how I'm managing like
[65:33] things like credit in my life. Okay? So,
[65:36] understand we're living through
[65:37] sensitive times. We're living through
[65:38] interesting times. We're notably living
[65:40] through unpredictable times. I don't
[65:41] know anyone that's like, "Oh, I know
[65:43] exactly what's going to happen
[65:44] tomorrow." No, you don't. You're a
[65:45] [ __ ] liar if you say so. So, be
[65:47] careful. Be productive. Be a net
[65:50] producer. And turn on your DCAs.
[65:53] We'll see.
[65:55] Um, [snorts] okay. Grind my gears time.
[65:58] Let me get some water.
[66:07] All right. You know what really grinds
[66:09] my gears this week?
[66:12] [ __ ] taxes. Taxes are [ __ ]
[66:17] I mean,
[66:22] [sighs]
[66:25] my internal monologue right now is how
[66:27] hard I should go on this topic.
[66:30] I mean, taxes are theft.
[66:34] They're theft. And here's where where
[66:36] I'll go in this direction because you
[66:38] guys can I'm sure you can put into an AI
[66:40] nowadays and say, "Have Jack Mallerie's
[66:42] rant about taxes." And you can get that
[66:44] and you're going to get taxes are theft
[66:46] and this is the government stealing from
[66:48] the people.
[66:50] Blah blah blah. You you'll get that. You
[66:52] go go turn on go register for some AI
[66:55] and you can get that. Here's a more
[66:57] nuanced philosophical take for you.
[67:00] [sighs and gasps]
[67:01] In my opinion, one of the most
[67:03] underrated thefts of taxes is that it it
[67:07] turns the people that build society's
[67:11] most important infrastructure from the
[67:15] private sector to the public sector.
[67:19] What do I mean by that? Well, let's just
[67:21] get down to brass tax, guys. I think
[67:24] that money in free markets, money in
[67:28] theory is a reflection of your
[67:30] contributions to society. The money that
[67:33] you have is in theory a reflection to
[67:36] how valuable your contributions to
[67:38] society have been.
[67:40] Right? We get money in exchange for our
[67:43] effort, our work, our time, our energy.
[67:46] You get up, you don't hit snooze on your
[67:48] alarm, you don't go to the beach. As
[67:50] humans, we are able to prioritize our
[67:53] future, right? And we put in time,
[67:57] energy, effort, labor, and work. In
[67:59] exchange for that, we get money. And
[68:01] this is our ability. Money is literally
[68:03] our ability to lower our time
[68:05] preference. Capture our work and our
[68:09] value we're creating today into a market
[68:10] good to bring it bring it with us
[68:12] tomorrow, in a year, in a decade, in a
[68:14] century. The better the money, the
[68:16] better society because it lowers our
[68:18] time preference and its ability to
[68:20] commoditize the value we're creating and
[68:22] bring it with us later and exchange it
[68:23] for things. So in theory, money should
[68:26] be a reflection of your contributions to
[68:29] the world. So therefore, our greatest
[68:32] earners are our greatest producers.
[68:36] Are you following with me? The guy that
[68:38] makes a billion dollars a year, that
[68:40] guy's really [ __ ] valuable to society
[68:43] in theory. He must have created
[68:45] something and is doing something that a
[68:48] lot of people value a lot.
[68:53] I hate to say it, that's just facts. You
[68:56] know, you've got people that are like
[68:58] rich, [ __ ] rich people. Well, rich
[69:01] people are just successful at providing
[69:03] value to people, providing things that
[69:05] people are willing to pay for.
[69:10] So, where am I going with this? Well,
[69:14] who would you guys want to be building
[69:16] the railroads, building the airports,
[69:18] building the bridges? Would you rather
[69:20] have Elon Musk doing that or the US
[69:23] government, some arm of the US
[69:24] government? Guys, it's not even [ __ ]
[69:27] close. The US government loses $2
[69:30] trillion a year. They're a [ __ ] mess.
[69:32] They're liars. They're frauds. They're
[69:34] they're it's theft. They steal. They
[69:38] lose money. They create debt. They
[69:41] create war and they lie.
[69:44] Elon Musk is one of the greatest
[69:47] entrepreneurs ever.
[69:50] What? Let him build the bridge. Let him
[69:53] build the airport. Why tax him? Force
[69:58] him to take half of the value he's
[70:00] creating and give it to you. Because
[70:03] here's the thing, people will say, "Oh,
[70:05] well, without taxes, our railroads
[70:08] wouldn't work. our bridges wouldn't be
[70:10] built. Get the [ __ ] out of here. You
[70:13] think a wealthy person is going to want
[70:15] to live in a society with dog [ __ ]
[70:17] roads, with no bridges, with shitty
[70:20] airports, with airplanes that might kill
[70:22] them? No. [ __ ] no. Of course not. Nobody
[70:25] wants to live that way. What's Listen,
[70:28] it's implying that without the
[70:30] government taking money out of your
[70:32] pocket, you'd want to live in a dog [ __ ]
[70:34] society. That's giving way too much
[70:36] credit to the government. [ __ ] the
[70:38] government. People want to live in a
[70:41] nice society if you did not take half
[70:43] the wealth of your greatest contributors
[70:45] to society. They would absolutely invest
[70:48] that money into public infrastructure.
[70:51] Of course. Of course they would. I'll
[70:54] give you guys a great example. When I
[70:57] was talking with the Salvador and El
[70:59] Salvador's government, the Salvadoran
[71:01] government, I made this suggestion. I
[71:03] said, "Listen, you want to have
[71:06] favorable regulation people, builders,
[71:09] myself, Jack Dorsey, Tether, we don't
[71:12] want crazy rules like what happens in
[71:16] New York with the bit license. We don't
[71:17] want that. Just let us build software."
[71:21] And so, El Salvador has one of the most
[71:24] laxed
[71:25] uh regulations on building with Bitcoin
[71:27] [ __ ] And the other thing I said is just
[71:29] take it easy on the [ __ ] taxes, okay?
[71:32] Like that would be just my suggestion. I
[71:34] obviously you know naive makes his own
[71:38] decisions obviously but my suggestion
[71:40] was
[71:41] you what you want. What do you want as a
[71:43] country? You want the world's greatest
[71:45] producers meaning the world's greatest
[71:47] earners, the top earners, the net
[71:49] productive people, the people bringing
[71:50] in the most income, which in theory
[71:52] means they're providing some of the most
[71:53] value to the world. Like Mark
[71:55] Zuckerberg, you can hate him all he
[71:56] wants, all you want. He's a valuable
[71:59] contributor to society. People use his
[72:01] products. people pay for his [ __ ] And I
[72:03] have evidence of that because his
[72:04] company does hundred billion dollars of
[72:06] revenue. It's just a fact. I hate to
[72:09] break it to you. It's a fact.
[72:12] So what did El Salvador want? El
[72:14] Salvador wanted those people to come to
[72:17] their country. Said, "How the [ __ ] are
[72:19] we going to get a Google office here?
[72:22] How are we going to get Tether to want
[72:23] to be here?" And I told him very simply,
[72:25] "Don't overregulate them. Don't overt
[72:27] tax them. That's how." And what did they
[72:30] do? No taxes for Tether and Google or
[72:34] whoever's there and very like minimal
[72:37] regulation and nothing that is
[72:39] unnecessary.
[72:41] And what do you get? Tether's literally
[72:43] building the Tether Tower. They're
[72:45] building infrastructure for the country.
[72:47] Guess what? Tether's headquartered there
[72:48] and they don't want to live in a dog
[72:50] [ __ ] deadbeat country. Duh. It's [ __ ]
[72:54] crazy to me. It's the same thing where
[72:56] the Fed basically claims they need to
[72:58] lower or raise rates to get us to want
[73:01] to consume things. Guess what? I want to
[73:04] consume things no matter what the
[73:06] interest rate is. You [ __ ] [ __ ] I
[73:09] want to consume things because I'm
[73:10] human. And if I have the money and I've
[73:13] accumeded the value, accumulated the
[73:15] value. Of course I want to consume
[73:16] things. Of course I want a car. Of
[73:18] course I want a house. Of course I want
[73:19] to eat food. the [ __ ] up idea that you
[73:22] need to centrally plan my innate desire
[73:25] to consume, you're a [ __ ] piece of
[73:27] [ __ ] It's the same thing with taxes. If
[73:30] you think that people won't build towers
[73:32] and bridges in railroads, in subways
[73:36] without getting taxed and their their
[73:38] wealth stolen from them, you're a
[73:40] [ __ ] idiot. So, imagine this. El
[73:43] Salvador's infrastructure is being built
[73:45] by the Googles, by the Tethers, by the
[73:48] people that are talented at building
[73:50] things, at managing people, at like
[73:53] actually putting putting forth budgets.
[73:56] So, El Sal El Salvador's airport is
[73:58] better than [ __ ] the one in Chicago.
[74:01] I swear to you guys, I'm not making this
[74:03] up. El Salvador's airport is better.
[74:05] Why? Because the actual net producers,
[74:09] the the talented people that build real
[74:11] [ __ ] that don't just use debt and steal
[74:14] money from people and run deficits are
[74:16] building it. Al Salvador's airports are
[74:18] better. Their new town square is better.
[74:21] Chicago's a [ __ ] [ __ ] hole. Why?
[74:24] Because they tax the [ __ ] out of their
[74:26] greatest producers in society. And the
[74:29] money is being spent by [ __ ] idiots.
[74:33] So taxes not only are just legitimate
[74:36] theft of your contributing time and
[74:38] energy to the world and I oh yeah I'm
[74:41] just going to forcefully take that from
[74:43] you. By the way, it's force where if I
[74:46] don't pay taxes, someone shows up to my
[74:48] house with a gun in their holster.
[74:50] That's a policeman. They show up with an
[74:53] armed weapon on their hip and they say,
[74:55] "You're coming with me to jail and if
[74:58] not, I'm going to have to get my gun out
[75:00] and point it at your head." That is
[75:02] force. I hate to break it to you. So, I
[75:04] am forced to give up my income and the
[75:08] value I'm producing to society with the
[75:10] expectation that they will fix the
[75:12] roads, they will build the subway. Cuz
[75:14] I'll tell you what, cuz what you're
[75:15] doing is you're sidelining producers.
[75:18] So, people like me or anyone, they're
[75:20] saying, "I already paid my taxes. I
[75:22] already paid my fair share. I'm
[75:23] definitely not going to go help Chicago
[75:26] now build [ __ ] railroads or or fix
[75:29] the subway or fix the potholes in the
[75:31] street. I already You guys already taxed
[75:33] me over 50%. [ __ ] you. If you didn't, I
[75:38] would be more than happy to take some of
[75:40] my income and work with my neighbors and
[75:42] with my neighborhood on making it
[75:43] better.
[75:45] You are sidelining the greatest
[75:47] producers in society that you have and
[75:50] telling them, "Sit this one out." and
[75:52] you are stealing the money into the most
[75:55] unproductive
[75:56] group of humans ever, which is the
[75:58] government. They're losing $2 trillion a
[76:01] year.
[76:03] The level of unproductive, again, if
[76:05] money is an information system, it's a
[76:08] measurement of contributions to society.
[76:10] Someone that makes a of a lot of money
[76:13] is theoretically really valuable.
[76:16] Someone that loses a [ __ ] ton of money
[76:18] every year, what does that mean about
[76:19] them?
[76:24] It's crazy. Countries like El Salvador
[76:26] have figured this out. Hey, we're going
[76:28] to allow net producers to come here to
[76:31] flourish with the expectation that
[76:33] humans don't want to live in a [ __ ] hole
[76:35] and they're going to invest in the
[76:37] country and give back to the place
[76:39] that's not stealing from them and is
[76:41] allowing them to build amazing things.
[76:44] And guess what? That's what's happening.
[76:45] Google now has a massive Google tower.
[76:47] Tether's building all sorts of [ __ ]
[76:49] Their airport is nice as [ __ ]
[76:52] God [ __ ] like, it's tax season, so
[76:55] that's what grinds my gears. It's
[76:56] [ __ ] pathetic. It's [ __ ] pathetic.
[76:59] Stealing from It's not only stealing
[77:01] from, but it's sidelining the most
[77:03] valuable contributors to society. It's
[77:06] saying, "Sit this one out." So, the most
[77:09] valuable contributors don't get to
[77:11] participate in building the societal
[77:13] infrastructure. They've taken they've
[77:15] they've sidelined the private sector and
[77:17] the public sector is proven to be
[77:19] incompetent, fraudulent liars.
[77:22] Does anyone have any faith that the city
[77:25] of Chicago and the mayor and local
[77:28] politicians are going to fix any of this
[77:30] [ __ ] That they're going to get crime
[77:31] out of the trains? They're going to fix
[77:34] the potholes in the street. Like, of
[77:37] course not. These people are [ __ ]
[77:38] incompetent idiots.
[77:43] [ __ ] God damn.
[77:46] It's ridiculous.
[77:50] It's crazy. It like cuz because now you
[77:53] have literal political arms that are
[77:55] like my political policy is to just
[77:57] steal even more from wealthy people. And
[78:00] as a free market propo person, wealthy
[78:03] people are allowed to be wealthy.
[78:05] They've earned the wealth in theory by
[78:07] being valuable. And if you don't want if
[78:09] you don't like that some guy is rich,
[78:11] then build a better product than him and
[78:13] he'll get poor because people will stop
[78:15] using and paying for his product.
[78:20] But don't steal from them and give it to
[78:22] people that just bleed money, build $40
[78:25] trillion of debt and use it to finance
[78:27] war. It's [ __ ] stupid.
[78:30] Let people let people use the value
[78:33] they're creating to dictate the society
[78:35] they want to live in. It's cra the
[78:37] Keynesian economics. Oh my god, I'm
[78:39] getting myself worked up. It blows my
[78:41] mind. It's like when the Fed says we
[78:43] need to cut rates to to get people to
[78:45] want to consume stuff. You [ __ ]
[78:47] [ __ ] Who are you to say that I
[78:49] either want to eat food and want to have
[78:52] a nice house dependent on what you set
[78:54] interest rates on? How [ __ ]
[78:56] egotistic, how maniacal of a
[78:58] manipulative liar are you? Of course,
[79:02] I'm hungry no matter what the interest
[79:03] rates are. [ __ ] you. What a [ __ ]
[79:06] moronic [ __ ] stupid.
[79:10] >> All right, I have a clip saved uh to
[79:13] play you guys. So, we'll end it with
[79:14] this. This
[79:15] >> is taxes.
[79:16] >> Na Kelly, hold on.
[79:18] >> High taxes are extremely high here.
[79:20] >> God damn it.
[79:21] >> I guess it auto plays. Uh this is Naib
[79:23] Buchelli talking about the US and taxes
[79:26] and money as a whole. Let me mute
[79:28] myself. You guys should listen to this.
[79:29] Shout out El Salvador, man. People give
[79:31] El Salvador a lot of [ __ ] Am I a fan of
[79:33] everything El Salvador has done or does?
[79:36] No. Of course, there's nuance and if I
[79:38] was the president, I do some stuff
[79:39] differently, but on that like dude,
[79:41] naive man, like
[79:45] that's I mean,
[79:47] he's doing it how I would do it. And
[79:49] that, you know, don't don't abuse and
[79:52] steal from your net producers, from the
[79:56] great producers in society. Allow them
[79:58] to participate in shaping the world that
[80:00] you're collectively sharing and living
[80:02] in. Those are your most talented,
[80:04] greatest people. Te te Tether, Google.
[80:06] Don't abuse them. Don't steal from them.
[80:08] Don't treat them like [ __ ] Don't
[80:10] violate their property rights. And
[80:11] you're going to get a better airport,
[80:13] better transportation, better town hall.
[80:17] Duh. [ __ ] ridiculous. All right,
[80:19] whatever. Let me mute myself.
[80:24] They always tell me that the [music]
[80:25] problem is high taxes, but they're
[80:27] wrong. Of course, high taxes are
[80:29] extremely high here in the United
[80:31] States. [music] I I give you that. The
[80:32] real problem is not the high taxes
[80:34] themselves, but the fact that they are
[80:37] not even really funding [music] the
[80:38] government. Not even those high taxes
[80:40] higher than a lot of places in the
[80:42] world. Not even those taxes are [music]
[80:44] really funding the government. So, who's
[80:46] financing the government? Government is
[80:49] financed by Treasury bonds. And who buys
[80:52] the treasury bonds? Mostly the Fed.
[80:54] [music] And how does the Fed buy them?
[80:57] By printing money. But what backing does
[80:59] [music] the Fed have for that money
[81:01] being printed? The Treasury bonds
[81:03] themselves. So basically, you finance
[81:05] the government by printing money out of
[81:07] thin air. Well, so if the government can
[81:09] print the limited amounts of money out
[81:11] of thin air, why do they collect taxes?
[81:13] The answer is simple, but it's very
[81:15] shocking. The real problem is that you
[81:17] pay high taxes only to uphold the
[81:20] illusion that you [music] are funding
[81:22] the government, which you are not. It's
[81:24] shocking, [applause] but it's true. The
[81:27] government is funded by money printing,
[81:30] paperbacked with paper, a bubble that
[81:33] will inevitably burst. The situation is
[81:35] even worse than it seems. Because
[81:36] [music] if most Americans and the rest
[81:38] of the world were to become aware of
[81:40] this virus, confidence in your currency
[81:42] would be lost. The dollar would fall and
[81:44] the western civilization with it. If
[81:46] [music] the next president of the United
[81:48] States doesn't make the necessary
[81:51] policies [music] and structural change,
[81:53] sooner or later that bubble will burst.
[81:55] There's still time. You don't have to
[81:57] make the same mistakes we did in the 60s
[81:59] and the 70s. [music] You can still jump
[82:02] before the water boils. Winning the
[82:04] election
[82:08] So, that video is awesome. Obviously, Na
[82:11] basically says in more or less words,
[82:15] wait, why do you need to tax your people
[82:17] if you can print money?
[82:21] And he makes kind of a joking claim that
[82:24] taxes are just an illusion that we're
[82:28] supporting the government, but the
[82:29] government's really supported by the
[82:31] money printer. And if the government
[82:32] said, "Ah, we don't have to tax you and
[82:34] we're running $2 trillion deficits every
[82:36] year." Everyone would say, "Wait, wait a
[82:38] second. Well, then how are we paying for
[82:39] all of this?" And they would realize
[82:41] that their currency is getting slowly or
[82:43] rapidly, depending on the date, debased.
[82:48] And so it's [ __ ] [ __ ] My my line
[82:51] of no man should work for what another
[82:52] man can print. Like no one no man should
[82:56] be taxed in what another man can print.
[82:59] [ __ ] you guys. You're going to you're
[83:01] going to steal from me and you're going
[83:03] to steal from me in two ways. One, by
[83:05] either, you know, putting a gun to my
[83:07] head and saying, "Give me 50% of your
[83:08] income
[83:10] and by printing money to finance wars."
[83:13] [ __ ] [ __ ] So, that's what grinds
[83:16] my gears. I know it's tax season for
[83:18] everybody, you know. Hope that resonates
[83:20] somewhere out there. Um,
[83:22] and with that, let's get into some
[83:24] company updates and some Q&A. Strike.
[83:26] Uh, you guys know the deal. Let me pull
[83:29] it up. Every Monday we tweet um [snorts]
[83:35] we tweet You hear that sniffle? Sorry,
[83:37] didn't mean for that to be in your ear.
[83:38] I'm still a little sick. Uh here we go.
[83:43] We tweet a roundup of what we launched
[83:45] last week. So last week we turned on our
[83:47] Bitcoin line of credit, our block
[83:49] product for Illinois. So for my
[83:51] neighbors, which is very exciting. I'm
[83:52] not the only guy or girl in Illinois
[83:55] with a Bitcoin line of credit. Now,
[83:57] we've actually seen a ton of Illinois
[83:58] folks uh use the product. Uh monthly
[84:01] statements for term loans. Here, I'll
[84:03] just scroll down. Um our term loan
[84:06] customers asked for better visibility
[84:08] into their lending activity. So, we
[84:10] launched that for you guys. You now have
[84:12] monthly statements um in the loan
[84:14] document section of the app or the
[84:16] dashboard. Many people don't know Strike
[84:18] as a dashboard. It's
[84:19] dashboard.strike.me.
[84:20] can access it from our website so that
[84:22] you can use strike uh on your desktops
[84:24] as well or just on the web generally
[84:26] speaking. But we uh allow for uh better
[84:29] statements with our loan product. So
[84:31] that was something we launched last
[84:32] week. Uh we also launched uh renaming uh
[84:36] enclosures in the dashboard. So our
[84:38] dashboard has come a long way in being
[84:40] feature parody to our mobile apps. I
[84:42] know a lot of you want strike on the
[84:43] dashboard. So we continue to invest in
[84:45] that. And then we rolled out our Bitcoin
[84:47] uh line of credit product in Illinois.
[84:50] So, I love these Monday tweets from uh
[84:52] the strike team because I think we just
[84:54] do so much every single week. I I think
[84:56] we're the highest velocity shipping
[84:59] Bitcoin company in the world. We're
[85:01] constantly shipping multiple new
[85:03] products and features a week. Uh so,
[85:05] very exciting. We've got a lot of good
[85:07] stuff up our sleeve. Um the Yield on
[85:09] Cash product is coming along very nicely
[85:11] for us. So, uh we're excited about that.
[85:15] Um and a bunch of other goodies. Uh Q2
[85:17] is also a huge uh quarter for us in
[85:20] regards to Europe and the UK. We expect
[85:22] some good news and some new products and
[85:24] some new announcements there. And uh I
[85:28] am cooking up a potential massive
[85:31] announcement at the Bitcoin conference.
[85:33] I'll let you guys know if it's super
[85:35] duper confirmed next week. But uh
[85:40] yeah, we're cooking. We're I'm always
[85:43] you guys know me. I'm always cooking
[85:44] [ __ ] Hey, I'm far from perfect, but uh
[85:47] I'm always trying. No doubt about that.
[85:50] Uh I am a fighter. So that's what's for
[85:54] strike. And for 21, [snorts]
[85:57] we're almost there.
[85:59] Now, anything I say beyond that will be
[86:02] held against me and I'll get sued and
[86:05] potentially get all all of us in worlds
[86:07] of trouble. But we are almost there and
[86:11] uh it's very exciting. So, we'll see.
[86:15] Um, [snorts] cue cue cue the tweets that
[86:18] uh Jack hosts a political podcast and uh
[86:22] and doesn't work on 21. Cue those up.
[86:24] You guys can send those now. [laughter]
[86:27] Um, you know, once you guys learn uh
[86:31] what we've been working on, I I think
[86:33] you'll be very happy and realize that
[86:35] it's been a ton of work, but we'll see.
[86:38] Uh, okay. Q&A. Let me blow myself up.
[86:43] Oh, my hair looks weird.
[86:46] Little comb over action. There we go.
[86:49] Um, all right. Let's pull up Dylan's
[86:53] Q&A. What are we an hour and a half?
[86:55] Damn, I said not a two hour show and
[86:57] here we are.
[87:00] [ __ ] me.
[87:02] I got way too much to do.
[87:06] Okay.
[87:09] Um, here we go. Let's ride. Question for
[87:12] Jack and Dylan. I have an elevator pitch
[87:14] to share with normies to help them see
[87:17] it's not blue verse red, but state verse
[87:19] individual.
[87:22] Um, like how to convince people that the
[87:25] government is [ __ ]
[87:32] Um,
[87:36] I think my elevator pitch personally
[87:38] would be no man should work for what
[87:40] another man can print.
[87:43] I I I think the fix the money, fix the
[87:46] world. Now, obviously, we can go on and
[87:48] on and on and on and on about the size
[87:50] of the government and all that they
[87:52] impact and things like taxes, but for
[87:54] me, it's no man should work for what
[87:56] another man can print. And if we can fix
[87:58] the money, I think we fix half of the
[88:00] world's biggest problems at least. And
[88:03] so I I I just fundamentally don't
[88:05] believe that money should be a man-made,
[88:09] man-maintained
[88:11] vehicle. Um, I think it distorts
[88:15] uh the role that money should be playing
[88:18] for all of us. And the fact that
[88:20] government seemingly has a monopoly on
[88:23] the market good that is supposed to uh
[88:26] represent our time and our energy and
[88:28] our effort and our labor. Like the fact
[88:30] that you get up, go to work, bust your
[88:32] ass, right? Like you don't hit snooze,
[88:34] you have to commute, it's raining
[88:36] outside, they're asking you to do more
[88:38] than you thought. All of that grind. And
[88:40] in return for that, you get money that
[88:42] they have an a monopoly on, that they
[88:44] print more of, that they debase. That by
[88:46] proxy means that they have a monopoly on
[88:48] you. If they have a monopoly on money,
[88:50] they have a monopoly on you because in
[88:52] theory, your money is a reflection of
[88:54] your effort and your time spent creating
[88:57] value for others. So to me, no man
[89:00] should work for what another man can
[89:01] print. And uh it starts there. And that
[89:04] would be my elevator pitch.
[89:07] Uh question uh for Jack. How much
[89:10] purchasing power do you realistically
[89:11] think $1 million Bitcoin will actually
[89:13] have in the future? Yeah, interesting.
[89:15] So, I um I've gone through this exercise
[89:18] before myself. Here's how I think about
[89:20] it. Um
[89:23] so, the like
[89:27] of the value in the world like the
[89:30] overall
[89:31] you know market so to speak. um call it
[89:37] there's $900 trillion worth of stuff.
[89:41] Round numbers, let's just assume that
[89:43] about half of the stuff. So, so by the
[89:45] way, stuff is currency, sovereign bonds,
[89:49] real estate, precious metals, fine art,
[89:52] equity, right, in companies, the stock
[89:55] market. So, let's say there's about $900
[89:57] trillion worth of stuff that us humans
[89:59] collectively own in the world. It's
[90:02] estimated, and I think this estimate is
[90:04] reasonable, about half of that stuff has
[90:06] been monetized. So, you're using the
[90:08] thing that you own for money. Meaning,
[90:11] you're not consuming it. You're you own
[90:14] the portfolio of real estate, not cuz
[90:16] you're living in it and you're sleeping
[90:17] in it and you're having family dinner in
[90:18] it. You're owning it to save money or
[90:21] save wealth and and persist it into the
[90:23] future and later exchange it for
[90:24] something that you need. So, that puts
[90:26] the market size for money at anywhere
[90:28] between 400 to$500 trillion. And Bitcoin
[90:31] right now is at 1.5 trillion. Gold is at
[90:34] whatever 30 40 trillion. And so
[90:38] and and I think a lot of people are
[90:40] using the S&P 500 and equity as money. I
[90:43] think a lot of people are using bonds
[90:45] and sovereign debt as money, right? A
[90:47] lot of people are using the dollar as
[90:48] money. And so Bitcoin in theory at $1.5
[90:54] trillion has at least a 200x in
[91:00] purchasing power terms left. Now, are we
[91:03] all going to be alive for that? I'm not
[91:06] sure. But, you know, sometimes I hear
[91:08] people say, "Yeah, Bitcoin can go to a
[91:10] million." But at that point, you know,
[91:12] $1 is not even gonna get you like $10
[91:16] not going to get you um I don't know.
[91:19] You guys get what I'm saying, right?
[91:21] Like you $100 for a cheeseburger, which
[91:24] is kind of arguably what's happening
[91:25] today. We're not that far. But my point
[91:28] is that in purchasing power terms,
[91:30] there's a long way to go. Long. Like in
[91:34] other words, if you were to take all the
[91:36] world's real estate and divide it by 21
[91:38] million, like how much how many sats for
[91:41] the median house in America? Like not
[91:43] that many, right? So the theoretical
[91:45] market size for money and if Bitcoin
[91:48] were to live that out now, if you were
[91:49] to say, well, no, Bitcoin is not going
[91:51] to capture 100% of the market
[91:53] opportunity for money. It's going to
[91:55] capture, I don't know, you tell me, 50%,
[91:59] 25%, 10%. it's still like multiples and
[92:03] multiples and multiples and multiples
[92:04] from here. So, it's pretty simple math,
[92:07] not very complicated. Um, and I think
[92:09] all of that is reasonable. None of that
[92:10] is a stretch. You know, if anyone were
[92:13] to try and stand on the other side of
[92:15] that and take the other side of that,
[92:16] they'd be making the claim that they
[92:18] don't think Bitcoin is good enough money
[92:19] to have a realistic market share over
[92:22] the monetary market. But if you believe
[92:24] that Bitcoin is going to be a competitor
[92:26] for the foreseeable future in the
[92:27] monetary market, then yeah, I mean,
[92:29] Bitcoin has I mean, sky's is the limit.
[92:32] 200x, 300x, you know, left in it.
[92:35] Depends on how big of the global
[92:37] monetary market share you think Bitcoin
[92:39] can take. Gold, too, by the way, when
[92:41] people say, so what we're at, what's
[92:44] gold's market cap right now? Gold market
[92:48] cap,
[92:50] 31 trillion, 35 trillion. Okay. So, gold
[92:53] has, you know, itself 100x left in it,
[92:58] right?
[93:00] Um, if you think it can take the whole
[93:02] market, obviously, but my my my point is
[93:06] like when people say $10,000 per ounce
[93:08] of gold, $20,000 per ounce of gold,
[93:11] that's not a unreasonable thing. If the
[93:14] US does find its way to severely
[93:16] devaluing the US dollar and monetizing
[93:18] the debt, which we've talked about, they
[93:20] have to at some point, then yeah,
[93:23] Bitcoin and gold are going to go way up
[93:25] in their rightful share to uh to like
[93:29] this overall market of people looking to
[93:32] persist wealth into the future and later
[93:34] exchange it, it's going to go way
[93:36] higher. So, Bitcoin has a long long long
[93:38] long way to go. A lot of upside. We're
[93:41] not near its potential. In fact, I'd
[93:44] still consider Bitcoin largely a social
[93:46] experiment in the grand scheme of where
[93:48] it's going. We're still we're still in
[93:50] the phase where the majority of the
[93:52] world considers it an experiment and the
[93:55] majority of us participating in it are
[93:57] largely trying to help engineer and
[94:00] drive forward an experiment of can we
[94:03] can we build this new monetary system
[94:06] that benefits everyone most importantly
[94:09] the the people.
[94:12] [snorts] Um, nice Jack. While we're on
[94:13] the gold subject, what is your take on
[94:15] tokenized gold like XAT to improve its
[94:18] utility to your point as a monetary
[94:19] network?
[94:21] Yeah, so XAT is a Tether product. So
[94:24] that was created by my buddies over at
[94:26] Tether. And uh I think it's probably the
[94:29] best version of gold. Like I think it's
[94:32] awesome that you can basically trust
[94:35] Tether to custody the gold and not [ __ ]
[94:38] you. And
[94:41] yeah, and use gold like you would
[94:44] Bitcoin theoretically. But the problem
[94:46] is you're trusting Tether again. Like if
[94:49] the US government showed up to Tether
[94:50] with a bunch of weapons and said, "Give
[94:52] me your gold." Well, then what? Like
[94:54] Tether doesn't have like a military to
[94:58] defend itself. So that's the problem
[95:00] with gold. It doesn't have a monetary
[95:01] network itself.
[95:03] Its monetary network relies on humans,
[95:06] like I said. So, in order to use gold
[95:10] like you would use Bitcoin or Venmo or
[95:12] Cash App, you need to deposit the gold
[95:14] to Tether or buy the gold through
[95:16] Tether. Tether secures it for you and
[95:18] they give you a token. But that system
[95:21] falls apart. That's what happened last
[95:22] time, guys. Like, how do I know gold is
[95:25] not destined to be the money of the
[95:26] world? Because gold already failed.
[95:30] Like, all the gold was deposited with
[95:32] governments and banks and one day the US
[95:34] came out and said, "Fuck that. Your gold
[95:36] is our gold. See you. Talk to you
[95:38] tomorrow. And there's nothing anyone can
[95:40] do because the only way to use gold at
[95:42] scale was to deposit it to a central
[95:45] party and trust them. And trust doesn't
[95:47] work forever. One of these days it falls
[95:50] apart and people weaponize it. So Tether
[95:54] Tether's product is the be in my opinion
[95:57] it's the best version of gold. So, if
[95:59] you're into gold and you want to use
[96:02] gold on the internet, you want to put
[96:04] gold in your app, you want to use gold
[96:05] for remittance and stuff, and you have
[96:07] to trust someone, I think Tether's
[96:09] great. It's they're not a sovereign
[96:10] nation. They don't have a bunch of
[96:11] weapons backing them. They build
[96:13] technology. They're very successful at
[96:14] it. Um, probably the most impressive
[96:16] company in the history of mankind. So, I
[96:19] think it's the best gold product. How
[96:21] does it compare to Bitcoin, though? It's
[96:22] It's not even It's not even comparable.
[96:25] Not comparable. Like gold, again, gold
[96:28] doesn't have a monetary network. It
[96:30] relies on trusted human interaction. And
[96:33] the other funny line I always use is
[96:35] like gold hasn't gotten any better since
[96:36] it failed us in 1971 when the US said,
[96:39] "Fuck the gold standard." Like, we
[96:41] haven't been able to build any new
[96:42] features. We haven't been able to like
[96:44] submit any pull requests to the gold
[96:46] open- source repository. Right? The
[96:49] other thing about Bitcoin is we'll be
[96:50] making it better forever.
[96:53] Gold, it is what it is. Mother Nature
[96:56] created gold and it's as good as it will
[96:58] ever be. Now, you can redress these
[97:02] central custodians that humans have to
[97:04] trust in their social contracts. Like,
[97:06] yeah, Tether's a new thing that didn't
[97:07] exist in 1971, but a centralized entity,
[97:10] are they any better than the US
[97:12] government? No. Like, they're my
[97:14] friends, so I think they're better
[97:16] people. Like, I think they have a better
[97:18] moral compass and stuff, but they're
[97:20] just as centralized, right? Like it and
[97:22] and they would agree with this is my
[97:24] guess. They would say, "Yes, we're
[97:25] trying to build the best gold product in
[97:27] the gold market, but Bitcoin beats gold
[97:30] 100 out of 100 times."
[97:33] You know, it is what it is.
[97:35] Hey, Jack. Jeff Booth loves to preface
[97:38] all of his statements with, "As long as
[97:39] Bitcoin stays decentralized and secure,
[97:41] what grades would you give the status of
[97:43] those variables for Bitcoin?" I think
[97:46] Bitcoin's passing with flying colors.
[97:47] Hey, um sufficiently decentralized and
[97:52] plenty secure. Um
[97:56] you know, in my
[97:59] um the biggest threat to Bitcoin, I
[98:01] agree with Jeff wholeheartedly, another
[98:03] another friend of the show. I agree with
[98:04] Jeff wholeheartedly because uh
[98:07] [sighs and gasps]
[98:09] um because the biggest threats to
[98:11] Bitcoin in the past have been the
[98:13] community being threatened to compromise
[98:15] on those qualities. Like people said, I
[98:18] need Bitcoin to be faster for my
[98:19] business. Let's make it ah who really
[98:21] cares about how decentralized it is?
[98:23] Let's let's make block times faster or
[98:26] let's raise the block size. And the
[98:28] community has been on the right side of
[98:30] history, which is no, if we really want
[98:32] to scale to visa level throughput, we
[98:34] have to build in layers. We absolutely
[98:36] fundamentally cannot compromise on those
[98:38] core principles. Absolutely. Or else
[98:40] Bitcoin's worthless. And so I think at
[98:43] this point it's really hard for me to
[98:44] believe that the community would be
[98:46] duped into compromising on those
[98:48] properties. The block size wars were one
[98:51] of the craziest things to be a part of
[98:53] in my Bitcoin career. That was like one
[98:56] of the rare times I was like, "Holy
[98:58] [ __ ] is this thing going to work?"
[99:01] Um because yeah, if if Bitcoin turned
[99:07] into a consortium of companies like
[99:09] Coinbase wanted it to be, I think it
[99:11] wouldn't have worked. And uh we won that
[99:15] civil war. Um and I think the rest is
[99:18] history there. So I think Bitcoin's
[99:20] doing great. It really is. Um I didn't
[99:23] have time today for some of the quantum
[99:25] stuff. I will I will plan to talk about
[99:28] it next week, but I'm very confident in
[99:30] in uh how Bitcoin is progressing
[99:33] relative to some of the quantum papers.
[99:35] The TLDDR is there's been a lot of
[99:38] software progress in quantum, but like
[99:40] relatively no hardware progress in
[99:42] quantum. And Bitcoin's been making lots
[99:44] of progress in quantum. So, um I think
[99:47] Bitcoin's doing great. uh it's not
[99:50] compromising on any of its core
[99:52] principles that Satoshi launched it
[99:54] with. And that's why someone like Iran
[99:58] is theoretically using it as a neutral
[100:00] sovereign internet that could be
[100:02] transported over a communications
[100:03] channel like the internet. So, Bitcoin's
[100:05] [ __ ] killing it, man. Despite Here's
[100:08] the thing. I have another quote that I
[100:10] really like. Um some people quote me and
[100:14] some of them I like, some of them I
[100:15] don't. But this one I like which is
[100:17] Bitcoin can change the world because the
[100:20] world cannot change Bitcoin. I love that
[100:23] quote. And one of the reasons I like the
[100:25] quote is because there's a really deep
[100:28] philosophical angle here which is
[100:30] Satoshi invented something that us
[100:33] humans cannot bend to compromise on
[100:38] our own
[100:40] flaws.
[100:42] Like the most impressive thing about
[100:44] Bitcoin to me is it is succeeding
[100:47] despite human flaw.
[100:50] Like unfortunately humans aren't perfect
[100:52] and we're highly emotional and we go
[100:54] through this cyclical behavior where
[100:56] times get really really good and that
[100:58] creates really really weak versions of
[100:59] us and those weak versions of us create
[101:01] really really bad times and then we kind
[101:03] of self-correct. You see the rise and
[101:05] fall of empires. You see the rise and
[101:07] fall of trends. And you know, humans
[101:11] go through unfortunate struggle in order
[101:15] to push themselves to inevitable
[101:17] prosperity. And Satoshi somehow created
[101:19] something where, you know, Bitcoin can
[101:21] change the world because the world
[101:22] cannot change Bitcoin. It acts as like a
[101:24] bedrock that is immovable despite humans
[101:29] trying to change it and [ __ ] with it and
[101:31] manipulate it.
[101:33] um it's not going to move. And so that's
[101:37] it's still to this day it hasn't
[101:39] compromised. It's it's impossible to
[101:41] change. And I think you humans need
[101:45] technology that they invent
[101:51] despite their flaws. You know, like
[101:54] we're far from perfect, but we found a
[101:56] way to invent something that protects us
[101:58] from the worst version of ourselves.
[102:01] It's cool as [ __ ]
[102:03] Uh Jack, quick question. In your
[102:05] opinion, what has been the best
[102:07] correlation tool in regards to Bitcoin?
[102:10] Obviously, it doesn't feel like it's M2
[102:11] anymore. What do you feel is good to
[102:13] follow? I think the software ETF as of
[102:16] recent is uh is good to follow.
[102:19] Bitcoin's been trading with software,
[102:22] but as I mentioned earlier, software
[102:24] keeps going down and Bitcoin's trying to
[102:25] go higher. Is this the time Bitcoin
[102:28] decouples? Is this the time Bitcoin
[102:30] starts to act more like gold? I don't
[102:33] know. Or is this a short squeeze on
[102:35] Bitcoiners and Sailor had a strong STRC
[102:39] week and then we're going to go puke. I
[102:41] have no idea. Uh that's kind of how I
[102:43] ended the show. I'm not really sure. So
[102:45] anyways, I would check uh IGF is the
[102:49] name of the software ETF. I would track
[102:50] that and uh we'll see next week. Um
[102:53] we'll update. Um strike question for
[102:56] Jack. I love the show, brother. Thanks
[102:58] for helping change my life. Wow, that is
[102:59] very sweet. I appreciate that. Um, much
[103:03] love. Thanks for the support. What's the
[103:05] update this week after showing us the
[103:07] graphic last week regarding yield on
[103:09] cash? Yeah, so there's kind of two
[103:11] parallel threads going on inside of
[103:13] Strike the Company. One is a basic yield
[103:16] on cash product where you know we can
[103:18] give you guys yield on your cash by
[103:21] turning on like a money market or T-
[103:24] billill program where you know the US
[103:26] Fed is paying 3.5% or something and and
[103:30] we can basically give that back to you
[103:32] guys. Um, now the more interesting
[103:35] thing, like I mentioned, is allowing
[103:37] people to earn more than the Fed by
[103:40] participating in our lending business by
[103:42] saying, "Hey, if customers are paying us
[103:44] x% for loans, and we charge, depending
[103:47] on the context, is it a line of credit?
[103:49] Is it a million- dollar loan? Is it a
[103:51] $10 loan?" Um, and so if we allow you
[103:54] guys to say, "Hey, we'll park our cash
[103:57] uh in this like pool that are financing
[104:00] collateralized loans, then I think we
[104:02] can give you guys 5%, 6%, 7%. I we
[104:06] haven't totally worked out the final
[104:07] pricing yet." Um, but anyways, that's
[104:10] harder to do because it implies all
[104:13] sorts of banking laws and rules and all
[104:15] sorts of [ __ ] So, we're chewing
[104:17] through that. We're working through
[104:18] that. That's our northstar. We will
[104:19] eventually get there. It's just a matter
[104:21] of when, not if. But the question for us
[104:24] is should we turn on something that's at
[104:26] least giving you whatever 3 and a half%
[104:28] something like that for now. Um and so
[104:31] uh we expect I expect to have um a lot
[104:34] more movement on this for you guys uh in
[104:36] the near term, but uh it's one of the
[104:38] bigger focuses internally at Strike. Uh
[104:41] there's a there's a bunch of stuff we're
[104:42] cooking and that's one of them. So
[104:44] people are working on both internally
[104:46] and uh I'll have updates for you guys.
[104:50] um as the team hits certain milestones.
[104:53] But in the meantime, if you ever have
[104:54] questions or you want an update, just
[104:56] let me know. Okay. Uh Dylan has this
[104:59] section in the Q&A called other, which
[105:02] usually means it's about like life or
[105:05] sports. He has three of them. So, pretty
[105:08] interesting. Let's see. Quick question.
[105:10] What app do you use to listen to
[105:12] websites and reports you keep saying?
[105:16] I use,
[105:19] let's see, what's this thing called?
[105:22] I use speechify.
[105:26] So, I forget what it costs. It's like I
[105:29] I paid an annual subscription. So, a lot
[105:32] of these AI tools I pay for a year, give
[105:35] myself time to see if I like it or not.
[105:37] But this thing sits as a browser
[105:39] extension.
[105:41] and any web page I'm on, I can click
[105:44] play and it'll read it to me. And so,
[105:49] like, let's say these like New York
[105:50] Times articles and stuff, sometimes I'll
[105:52] just be playing chess and I'll click
[105:54] play and I'll play chess and I'll listen
[105:56] to the article or I'll listen to
[105:58] Bloomberg talk about Bessant Powell
[106:00] meeting supposedly about Claude's new
[106:02] model. [ __ ] Um, so, uh, it's called
[106:06] Speechify and then I use Substack. So,
[106:09] Michael Howell, a lot of the macro
[106:11] analysis that I pay for, they release it
[106:14] on Substack. Substack has its own
[106:16] texttospech feature, which is really
[106:18] good. And then Luke uh his report, he
[106:22] actually records uh a podcast of himself
[106:26] reading his own report and he releases
[106:28] that to the paid uh subscribers. So, the
[106:31] across those three is uh like all of the
[106:34] listening I do to prepare for the show
[106:36] throughout the week. And I don't even
[106:38] think about it as preparing for the
[106:39] show. I just am genuinely curious, try
[106:41] and figure out what's going on in the
[106:43] world to form my own opinions. And then
[106:46] Monday morning, whatever is top of mind
[106:48] for me, I just use my AI tools and I
[106:50] make my slides.
[106:53] Uh, question for Jack. Love the show,
[106:54] brother. Thanks for helping change my
[106:56] Oh, no. That one is a repeat, Dylan. Uh,
[106:59] okay. Last question. Dylan, can you ask
[107:02] Jack where he gets his meat from? Yes.
[107:06] A lot of you guys wanted more on the
[107:07] health stuff. I just didn't have time
[107:09] today. But uh if the health stuff is
[107:11] interesting, I'm more than happy to uh
[107:14] talk more about it. And I saw people say
[107:18] like, "Jack, stick to Bitcoin. You're
[107:19] not a doctor." Let me say this. I'm also
[107:22] not a professional economist. I'm also
[107:24] not uh I didn't get a degree that gives
[107:27] me like the right to talk about money
[107:29] the way I do. I'm just a dude that has
[107:32] opinions. And you can take those
[107:33] opinions for what they are. Is there one
[107:35] diet that will suit everybody? No. But
[107:39] does cancer need glucose to survive? And
[107:42] are you feeding your body the necessary
[107:45] environment to produce tumors and allow
[107:47] them to spread? Yes, you are. Like
[107:49] cancer rates are far worse today than
[107:51] they were a 100 years ago. Like that's
[107:53] just a fact. So you could take my
[107:56] opinions for what they are. I don't you
[107:57] know I wouldn't trust any one person on
[108:00] any sub subject unequivocally. Um
[108:04] anyway,
[108:06] so I go back and forth um
[108:10] between all sorts of meat providers
[108:14] because there's a lot that use Strike
[108:15] and there's a lot that support
[108:17] Bitcoiners and it's really good high
[108:19] quality stuff. Uh let me pull up their
[108:23] website.
[108:26] Um,
[108:29] this is who I use now. And I tell you
[108:31] guys, so just to reiterate, there are no
[108:33] ads on this show. I don't I don't accept
[108:38] money for this show. This show is just
[108:40] my charitable contribution to the
[108:44] internet. Who knows if it's a net
[108:47] positive contribution or not? I don't
[108:48] know who listens to this and who gains
[108:50] value from it. But,
[108:52] uh, these guys did not pay me to talk
[108:55] about them. Just to be clear, like I I
[108:58] always find it, you know, it's like with
[109:00] an asterric or take it with a grain of
[109:01] salt when someone's selling me a product
[109:02] that someone paid them to sell me. These
[109:05] guys didn't didn't pay me uh for this. I
[109:08] actually don't even know if they know
[109:09] that I use their [ __ ] So, uh, this is
[109:11] who I'm using now. Uh, Beck and Bolo. uh
[109:14] they accept Bitcoin uh through Strike
[109:17] which I fi find really cool but I use uh
[109:21] the monthly subscription. So
[109:25] uh I think I have the
[109:29] which one of these do I have?
[109:32] I have maybe it's the carnivore box.
[109:36] Although I don't remember paying $500 a
[109:38] month. Maybe this is inflation. But
[109:41] let's see what's in here. Um because
[109:44] what I get every single month is Yes, I
[109:49] think this is it. I get beef tallow. Uh
[109:53] I get a tomahawk. I get a bunch of
[109:56] ground beef. I also get uh so maybe this
[110:00] isn't it because I also get um some wild
[110:02] caught salmon, but it's all grass-fed.
[110:05] Um, it's from their farm and uh, it
[110:09] ships to me once a month and it lasts me
[110:12] easily the whole month. Like actually
[110:14] last yesterday. So, I have a smoker on
[110:16] my on my roof um, on my second floor and
[110:20] uh, I smoked some uh, lamb ribs
[110:24] yesterday. Uh, and it was two and a half
[110:27] pounds of lamb ribs. So, I'm still
[110:28] chewing through that. Um, and so I get
[110:31] my meat from these guys. Now, there are
[110:34] tons of really good Bitcoin like
[110:37] butchers that will ship to you. Um, but
[110:40] these guys are great here. Pay with
[110:42] Bitcoin. See? So, your freezer deserves
[110:45] better than grocery. They've got a whole
[110:47] uh like why they do it. Zero hormones,
[110:50] zero exceptions, butcher craft. Uh,
[110:53] really, really good stuff. And they're
[110:56] Bitcoiners. Um, really cool. Uh, they
[111:00] support me. Maybe they listen to the
[111:02] show. I have no idea. Uh, and
[111:06] yeah. Uh, now where do I get my
[111:11] uh dairy? I get my dairy from Miller's
[111:14] BioArm. Um, so let's I won't sign in. So
[111:19] I get my eggs.
[111:22] Um, so,
[111:24] uh, what people, what's really hard is,
[111:27] um, people will say like at Whole Foods,
[111:30] you'll see pasture-raised, but you'll
[111:33] never see corn and soyf free ever. So,
[111:36] it's really hard to find corn and
[111:38] soyfree, like really natural, like
[111:40] farm-ade.
[111:42] And you can see like I had three eggs
[111:43] for lunch with some of my lamb ribs that
[111:45] I smoked. And you'll see in the coloring
[111:48] of the eggs, like it's very easy to tell
[111:50] once you've had farm eggs and not farm
[111:52] eggs. And so you can get chicken eggs,
[111:56] duck eggs, um they make raw ice cream,
[112:00] so from raw dairy. So I get my eggs from
[112:03] here and I get my butter from uh
[112:06] Miller's Bioarm. So I'll go to the raw
[112:09] cow dairy is where I shop. Now, when I
[112:13] want milk and cream, I will buy my raw
[112:17] milk and my raw cream here, too. So,
[112:19] I've historically gotten raw milk, raw
[112:20] cream, and raw butter here. And I
[112:22] actually have an ice cream machine where
[112:24] I've made my own raw ice cream. So, you
[112:26] do a little raw milk, some of the raw
[112:28] eggs, some raw cream. Uh I buy my salt
[112:31] from here as well. I just don't trust
[112:34] like whole foods anymore. Um but I've
[112:37] found like dairy, it's just a lot. Um,
[112:41] and sometimes I'm in the mood for it.
[112:44] Um, and I'm doing long distance running
[112:46] a lot and stuff. And sometimes I'm not.
[112:48] And I also travel a lot and the dairy
[112:50] gets bad. And so if I'm running around
[112:53] trying to close deals for strike and
[112:54] speak at conferences, it's hard for me
[112:56] to consume all this dairy. So I haven't
[112:58] had dairy in a few weeks um, outside of
[113:01] butter. But I get this one pound of uh
[113:05] salted A2 A2 uh raw butter and it's uh
[113:09] really good. Lasts me a while. Um just I
[113:13] use the butter primarily to uh cook my
[113:15] eggs in. And yeah, that's what I do now.
[113:19] And this Beck and Bellow like one of
[113:21] these these monthly shipments, it fills
[113:23] my fridge like to the brim. I have two
[113:24] fridges. I have one on this floor and
[113:27] one upstairs. and uh it fills my
[113:29] fridges. And then I just every day I
[113:32] grab a few things that I want to defrost
[113:34] in the fridge. By the next day, they're
[113:36] ready to cook and I either smoke them or
[113:37] I grill them. And that's pretty much it.
[113:41] Uh oh, maybe I have this the variety
[113:44] box. This looks more
[113:48] cuz mine I don't Let me Should I check
[113:51] for you guys real quick? Cuz I uh mine
[113:54] comes with fish, too, which is it's
[113:56] really good. Yeah. This is what I have.
[113:57] The variety box. So, 300 bucks a month,
[114:00] 250 bucks a month. It lasts me. But
[114:03] granted, my my girlfriend and I like to
[114:05] go to dinner every now and then. So, I'm
[114:07] not like eating every single meal out of
[114:09] my freezer, but like damn near like I'm
[114:12] I'm really close. Yeah, this is me one.
[114:15] Yeah, I This has got to be me for sure.
[114:17] So, that I've got some wild caught
[114:19] salmon, some cod. Um I looked up how to
[114:22] make cod. Uh they've got great really
[114:24] good fish. Um, I got really interesting
[114:27] [ __ ] in here. Like there's jalapeno
[114:29] cheddar sausages, which may not be the
[114:31] most carnivore friendly, but they're
[114:32] really, really good. I cook those,
[114:34] scrambled them with some eggs. Um,
[114:37] really good. So, yeah. But, um, there's
[114:40] a whole community of kind of like meat
[114:43] butcher Bitcoin. Um, I'm trying to think
[114:48] what's it called that I used to order
[114:50] from.
[114:52] Damn. I don't want to do them a
[114:54] disservice because
[114:56] uh
[114:57] because they are really good, too. And I
[115:02] don't want to just make this a Beck and
[115:04] Bellow ad, although they probably
[115:06] deserve it. Ah, here we go. So, this
[115:09] guy, Texas Slim, legend, local legend
[115:13] down there in Texas. So, he created this
[115:16] the beef initiative. Um, and I'm pretty
[115:21] sure
[115:22] Yeah, the operating system for the
[115:24] global beef economy. And these guys are
[115:28] all Bitcoiners. And so there's a ton of
[115:32] uh like similar services
[115:36] um and ranches and farms to order from.
[115:39] I used to order from. The name is
[115:41] slipping my mind. Um I just try and
[115:44] switch it up to support all these guys.
[115:46] Um and so recently I've been on uh Yo,
[115:48] look, El Salvador. Love it. Yeah. So,
[115:51] this community is awesome. But anyways,
[115:53] um what goes in my body comes straight
[115:55] from a farm and uh it's awesome and
[115:59] yeah, my health has been great. I feel
[116:02] great. Uh I get my coffee beans from Al
[116:05] Salvador, too. I can put you guys on
[116:07] that um if you want. But anyways,
[116:10] that's it.
[116:13] Uh okay.
[116:15] Well, with that, um, I said I wasn't
[116:19] gonna do two hours and I did. So, I
[116:21] guess I'm gonna be staying up pretty
[116:22] late working on [ __ ] But, um,
[116:24] appreciate you guys as always. Thank you
[116:26] for the support and for tuning in. Any
[116:28] feedback, good or bad, just leave it in
[116:30] the comments. I'll get to it. Um, want
[116:33] to make the show entertaining and
[116:35] valuable. So, um, less politics this
[116:38] time. Think that was good feedback. Um,
[116:41] I don't care for politics. So, if you
[116:42] guys claim I'm doing too much
[116:44] politicking, then we reduce it. So, let
[116:47] me know what you think, what would be
[116:48] interesting for next episode. And uh
[116:51] much love. Talk to you later. Peace.