The Bitcoin Group, the American original. For over the last ten seconds, the sharpest sitoshis, the best bitcoins, the hardest cryptocurrency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, Derek J. Freeman from DerekJ.me. And Will Pangman from Topeeke. Hi. Tom Thomas Hunt from the World Crypto Network. Our top story tonight is, issue one, why Apple pay and dollars are killing Bitcoin. The mainstream media is back again with more of a fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Bitcoin this week with Forbes Magazine saying that Bitcoin is being squeezed on both sides by the resurgence of a strong dollar and a powerful competitor in Apple pay. Derek J, your thoughts is Bitcoin being killed? No, with the... Well, I encourage you if you've been in the Bitcoin space for a while, because you'll get a good laugh. I was really disappointed that this comes from Forbes. I thought that they had an understanding of economics, but it seems like the author here was just publishing something to get paid. It really has no grounding in reality. And for example, it moves the case that the highest price of Bitcoin, like we should base any of our facts on that. Like oh, well, Bitcoin was worth $1,200 in January of 2013, and now it's $250, so it's failing. No, it's a new currency, it's a new commodity, it's finding its market price, and what we've learned over the past few months is that Mt. Gox and other exchanges may be responsible for driving that price up artificially. So it's a small market cap, these prices do fluctuate wildly, and no, Bitcoin is not being killed. What are the other very stupid points that the article makes is that the same things that people like about Bitcoin are the things that are killing it, like the no transaction fees, the fact that it's not regulated, and the fact that it has no central issuing authority. And that's not true, those aren't the things that are killing it, and it's not being killed, it's just the market finding its price. Like there's supply and demand, takes a while for those things to stabilize, and what we've seen in the past few months is a stable price in between somewhere around $250 Bitcoin. That'd be the price forever? No, but it's stable for where it's at for the market cap that it has. And furthermore, it talks about what customers want. Now, if Forbes should know better, then to think that all customers want the same thing, we want variety in this world. And some customers like myself and many of the viewers of this program want to use Bitcoin at any price. It doesn't matter if a merchant accepts Bitcoin and then immediately converts it to dollars. The author of this article makes a case that's a weak point for Bitcoin. It's certainly not. Companies that accept Bitcoin are deriving more business from customers from afar because people are willing to travel just to be there to spend their Bitcoin. Like that's a cool thing. They're getting more business for that. Who cares if they immediately convert it to dollars, they're getting more bank. Because they accept Bitcoin and it no cost to themselves. So yeah, this Bitcoin is not being killed. Apple pay and dollars are both pretty good. I'm not going to hate on any of them. We need variety. It's the spice of life. Additionally, merchants who accept Bitcoin online are making their customers safer. So it's another bonus. It's a better way to pay online. Will Pagman. Yeah. Just echoing Derek, I think normally I'd like to give people a pass, but because it's clear that this person hasn't thought very deeply about the implications of Bitcoin or really what knows what Bitcoin is. It's a nonsense. Like getting big to two lips or beanie babies just is clearly indicative that you don't get it. You have no clue really. And saying things like in the article, it's not safe to hold Bitcoin. Look at examples like Mt. Gox and it's like, whoa. I mean, the problem was people weren't holding their Bitcoin in that case. So Bitcoin's more than just a payments innovation. When he says Apple pay and dollars are killing it, the dollars is code for Microsoft's Xbox points or Microsoft points that they're doing. Whatever square might do, PayPal, whatever it might do, and come to think of it, a couple of those companies made your corporations that he's using to attack Bitcoin in this hit piece really except Bitcoin, don't they? So you know, he didn't even identify that or he's not kept up with the news or this is just a slander piece for whoever might come across it. So yeah, once I got to about the third paragraph of the meat of the article was clear that there was no real grounding as Derek said. And you know, the key thing to take away from here is, and I'm not slamming this guy too much. He thinks Bitcoin is only a payments innovation. And that is why all of his logic is so flawed. Also Apple Pay helps Bitcoin. It makes paying with your wallet uncool. It's cool to pay with your phone now. That's the world that we're living in. Exit question, what will kill Bitcoin and you have to choose from one of these three? Asteroid, EMP or the return of the dinosaurs, Derek J. Yeah, it'll be an EMP. I've been working on solutions like using a two-way radio to send Bitcoin. There are programs that exist right now that you can use tying your computer to a two-way radio and send Bitcoin across them. It's really cool. That's a solution that could work after an EMP, but to use it successfully, people are going to have to prepare for that. You know, I don't expect nuclear war in the same way that we did during the Cold War, but it's not bad to have alternatives ready. And don't forget, Jeff Garzick's cube satellites could put the blockchain in space, and then that version of the blockchain would be safe from the EMP. So Bitcoin would keep running. Will Pangman, Asteroid, EMP or return of the dinosaurs? EMP seems like the obvious choice, but I think people would survive in EMP and work very hard to get Bitcoin, the network, backup and running and probably would succeed in not too long of time. So I think if the return of the dinosaurs happened, people would have far more things to worry about than money and transaction speed and frictionless transactions. So or even wealth allocation and things like that. So yeah, the return of the dinosaurs. The return of the dinosaurs could be a major problem. A lot of people don't know, but Jurassic Park was actually funded with Bitcoins. They don't talk about that in the introduction, but that's where the money came from. And of course, a climate destroying asteroid, a large one like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, would make Bitcoin usage incredibly difficult, but I think we could continue. We would survive. Moving on, issue two, the Winkle Voss twins. Bitcoin will explode beyond the $1 trillion market cap. The great predictors are back again. The champions of Intermural Rowing, sorry, they call it crew. The Winkle Vy, the legendary IDMN behind Facebook are now claiming that Bitcoin will explode, and each coin will be worth more than $47,000 a piece. Will Penguin are the Winkle Vy right? I think eventually they might prove to be right. Yeah, but I also think they're out saying something like that because they've had some announcements in the news recently, and the price has been down. Maybe they think they can prop it up with some positive market sentiment that might conjure with those comments. It's also been a very long time since any high profile people have come out and said, given a to the moon type of prediction like this in a while. They've been sort of downplaying it for all of 2014 in terms of the wild predictions. So it's been a while. Maybe they wanted to dust the cobwebs off of the to the moon prediction meme that seems to be being passed around with Bitcoin. Why not? People are working on so many fascinating things. VC funding is not slowing down. Open source development is not slowing down. This is exploding still, and this is just beginning. So I kind of think I read this article and I think, whatever, good for them. I hope they're really on the side. I think the last one was towards the end of November when the draper is predicted $10,000 a coin. This is four times that. Derek J. Yeah, I believe that the current market cap for Bitcoin is around $3 billion at the price of around $230 at the time this broadcast. So that's in order of magnitude of about a thousand at one of where we are today. It's a hell of a prediction. It would predict if the Winkle Voss twins are saying this now, they expect an exponential growth sometime in the near future. But they don't give a time of when they expect the $1 trillion market cap. So it's sort of irrelevant to put out a prediction without a time limit. You're saying it's going to go up a lot. That could be in a thousand years. If major adoption takes hold, a thousand people for every current Bitcoin user are using Bitcoin a year for now, the market cap would be a trillion dollars and that would be a hell of a thing. I do appreciate them putting out some positive propaganda in regard to the price because that's what this is. They are some of the major holders of Bitcoin and they would benefit from a rise in its price. So putting out positive spin is in their interest. Derek's right to point out the possible thousand year timeline. The Winkle Vy not only twins and a large holder of Bitcoin are also immortal. Very few people know that. Exit question. Every time a large holder of Bitcoin, such as the Winkle Vy or the draper's make one of these predictions, it helps or hurts the credibility of Bitcoin. Will Pangman? Well, it doesn't hurt. I mean, it only hurts the credibility of Bitcoin in the eyes of people who've already got their mind made up and their mind is made up that they're a hater of Bitcoin, right? So that's the only case in which it hurts. It might polarize that type of person even more. But as we're seeing, even the most polar figures against Bitcoin are now like Paul Vinga and I forgot the other guy's name but these authors of this new Bitcoin book about the age of cryptocurrency because the title, you know, they're no longer haters because they wanted to write a book on hating it and they ended up converting themselves. This is fascinating how that works. When you look at something that's just out there in a fact and you can dissect it and it's transparent, it's open source. You know, that's the beauty of that ethic. So it doesn't hurt. Definitely doesn't hurt. Derek, Jay. I think it hurts the credibility of Bitcoin because making a prediction without evidence or reason makes Bitcoin users seem speculative and groundless and the things that they do. So I don't appreciate these types of predictions without some sort of limit, some falsifiability to show like, okay, in a year if I'm wrong, this is what happens. Like famously Roger Verre also known as Bitcoin Jesus made a prediction about the price of Bitcoin and he put a time limit on it and he put something at stake. He put some money into it saying, if I'm wrong, here's what I'm going to do and if I'm right, here's what I'm going to do. I would appreciate a prediction from the Winkle Vots twins in that sort of method. That would be acceptable to me. I think that would help the credibility of Bitcoin. Derek's right. It doesn't help the credibility of Bitcoin but it does hurt the credibility of the Winkle Vots twins or the drapers. Anyone who has a large stack of somewhat something and then says that that something is going to be the most valuable thing in the world, it's a little suspect. Moving on. Issue three. Bitcoin libertarians now desperately need the government's help. The price has fallen and perhaps the sky too. Oh me, oh my. The only thing that can save Bitcoin is government regulation. Coinbase, the exchange, is regulation. The only thing that can save Bitcoin. Derek J. So this was perhaps the most objectionable article I've read about Bitcoin, of course, on bias because of my post-politics. The author of this article couldn't be more mistaken. My reasoning is that the market, which is people like you and me trading are what make Bitcoin a success or not. And it hasn't been the government's consent or blessing that has made the price stabilized. It's been people gaining more experience with Bitcoin, figuring out new uses for it, new companies adopting it. It hasn't had anything to do with the government. In fact, I think this person is wearing government-colored glasses because they seem to only see things in terms of government solutions. They are making the case that because California and New York companies are asking for regulation before they move forward that it's needed. That's not exactly true. They need government consent so they don't go to jail. There's a difference between doing something because it's in a company or a customer's best interest and doing something to have played going to jail. And it's not always the case that when the threat of jail exists, it's the right. It might does not make right. And so my case is that the government is intruding in the world of Bitcoin that without the intrusive regulations that surround the world of banking, that Bitcoin would already have progressed much further. These companies who are providing goods and services to the Bitcoin space are delayed because of the current regulation. If that would just get out of the way, then the price would be more stable. And remember, these governments are only regulating the fiat-to-crypto part of the exchange. The actual Bitcoin exchange is not being regulated. It's fiat-to-crypto that we're regulating. Will, penguin, your thoughts. Yeah, this article is incredibly a merit-centric in its view. I mean, presuming that America obviously has to regulate it so that the world can accept it. I mean, just utter BS. And I do think that there is a little tiny shred that people could take out of here. And it's the only positive thing before I railroad the rest of this piece. Regularity, regulatory clarity is needed for people to make their choice about how they want to use Bitcoin, whether or not, in which cases they do. It doesn't even need to be a positive outcome of regulation or even a negative one. It doesn't matter. Bitcoin doesn't care. They're out around the network damage that it sees. It doesn't care. All that's needed for people to have more clear decisions. There's a lot of people sitting on the sidelines or straddling the fence because companies, lots of money on the sidelines right now. I mean, everywhere I go and travel and talk and hear about Bitcoin and field questions from, let's say, the uninitiated or the outsiders, they are waiting for this. Just an answer. It doesn't matter what it is, then they'll know. So yeah, regulations don't hurt Bitcoin. They hurt consumers and end users the most. They don't do anything except actually immediately create new use cases for Bitcoin. That's really like the outcome of regulations. They create new killer use cases for the thing being regulated. It's a matter of who can capture those use cases right now because Bitcoin is open source and anyone can just download it and computers are gaining ubiquity, especially the palm-sized ones. Anyone can download this and participate. It's the closed source use cases that get monopolized. Go ahead and regulate away. I want this stuff to come out. I mean, 60 days ago or something, we were supposed to have a final panel draft. I'm excited for this thing to come out because we can move on. And remember, the regulation will only cause the creation of a decentralized Bitcoin exchange. That, unlike the regulation, will actually be a good thing for Bitcoin. Exit question. How can you save a man who is not... Exit question. How can you save a man who is not drowning? Derek J. You get out of the way. And that's exactly what the state of New Hampshire is doing this week. There was a hearing at the state house regarding cryptocurrencies and the government is considering a bill that would exempt cryptocurrencies from regulation. That would mean that the rules would not apply. They would not have any say over what people do with cryptocurrencies, over what businesses can accept them. They would not issue any licenses nor would they require them. I think that sort of attitude and that sort of lack of intrusion into the market is what's going to inspire capital flight from places like New York and California, where regulators are predatory on these companies. It's going to inspire people like the Harvey Brothers, who famously created the first Bitcoin vending machine in New Hampshire. That's where they make their company. They've produced I think 5,000 or so ventgings that exist worldwide. They've done that in New Hampshire, partly because the government has gotten out of the way. The internet was allowed to grow without regulation and that turned out pretty good too. Will, how do you save a man who's not on fire? Can you put out the fire? Derek said it very well. They want their pound of flesh. They don't want to lose out on the gravy train. If you notice this stuff came not at the first bubble of Bitcoin, although there was more attention around that in 2013, the first 2013 bubble in April, but it really showed up strong during the second bubble of 2013, which was the 10X growth bubble. That really huge one. Of course, when they see that and they see that some of these people are now approaching like 8 and 9 figure status, they want involvement in that. This is just a dying breed, this whole system of centrally organizing civilization. We see this falling apart at the seams and it's not just Bitcoin that's peeling the threads and at the end. The technology general has been innovating at the fringes at the edges of this huge system to make it go away slowly but surely and be more efficient. Bitcoin comes along with things like Bitcoin and they actually, they don't even innovate at the fringes. They innovate right in the hearts of this whole thing. That's what's really exciting to watch. Like Derek said, as long as there are jurisdictions that choose to take a hands-off approach or a very light-handed approach or anything on that end of the spectrum, any regularity relations anywhere else, no matter how heavy-handed, can't succeed. Because this is a global network and they need to just give up. And once the hardest thing for them to do, this is going to be the hardest part, regulators, policymakers, politicians, whatever, they won't give up power, they don't. It's not in their nature and they will have to soon. Good point, Will. Moving on, issue 4. Coin Terra files for bankruptcy with up to 999 creditors owed. Once the creators of some of the fastest ASIC miners in the world, Coin Terra is now no more. A $1.5 million investment of venture capital has become a $50 million debt. Overpromising and under-delivering continues to run rampant in the Bitcoin mining industry, which has been rocked hard by the Bitcoin price decline. Will Penguin, in the gold rush, the only people who got rich were the ones selling shovels, but it doesn't seem so this time, what's going on with Bitcoin mining? Yeah, I think the better analogy is to the internet that people often make. If you look at those early days of the 90s, how many companies that sprung up and grew fast around the new technology of the internet are still around? There are very, very few of those, right? This is just part of the process. This is the market sorting out the winners. Unfortunately, when you overstretch yourself, I think a lot of these companies, especially the mining companies, took gambles that Bitcoin's price would not plummet to the levels that it has. Or at least, by now, this has been nearly a long time since we've had any upward trend, real upward trend. So, I'm sure many of them predicted that an upward trend would return, resume much sooner and it has yet to. That's a gamble that they're paying for now. Right? Some of these. That's what we're seeing. There are mining companies who pivoted. They don't ship hardware anymore. They consider themselves data companies like Coinfires or Bitfury. I'm sorry, not Coinfires. Bitfury is who I'm talking about. They don't even ship hardware anymore and they don't do cloud mining contracts. They're a data company and they've remade their business model. This is what needs to happen. All of the cloud mining, not even the ones that aren't ponseys, this is an old business model. Just centralized exchange, like Mt. Gox or Bitstamp or whatever, these are older business models getting stamped onto this new thing. The new business models that have yet to be invented are coming. Many will solve these problems. This is just part of the early growth. Again, the early 90s of the internet is a better example than I think the gold rush. I'll just order some food at pets.com and get my web them delivery later. Derek J. This is a really interesting thing to focus on because without Bitcoin mining, we wouldn't have any Bitcoin. It's very important that people do this. The world of investment is ruled by greed and fear. The people who invested in coin-terra and are now out millions of dollars could have stood to gain quite a lot. They were greedy and they lost. It's a gamble and that's how it goes sometimes. The world of the market is ruled by supply and demand. I know that Bitcoin mining will never completely disappear because when miners exit the market that reduces supply and the price becomes worthwhile for other entrants to start mining. Whereas I used to have an ASIC miner plugged into a few laptops, I actually had a USB with like 10 slots or whatever and I plugged in a bunch of ASICs back in 2012. That was worthwhile for me. It's not today. Maybe one day it will be again. The market is in flux so there are signals that indicate to a person, can you profit from this? There will always be someone who can profit from mining. Is it question? What will it take to save Bitcoin mining? Will payment? Time and better distribution of the raw materials required to make the hardware. Not even the hardware items themselves but just the raw materials, the silicon, the wafers, everything. Derek J. I don't know. I don't know what will save Bitcoin mining. My first thought is I heard back years ago when ASICs were just starting to come out, people were excited about having Bitcoin miners in your toaster or in your refrigerator. Those were really cool innovations. Basically anything that's plugged in, a lot of washer and dryers are now plugged into the internet and you can control them from a distance. I see those as potential solutions but really I think it's going to be up to the market to come up with a variety of solutions and then find out what works. Only the price can save them or perhaps a rising amount of money that we pay for mining fees would adjust things. Moving on, issue five, bonus issue, Chinese exchange, 7.96, hacked for one thing. 7.00 Bitcoins. In an all two familiar story, users were allowing their Bitcoins to be held by a third party. This time a Chinese exchange called Exchange 7.96. 7.96 lost a thousand Bitcoins to a clever hacker. How much longer before people stopped storing their Bitcoins with third parties and start storing them with secure paper wallets printed offline? The Piper paper wallet printer, the treasurer, although I've heard they've had problems lately and the new Ledger wallet is 2015 the year where we stop trusting third parties with our private keys, Derek J. There is no we. I mean it's up to you. It's up to each individual to be smart with their own money and it's sad that some people have to learn from pain rather than just from information on the internet. Let's learn from others' mistakes rather than have to endure the pain ourselves. No pangman. Yeah, I mean, Multisync could easily solve this in the very near future for the short term and then in the long term we'll probably have decentralized exchange and problems solved there. But right now you can set up different kinds of signature systems so that the exchange has a key, you have a key and if you need to move the funds, agreed addresses can help too. If people want to trade and they want to have a known address that they're sending from and to, they can get instant confirmation on that essentially that's what green address technology is and move their funds and have it instantly available to trade with and move it back and have it instantly in your own custody again. So there's a couple of near term solutions. The other thing I want to say is, I think it's important that people realize more like there and Thomas you point out that you need to possess your private keys. That's important. But it's also important to note that it seems that it looks like all of the customers will be reconstituted and I mean that's what I'm reading initially. I could be wrong. That was what I scanned through a couple articles and read it post but it looks like there are no customers or out funds and it looks like the investors or whoever, the state holders of the company are out but that's it. Which is very great and they're being very transparent or pledging to be and showing indications that they're following through with that. So that's all great. Bitstamp same thing. I mean they handle it as well as they possibly could. No customers lost funds. It was a huge hit. They moved to a better infrastructure to San Francisco in the US, maybe more secure. Good. I mean this shows that the industry is maturing. And even though these business models are outdated and clearly not applicable anymore really for Bitcoin in the future, today they're obviously applicable but in the near future let's, I think we all see it going elsewhere. But these are good actors here. So it seems that the bad actor, it's clear that there was no inside job or something like we've seen time and time and time again over the past several years with Mula, with Hong Kong potentially with all kinds of other exchanges. So that's all good, right? And again the solution is the decentralized exchange ultimately. And like Derek says, personal responsibility. You make your own choice how you store your Bitcoins. If you don't save your private keys, you don't really have your Bitcoins. So I get something like a treasure wallet or I've got a ledger wallet here. These are both excellent tools. I also like the Piper Paper Wallet. Just search for that Paper Wallet printer or print your own Paper Wallet. Boot into Tails Linux. Hook up a printer. Print your Paper Wallets. I've done some videos about it. Exit question, how do you store your Bitcoins? Derek J. Variety of storage methods, including Paper. I use an Armory Wallet. I store on a Web Wallet and I have a few phone wallets. Well, Pac-Man. Yeah, I have so many different wallets. But if I'm storing my Bitcoins, I'm using something like the Treasor or the ledger, which I just got and I'm trying out a lot. They're affordable, especially if you have $1,000 worth of Bitcoin and you want to store it for a long period of time, spend $120 and get a Treasor. It's fantastic. Spend $40 or $50, I think that's the sale price for the ledger wallet. So it might be a few $1,000 more than that. But they're great solutions. Then of course, there are things coming down the pipe like my Celium Entropy and certainly other solutions. If you are like computer savvy and you like to build computers and things like that, you can probably create your own cold storage machine if you have a spare computer just pull out some components that air gap that machine essentially and you can use that to store and sign transactions offline with. A lot of people can find a nice hobby maybe with their kids or themselves to do that, take a week or something to do and it's a fun project. You can do that at your meet-up. In fact, that's a cool activity to do for your meet-up. Anyone out there listening for ideas for what to do at a meet-up, that's a good idea. So yeah, I mean, line is the best offline. And remember, the worst thing you can do is store them all in one place because that way, if that place, whatever it is, paper wallet or online exchange, if that place gets hacked, you lose them all. So definitely store a little bit in your phone. I use air bits wallet. I use blockchain, bread wallet, my Celium. All of these are very good and store a little bit on your computer if you want. You can use the Bitcoin QT client. You can encrypt it. You can back it up a little. That would still be a hot wallet if it's on your computer and store a little bit on paper. Store a little bit in your treasurer, a little bit in your ledger wallet. Put them in a safe deposit box. You have a lot of options, but you need to engage them because after your bitcoins are gone, you have no options. There are no options once they're hacked. Moving on to questions and answers. There's still a chance to put your questions in to get your answers. Let's see what we've got so far. Eric Rosso says, the money people we're talking about Bitcoin is a store of wealth. Well, this is all about when you choose to set your marker. If you've had Bitcoin for the last five or six years, it's a pretty incredible store of wealth. Even the last couple of years, I'm still doing all right. It's only really the last year where it's been a bad store of wealth. Remember, it still works as a transaction medium. If you want to send $100 to someone across the internet, to anywhere in the world, it's pretty steady for an hour or two. You can cash out that $100. It's not that difficult. Let's see what else we've got. We've got a lot of questions from Eric. He says that there's $300 Intel ASIC boxes coming soon. That sounds good. You've also heard about Intel being interested in the blockchain of things or the internet of things, whatever they're calling it, could have a blockchain in it. Sounds cool. Chad Crypto writes, Bitcoin would become BitStone if we get thrown back to prehistoric times. Meet the BitStone. There was a great Dilbert, the animated series episode where they actually do go back to prehistoric times because they mess up the satellites and everyone's drunk and the streets are full of mud and everyone's happy. It's an interesting thing. They're all happy without their gadgets and devices. And of course, Dilbert, the engineer, saves the day and brings back technology. Eric says, it doesn't matter what anyone says about digital currencies. People will use them as they want it's slash need to. And that's right. Like we said, it works as a payment mechanism. If you want to buy something at Amazon, you don't have a credit card, which for a lot of the world is a big problem in America. It's not such a big problem, but the rest of the world getting a credit card, buying something on Amazon, that's tough. But if you can buy Bitcoins, buy something on Amazon, it's done. He's a cake. You'd have to use gift too, but it works. Let's see. Eric says, they got it half right. None of you guys talk about it, but the spikes in Bitcoins' price has more to do with the FRN Federal Reserve note. And it's rapid delusion last year by means of QE, quantitative easing or money printing. He's right. The Fed has been printing a lot of money, and the Bitcoin was gaining against the dollar. If you want to look at a large macro perspective like that. And recently, the dollars come back. Oil prices are way down. The United States is producing oil again through fracking. Canada is producing oil through shale. There's more oil on the market. Saudi Arabia refuses to cut production. So we've actually seen oil prices go down. What do you guys think about this? Is it the decline of the Fed or the rise of the Bitcoin? I think, I mean, good. The decline in energy prices might solve the mining problem too. I mean, if the decline in energy prices continues, which it looks like it will, a lot of people will crunch the numbers again and plug back in. So that's kind of going back a question. But yeah, QE, I don't think the general public has felt the effects of QE yet. I don't think it's really trickled down, so to speak yet. So I don't know if that's having any like deleterious effect on Bitcoin's growth at all. I know the dollar's been very strong this past year for many reasons, and you know, that can't continue. We know that. So, yeah. I mean, Bitcoin is going through some growing pains right now. Because you know, like Satoshi left in 2011, and one of the last things he says was, we've kicked the hornets nest, and that was in 2011. So this is, you know, it's going to break through, but there's a lot of resistance around Bitcoin right now because of regulatory uncertainty because of, you know, mining centralizations. Some people think and all kinds of other factors, you know, because of the manipulation and the actors getting large market share and then just deleting. So that's, and you know, of course, there's all the scams and thefts and all that liquidity out there that's scaring traders to value the current value, the commodity less. You know, they know that that's the pricing heading. Remember how small this marketplace is as well? I've heard rumors that on a team-speak server, someone said they were going to take a very large loan by a bunch of Bitcoin's, drive the price down to 150 or 160, and then buy them all back up. And that might have just happened on the marketplace. And they might have even publicly announced it on the team-speak server. The market is that small. A large whale could buy and sell and adjust things. We have really no idea what's such a small market. I'd like to remind the questioner that correlation does not equal causation. And so while the two incidents have coincided, there's no evidence that convinces me that that is exactly the cause. If that were the cause, I think we'd see a lot more people using Bitcoin in failing economies like Greece, but I don't really see that. So I think it's kind of an American-centric view to say, well, when the American economy is doing, well, Bitcoin does poorly and vice versa. And remember, it's a global economy with Bitcoin. And remember, we did see 250 with the Cyprus spike, and that was entirely non-American. We also have another similar question from SilverMiner. He writes, US GDP figures released today below expectations. If the Fed doesn't do QE4, banks will come under pressure. Banks under pressure is good for Bitcoin. Get them while they're cheap. It does seem, although it's shocking to me, that it does seem like the Fed is going to stop quantitative easing. They've threatened it the last couple of times. They've said it was smaller than it was going to be, and they may actually stop it, which I know this gets really complicated, everyone, but quantitative easing was money printing. So they were printing more money, so the value of the money would go down, the supply of the money would go up. If they stopped that, it might change. So SilverMiner might be right here. We might be seeing the last of the cheap Bitcoins if the dollar goes back down. What do you guys think of that? QE4? Every time I hear that we're delaying the inevitable deconstruction of our economy. It's like keep delaying it. Keep delaying it. Every time the can is down the road, I think to myself, need to be more patient for Bitcoins next upward trend. That's what I think to myself, because it's an inevitability that the current system, the economic regime of the West, let's say, is near kaput. They're worried about not printing more money or printing more money and ruining it that way. They're towing a very delicate line here. So every time I hear that, yeah, it's just like be more patient. Be more patient. It's going to happen. Derek J. I don't know. We've also got an update from Eric. He says that $300 Intel ASICs would save Bitcoin mining. That's a very good point. I've heard that Intel might be putting ASIC chips on their normal motherboards. It's just another chip so that your computer could run a couple of blockchains while the main processor is doing what it normally does. I think that's a great idea. We've talked about medical data, a user data, car data, all kinds of information could be stored on other blockchains. Your computer could put some processing cycles in on that. It would be kind of like the set at home project where you could mine several blockchains just to support them as a community thing. That would be very interesting. What do you guys think? I think that's fascinating. I love it. I want to buy one. Line us up. Let's see. SilverMiner also says that after tapering, quantitative easing, gross domestic product is contracting. Either QE4, then 5, then 6, or the markets collapse. I'm pretty much an agreement here. You have to keep blowing up that balloon. You can't stop blowing up that balloon and we're in that cycle where you just can't stop. He says either way Bitcoin will become good, get them while they're cheap. Most of us don't have any money right now, but if you do have money, get a couple of bitcoins. I don't know investment advice, but do what you want. I think the best thing, I was like, man, what do I do a year ago? I don't have any money to buy bitcoins, but I want to stock up, get them while they're cheap. I try to find a job or find another stream of income where you earn bitcoins. That is, I always the best advice. That's not even investment advice. It's actually just productivity advice or something. That's worked for me. I earn all my money in Bitcoin these days. There's also options like bitwage.co where you can set up your accounts to get part of your money in Bitcoin. A lot of people don't use this. You don't have to have your employer set it up. You can have part of your money go to checking and part of your money go to savings and your savings could just be a Bitcoin account with bitwage. I think that's interesting if you put a $50, $100, a little bit on each month. That could be interesting as an investment, as a risk, of course, in Bitcoin. Let's see what else we've got here. He says that the Fed stopped QE back in September. I heard they stopped, but then they kept going. The market hasn't really reacted to that yet. They say Eric also has a couple more comments. He says Americans are traditionally more self-sufficient than that. Just look at the percentage of devs and projects here in the US. Americans are definitely interested in Bitcoin and developing it despite us not really needing it yet. It would be more of a foreign issue right now. Let's see. I think Eric's talking about the government here. He says they've brought nothing to the table. They don't have anything better than Bitcoin to offer us because Bitcoin is ours. Thus they deserve nothing. It's a good sentiment there. He also says to look at the chart and compare it to the Dow oil in the same period despite his uniform. Everyone should compare these charts. Derek's got a good point. The causation does not equal correlation. Or correlation does not equal causation or whatever way it is. It does look awful similar. We have seen recently the surprising rebound of the dollar has definitely helped take down the Bitcoin. Just as we saw when the Alibaba IPO started up, a lot of Chinese money probably flowed out of Bitcoin into the IPO. Other investments do affect other investments. But Bitcoin is still around. It's still useful even at this price. Let's move on to predictions or story of the week. Derek, Jay, do you have a prediction? Or a story of the week? Yeah, I have a story of the week. I'm going to do a screen share here of my friend, the Desert Links Instagram account. What you're seeing here is some friends of mine who spoke at the Hampshire Legislative Office building in favor of a bill that would exempt cryptocurrencies from regulation, as I mentioned before. Here's Neil Conner of Lamassou, the company that put out the first Bitcoin vending machine in the world. Zach Harvie of the same company, he's the CEO, speaking to the New Hampshire Legislative Office building. New Hampshire representative Daniel Temperello introduced the legislation that would exempt virtual currency users from licensing of money transmitters. That's a big deal. Another proposal before the New Hampshire Legislator would require the state treasurer to develop an implementation plan for the state to accept Bitcoin as payment for taxes and fees. Last year in California, just to give a counter example, the Legislator repealed a law that stated no corporation, social purpose corporation, association, or individual shall put into circulation as money, anything but the lawful money of the United States. That was a step in the right direction for California. This was a step in the right direction for New Hampshire. I'm delighted to see that there are people who are willing to explain Bitcoin to some of the people in government who may not have heard about it and really don't know how to deal with it. The right answer is to tell them, this is a new type of money and people who want to use it are using it safely. The market can come up with solutions and the government does not need to involve itself. It doesn't know what it's doing in the first place and it can only do harm in my opinion. Very well said. Will payment. I've got a story of the week. I'll do a screen share on that as well. This is an English-speaking Swedish news outlet. This was on the Bitcoin subreddit. Some folks may have read this already, but the headline, the age of financial privacy is over, which is a quote from the article from one of the council for expatriates resolving their fat tax obligations, which is if you are an American living abroad ever since 2010, some IRS and tax laws have been, the screws have been tightened down on. Swedish banks are now having to do all the KYC AML stuff that they were famous for being a haven from in the past, no longer the case. Lots of nations are following suit with this. If you're an American living abroad, an American expatriate or anything of that nature, you can't just not like the taxes here and then leave. For example, one of these cases is a British born man who, you know, fat cut, the US and UK are cooperating in this effort. So, you know, the UK is no haven either. He lived his whole life in Switzerland, even though he was born, or excuse me, he's born in America. So even though he's born in America, he's lived his whole life in Switzerland, like from, you know, toddler age. And now this lot changes and he's got major, major problems as bank accounts were frozen over. That's because he was born in America and American citizens. So just think about kind of how ridiculous some of this overreach is, especially in a more global society, especially with the global currency and, you know, payment network and being distributed and free to access for anyone. It's pretty just appalling. And so the age of financial privacy is just getting started, in my opinion. As soon as people don't go along with the kinds of bad rules that keep coming down the pike and start to counterbalance, countermeasure them, counteract them, as soon as they start to counteract, you know, these overreachings fall apart. So that's encouraging. And yeah, we can look forward to that in the future, a more private financial life. For some of us, it's going to be a bumpy ride. But eventually it'll be that way. It will be pleasant to finally have the choice. And finally, a prediction, privacy and big data will rise to the forefront as more and more people understand how the blockchain works and the incredible beauty and simplicity of Satoshi's design. In order for the system to work, honesty must pay more than fraud. And that's bad news for frauds. Up, proud of time. Until next time. Bye, bye.