The Bitcoin Group, the American original, for over the last ten seconds, the sharpest Satoshi's, the best bitcoins, the hardest cryptocurrency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, Ben Arck from LNBITS. Victoria Jones from Satoshi's page. How'd you do, Dee? Dan Eve, the crypto raptor. Happy 2023. And I'm Thomas Hunt from the World Crypto Network, moving on to issue one, issue one, the boldest Bitcoin calls for 2023 are out and a 1400% rally or a 70% plunge may be on the cards. Yes, they say that Bitcoin could go up or down in 2023. Ben, Arck, what do you think of their predictions? Will Bitcoin go up or down in 2023? I think they're the most possible. They could go one way or the other, as always, up or down. So, I mean, I like Tim Draper and his constant enthusiasm because he's got so many coins, obviously, of the 250K target, which I still think is to play, but how far we go down before we get to that 250 grand? I'm not sure. And it will definitely be a rally up to the harvining. It's funny because when we started hitting going down in this bare market, the harvining felt so far away. And I would just put a year in a bit away. So, yeah, I think probably a bit of sideline action. But there's some interesting capitulation, but they buy miners at the moment selling their Bitcoin is usually a good sign that we've truly bottomed out. And there is blood in the streets. There's no denying that. So, yeah, I'm not sure how much further down we can go, but it's possible. You know, it's possible that we might end 2023 at 5K, but shortly afterwards with the rally for the harvining, I'm sure we will start to Tim Draper. But that could also happen mid-year or the beginning of this year, who knows? The economic climate out there is very unpredictable in all realms. And Bitcoin's not excluded from that. So, if you can't trust a guy with hundreds or perhaps thousands of Bitcoin, who can you trust? Victoria Jones, what do you think about the price of Bitcoin in 2023? Yeah, there are some interesting predictions on there. I think it's highly unlikely, unfortunately, that we're going to get to 250,000 this year unless something major happens. You know, at the moment with the Federal Reserve, you know, increasing interest rates until they're given a very good reason to capitulate, that's not going to change any time soon. And of course, their policies are sucking liquidity out of the market, which affects everything, not just Bitcoin, it's affecting stock market, it's affecting housing. So the only thing that's doing well at the moment is energy, which is also placing a squeeze on the miners. So it's hardly surprising there having to sell at the moment. So, you know, if you want to put your tin foil hat on, you know, if you wanted to do everything you could to bring down the price of Bitcoin, this would be the way to do it. So, you know, if you believe the world has been everland and everyone wants Bitcoin to take off, forget it, you know, we've got some powerful enemies and a long way to go. So I think we could go a lot further lower and then, yeah, I think we'll definitely rally into the harving, but I think a lot, how high we go will depend on how low we've been before that. So that's my analysis of the situation. The Fed will reverse course, the war in Ukraine will end peacefully and monkeys will fly out of my butt. Dan Eave, the price of Bitcoin in 2023. Well, I definitely think that Tim Drapers is 250K is a bit optimistic, right? Because it's like, it's before the harving and you don't really get, we've never had historically an all-time high, like just before a harving. And actually yesterday was almost 15 months to the day before the next harving, which is historically apparently, I can't remember who's at this, but 15 months before the harvings is when the bottom generally is. But I don't know, I've got a feeling it could go a creep a bit lower in January. I think it just seems like we haven't... There's been blood in the streets. There's been chaos. There's been disorder. There's been arrests. There's been all the drama that you'd expect. But there's still hasn't been like, I don't think we're at desperation levels yet. As sad as it sounds like. There's been all this bad stuff happening, but it's really... I haven't heard anyone say, oh man, this is getting crazy. It's almost like we haven't reached that stage yet. But I like the way the article said, the next harvings slated to happen sometime in 2024, but it doesn't take much to Google it and find out. I know almost a predicted date at least, which is currently the 30th of March. And also the way they use the term phenomenon to describe the harvinging, which is just because I have curiosity to see the precision of this, it says. The dictionary says, the term is usually... The most commonly used to refer to a current is that defy explanation or baffle the observer. But it's got a very good reasoning to it. So it's not really something that's baffling or defies much explanation. It's a very logical reason that you're harving the supply instead of increasing the supply, because that's... But you know, part of the reason why we've got a fixed schedule. But it's strange for someone like Draper who knows so much about Bitcoin and has been in for for so long to kind of cool 250K and an all-time high outside of the normal cycle, because kind of most people, you know, refer to the harving cycle, the pump that happens after it. Standard charted, just reference. He said the 5K, the most sad prediction that they said, it's a 70% plunge from here, but just reference. Standard charted a 63% from their all-time high in 2010, as they share price. And actually 80% down from the 20-year lows, 80%. So they're not doing too good really. Maybe the last four years they've done okay in getting picking their share price up from like $336 to $686, but they're not doing so good at themselves. So they should be more optimistic about Bitcoin and buying because it might share their might increase their share price eventually. But it's sad to see that McAfee's predictions not on here because you know, he would have been extending his 500K in his own dick prediction if he was here. So sad that we don't have his, you know, he's insane cool to talk about as well. So, you know, I tip my hat to you, sir. But on a positive note with all the destruction of FTX and everything, I was thinking about this earlier. So the more business, see I don't like these businesses to fail. I'd rather they just went scammers, right? And they didn't switch people up, but the more that fail, the less of them there are to hold onto your Bitcoin instead of you. And therefore reducing third party risk. So that's a positive to come out of for all these collapses. That's what they all said. They said, if only John McAfee was alive to eat his own dick. And they've also said we'd go to 3,000. We haven't seen that. They'd said we'd go to 1300. They said we have to retrace all the way back before we see a rise, but we didn't see a rise. We didn't trace all the way back. We've got one more question. The exit question predicting against the greatest predictor in all of Bitcoin history. Ben Arck will the price of Bitcoin be higher or lower this time next week? Let's go higher. Why not? Victoria Jones, do you share Ben's optimism? Well, I said a little bit high last week, and I was right, very little bit. I don't know whether or not that will continue there. There's lots of rumors on the street of more crises on the horizon. So I think we could be lower next week. No, not more crises. Ben, Dan Eve, higher or lower? Well, fortunately, I copied Victoria's prediction last week and went higher as well. So I'm also slightly correct. But now I think just a bit lower. I think a bit lower. But that's not copying. And now we'll ask the ball. Remember, shaking it could cause bubbles. Will the price of Bitcoin be higher this time next week? Says it is certain. It is certain. So the ball has spoken very confident, magic Bitcoin ball. Moving on to issue two, key Bitcoin developer calls on the FBI to recover $3.6 million in stolen Bitcoin. Luke Dash Jr., a popular Bitcoin developer, allegedly got hacked this week, saying that his PGP key was violated, his cold storage, which is supposed to be offline, seems like it was online. And of course, the thieves took not just one, not just some, but all of his Bitcoin, which he seemed like he had all in one stack. I think it was like 200 Bitcoin or something like that. Allegedly stolen from Luke Dash Jr. Of course, this narrative fits really well into Binance and others' attacks on Bitcoin, saying that average Bitcoin users are too stupid to hold their own cold storage. Victoria Jones, what do you think about this Bitcoin developer and this libertarian calling on the FBI to get back his money? Well, there's a lot of irony in this story, isn't there? I mean, I have to say everywhere that I've seen anything written about it. Everyone's kind of going, what the hell was he doing in order to try and store his private keys? I mean, it's so convoluted. I mean, if the average person read that and go, that's what I have to do to store my private keys. It's just so overwhelming. It's like, why? Why does everyone say so? Everyone's very puzzled as to exactly how he was storing his Bitcoin. I think that has a lot to answer for before everyone gets really whipped up about it. Then, you're absolutely right. The concept of calling on the FBI to help you. Even in the past, often it's been other members of the community who've kind of looked at the blockchain and tried to chase down who the hackers might be. That's normally been where the best solutions have come from. So, yeah, for a libertarian to be running to the FBI, I mean, there's huge iron. And they say that right at the end of the article, don't they? It's just like, you know, the, what is it? The decentralized platforms cutting out centralized authorities is a pipe dream. And it's just like, well, yeah, it seems like that. But the reality is, you know, with a new monetary system, a lot of these authorities need to be recreated. So, so yeah, so there are lots of anomalies in that story. And I think there's still a lot to be unraveled before we all get whipped up about it. Well, if we look at the story just basically, he's violating all of the basic cold storage, personal storage usage rules that we try to tell you about here. Number one, he has all of his bitcoins in one stack. This is really easy for math calculations. How much is my stack worth? You know, you just multiply the stack number by the Bitcoin price. But it's very bad for hacking situations because the hackers always take it all. Always take it all. So if he'd even had two PGP keys, maybe the second one wouldn't have been compromised. It does seem like he has a very complicated way of holding his bitcoins. I heard about another guy who held his bitcoins in last pass. Yes, he put the key in there. And then he put the lock in there too. So when the hackers decrypted his last pass, they got the lock. They got the key. Don't store the lock with the key. It sounds like Luke Dash Jr. had all of his bitcoins online. Not in cold storage. Didn't have multiple treasures or ledgers, multiple stacks. And it seems like he lost them all. Dan Eve, what do you think about Luke Dash Jr. Appeals to the FBI. Although he does seem sarcastic. He's like, Oh, I knew you wouldn't help me anyway, FBI. But he's also just complaining about the service. He wants his pizza in 30 minutes or less. It's free. God damn it, you FBI. My text is you goddamn scammers. I thought that was quite, quite, I mean, obviously it's really sad, right? He's a core developer. He's been doing so since 2011. He's, you know, contributed lots of the community, including obviously, if not just code, but also crazy, crazy tweets. But he's a very interesting character. And do you think that someone who's kind of so embedded in Bitcoin would follow the kind of the storage principles, right? The article did point out that he said, you know, one was from a hot wallet and one was from a cold wallet. But the cold wallet was connected to the internet. So it's not a, it's not like a, it's not cold storage, right? That's by the very definition of cold storage. It's kind of not cold storage. But it does sound, you know, as Victoria said, it sounds very kind of complicated the way he's done it. And maybe he thought, you know, if I'm storing it like this and the other, it's going to confuse people and they won't ever try to hack me or, well, maybe it's that kind of principle that it's like not the bicycle helmet fallacy, but like the, if he's such a a shrewd coder and knows everything, you know, everything so well that no one will even bother trying to hack him. So he can kind of be lax in his security processes because people will think, I'm not going to try and hack him because he'll, you know, he's probably so secure that it's just going to waste my time. Sounds like it was maybe linked to this server issue that he had in, I think November they said. So that could potentially be here. It was some software, BTC or something, not, what was it called? Something not some sort of software that had a a back door in that he's recommending that people. Well, Dan with the server issue in November, it sounds like he had some warning of this. And at the very least he could have taken his Bitcoin moved him to another account. It wouldn't have cost him that much. He could have gotten a treasurer ledger. He could have split up the pile. It seems like you have to, if you have a warning, you get one of those little messages, someone's trying to log into your Google at the very least change your password. Right. I mean, that's a normal person thing to do. This is a, you know, grand lever of programmer, he had this warning. It seems like he did nothing. He left the money where it was. Yeah, it's sad, isn't it? And the thing is though, when I've had a kind of scale like that before, I thought, what if my, what if my, my, my device is compromised? And then you go through the, you're like, right, okay, right, I'm going to generate new keys and I even bought a new laptop just to, you know, to create the new, the new seed from the brand new laptop that was not connected to the internet and all that. And then, and then I was like, I then took about a year to actually send, send the, like the crypto one place to the other because I was, I kept on fretting about in thinking, well, you know, what if I've compromised it by, by doing the very action of, you know, and you kind of maybe get yourself into a bit of an anxious loop over how to secure your own funds. And, I think what's sad about this is that, like CZ Binance saying, like it was saying, a while back that self-custody will never catch on and kind of, this is a, unfortunately, not proves it right, but is a, is fights a case for that, right? That you've got someone who's so well-known in the, in the Bitcoin industry who then gets hacked because of key, you know, compromised keys. But he even tweeted about it, CZ Binance and said, sad to see even an OG Bitcoin core developer lost 200 Bitcoin. Self-custody has a different set of risks. So if ever, you know, it's a fair, it's a fair point, right? It's got a different set of risks. But there's definitely needs to be more emphasis on how to allow, you know, store your crypto securely that, that, yeah, obviously the most cool you can be is like, I don't know, split, split the words, the 12-word seed into, into 12 different security deposit boxes, but in 24 different banks, you've got two versions of the, or something crazy like that, I don't know, you can go down to all sorts of levels of security. But as you're saying about last pass, I don't know if you remember when, in 2017, when Ian Bellina, a very, another very sad case where live doing an ICO shilling session, someone had hacked into his Evernote and just basically wiped his funds from before his very eyes. So all of it's very sad. And that, that was the same thing where he stored the key and the lock in his Evernote. And so if you got control of the Evernote, you got the key, you got the lock, you're ready to go. Yeah, and it's sad, you know, it's not, it's not nice to see anyone losing funds, but it is one of the, you know, the risks of Bitcoin, unfortunately. So we just need to kind of support each other more and in terms of information on how to secure your Bitcoin, use code storage, all that sort of thing and make sure that your seed isn't, isn't compromised, especially, can. I'm just, of course, reminded of Philip K. Dick, the famous sci-fi author, who worried in the 70s about, if someone had blown up his safe and his safe was full of writings and alternate drafts and things. And he eventually got down to it and he realized that it was quite possible that he had blown up his own safe. And that was a far greater problem to him than the government. And in many ways, Luke Dash Jr. with his overcomplicated solution here blew up his own safe. Well, one other thing that's interesting about the whole thing is that is how many people kicked off knowing that he had, when they found out he had 200 Bitcoin, but was asking for donations. And like, yeah, just just just because you have money, it doesn't mean you can't be supported for your, your efforts in writing code for Bitcoin, right? It's, you know, I don't know. This, it's quite a, it's so quite a big, not on an orchestrated attack, but a lot of attacks from different people going, hey, you've got loads of Bitcoin, you shouldn't have more money. Like, come on, guys, like, you know, if you're, if you're doing something that's worth value, then then like, why not be rewarded for it? Yeah. Well, but he's got to listen to that mad Bitcoin's advice, where you hoddle plus take profits. If he didn't take any profits, he could be hodling up and hodling all the way back down. And it's very, very stressful. It feels horrible right now. Ben, Arck, what do you think did Luke Dash Jr blow up his own safe? Do you think he got paid by CZ from Binance to serve as a good example that no one can handle their own keys? I think, I think the, the disappointment which people felt towards donating towards Leifishir is, and it's this year's or not Dash Jr, is many times over the years he's almost not said exactly but implied poverty. So Luke Dash was always the the core developer who can have any Bitcoin. And then he would tweet about how he needs, you know, dental care for his children. Many people continue to work on Bitcoin because he has got any money. And then people donated towards Leifishir because they wanted to continue all his great work which he does. And then it turns out he's got a bigger stack than most of us who, you know, so I can see why there is some sort of animosity from the community of people who have contributed towards Leifishir or maybe how honestly was on his financial situation. So that's this, I think that is disappointing. And it just by the amount of people, you have to listen to the kickback when it comes from such a large amount of people and not just sort of father offers, you know, people just don't know kicking the dude while he's down. When it comes to, yeah, I mean, it's a hot wallet if you've got these funds online. And this, this year's, it's like an old school, you know, computer scientist, he runs his own servers and probably hides his own servers in his house, his own server rack. About five years ago, I did a little bit of snooping around on one of his servers and got a whole bunch of family photos which he probably didn't want the world to see. So there's a, they weren't the most secure servers and there were things on there which probably didn't want people to have access to. And I remember raising an eyebrow back then when I was able to find those. And it wasn't particularly hard either. So yeah, but I mean, it's sad, you know, it's sad he's lost that money. Hopefully, and I hope I'm crossing my fingers that it's just a massive obstacle. And like a lot of the Bitcoin coin-cord developers who, you know, well, I won't mention them, but a lot of Bitcoin coin-cord developers who, you know, publicly stepped back from the project, but then, you know, said to people, look, you know, it's less of a safe project to be working on now. It has all this outside eyes on it. And they've publicly stepped back, but continue to contribute through pseudonames and an ominous, as a, as a, an ominous users rather than having their personal identity attached to the Bitcoin core project. So I'm kind of hoping that that's got this part of that and it's, it's part of a larger play where he'll say, oh, no, I'm going to step back from the project and it will continue to contribute. Bitcoin knots as well, this is an important note. It's Bitcoin knots, it's loop dishes, own implementation of Bitcoin, which he signs the versions of using his PGP key, which by the sounds of it was compromised. You don't need to worry about Bitcoin core because this like, multi-sig thing is like, I think it's like three or five, in order to be able to like push updates and things. There's so many pides on that code base that it'd be pretty hard to like put in a back door. But yeah, I feel, I mean, some people are really Bitcoin knots because it's good code on their back ends. And then to hear that this software could have been compromised for perhaps months, and maybe that's the reason that he lost these coins must be very disconcerting, particularly if you're running some sort of software stack on top of it. But yeah, it doesn't impact Bitcoin core. But yeah, it's a shame, man. I feel sorry for him, but at the same time, I do share some of that disappointment, which other people in the community have, when over the years he's kind of pleaded, not pleaded, but he's implied poverty. And then people have like, you know, felt bad for the dude because he's such an important guy. You know, why isn't this guy being supported by the Bitcoin community? They donated Bitcoin to help him continue to develop. I mean, if he was a little bit more forthright and just asked for an income to work on Bitcoin, or I'm sure people were still would have donated, but he was just the nature of those tweets and public messages, which he put out there asking for donations. I think, yeah, wasn't particularly, you know, it was a bit of a whack move on there, the shares. But yeah, he does good work. I hope he continues to work on the project. He's into disappointed by it all. And people saying, you know, this is how can people, normal people be expected to use Bitcoin and hold it in a self-custodial way? It's nonsense. Like his security model clearly wasn't very good. If he had those funds on a hardware wallet, then they would still be secure now. And if they're actually in college storage on a hardware wallet, then they would still have those ones now. So, you know, using some like a Tresor or something. So, yeah, he's just clearly his security model wasn't. And again, he needs to be a little bit more public about how lame his security model was in order for people to get access to those funds in the first place. It does seem still as though it's this disease of the forever holders, where he's got $3 million, maybe at the height of this thing, he's got $9 million. How much could his house of cost? Maybe he should have sold a third and paid off his house. I know it's hard for people. They're like, Bitcoin's going to a million dollars. Everyone that I sell is a disaster. But on the other side, you look at this guy, all the stress he's under, he's keeping them all in one stack. He's clearly, you know, he's got the multiplication thing down. But other than that, his security is terrible. It's just a bad idea. I remember back in the day, I won't say his name, but a friend of mine would always talk about taking his paper wallets and making them smaller. And they were first, they were five and 10 Bitcoin paper wallets. And then this was too much and two or three Bitcoin wallets and you just keep making them smaller and smaller because it expands the targets. If you lose one or two of your paper wallets, if you lose a treasure, maybe your ledger's still okay. Maybe your crypto steel capsule thing you buried under the houses. Okay. You have to have these multiple things, even having multiple safe deposit boxes as much as we're all like, oh, we hate the banks and all that as Andreas has said many times, they're great at physical security. They're great at doors and locks and keys and, you know, your stuff's probably going to be fine in there. Plus like Dan was saying, you could split up your code into multiple codes, put it in multiple safe deposit boxes. All of these are available to anyone. You don't have to be crazy technical to apply for a safe deposit box. But in this case, it would have helped. Let's see, let's move on to the next issue. Check out worldcryptonetwork.com where we've got the World Crypto Network audio podcast. Yes, it's ad free. Just like this shows ad free. There's no donation links. Isn't that strange? Anyway, check out WorldcryptoNetwork podcast at worldcryptonetwork.com. Issue three. Why Bitcoin supporters organized a bank run on crypto exchanges? Yes, Yahoo, is finally talking about proof of keys day started by trace mayor in 2019. Proof of keys days ask Bitcoins to take their money off of exchanges. As I'm sure the article could have said, if they had asked FTX to prove their keys, maybe more people would have their money today and less of it would have gone to FTX. Dan, Eve, what do you think about proof of keys day? It's sad that we've just talked about the story of, you know, prominent Bitcoin figure, you know, losing his Bitcoin because he was hacked because of the way he stored his keys. But still, there's still so much more upside to having your own keys than to giving it to a company like FTX or Celsius, like Bitcoin magazine just did, had an article about how the judge ruled that the Celsius users gave up their legal rights to their Bitcoin by using the platform, which means that $4.2 billion of deposits are now a property of Celsius. So that's insane. So you even trust the company to not basically, you know, be dicks with your funds. And then even the laws on their side that they can keep your money. So that's just insane, right? And that can't actually happen if you're holding your own private keys. But obviously you've got to, you've got to do it securely. You've got to do it very securely. So yeah, so it's in the backlight of Luke Dash, Dash here. I always thought it was Luke Dash, Jr. So thanks for the correction, man. So Luke, to share it in like if him using his keys at the same time, it is best to keep your, you know, to hold your keys. And what happened to correct Trace Mayor, right? Because his last tweet was, I think we'd said this last year actually last tweet was February 24th, 2020. So after like, was it grim, grim, grim, grim, grim, grim, which was it grim? Yeah, then you just disappeared into the internet. There was an incident at the tone, vase con where Trace Mayor was allegedly walking around promoting Mimble Wimble or Grim going with a weird piece of paper and a weird website. And people thought maybe he'd bought too much of the coin. And he was trying to sell it. And it seemed kind of desperate. Everybody thought Trace was really well off. He was a lawyer. He had all these investments. He had this beautiful seven network effects of Bitcoin. He did great podcasts. And then I suppose over the embarrassment of this one small issue and the natural overreaction of the Bitcoin community, he completely disappeared. Oh yeah, because that, so because I the first, I think it was either Trace Mayor's run run to gold, which then turned into a Bitcoin podcast. It was either that or watching you on YouTube as mad Bitcoins that were the two definitely the two first shows I can't remember which was the first. But what was cool was when you interviewed him at the uncomforticable conference. And and he's the first thing that he said was like, I've been waiting for to be interviewed by you for years. That was really cool. So that was that was just nice being in that involved in in film. And Trace was a great guy. And I think the community should forgive him for whatever it was about Grim and Mimble Wimbledon. A lot of people fall for an altcoin. We don't have to throw them completely out. Obviously, though, I don't think he liked the reaction of the community. Yeah. So he's probably gone into into hiding, which is the shame because he did so much to promote to promote Bitcoin. He was such a good force, you know, force for Bitcoin. But yeah, back on the proof of keys, we've had like Celsius block five voyage FTX, Alameda. Like, you know, these companies are just and that's just from from 22, 2022 alone. You know, you really should hold your own keys because that's a hold your own Bitcoin. And therefore hold your own keys and therefore your own Bitcoin because you can succumb to these these exchanges that go down just by re-hypothicating your money because that's where I first heard re-hypothication as well. Trace may was talking about that. So one place led it to another, which led it to another, which led it to another. And that's how you see such a cascade of these these companies falling down as one can't repay the person before them. It's like the UK sort of housing chain where someone's waiting for someone else to sell theirs to sell theirs to sell theirs. And if one falls through that everyone falls through, you know, it's this cascade event. So it's terrible. Hold your own private keys very safely. And please don't get don't get robbed or lose your private keys. It's interesting to see the article describe it as a bank run, which is what I've always thought it was. And I've always thought it was a little radical and unsafe. But like Dan said, after all of these self-custard shared custody failures, why wouldn't you want to try a bank run? Why wouldn't you want to make sure they have the money in their account? And while I agree with Josh Shagalla from Voltaura who always reminds us what a horrible day January 3rd is to do this. Most everyone's on vacation. The engineers aren't there often. You're a completely legit exchange, but you've got to take money from the cold wallet, put it in the hot wallet, put it in the warm wall, all these kind of things, which do take keys, which do take access to safe places and so forth, which sometimes you can't access on January 3rd. So I think it's poorly timed, but a great holiday. And even more important now than before, sadly. And you think things would get better. We'd have more adult exchanges. We have less adult exchanges. Ben, Ark, what do you think about Proof Your Keyes Day? Yeah, Trace Moe. I mean, I love Trace Moe. It's such a shame that though he had that kick back from the community, because Grim was in the crib of Hank Grim's pool school and a number Wimble as well. So I can see why his side about particularly is like, he's a proper full-on libertarian. And I think why Trace is needed is he was always a great advocate for just ultimate privacy on the base layer on chain for flungibility. You know, this idea that is verifying coins, trumps, flungibility is just in my mind wrong. The reality is he needs full, but there's zero knowledge privacy on the base layer. So I was very much retrace on that. So it was a real shame that like that voice has gone, because I think he was always kind of pushing that dialogue, which is great. And similarly, you know, just like Dan, you know, he's a big influence for me when I first reached out and looked at content to consume for Bitcoin. There wasn't much out there. There was Utah, I mean, not Thomas, I mean, whoever this man by Bitcoin's guys. And I know it was Trace Moe as well. And Max, Max Keiser as well, of course. So it was a shame that like he felt so betrayed by the community. I mean, he worked so hard and tirelessly for Bitcoin. I think that he, you know, he felt the the cold hand of Bitcoin community against him. And I think it just, I think that's the key factor for trade. And that that was a real shame. But yeah, though, that holding your own Bitcoin, I really like what Nick Sionelli has said on this was the the core developer or X core developer, or as people I mentioned before, in the kiss kiss kiss kiss your keys. So keep it simple. Like the biggest risk, time and time again for people is having hearing scenes of tweets about multi-staging blah blah blah. And then they create this very convoluted security profile for the holding their Bitcoin. So in reality, they should just go ahead and get a hardware wallet, a couple of hardware wallets like say split the funds up, you know, have a wrench attack stash, have, you know, actual stash split up or maybe against couple of treasors or couple of hardware wallets if you can. And then split those seeds up. That's great. That's fine. That'll do, you know, and have it simple enough that it's it's possible to restore rather than doing something too convoluted. So kiss your keys. I thought it was a great great quote from head. But yeah, it's terrible timing for the industry and for all these exchanges. But maybe, you know, that was trace trolling. This big exchanges, knowing that it would be a pain for them because he wasn't such a fan of the big exchanges. But we'll see more and more ways of securing your Bitcoin coming out and developing over the next couple of years because clearly this is always always always been a, a, a, an issue, but it's always been one of the most important parts of Bitcoin is how do you actually secure the stuff? How do you actually keep it over by you? And then I have it taken off you by hackers or whoever else. So yeah, obviously always be a stoking of your funds. It's like, I mean, whether the FTX stuff, I mean, I hadn't even heard of FTX. I didn't know FTX was until it all kicked off and FTX went under and everyone was all miserable and thinking, I think not this thing is this exchange was this is it. It's just SPF guy. I don't know any of the stuff is, you know, I, I'm really gay to these exchanges. So, and I think that's how I want you to really be when it comes to Bitcoin. But keep it simple. It is quite a shame that traces and around anymore, I saw a video of Max Kaiser and Stacey at the Bitcoin 22 conference in Miami and they were just over the moon. They were just so happy Bitcoin was on the top. Max was burning $20 bills or whatever his usual thing. And they were just so happy to get all the media attention and to be so strident about it too because they are just so strong in their Bitcoin having gone just so many of these ups and downs and presumably held on to their keys. It would be great to see Trace there with Max and Stacey and everyone else. Victoria Jones, what do you think about Prove your keys day and the unfortunate disappearance of Trace mayor? Oh yeah, I like Trace as well. It sounds like he's a bit of a hero really. I saw a number of his interviews. I mean, again, I was, you know, watching around the same time as I was watching you and a few others. So, yeah, so it's a shame. He was very lucid in the things that he said and and very confident as well, which I think is is what helped to encourage a lot of people. And I liked his intellect and his logical arguments. They were very powerful. I think it was him who stated that Bitcoin was like an ever-expanding blueberry that was just going to absorb the entire liquidity of the world. I thought that was a great analogy. So yeah, so it's a shame, but I don't blame him. And he doesn't, you know, he doesn't, it's like a lot of people out there. They don't need to, but they do it because, you know, they they feel like they they want to help others by understanding what they understand. And, you know, he did a great job, I think. So, so yeah, I think I think that's a shame. But I but again, you know, I think it was his initiative, wasn't it? The proof of keys thing. And I think it is a good initiative. I mean, a lot of people don't remember that, you know, the Federal Reserve was set up in 2013. And until that time throughout the second half of the 19th century, you had a lot of individual banks. And from time to time, they would fail. And this is where the whole the whole concept of a bank wrong comes from. I mean, anyone who's under 100, and there are many of those left around anymore, you know, weren't even witnessed anything like that. And of course, it's because of those bank runs that they ended up setting up the Federal Reserve in the first place. And so, I think this is what people need to be mindful of when they get all freaked out about these cryptocurrency exchanges going down. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if this is part of the hidden agenda, because it was people freaking out about banks closing and the bank runs that would cause knock on effect that led to the installation of the Federal Reserve in the first place. And so you know, if people succumb to that kind of fear too much and aren't able to take the responsibility of their own assets, then this is what you're calling for a centralized authority to do. And there are people who very well understand that that's the mechanism from history. So, um, it's really important, I think, that we're that we're mindful of that. It's important that we hold other people accountable for when they do things wrong, but be really, really careful about the solution that you end up with because it may be way worse than the problem you've got right now. So, I think that's worth highlighting. I still think the FTX disasters and interesting failure of the United States advertising industry. There are so many ads with so many great celebrities, as well as the sponsorship of Major League Baseball, specifically the umpires, the people who decide they call balls and strikes literally and they had FTX, this corrupt company on their on their shirts. All these ads with all these celebrities never saying at the end FTX is a Bahamian exchange. If I had known that during the ads, I would have mocked them the whole time. I foolishly assume they were US. They did have a US chapter. They were lobbying in the US. All the pictures of him were with senators and congresspeople from the US. But at the same time, this one little fact is we're in the Bahamas. You can trust us with your money. Sounds ridiculous on its face. Obviously, none of us, I don't think ever use the exchange other than the block folio app being taken over. But even then the block folio app didn't pop up and say, welcome to the Bahamas man. You can trust us with your money. It's just such a bad not knowing that one fact changed the entire story. And obviously, Sam wasn't from the Bahamas. His crew wasn't from the Bahamas. This wasn't a forward facing Bahamian exchange. These were US carpet baggers that went down. They did whatever they want. And I think we're going to see more of that in other countries with weak laws. No exit question, but shout out to Trace Mayor. Hopes watching. Hopes doing well. Maybe a little umbrella drink in the hand. Something non-alcoholic probably, but a best of luck to Trace Mayor. Moving on to issue four. Issue four. Bitcoin will soar to $250,000 in 2023. Says billionaire Tim Draper. Tim Draper is moving his prediction for 2022 over to 2023. But now he's talking about the Bitcoin happening, which we're going to talk about pretty much every week from now on, the amount of Bitcoin's being produced will fall from, I don't know, six and a half to three and a quarter or something like that. And it's going to keep getting smaller. And it happens automatically. It's not a phenomenon. But Victoria, what do you think about Tim Draper's incredible prediction and kind of the need for someone like this in Bitcoin, someone like Trace, someone maybe like Andreas, who's very respectful and trusted by the media who can go out there and say, crisis is still going up. Like it's not over yet. The media loves to say when things are over, but someone like Draper or Andreas could say, it's not over yet. Well, I have to say I don't think I've put Tim Draper in the same category as Trace Mayor and Andreas Antonopoulos at all. And in fact, if he keeps making predictions like this, he's not going to have much of a reputation left because I think it's definitely he's definitely overreging the pudding. I mean, when you actually read the article as well, or he might have to eat his own dick. There's always a possibility. At least it hasn't gone that far. I tend to think maybe McAfee had to get himself arrested just to give some of that predicament. But you know, if you actually read the article, you know, one of his main reason is the fact that only one in seven women hold Bitcoin on its right now is like, dude, it's just like, what are you talking about? I mean, the thing is, we're going into the most predicted recession ever on the planet. I mean, almost every financial analyst that you listen to is predicting a recession. You know, and women, a lot of women rely on the men in their lives for not all of them, obviously, but rely on the men in their lives for their income at all. You know, if the men are suffering, the women are going to be suffering more. I mean, where is all of the money to start buying into Bitcoin going to come from? I mean, it's completely unrealistic. You know, and if you still talk to people who know nothing about Bitcoin at all, you know, the way they're suffering in their normal lives, I mean, they've got their heating bills are going up, the electricity bills are going up, the values of the house are going down, food bills are going up. You know, most people are just trying to manage their lives. Where are they going to get the extra money to invest into Bitcoin, especially right now? I think it'll be right eventually, but right now, just the timing is completely off. I'm sorry. I think he also thinks that the women are going to take the money, make money on it, and then go shopping. And it's just a tough thing to say these days. It's partially true. I've women do shop and they spend money. Well, they do. They've not spend it by Bitcoin. That's for sure. Exactly. Exactly. And everything's on sale now. Like physical goods are down. Dan, what do you think about Tim Draper and $250,000 coin? Well, I read a few articles on this. And it does, it does seem he kind of basically says to shorten it, he says, it's going to be $250,000 because women, like because, like that, that's the short version, right? But I'm with Victoria, about the 80% of retail spending, you know, is apparently his women, but they've got bills that are going up like everyone, like retail, and that's retail spending. It's not investments, right? So what percentage of male and female actually put money in investments and especially high risk investments, you know, look at gambling, for example, and that is dominated, you know, book gamblers are mostly men of it. Obviously, you know, there is some equality happening where well, women are gambling as the days go by as well, but it's mostly men, like, especially if you go, yeah, even now you go look under the bookies, you don't see like a 50-50 in there, you see like, mainly old dudes just gambling their money away. And that's how a lot of people see Bitcoin right now, especially when, again, Victoria, some prices are rising like, you know, fuels going up, everything, housing's going up, everything's going up. It's just, you know, bread, all the, the basics applies. So there's not that luxury of excess money to be, to be throwing into a high risk asset. And then there's that kind of, I don't know if this is kind of, I, I, this is always trading on exiles, like, like, like Humpty Dumpty, the horseman of Humpty Dumpty, and just smashing them all and said, because they got no dexterity, this is a Ricky Gervais point out. But, but, um, but, um, women apparently meant to be written a bit slightly more risk of us. So in times where the costs are so insane for, for living to be putting your money in it in this crazy, this crazy Bitcoin incident money seems, um, it seems a bit, yeah, it seems a bit out of kind of character almost for a moment. So, Deo, I say it's not desperation, but like a, it's just like a, maybe he's thinking, oh, I just need to show Bitcoin a bit more to pump it. But what I do agree is that in general principle, you know, the number of them in Bitcoin is increasing. So, clearly, and that's really positive for the ecosystem. It's not like this one-sided thing where you go to a conference and just see your dudes there. So that's ultimately good. But whether that's going to be the driver, and especially for 2023, it just doesn't seem too realistic. And yeah, but because it's, it's prior to the halving as well. So as, uh, the 1400 percent, it would mean as an upside from where we are now, which is huge. It's 14x from where we are now. You know, I think you even said buy mid 2023. So that's a very steep hike. Um, and I don't know, it just seems like nowadays with Bitcoin becoming more ubiquitous that these, um, these rises may be a bit slower than we've seen in previous cycles, because there's a lot more money, there's a lot more money in it to both short it, more avenues to short it than, than the way years ago as well, that have an impact on the overall price. So, yeah, I don't know, 250K would be great if it did reach 250K. But everyone's going to be happy with that. But I don't think it's in 2023. I think we've almost got a money Python sketch going here where it's the middle of a economic crisis, and you go to your wife and you're like, wife, what did you buy at the store? And she's like, I got magic beans. I got Bitcoin. And you're like, they're on a paper wallets. See, they're safe. They can't be here. So what if they're on a paper wallets, I'll be happier with a can of beans or some food. So yes, it is very hard for to think of women wanting to buy Bitcoin at this time. But I do like this. And Craig and Craig Wright pretending to be the Messiah is not Satoshi is a very naughty boy. He's fake Satoshi is not real. But I like his 250K. I like talking about the haveening when the amount of Bitcoin being produced will reduce by half. I agree with Dan, it might go up slightly less. But at the same time, I wonder how many businessmen have heard about the haveening and are looking for that down point. They're looking for when do I enter? I want to get in before the rest of the guys, but not too early because it could dip. And I think that that that calculation is going to go earlier and earlier. I think people are going to learn about the haveening earlier. They're going to invest earlier to be the one that beats the other guys, not to be the one that's entering too late. And that that might spike the price before the haveening or after the haveening. Or we just wait for a supply and demand to take care of itself as it always does. Ben Arck, what do you think of draper's prediction of 250K keeping in mind that he's the one that bought the Silk Road Bitcoin that the US government should have spent on more Smithsonian museums? I think he's correct. So there's plenty of money out there. It's just and there's a lack of places to put that money currently. It's just the money isn't in the hands of everyday people. So everyday people are filling the squeeze. But there's plenty of liquidity out there in asset markets. It's just literally no way to put it. So all these people with all this liquidity are and they're aware of Bitcoin now. Bitcoin is this little puddle. You know, mom and pop investors, average people investing money in Bitcoin, buying Bitcoin because they're interested in technology. They're about Bitcoin. But my brother, the friend gets rich, so they buy some Bitcoin. I mean, soon as general investors haven't been anywhere near Bitcoin, you have a few, you know, billionaires who've got interested in Bitcoin over the years. But there's this huge ocean of liquidity which as soon as the Bitcoin price goes up and it does the usual predictable rise, which is done in the past, where, you know, we went for what, $300 to 20K and then we went for down to $3K and then we got to whatever it's $50,000, and then we dropped down to whatever we are now. $13K or $10K, we landed up eventually, you know, in this in this bear market. And then boom, it'll go back up to, I think that if you just transpose those bull cycles onto the price as we currently are, it's $240K, is the, is the, where we're aiming and like that's the thing. There's just, there isn't the money in Bitcoin. The institutional investors, people with all this liquidity and all this money aren't putting it in Bitcoin. The, the squeeze, which most people are feeling, is whilst disparity, you have some people in the planet who have a lot of money, a lot of resources and liquidity. And then you have a few and a few of people on the other side who have, you know, a lot less money and they're really feeling the squeeze and it's very sad, but it's not normal people, normal, you know, Bitcoiners as Clubs, the people who historically have bought Bitcoin and have got the price to where it is now with the help of a few billionaires along the way. It's all this institutional investment and that huge ocean of liquidity, which is just going to fill it into this little puddle. And the reason, the price is so volatile, the reason it can drop so much is because there isn't enough liquidity in Bitcoin, which means that they can be a halibut and we need more liquidity and, and just as the price can be pushed down so heavily, it can go up, you know, just as quick. So yeah, I think 248, 248, 250, I think should tend to break this on it, you know, as we're talking about, it's correct. We need more liquidity, Ben Arck. And just think about it, if the United States, Smithsonian Museum accomplished their goal of creating a Smithsonian Museum in all 50 states. There'd be a free Smithsonian Museum in Iowa and you could go there if you lived in Iowa and learn all about Iowa. There'd be one in Illinois, there'd be one in Milwaukee in Wisconsin, all over the place. There could be these amazing Smithsonian museums, but instead we sold the Silk Road Bitcoins for nothing to Tim Draper and other venture Vulture capitalists. Running out of time, quick exit question, predict the future. Will the price of Bitcoin rise to $250,000 in 2023 as Tim Draper has predicted? Dan Eve. I don't think it will. It would be lovely, but I don't think it will. Maybe 2024 or 2025, but it would be great. I'd love to see it, but I just think it's just a bit too early. It's before the halfening and it's not, you know, not in line with previous kind of cycles, I think. I need a special button to push for more optimism. Victoria Jones, more optimism, 250K. Well, I could say yes, but I would be lying. I was listening to Twitter Spaces earlier today with Simon Dixon and there were some very angry traditional investors on there talking about the Gemini Exchange, really getting freaked out by the fact that there seems to be a hole in the DGB balance sheet. I don't think institutional investors going anywhere near this in the immediate future. I think they won't eventually, but this year, no, I don't think so. Well, that's one of the best ones for me because I got to go on a special DCG Napa wine tour, eight pizza with Barry Silver. And now I'm more successful than them. I'm the one that didn't loan out any of my Bitcoin for any kind of earned programs or take anybody else's money allegedly and loaned it out to other earning programs, which eventually went to FDX and lost all their money. The return on Bitcoin was fine. Why did these guys want so much more? Ben, Ark, exit question 250K. Show me some positivity. Yeah, 100%. We could get that. And countries, big institutional investors, start flooding into Bitcoin. So it starts to trace up and they're just aware of its historical boom bust cycles we've had in Bitcoin. Everyone's going to join the bandwagon. All these people who have all this money, but they've no way to put it, which is currently where we are. They'll all flood into Bitcoin. And that price, just the stock volatile. We have so little liquidity in Bitcoin, it can push the price up there. So hold on to your Zosed Bitcoins. Try and sell as little as you can. And it's hard because you've got obviously bills to pay and everything's going up in value. So this is just the nature of the game, isn't it? There's a brief window where normal people can latch onto something like Bitcoin and they can make great returns a better personal circumstances. But that brief window is closing. And on those people, we've been able to buy Bitcoin and make those returns. And it's now going into the hands of those big institutional investors and governments as well. So it's huge. Bitcoin's potentiality to go up in value is infinite. And this year 240K, 200K, I wouldn't be surprised we hit 200K. Finally, some optimism. And I wouldn't be surprised if one of those large institutional investors wanted to invest their profits in the Smithsonian Museum, creating 50 Smithsonian museums in all 50 states. And as Ben said, it's simply a matter of basic economics. If the supply of Bitcoin is going down, which we know it is because we know about the halving, we talk about it every week. And if the demand for Bitcoin is going up, because more and more people want it and not every millionaire can have one whole Bitcoin, then the price must inevitably rise. That's simple economics. You could read it in a textbook allegedly. But we're running out of time. Ben, Arch, do you have a prediction or a story of the week? Go ahead. I would like to give a shout out to DNI. He's one of the developers on Ellen Bits, one of the main developers on Ellen Bits. And he's been on this utter rampage, my pint, the Ellen Bits co-base. So basically just cleaning up all the Python code. And I've merged like 20 of his PRs this week. And the guy's just on fire. I don't know what he's taking. I don't know what he's doing, but he had a big shout out to that dude. And that's my story of the week. It's just the amount of energy being poured into clearing up the Ellen Bits co-base. Also, I switched the icons for extensions for nice little tiles as well. So it looks a bit wordpressy now. We have all these nice pictures while at little extensions. But yeah, thank you, DNI. And be sure to check out the Bitcoin year ends, Bictacular, where we celebrate Ben and Ellen Bits and Noster and all the open source contributors to those exciting projects. Victoria, Jones, do you have a prediction or a story of the week? Go ahead. Well, my story of the week is that I spent New Year's Eve with Bitcoiners down in London. It was very nice. And then we saw the fireworks from London Bridge. In fact, we didn't see all the proper fireworks. We saw some lame fireworks from Tower Bridge. And no one told us that wasn't the best place to stop and see them. But even so, you know, that was a great way to spend New Year. So shout out to them. That was sponsored by BitRefill. And there were quite a few people there from the Bitcoinology meetup in London. So yeah, that was that was pretty cool. Very cool. And I got to go to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. And I was maybe more interested in the bridge. Dan Eve, a prediction or a story of the week. Go ahead. Prediction prediction name. Hmm. Well, okay. So, so I think that what, okay, I think there's going to be, okay, I'm going to have a happy prediction here. Yeah. And my happy prediction is that there's going to be some some breaking news on where Luke, Dishes, coins are, and there'll be some progress in getting them back. So I, yeah, that's that's my prediction. It's a wild one. But I think someone in the FBI has gone. He's complaining about us. Let's prove him wrong. And then which would also maybe be a bad thing, but they'll end up taking someone's Bitcoin, even though they hold their own private keys. And then there'll be that contradiction of having your own private keys isn't, isn't safe in the government because the FBI is going to get it somehow. I don't know. It's all a bit crazy. It's 2023. And if it's anything like 2022, 2021 and 2020, anything could happen. Well, to follow up on what Dan said, and I agree with Ben, I don't know about this Luke Dashier thing. That seems harder to say. But maybe he could just show some respect to the hackers, right? Maybe say, hey, guys, good job. You got me, but I'm a Bitcoin developer and I'm broke now and I could use some help. And maybe they'd send him some of the money back. You know, I'm not saying it's guaranteed. But you know, hackers like hackers, he's obviously a great coder and he understands Bitcoin and so forth. Maybe just ask for it back nicely. You know, it's better than going to the FBI, right? So thanks to everybody for giving us a thumbs up down below for saying hello in the chat or in the comments. We appreciate you and we keep doing the show every week to entertain you and give you the news about Bitcoin. So thanks so much for joining us. Until next time. Bye.