The Bitcoin Group, the American original. For over the last 10 seconds, the sharpest sitosis, the best bitcoins, the hardest cryptocurrency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, Martine Wishmare from General Bites. Good evening, guys. Gabriel D. Vaughan, futurist. Hello. Dan Eve, the crypto raptor. Redcombs was a weekend. And perhaps Josh Shagalla from Valtoro, joining live from Australia. Hey, everyone. Welcome. Right in time. And I'm Thomas Hunt from the world crypto network, moving on to issue one issue one Bitcoin ether fall after go to bank, silver gate announces liquidation. And then the very next day, regulators shut down Silicon Valley bank in biggest collapse since 2008 financial crisis. The on raps and off ramps for Bitcoin startups are being attacked and crashing on their own, perhaps because of FTX contagion. Martine Wishmare, what do you think about the collapse of the banks and the subsequent 10% collapse of Bitcoin and Ethereum and others? Yeah, I saw on the Twitter, many people are saying like, oh, bank collapses and they're selling their Bitcoin, how stupid. But it is a bit of an issue. I, for example, used crypto to come for a while and one of their own ramps of their only left on ramp for fiat currency in the US was this silver gate bank. So what happens is that the silver gate, the crypto to come exchanges basically left without any way to transfer dollars to them. So that will without doubt have an effect on prices because nobody can trade. On the other hand, those in Europe are very well, well, everything is still working there because of the banking partners in Europe have apparently have no problems. But it's just the US. So it looks like sort of orchestrated attack on the Bitcoin on ramps. And this is something we've been like, you know, talking about in the past. This is the dangerous. If you can't prohibit Bitcoin and you can try to attack it on an off ramps to fiat, then you also kill Bitcoin. You don't kill Bitcoin, but it makes it harder to trade in Bitcoin. So I'm not too worried. I didn't sell a single set of Torsche to be honest because I think other platforms will start working and read fidelity investments, one of the largest asset managers in the US, I believe. Do I do a lot of stuff for the people for investors that also have crypto division and they will definitely take part of that party. So I'm not too worried. It's more bad luck, but it looks like an orchestrated attack if you ask me. Gabriel D. Vind, it almost seems like Martin is just setting you up there and organized attack. Yeah, you know, I'm reminded of the image of Domino's. But in this case, the Domino's were not set up by good actors and then knocked down by bad. Rather, the entire game was intended to attract users or players, let's say in the game of the Domino's and then they're knocked down by the same parties that set them up and attracted all the players. Wrecking, you know, anybody naive enough to invest in these frauds in the process. I would like to first give a shout out to Ansel Lindner, who's Bitcoin and markets report side. Listen to you. I think his take on macro economics is just really unique because it's Bitcoin centric and Austrian economics focus, but he's got a very interesting, very non gold bug. An inflation is kind of approach to analyzing the world economy. And Ansel was pointing out the really important because people are panicking. My whole Twitter timeline is now full of total panic and saying, okay, here we're back in 2008 and this is the beginning of the next, what do you call it, snowball effect. And this is the thread and the straw that's going to break the candles back and all the banks are now going to just fall over in the tug of war into the mud pit. And he was pointing out that not only are Bitcoin and you know, crap coins and stonks down, but also the dollar. That's not normal in a normal panic. The dollar will actually spike because it's a flight to safety. So here we've got something else going on. The picture is not clear yet. So I would encourage the viewers today not to jump to conclusions and just take things as they come and see what happens even though interest rates are down. I'd like to point out that in this article from CNBC, they're still talking about the industry and the crypto space as if Bitcoin and crypto are in the same industry. And while many people are grouping them together in tradify and finance bros, they're actually diversically opposed as Martin pointed out. So really this is a fairer, fairer attack on Bitcoin. And we see this, you know, this whatever dominoes set up and knockdown playing out where they set up these banks in order to attract and make it easy, make up, make all these easy onerapps and try to attract all this business and pretend like it's, oh, it's the future when the entire point the whole time was to destroy them and implode them and try to have that failure stick to Bitcoin and tarnish Bitcoin's image and somehow delay it from destroying them. And the other funny thing that I saw in the NBC article, which is about the Silicon Valley bank forced closure, which is that they some, I don't remember the official who said it, but they described the banking system as having, quote, compared to 2008, having, quote, more robust guardrails, which is just so funny. It may be true, but it's just, they're fractional reserved. So there's always, you know, you, you may have moved, you know, point something from point eight to point B. But the fact is that all of these banks are a single bank runaway from collapse in closing. It is funny once you start learning about inflation and the history of money, you always think that the next burst is going to be the one. And you're like, this is it. This is the end of all things. This is all and it will be eventually probably, but it never quite seems to be the one. And this is a good bank run, but it's a bank run on a couple of small banks. I do kind of agree, unfortunately, kind with the prevailing conspiracy theory type idea. Here's a tweet I saved for you, Gabe. And the guy basically just details all the things that happened this weekend, all within 48 hours. So it really is, you know, coincidence or whatever, but it does look like a very bad weekend for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Dan, Eve, what do you think about the collapse of these two banks, which is obviously going to make it harder for startups, companies like Coinbase, use these banks for exclusively for a long time as the only way they could get money in or out, which whether you like it or not, people have to be paid usually in dollars and they usually use a bank like this to do it. Yeah, especially if you're working in the crypto industry and you're, you're paid in crypto currency, you need a place to, to be able to cash out. And this doesn't help the scenario for people that get paid in crypto and are going to have issues. I think even, was it cracking in the last couple of months, I pulled some banking support, although that was just for UK customers. But the fact is that there are people that are going to benefit from this failure. I mean, JP Morgan seems to be the only one, but they're about two and a half percent up at the moment. They're going to be in the share price. They're probably going to be reaping some of the rewards of the books of SVB. And the fact is that whilst your, whilst the banks have since 2008 put all these controls in place, it does, and I actually, what are my main jobs as a business analyst was for putting in a data control governance system for a finance company. And even people who looks like inside the company was screaming, there's not enough regulation. This is going to happen. The situation is going to happen again. And the situation will repeat itself. Well, the bigger banks are just going to get bailed out because they, unfortunately, as much as they say, they're not too big to, they're too big to fall. They're not too big to fall. They are too big to fall because the government will just bail them out like they have last time. The smaller banks have got less of a chance of that actually happening. And so ultimately, the people that get penalised are the small companies that have been setting themselves up and require banking services in the crypto industry and the startups. They're the ones that get penalised most. And it sort of seems like you're saying about this coordinated attack. But when we're not in, and this has kind of been throughout history, when we're not in a bull market, we're in a regulation market, you know, everything we have, all these collapses, everyone loses money, everyone, she's the bad. It's time to suddenly rein in on the crypto industry because it's getting too far ahead of itself, all always forgetting about what actually happened in 2008 crisis. And why Bitcoin is here in the first place. So yeah, these things are just going to keep on happening over and over again until really there is enough confidence in some of the big banks to take on cryptocurrency, and in the UK, two banks of mine in the last month or two have sent a letter out saying that they won't be taking any crypto related business. So if you're sending money to a cryptocurrency exchange, that's now banned. So if anything, I thought the UK was kind of opening up, but it seems like the banks themselves are getting a bit cold feet, as it were. It's funny. They always want to regulate us when we're weak on the way down. They never seem want to regulate us when we're on the top and sponsoring arenas and so forth. Josh Wissigala, what do you think about the bank run, the dominoes falling? And is it all Bitcoin's fault? Banking, banking, with minimal stinking, banking. No, it's, the thing is that Bitcoin has never needed banking as such. It needed the on-rabs it did, but really it was built for not needing this. And now with a lot of the stablecoins out there, it's even less needed in terms of people working in the space and wanting to get, you know, that can be said on one side. And then on the other side, you can say that businesses do need banks. The business side of Bitcoin does need banks. And this is what's difficult when it comes to running a crypto business or a Bitcoin business. Is that really you do need it? But like I said on the last week's show with the Silvergate thing, we've been running Valtori since 2015 as Bitcoin only. And the thing is in those early days, you had to open up, I don't know, like a bank every week because they were closing them just as fast as you can open them on you. And they wouldn't tell you why. So as a Bitcoin business, you're very well practiced in the practice of opening up contingency bank accounts and making sure that it's okay. Now, these sorts of things where if there's a bank run and the FDIS, the insurer comes and takes over the bank, that's a different story. And I think crypto might be getting the blame for this rather than, hey, is there a problem in the banking sector? Is there a wider problem? And Silicon Valley Bank is one of the first to go because it's a bit more highly risk, less risk of worse than the others. The thing is that the Fed has been lifting interest rates every time now for a while. And we have people that are so highly leveraged because of the pandemic that's happened and the cheap money. And now a lot of these people will start defaulting. Not only that, you've got inflation, you've got a whole lot of issues happening where people just cannot afford. So maybe this is one of the first to fall. And if it is, then Bitcoin is the refuge. And it's interesting because the other about, I don't know, two weeks ago when they were coming out with their inflation data in the US, it was so interesting for me because the mainstream, as well as the mainstream, and I could say this nowadays because the industry is so big now, the Bitcoin industry is that the mainstream Bitcoin industry was giving this ridiculous narrative that if inflation data comes out higher, then we're going to see Bitcoin drop because it means XYZ. And then, but if inflation comes lower than expected, then it's a good thing for Bitcoin and Bitcoin will keep on bullying. Now that just didn't make sense to me. I mean, it makes sense in one way because for the whole reasons that they said are the economies doing better, it means that there's more money, people buy Bitcoin. But in another way, it doesn't make sense because Bitcoin was actually built as a hedge against inflation or it's one of its functions. So when there is inflation and massive inflation, people will start to exit out. It's the same thesis as gold. If the inflation gets too high, you jump into your jump into Bitcoin or gold silver. So yeah, it's an interesting time. I don't blame Bitcoin for this. I think it's horrible because Silicon Valley Bank has been a really good actor in this in for us, for our space, onboarding businesses and helping entrepreneurs out that want to trailblaze a very, very risky space, especially back in the day when every headline was drug lords and terrors and everything else. They said, well, we don't read those headlines. We think you're doing a legitimate thing. You're taking KYC, you're doing, you're doing anything. So they onboarded and wears many, many banks did it. So yeah, sad to see them go, but I don't think it's a big problem. That is interesting about the Bitcoin and the inflation, although I do think Bitcoin has to reach a certain size before it starts offsetting inflation. And I'm not sure if we've gotten there yet in amount of money in Bitcoin so that its moves don't wipe people out where it is right now. A bunch of people get into a risk off mode. They take their money off the market and that does actually still affect Bitcoin because we're just not that big. Moving on to the exit question, predicting against the magic Bitcoin ball, the true source of knowledge in all the universe, which everyone last week predicted that the price would be up, I believe. We have a lot of uppers in here. Will the price of Bitcoin be higher or lower this time next week? Martin Wishmeyer. It will definitely be lower. I think it will be lower. I mean, if you didn't sell yet, it's time to apply for a job at McDonald's, I think. Many fine careers have been started at McDonald's. Many fine books have been written in prison. Gabriel D. Vine will it be higher or lower this time next week? I'm looking at the price now. It looks like it's down 2.5% today under 20K. So I think it's actually in the bottom and we're going to be inching higher in a week. It does seem like quite a lot of negative stuff has happened. And when you look at it, we're only down 10, 12%. In the old days, something bad would happen 30%, 50% in a day. That's not to say it couldn't happen again. Dan Eve, higher or lower? I'm going to say just before I say my little contract, because you're in the contract trading prediction, the reason why they regulate on the way down and not the way up is because on the way up and when we're up, there's so much money floating around that everyone gets donations and backhanders. That's how it works. Right now we're seeing, now we're seeing, oh, everyone who donated, when FTX was all up higher, now they're like throwing the book in. So my prediction is going to be because I'm still after cheap Bitcoin and I'm a great concentrating indicator is that Bitcoin will be higher than Snoop Dogg next week. That would be great. Joshua, Sugala, higher or lower? No, I think we'll be a little bit lower, a little bit lower, probably. If not, we're moving sideways for a while. And now the magic Bitcoin ball, the source of all truth, will the price of Bitcoin be higher this time next week? Yes, just straight, yes, nothing else. No ifs, ends or buts, just yes. It's very decisive ball. Moving on to issue two US Treasury Department proposes 30% XI tax on crypto mining firms. They say that the Bitcoiners are using too much energy while we also want to raise capital gains tax and eliminate the ability for Bitcoiners to sell their Bitcoin then buy it back claiming a loss on the sale, which many other categories of investments have done for many, many decades. Gabriel, divine, what do you think about the exciting action here from the Biden administration? Keeping in mind that this is just a proposal. They don't control both houses and even if they did control both houses, this wouldn't all go straight through. I've seen a lot of people just go, oh, this is happening. But still, these are their aspirations. I am first going to comment on a couple of quotes from the Treasury Department's proposal verbiage and that is, or is it verbiage? Burbiage. Negative environmental effects of Bitcoin mining. This is a typical absolute lie. It's an outright lie taking advantage of most citizens' ignorance of the energy industry that it's not a monolith and that it's extremely localized and that you cannot just lump it all together and say, well, because somebody's using this energy in Idaho, it means that somebody's energy bill in Wisconsin is going to be higher. No, that is not how it works at all. And because of that, very simple fact to think about that energy is localized, Bitcoin mining is actually quite the opposite. It will do everything to make energy production more efficient and cheaper and better for the environment because it will incentivize cleaner sources by making them more efficient. In general, cleaner, quote unquote sources of energy are far less efficient and need subsidies. In other words, they need thugs to steal in order to pay for them. So Bitcoin actually makes some of these sources of energy viable by being a dependable, variable user and demand for this extra energy that's around. It can soak up all the extra energy that makes these energy production facilities inefficient and expensive. The other quote that I want to call out is at the end, they mysteriously claim other harms. And I would like to offer my interpretation of which other harms, Bitcoin mining is rendering upon the world or upon the country, let's say, that the US Treasury Department is insinuating here. The other harms are directly undermining a very long term Ponzi scheme, which the Treasury Department is at the center of, which is called central banking. It's a communist scheme cooked up by psychopaths over the last couple hundred years in order to steal and enslave humanity. Bitcoin is intended to destroy that. So the other harms they're talking about generally refer to offering freedom to individuals and a direct threat to the control of authoritarians. And I'm once again, again, going to defer to my old pal, Ansel Lindner, who as I got his start here with Thomas on the World Crypto Network nine years ago. Ansel's a lot smarter than me. So I'm just going to tell you guys what he said, I believe, yeah, earlier today, which is no way this will happen. The GOP has far too much power in Congress right now. They would never let this giant spike in capital gains tax to pass. It has no chance of passing. It's just a headline and virtual signal ploy. It does seem a bit like asking a DA agent for his advice on drug legalization. He has kind of skin in the game. Obviously, Dan, what do you think about this being a tax on new tech backwards idea in itself? Well, I don't know if it's just it's not. I don't think it's new tech specifically because it, you know, the obviously, these are benefiting from a huge wealth of subsidies and such around the world, even though that Cynthia Loomis in the recent Senate, like hearing is that the right term, but where she made some really valid points about what gives anyone the authority to say that this usage of electric is less worthy than this usage of electric. There's ultimately an electric car uses electricity off the grid and that's what miners use. So do so does charging a vibrator or charging or playing your PlayStation. Like who's to say what is is right for what you can be, you know, using your electricity for. I think it goes down into a bit of a too much of a rabbit hole of, okay, well, if we're saying that the crypto miners specifically need to be taxed 30% because we don't agree with the way they're using electricity. What about other things that could be considered either nefarious or far more damaging to the environment? So it just seems a bit selective to be going down this route and largely that's because of the kind of the social, the social scary, this was the words, the social, not worries, but like people still producing these articles saying, Bitcoin's only used for drugs and, you know, and kidnapping and blah, blah, blah. So I think that they get carried away with this and they just say, right, well, we need to stifle it, you know, because we don't want to be a part of that sort of system or, you know, obviously it is going to, the increases you increase your electricity is going to put additional strain on the grid, but with additional strain comes additional investment to provide more at a cheaper rate because you're being able to, you know, get economies of scale. So where you can, and also things like other things like gas, you know, methane gas flaring, right? So where that methane is just going straight into the atmosphere, at least it's been, it's been fled, you know, that electricity's, sorry, it's been, that source of methane has been turned into electricity. So there's lots of positives and negatives about it, but I did like, yes, Cynthia Loombs is approached with how she compared it to the gold industry. And what I mean, one thing they didn't pick up on was that, you know, is gold really an assessed, you know, I know most of the things that most, one of the biggest uses of gold is just a personal, you know, having jewelry or whatever, but it is used in things like electronics and circuitry. So there is an actual use for it there. But ultimately, like, if you look at how much, you know, that all of these, if you had to look at how much Bitcoin uses as an industry, I think it's still something insanely small, like 0.02% of all electricity, that they always compare it to the size of a country. Oh, it's bigger than the size of Uganda's electricity today. Oh, today is bigger than, you know, and they just, it's all media bites that they kind of make, it's essentially, they're like memes, right? It's like if you were to get your, your news from memes now, some memes are funny, some memes are informative and some memes are complete BS, but they might sound slightly logical. And it just seems like the people that are writing these articles a lot of the time get their news from memes, like memes about Bitcoin rather than the facts about Bitcoin. Ultimately, though, hasn't really stopped mining. I mean, mining's about 286 hectares of hash is down from 350 or something, which is still 2086 is so extremely high. But the Bitcoin difficulty at the moment is 43 trillion, which is up from 27 trillion this on this day last year. So you can see that the mining is still going ahead and it's growing stronger than ever. So all you're going to do is drive away business from the US and it all, those miners will pop up somewhere else. So I don't know, it just seems, it just seems silly really to shut down an industry like this, which is growing so fast. And it's actually proving its worth, right? I mean, we're seeing even with Paul Krugman that there was commenting on, I think I may have skipped an article. But yeah, this proving its worth, the reason why we need it is because it's decentralized P2P, like money, and with a bank failing or a bank going down, you're not going to lose your money. You're only going to lose your money if you're sat on an exchange that goes down, if you're holding your own private keys, obviously, the price of Bitcoin fluctuates, but you don't lose the Bitcoin. If you have one Bitcoin and 10 exchanges go down, you're still holding money. And one Bitcoin. Well, you guys know we talk about this all the time and we always talk about how it uses less than play stations in sleep mode, although they are improving that they've made so-called woke Xboxes, which we'll try to save you electricity, which is a really woke idea, I guess. And we've talked about how the existing banking system is obviously just such a giant, right? There's giant bank offices everywhere. They're filled with executives. There's tellers. There's ATMs. There's armored cars on the street. And whenever the banking industry sponsors something like Bank of America, Arena, no one says anything, but when the crypto arena tries to sponsor something, they get all upset about it. So it does seem again like a double standard. Like they're not reading the study that the, I think it was BitFinex or one of the large exchanges put out a study and they study it and they're like, yeah, the existing banking system uses more than Ireland, right? The existing banking system and all the trucks uses more than Portugal, whatever the country is. Gabriel, do you have more? I think it's BitMex that did it. I'm not exactly sure. That sounds, that sounds more correct. I didn't think mine was correct, but yeah, BitMex, look it up. There's a study. It has the information there. It's not just making this up, but yes, Bitcoin doesn't use that much energy right now, but it could use more in the future. I don't think again, as Gabriel said, you can't advertise that Bitcoin will destroy society. So it's like people was like, oh, well, they didn't include the society destroying feature or flipping it upside down like a judo move or whatever you want to call it. And although I don't like to buy into the old man can't govern thing, it does have a bit of the like you kids and your technology. I'm going to tax you directly, old man yells at cloud feelings. So that's not a great feeling. And that happens sometimes. Joshua Chicago, what do you think about the attempt to tax the mining industry as well as like Gabriel said, the aspirational raises for capital gains and other things which won't happen, but freaked people out. Yeah, I mean, I really hope it doesn't happen, but that's what governments do. Governments tax. They, they, more. So it's, it's not surprising, but the thing is the financial industries, which, which crypto Bitcoin is part of, crypto, it's part of the new financial industry. And it's a very, very, it's very used to moving to better jurisdictions in terms of an industry. So, so is manufacturing actually, which would also be mining would be kind of a, in that sort of crossover where you're, you know, commoditizing a lot of vast amounts of one resources, one resource. So, so all that's going to happen is that mining will move out of America and go somewhere else, just like it did with China, they just packed up and move somewhere else. No one's going to stick around where you get an overzealous thief constantly taking from you and diminishing your returns. It's just, it doesn't make any sense. So I don't think this will pass anyway, like the panelists have said, but, but yeah, it's a trotious, this sort of rhetoric is a trotious. And yeah, this, this kind of environmentalist thing that we've, we've hearing, we've been hearing for ages, we knew it, we knew it, that when Ethereum moved to proof of stake, that would be getting more and more attacks on Bitcoin in terms of everyone pretending that it's, that it's so, that it's going to boil the oceans and kill all the whales. So it is what it is. Bitcoin's still going to mine a block every 10 minutes and it doesn't care, it doesn't care about any of this. All that will happen is people will move offshore. It does seem like we see a familiar Bitcoin and media narrative where they say proof of work is just the same as proof of stake. When really at a security perspective, we're getting more security with proof of work. So we are getting what we pay for. Proof of stake seems to centralize in most applications, although Ethereum didn't interesting thing by spreading the funds out first, then switching to proof of stake. So maybe they avoid centralization or they hold it off longer. Martin Wishmer, what do you think about these proof of work, proof of stake? Yeah, it might an administration taxing mining. At the moment, I read the article I was like, yeah, okay, Boomer, because he obviously doesn't realize mining move will move elsewhere. It's not that bad here in the Netherlands, I mean Portugal right now, but in the Netherlands we plant a lot of veggies in greenhouses. Traditionally we've been using gas, cheap Russian gas, but since the pipeline blew up prices went through the moon. So there's some clever youngsters that use Bitcoin miners, they place them in the greenhouses and without any extra while they put them in a box, but without any further equipment. They just blow the hot air into the space. So they give the tomatoes nice and warm at temperature while at the same time they're mining Bitcoin. So what are you going to do? Are you going to charge them extra or charge the electricity extra? This is not going to work. In the future we'll just create haters, I'm space heaters that mine Bitcoin. So they text that because it does mining or I will heaters be text. I don't know, I think it's ridiculous. Gabriel said it will probably never pass, but this will probably make it popular. You know, when are the new elections in the US? Is there any time soon? Maybe it's just to get some photos in or something. But I don't really know. I don't keep track of that. 20 months. 20 months. He has to come up with some better stories. But no, it wouldn't worry about it too much. We've seen this show many times. It's like we are going to text those Bitcoiners. But now, money is like water. It just flows where it's well treated. And same goes for the miners. If they're not nice to the miners, the miners will pack up shop and they go elsewhere. As we saw in the previous Bitcoin expo in Miami last year. They had the huge containers where you could get them pre-fitted with miners. The hooks were already there. You just load them onto a truck and you take them elsewhere and wherever there's cheap and plenty of power, just plug them in. And so yeah, I don't think it's the bad for the environment either. I've seen initiatives where, because in the Netherlands, we have a lot of overproduction of solar panels. And we have a really old network grid, which is struggling to handle all the power that's been generated by our solar panels. So on a sunny day, even though it's hardly ever sunny in the Netherlands. But if it's a sunny day, then they have to switch off the solar panels to prevent a grid from being overloaded. So some of the guys met at the Bitcoin meetup there. What they do is they use these containers full of miners to have a flexibility and points where there's congestion in the network, where there's sometimes just way, way over capacity and I can't get rid of it. Instead of just shutting down the solar panels, they just consume the electricity to mine Bitcoin. And I think it allows for flexibility because the energy is money and you really turn it into a different sort of money. And until you need it for something else and then you switch it over again. And I think it's just thinking that you can just text those Bitcoin miners is not showing that he understands it or anything. It's just like, we'll text those miners. You know, I'm like, yeah, okay, boomer, bye. I don't know, don't worry about it. No, I could go on this for hours and maybe it really angry. It's like, don't you see it? But no, no, no. It's no points. We've already won this race. It's my opinion. The exit question, I think we're all pretty much in agreement, but prediction, will they pass the mining tax? Will they tax? Will they pass the capital gains tax? Yes or no, Gabriel divine. No. Dan Eve, will they pass? No, you shall not pass. Joshua Shagalla, everyone's against it, lining up. Not worried about it. Martin Wishmare is not happening. Not happening. Nothing this lifetime. Yeah, I don't think it's happening either, but again, it is aspirational and everyone can make fun of me in the comments. It's the Democrats that are trying to do it. So there you go. Moving on, check out worldcryptoneetwork.com where you can click on the left side on shows, then click on the various hosts of the shows. There's click on hosts and you can see all the episodes with Gabriel divine going back to Bitcoin group number 85 on January 30th, 2016. Look at this. You can scroll through some even have Gabriel in the thumbnail. What's the luck on that? So check it out. We've got at least the tagged ones. We have 44 episodes with Gabriel divine. So welcome again to the show, Gabriel to the show. Moving on to issue three, New York attorney general sues Qcoin, a Bitcoin exchange that they claim is a security and commodities exchange and they claim that Ethereum is a security. Because of the switch to proof of stake, Ethereum now promotes itself and they've declared that that means you're a security. Dan, what do you think about the exciting actions coming out of New York state, which we've known for years is a hotbed for Bitcoin technology and activity. Well, it's incredible. Signing because I just got an email from Coinbase saying an update on staking with Coinbase talking about how they have their slippery soldiers and that we don't actually, we don't actually state the rewards. We just use the protocol. The protocol does that part. So the regulatory attacks are definitely getting them walking over hot coals right now. I mean, we've seen this before where the economy, what sort of what place, what government entity it was that said that Ethereum was actually most of the mining was done in the staking so it was done in the US and therefore it should be classes of security and under US law. So it seems like they're really raining in right now and trying to assert their power. Maybe before the next big leg up and the next big post harvining pump. So it's positive for Bitcoin, of course, that Gensler has kind of said that there's big coin is the only, the only kind of real cryptocurrency that's not a security. S seems to be still treading water, but I kind of, I just don't see how they could, how they could put too much pressure on it. I mean, I know it is, you know, it came from an ICO ultimately, but it kind of is making the steps towards decentralization. Obviously, it's using proof of stake, but maybe there's just a lot more influence coming in. There's a lot of Ethereum tokens from the original sale that are being opened up. Maybe some of those are being, what's the word? Set aside for some donations maybe to help regulate, obviously not not in New York. New York's been historically very strict with Bitcoin. You know, we've been paying Shaleigh's shem down for essentially money laundering practice back in 2016, 2017, and the bit license. So it seems, I thought what I thought that New York would be kind of a bit of a hub for finance, right? It's been a, it's a traditional finance hub for, for, for tradfights. So why wouldn't it be for, for, for cryptocurrency? But maybe it's the influence there, right? That, that a lot of tradfight and the true companies are essentially, you know, convincing the AG to go after crypto, to go after crypto companies because it's, it's taken a buy out of their pie. But ultimately, whether Ethereum does get cast as a, as a security or not, it's, it's still going to be growing around the rest of the world. Who knows? What, what if the, what if the staking just gets moved abroad, right? If, if they say, right, well, the majority of you staked in, in the US, then why not just like a company up elsewhere and move the fund out and actually technically stake from, from that side? I don't know. There's plenty of things that they could do to avoid that. It just seems like it's all putting unnecessary obstacles in the way of innovation. And it seems pretty pointless. It's an industry that's, that's growing, it's certainly growing more and more every day. It's not showing signs of, of slowing down other than prices in terms of network, you know, network adoption and, and users, they're growing, you know, it's growing massively. Obviously, you have peaks and troughs. But it's not an industry that's just, you know, did this built on, built, you know, to, as a purely pump and dump scheme, there's a lot of usages for it, whether you, you know, agree with Ethereum and, and the kind of, the DeFi model or not. So yeah, it's, it's a shame to see, it's a shame to see such a big international hub stifling innovation like that. It's almost like, I don't know, I think it's definitely coordinated. We're in regulation season. It is interesting. I think Dan, you, you think New York as a financial hub would be a home to all these things and innovating. But instead, I think that everyone's agree on this panel. They're going to say it's regulatory capture and the existing players are using their position to try to keep other players out. As for the Ethereum argument, it seems to me that Ethereum was more of a security when it was launched by a group of people who gave themselves pre-mined currency stock interests in its success and then went on to pump and proceed to succeed actually as it turned out with their currency. This new system where it's a proof of stake and a random group of people then benefit doesn't seem to match the definition and the category as well. And I feel that they're kind of stretching here. They have an old category much like you'd have something for, you know, drug proliferation. And you say, now we're going to use that against MP3s because the music pirates are the same as the drug pirates. And here you've got an old category meant for securities and companies. And you're going to try to use that against proof of stake, which is a wholly new concept. And I hate to say it, Congress, but maybe you need to write a new law. I think everyone's mad regulation, but still at least you'd have something tailored for what you're talking about rather than trying to overload an operator here, right? They're stretching their definitions. Joshua, should go on, what do you think about the New York action against QCoin and Ethereum being perhaps a security? Yeah, it's really what I find fascinating is that regulation might be the thing that decentralizes proof of stake because you don't need these centralized parties to stake. You don't need Coinbase, you don't need to coin. It's just that you have your coins there and they have a little switch that says, stake this and earn an APY. So, yeah, it's just another reason to keep your coins on an exchange if you're mainstream like that. But, you know, these sort of regulations that put these things in the way might just make people, because at the end of these protocols, you can stake Ethereum without any of this. You just go and stake it using the blockchain. And so, yeah, maybe this is what actually decentralizes proof of stake more. You know, some would say it's still decentralized because, you know, I don't fully buy that proof of stake is centralized and proof of work isn't because proof of work is also, it can also be centralized. You see it constantly crawling up towards 30% on one pool, 40% on one pool, it even gets close and people start shouting, even that stops happening now. Like, back in the day, people used to scream and shout and be content forums when the mining got close to 51% and then they would pull it out with proof of stake as well with, you know, all of this, people banning and I've said this on the show before, so excuse me for the listeners that are here week on week. But, you know, it's harder to see a proof of stake minor. So if they do tax, capital games taxes or anything like that, or if they tax mining, hey, we just switch to proof of stake because, or if you just make it totally illegal, like they did in China, I'm sure there's proof of stake mining going on in China and they wouldn't know because it looks like any other packet. Yeah, so I think this is a really, really interesting time though where you have multiple technologies. And at the end of the day, that's what people that are early in Bitcoin were, you know, technologists enthusiastic about the technology, enthusiastic about the being something against the fraction reserve system. And so yeah, I'll be fascinated to see what happens now with proof of stake. I think it's a really, really interesting thing. Humans can label anything, you know, this is the thing. If a cop doesn't like you, they happen a bad day, they can circle your car and find something wrong with it. And this is exactly what the lawmakers are doing now with these crypto. So I think Bitcoin and Ethereum and the crowds need to join together as one industry to fight this nonsense because it's the whole divided conquer thing where Bitcoin is like, yeah, good, it is security, get them, you know, and I think that's a really not a good way to go. And just like the Bitcoin, just like Bitcoin picked on gold or gold, gold picked on big coiners, it's like, who's the common enemy here, fractional reserve banking, it's fiat, Bitcoin, gold, Ethereum, we're all in this together. I believe. And that is that we are building cool technology that bypasses old school legacy infrastructure and also creates a lot of releases, a lot of inefficiencies in a lot of spaces. So we got to just keep on doing that because the capital will flow wherever there's less inefficiency. Yeah. Artin Wishmeyer, it says in the article that it aims to block access to the exchange in New York by forcing QCoin to geo fence its website based on IP addresses and GPS locations. This is good for the people of New York, right? Yeah, that was financed through it totally doesn't work, but that's just silly. It doesn't even work for like HBO and Netflix or stuff like that, try to geo fence it. It only drives more than that. We're going to get you now. We couldn't get you with the content stuff, but we're going to get you with the Bitcoin and the banking. Yeah, I couldn't be bothered really if they try to get rid of it. A QCoin is not an exchange I would use, especially not after they since being hacked. Of course they try to attack them. But yeah, Ethereum, you know, Josh being the Ethereum fanboy here said we have to stick together. I say Ethereum is a shit coin. You know, I really don't care about Ethereum. It's a pre-mine scam. It's overly complex. It doesn't perform at all. If you find any application that works on it, it only works for a short while because after the next upgrade your contract is dead and needs to be renewed. I'm like not in crypto or Ethereum or platforms building the world's computer. I don't care about that. I care about some money and that's Bitcoin. The rest is just like, it's like, you know, so yes, regulate Bitcoin. Sorry, regulate Ethereum, get rid of it. For the viewers at home who have a little bit of Ethereum, sell it all and buy Bitcoin while the price is low because then price will go up and we'll all be happy. Everyone knows the only reason to use Ethereum is to use CurioCards, the amazing 2017 NFT collection. Gabe, you know, that's on Bitcoin through nowadays. Well, I'm sure they'll convert it over. Gabriel D. Vaan, what do you think about the New York Attorney suing Cuecoin and saying Ethereum is a security? You know, Martina actually touched on the first point that I wanted to talk about, which was quite disappointing to hear from Joshua's mouth directly, which is a lot of deflection that I hear from crypto bros that, oh, Bitcoiners are so, you know, they're betraying their cypherpunk roots and cheering on government regulators to destroy something. And we should all be in this together because we all have the same aim that is, I completely agree with Martina. That's total hogwash. And that's also, it's a deflect, the reason I say deflection is because any Bitcoiners with a brain, yes, idiots on Twitter and who, you know, whatever a non-accounts and, you know, what do you call them, script, kiddies and 14-year-olds. Oh, no, Joshua couldn't handle the heat. I'm just kidding. He's probably just blowing his nose. But he was laughing before that. But so, you know, this is not the case at all. Bitcoiners with a brain are merely warning. And then afterward saying, I told you so, what, and you listen to me, this is what happens when you are dumb. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. This is not, oh, I'm cheering on the regulators. We Bitcoiners, we real Bitcoiners with a brain are sitting back with our popcorn. And I should remember what the snack of choice is for that. Sitting back with our popcorn, watching all the centralized players fight it out with these ridiculous garbage. Oh, we're decentralized. Even though we have a giant foundation in Switzerland and have a years-long history of promoting this and saying specifically from the start, oh, you can expect gains from holding our, you know, unregistered security. And on the other side, you have these idiotic regulators who don't know the first thing about technology saying as their remedy to keep your residents from using the services, to use geolocation and IP banding, which is, you know, takes about one second to get around so easily. So it's just, we're just sitting back watching all these centralized players fight it out. And basically, Bitcoin's entire raison d'etre is censorship-resistant. So whether it's, whether the government considers you a security, whether you're using proof of work and you're basing, you know, your issue, you're pre-mining, you know, your issue in yourself 70% of the supply from the start or you're using proof of stake schemes, you know, in order to give the insiders even more advantage. It doesn't really matter. The point is censorship-resistant. If somebody else can come and smash your project, it ain't decentralized and it ain't going to survive. So we're just here with our popcorn watching LaMark and his theories play out in front of our eyes. Bitcoin doesn't care. It's also a shame if your project is based on Amazon Web Services. Josh Lugala, I want to give you a chance to respond to Gabriel here. Kind of call you out. No, it's good. I mean, this is what I love about the show is that you get different viewpoints. And I think at the end of the day, you know, whether someone, that's a different topic, whether someone calls themselves decentralized and isn't. And also what, you know, where's that lion? Where's that lion in that greatness? Of course, Bitcoin is ultimately decentralized. It's wonderful. But we all know that these lawmakers aren't just going after the, you know, those players. They're going after anything to do with Bitcoin or crypto, all of it. And so, yeah, I mean, I just think there's a divide and conquer thing happening here. And it's always happened. And I saw it mainly with the gold industry and the Bitcoin industry where, you know, Peter Schiff was yelling at the clouds. And then you've got, you know, Barry Silver telling everybody to drop gold when really the real enemy was fear all along. And so, no, no, no, no. And I think the golden industry players could have been really strong allies along the way. Because they understand what we're fighting. They've been there a lot longer than us. And they might be older than us. So they might have more contacts and more, more reach into, into places. But yeah, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter where you're sitting this. The whole NFT space also blew out to the mainstream. Like, I never, never imagined that art would have brought in so many new people. Of course, NFTs are totally centralized. You can even change them. Like, they're ridiculous. But at the same time, it's brought in a whole bunch of people that are able to, able to sort of think about what we're doing and have discussions about money and open up their minds by looking at this strange picture of a frog and being able to sell it on different exchanges because they have the token. Yeah, so I do feel like the industry is more and more split, which is sad because we all need to put together and say, hey, we love this, we love this industry. We love the stuff that's happening. Yeah, some of it's shit. Yeah, some of it's good. Yeah, some of it's less decentralized. Yeah, some of it's more decentralized. But at the end of the day, screw these people that are trying to reign on this parade. No, you're painting me in a way as a Bitcoin maximalist, but I'm not. I'm just a shitcoin minimalist and I really don't like all these, all this noise around Bitcoin. I mean, for me, there's Bitcoin because it has a use case. All the other things, they don't have a use case. I mean, okay, people might want to like post pictures, JPEGs of art on the blockchain, but that doesn't make, given a use case or justified a high prices. I mean, it's sound money that created Bitcoin. That's why Bitcoin is there and I think it works. And, you know, I don't need bananas on the blockchain or my coffee beans counted on the blockchain. I did so. No, you might need, it would be useful to have ticketing, for instance, where you could have tickets for concerts and then there could be a secondary market. No, I'm not controlled by them. I'm closer to an artificial hip than a dance floor. I'm not going to a concert. I don't need that. No. And if you might as well do that on a central database, in many cases, then you can't trade. Like, then you can't have true, you know, the good thing about not having it on a central database, they get hacked. But B, you have the ability to have anybody post a marketplace for these tickets. You know, I mean, I'm just saying that there are other use cases and they're not all shit. You know, I really like these price rates. I really like the fact that you could lock up funds without trusting Celsius in this market. Okay. That's really useful. I think it's, I think it's still there's still risks involved. It's not risk free. But I'd rather trust code than than Celsius or block fire, whatever they were called, to lock up funds and borrow, borrow against them. I just don't buy the fact that everything else is shit and useless. Ultimately, if something has a use case for someone else, it may not have a use case for you. I've never viewed Ethereum as like, as money. I've never viewed it as money. I've viewed it as like credits on a system to do with funny defy stuff and, you know, throw monkey JPEGs and shit like that. It's not like it's not encroaching or what I believe is Bitcoin has some money in replacing the fiat system. It's just something that does something else. So, it's a curious thing. There's, what I don't know. I don't work, I don't work for the SEC getting, getting backhanders. But, but not ultimately, just because, you know, it's like that, that's old saying. One man's trash is another man's treasure. And obviously people see some of the use cases of Ethereum as trash and some other people see it as useful. But what is undeniable is that it's an ecosystem that has many, many, many users and is growing very rapidly. So, you know, it's not something, I mean, you could still say that people are purely speculating, but then there's the argument of Bitcoin. You're only holding Bitcoin because you're speculating. You could just use fiat. You know, it has these other benefits that, you know, that I find attractive, that I don't find attractive on Bitcoin. It doesn't mean that it was Ethereum wasn't born out of a crazy ICO, like some of the other, you know, main shit coin scams that have been out there. But yeah, I find it, it does have uses. I think the D5 thing is quite interesting, that you can actually, you know, loan against your Bitcoin without using a centralized server with Ethereum. Obviously it's wrapped Bitcoin, so you've got to rely on developers and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, you know, they're trusted third party to a certain extent, but it's all smart contracts that can be audited. And so, yeah, that to me, that has a use, a use, it may not have a use to other people. They may not have the same level of trust, but it's also the same as the, you know, Bitcoin is the most insanely secure network on earth, but some people aren't really that bothered about the security, you know, maybe security is an 8 out of 10 preference for them, rather than a 10 out of 10 preference. So that's why they would use Ethereum. Yeah, I don't know. I think, I think ultimately the end goal is, is fear is bad and regulation is bad. So I kind of agree with Justin, we should be fighting on the same side while still having indifference isn't saying, well, Ethereum's crap compared to Bitcoin. Yeah, just three minutes. Well, say regulation can be bad. Not is, you know, at the end of the day, there's a country, there's a bunch of society with rules that they want, but they can be terrible rules to control and usually through regulatory capture by the legacy system that, that is the dominant one holding the new system back, which is about to disrupt it. Yeah. I always thought that it would have made more sense if they sold the gas at like a centralized website for like $100 a gas. The idea that people were investing on this idea that in the future, I'm going to need to run a whole bunch of smart contracts. So I'm buying my smart contract fuel early. And then it turned out in the future, I needed to run a bunch of smart contracts and I should have bought more smart contract fuel. So it doesn't always work out the way you think you're going to see it sometimes. That's the same with Bitcoin mining. Oh, we've got to buy Bitcoin miners because in the future, Bitcoin is going to be worth more. And then all it didn't happen, I should have just bought Bitcoin. Let's see, Gabriel, did you have more on this issue or time for now? No, I actually do have one final thought or a thought that came to mind and that is Hermon Hopet. I'm not, you know, extremely fluent in Austrian economic theory and the work's a specific figure in that field. But Hopet is well known in the Bitcoin space for his contention that money converges over time to the very best good for the purpose of money at the exclusion of all others. And the implication for Bitcoin and these tokens that are issued by other parties and companies and also in other anonymous figures online, whoever. The issue is that there is a base function that exists where the cryptocurrency, if you want to call it, that is created in the case of Bitcoin. You use electric energy, hardware and human beings to set it up. And then the thing with software and electric energy is about as base as you can get in meat space. And I used to think that there could someday be different or not competing but it would separate digital commodities after the creation of the first one, Bitcoin. But now I am very skeptical of that opinion. I don't think there will ever be a need or a success of any other digital commodity other than Bitcoin because there is no more base scarce asset in the universe than energy. So we've got this base layer of tokens created using the scarce electrical energy that is available to human beings. That I'm sure that that amount will increase a lot this century as other forms of energy production come online. But nevertheless, there is no more base layer. Maybe consciousness, you could say, but at that point we no longer have any need of money perhaps. So what that implies is that all of these other use cases that Dan and Joshua are discussing will be built on top of Bitcoin. For example, you've got synonym creating systems for token production on lightning. You've got Omni and other systems for colored bitcoins. All of the functions that you guys are talking about can quite easily be created. If you don't want to have a centralized database like particulates, I think that the incentives don't mind up for the venues to use decentralized tickets. But for example, all of that can be done with lightning, milititoshies. So I really have come over the last nine years, have come to consider altcoins as primarily frauds and then a few experiments, all of which will fail in the face of the base layer of atoms in our physical reality, which is electrical energy or any type of energy. But we tend to use electricity because that's how our hardware works. There's no layer under that. So I think that, or whether you use oil, electricity, whatever the source, there isn't another layer under that. So there won't be another digital commodity to create a money out of that can be used as a value, store value, unit of account and medium of exchange. So I think all these other ones will attack each other, attack. And this is why I very much disagree with Joshua's characterization of the crypto and finance and Bitcoin all being in the same space. No, Bitcoin is a new, Bitcoin is new finance. Everything else is old finance, including altcoins. That's how I see it. And it's not a matter of dividing conquer because Bitcoin is the one who's going to be dividing and conquering the other side. It doesn't work toward Bitcoin because Bitcoin is the decentralized one. Yeah, but there's certain things I, I, I, I, I, I, the one we're building. Yeah, it's, I, I do like it. It's a good point. The same time I cannot build what I'm wanting to build on lightning. I cannot build it. I don't can't build it on Bitcoin. I can build it on maybe a liquid, but that's not Bitcoin. That's a side chain. I can build it some, I just, I can build it on an RSK. Oh, it's getting, you know, it's getting anchored to Bitcoin, but it's not Bitcoin. So I disagree with you. I cannot build. I've looked, man, I wanted to build on Bitcoin, but I can't. It doesn't, it doesn't, the, the opportune code so let me. So yeah, yeah, you, you'll, yeah, in the meantime, yeah, you'll be using these experiments, but in 10, 15 years, then you'll be using Bitcoin. Yeah. Well, very well said, Gabe, Gabriel, good stuff. And it's also so hard to argue with Joshua who has the best background in the world here. The, the old farmer on the edge of the prairie with the sun slowly rising over his face, giving us the advice and so forth. So very hard. It's a good hat. I mean, it's like it's, it's a shame to be, you know, on the other side of the argument against a hat, such as, very, yeah, a caliber, yeah. Well, we're going to move on to a very quickly issue four issue four Bitcoin Twitter, Taunts Paul Krigman over traditional finance, Troubles Paul Krigman's been a critic of Bitcoin for years. He said the internet would be just about as useful as a fax machine. And now he's having trouble with Venmo and like any other celebrity he's taken to Twitter to complain about Venmo. Krigman says too busy to tweet, but not to vent. I've been using Venmo for years, but now it won't allow me to make payments. I spent a long time in chat with representatives and they told me they can't explain why or fix it. The software has taken control to which Bitcoiners like Michael Saylor responded with the three word phrase Bitcoin fixes this. Others quoted Paul Krigman's own words back to and said, cryptocurrency lets you make electronics transactions, but so do bank accounts, debit cards, PayPal, Venmo, etc. All these methods involved using a trusted third party. But unless you're buying drugs, assassinations, etc. That's not a big deal. And Nourage asked him Paul Krigman, were you trying to buy drugs or assassinations? So just a fun little story about Paul Krigman and the reason for cryptocurrency when he can't use his Venmo account on Martín Wishmeyer. What do you think about these poor troubles for Paul? And maybe he tried Bitcoin. It's a bit says we've been trolling Paul for years. I mean, really for years, it's like way, way back when I started with my first eight. Even before that, you know, and he mentioned this like Bitcoin will be just as it will be irrelevant or it's a Ponzi scheme or whatever. And I replied Bitcoin hit the $10 market at the time. So I replied that one fantasy coin is worth 10 times your real currency. What does it say about your economy? Of course, we've been trolling in from you for years and we should we should ignore him, especially, you know, if you have problems with your heart, it's just not good. But you know, it's sometimes just fun, just like trolled, trolled of all boomer. He's still on Twitter. Think he's like super hip and hell. And yes, he was famous at one point because he, I don't know, want a Nobel Prize or something. I don't know. He was he was famous for something, but he's irrelevant nowadays. Good luck with your Venmo account, bro. I mean, no. Also, as it notes in the article, Krugman's attempt to get tech support from Twitter does succeed because of his celebrity status. But the rest of us don't have that celebrity status. We can't just complain to Twitter whenever our account breaks. We'd be sent, you know, shit out of luck. Gabriel D. Von, what do you think about Paul Krugman's troubles with Twitter? And you want me to bring this image up? Yeah, this is my comment. All right. Here we go. We got Paul Krugman wearing a Trumpi cat shirt. Looks like he might be working out. So trouble for Paul. Dan Eve, Paul Krugman's having trouble with his Venmo. What do you think? Yeah, it happens through the old banking favorites, doesn't it? Who hate on Bitcoin? Wasn't it Peter Schiff? While I look at the year or so ago, a couple of years ago, I had had problems and everyone was like, well, you could have just had Bitcoin and then you wouldn't have been. These problems right now. So I don't know any bank that's got a record for like a 99.99% upgrade, but certainly none of the banks that I'm banked with. So it's just another old schooler who just doesn't see the value in Bitcoin. It's not an analogy that many people like, but obviously, you know, the same kind of argument of, I don't know, but obviously, you know, the same kind of argument of, I don't see a use case of Ethereum. I don't see a UK case of Bitcoin. Someone's going to, someone wants to use it and will use it. But he's just stuck in the old school world where he obviously can't see anything good about Bitcoin. And it doesn't have any value and blah, blah, blah. There's tulips and all the rest of the bad things that all old men yelling and clowns say. So it sucks if you're a normie because you can't just treat your four and a half million or how many is followers to get up, you know, hard core support like, what's that do from? Who's that got Charles Hodgskins? It was a hot Charles when he tweeted support and then they said, Oh, can you please raise a ticket and he said, do you show who I am? That was brilliant. So yeah, we're, us normies, we don't have the same power to yield at these banks. So the differences with Bitcoin is that everyone has the same right to use the network as anyone else. And there is no distinction between a VIP on Bitcoin and a non VIP where all users were all people in it together. And that's the main thing about Bitcoin and why being permissionless is such a good thing. I think shift was having trouble with his wire transfers and it was another key point where you're like, why not just use Bitcoin. It's so easy. You could pay people every month. It's so easy. And then whenever anyone describes wire transfers, they're always like, I send it somewhere. I don't know what happens. I wait a couple hours. Something else happens. Usually it goes through and it's all fun. Wasn't this when his bank was accused of fraud and money laundering? There was something really odd with his bank. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's all twisted all the time. But I think he's dodgy as fuck. It's the same as Krugman. Like you won't have any problems unless you're buying drugs or assassinations. Like they never make a, you know, casual mistake or get an address wrong and put you in the penalty box. That never happens. Joshua Shagalla, what do you think about this big story? Krugman's having trouble with his Venmo. Well, economists are famous for basically being really good at predicting the past and not the future. So, but they're, they're really good at explaining at nauseam how their future predictions were wrong. And why so let's see if Paul actually comes up with maybe a reason why he was wrong. I doubt it. Well, you know what they always say if you can find five economists who are having trouble with their Twitter account or their Venmo account, you can have five other economists whose Venmo accounts work just fine. Just seems to work out that way. Well, we're running out of time. So we're going to move on to predictions or story of the week. Martina, are you ready with the prediction or story of the week? Go ahead. I'm not really a story of the week, but we just, we just send in. We're going to Bitcoin 2023. So if you're all into like Bitcoin Bitcoin 80 ms, then we'll be there. We'll be showing like three models and our conversion kits. So there'll be like lots of things to do. I don't think there will be like a volcano with lava this year, but it will be a great fun. It will be three days, not four days this year. I don't think there will be a music festival, but it will be really good fun. Miami is nice place. It's sunny. The mosquitoes love it. We love it too. And we have we'll have a great time there. So, you know, if you're if you're coming over to Bitcoin 2023, you'll give me a shout out on social media and we have to meet up and just party like there's no tomorrow. Miami is going to be really good. I think the only dead mal coming this year will be actual dead mice. Gabriel D. Vaughan prediction our story of the week ahead. Yeah, I have a prediction. I think that we're going to see quite a bit more of the disclosure of corruption fraud. I think that's a very crazy stuff is going to be heating up a lot more. You're seeing the narratives of the last three years of authoritarianism lies coordinated medical Nuremberg type stuff. And I don't think the trials will happen until the second half of the decade. But yeah, you're seeing you're seeing the narratives crack all over the place. And I think that's kind of part of what is fueling the assumption of a banking crisis. Like I was listening to a very woo woo out there guy today cliff high who's really fun with his crazy ideas, but his prediction is a terrible track record of predictions, especially financial. It's like the opposite of ancillinder. It is interesting to see how his social predictions tend to be really dead on. And I think that there will be a spillover into finance. And I think one thing you can count on over this next decade. If the as we were discussing in the pre show, the sudden emergence of func totally functional really powerful chatbot AIs. If that's taught us anything is that expect the unexpected guys and gals. Dan Eve prediction or story of the week go ahead. I predict that. I think I think actually that because we're in regulation season and New York stepping out. I think we're going to see surely we're going to see another state stepping out and saying we need to tax Bitcoin mining and other greens, like state like California. They're kind of a very green type state. Surely they they they have interest in the in the sort of green market. So I think we're soon going to see some some some other restrictions maybe based on on Bitcoin mining from another US state. You think they'd be able to learn from Star Wars like the rest of us when he said the more you tighten your grip talking the more star systems will slip through your fingers. Joshua Sugala prediction or story of the week go ahead. Sorry the week is I'm just a bulls deep in zero knowledge proof stuff. Just looking at zero knowledge proof so I just find them fascinating. I find them really interesting and yeah, I agree with with Gabriel that there's that stuff's stuff's going to that there's a whole bunch of stuff that's cracking and starting to break open and. Narrative changing but you have. Exactly. Joshua you can. Any wall of bees or any koalas or kangaroos that might be popping out of that out back there. Yeah, we're supposed to. So some rabbit. Oh my. Oh my rabbits. Keep it exotic than that. But thanks again for everybody for tuning in be sure to give us a thumbs up down below push subscribe. Check out world crypto network dot com we've got lots more episodes like this and until next time. Bye.