The Bitcoin Group, the American Original, for over the last ten seconds, the sharpest Satoshi's, the best Bitcoin's, the hardest cryptocurrency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, James and Lop, from Kasa. Oh yeah, I got to unmute yourself and say hi. I forgot that part. Hi. Dan Eve, the crypto raptor. Howdy, how are you folks? Glad Kasa, from Bitcoin Takeover. Hadookin, Ben Ark from LNBITS. Hello. And I'm Thomas Hunt from the World Crypto Network, moving on to issue one. Issue one, Bitcoin's stealth rally puts it atop the quarterly scoreboard once again. Bitcoin's surprisingly fast exit from crypto winter has once again put the notoriously volatile digital currency atop the leaderboard in the first quarter for being the best performing asset class by a wide margin. With a 70% gain, Bitcoin is closing out its best quarter since three months ended in March 2021. James and Lop, what do you think about the exciting price of Bitcoin? Oh yeah, always exciting. I mean, it seems like everybody got sufficiently wrecked and maybe there's nobody else left at this point. And really what came out today was that the US government had dumped another 9,000 coins. So, you know, that seems to be the best counter indicator that they're going to keep doing that and Bitcoin's going to keep going up. Another dream of Smithsonian museums in every states smashed again. Dan Eave, the price of Bitcoin is up. Well, you know, we've had recently more banks bailed. There's pretty much the reason why Bitcoin was was born or at least it was born just after the banks being bailed out. So it's kind of doing its thing right people that thought that this would bring down Bitcoin heavily. And especially obviously the price, but I think people are actually realizing that Bitcoin is the safe haven because you know the classic if your bank if you're money in a bank and the bank closes you can't get your money out where is Bitcoin you can always get out as long as you have your private key. But the main thing is that again, the network hit what I think over 400 extra hatches. So it's just like the hash rates just smashing in the moment is about 357 according to Bit Info charts difficulty of 46.8 trillion, which is just which is just insane. I mean, the growth there in terms of mining is just shows you how much the network's growing let alone how much it's being used by everyone. So I think maybe some of the other factors like when they're more countries that are settling gas now in in in in well not in the dollar. And as the you know the US dollar loses this kind of grip on the world as a world index then then I think that there's more of a chance that eventually countries will move to Bitcoin so that it doesn't specifically benefit one country using their currency. So I think yeah, there's basically a lot this but plus is also always the dog wagging to the what's it called the tail wagging the wagon the dog or whatever that whatever happens you could just say the stuff this week. It was the reason for the price movement when it could be all sorts of things. I think it's why does the dog wag its tail because the dog is smarter than the tail if the tail were smarter than the dog then the tail would wag the dog. I thought only scammers like spf used Bitcoin how could the price be going up. I don't know man I don't know what's going on back in my mind there's this hypothesis that it might be people waking up and realizing that Bitcoin is or was created specifically for these moments in history because these crisis are inevitable we have been talking about them for a long time. It's pretty insane how almost everything that we have been saying for the past few years is coming through right now with banks with and what's the other one. BNP Parabas if I'm not mistaken from France anyway these financial institutions which were too big to fail are getting bailed out and now there's Bitcoin as a way to protect yourself. And I think a month ago I was speaking with someone who was dunking on me saying oh you stupid Bitcoin or can't you see that it's just another financial asset and it's correlated with the rest of Wall Street stocks and if the SMP index goes up Bitcoin goes up and it's all correlated and it's not decentralized and blah blah blah jokes on you asshole. Now I can finally prove to you that this has a real real use case and purpose so I'm happy that people finally use Bitcoin for what it's supposed to be used. And I hope that we spread the word to many more people and we make them realize that volatility mostly goes upwards on the long term. Governments on a long enough term screw you but the market's are actually much more efficient especially if you choose to plan into the chaos of free markets. I remember a friend of mine called the exact Bitcoin bottom of course he wasn't telling me to buy he was telling me to sell he also told me to sell Tesla stock that would have been a disaster. Ben Arck what do you think about the price of Bitcoin. I think we just lost our sellers like everyone's gone back to work. People have stopped self-funding Bitcoin businesses or whatever people do when you have a Bitcoin boom and everyone's quick work and they think they can live off their stash and then everyone has to sell their Bitcoin and I think we just lost sellers. And also that I think that the world understands that the SPF SWATMONCE to being cleared out of Bitcoin is actually ultimately a good thing and makes Bitcoin more valuable. And then again like everyone's been saying I think that people are questioning the security of their money in traditional banks and how safe it really is and they're like well maybe those it's this alternative thing is valid because yet again the banks are screwing people. And then also the not start stuff not starts getting pretty popular and it's had Bitcoin incorporated into it and that pulls in a lot of new users so it gives a whole new example of how Bitcoin could be used which I think is pretty powerful so there's a collection of a collection of you know things obviously which are my fundamental things which are making it happen making the price go up. But ultimately I think we just run out of sellers like people have stopped dumping on Bitcoin. You must be exhausting you're pushing that cell button the price keeps going up you're pushing that cell button the price keeps going up I can't imagine. Let's move on to the exit question predicting against the Bitcoin predictor ball the greatest source of Bitcoin knowledge in all the Bitcoin industry. James in law with the price of Bitcoin be higher or lower this time next week. Oh next week we have no idea but I'll be contrary and then say lower just for fun. Then he higher or lower yeah I'm going to go lower I think we're on a mini top here it's going to be a bit of a down I see. We've got both an up and a down which way are you going to go number go up I'm going to slay that there behind that. Sorry down I'm going to eat beer tonight. Two ups and a down Benark which way are you going to go. As long as you're in faster than the other people when you're running away from the bar you find up yeah it's going to go up because yeah it's going to go up. The panel is feeling optimistic let's see how the ball does will the price of Bitcoin be higher this time next week. Here we go. Most likely most likely a positive prediction from the Bitcoin predictor ball now everyone can place their bets. Moving on to issue two space force major to Pentagon mine Bitcoin yes a new research to put research paper from the space force says that the United States should mine Bitcoin acquire a great deal of Bitcoin and perhaps even have a pseudo cyber war instead of a real cyber war all over the control of Bitcoin. That's an exciting new direction that the paper suggests you can buy the paper on Amazon but that doesn't mean the military is following it. Dan Eve what do you think about the space force doing something we can all get behind supporting Bitcoin. Well firstly I just I think it's an incredible name like space force it's straight out of space falls right like it's great. But he makes it I think they make a good point right it's not spate it's not space force that overall they're endorsing Bitcoin right it's like one of the researchers you can kind of from MIT and and that but they make a good point that rather than a kind of compete for you know nuclear war forms of killer nanobots then to compete for money. And they're something that they raised that there was about the concerns of the US military about its you know the impact of mining Bitcoin on its emissions goals. Well at the moment like isn't it roughly depending on what estimates you look at what the US military loans one to five percent of like all global emissions and then not big quads 0.3 so it's really just like a spec on the general emissions from the military. And wasn't there a report actually again another one that came out today saying that there's a much bigger increase market share of renewables in Bitcoin then then again previously thought right. So you know the the amount of Bitcoin that's being mind via coal is is actually reducing quite significantly and it's partly because of the mining companies that want to get you know they want to please shareholders who are into the sort of green side of things. So it's only a positive thing that we go more green as we go along obviously for Bitcoin if if the US military did start mining it be pretty pretty big for for for Bitcoin some people would see the bad side of it right that like all the armies mining it therefore it must be a bad thing you know it must be a tool of war in some way. But it's also good use of excess you know you know excess like gas flaring and stuff like that so there's there's there's plenty of size this argument but ultimately the space for sounds cool so I think space for should be mining Bitcoin. Obviously this is a rare chance we get to agree with the Pentagon I think that space force should mine Bitcoin as well and use the money to put a Smithsonian Museum in every state in the United States as a convenient museum that you could drive to in your state about your state traveling exhibitions the entire thing. If I had cost or what do you think about space forces plan for the US government and the military to mine and hold Bitcoin. I don't know man I don't care this is not why I got into Bitcoin if they want to do that then good for them I guess I don't know I don't have an opinion on this sorry. I do think it's funny that now we're looking to some kind of major and a research paper and he's recommending Bitcoin years ago it's just been mad Bitcoin and a bunch of geeks in their computers type in a way saying how good it is and there wasn't any article like Bitcoin talk forum post says you should really buy some Bitcoin and hold it you know. If you look back now it's like wow you even the Pentagon could have learned from that example even if Bitcoin didn't work out they could have bought so much for so little held it for such a small cost just on the chance that it did work out. Ben Arck do you think the government is going to get some Bitcoin. I mean I think that they're definitely looking at Bitcoin more more because they have these CBDC aspirations and then lo and behold that's actually quite hard task and Bitcoin is just a collection of computer science solved computer science problems. So more and more they're going to look at Bitcoin as something perhaps they could build a CBDC's on or they can just utilize in some way so it does make sense that governments are going to have more invested interest in getting hash power. It's kind of a scary concept because if they if they do start you know accumulating hash power then they'll probably of course I'll try and use it to assert some control over Bitcoin. But it's kind of the next you know the next phase for Bitcoin it's it saw something which we expected would happen that countries would start competing for hash rate and and also just mining and competing for Bitcoin. So it would be interesting to see I'm not sure the concept of using pseudo site having a sort of pseudo cyber war as opposed to real world war that's something which you know could have been done. Like it could start a game of chess instead of having a war doesn't happen people want to kill each other. Sadly that doesn't ask in a pan out and then also currently like the more computational power you have and that's important what weapon in your in your war chest if you're going to war with the country in the modern warfare so that already kind of exists. So I don't think it's going to be useful that but I do think the countries are more and more like they know that Bitcoin isn't going anywhere and they can either try and fight it or they can just try and incorporate it's just like you know. So I'm not sure if the propractic software having to incorporate free and open source software rather than giving up on fighting it and having to actually just incorporate into their software projects is the same is there. With countries you know when the building the CBDCs or they have this banking infrastructure and that they were not updated to a more modern banking infrastructure it makes sense that they incorporate Bitcoin as opposed to track and fight it so more and more we all can have governments getting involved with Bitcoin. But you know we've been out a few sparring partners over the years so I think we're ready for it and I think you know the users are ready for as well and they're not going to be able to co-opt it so yeah let's see see what happens over the next year I guess. I agree with that I'm certainly excited about these alternatives to warfare as the 1980s movie robot jocks with an ex predicted the United States and Russia could just build giant robots and fight each other like Godzilla versus King Kong. Not having to actually destroy any territory just creating robots. James in law what do you think about the government's plan to mine Bitcoin they haven't mind any Bitcoin since they were Satoshi Nakamoto spoiler spoiler. I really don't think this is going to happen. I haven't gone super in depth into a lot of the soft war and hash force theories that have been afloat it but I have not been convinced by any of the stuff that I've seen I really don't think that the incentives are there. Most of the claims and arguments that I've seen around you know why the government or military should be doing this seem to involve a lot of wishful thinking and like logical leaps you know I don't see how it's going to happen from a practical standpoint especially some of the stuff about how it's going to like protect us from cyber warfare and denial of service attacks and so forth. It's way too abstract for me to actually see it happening and if you look at the US government has 200,000 Bitcoin in their possession right now if they want to acquire a lot of Bitcoin they could do it a lot more efficiently then having to set up mining equipment and go after this like last what eight or 9% of Bitcoin that's left to be mine. You know from a power and you know game theory perspective I think we're going to have to live with the fact that like meet space and the power dynamics within the physical world are going to be a completely different set of game theory then that which we have created with you know knock emoto consensus and distributed networks where we have a lot of sovereign entities around the world that are running these machine consensus algorithms. A poor and water on our parade but James is probably let right it's probably not happening and those 200,000 government bitcoins are certainly going to build new Smithsonian museums in all 50 states everyone does that moving on to the exit question if you were the US government what would you do make your own version of Bitcoin a CBDC or mind the rest of the Bitcoin as the article suggests Dan Eve would you build a new coin. Would you go mining. Yeah the government's always going to try and build one better they always know what's best right there like big mama big data they know what to do there's will be better this city Bitcoin thing and then an actual fact what happened is that they'll just blow loads of money on researching it screw up and then end up capitulating. I'd like to get one of those grants I want to apply right now if I had cost to do agree with Dan will the government make their own coin. Now I mean I agree with Mr. Lopp he said that it's very easy for the government to come for hotlers and confiscate their way to some Bitcoin. That's a much easier way for them to acquire some coins it takes no effort it takes no maintenance for anything I'm also concerned about what's it called armory that large mining pool that has become dominant nowadays. Let me check found sorry I'm also concerned about that one I don't know how it's going to play out it seemed like when Bitcoin was mostly mind in China. The times were more peaceful and now everyone's trying to regulate it and tell you how you're supposed to use your home electricity and how you're not allowed to do it kind of insane but whatever I don't think the government is going to try to mind anything they're selling coins today so you think they're going to try to secure the network. It would be interesting if we saw in 1933 FDR gold seizure type operation from the government and it would be even funnier when the government said hey we have all the Satoshi bitcoins to spoiler alert and then they'd really build some nice Smithsonian museums. Ben what do you think is the government going to make their own coin or just mine Bitcoin. I mean I think they they have these developers trying to build the CBCs and inevitably they're going to write reports on a lot of these problems have been solved by Bitcoin and this is why Bitcoin does it in x way and and all the you know the technologies wrapped up in in the Bitcoin ecosystem as well and they'll write the reports are feed it back to the government and then I think it's a good thing like CBCs should be on Bitcoin rather than making their own straight coin or rather than building on some other thing like it makes sense that they build on Bitcoin into me. The next stage of development where we can actually pull in enough liquidity that Bitcoin become stable as a medium of extrusion actually uses money in the price volatility is going to screw you. You can use it as day to day money and the only way we this chicken acting like no one's going to use it as day to day money until it's stable and then no one's going to become stable unless people using it for day to day money and you have the liquidity you need so to me like build the CBCs please. I think it'll probably come from like poor nations which haven't got banking infrastructure and strong development teams like there'll be some some of them build some projects where you can build something. I think we've lost the connection to Ben James and Lop what do you think will the government build their own coin or just mine think you want. Not this government so once again it's it's a matter of game theory and and powers so you know any first-world nation that is already extremely powerful and has you know central banks that can manipulate their money supply especially to the extent that they have power over many other countries in the world like the United States. They're going to want to maintain that and they may be willing to upgrade it to have even further you know precise power by having a CBDC. CBDC where like they can literally come up with more rules where they're you know saying exactly how you can use your money they might even be able to you know take your money from you with a click of a button much easier than they can right now. But you know the flip side of this nation state adoption of Bitcoin is a very interesting topic from a like macro geopolitical level so I think there are nation states who will be incentivized to go the route of Bitcoin as we have seen with El Salvador you know these will be tiny nations that don't have monetary sovereignty or they're really they are operating under the whim of these other larger nations and so for them because they are not going to be able to do that. Because they don't have that level of power their better option is to opt out and enter into a system that is more fair and doesn't really care about the various centralized networks within the traditional financial system. You see that's what I'd like to see a battle between these small rebel nations these developing nations who maybe would like Ben said make a CBDC on top of Bitcoin versus your large entrenched established nations who just roll up their own coin. Another dominoes was all as well once one of them does it like all these nations will do it to create their own sovereign stable coin this is a recipe which is good enough and it's like not corruptible by inside and outside forces and it works and it's stable and it's possible these these these are possible problems these are problems which could be solved and you could build on Bitcoin and when that happens and then the US is a journey over the you know with the world reserve currency and all these countries have their own. Stable coins then that's I think that's when it will be like the revolution from the bottom up and then the big countries might start adopting it and using in the technology stack or I mean they might be looking to use in the technology stack now but I prefer that for them make them and making their own. And that's where I'd be really interested to see Jameson's game theory play out where if this one and that one and this one all join Bitcoin will some of the big ones start to join and if some of the big ones start to join maybe they don't even need their own CBDCs maybe they can do it on Bitcoin and all of this can just turn out great. Let's move on to issue three issue three Bitcoin falls after the CFTC soos crypto exchange Binance for allegedly breaking trading rules we talk about Binance here almost every week ever since Malta Binance seemed to have no home country and we're traveling the world almost allegedly as if they were a criminal enterprise making their own rules and showing coin base what it's like to be a truly unregulated exchange now that. I'm not a big fan of Binance for reasons which concern the way that they conducted business I'm not even sure how they got so big in 2017 your the official narrative is going to be a real big deal. The narrative is that they listed every shit coin in existence and allowed anyone to trade without KYC but they're not the only ones they had this tremendous growth around the world they got to a point where I think they handled the money in a much more smart way in 2021 especially they refrain from the temptation to get featured on Super Bowl with some ad and they did a pretty good job managing their budget to avoid cutting lots of jobs. During the bear market as was the case with FTX and crypto.com and a few others so I do have some respect for the way that they managed their business but it's always been a bit shady with the way that they conducted business I'm not a big fan of Binance but if you check the description below you're going to find the ref link for Binance we get five dollars each I'm kidding don't do that don't sign up stay away get your Bitcoin from non KYC ATMs or whatever peer to peer. But yeah Binance sucks. It's never to sign up with that ref link down below yeah. All right Vlad let's go to Ben Ark what do you think about Binance and their troubles with the US institutions. I mean you have such a long time Bitcoin operating in this gray area regulatory wise and now it's stepping out the shadows and I think that's perhaps why more people have confidence in Bitcoin and that's bigger price going up also. And it's no longer a gray market and it's going to get regulated and then all these exchanges which were kind of operating shaded business models. There's going to be light shed on them which the house being recently and some of them will fall some of them will survive some will have to change some of them will get fined that's just to be expected I think it's just the process of stepping out the shadows and the gray market into a more. Established and which is good ultimately because it means that country I mean it kind of says the regulation stuff so it's less fun but it's good ultimately because it means if all a day specoiners an asset and it means that countries are accepting that. This thing's here to stay and they just got to figure out how to like incorporate in a way where there's not going to be shaded business something. James and Lobb I'm told that all the funds are safe who is there nothing to worry about Binance the CFTC. Well you know why did the market have a reaction to this it's because Binance is so huge you know they have a ton of Bitcoin and other crypto tokens. They have possession of they forget what the actual trading volumes are but I think it's like over half of the market right if you believe the reported trading volumes and they may be true because it seems like they drop the fees to zero fairly regularly to incentivize more people to come there. So I don't really have any opinions pro or con against how they conduct business they definitely ran it you know cowboy operation for a number of years and they somehow have survived and are trying to be more compliant now so I guess good for them. But I just I see it from the lens of systemic risk and centralization of there could be another gocks or FTX or you know other massive collapse that will happen for one of a hundred different reasons. Dan Eve they've got no fees seems like a sweet deal what do you think. Well I think they've come a long way when I think one of the reasons why they did grow so kind of exponentially is that they they played the referral game really hard like the referral system with all the influences that they gone board shelling shelling for them they they had a good policy sorry that's the wrong word they had it seemed like for what I heard they had a policy whereby they kind of encouraged how do you say. Trading that may inflate the book slightly you know massage the books as it was allegedly so that kind of made it look like you know that the markets there are always plump right whenever a coin went live and then and then they became the the the but the bit tricks of. Of 2017 in terms of like you know you got listed on the finance and therefore it's going to it's going to it's going to pump you know and so and they're also really good at leverage leveraging other communities but also I'm not i'm not shelling by us by the way I don't have any bnb but they were actually one of the first whilst all tokens had like no utility there was actually a thing that you could do with them what you got access to stuff it actually had some slight utility to whereas most of the other ship coins actually actually didn't so I think that helped their kind of ecosystem. But they've they've they're definitely in the in the crosshairs now of a lot of regulators that which is why they're kind of an international nomad company but yeah it seems like. It seems like they're going to they're going to trip up soon right there's there's there's a lot of dirt on internal conversations and they're also saying about tracing season funds they were used for trading against their own customers so it's not looking allegedly. Well this is probably so it's not looking fantastic for them and when you are such a big you know we talk about the banks right there about how the big banks they think they're infallible kind of art but by dance is like in a market where they're not so much cozy with the regulators so. They're much more likely even though they are huge they're much more likely to form be be taking down but what is I think what's kind of sad because I've read over this today is some nostalgia that the bit tricks ceasing well they're not ceasing existence altogether but in the US at least and you know that's one of the old old school exchanges where I started playing around with bit tricks in 2014. And it's coming for it's coming for they were the ones actually quite they can't they actually tried to abide by the rules as much as possible so it's sad to see companies that are actually trying to to like you know to be good not survive whereas other companies that are being literally like crazy in their operations are just ultimately getting away with. Well Dan ruined my surprise he's got all the hip news over there in England important message for bit tricks us customers like Dan says bit trex appears to be closing their US operations so moving on to the exit question. So I think that's a good question. Vlad do you think that finance will survive and continue being this kind of questionable operation or will they end up like sbf and FTX and wrecked on the rocks below and also what do you think about the bit trex announcement go ahead Vlad. Right so first of all i'm really happy that you gave me the last word because I had something else to add I think I was too neutral when it comes to finance and I commented on their business model I haven't looked at their accounting books I have no idea how they're doing in reality and how much liquidity they actually have. But back in 2019 they got hacked and they lost some Bitcoin and their CEO actually said that he wants to roll back Bitcoin to recover the funds and then the next day he came back and was like oh no I was tired and I had no idea what I was saying but i'm pretty sure that he was testing his Chinese friends to see if they agree with him to recover the coins so fuck him really so i'm happy that they're going down i'm just not. Let's work it's the government. Let's work exciting times when he went on Twitter and tried to roll back Bitcoin I remember a lot of different responses to that people were very upset. Oh yeah and what I wanted to say is that i'm not happy that it's the government that's taking them down I wish it was the free market but it seems like they performed pretty well in terms of competing on the free market and they were able to amass this huge following if you look at CZ's with 20% of the money. CZ's with tweets you're going to see that he has lots of boot liakers and people who agree with him on a regular basis even when they were under scrutiny and people were withdrawing and masses back in December there were people saying oh no we trust you we're going to sync with the ship aren't we going to get some kind of reward for sticking with Binance who the bad times and whatever. I don't know it's pretty shady but on the other hand they have been bad actors when it comes to Bitcoin and also due to their negligence thousands of KYC accounts ended up on the dark web because their KYC database got hacked a few years ago and they're doing their best to hide it with good marketing i'm pretty sure that their sponsors in lots of sports competition i've seen. Cristiano Ronaldo who is supposedly one of the greatest football players and i mean European football players of all time and he was promoting Binance it seems to be too fall but on the other hand it seems like at least in the US they're going to get some scrutiny for basically trading against their users about BitRex i don't have such strong opinions i know it used to be quite the big casino back in the US. Back in the day and it was also the best place for the troll box but i don't really have such strong opinions i feel kind of nostalgic about it and i don't know i hope they make it somehow just for the simple fact that they mean something for a few bit coiners. And Ark what do you think about Binance and now BitRex i mean i don't really trust any exchanges that they have the funds to match the amount of value the users have of the exchange because. Stuff gets hacked people make bad business decisions so being operating in the gray market the funds are safe who like rolling back blockchain nonsense back then i think it just showed how little he knew of how Bitcoin works. So i don't trust any of these exchanges and if it underscores and i think a lot of them you know will have to go into bankruptcy or we bailed out or whatever. As long as they can honor you know the amount of withdrawals which are happening any one day that's all they really care about but. On the bottom line if they can balance the books i just i just don't trust them maybe like. Cracken is what the only exchange which i would kind of trust for the rest of them yeah like Binance and BitRex and whatever else it's i just don't trust them and they've got the funds so they're not safe who. Jamison what do you think about this real world example of coin base being so regulated Binance having no regulation and both of them competing in the marketplace. Yeah it's interesting i think we can probably generally agree that Binance has been far more successful over the past cycle or so and then the open question is. Is playing playing it safe going to be better in the long term or you know will Binance be able to continue hopping around and you know perhaps its entity is sufficiently decentralized that it is nation state resistance. I mean i find the coin base situation far more interesting than Binance like what Binance has been doing is pretty straight forward use regulatory and jurisdictional arbitrage to keep the various authorities at bay you know i i don't think that's a particularly novel tactic. We've certainly seen people do that in the gambling industry over the past few decades but i'm you know coin base you're trying to do it the right way and follow the rules and ask for permission you know they've had i think a number of different business lines and opportunities that they have failed to launch because of that uncertainty and then now we're seeing. Number of organizations like bitrex just say you know what i'm out is like i don't want to even take the risk anymore so. It it seems that you know. The United States is not doing a great job trying to foster innovation and the the shitty part of all of the regulatory attacks that have been happening are that. The companies that are trying to play by the rules they're just asking for the fucking rules you know tell me the rules so that i can play by them but no instead of this you know political game where they keep asking for permission and just getting stone walled and therefore their hands are tied because you know if you. Especially if you have to talk to your lawyers and get your lawyers to sign off on business operations that you want to do the lawyers are always going to take the most conservative stance possible and so they're just going to be frozen. I think you can just see the frustration on Brian Armstrong's face because here is trying to do everything right trying to be legit do the vcs all the legit ways and you just know at home that he understands Bitcoin he was very early was before me a lot of other players he's probably got a hat at home with a party. He's got a pirate hat in it he's got it in a box and he's like if only I'd gone that way I'd be bigger than CZ I'd be the biggest pirate in the world I had to go the right way you know and and this little angel devils are having the conversation of Brian so you did the right thing you know I just think it's so great this this back and forth and I don't know how it's going to end if. If if CZ triumphs or if Brian triumphs or which way it goes Dan Eve you get the final word on this what do you think's going to happen is Binance going to survive or is it just going to be wrecked because they're you know flying too close to the sun. It's difficult because they obviously have quite a complicated company server right there they kind of the more the more that there was coming out of FTX and their company server and how crazy it was the more kind of Binance actually is pretty much alike him and there was there's a I don't know if it was recently but there was a sort of video on Twitter and it was it was someone interviewing CZ and I don't know if it was before or after but they did it in the style of that interview with sandbag and free. Like oh I'm with CZ and like oh he just drives a normal car and it's like yeah I drive a micro or something like crazy like that you know and it's just the similarities between the two really started to shine a Sunday thought maybe Binance is maybe they are very much I like but you know ultimately I think that they there's obviously the allegations that they traded against their customers but they always seemed like quite they seemed on the surface like quite transparent and. Carey I was a caring but you know they're the safe we fund things like that they were very transparent about hacks and stuff obviously there was there was the data slip up that that's happened to everyone from like you know Bitcoin talk to Sony you know the the so it's not something that's kind of isolated to so just a few crypto companies obviously it's about a ledger right ledger happened to ledger right in fact I fact my I someone let me know today that my name was on the the ledger list I'd like why should you be saying that. But it's public knowledge you cares but they seem like they're responsible so it would kind of be sad to see them to see them fall but at the same time there's there needs to be more competitions as James said there's they're like most of the mark I mean this apparently according to coin market cap they're nearly 11 billion dollars of trading volume today the next that comes close to its coin based with 1.3 then cracking with 675 million so they're literally miles apart from from the competition and there needs to be competition right. There needs to be competition to keep things kind of you know to keep everyone on their toes so whilst I I wouldn't like to see them go I think I'd like to see some of their market share slip away to other other players to see a bit more yeah just a bit more competition in the market and to reduce the impact when when they do eventually get slip up right because that's the problem is is there's such a huge impact from as James said again we're saying about the how the amount of Bitcoin they hold right the amount of money. The amount of funds they hold of all these other different companies so if they do slip big time there's going to be a massive here and where regardless of whether it's actually you know down to Bitcoin or not which obviously isn't the the rest of the world is going to see that it's a Bitcoin related thing and that's going to impact badly on Bitcoin. So I do have more on this good. Yeah I just want to add that it's unfair to compare oh my cat is choking sorry choking on for anyway it's unfair to compare the situation with ledger who only had the marketing database with the situation from Binance who actually had users holding their passports like this in a picture. This is actually called a passport by the way it's a harbor wallet nice coincidence I just grabbed the first object on my desk but yeah it's not fair to try to normalize these exchange hacks and say yeah everyone has been doing it the Bitcoin talk hack cannot be compared because all you can get there is maybe your email address and your IP addresses from which you logged it cannot possibly compare with some data that can be used by bad actors to pretend. That they're you sign up to all sorts of services and make your life a living hell with the simple fact that you key wise seeds to some entity that doesn't take good care of your data. I guess that's the comparison though isn't it's their entities which haven't taken care of user data so that the leaks are different but the general approach of not securing the user data effectively is the reason the user data was leaked so that would be the comparison. On even look at cases where it wasn't leaked but the data was sold if you look at Twitter all of the direct messages on Twitter were sold from one company to Elon Musk and while we don't know what's happened since they weren't end and encrypted for all we know Elon is browsing everyone's DMs and his engineers are they're having a great time. But I do have an update on Binance I'm told from the future that CZ and Binance are buying the assets of Virgin Galactic and that they'll be making their own rocket and CZ will escape just like a James Bond villain to the moon to the moon Binance escapes moving on checkout world crypto network dot com and the YouTube channel this week we've got some really great new interviews been went to Nostra Rica in Costa Rica and interviewed the code. He's a little founder of Twitter rabble and he's really fired up about Nostra so it's great to hear him talk about that we've got an interview with rock star Dev who helped organized Nostra Rica. Paco from run with Bitcoin who's just excited to spread the word about Bitcoin he's been running everywhere and Kirin the creator of the Nostra clients snort all of these interviews on the world crypto network for free you can watch him this week no ads sometimes maybe ads. And we also got a proof of work interview where I talked to an NFT artist three sums who makes his own baseball cards and he's going to make his own like baseball card league of NFTs and it's already going strong he's got like 1500 of them or something so far moving on to issue for Sam Bankman freed charged with offering a $40 million bribe to Chinese officials Sam Bankman freed was having trouble getting some of his money out of a Chinese cryptocurrency exchange so he thought hey. Why not just bribe them also his bail has been updated he's not allowed to watch the Super Bowl on the internet anymore there's a select group of websites he can go to things like Wikipedia dot org stuff like that he is restricted we've also heard that Sam Bankman's legal defense is being funded by a $13 million gift that he gave to his father that his father is now giving back to him isn't that great. Mark what do you think about the new updates on Sam Bankman freed the Chinese bribe and now the money all coming from perhaps allegedly the stolen money. I feel terrible because I know so little about it so unlike the worst person to go to I was hoping you wouldn't pick me first I could just piggyback off everyone else's viewpoints and sell yeah I agree with the rest of the panel because I don't know anything about I've lost touch with the sound back from the free thing. But you know the shit show continues I suppose and yeah he's more funded from you know he's a he's a from an old school rich family and he'll probably get away with it to a degree. But yeah just sorry I don't I don't have enough to contribute anything relevant so I'm sorry. Well once you're giving money to the democrats and you're giving money to the republicans why not give money to the Chinese right what's the difference. James in law what do you think about the new updates on spf. It's not surprising I mean you know I think this is what the facade of effective altruism has shown us that it's really effectively I'll be a sociopath and do whatever is best for me and then you know maybe in the future I will donate some of the proceeds of my old gotten gains to some good causes. And that should cancel out right it's you know it's very interesting from the sense that he am asked such a huge fortune that it seems he still has access to a decent amount of to amount a huge legal defense that I've been skeptical all along that he would actually see prison. But now you know with seeing just the diversity of different criminal charges you know not just for financial related stuff with the exchange itself but you know the political donations and now you know corruption and bribery I think he's actually looking at a pretty decent amount of punishment and you know his. His his huge war chest I think is only going to manage to delay the inevitable. Now this is something I've always been critical of the dread pirate Roberts for the alleged dread pirate Roberts is not having this extra money sucked away for the legal defense one would think if you were running any legal marketplace you would of course go to your attorney first and say hey here's 25 million you know in case I need any services in the future you just hold on to me this for me it's a real. Common practice and it was sad when he wasn't able to buy the best defense possible I think we'll find out as James says if this defense works at all if having an extra 10 to 13 million works and he's able to buy some freedom similar to the OJ case allegedly or if it doesn't work at all and there's just too much theft too much crime too many bribes and everything Dan Eve what do you think about the latest charge against S B F. Driving China. He's definitely racking up like it's becoming like a in GTA right like the charges like slowly boom boom but you're right the variety of them is it's definitely it's it's going to be quite a lot to avoid right like how how do you deny that you know being. Well how do you prove your innocence of in so many different areas where you seem to be cold walk I mean let's remember that it wasn't in an interview he actually even admitted that they mixed customer funds and that's pretty much a slam dunk quite initially now once you once you have already admitted that then how many other things that you could you have done and not even plead ignorance to right like oh you know I didn't realize I was doing that but when they based in in the Bahamas so you know the the bribing a bribing donating. To American good politics. It's a good. It's a good word you know it's donating it's. Sometimes it's sometimes revenue is a lot of words so it's also confusing and but yeah that it would only make sense that he's around the world you know donating to other officials and you know and lining their pockets right because that's what you do to be able to stay afloat in the country and and stay alive and not be a not be sort of taking down right is you get on the right side of people and how to do that by donating to their to their parties so yeah it's I was initially thinking when it's all it sort of came about that he's going to avoid it you know the high high flying family with the Stanford you know professor is parents and and all the people that he's obviously very well connected with not just from politics but but just from from the general family by the sounds of it and and I'm. And it seems now that he you know he he's I think he's going to get some serious time it's it's really looking like that at the moment and and you know a lot of people lost a huge amount of money maybe he might even recoup some of those funds didn't didn't FTX invest in on the shareholders of open AI they didn't donate like Elon donated to open AI before it went private or something like that i'm sure I read that FTX invested in some way. But just this this backdoring of of of money and and even wasn't in the Bahamas he let people from like the Bahamian government or something get their money out first i mean there's all sorts of crazy charges that are even after the fact that I think he's going to be hit with those will be the probably the biggest charges right stuff before that everything was uncovered. He might be able to slip away from but all the nefarious things he's done after to try and cover his tracks and hide I think those are the things that are going to be in the forefront of people's minds and the easiest things to prove to make him have some jail time some serious jail time. It's interesting you mentioned chat GPT and open AI Dan because there's an article recently it's on like the daily show or something they were talking about how judges are using chat GPT to decide sentences they're saying for this kind of. Crime how long size is sentence person and maybe they put a little back door in there where it says how long size sentence sbf and it's like sbf should be set free he should have no sentence and that would be a great benefit to that investment in open AI it would really pay off and before he go to flat I just want to say look how mean it is when the media turns on you as Jameson was saying a few months ago this guy was effective altruism and the guy was you know worshiping him in that YouTube video and he looked all fuzzy and nice. And now it's like they catch one of these mid camera freeze moments on you and he's very stern looking and of course this one the clobacan white close up with the half mustache it's devastating when they turn on you of lad what do you think about sbf and his exciting new charges bribing China and so forth. I am in shock I would have never believed this guy was playing League of Legends all day long was trying to do something good to the world was a very nice guy according to whatever CNN or wherever that report was made how could this guy bribe a foreign government it's impossible you know he was just this very altruistic young man who was trying to help his community and he tried to build. The research trading company and then build an exchange on top of that one as if there wasn't any kind of conflict of interest between Alameda and FTX but anyway how could he do something like this I'm in shock. Well and where could he fit the money in those shorts he wears t-shirt and shorts he doesn't have any bribery money. Of course not maybe he had them in his hair I can show you a few tricks if you grow your hair like this but I don't know man it seems like it keeps on piling up seriously now I was being I've gone ironic earlier but there's so much that we don't know about the way that they conducted business and I would not be surprised if. So right now what they're doing is to throw him under the bus but I'm pretty sure that he has more deep political involvement he gave money to both parties allegedly so he was he also had a pretty good defense from mainstream politicians and also from talking heads on television like Kevin O'Leary or whatever his name is. So for a while it seemed like he was untouchable and he was even I remember he was brought to some sort of event at a university and in front of students he spoke as if nothing had happened now I think it was an event by a publication I'm not sure if it was financial. New York Times had a new time at your event where it was scheduled in advance and then they went ahead and went with it even though he was charged and broken and so forth. And now they threw him under the bus they post nasty pictures of him they portray him like he has a criminal I'm pretty sure that he has lost support and he's going to go to jail but I mean he has a pretty good life now even though he cannot use a VPN to go back to his old ways he can access Wikipedia he can act that he still lives in his childhood because he is in his parents house he can play gameboy and Nintendo 64. And whatever just be a big kid for for the rest of his days pretty sure that the millions of dollars that he gave to his father is are going to buy him a very nice legal defense and he can buy himself some time to maybe finish Majora's mask because that's a pretty difficult game. He's finally got time to play the news Zelda coming out just a few months very exciting for Sam let's move on to one more we've got the exit question we're just going to talk a little bit about Matt Damon a new article says that Matt Damon did the crypto dot com ad because he was having a down year at the clean water foundation he went on TV told everyone how great Bitcoin was and other cryptos that you could buy a crypto dot com and he just did it for the water dot org. So does that make it better does that make it worse Ben are you remember all the fun we had with the crypto commercials a few years ago they're calling the Super Bowl the crypto bull what do you think about Matt Damon's latest excuse and in general how he's been nothing but attacked from Hollywood and others well I still think it was kind of a cool commercial it was kind of the top and all that but it was a cool commercial Ben what do you think. What is definitely a well produced commercial on money being spent on it because they've got too much money but is it backtracking I guess like there's evidence for this stuff that he donated all of his earnings of that year to war dog. So maybe he did do the ad for that I know that the crypto dot com ad donated like a bunch of money to war dog as well so I think that's how they groomed him into doing the ad. But they just need to do more due diligence these actors before they get behind something because he's just like an actor guy you know so this is it's a complicated industry the quote unquote crypto industry so it's very easy to back the wrong project which looks you know. On the front you look you know legitimate so it's yeah so partly for the dude like is it was just a very bad choice poor judgment but then we'll hopefully encourage other people who could have influence to have a little bit more due diligence when it comes to supporting like projects in the crypto industry. But it goes back to you know James was saying about the. No it doesn't so I was also just going to say that about some but we're freedom so time sorry but yeah the the the the the the the yes just. Purchasement of acting the whole project but if the money you to kind of look out I mean crypto crypto dot com hasn't lost anyone's money that we know of they didn't crash like FTX and I think they're still paying for the Los Angeles formerly the staple center now the crypto dot com arena so. Box all the Bitcoin companies they seem like they're they might survive yeah yeah I guess I mean it's gambling is these is back here. A gambling website for gambling buy Bitcoin there as well you could be responsible it's people's choices what they buy but I think that the way the deal was probably structured been is probably you do this first one for the water foundation and then later on because this is such a lucrative signing i'm sure he could do more commercials where you could get like a second house in Hawaii or. This is just a day's backtrack from all the you know the criticism reason why Trump is has come up publicly and said this is the the the valid reasons to why did it we can't just you know. I would like one of them just to come out and say hey I support crypto I don't care it's going to go up someday you're all a bunch of idiots i'm going to be back around again it's another time and it maybe it could be at Damon from you know goodwill hunting and all the movies that I love. But no it wasn't he just he just buried us like the other jameson what do you think of the excuse Matt Damon did the commercial for the water foundation Tom Brady did the commercial because he wanted money like is it worth better. Yeah i think it it shows that at least partially his heart was in the right place but you know i think we should look at what happens with celebrities and why have there been so many lawsuits against celebrities for promoting various things over the past cycle. You know the short version is if you're a really big name mainstream celebrity you're not even the one making these deals right you have. Teams of people who are working on behalf of your personal brand and people are coming to them and pitching them and and you know they they basically look at all of these things as a business opportunity you're selling your brand. But for something and I think the mismatch here is that they're they generally only think of what they're getting they're not necessarily thinking of what the broader impact of what they are selling or promoting is now you know it's one thing if you're if you're promoting you know. Kitchenware or you know some products that you know it's it's finite it's you know $100 a thousand dollars whatever you know the the amount of potential harm that can happen there is generally more limited but when you start promoting financial products there's basically no limit to the potential amount of harm. Because you don't know what degenerate gamblers may throw their entire life savings into something that you've pitched. I think Jameson makes a really good point there if you're selling like Gensu knives you only buy one set of knives it probably doesn't ruin your life but if you're buying Gensu knives like gambling where you keep having to get another 20 another 20 another 20 and you know you could end up losing all your money. I also think the reason this works is the same reason why propaganda works a lot of the things that we have a shortcut to thinking where it's like I don't want to bother researching something so I'll just trust what the celebrity says and I think we're going to see a lot more of this as youtubers and other minor celebrities start transferring into this kind of marketing if you look at the Mister Beast candy bars the Logan Paul prime drink sports drink water whatever it is more and more of this marketing is going to happen. Because it works people see tom Brady up there like I want to use the tom Brady FTX exchange they don't bother to learn it's in the Bahamas or where Sam gets his naturally curly hair they just want to invest. Dan Eve what do you think mad Damon did it for the water company this makes everything fine. What I think it's it's it's kind of nice that he did it for not just even selfish causes he did it for the water company that's that's kind of the thing that stands out but you know there is a bit of a pattern here right and. Just like the every every other day you hear like celebrity apologizes for X or celebrity apologizes for why whether it's something they said or something they endorsed and. Obviously they've got responsibility because they have a wide net and people that kind of look up to them and I think Jameson they're on the head right then the if it's just a you know so yeah a product small product you know people lose like $50 $100 a thousand dollars but something where they can put the whole life savings in the impact is is pretty huge but. There's you know there's there's plenty of other things that people have endorsed in you know that have gone wrong even if you look at you know big coins down what from 67000 to. Like 28 now so there's what just over 50% but you know from all time highs Amazon went down 40% 10 to 50% meta in down 40% you know all these these stocks haven't and there's not there's not I didn't really see anyone going oh you know forced to do an apology for saying oh I thought the Facebook stock was okay right because they just kind of accept it in those markets it's just what happens but where is this Bitcoin or cryptocurrency it's this stick that we have to beat people with is like. Oh they they endorse the crypto currency part they're very bad people this all sorts of so sneaky sneaky do doing some so so research on an open AI of course you know so I was just interested in some other celebrity fails but like so so. Tiger Woods endorsing general motors and so they eventually had their was it the property of the broke Cadillac that's a file for bankruptcy this all sorts of. It and have these that have happened in the past but crypto is just the one thing where people seem like you know it just seems like it's targeted a bit more right because it's still on the bad side of society it's still used for drugs and for used for kidnapping and all sorts of the crazy things that the people think it's useful without actually looking at the evidence of what it is actually useful and the reasons why it's a great good for society so. I think that people I I'm one I'm someone that always apologizes for stuff like you know bump into someone or need to bump into someone in the street I'm like oh sorry you know whatever I cut someone off I'm like I'm very sorry about that and but I think. People need to apologize less and just stand by their stuff and exactly as you're saying yeah I endorse the product you know that's that's what that's what happened it look good at the time I did my research and you know and things bad things happen but that's that's what happens in life you know. It's ultimately down to the person who's put their money their life savings in who's taken that risk so I got people into Bitcoin who put a bit more than they should have put in like but I can't be responsible for that because I was I was never specifically telling them what to put in is people make that decision themselves so I think they just needs to be a bit more personal responsibility and and I feel sorry for Matt. Damon. I don't feel sorry for it. There you go. I've done it now. I don't know if anyone I'm not apologizing but there is a person when you bumped into someone if you like you know you should do you should go and crypto.com and then fortune-famous like you would have some personal responsibility when they go and lose all their money just like gambling on shit coins. That is true. I'm not going to apologize. We want to get flasks opinion on Matt Damon but I also want to mention Larry David who managed to get paid by FTX to not endorse their product in the commercial Larry David says I'd pass I wouldn't use it so he got the money he didn't endorse them he's the true winner in all of this Vlad what do you think about Larry David and Matt Damon as well as Tom Brady the other celebrity endorsements. I mean you got a curb your enthusiasm and think about it in the entire context of the commercial with Larry David because in that one he was always being proven wrong he was laughing at the wheel he was laughing at fire he was laughing at pretty much every modern invention that was being presented to him being like it's nothing important and then at the end he says he'll pass on FTX obviously he was right on that one but the message was being presented in a way that okay he did not endorse in character or as a personality but at the same time he did participate in a commercial which endorsed FTX I guess it's a matter of nuance there but he did participate in this as for Matt Damon's commercial. I'm not entirely sure if he donated 100% of the proceedings so I'm not informed in that regard but I want to ask why is it that we learn right now that his motivation was this one and it was not made clear at the time because if it's this kind of situation it seems more like a post rationalization where you don't say what you've been up to until your underscrupity and then you come up with some virtual signaling reason which supposedly is going to make everything fine so I'm not sure if 100% of the funds went to his charity but if they did I'm going to apologize. I would have made more sense if he announced it when he took the commercial or he could just have a policy about all of my commercial money go to charity. But I do like flats new advertising idea where I could get paid by coke and I could do a whole advertising like don't drink coke coke has too many sugars and too many calories don't drink coke. I can still get paid it's like ironic advertising I could do really well. All right running out of time we're going to move on to prediction or story of the week James and Lop are you ready with a prediction or a story of the week go ahead. Prediction well this is tangentially related but I predict that we're going to find some very interesting things from what just happened with Twitter open sourcing the recommendation algorithm in particular this kind of ties in with a lot of the stuff I've been talking about recently with the sort of toxic maximalism and whatnot. I've been just perusing through some of the source code over the past few minutes and looking specifically at how Twitter is filtering out and de amplifying what it considers to be toxicity. So it very well maybe that toxic maximalism is really shooting itself in the foot when they're trying to do it on Twitter at least so maybe maybe better to be toxic on Noster. Dan Eaver you're ready with a prediction or a story of the week go ahead. Um so my story of the week is that is that I had tons of lights again which I overcame at going to hospital for the damn thing this time which is again. I'm like to bet yeah but I'm all good now. And by all the story of the week is the come the work that I'm doing right now which I'm not allowed to say what it is did really well but that's all I'm allowed to say right now. Well people love a secret so we'll just keep that story. Flag Costa you're ready with a prediction or a story of the week go ahead. My story of the week is that there was a very big discussion and Bitcoin privacy about the concept of toxic change and to which extend the change that you receive from a transaction can say a lot about you. And I think to Bad Marshall who is the French guy actually his name is T. Beaumarchal and that's how you're supposed to pronounce it I botched it earlier and I apologize for that. But he did a very good job in terms of explaining the different approaches to managing this change that you receive from transactions and how privacy while it's either isolated or else mix it and we have three examples we have joint market we have wasabi and we have samurai. And I think this concluded with a very nice Twitter spaces call which took place last night and I think that was the best Twitter spaces to which I ever listened if you're into Bitcoin privacy you got to check that out. Very cool and thanks so much to Vlad for having the best background most animated looks great man Ben are I paid 200 bucks for this. Well it was worth it man Ben are prediction or story of the week go ahead. It's pretty cool about the Twitter open sourcing the al goes like that I was speaking to one of sports rob. We just waited till Ben had his moment in the spotlight for his internet to break. So I can see Vlad Vlad you want to tell us more about your background well away for Bender reconnect. Yeah so this was made by an architect or student from Romania and what I like about it is how the spaceships have depth so you can see that some of them go behind buildings and others go in front of buildings I can look at this all day. I like it. It's cool. I like I like the chain that keeps coming but it's really dramatic and looks good. Well I don't know if Ben's going to make it back he's probably rebooting his Linux computer now. But I think Ben probably would have talked about his interview with rabble on the world crypto network and it was really exciting I didn't know rabble before but apparently he worked on Twitter and what he did was a lot of the telephony stuff so back when Twitter was based on text messages and you have a lot of things that I can't do. I did technically send them through the system he handled a lot of that complexity he was working on his own project called scuttle but which was similar to noster in it was a messaging sending type system and I was really neat in the interview he's kind of slowed his work on that and expanded his work on noster sounded like they're building somebody called noster social it might be kind of like a Facebook on noster they talked about having a telegram on noster in addition to the internet. And I'm going to have to do Twitter clones on noster so there's a lot of really exciting stuff on the world crypto network this week from nosterica thanks to Ben and that's about it we're out of time so be sure to give us a thumbs up down below push subscribe add a comment say hello in the chat and until next time.