The Bitcoin Group, the American official for the last ten seconds, the sharpest sitoshis, the best bitcoins, the hardest cryptocurrency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, Josh Shagalla from thestandard.io. Yo, yo, yo, folks, welcome. Dan Eve, the crypto raptor. Bonjour, no. And perhaps joining us later, Ben Arck from LNBITS. Meanwhile, I'm Thomas Hunt from the World Crypto Network, moving on to issue one. Issue one, SEC spells out Bitcoin ETF concerns to asset managers. That's right. The SEC is pulling the football back on Bitcoin once again. They're concerned about the possible security of the Bitcoin and say that the details provided by BlackRock were not adequate. The price of Bitcoin is still up, but the ETF is endowed again. Meanwhile, Kathy Arck and Arck shares have also filed for their own ETF and fidelity and others have also filed. Josh Shagalla, what do you think? Have they pulled the football out on Bitcoin once again, or will we finally get that sweet, sweet stock market money? Well, I guess we were wrong last week, weren't we? We all said that we're going to get it. I don't know. I just think the SEC's just made up of total of nests, nonsense. And yeah, I don't know. I think it's a good thing that Bitcoin doesn't have an ETF in the US anyway, because it allows massive manipulation of the price and control of the price. Kind of like the dog wagging the tail kind of thing where the Wall Street is the dog and Bitcoin becomes the tail. No, the tail wagging the dog. You know what I'm trying to say here is just that if you have something that's much larger attached to Bitcoin, then that much larger thing can control a little bit more. So I don't really. I'm not a big fan of it anyway. I just think Bitcoin needs to do what it needs to do. It needs to make, you know, allow people to trustlessly move money around and value and be able to save. And now with all the ordinal stuff and some of the other signature stuff, maybe create MTs and maybe bring in DeFi. So we can build things up what we're building at the standard over on Bitcoin eventually. Danny if it sounds like they're saying no to Josh and he's saying, we don't need you anyway. What do you think? Well, I kind of I still I still like the kind of seal of approval that that that black rock and fidelity and hope like trying to, you know, do a Bitcoin spot ETF gives Bitcoin the fact that it's. It's for for for no coiners who don't believe in Bitcoin or think that it's like, you know, just this airy fairy magic internet money. It kind of shows that it's being taken seriously by the biggest asset managers in the world. So I think that's a good thing. But the SEC rejecting it. I mean, I'm a Josh I think they're just they're just a crazy outfit making silly silly decisions. I don't know, I think the fact that they're saying that the markets can be manipulated, but we've all seen that many markets around the world are manipulated and it's very clear that that still happens now. And the fact that you know there's Bitcoin is traded in so many different markets. It's not like in terms of exchanges, so it's not like, you know, that it would take a very coordinated attack. So it's not like in terms of the market to manipulate all the markets, right. You know, you could probably get you know some some some someone some some bad actors in certain big exchanges. But ultimately there's a lot of Bitcoin exchanges around the world. So it has to be quite a big coordinated attack. Also, the more of these larger institutions that are into Bitcoin. Whether it's sport or futures, the more manipulation, there's got to be done. So I kind of think that that argument's waning a bit that you know used to be when you could only buy Bitcoin on like, you know, Coinbase and a few others, then maybe that was a bit of an argument. But now that there's so many places where you can buy Bitcoin, I think that argument is kind of dwindling. But yeah, we'll see what what the SEC comes up with. They've rejected fidelity yet. Is it just black rocks? There's been rejected. They just want more information. There's one clarity. But I'm not sure that there's so many places to buy Bitcoin when so many still buy it through Binance, right. There's so much of the market going through Binance. But personally at this point, I'm immune to the SEC's rejections of ETF. I've had ETFs rejected so many times. I just brush it off my back and I move on to the next ETF. You know, it doesn't matter what company it is could be arc shares could be fidelity. Maybe get some Goldman Sachs in there. It doesn't matter to me. JP Morgan, you know, all the best seem to want to trade Bitcoin on the stock market and Bitcoin just doesn't want to be traded on the stock market. What can we say? Like they've had their chance. There was many times where like, oh, the ETF will come and all these workers who have their investment money will invest their retirement into Bitcoin and maybe it'll go up and they'll make a fortune. But maybe we're beyond that point now. And we're at the point like Josh is saying where yes, it is another liquidity pool that would be delicious and delightful. But maybe we don't need it and it doesn't seem like that matters or not because I don't think we're going to get it. It doesn't look like an ETF. But now exit question, Josh a golliped predict the future. Will the Bitcoin ETF be approved? Yes or no? I mean, eventually will be it'll just be that they'll be extra the lawyers in the SEC will extract so much money until they just do. And then yeah, but what I want to do what I want to hear is your best SEC voice there, Thomas. Let's see if one more there is an infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve. So they always have more to print. Dan Eve will there be a Bitcoin ETF? Yes or no? Yeah, but maybe not this year. I think the SEC's like they're on a high horse at the moment rejecting and battling coin base and battling bit tricks and battling by and so, you know, I think they're they're kind of feeling pretty good right about themselves right now. They can be like rejecting people like that that hot lady at the bar or hot man at the bar, depending on which bar or maybe not a bar at all. I don't know any bar can go or no bar. It's 2023, but they're just rejecting people and they don't care because everyone's coming up to them. They're like, hey, let me buy you a drink and the SEC's like, no thanks. No. So I think they're going to keep on rejecting because they're kind of a bit bit gitty at the moment about with their power. And once again, the Bitcoin doesn't care. Blocks keep being produced. People keep mining it. People keep trading it. It keeps having a value. All these things are happening to Bitcoin and Bitcoin doesn't care. Moving on to issue two. No Bitcoin left to buy. What's happening to Bitcoin's available supply? Yes. The overall amount of Bitcoin left to buy on exchanges is shrinking. But is this a good thing? Usually when there's a supply shock and there are no Bitcoin left to buy, the price would rise. But it is possible if there's a lack of interest. If the supply shock happens during a bear market, it actually could be negative and bad for Bitcoin. That is to say the price of Bitcoin. Dan Eve, what do you think about Bitcoin being left on exchanges? Is it a market sign or is it more people hobbling and using private wallets to hold their keys? Yes, I think it's probably a bit of both. But we've had a few big shock events recently, even especially from the lending scene with block fire and Celsius. You're really at risk. People are really at risk by keeping their coins on exchanges. Even Jesse from the crack and was saying, look, use this as an exchange but keep your coins offline. Whilst you've got CZ Binance who said something crazy, it's not safe storing your keys. You can't trust yourself or something along those lines. It's definitely becoming more evident that one of the key principles of Bitcoin is not your keys, not your coins. And by keeping your coins on the exchange, you have the third pie risk. So I think that message is spreading and getting really kind of embedded in people's minds. Also, there's like not just treasurer and ledger. There's loads of different hardware wallets now and they're each doing their own sort of bit to promote the fact that you should be holding your own coins, which is really good and really safe and healthy for the ecosystem. So maybe it's just that as we're maturing this and obviously a combination of the HODL factor, right, everyone's saying, HODL, HODL, HODL, so you've got to, you know, HODL your Bitcoin and the best way to do that is by keeping it yourself. So maybe there's all these kind of factors are ingrained in people's minds now, even when they're trying to get into Bitcoin, first of all, you know, it wasn't a minefield of advice when, you know, in 2013, 2014, all the years up to now, there's some very kind of strict information that if you're a Bitcoiner that you research when you're buying Bitcoin and there's a lot of information out that the straightaway says, look, you've got to keep your coins in your own private wallet for the, you know, for the removing the third pie risk. So yeah, I think it's a good thing. Ultimately, and obviously drying up supply means that there's less liquidity to buy means that obviously there's probably potentially a bit more volatility, right, because big sales will impact the markets a bit more big buys will also impact the market's more so big more so we might see some of those big old, big old friendly green dildos that we used to see. Well, not your keys, not your coins is a good slogan, but I prefer I lost my keys in a boating accident and it wasn't a boat. It was a yacht. Josh, Shagalla, what do you think about this Bitcoin supply shock? No Bitcoin left to buy. But it also depends is there is there is there also a shock on the other side, you know, like two people want to buy the stuff. So I would say yes, there's always always people wanting to buy it and it's no wonder that there's a supply. So there's only 21 million of these things and of course there's more with certain exchanges re-hub off the cleaning and stuff like that. Oh, good, I've been and and so yeah, it's I would say there's definitely a supply shot that can definitely be a supply shock. It's it's quite easy. So few of these things when people truly grasp how little 21 million is in terms of the you know, it's so used to bantering around the word billions. I mean billion, the word billion is so really malunderstood like it's not something that should be bantered around very often because it's such a massive number. And now trillions is being pumped out constantly like that's a normal thing to say. I mean there's not even a trillion stars like apparently, you know, it's like in the so it's just silly numbers. So yeah, of course there's a supply shock. It's 21 million. Yes, of course there are billions and billions of stars. Josh, what do you think I've heard that it's not the retail market buying this time? Do you think that could be a problem? I think it's always a retail market buying. I think that's the main buyers. I think anything like large institutions. You know, I know that that makes headlines, but I don't think they're the major buyers. I think the major buyers are small players, millions of millions of small people buying small amounts. And that's also why there's a supply shock because you know, when there's millions of millions of small people buying rather than large players, then it's better for the network to by the way. It's better for the network because these large players like Elon that come along and buy a whole crap load of it and then just dump it all when they're, you know, when they're having a bad day. It's not good. So the more the merrier. All right, Josh, let me put you on the spot here. It give you a chance to criticize Satoshi 21 million two little coins. Would you prefer 21 billion or another number? No, because the thing is it's divisible by eight decimal points. So there's so many. It's just silly that you could actually supply the entire world with one Bitcoin and it would be enough. So it would just be way, way, way, way, way more expensive. So Ben, we're talking about the possibility of a supply shock on the exchanges. There's just not enough Bitcoin to buy. What do you think is happening with the Bitcoin supply and could it be related to the happening in 43,387 blocks about 301 days, seven hours, nine minutes and 48 seconds away. Speaking up on the zaharvening, isn't it? Yeah, we've spoken about it before. It's that HODL a bedrock. We just more people tune in to Bitcoin and Bitcoin's value proposition and then they want to get involved in it. And the community of Bitcoin is just grows. And like I'm always amazed like even now, you know, we're still kind of in a bear market. You go to a conference or you go to meet up and there's just this incredible wealth of talent and people who really know what they're talking about when it comes to Bitcoin and that didn't used to be the case a few years ago, just the people are so well informed now. And there's just so many Bitcoiners and I think like Josh said, it's just regular normal people buying up Bitcoin, which is limiting the supply. It's just that the HODL a bedrock they're going to hold on to those Bitcoin. They understand the value of it. They understand its potential to make the world a better place and they want to hold on to it and they want to be part of that journey. And they're not going to sell it. You know, if it drops to a thousand dollars, they want to sell it. And it's obviously you shake out a few of those people every time it dips too much. But considering where we are now and the strength of the Bitcoin ecosystem, not Bitcoin is wrong, which actually hold I just have Bitcoin, I'm just holding them no matter what. I think it's very encouraging and in the article is said that it doesn't necessarily mean that the price would go up. If there was a limited supply, they were shorter to Bitcoin on the market, but I think that's nonsense is supply and demand, the basic rules of supply and demand, of course, the price is going to go up. And also as Josh said, you know, it's divisible, take decimal places and enlightening we have Millisats. So that's another three decimal or four decimal places. And you could go even smaller if you wanted to. So lightning could decide to, you know, use milling millisats, I suppose. And you could just infinitely keep dividing it for as much as the world needs Bitcoin. So yeah, it's it's it's it's kind of an inevitable symptom of Bitcoin success that the supply is going to be the supply on the market is going to be limited, which is because it means there's less silly traders who can splash about with it and fiddle the price and make the price go up and down and probably hopefully it means that we'll end up with a steady a price. Obviously on the upward trend, but it means we're going to have less price volatility as time rolls on. Then also while you're here, get your opinion on the SEC who said that the ETF plans were not sufficiently clear and comprehensive. So a bit of a possible roadblock for the ETFs that may have launched last week's exciting price rally. Yeah, I'm read much about that one, but these ETFs on day we celebrate a Bitcoin ETF, a proper Bitcoin ETF on the show and I'll be a good day. Someday someday moving on to the exit question, predicting the price of Bitcoin against the Bitcoin predictor ball, the greatest source of all truth in this universe. Dan Eve will the price of Bitcoin be higher or lower this time next week. I'm going with higher again. Josh should call it higher or lower higher. Ben, are higher is it all optimism on this panel? I don't break the trend. Yeah, high, high supply and demand like, yeah, people of the bits is going to go up. There's no way the ball is going to stand for this higher all around and the ball predicts. It is certain it is certain that the price of Bitcoin will be higher according to the magic Bitcoin predictor ball. Meanwhile, check out why some of those none existing Bitcoin that you can't get right. I could get those stats before the exchanges run out. Meanwhile, on this day in 2021, you could check out the Ellen Bitt's extension streamer copilot and accept tips far before all this is absent nonsense. In 2020, you could check out good morning Bitcoin and the news. The price of Bitcoin was 9,181 back then and interview with tone veys Peter Todd and Dan Eve. You could check out the understanding Malta Bitcoin conference, understanding Bitcoin with Kevin Loisack, Bitcoin's second coming and the coin base outage. In 2018, we had Bitcoin talk show Bitcoin surging 10% with your calls. 2018, the Bitcoin group number 148 who controls Bitcoin and a story about Vitalik. We had Let's Talk Sedgwick 2X with Jimmy Song and Eric Lombroso. And in 2016, the Dow hack truth and time travel on you me and Bitcoin. We had Bitcoin and all coin trading talk number 32. In 2014, finally, we had mini bits coin buzz, which seems like some kind of news website that doesn't exist anymore. I just want to say this is like the way back machine for Bitcoin, Thomas. This is just such extraordinary stuff. Well done. I think it's one of these things that's very, very valuable for the Bitcoin community just. It's amazing and fascinating and so many. I haven't even seen these ones and I'm sure they're good. And then some of these I'm in and some I'm not in and just what a great resource and shout out of course to DJ booth who helped build this website and helped us build this calendar recently. Where you can see and you can see like on the 15th of January, what shows did we do? And here, you know, we did two in 2014, one in these years and then here are all those shows right there. What a quiet DJ booth for the win. You can definitely get an interesting view of the world crypto network at worldcryptonenetwork.com for free. Moving on to issue three crypto execs offer Africans a lifeline from inflation and corruption crypto solves real world problems with banking and currencies on the continent. And isn't the casino that it can feel like sometimes in the West real world use cases for Bitcoin in Africa. Ben, what do you think about Bitcoin and Africa? Yeah, it's every time I've spoken to anyone using Bitcoin operating Bitcoin or engaging with the some of the countries in Africa like Nigeria on Bitcoin. It's always made me incredibly bullish and grateful that I get to work on this technology which is benefiting people who needs to benefit and talk about shit coins. They have some real shit coins there and price fluctuation for them is nothing. Some of the high preinflation and issues to have around inflation. No, it's it's a part of Bitcoin ecosystem which for a long time was really not really thought about like it was just people would cater to the you know to the more more developed countries with more developed economies but like it's great and it's that some someone who is maybe completely unbanked suddenly gets access to this whole world of currencies which they can trade and they can do. Commerce with and they can onboard have access to and then with the lightning stuff now they can do micro payments and they can build all these services and yeah it's it's an incredibly empowering tool and it. Just more and more I'm hearing that story coming out of Africa that is it's definitely something which is being used there and I think now more more companies are starting to cater services for that market which is which is great. And part of this article I want to highlight that was really good the guy was talking about the internet and how Africa really didn't get in on the internet revolution of the 90s but now because of the phones and the infrastructure they are in a position to get in on the crypto revolution so it is possible that we would see a worldwide awakening of people rising in their stature and their ability because of. Access to banking access to you know interest access to a place you could hold your money without having destroyed by inflation or warlords or bank haircuts or collapse of governments things like this you can extract the monetary system and whatever happens in the political system happens you still have your monetary system separated to. I want to give a shout out as well to a great project i can't remember the name of the guy who you run to school qua la dot dev and it's it's a great project and it's a bit going for Africa by African so it's it's African developers and people building services within Africa for Africans and I think it's just it's just a really inspiring project so everyone go check out that it's qua la dot dev q a l a dot dev. That sounds great then and of course this reminds me of bitcoin is kind of original vision the things we used to talk about with Andreas Antonopoulos where he would say lines that he then repeated often about how bitcoin is not just for the first world and you know bitcoin is for the developing world and it's for you know the people who need help and don't have access like Americans and other people do to a working financial and credit system that you know everyone complains about but it generally works. Dan Eve what do you think about Africa and the chance that bitcoin and especially the lightning network which allows you to send them out send around small amounts of bitcoin even save small amounts of bitcoin without using your local currency what will that do for the future what we like we said before that that look at the the a lot of it's able like that you know we're going to Bitcoin because of the fact it was like that internet the currency of the world right wasn't controlled by any particular government and it would get the unbanked on board. And and so I think it's it's great to see like even I think it was in the article says 47% of Nigerians owner interact with crypto on daily basis which is actually huge just like way more than any any Western country. So it's incredible that's that's proliferating over there and you've had like is it Kenya that has the the phone credit system so they were able to like you know use trade phone credits and if they were unbanned so you know lightning taking over and being a part of that's that's great. Obviously there's still for anyone getting on board with bitcoin there's the risk that you know the volatility so. If especially if you're someone like you know if you're if you're someone in a rural area and you're putting all of your money in bitcoin when you need it is it's on it on a on a little bear market so there's still that risk involved. But the fact that it can get everyone connected and they can send a payment you know over the other side of the world for microseps is just absolutely amazing. So I think it's a great technology and it's great to see that there's lots of like different grass roots kind of movements over there like building these different services and we're seeing like you know as as Ben was saying like you know developers like you know building their own applications to suit their own needs. Because obviously it's different from the West right you go oh yeah that'll be great for Africa and we don't really know their their particular use cases so to see. And to hear about developers locally like building things that are suit them and helping their own communities and economies it's great and it's the kind of reason why yeah I got involved is like the world money right it's like the. The can't be controlled by anyone it's accessible by anyone you can't have a bank that's rejecting you or you haven't provided enough information and you haven't put enough selfies on on your bank application to to to actually open an account you don't need an account you literally download an app. Obviously i'd be interested to hear about the best ways of kind of buying Bitcoin over there right so what they must be kind of localized exchanges where they can swap whatever local currency is for Bitcoin or maybe they use maybe they use Coinbase or something i don't know. But in that in that sense they probably need to be banged in order to get the Bitcoin so i'd like to know how the unbanked are able to get Bitcoin whilst being unbanked as well. Because i'm sure there's a huge market there to you know to remember remember the best way to get Bitcoin is to work for it yeah oboe you exchange your skills for some Bitcoin by someone else and how they discover and get the Bitcoin that's their problem right. Yeah yeah i think what one other thing is that in the article said that it said something like i said african's used to bad a government that aren't accountable and transparent. I suddenly thought to myself. With the British government in the state it is it's pretty much definitely not accountable and transparent but i probably not to the same level right because i think we've got a lot more things like regulation over here. But it's great to see innovation like you know Bitcoin being innovated over over there and not being stifled by regulation and i think there are some some countries that still. Banit in Africa so it's i think Cameron central african republic upon go on there's a three Libya is in bad way so there's quite a few but obviously that's not all of africa which is which is great. And the main thing is that it's the government's a seemingly a bit more open to building Bitcoin infrastructure as they should be because why you know rely on either the dollar or have to look to you know have a potential hyperinflation likes in bad way had. Where they were literally you know being able to burn money for warmth and maybe not because it was. Was african probably not that cold there but yeah you know you know i mean you don't want hyperinflation it's bad. But another point though there's like a huge amount of natural resources and and solar and actually there's that great project biobi is well you know he's involved in. yeah no not that the the one where he's there they. harm their helping so a lot of like little townships they just have a small hydro. station and then the they're not that efficiently sad justations they're going to say look we'll make this hydro station better. And you'll have more electricity but we're going to take half the electricity to mine Bitcoin for a few years to pay for it. And that's been really successful in rolling out some nice. Renewable mining Bitcoin mining. Well I think as Dan was saying the great part about this is that you want to get a gift for africa and you don't know what they want and it turns out you give a money. Right and everybody loves money right like they said in the highest we was like that's why they call it money. But not just you know money like a gift card or money like. For an aid or something like that actually a money system and a thing that you can use independent of your government independent of your banks and once you get a little bit involved in it it can be a savings institution away to send money away to get money from. people overseas family members Josh Chicago what do you think of Bitcoin and africa the developing world. It's like Ben said it's always been the promise and I think this is one of the reasons why. A lot of Bitcoin has got felt well kind of depressed and and and and yeah like they felt that it was unfair that the blockchain didn't scale the way that it was promised. So people like Roger Verne stuff on base layer and they didn't quite understand all the amazing stuff that's going to come with lightning network but they were sort of promised. That would scale on base layer and you would always have the the unbanked and the people living on a dollar a day being able to actually transact with the world and take part partake in the global world that we live in in finance so. It was hard I'm by the way I want to give a shout out to blockchain summit dot africa it'll be held in Ghana by a friend of mine there called Philip who's been in crypto is an OG been living in Ghana and working in Bitcoin for years and years. He's putting on that event and it's going to be amazing it's at the Ghana University of a thousand people going already it's it's going to be massive. And and so I'm very excited about that I'll probably be speaking there I have to sort out my dates because there's a bunch of stuff happening in my personal life around that day but let's see and maybe I can convince Ben down and and Thomas to come let's see. Where is it Ghana. Yeah it's in Ghana. Is that South. Yeah. Yes. What's your geography like it's west is shit my geography shit I've never been in any country in Africa so. So yeah I'm very much looking forward to it. Like Midwest. Yeah I thought it was West. Yeah. There's also Bitcoin another shout out to another great project in Africa Bitcoin a Cassie which is EKS I and that's building a bit of economy in a township South African township and that's been very successful it started by a surfer and then you just started building the spit corn and it's a circular economy like it works like they're using it you know for paying for stuff for groceries in the grocery shop and. Yeah that's another great project to take a look at what's the boss the conference called in Ghana called. It's called blockchain summit dot Africa nice. Yeah definitely try make that. Dan you have a favorite project in Africa or something you've been keeping on. I actually I actually don't know I think I think I think I'm I know I don't actually know I don't know it's a favorite project anywhere right I think it's the Bitcoin lady Alicani I think her name was and she's doing great work she's got a little bit coin center down there and I think they're teaching kids to program teaching kids the basics of Bitcoin. And also with a you know things like a solar panel generator little battery power they're providing power and thanks for their village and I don't know any details but I've heard that Chris Ellis of the world crypto network is somewhere in Africa and. So presumably doing good and doing all kinds of administration and important tasks to help people with Bitcoin as well as maybe just organizing other aspects of their life I don't know I think they put them in charge of the whole country. I hope to see them move me soon but shout out to Chris and everybody else who's doing great things for Africa and other places it might not be as rewarding as working at a startup and I think like Dan like Joshua saying the original Bitcoiners were upset with the scaling and perhaps the loss of. Focus on you know one Bitcoin one person and really spreading it out things like that but I also think that it was the startups and the alt coins and that suddenly we were more about getting smart contracts and getting dows that weren't really dows and contracts that weren't really contracts that could then be rolled back. And making tons and tons of money off of each iteration of those things whether we called them ICOs or dows or D. Fy or whatever the new phrase is and that really the money side of the world got into Bitcoin much more than the helping people side of the world in fact the helping people side the world got mad at Bitcoin because of the environmental potential. So as an isn't an interesting see one side not really engaging with it i've been talking to some people they're working on a progressive Bitcoin podcast and it's interesting to think that. It's difficult to do this and even to discuss these ideas because Bitcoin is kind of really all right wing all libertarian all like financial people all that kind of thing Josh what do you think about this that like one side is totally engaged and the other side is is not engaged to their detriment I believe. Yeah I mean Bitcoin's always been bipartisan is it's not really cared about that but it has always attracted the more libertarian like mindset because they were the ones that understood the value proposition first because it was like i don't need a state whereas a lot of left leaning people especially I mean you look you read marks if you want to go full radical left it's it's about destroying and giving all power to the central to one central bank and having you know so. So they naturally sort of head towards that but it's yeah so but I think you know but then you get other administration if you're going to say having everything in central control where you can do the levers and and you control the things Bitcoin is is leverless right we said earlier 21 million coins no adjustment you know that destroys kensianism right like the I. Mark's marks marks marks marks and marks and angles at a fabulous concept called the weathering of state which is that when you know that stuff happens then the state will become superfluous because everything would just run itself so and it's I think the libertarians were cheering this and the leftists were horrified and this horrification caused them to like take a step back into weight whereas I think the right knowing because actually yeah I'm inevitable and you have to engage as soon as possible because the machine is ongoing and like your your potential for influences getting less and less and less but it's annoying on the left side because you know what does Bitcoin do best it with a state with as a power of state so which is a marks and angles concept so really those come you should get on board stop winging. See there it is the appeal is there they just haven't found it yet but I think we're going to move on to the next issue issue for is Bitcoin growing centralized the impact of Michael. Sailors Bitcoin buying spree yes Michael sailor from micro strategy has been buying Bitcoin every chance he can get. And doing it with debt its recent purchase of 12,333 Bitcoin at an average price of 28,136 a coin reaffirms their bullish stance on crypto they now have 152 333 interesting numbers. Bitcoin acquired at an average price of 29,668 Josh Tagalog what do you think is Bitcoin centralized or perhaps in a larger issue is this a problem for Bitcoin that one company one man could control so many bits. Well effectively this is a Bitcoin ETF if you want to call of that or not I mean that's effectively what it is because you buy shares in his company and he buys Bitcoin on the balance sheet and and it goes up or down according to the price and the value. So you know I said we said it before that the more these ETFs are around the more that they can control Bitcoin. You know the good the good thing is that. We haven't seen that happen before in the early days there's always been kind of whales in Bitcoin and it's actually become there's been more and more wallets created over time not less and less. Of course you have these whales but you know like in the early days we had 50 to 100 people with wallets and then you had 200 people and then you had 2000 people and so and the wider the amount of people there is the less each wallet has in it. But that spread becomes wider of course you get the oddball like Michael sailor but I think he'll be laughing all the way to the bank in this next bull run the problem is he could potentially end any bull run that comes along by slowly DC out if he doesn't do that properly by by dumping on a on a whim because his shareholders freak out and go don't know Michael. They might he might you know pick up that phone and actually do that dumping so yeah it's better to obviously to have many more stakeholders than rather than than just one one you know few massive whales but. The could be the same for massive exchanges but yeah i'm quite surprised that you get hold of so many because apparently the article said there's no Bitcoin to sell. And are the article says that Bitcoin is centralized to all the transactions go through sailor does he get a say or vote over who I can say send money to. It's also not it's not Michael sailor's Bitcoin is so it's micro strategy's Bitcoin so it's not his his own Bitcoin but as a percentage of that bad is still under 1% so the Gemini brothers and 1% at one point and I think they probably spent it and that's the point like you spend your Bitcoin it's finite you can't the ultimate. Point behind Bitcoin is you can't your little cabal of inside is can't create more of the stuff so everyone has a price is some point he will sell the Bitcoin and I'm not make its way back into the ecosystem and you know there's this idea that these these. This I mean this idea is kind of fade out but there was this idea that these huge whales who were just always control Bitcoin because they have all the Bitcoin from the beginning and but they spent all. Like we know we know these whales that we met them we know who they are like these people who had thousands hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin and they spend them and now they have a modest you know stash of Bitcoin and that's what will happen eventually to sailor but yeah it's going to be laughing all the way to the bank of course it's a good play. It's interesting to think that someday in the future everyone will own bitcoins that were once owned like by Michael sailor the same way that in Washington DC all the bills were covered with cocaine. It'll just be a little trace element of sailor in every wallet Dan even what do you think is it bad for Bitcoin is he like Darth Vader he's going to come in here I own all the coins like Bitcoin is mine now. Yeah I think it's I think it's I think it's with the rest of the panel it's not as bad as it's sort of being made out it's not just sailor it's not you know I'm assuming it's likely it's not just him that holds the keys right for the whole of micro strategy's holding rights holdings right so it's not going to be. You also very very special yard yeah it's unsinkable on a very special treasor it might be cocktail tannic but it's been said it's still less than 1% so of the of current supply it's 0.78% of it you know final supply of 21 million is 0.73% and obviously that's still a reasonable amount right for one entity to control that amount of Bitcoin but I don't know how much finance Bitcoin finances got but I'm sure it's probably quite a lot of Bitcoin right now and there could be all sorts of stuff going on there same as these other exchanges that have got consolidated Bitcoin so it's naturally just going to even out over over time because yeah and I think it's going to be a lot of money. As I think I was just said you know everyone has their price right they're going to they're going to sell out at some point they won't be holding it forever so it's just going to generally even out there's going to be shareholder pressure there'll be you know there'll be just times they want to actually cash out maybe give some dividends something crazy like that to the shareholders so it will pitch around over time but ultimately I don't think that number's going to grow you know such a huge amount especially if Bitcoin does pump right. Are they going to be buying more Bitcoin and more and more Bitcoin as when it's 60,000 when it's $100,000 or are they going to be you know just keeping holding their bags right now and obviously there's going to be other institutions that want to buy and we've said that the exchanges are kind of dried up at the moment but I'm sure a lot of these trades are happening especially the high volume trades on high high amount trades they're going to be personal like you know single holders or you know there'll be maybe multi-seg holders that don't want to actually put their coins on an exchange because they don't trust them anyway so there'll be people buying and selling Bitcoin behind that we don't even know there could be multiple people the thing is about Bitcoin it's a it's a transparent blockchain there could be multiple people who still own more than 1% right now and obviously the most the most obvious one is Satoshi coins which is what a million out of the 21 million so and because we can't we you know we can do all sorts of chain analysis but we don't know that Josh isn't sat on 500,000 Bitcoin right now so or Ben hasn't got 750,000 Bitcoin just you know in his little and his little offline wallet so yeah I mean that's the kind of glory about it that you can be you know anonymous to a certain level what's interesting about this is that it's a very public company that they assets are very widely known that he shouts about every time that they they buy or acquire Bitcoin there's obviously an argument at the moment as to people going he didn't buy it he acquired it because it was via debt and blah blah blah blah blah but ultimately they have that amount of Bitcoin so it's kind of the lesser of T Rebels right would you would you want to you know is it better to know when someone's going to buy Bitcoin and then you know when someone's got 150,000 Bitcoin and it's a company that has all sorts of procedures and stuff around it or is it is it better to you know not know that that some random guy has got 150,000 Bitcoin or girl all they has got an alien has got 150,000 Bitcoin and they can just dump it any time on those exchanges and cause chaos and be like fuck everyone haha so I don't know I think yeah it's it's it's kind of a good thing that he's publicly advertising you know publicizing it so much because there is going to be under a lot of eyes right at least everyone knows about they can monitor it they can sort of see where that Bitcoin is moving and and yeah and the market has a bit of an opportunity to react to it. Well then I have spoke to the exchanges and while they are short on supply none of them are drawing up they are youthful and full of vigor and just delightful young exchanges excited about the future but I love micro strategy I love the name of it and I love the idea that he's using debt to buy Bitcoin if I was a big Wall Street guy or Silicon Valley guy with all the success under my belt and I could generate hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in loan that I can. I could use to buy Bitcoin that's exactly what I would do and then if I could name it micro strategy which seems just like like micro fallace or just like a very simple plan I would do that as well and if it succeeds what a note in the history books that micro strategy with such a simple strategy by buying Bitcoin succeeded in the future like if you look at this long term in your hard core Bitcoin or you believe in this thing then you say what he's doing is by buying taking on the debt he's blowing up. Bitcoin bubble right he's saying this is how much wealth we can store in Bitcoin and every time someone does this from the traditional world. The Bitcoin bubble keeps getting bigger and they keep getting less Bitcoin for their wealth for their debt so in the same way that we've always wanted to see the gold market shift into Bitcoin sailor by taking just a little bit of the VC debt market and putting it into Bitcoin shows us an example of what could be and if we see several other institutions take sailors approach blow up their own little Bitcoin bubble and then the Bitcoin gets bigger and bigger this is how we see things like a million dollars of coin and that we talk about all the time we're like it could be a million dollars when it's going to have to be several of these wealth bubbles all then not just buying it selling it freaking out like Tesla but buying it holding it long with the same strategy as sailor if the banks will adopt it Josh the goal what do you think? And the interesting thing is for those that don't know micro strategy was there during the dot com bubble as well like they they've been around for years and years they've got an old super bowl ad from back in the day when pets dot com was out and stuff. And and so they've seen bubbles you know Michael sailor understands bubbles and understands the risk of bubbles. Especially the tech world and so if Michael sailor is buying right now I think it's a pretty good. It's a pretty good signal to the market to say this guy's buying up he understands bubbles if he if you know let's take let's think he truly understands a bubble and he's doing that well he obviously doesn't think this is a bubble right now. And this is the classic example in the chance to quote heist again where you know he's trying to be clever is I try to think of what someone smarter than myself would do and then I do that and it seems like sailor and micro strategy the ultimate example of like when you're looking backwards and you're like when did the big big money get into Bitcoin when did I miss my absolute last chance to get on the Bitcoin bus. And it seems like when the sailor guy keeps borrowing and they just keeps pushing the entire stack of chips towards a table like borrowing another giant stack pushing them towards the center of the table. And if you just stay on the sidelines doing this like I don't know it seems like a massive bull signal to me but it also blends into the exit question. Who is better or worse for Bitcoin Michael sailor or CZ and I want to keep in mind that one of these two tweets banal Bitcoin quotes with AI generated art all the time to a wacky clapping audience Dan Eve which one is better or worse for Bitcoin CZ or Michael sailor. I think that's that's really difficult actually. I mean well I think okay so the going on the Bitcoin only starts why sailor is pretty much Bitcoin only and whereas you know by and it's a share coin casino and share coin casino is a fun like obviously you can you know you can come out and you've and the casino and you've lost a lost a few pounds but at the same time you've had fun. And so some people don't mind is it going casinos and but I think ultimately right it's it's got to be it's got to be finance because purely because in terms of risk right. There's a lot more that can happen with with with finance I think then then can with micro strategy and I know that obviously micro strategy got what point seven three percent of the supply right now. But the current risk is is I think a lot a lot greater finance going down in it in a you know burning flame scenario is going to scare a lot of investors off whereas I don't think you know you know sailor would be able to sell all the Bitcoin if you wanted to you know in a short space of time and even if you did there's probably be loads of silent buyers that would want to like absolutely lap it up. Whereas by and it's going to buy and it's going down would send ripples throughout the ecosystem but more importantly even though it is a share coin casino it would scare off a bunch of people that otherwise would have been into Bitcoin but they're like oh I don't know this finance thing I'm not going to get into it. Just like we've seen before with FTX and all the other kind of crazy exchanges whenever they go down everyone kind of gets wet wet feet. We're feet cold feet that's it about maybe cold and wet feet about buying Bitcoin because they're scared about where to buy it from and they could get started this that the other so yeah I think CZ I think is probably the the bigger big a folder of the wall. It does look really bad when a casino goes out of business it's a real Taj Mahal situation Josh Jagala who's better or worse for Bitcoin Michael sailor with his ability to sell everything all at one time to buy the New York Yankees or CZ who's running exchange that's safe who but only exists on his laptop with no home country. I think CZ is better I know that's going to be controversial but I think he's better because he allows thousands thousands of people to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and and he's he up to now he's he's been a good actor like he he's he's played the the Bitcoin game of sort of not knowing where and when he's he's played the regulatory arbitrage game pretty well sure you can have people like Brian Armstrong who's gone fool I'm here I'm I'm base here I've got everything here and I'm going to play ball with all the regulators and then get like slapped in the face every week by a regulator. He's he's managed to hold his ground CZ and feed Bitcoin whereas Michael sailor he goes on does all the talking points that we've talked about for many years takes credit for it all buys up Bitcoin for you know on behalf of his rich fans he car does not live with parents yeah yeah that's right and and you know he's he's a relatively late comma but I don't want to bag on the guy he's he's a cool guy he says cool stuff he's right into it good on him but you know I think he should give props to some of the quotes that he gives to some of us old schoolers who he directly he is and repeats and never goes wow what a genius genius to him you know. I wish we'd had Michael sailor early on the micro strategies is so clear and especially like you're saying Josh it is kind of like an ETF but again it's an ETF that comes to late it's the same way that the TV gives you the information when it's time to buy Bitcoin they don't put the price on the screen because the prices low and you never want to buy Bitcoin when it's so low you're so stupid but then when the price is high the prices on the the screen, they're showing you the stories and the same way that early on, if you'd wanted to invest in micro strategy, it would have been called pirate at 40. And the guy was running a legit straight up Ponzi scheme where you take the new money and pay off the old money. You take the new money, but again, if pirate at 40 had just been Michael Saylor and it had some serious financial backing where he could have afford to just hold the coins and in a secure manner, which were many ifs down the road here, it's a similar plan. It's not that different. Ben Arck, it's time to choose Saylor or CZ, the board is split so far one to one. If Michael Saylor was here earlier, he wouldn't have any quotes, like Josh said, because he needs other people to come up with the juicy quotes. And then it would just be, it would just be all the little info quotes of Bitcoin is whatever you want to put in there, just some big word. Bitcoin is energy, Bitcoin is light, Bitcoin is value, Bitcoin is, I don't know if I can whatever, like all glazed over, staring right into your soul, Bitcoin is energy. Yeah, CZ, I think CZ is building stuff and maybe the micro strategy is just the world's greatest pump and dump. I suppose he would need to keep the price up to make profits. So maybe he's not a bad micro strategy, but maybe that's the micro strategy. He's just big pump and dump and he's big pump and dump. But yeah, don't add to them too much because he just reached the masses with those quotes, but yeah, Josh is dead right there. He's a lot of those quotes taken from others. They do have news from the future that the same size briefcase that was used to carry the Bitcoin out of El Salvador is the same size briefcase that was used to carry the Bitcoin out of micro strategy. So yes, it could happen at any time and it could be any sized briefcase, even as small as a treasurer or even a memorized key, a brainwashed. But the answer is Josh got it earlier. It is CZ. He's the Steve Jobs of crypto. He's better than Brian better than BTC dash E better than Big Verne and Cripsy and any others before as Steve Jobs said, why join the Navy when you could be a pirate and this whole time CZ has been allegedly pretending to be respectable. I think he's been a pirate underneath all along with his brilliance of my exchange has no home. Therefore, why should we pay any taxes, etc, etc. Which is a great legal argument. Just as soon as you've got enough money for tons of fancy lawyers who would love to debate this all day in court. CZ is more interesting than Sailor who like we said just seems to quote generic Bitcoin quotes from the past and have his own kind of insular conferences with his insular friends almost similar to made off. You have to be on a special list to hang out with Sailor. You're not on that list. But running out of time, go ahead, Dan. I was going to say that the funny thing is about CZ though, right? Is that so he has led this digital nomad life or company digital nomad and like, you know, back in the day, everyone would have been like, yeah, what a hero like escaping regulation like, oh, we'll get him next time. But because obviously he takes shit coins, a lot of them, the maxies are like, come regulate his gut him. Yeah, you get him. Yeah, you get him. Yeah. Whoa, you get him now you regulate his nasty man with a sheet going to see no. It's just so funny how the tides turn, right? But yeah, he's he would have been like a hero like years ago of like being escaping them like, you know, like an Indian Jones of the of the Bitcoin world, just like, you know, swinging away on a vine away from the road. But I do love that CZ runs a Bitcoin and like, Dan saying a shit coin exchange. But to do so, he has to move around to be secret in all these things. Dread pirate Robert Roberts allegedly runs the Silk Road, a drug market exchange. Azen one place hardly moves around has no funding, complete collapse found in a library in San Francisco. So it's an interesting comparison. Josh, did you have more on this? Not, not. Absolutely. We're going to move on to predictions or story of the week. That's right. We're going to Dan Eve straight up for a prediction or a story of the week. Go ahead Dan. Well, I'm going to I'm going to say story of the week. I might, the non non crypt I was that I turned that I went, I went to my, my parents and I was meant to like take the kids to some sort of charity event. They're like it, you know, there was free sandwiches. I like had a long day, we took the kids to the beach and my dad. And I was like looking forward to these sandwiches and walked through this golf club where they were we'd gone to for this charity thing. And I had an early 40th birthday, like six months early party arranged, which was really cool. And like, yeah, loads of was it was really, it was like shocked the hell out of me. But, and that's my story of the week. It was just really lovely. So yeah, my girlfriend organized it and got loads of different people from crypto to uni to old workplaces and stuff like that. So yeah, that was, that was, that was pretty cool. Hang on, six months early birthday. Yeah, well, my birthday is on Christmas day. And I'm always mowning that I never do anything like, you know, always go to people's birthday things for a meal, but I can't do anything on mine. We, we, so we did a thing called, like for a long time, I said, did a thing. We still do it now. It's called Dan Mistay. So after like eight o'clock on Christmas day, it becomes Dan Mistay. And so people leave their families. They leave all the people like the oldies, like falling asleep after the, after the Christmas meal. And they come right knees up at my house. So we just been cool, right? But obviously, I still have a bit of a grumble. I'm like, oh, you know, going just, you know, going to set everyone's birthday, but I don't get to go to like my own birthday. I just kind of, you know, it's like, so it was really lovely to see these kind of people. So that was, yeah, that was my story. Very cool. Yeah, just especially completely out of blue. I was like, what the, the worst thing was, right? That I'd walk right up a hill from like my parents. So I had like, you know, one kid in the prime and the other one who like was just walking along, but he was helping me push it, but he wasn't pushing it. He was like more holding on to the ground. Anyway, so go out to the hill. Like I was all sweaty. Like I'd, I'd, I'd like, you know, I was really like out of breath. I was getting all light headed. And as I walked through, as I started looking through the, right, this, this thing, I thought I saw my sister's reflection. I was like, fuck, I go, God, I'm, you know, I must have pardon me. I must have like part, I'm near the passing out. I'm seeing things my sister's in Bournemouth tight or something. She said, and when obviously the doors opened, I saw all these people throughout my life. And I thought, I'm dead. Bullocks. I literally must have died going up the hill. I go, oh, I go on. Oh, this is what the afterlife is like that scene on Titanic, where's the walking? There's like everyone. And I was like, oh, great. This is it. I'm dead. That must have, it must have been a really taxing walk up the hill. But fortunately, I wasn't dead. And it was a surprise by it. That's amazing, Dan. What a great start. I was worried you're going to drop the baby carriage and it would roll down the hill. And I was like, it was a great party. But the baby got five stitches. I know happy, happy unbirthday, Dan. That's great. You had a birthday in June. Very cool stuff. Josh, you already have a prediction or a story of the week. Go ahead. No, I mean, prediction was I was going to go give a talk at Eath Barcelona. But now co-founder Anna Vodess is going instead of me. And I'm going to, you know, sit this one out. But go to Eath Barcelona. It's going to be a great conference. And yeah, check it out. It's a shame, Josh. Barcelona is wonderful. Wonderful place. Yeah, you're missing it. I'm just too busy, too busy building product. Ben, are a prediction or a story of the week go ahead? Not really a story of the week is being back on the show because I've just been so busy the past month. I've gone to the Oslo Freedom Forum. And I went to Zurich for a workshop. And I went to Prague as well to BTC Prague. So it was pretty exhausting stuff to all that. But happy birthday, Dan. That's amazing. But yeah, no, so just happy to be in one place and have time to finally get back on the show. And it's great to be back. It's good to have you back. That's great. Ben sounds like some good travels. Excellent times. Good to be out and about again. Just want to close the show. Remind everyone of James Brown is fantastic song, The Boss. As he said, paid the cost to be the boss. Paved the cost to be the boss. I paid the cost to be the boss. Look at me. You know what you see? You see a bad mother. What a song. So check out James Brown and trying to listen to more James Brown spread the word about the greatness of James Brown. So thanks everybody for joining us. Give us a thumbs up down below. Add a comment afterwards. We do read your comments. A later on week. We're going to check out the chat after the show. And everybody have a good America day out here. It's the 4th of July weekend in America. That means fireworks, mainly illegal coming in the 4 directions around my house, which means the yearly tradition is to sit out there with the hose and spray down the roof so there's not a fire because whether they're illegal or not, people love fireworks and they're getting bigger and bigger and bigger the amount of fireworks you can buy at home. And some of them go straight up into the sky and look beautiful in the rest. Sideways into people houses, massive fires and their hands explode. So the rest of it, hot dogs, hamburgers, barbecues, America day, everyone celebrating the 4th of July. So thanks for joining us. And until next time, bye.