The Bitcoin Group, the American original. For over the last ten seconds, the sharpest Satoshi, the best Bitcoin, the hardest cryptocurrency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, Dan Eave, the crypto raptor. The meeting's big coin is. Victoria Jones from Satoshi's page. How'd you do it? And I'm Thomas Hunt from the World Crypto Network. Moving on to issue one. Issue one, the PayPal stablecoin is bigger news than any Bitcoin ETF. Yes, PayPal is launching their own stablecoin and it's an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum network backed by Pactos. The stablecoin would allow PayPal users to trade in and out of a dollar backed stablecoin that will stay at one dollar. No profit for them, but lots of profit for PayPal and Pactos as people pay to change in and out of the stablecoin. Dan Eave, what do you think about the PayPal stablecoin? It seems like a very sensible move for them. They're leading innovative company when it comes to online payments. They've made a stand in and made a reputation from that. The customers, as they point out, that there's 4% I think it is for the merchant fees, which is quite a lot. They can actually bring that down by using a stablecoin. They haven't mentioned whether it's only Ethereum at the moment. They haven't mentioned whether they're going to branch out to other chains. There have been people that have pointed out that it's got a freeze and wipe function on there so they can literally just freeze your account and then wipe freeze accounts and just take your money from you. They're putting the centralization back in decentralization by doing so. They're not following the four rules of crypto, right? You're calling your keys because you can have your private keys and you can have 100 million of Pi, USD or whatever it's called, the PayPal stablecoin in there. But they can just freeze and wipe and then you may have your keys but the lock is useless because they've backdoored the smart contract. That said, it's going to be a big thing for general international remittances from PayPal perspective. They've got such a huge corner of the market. I know a lot of freelancers that I've worked with over the last couple of years insist on being paid via PayPal because it's just more difficult switching, doing international banking. PayPal is just a nice easy option for them. For a lot of other people, I also know that paid in stables who cash out via Coinbase or something else like that and then have to go to PayPal and then back to their bank. This removes a step for them because they can just get paid in Pi, USD and then go straight into their bank account. Reduce this friction for a lot of people. Of course, you've got the same issue that you have with being a centralized entity. We've seen a lot of these accounts recently and even in the UK, whether you like them or not, that he's highlighted an issue of accounts being frozen by banks and just killed just like PayPal and all sorts of done in the past, which is Nigel Farage. PayPal will still have the upper hand to be able to do that, the old freeze and wipe, which also sounds just dirty, doesn't it? Freeze and wipe. They can just freeze and wipe you. In terms of general remittances, it's going to add an extra layer for that. Reduce friction for people that are already being paid by PayPal in cryptocurrency. Also, it unleashes a bit more of an outreach to people that aren't in crypto, so they can get into crypto a bit easier. They can buy Bitcoin with PayPal as they've done for a while now. They can trade in and out of it into USD as many people like to do and tackle the bear markets and bull markets. Open to a lot of doors, but not your keys, not your coins, even. Even if they are your keys, they may not be your coins of PayPal because they can freeze and wipe. Freeze and wipe sounds like a classic PayPal feature. I don't think I know anybody that hasn't had their PayPal account frozen before, and if it goes really badly wiped. I remember when I tried to sell some Bitcoin on eBay back in the day, and of course, PayPal, the person I sent it to, they were hacked. They got the Bitcoin and the refund, and I ended up with nothing. Thanks again, PayPal. They didn't freeze my account that time, but I'm pretty old account on there. I've been doing eBay a long time. I do think it's amazing how far we've come with PayPal. Originally, they had no crypto. They said they didn't want any crypto, and even going back to the palm pilot when PayPal should have been crypto, and you could pay your friend. It just got more and more expensive, and pretty soon you'd never pay your friend. You just used it for eBay. Now, they have lots of crypto, and they're even making their own crypto. As much as people don't like PayPal, it's easy, it's convenient, and now it has its own stablecoin. You've come a long way, baby. Victoria Jones, what do you think about PayPal? Their ability to freeze and wipe and their new stablecoin? Well, they seem to be beating the central banks to it, don't they? Essentially, they've created... They're doing exactly what the central banks are trying to do, which is having their own central bank digital currency. The talk I gave recently emphasized the fact that ultimately what these entities are trying to do is overcome some of the inefficiencies that happen behind the scenes, because they do exist. I mean, our existing financial system is notoriously inefficient and expensive, and certainly something like a digital currency has the opportunity to overcome that. But of course, the huge danger with anything like this is, you know, back door, the ability to wipe it, the ability to constrain transactions, you know, there are all sorts of things that you can introduce when you have any kind of central entity introducing their own stable coin, whether it's PayPal, whether it's Apple, whether it's Facebook, whether it's the Bank of England or Fed now. So, you know, it's all much to my muchness, really. They're all kind of doing the same thing, but they leave us with the same problems with our traditional Fiat currency that we are trying to overcome with Bitcoin. So I don't think it's going to overcome the fact that, you know, a lot of these Fiat currencies are being produced. In fact, it probably exacerbates the problem because, you know, he used to say that you couldn't create a digital token. What's it, what's it is it actually backed by? Is it actually backed by British pounds or US dollars? You know, where's the, where's the paper trail to account for that? You know, I mean, it's like, number of these companies are like, well, we're going to create this, we're going to create this stable coin and it's backed by a certain amount of US dollars in the bank, but, you know, it's like all the central banks when they started with fractional reserve banking, what's the stop some of these companies to use fractional reserve tokenization? You know, and it just kind of creates more Fiat and gives us more of the same problem. So the thing is, I think the more of these companies that do it, the more people will start to figure it out. And it may well be that they use some of these stable coins for their day to day transactions, a little bit like some people, you know, keep their day to day savings still in the bank, but then they have most of their savings in Bitcoin. And I think we'll just watch it all play out. Well, that's what I find the most distressing about this is it's just locked to the dollar. So if it works properly, you won't make any profit. If you get there on day one and you're early to the PayPal coin, you're just the same as if you get there on day 90 or day 500. So there is no profit to be had here. It will not go up in value if it works properly. And if it doesn't work properly, it'll go down in value. A lot of profit for PayPal, though, potentially, you know, was it was it's tether that had a 800 million profit in the first quarter, which was in fact, in my being, it was the billions, wasn't it? It was in the billions of. So this is a huge thing for PayPal, especially to implement this with their existing, you know, existing ledger, as it were, like they're going to save a lot of money. They can also pass on that money, the savings to some of the merchants and reduce that from 4%. So there's a lot of benefits for PayPal, but yeah, for in terms of holding the dollar, you're just going to watch it depreciate. You know, stables seem to be only good for holding really short term while you're deciding when to buy Bitcoin next. And there are always stables that are linked up to these fiat currencies, whether constantly printing more and devaluating it. So it is kind of stable losses, like you said, dad, it's not linked to anything limited, like gold or Bitcoin, it's linked to an unlimited token, such as the fiat currency. For the exit question, let's move back to the headline of the article, which is better, the PayPal stablecoin, which barely moved the market at all, or a Bitcoin ETF, Dan Eve. Oh, interesting take, right? Because they're saying that the PayPal accepting Bitcoin was the, was the, with the catalyst really for the 2020 bull run, which I don't quite agree with. I think that may be contributed slightly towards it. But they make a good point in the article that there's still a lot of constraints around the, you know, buying Bitcoin in an ETF. And while that will have a positive impact on the Bitcoin market to a certain extent, because they have to, they're buying spots, they're buying the actual Bitcoin PayPal, that's going to be limited to these institutions anyway. So the general public is going to benefit a lot more. So I'm actually going with as much as I've hated PayPal for freezing like out V-bay in the day, and really stitching me up. I think it can get a lot more onboard a lot more general people into cryptocurrency into Bitcoin. So yeah, I think I think PayPal is the better one than the ETF. Victoria Jones, PayPal coin or the ETF. Oh, I think they both bit me. I'm not impressed with either of them. I mean, the thing is most people who use the PayPal stablecoin, I don't think they'll know any different compared to using, you know, then they're normal dollars. I don't, you know, most people aren't really thinking in terms of how the technology is working to know even what the difference is. It's just like this guy wants to be paid and apparently this works. So it'll work and even less people are aware of the Bitcoin ETF. You know, and most people who are interested in that are the big institutions. And I think, you know, the ETF has all sorts of issues associated with it. So, you know, I'm going to go with neither. That's my vote. Well, I'm going to stick with the ETF, although I am very tired of ETFs having talked about them for seemingly eight years, maybe 10 years now. We thought it'd be a piece of cake in the beginning, let these stock market people, retirement account people, invest their money into Bitcoin with an ETF. It's taken a lot longer. What I do like about the PayPal coin, like Dan said, they have this existing user base. I think it's around 600 million users. And they're now incentivized to advertise to them to use this stablecoin. So if they do use it in remittances, if they send it around, if they put some of their savings into the stablecoin instead of their, I don't know, PayPal savings account or something like that, it just seems like it might get a lot of use. The more they advertise it and the more and more they advertise it, the more and more they'll get fees. So PayPal is incentivized to get people to use this, whereas the ETF, depending on who it is, they might need a whole new customer base. They might never even reach these retirement people that I talk about. Like Victoria says, they might just go to the institutions, but we're going to talk about more about an ETFs in issue two Bitcoin ETF rumors. While the PayPal news didn't move the market at all, this tweet and other information about the BlackRock ETF caused the market to jump four to five percent before going right back down. As it says here, Galaxy CEO Mike Novogratz on the earnings call this morning said, it's a big, big deal because both our contracts on the Invesco side and the BlackRock side get you to think this is a question of when, not if that the outside window is probably six months, six months. And so if you're kind of in a four to six months window, if you had to pin the tail on the donkey audit, that's right. The insider, the smart money says that the BlackRock ETF will be approved. And if that's true, they're going to start buying the Bitcoin, the underlying asset now. You always wonder when the time to buy is, it's when the smart money is buying. Victoria Jones, what do you think about the news that the BlackRock ETF is almost a shoe in? When, not if? Well, when I was looking at this tweet, I always like to have a brief look at the comments and see what some smart people have to say in response. And there was a great one by E. Forrick Bob, who said, people are only willing to make large allocations into a decentralized financial system. If they can go through a centralized financial system, what are they betting on exactly? Then the fundamental value of crypto or that the price will go up, which I think was a very person and comment. I personally think the, I do not know why everyone's getting so excited about it. I mean, I've heard Michael Saylor talk about how it's great for getting institutions on board. But the thing is the way in which most of these institutions are set up are completely corrupt. And that's partly what's contributing to the corruption of our financial system. So, you know, all you're trying to do is exacerbate what's already happening and make it worse. And you're going to have one of two effects. Either they're going to use the ETF to suppress a price or the other thing they're going to do is make it skyrocket unsustainably so that you get a load of people to buy it when it's too high. And then the price will crash. So, you know, you may well have another, you know, 2017 scenario when, you know, the price rocketed, which might sound great, but most people don't sell when you get to the top because everyone's in that, oh my god, it's doing so well, it's going to go, it's going to go up forever. The only people who are going to sell at the top are going to be the smart money like the institutions. And so, you know, if they're starting to get in, it may well be that they want to play the roller coaster, but that will mean the average person is likely to lose out. And at the end of the day, we support Bitcoin, most of us, because it's meant to make, it's meant to fix the financial system and make it better. Whereas all the ETF is going to do is make the money system even more corrupt and possibly create problems with this one asset that we think could solve the problems. So, you know, from a philosophical perspective, I'm actually quite disturbed by it. And I suspect it probably will go through, but I think if it does, you know, the difference with the ETF, unlike a gold or silver ETF, you know, with a gold or silver ETF, you can't actually take the gold or silver back in your own position in your own possession. The difference with Bitcoin is that you can take it into your own possession. And so, it may well be that this is the one occasion where the institution, where the institutions think that they've got a hold of the game, but actually it ends up creating a knock on effect that could be very interesting. So, I'm watching with great interest to see how it will play out. They may be fair weather friends, but they're fair weather friends with hundreds of millions of dollars that they could invest into Bitcoin. Dan E, what do you think about the when, not if, BlackRock ETF? Well, it does seem a bit like hearsay. I mean, obviously it's no regrets and he's rubbing shoulders with giants and all that. But it kind of, it kind of sounds like he went, oh, yeah, you know, it's a mate, a mate of a mate told me X, Y and Z rather than it being rubber stamps and all that. So, I mean, not the end of the day, BlackRock's rejection rate is really low. It's like, you know, the acceptance rate is 98% or something in saying like that for for ETFs to be approved. So, and with, with not just BlackRock diving in obviously you've got Graystale, the Graystale have still got like an ongoing court case against the SEC. There's multiple spot ETF requests out there. So, there, there comes a point right where the SEC if all these biggest institutions in the world are all picking for a spot ETF. They're going to pay more a lot more attention than if it's a traditional crypto only company like Gemini or, or, or, or Graystale, etc. So, I do think it's, it's, it's when rather than if, but I think that's more because it's just obvious not because no rights is made said. It just seems pretty obvious based on this excessive of BlackRock in the past, but so just just just in apparently it was yesterday actually and so sorry to go back to PayPal because we talk about ETFs a lot right. But PayPal also announced that they're going to offer interest rewards for Bitcoin and crypto deposits, which sounds really interesting and and begs the fair old question of where's where they're going to get the yield from. So, for Bitcoin, what are you going to do with it? Where's that Bitcoin going to go? So, this could just be PayPal could end up in the realms of block fire and Celsius and all these other lending companies if they don't, if they don't have a much more stringent risk risk process. But the last thing as well on PayPal is an amazing how full circle what PayPal when you think about how PayPal became so successful. They took the ability to send, you know, this annoying sort code and account number and I ban number and all this, these numbers you have to do and having to make sure that you get the right otherwise you lose your money and they converted that into the ability to just send send money to an email address. Now they're going back to the other way and now they're going to be using big strings starting with zero X to send money around. So, it's amazing how that usability thing that made PayPal so popular is now going in reverse and and you know, but I think it's going to be very very popular. It will be interesting to see what PayPal does and what the ETF does, but now to the exit question, will the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF be approved in six months, one year or never Victoria Jones? I'll go with one year I think they're going to do it at all, they're going to drag it out as long as possible. One year just a little after the havinning Dan e to six months one year or never. It's better me I think sooner the better the reason why especially six months over one year because in six months it's it's just before the harvining and when the ETF the future ETF got approved in 2017 that basically was the top right within a few days of that ETF being approved end of 2017 that was the top and we've seen with with gold when when the gold ETF was approved back in in years ago. That that that kind of was the top of the cycle so if it sooner rather than later than I think that's better better much better for Bitcoin's board and bull run cycle after the harvining. I like Dan's everything all at once planned the ETF the havinning the all time high let's do it all next year in six months six months. Check out world crypto network dot com we've got three thousand and sixty seven videos including the new Bitcoin group approved for work episode with Thomas from electric wallet Peter Todd and Vlad Costa and more at world crypto network dot com moving on to issue three Bitcoin minor riot made millions from credits during heat wave. Yes that's right riot is one of the world's largest Bitcoin sites in Texas and they made thirteen point five million dollars in power credits they were paid for not mining. Obviously the state of Texas is very upset about this their plan to balance the power system using Bitcoin minor seems like a disaster as the Bitcoin miners have run away with the money and now just like the farmers in the United States are getting paid not to mine. Dan Eve what do you think about the incredible ability of riot miners to get paid not to work. Well I mean like the the the feedback of all the response about right mine had been paid for for downtime is that all they've been paid by the electric grid well yeah that's in that that's in their contract the electric grid signed it it's not like it's not like they're there they've they've got one over on on the grid and you know everyone's losing out on power and stuff like that this was a this was a contractually agreed because they've quite happily decided to scale down it seems like that would have dented their profits as well because it said in the first in the you know the first quarter they made 27 million or something from the mining and then 13 mean from the electric electricity downtime. Even though we've been in a kind of bit of a down a downtrend for the first the first quarter in terms of Bitcoin price and we're really just floating around the 30k in Q2. But at the end of the day there are business that pays for their power and so you know when we got what point and maybe it's just Bitcoin that we got into this thing of like discriminating against business businesses because we don't agree with why why they're using power because there's hundreds of people. There's hundreds of businesses that I think are just completely and and things that people do with their electricity that just I don't think is point is completely pointless but I'm not going to go and moan and say that you're not allowed to do that with your electricity. So yeah it's just a strange thing right they've at the end of the day they've got a deal they power down so that the grid doesn't suffer people should be commending them for that rather than than harping on about them being paid by the electric grid because this is how things work. This is also why it demonstrates why the sort of relationship that excess energy has right with the Bitcoin using excess energy and excess renewables from hydro plants etc because they have down time organized where they don't use the electricity in times that it's needed and then in the other times they use the excess electricity so I think it's a good deal for for both of the participants actually because it means that all the electricity that's being produced is not going to be a good deal for the other participants. So the product that they're being produced is being used so whilst they're being they were being paid right by by the Texas border whatever they're being paid this 13.7 million if the mining operation wasn't there at all they would have not paid millions and millions and millions to run the Bitcoin mining farm so you know people forget about that there's money that it's not a one way thing that the people like people mind people mind Bitcoin and they just take money from the grid and that's it like the money goes back the other way that's how the Bitcoin is going to be a good deal. So that's how the grid can afford to pay the money back like it's yes it's not rocket science but obviously people people are going to complain as long as Bitcoin uses energy which is going to be forever than people will complain and moan about it and and draw these ridiculous straw man arguments about about Bitcoin energy usage so I say stun. Paying people not to work sounds like I'm a rant I also didn't mind any Bitcoin in Texas can I have my 13.5 million. Victoria Jones what do you think about this bad deal Texas signed with riot mind. Well I think you know right mine is a quid's in on them it's nice work if you can get it. So yeah I mean fair enough you know they they clearly understand their business model better than Texas does and they made the most of it and made sure they set up a situation where their business wouldn't go under. So good for them good for them and Texas do you have work next time. If only they could have stretched an extension cord to Oklahoma and then they could have just switched over to the other states power getting the Texas money and still getting to mine. But yes I think it was a bad deal by Texas and it's unlikely like it's going to be hot there right it's global warming it's going to be hot all the time if this deal continues I think riot will continue to make money exit question will Texas wiggle out of the way. The deal will they try not to pay riot or will they try to cancel the deal in the future Dan E. But I suppose it all really depends on how much money is flowing the other way if if the mining company is providing a steady income for for Texas than the 13.7 million or whatever it was that they had to pay them back in the downtime might just be a drop in the ocean it costs a lot to mine Bitcoin is apparent intensive first. That's the whole point of the whole thing. So they will be paying a lot in electricity fees and the end of the day if it's not profitable for for Texas you know the power grid then they're they're going to want to change the deal or break contract or whatever I'm sure there's some sort of get out clause. But the real question is going to come when there's a there's a bull run and and and and riot have to make that awkward decision of like do we not power down our miners because Bitcoin suddenly like 150k or something crazy like that that's going to be the real. Or maybe they just in preparation for that they do that what you've said and just like you know grab a power line from Oklahoma or what would be sensible actually and I don't know if if they've done any of this or any any mining mining companies have done this is look at how to store electricity themselves for downtime might because if you've got if you can be paying for your electricity but also storing it in some way that's kind of quite efficient. And doing the whole kind of uphill uphill lake thing that pause you know you pump water up here and then it comes down something crazy like that. Then it means that they're covered for the downtime because they have some electricity being produced even when they're having to sell it back to the board so that kind of hedges against electricity downtime and there's a pump. And I remember the Texas energy grid is unique and that is to say terrible in that it is not connected to any of the other 50 states so if Texas needs more power or if Texas has excess power there's nothing they can do with it so it's likely they'll need this kind of deal with riot or someone else in the future to attempt to balance their really odd separate energy grid. Victoria Jones what do you think will Texas try to change the deal do you think right will get all the money. I think that be silly not to win they really mean I think it's the way the world when you realize you've got a bad deal you have to be negotiate not sure how the would go out of the contract that they got because right I've obviously got a good deal but you know precedent says that it'll be probably be negotiated at some point. If they need to so you know. Well and we did discuss it on this group right here and I told Texas it was a bad idea and they would come to regret it they look so bad for paying people not to work no one's ever going to understand that on the other end they might need the miners to turn it up to you know keep their energy grid stable. But this idea that they're paying them not to work because it's too hot in the summer is ridiculous we all know it's going to be too hot in the summer we all know that they were going to get this sweet sweet money. It seems only the state of Texas was in denial here moving on to issue four issue four relying on remittances and left unbanked the Philippines needs bitcoins lightning network. Other cryptocurrencies have taken off in the Philippines including the play to earn games like Axi and Finiti and even the NFTs during the NFT explosion and now they're saying that major cryptocurrencies are integrating the Bitcoin lightning network and it's time for merchants and the Philippines to do likewise the Philippines is one of the most heavily reliant on remittances that is people sending money home to the Philippines they could do so. Sheeper and more efficiently with the lightning network we've talked about the decline of western union and the rise of Bitcoin and lightning for years and years and years and now it might actually happen Victoria Jones what do you think about the possibilities of Bitcoin the Philippines and the lightning network. Yeah, absolutely I think this is what Bitcoin's been created for really isn't it you know the unbanked and the sooner you can get the lightning network operational the more it can be used in the economy for what it was designed for as a peer to peer cash system so yeah and I think I think you know you've got a lot of hard workers in these third world countries who've been denied a lot of privileges for long term. So they're going to be hard working and industrious because they'll be highly motivated I think people in the West maybe less so because they've been privileged for longer so they don't you know there's not as much for them to work for. So yeah I think you know as as the infrastructure gets rolled out it's highly motivating for people to to use it and use it in their businesses and you know once they understand its value you know i've always maintained that it'll be the business owners insisting that they only want to be paid in Bitcoin that will really start to drive adoption so yeah this is what we predicted and it's what's happening. Good for them. 10 E will we finally have a crypto country not just a beach and a dictator. Well I think it's you know at the end of the day international remittances was a was a big driver in sort of one of the reasons why I thought big one so called like back when I heard about in 2013 is that you know there was all these charges for sending money and you know i've got family abroad and stuff and just sending it said sending anything abroad was just so expensive and it still is now to a certain extent you know there's some some good banks that kind of offer you know. Less fees than than others but it's still pretty poor and I'd still rather be using Bitcoin which the fee to send you know big you know 100 grand is still the same roughly just you know to just one in one UTXO right it's the same to send 10 pounds but the end of the day. It's much better solution than going via bank and and it taking a long time and having all sorts of other issues so if lightning is going to help scale that solution then then why not. Yeah it's it's a very usable solution it's obviously i'm quite lazy so I use wallet of Satoshi but it's just such a simple thing to do you get given a QR code you scan it and then that's the money sent so for for I mean Philippines it was like 38 billion I think it said something like that of international remittances there's a lot of Filipinos that work in the in the UK. A lot of action the health system for example and everyone you know needs to send money internationally so using Bitcoin is going to be cheaper for them ultimately. But the only downside is of course that and using lightning is going to be even cheaper than that the downside of course is is that the they need on the other side they need an on ramp and an off ramp right so. It's all good being able to send someone in the Philippines you know in a village in the Philippines you know some 100,000 sats for example but they need somewhere to convert that 100,000 sats whether a business needs to accept lightning or. They need to be able to convert it into money which would probably end up being converted to the dollar or something crazy like that but it needs those on ramps and off ramps so like Victoria saying what's really going to drive it is when businesses start accepting it and all at these localized businesses accepting it so. So yeah then the day it's it's a much better solution than using the traditional banking system and if you can save a few pounds here and there on using lightning versus using main net them then why not do it especially with micro payments and one of the things that that was really the other day was because of the you know the way you to exos work on Bitcoin it's it's. And the price of Bitcoin you know people that have have dollar cost averaged with all these different like low cost dollar cost average of low low low Bitcoin values can be in a bit of a trap because the fees to spend from all these UTXOs can end up being like quite high and and and almost the value of the of the might of the transaction itself to spend that UTXO so. The lightning solves that problem as well it makes it a lot easier to stack sats especially a lower value if you're doing sort of five pounds here and there so all got all for it i'm all for it. As Andreas always said it's about the unbanked and it's not about you in the west you have mastercard and visa your banks are pretty standard your dollars pretty stable we have no idea what real currency problems are about but people sending their paycheck home with western union losing amounts to fees people with an uncertain currency driven up and downwards that's who it's really about. So it's exciting to see it's finally reaching out to the Philippines a large country heavily using remittances would be perfect for the lightning network as the article says they just need the other side they need the businesses to start to accept it they need that kind of Bitcoin beach energy we'll see if they can find it will also see if they can recover from the play to earn games as I mentioned earlier axi and finity the NFT boom was very big in the Philippines and unfortunately as we don't know. Although that thing went up and then it went down so you can only hope they weren't burned too much by the down that they would ignore the lightning network as we've said before if you're paying 30% to send money home and you could pay less than 1% instead you're obviously going to start paying less than 1% assuming that your relatives you're sending the money to can cash it out so they really do it's a chicken in an egg problem they need both sides to work. At the same time so that they could adopt the lightning network. Let's move on to issue five bonus issue Bitcoin price drops to 29.4 K as another rally is quickly snuffed out selling emerged ahead of US inflation data for July set to be released Thursday morning we've also seen the stock market the Dow Jones industrial average down 400 to 500 points and not a lot of confidence there but the Bitcoin price just can't seem to get over 30,000 dollars. Dan E what's wrong with Bitcoin why can't it go up more we've had PayPal stable coin black rock ETF when not if and still 29 K 29 K 29 K. It's well Bitcoin is the new stable coin right but is it isn't that one of the things that with with Bitcoin I'm sure I read recently maybe it was like a year ago but I'm probably I'm sure it's still sandwich relatively true that Bitcoin is is becoming actually more less and less volatile right on the that volatility index that there is as time goes on because there's a lot more plump but order books. Right you know one of the things about volatility is that especially you've got if you've got thin order books it's easy for the price to to pump and dump really really easily whereas when those order books become a lot more thick and plump volumous it becomes a lot harder for the for the price to move insane insane mass which is why we haven't seen you know in in years now so sad so sad like you know pumping for you know 60 70% in a day. Oh I missed those days I missed those Bitcoin days so yeah the volatility is moving right it's becoming it's becoming almost let's face it is becoming almost it's like boring as watching a stock now isn't it it's like a couple of percent a day or couple of percent yeah or compound couple of percent lovely but now you want to see it like just absolutely who it to like you know 50 K in a very short space of time but those days it got on it seems maybe not until the the harvony incomes in right. So we're sort of around this this 30 K level and you know it breaks it and then suddenly you see all these articles saying it broke for the 30 K wall and when it's just a number right the number tree number I mean probably there are some people that might have sell orders out there that trigger at 30 K but yeah the end of the day 30 K is the same as 31 which is the same as as 29. And it's all of these other external factors that are going to influence a combined you know that are going to get influence whether people make that decision to buy and sell Bitcoin it the good thing is though it seems like the the as the years go on there is less less of a chance for manipulation to happen because it takes a lot more money to swing Bitcoin's price in a manipulative way. And a lot more exchanges right you know back in the day when it was like five exchanges you could really buy Bitcoin on you know it was a lot easier for for for Wales to manipulate price and and bish bash bar for us now you know you'd have to synchronously do sell orders in loads of exchanges and it would be a lot more money to actually pull those sell orders off and the more that time goes on the more that's going to happen but the cool thing is that isn't there like the the least money least Bitcoin on exchanges relative to the time that's going to happen. So the supply in a long while like five year lows or something crazy like that red so that's all contributing right you know there's even though the there's less actual Bitcoin on these exchanges the value of that Bitcoin is is a lot and therefore it's becoming a lot harder to be able to manipulate the Bitcoin price so I'm quite happy floating around 30 K until you know as long as it doesn't really drop. That'd be nice to sort of flow around 30 K until the harvining and then they always say the volatility's gone and then it returns Victoria Jones going to set you up do you think that the ETFs are keeping the price low the big smart money secretly filling up their bags full of Bitcoin as the rest of us give up because the price won't move above 30 K. No, not really mean if you look if you look back in the past at Bitcoin's price history it's doing what it normally does and at this stage in the price cycle it tends to be pretty flat for a while mean if you look back at 2015 especially it's very much following that pattern. You know unlike 2019 where it kind of had a big pop in the price and I think that was partly because someone set up a Bitcoin based Ponzi scheme somewhere obscure which is which is what caused it to fluctuate like that but if it hadn't been for that it probably would have followed the pattern of 2015 which meant that it was flat for almost two years before it was then the harvining and then it took off again and so you know if it's following the pattern of 2015 we haven't had this big. So we're building a very solid base I think for when we have the harvining and then it takes off again so I think personally I think it's a promising sign I don't think the ETFs got anything to do with it. No one wants a solid base we want excitement we want it to go up up up all the time. Oh you get that next year I think this time next year watch out. This time next year Dan Eve more importantly this time next week will the price of Bitcoin be higher or lower. Are you muted to unmute so. There we go silly sausage last year I said up and I was correct by 0.48% which is very very rare because I'm definitely not on the indicator you want to follow but I think we're going to go up again I think there's there's going to be like yeah there's going to be some good news coming out about about you know more rumors of ETFs and all that which is going to plump the markets not the ETFs are amazing or anything but there's just that's going to get some retail investors excited. A mad tour is continuing Victoria will it go higher or lower next week. Oh I think the pop has just started I think it'll it'll recover and give us a little bit more drama by next week. And we have a bonus we have our online magic eight ball who last week told you to concentrate and ask again later it's been only a few days but here it is time to ask again will the price of Bitcoin be higher this time next week. Oh went away. And without a doubt without a doubt the magic eight ball says it will be higher there it is there's your proof not investment advice it's a magic eight ball we're running out of time Dan Eve do you have a prediction or a story of week go ahead. Sorry there was a dog sparking so I had to mute my prediction or story of the week shoot I'm always under prepared like Victoria could you go first because I'm stumped I just a little more time. No problem well my sort of the week is I'm working on the next article for my website and the topic is going to be Bitcoin and the South sea bubble which has been interesting topic so that means that my current newsletter which is Bitcoin and the gold standard will be behind a paywall after Sunday so you know you've been given fan notice check it out now if you want to see it otherwise you'll be paying me 500 sats next time you want to want to read it so there you go. I love that graphic of the South seas bubble newton invest a little his friends become rich newton invest more the downturn his friends exit newton is broken forever oh it's awful and I felt it many times as I try to get into something after its past like the amc stocks or the other meme stocks. Move so quickly you have to have the correct timing not just average timing alright Dan if you got a story of the week. My story of the week is not a story of the week is a prediction you know curveball I am intending to finish finish the new rats that I wrote by by and kind of put a video to it by next not by the next show that would be next Thursday but by the end of the week. And of the next weekend so yeah I'm going to finally finish it's more source. Yeah so I'm looking forward to it so hopefully I will yeah I'm going to finish that soon. My story of the week I've been laying low in Germany but it's time to go traveling again in about a week I'm going to go to Berlin and then Amsterdam and then London and then I'm going to go home so kind of familiar places it's fun to go places I've already been. There's not as much pressure to see the great museums as I've already seen them so maybe I can see some minor museums in Berlin relax in Amsterdam do some bike riding maybe try to find some pass I haven't been on which is going to be tough. I did I was awarded the 50 mile patch for riding 50 miles in Amsterdam on my bike and it would be great to top that even though I'm only there a week. And then in London I hope to see the Lion King and book of Mormon a second time which I think will go really well together is when I was watching book of Mormon the first time I was like they really hate the Lion King they are really making fun of this thing and then I just read this book Disney war and it talked about how Disney was just so thrilled with the Lion King and all the work that they put into it and how they transition some of their films like beauty and the beast and the Lion King into very successful musicals so. I would like to see that the costumes and all that kind of things so as well as the British Museum and maybe some other things in London so travel continues here on the mad tour where a day early this week will be a day early next week so thanks to joining us on this special Thursday time allowing us to have some of our Fridays free while we are traveling so be sure to give us a thumbs up down below subscribe if you haven't already leave us a comment if you're watching this. Later on hello to the live chat and until next time.