The Bitcoin Group, the American original. For over the last ten years, the Sharper's Citosis, the best Bitcoin's, the hardest crypto currency talk. We'd like to welcome our panelists, Ben Arck from LNBITS. Hello everybody, good evening. And I'm Thomas Hunt from the World Crypto Network, moving on to issue one. The price of Bitcoin is $86,694. That's $1 for $1,154. Citosis just on the wrong side of the 1,000 Citosis barrier. That's down 3-down 3-down percent in the last 24 hours. With a high of 91,454. And a low of 80,000. $876. With a volume of 1,358 Bitcoin's changing hands. Yes, the Bitcoin strategic reserve is here. Trump signs order to establish strategic Bitcoin reserve. But it might not be what you want. Let's watch Trump sign the order. Here it is from Twitter. Today we're signing. This is very historic and executive order establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve. And digital assets stockpile. This is a promise that you made throughout the campaign. And today we're keeping that promise. The reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoin that the federal government already owns. So won't cost taxpayers a dime. This is like a digital Fort Knox for digital gold. And premature sales of Bitcoin over the past years, cost American taxpayers over $17 billion in loss value. And we're going to have a long-term strategy. Now we do. This is something you believe in 100 percent. And all the community plays in it. Very good. And they made the promise, right? Absolutely. Either they're on a side, but. He really has to struggle to write his name in this one. You can tell he's just all these kind of wiggles. Is that what you believe in this? Okay. Okay. Fuck. So there it is. The strategic Bitcoin reserve. Ben Arck, what do you think? First thoughts. It's here. Promise is made. Promise is kept. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he was reluctant that wasn't he towards the end. He's like, well, you said this is a good idea. If I sign this thing, signing it. This is part of a series of executive orders where Trump has signed them. And he doesn't know what he's signing. Yeah. Never happened even once under the Biden administration. People would have lost their freaking minds. They were like, the president just signs things. And they've been televising it since the beginning. So it's normalized now that you tell the president, this is an order for us to leave the world health organization. It might cause chaos for medicine, but we'll save $200,000. He's like, oh, that's nice. And this is an order to. He's got to use to signing the executive order. Yesterday. I like the way they used to do it. But yesterday he banned a law firm. He signed a very specific order. I know I, I, I, I, I, I brick. Is no longer allowed to do business before the federal court. I saw, I saw that one. And I thought that's not good when you start attacking the legal apparatus of your country, particularly, you know, if it's just a law for law firm, which was with acting within the law. To trying to bring a case of against it. Let's not get to, let's not get too political. I told myself, I don't know. Well, we kind of have to, but first let's break down the reserve here. Ben, the number one, what is it not? It is not buying tons of Bitcoin. Everyone thought that this strategic crypto reserve relieved to lots of Bitcoin buying, which would then support the market. Initially, even just as early as three or four days ago, when Trump announced this with his tweets, he announced that they're by Cardano, Solana, Ripple, might have been some others. I don't think Trump coin was in there. And then he tweeted later, of course, Bitcoin and Ethereum would be included. But things pretty calculated. As other coins went up 30%, Bitcoin, Ethereum, 5 to 10%. All of them losing it a few days later with the uncertainty over the tariff announcements. And now this is the supposedly a thing to just keep the seized Bitcoin. Now, our mind are for everyone on the seized Bitcoin. If Ben's reticent, I'll go first. I'm ready on this one. Go for it. I would like to, before you start, I would like to say, well, when I started working with you on this show, how many years ago it was, could you imagine this half in this conversation? Really. I mean, it is incredible the journey we've made where we were talking about some exchange in some random part of the world. Which was hacked and lost a few coins. And that was like the new cycle for Bitcoin for the next couple of weeks or a month of that period. And now look at what we're talking about. It's really quite incredible. Well, I remember when the story of the day was like some sandwich shop in Hungary, except the spit coin. And we'd be like, sandwich shop, you got to go here. Is anybody near here? And no one ever was. But, you know, five people would shop there and that'd be it. But on this one, first of all, it's this bizarre idea again that they're going to keep the Bitcoin that's been seized. So a crime has been committed. Bitcoin has been seized by the government. And now, allegedly, because of this order, they're going to redirect those funds. Now, previously, historically, what they would do is if this was taken from someone, like if someone robbed a bunch of jewelry, they would take back the jewelry and they would sell it and give the proceeds back to the victims. They'd be like, oh, there's for all the victims, victims restoration fund, or they would try to resell it. Those kind of things. It wouldn't be collected like the drug dealers boats or the drug dealers, moneys, the drug dealers watches. Any of these things one could say we need a strategic art reserve. The United States has stalled a bunch of art since 1960. And we could have just held that art. The same thing for land, although the United States does own a lot of land. So that is an interesting one. But it just seems very bizarre and kind of cherry pick to do this one. It's been covered incredibly negatively in the press just to remind you guys of the outside world. I know we like to stay in the crypto bugle of the outside world, the same world that hated the Ross Ulbrich being freed. They also hated this, even though it's not even what you want. They see right through and they say, oh, this is a way to provide ex liquidity. They think that world liberty and other Trump affiliated organizations have been buying lots of these coins, stocking up. Oh, my mom broke again. This is a bad day for a microphone. And they can see all through that. And there's hundreds of articles. I could hardly find any other articles for these shows except articles about this Bitcoin reserve that isn't. And I mean, as far as the things I'm grateful for, I'm grateful that it doesn't have any other cryptos in it for now, although they're having their crypto summit. I don't know if they're going to change their mind on that. Ben, Ark, what do you think I've talked a lot about the crypto reserve? See what you think and check out the chat as well. Yeah, I mean, so they're talking about using the Bitcoin which they own, which like you say is Bitcoin, which has been seized. The Bit for the next hack and whatever else. And these are the people's bitcoins, which at some point should be returned to them as opposed to just having it, you know, for your Bitcoin reserve. He did seem hesitant like he was fulfilling a promise he'd made, which he didn't really want to fulfill. There was part of me. And if they're in that in that in that. You know Bitcoin reserve, they need to go through Congress that what you're saying here, Ben, is if we have to put something in to have a Bitcoin reserve of value. And even though you're the government and you control money printing in reality, you still have to pass bills to get money printing. Well, there was there was. So they're trying to sidestep this by keeping stolen property. It's like stuff from the lost and found bin. Oh, we'll be keeping from now on. Yeah, I mean, the part the part of it which I did like was his hesitance to sign the bill because Bitcoin ultimately is there to attack us, the Hione me. And that will be an overall good thing. And I think, although he knows he's going to fulfill that promise, because he made that promise to a lot of people. They're doing it in the sort of least satisfactory way possible, which is just by keeping other Bitcoin as Bitcoin and not actually building a Bitcoin strategic reserve. You can tell by the way it's impacted the price, which it hasn't really impacted the price at the market understands the reality of what this Bitcoin reserve actually is. And in a way, it's like kind of the worst possible scenario for the price, but anything with Bitcoin, when you get that trojan behind enemy lines, it is a good thing. Like I understand that they're stealing somebody else's coins, but the very fact that they now have publicly acknowledged that they have a Bitcoin reserve means that other countries may follow suit other countries might start thinking about accumulating Bitcoin. Maybe they'll think of other ways in which they can pump their Bitcoin. I mean, with the coins which they have, they'll see the price of it go up. And then they'll be like, well, how else can we accumulate some Bitcoin? And there's this slim possibility that maybe they start my accepting, I don't know, tax payments in Bitcoin. And they might start to try and build their stack that way because they can't just directly go into the market and start buying Bitcoin. But I think ultimately it's a theft. It's a very public theft. And the way in which the market is reacted to it is it understands that the market seems to be saying that it doesn't think this is going to be the thing which is pumpkin a pump Bitcoin. I was quite amazed that the price didn't go up off the back of it. And as you know, in the last show we did, I did predict that the price was going to go lower that people would realize that Trump doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to Bitcoin. And yeah, the market's pretty wise. But I mean, it's a Bitcoin has a huge market cap now. So to actually move the price should take a lot. And I think that partly the pump we've had has been based off the back of the the FOMO and the new cycle. Of just the president being in power who you made that promise that they would build this Bitcoin strategic reserve. And then we've got kind of like probably the worst possible version of it. But the silver lining is that he was reluctantly signing that executive or he didn't like signing it. And if he had a choice, he wouldn't he wouldn't be signing. He'd be like, no, I'm not going to sign it. But I've made the promise I have to sign it. And that's what fills me with a little bit of hope that he's aware of how powerful Bitcoin is when it comes to flattening the power dynamic of reserve currencies across the world. Bitcoin is a lay political reserve currency is Bitcoin's ultimate power like an apolitical way of countries being able to do it. And if you have a country with currency is the world reserve currency that's very dangerous as we saw with as we've seen with the US and you know, the the the the brits when they had the the British pound as the world reserve currency we they get up to all sorts of shenanigans. Yeah, I mean, it's it's an interesting time for Bitcoin. As I said, we've come a long way, Thomas. I missed that certain with shopping hungry. Oh, it's so hard to say that there's there's any hope there because so much of this breaks the whole idea of the American system. The president isn't so supposed to be just transactional where you pay him and you get what you ordered out of him. He's supposed to do what's right for the country that's supposed to be part of the calculus. We don't see that here. We also see I mean, I hate to say it, Thomas, but your country's very different now. So the rules have changed my boy. You're not going to King King Donald. It's a dictatorship. You have to get used to it. Well, they paid they paid and they got their reserve though, but it's it's similar to everything else. They get this cursive reserve. It's that monkey pause wish where yes, you get the powers you want, but it comes with crippling horrible deficiencies. Just like this, there's no path to expand the reserve. There's no plans for a congressional reserve. And I suppose it's just going to be a talking point where they quote again again. They're like, oh, we made this much on the reserve. But we could have made this much on the Rolex watch reserve or the Monet painting reserve. But yes, been outside of the show. People are crowing and celebrating Trump has delivered on his promise the crypto people are two for two. They got Ross Ulberg freed. They got a Bitcoin reserve and they got a special meeting in the White House. She knows she don't want to reminds me of it reminds me of when when we get whatever new billion are pops along into the Bitcoin ecosystem and everyone Lord some is some new great thought leader and praise be the new billionaire should tell us what Bitcoin is. Like when they come along usually in the show we're reluctant to give them praise and then give it six months give it a year they stop is in the back they screw is and they were Bitcoin is and then we're like, well, I did say and it's not much of a surprise. Oh, look, he can't trust the billion. Oh, look, he can't trust the neoliberal who all the monopolist who controls everything. Oh, look, he can't trust this. Yeah. It's all it's all about priorities and timescale. Remember that the internet was built our current internet was built by the worst people for the shortest amount of money for the most advertising. Facebook and other people built us this internet as quickly as possible so that it could serve their advertising needs. If we look at this in the same way, we haven't built long lasting Bitcoin coalitions. Understand Bitcoin people understand the reasons why these things make sense. Instead we've snuck to the front of the line and bribed our way up there we bribed off everyone else in the line. And now we're there just as the Ross over I think didn't end the drug war. This doesn't end the Bitcoin war. Absolutely. And as Senator with a representative Thomas Massey recently and it was really strange because Ross wasn't there as like a hero of this experiment, this libertarian experiment that tested the drug war, you know, all those kind of things. I don't know why he was there, but yeah, go ahead Ben. Sorry. No, I mean, what we should be fearful of is there's a few attacks you could do to Bitcoin. I mean, Bitcoin is never going to die. Never going to get rid of the thing. But you could significantly, you could significantly impact its progress and all the good work we've done so far. One of those is a fungibility attack. So if the US if Trump now starts to realize that Bitcoin is in fact an attack on the USD, a USD, a economy, and then he initiates a fungibility attack which is that he says within US markets. And you can use Bitcoin. It's fine, but you can only use clean coins. Now that creates a fungibility attack in that you have different prices for different coins. So suddenly you have a whole bunch of Bitcoins which are trading on the market for X amount and then you have a whole bunch of Bitcoins with shady histories or sophisticated histories who coin mixes which trade for less than amount that has always been Bitcoins Achilles heel until we get privacy on the base chain is the fungibility attack because it just simply breaks it as money you need fungibility and money. And that's my biggest worry is that now that these politicians and presidents are engaging with Bitcoin that they'll figure out the ways in which you can attack it in a sophisticated way where you can actually do some damage to the the great work which we've been trying to do on promoting Bitcoin and people using Bitcoin. And what would be a fungibility attack another would be maybe mining centralization which they could also do in the US as well by pulling in a lot of mining. Even if you take the Bitcoin reserve idea out to its logical conclusion, it's also an attack on Bitcoin. The idea that I've heard proposed is the United States government could save Bitcoin or buy Bitcoin, stack it and hold it until it's equal the national debt. Then they could sell Bitcoin, crash the entire Bitcoin market, quote, pay off the national debt. I don't know how they could pay off the national how they could sell enough fast enough before the market crashed to pay off the national debt. But that's a wonderful idea that they could rug pull the entire Bitcoin market and that that's a thing we should be rooting for. So it's really weird to take this out to any kind of logical thing unless you're saying, oh, the United States should just hold their Bitcoin forever like every other Bitcoin holder and maybe borrow against it or something. I don't know. And. But Thomas what but so like when it comes to greater adoption, this moment was always going to come that governments were going to start engaging with Bitcoin. And then rather than just seizing it from people actually holding it and accumulating or trying to accumulate it. How do we expect that that was going to play out? I don't I think maybe naively we assumed that by the time it got to that point that governments would be, they wouldn't be powerful enough to have too much of an impact or maybe it's just something we never really thought about like what would be the ideal way in which Bitcoin skeletal point where governments start engaging with it. What would be the ideal way in which we would see Bitcoin grow into being used by by governments and being held by governments. Well, I think the most important failure of Bitcoin right now is the failure of the retail market. This isn't a retail adoption bump. This isn't like your neighbor's getting into Bitcoin even just not just like I not sending around Bitcoin lightning network having their own treasure wallet knowing what a signature is kind of into Bitcoin. But even just the I bought some Bitcoin on Coinbase we're not seeing that so this isn't a retail adoption. We're not seeing commercials. We're not seeing door-to-door sales or any kind of adoption things from these big companies. This is not a retail adoption like you said, Ben, this is a government top down adoption. So that's part of the problem here and part of why we didn't expect it is that we expected that the government would come along because the people were using Bitcoin and the government had to get involved. Now it's getting involved before people are using Bitcoin. So we don't know if people are going to use Bitcoin. So you feel like I mean, yes, we all assume that this would be much more of a bomb of revolution to the point that the government would suddenly turn around and think, oh crap, I've won't using Bitcoin. What do I do? And in some ways in an incredibly successful way, as I can talk about on the year ends, this special show these guys are Bitcoiners of the years, they're great heroes. They've skipped the line, right? They've used money and power and connections to get Bitcoin issues to the front of the line so that this guy put aside everything else about him, Russian asset. He's going to respect the Bitcoin views because he got the money and he got the votes. So he's very happy. It was a good deal. But as far as like a cultural change, the general public doesn't know about Bitcoin. They still think Bitcoin is confusing. Bitcoin either makes you lots of money or loses you lots of money, which both can also be true. But I think that the way in which it was held back, but as a medium of exchange, I know we're going to cover this in the latest stories. So I don't want to go into too much. But when we look at the Al Salvador experiment, when it came to payments and accepting Bitcoin, I mean, clearly the volatility of Bitcoin is the thing which holds it back as medium of exchange and as money. Because one of the most important properties of functional money is stability. And then second tonight is probably functionality. Stability is probably the most important part of functional money and that the money in your pocket is going to be worth the same next week when you try and spend on some goods and services. It may go up or it will go up over five, 10 years, whatever. But just stability. And I think there is within Bitcoin, there is a movement now of people who are starting to understand that. So we're seeing lightning labs. They're talking much more about stable assets on things like the lightning network and no tether have got USDT on the lightning network in liquid and some stuff with USDT as well. I would like to see a recipe for smaller countries to be able to create their own stable coins and have them run on the Bitcoin stack. So you've still got sat in your pocket, you know, you still have Bitcoin, but it's just stable like it's just pegged to a bunch of assets or a bunch of fields, something in order to keep it stable. And I'm starting to see more technological solutions being explored for that because people are realizing that that is the thing holding Bitcoin back is is meet exchange and as money, which you would need for that bottom up revolution and that social awakening. Because I think that without that people do just see as a speculative asset, this high respect, which arguably is, unless you hold it for a long enough and then it goes up to the point where you just stop thinking about it in that way and you just happy. Now the previous idea to achieve stability was through price discovery, right, that everyone in the world would hear about Bitcoin know about it, decide whether they want to buy it. Then the price evens out eventually because everyone's made the decision was going wrong with price discovery, Ben, is that these large groups that have purchased it is at these large groups of people who refuse to purchase it, who won't take part in the price discovery. You think we need to get there faster by stable coins because I thought we could wait and just have Bitcoin. Well, I mean, I would say that is these stable coins, these stable synthetic assets and whatever, they're there, they would be built on Bitcoin because I think it's a chicken and egg problem. The way in which you achieve stability is through lots of people having Bitcoin in their pockets and lots of people using it for merchant service and using it for payments. People aren't going to use it for merchant service and payments unless there's stability. So you don't get stability unless using it for money and you can't use it for money unless it has stability. So in that regard, in order to get to the market volume and the market size, we need to have where this Bitcoin becomes this galaeth ship which you know it can't have the price of Bitcoin manipulated too easily by big buys and some bad news. Then we need to be used as money. So I feel like it's an inevitable temporary sort of not hack but but but something we're going to have to use like these sort of synthetic assets or something which creates a stable peg with your sats with your Bitcoin while using it as money. That will need to exist to people so then people use it as money. So you have all these inputs and all these all these points in which Bitcoin touches the real world and then we end up with the volume and then the distribution that Bitcoin can then become stable. I mean that's that that's an idea and a point of view of hell for a good few years now and I think it's true. And I think you're right in to say that you know if you've just got the Michael sailor buying up. Kiselyans are Bitcoin and then the US strategic Bitcoin reserve behind up because they're in Bitcoin it becomes an attack vector in that they could just ultimately the US could turn around and then start trying to rug pull the Bitcoin price by just dumping the market because it's still amazingly Bitcoin is still too small. Well and that does seem to be what's happening right now more and more of these large players get involved and then essentially capture the Bitcoin market and the ones being bought and sold are their bitcoins and they move when they want them to move and then we see this kind of controlled. Shape that we do similar to the stock market and silver and other markets so it is interesting to see that happen. I mean particularly when the people holding those wallets in koutes you know that there you got your Trump and your Michael sailor in that little WhatsApp group and like hey it's now the time. I was especially recently in the speaker so we've seen a terrorist be terrorists were on tariffs are off tariffs are on tariffs are off and from the outside it looks very confusing and unplanned. But if you were on the inside and you knew just a few minutes before that those tariffs were on or off you could make a lot of money. Well that's the same as that's the same as that Trump tweet isn't it's like I'm not no it'll be too obvious if I go and buy some of these shit coins. But I'm just saying go buy helium or whatever is and then he tweets out oh yeah we're going to build a strategic helium reserve and the helium price goes whoosh and then an hour later it's like right. If you sold good okay right yeah of course it's going to include Bitcoin in the theorem so it's it's the ultimate tool for someone who wants to make a quick buck and manipulate markets which is a I think it's very attracted to someone to get Elon Musk with all his doge pumping and. Well it's been an incredible swing since Trump coin Melania coin Eric coin Donald junior coin I think we're up to at least four of those but going back to the topic on the strategic reserve. Even though it is a very small strategic reserve it's the lost and found booth the leftover criminal Bitcoin of strategic reserve reserves almost it kind of a it's like a gambler's fallacy reserve spend you see that we're like it's a small role for the United States as the kind of thing where they're going to say. In five years if it's a success they'll be like oh we bought five million dollars worth of Bitcoin now it's worth a hundred million if only you'd let us do that with the entire five trillion dollars we would have had a hundred trillion you know this kind of like small small role fallacy well I that there is there is that this is the other thing so like as soon as somebody actively public and publicly engages with Bitcoin in the Bitcoin price. Like if they've now got that on their balance sheet and then if Trump keeps on the balance sheet for four years that will be something which he goes out on if he goes out or that will be something which he campaigns on for you know being make crown Donald Trump. King King Trump and will be the the Bitcoin price would have gone up and then this amount of Bitcoin which they had is that was extra in dollars. Because it is an executive order is just as good as the president this is not a bill that's been passed through Congress and signed by the president so on like been saying a new president comes in they say no more strategic reserve it goes away we sell these off we trade them for Rolex watches whatever going to do. And as far as the greater idea of the reserve if this was the the promised Bitcoin reserve the hundred million the hundred hundred million Bitcoin whatever was going to be a million Bitcoin reserve they wanted to get a million of the of the twenty one million. I still think that this might be enough to kick off a bank run I still think that the United States the people who print the dollar the people who own the dollar and if you run that government you also own the dollar run the dollar even though the federal reserve separate. And all that there's still ways. They have now taken out a bet against the dollar they are said we're not so sure about the dollar and we're going to put some of these other dollar similar tokens into a pile just in case the dollar doesn't go well and I think that every other country in the world now has to take their own bet out against the dollar and I think it's a horrible thing to encourage and it's incredibly dangerous unless you want the United States to fail. I mean I want the US the US dollar to fail to be fair because I don't think that any country should have their currencies or reserve currency and I do think that letting the Trojan in isn't a wise thing which is why we saw Donald Trump being hesitant signing that executive order because ultimately chroniclers in the future may look back to that video and be like that is the moment in which the US dollar. It's a very bad start at its death spiral and it's death rattle as the word reserve currency but I know that on I personally believe that the that they're looking at something like tether and they're just thinking that maybe if this digital currency this stable coin surely exists out there and everybody's using it if we just assimilate tether as a USD digital currency. Then we can survive this new opposition to the US dollar which is Bitcoin and I do think there's some wisdom in that like if I was I think that's probably a good play like I probably just like adopt tether as digital USD because it's being used everywhere by a whole bunch of people and you can keep your USD had your money for that little bit longer. I wrote a tweet about this this week actually the relationship between Bitcoin and USD and I was I talked about John Nash's ideal money so John Nash when he wrote so those of you who don't know in the audience like John Nash was a mathematician he was that film of beautiful mind was based on him and he came up with a lot of game theory when he came to markets and then also he came up with this idea of ideal money later on in life and wrote a lot about it and ideal money is it's the pursuit of better money by the way. So you have lots of different currencies competing in a market but then by the existence of something like Bitcoin competing in the market and then Bitcoin also competing against those currencies you worked towards ideal money so ultimately within Bitcoin we probably need some stability to use it as money so we start to try and incorporate some of those ideas into Bitcoin and then some of those free currencies they need the lack of traction which Bitcoin has on the internet so they start to try and create digital currencies but then ultimately as you as you follow that that sort of dialectic of currencies competing against each other the one which wins out is Bitcoin because there's there's a has certain properties decentralization the fact that nobody controls it those properties aren't achievable by a currency so Bitcoin will eventually win. So actually we're now as what would be ideal money and the competition itself will encourage both to become better so Bitcoin will offer stable solutions and then the currencies the USD's or whatever else they'll offer the kind of digitally native versions of themselves so people have less traction we've money around on the internet and I think that's probably what will happen they'll be this competition which is now starting to play out which we'll see where the currencies will have to compete with Bitcoin and then eventually Bitcoin will win is probably a good thing ultimately because people get access to better money but as soon as we can move towards an apolitical world reserve currency the world will be a much safer place. So it might happen but I don't see them adopting tether I see them making their own copy of tether because they'll fuck it up and they know that I'll fuck it up like so many people they pop your tether and etc etc. So many people launch a thing going to launch you crypto and you launch new thing and then it breaks the good thing about tether is it works and it's been working for years and it's already there's already trillions of dollars worth of tether out there hundreds of billions of dollars worth of probably a trillion dollars worth of tether I would be surprised I know all the statistics there's yeah but that's a lot of people use tether as the government as I as the government value right I don't value that it works and I definitely don't value that there's trillions of it out there already I want something I can control I want something I can say this many you know see what I can control it so like the tether is based against the USD when it comes to its stable pack so part of the part of the the agreement between maybe tether the company and the US government if it were to adopt tether as the digital USD would be the would be that they would take control of the tether the tether which is out there but then they would kind of try and keep that stable packing some some mechanism but it's out there people use it and like tether is used in the I was speaking with the Fed and they have to say well there's a printing limit on how many dollars you can print because otherwise the Fed could drown tether in dollars right yeah perhaps I mean so I was speaking to a Bitcoin code about this and he was saying because he's work quite actively trying to encourage Bitcoin adoption in some of the poor countries in South Africa for example and he was saying that it's not a double-decker struggle because everyone just he everyone who would use digital currencies they just use tether because it's stable and subsistence wage people just need stability so I feel like I mean everyone always and like they we always kind of assume tether would implode in on itself and it never did and I now feel that like for the US it's probably the vast hope to keep the USD as well reserve currency so we'll say that's my prediction we are still in a golden age of cryptocurrency's been where you can link up your Bitcoin account here bank account you can buy and sell all of this will be gone when the government realizes and bands Bitcoin going back to the original ideas with the Trojan horse remember it was bad for the people of Troy they not the horse inside their wall it was filled with Greeks and when you let the Greeks out on the city see bends out there and the libertarians are out there like they're going to get rid of the walls the Greeks will get rid of the walls for us Troy Troy will be fantastic it'll just be like Troy without the walls but along the way they just tear through all the peasants and all the businesses and all the animals and the horses and everything that you have they just burn it all down and it's very chaotic and very destructive whereas if we were really smart people like Jean Hackman last week and we thought of what a smarter person than us could do we could say can we create a situation where there's a soft landing for that Trojan horse where we all know it's coming but we all prepare for it and we glide and we casually switch over right and we don't we don't just throw one of them out and bring the other one in or anything like that we casually switch over and that's that's what we wish we could do as smarter people instead we're probably just going to wait until time runs out and there's no choice anymore and then we'll make our switch and then we'll say that we always meant to switch the whole time we still have an exit question before we go on a more talk about reserves Ben Ark do you think that a Bitcoin reserve sounds strange countries have already been stockpiling helium maple syrup and cheese what is the silliest reserve Ben Ark helium maple syrup or cheese of course I think Canada's stockpiling maple syrup they make a lot of it a lot of countries probably stockpile cheese it's a major output helium is also I mean it's a scarce asset so there's not that much helium out there so you should all stop using helium balloons because it's actually a fossil fuel there's also you know there's an isn't an infinite and the mylar mylar balloons land on power lines cause power outages even here in Las Vegas major power outage recently it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a fun article title but I mean I think all of those three things are very justifiable reserve assets which a country should stock I mean maple syrup it's it doesn't you know it doesn't appreciate in in quality like it I mean you can keep it for years it's sugar it's basically honey so you can keep it thousands of years cheese gas battle with time helium is scarce resource on this planet so it's only ever going to go up in value probably cheese I would say yeah no probably I like all of them I was a country I would have all three of them yeah I think they're fine too I just think it's all about distribution back to the people if the cheesers starting to go bad they need to give it back to the people if the syrup has been there too long free syrup for everybody in Canada yeah and as for the helium I agree but it's incredibly scarce resource we need to stockpile it it's an interesting I would say on the USD dollar thing I would say that don't be scared Thomas you know you know you're like me if this were the Victorian times and you were challenging or you were talking about the British pound losing its word reserve currency status I would be saying the same things but it's okay like it's a good thing for your currency not to be the have the reserve currency status you know that the clocks will start running and we will stop running and one have T at four you know that it won't be the same afterwards Britain's got remained the empire we've got to stay just keep the empire bring India Britain but we about to move on to issue two which is pretty much the same issue issue two Texas Senate passes bill creating Bitcoin reserve in order to move towards a digital future the bill doesn't it say exactly how much will be invested in the reserve but it will be a special investment fund outside of the state treasury and then it allows them to diversify their investment approach because Texas is having trouble just putting their money in a savings account Ben Ark what do you think about Texas the state and their Bitcoin reserve I mean this is perhaps a silver lining I mean a you know the US D had your name sorry Thomas B other countries are just phomo and whilst other states in America will phomo they'll be like well I need a Bitcoin strategic reserve but we already have some bitcoins and now maybe if we just call these stolen coins a strategic reserve then we don't have to give them back to people but they'll they'll phomo and I can imagine this happening I can imagine other countries following suit and saying well I can imagine star returning around tomorrow parliament saying perhaps we should have a Bitcoin strategic strategic reserve and then I mean maybe I'm being a bit it's a bit of hope here but maybe in the month or so Star more or so say you know what you can pay your tax bill in Bitcoin we're going to start accumulating some of this Bitcoin stuff it's a good idea I watched some early mad bitcoins videos I'm sold everybody accumulate Bitcoin so yeah I mean this maybe this is the beginning of a domino effect across the world of people making Bitcoin reserves for the initially for their stolen coins of course but then over time they'll be like well we need to accumulate more this stuff because it's going up in value let's allow people to pay their tax bills in dollar in Bitcoin. Now I know in the classic books no crash he talked about governments and corporations being the same thing and I often say the wrong word country or corporation when I try to say it but we all don't have to just give that up at once right we can still separate aren't in our mind and say the government is a thing where we invest together to improve society a corporation is a thing where we invest together to get the best return right dollar return versus good of society return Texas should be investing for the good of the society of their people they should be trying to raise them up which program it is that's a different issue but they shouldn't be investors for the people the guy in the article mentions you know inflation so high if you put your money into savings account you're barely beating inflation but unfortunately as much as I'm a Bitcoin advocate here also down 30% like the rest of the market inflation at the savings account doesn't do that to you man you're out there you know they're a goldfish in our pond we can deal with the alligators and the crocodiles and the sharks you can't it's it's not and you should not what the government should be doing it's not your job if the Bitcoin reserve goes well the people of Texas have more money so they could then sell that money and use it on services for their people parks better roads shade whatever it is something like that making their own coin shade it's something that was in there I mean this is yeha Texas I suppose so they I mean in that environment there is no society there's just individuals I guess to quote that chair that's crazy about this is it's it's always these individuals all of a sudden who want the government to hold this investment vehicle for you maybe because it pumps their own bags I started to read an article the guy was like this is all you know the three-card Monti and the Bitcoiners have gotten their trick and they're going to trick everyone so they can all exit and out for some of the all coins that might be true but for Bitcoin there's so much larger a thing to imagine it all exiting on the US government or on the Texas government or whatever it may be but I mean that going back to your one of your original points maybe if we do get that domino effect and all these strategic reserves start to accumulate Bitcoin then that might create a bit of a bit of I mean unless there's a domino effect in the other direction when the US dumps the Bitcoin everyone else starts dumping the Bitcoin Putin's like yeah I'm going to dump my Bitcoin glue and everyone's just dumping Bitcoin and that's the classic thing the the states still haven't seen that meme where it's like neo and Morpheus and oh Morpheus when you have to you won't have to sell your Bitcoin and that means we ought to buy the bar card Bitcoin yeah Bitcoin replaces the dollar and if you're Texas and if you're American you print the dollar that's bad for you if you just work to become a part of the government in Texas or the government of the United States you're weakening your position you're giving yourself less power right if you want to influence things print more dollars and that's why this Bitcoin reserve idea took off in the first place as I said well we could just print a bunch of dollars buy a bunch of Bitcoin and and I've postulated from the very beginning of Bitcoin you could go back and check every time they do that they print more dollars they get less Bitcoin I think it's probably happened to you as well you go to work to print your dollars but every time you buy you get less Bitcoin maybe not now but usually I mean I would say if you're if you're a US citizen and then you know you love your country I would say that you should hate Bitcoin because your Bitcoin is there to it's it rock pull your power based now I'm joking I'm joking it's um no we get an incredible amount of power from being the world's reserve currency people that are protected by that umbrella even if they want to criticize the umbrella have to admit that it's doing a good job of keeping rain off of us I mean this is something I mean hmm interesting so this is something which has been very topical over the Ukraine the Zelensky Trump fiasco is that Europe has now realized that so since the Second World War Europe has depended upon the US as its big brother who will come in and step in and look after it when things go dry and we haven't got the security and the armies to defend like an attack so the the general feeling in Europe is that for suddenly we've been made aware that that puts us in a very fragile position if suddenly the US turns around and becomes indifferent to Europe and like the UK for example we've lost that big brother that big protector that umbrella so yes it's really interesting because the whole Trump scenario has made me very aware the efforts which were made post-war war two to design a world which would have more peace and that a lot of those things which were a lot of the the mechanisms which were designed into into that system to sustain peace and now being actively attacked and they naively they were all mechanisms which previously I would advocate the attacking off I would say you know like you know let's get rid of the US the US's power over the world but then now we're starting to see that's starting to happen I'm like well where does I mean Europe was able to drag itself into two world wars in quite close succession and it seems we had a relatively long sustained period of peace since the Second World War and post you know that new design which was created for for world peace so it does worry me the idea of European countries building up their arms forces without having this this this this protector who could theoretically step in and look after us so it's it's it helped it makes me have to to kind of question my own assumptions when it came to the some of the power bases on the the world stage but ultimately I also think countries which share a reserve current so the countries which share a current countries which share a currency don't go to war with each other historically it's never really happened if you share a currency they don't go to war with each other so ultimately through all this madness if Bitcoin does manage to rise as the world reserve currency as the apolitical world reserve currency then that will be a good thing for peace but yeah it's it's um um interesting times yeah but Ben they also used to say that countries that have a McDonald's never fought but it turns out they just move out the McDonald's and have the war like a month later but going back to the other idea I think what we're seeing here is the transition between the analog world of analog agreements handshake agreements other kind of basic agreements to more powerful digital agreements uh right now the United States is still technically in NATO uh but does anyone really believe I want to say article four or maybe five uh where the countries would come to the defense of other NATO members does anyone right now really believe that Trump who doesn't want to spend money on a war and believes that the Europeans haven't spent enough money on their own defense if for example country A was to roll into Poland the United States would not come to Poland's defense instantly whereas if we had a digital system similar to what we're talking about with Bitcoin where perhaps the United States had to put up a hundred trillion dollars in currency and that day if there's an article in the newspaper that says Poland has been attacked and if the next day there's not an article in the newspaper that says the United States has entered the war on the side of Poland then the United States digitally loses that trillion dollars that would be an example I think of a digital agreement don't you think Ben that these old agreements are analog and the same thing with the United States government everything that Trump has broken through they've all been traditions they got like for example when Mitch McConnell stole a uh a Supreme Court seat from Barack Obama he stole it with tradition he said well we're not going to let you appoint one and then Obama said what no one's ever done this and Obama didn't pocket appoint it during the Senate recess you can appoint whoever you want no one's ever appointed to the Supreme Court justice that way FDR threatened uh but no one has but again all of these things are are kind of gentleman's agreements they're handshakes right they're analog they're not digital they don't execute automatically whether you do it or not don't you think Ben that we need maybe if we rebuild this system we'll rebuild it more like that I mean the the the there is a lag in that you have these traditional systems which will be one of a analog era which are now being challenged by the the digital space and it's funny it's a shame that Josh isn't here because what what it sounds like you're talking about speculation markets not speculation markets what they called um bugger when you when you place a bat on something and then you lose the bat it's like a prediction market prediction markets yeah prediction on it's a stake like you have to we'd all have to stake up each country with trillion dollars in it would be the trillion dollar agreement and if it didn't go through that other country would get the money that could be presumably used for their defense but maybe they couldn't spend it fast enough if it was coming in but again with these governments they were designed to be slow on purpose they were designed to be deliberative and to come to a compromise right it just happened that one side recently decided not to compromise then built a media network that fulfilled this you know populace that they needed and then squeaked out victories where now they don't have to compromise then it was never designed for no compromise no it's yeah well I mean but what you're saying is you're talking about um forms of democracy which were evolved out of very unlogged areas where we didn't have the the digital space which we now have like representative democracy for example um in that you elect somebody who has similar ideals to you for a fixed period of term and then that's kind of it like you know they just they do their thing um without trying to piss off the you know the the the vote is too much they just try and get on and do the thing whereas the reality is that now nowadays we should have much more for direct forms of democracy and we should be able to vote on decisions and all those is active orders which Trump is is signing which there's nothing stopping the US population being able to vote on the day on how they feel about those different executive orders before they actually go through so yes it's scary because we're a period I think an inflection point where society is going to have to change um but I think ultimately you know humanity leans towards great celebrity for people we take a few steps forward few steps back but ultimately the path is great elliptic for people and people get happier and wealthier so hopefully that will happen um I mean we won't have ward war three but we'll see you know we're a month in I like your first idea much better Ben whether people are working on uh I'm working on what percentage it needs to be so it doesn't become tyrannical by the masses if it's 85% they could overturn anything or 99% they could veto anything that Trump does just the people themselves with an instant vote uh well I mean I mean this is the agor this is this is democracy when democracy was founded it was founded upon the idea of the agor aware Greeks would go and they would every day discuss in Athens you know the the the the the topics of the day and everyone could have a voice and this was democracy this was direct democracy this is direct forms democracy which society should have but we couldn't have that before pre-int and I know we can't have that so um yeah we'll get that but it's going to be hopefully won't be a bloody revolution to having systemic change um hopefully it'll be a peaceful transition but historically change usually does happen in in quite you know chaotic ways well I've been there to the agora and it's an open green field now in Greece and remember that was also landholders and that was everyone in town coming to the assembly to vote that wasn't representative democracy with one of the things in the united states with representative democracy is that the people who are writing the government the founding fathers didn't trust the people they did not trust the demos they they called that the mob they wanted to create a republic they did not allow for the direct election of senators by the people the senators were chosen by the state legislators there was a lot more layers and control and I think if we had a direct democracy we'd need those kind of layers to slow the system down so that extreme actions don't happen extreme overreactions by the populace but I'm afraid Ben that the more simple choice is a one person rule and I feel the more simple choice than trying to build a system that will properly take the concerns of all these people together a giant computer system like the one on Star Trek that would run the society I think it's easier to run a fake one and to say 90% supports the leader and that the one candidate is the best and it's always been the best and I think we might give that a try which is horrifying giving the level of technology and information that we have here but it's also that that one classic epic 2014 video clip animation YouTube you guys should go check out from the old days it could be the greatest of all possible information environments which the internet is if you want to put some work into it or it can be the worst of all information environments it can be gossip and garbage and cat videos and I think in a lot of ways as we've become more lazy and maybe we had no chance maybe we were addicted to laziness and you know the especially the little five-second videos or whatever the shorts and things I think we fallen into that I don't know that we've risen to the challenge of the tool that we created No I think I think we will I'm a great believer in the the overriding incentive for humanity is great liberty for people and no matter how many psychopaths you have it doesn't outcompete the billions of people who live on this planet who just want more liberty and the way in which we get more liberty is through more decision making by the people as a whole through direct force democracy so we'll get that we'll get that and I hope it's a smoother transition it's not too too bloody well like they said with the Hemingway quote at the end of the movie seven the world is a beautiful place and worth fighting for I believe in the second part moving on to the exit question Brazilian may lose FinTech company adopts Bitcoin reserve strategy shares soar yet another company has adopted the Bitcoin infinite just addictive reserve strategy why bother making anything when you can hold Bitcoin and borrow money to buy more Bitcoin allowing you to hold more Bitcoin that allows you to borrow money to hold more Bitcoin Ben Arck what do you think about the Michael Seller Infinite Money Glitch spreading to Brazil It's a very good point I mean it kind of ties nicely you know what we were just saying about the legacy systems we have in place and the legacy money we have in place now having to butt up against these new forms of money and there's these new potential systems we have in place in the in a world where fear currency exists and money landing exists then you can just buy Bitcoin loan about borrow money against the Bitcoin which you hold buy more Bitcoin borrow money against the Bitcoin you hold and you can create this infinite money printer which Michael Seller you know geniusly managed to say and saying it and I feel like I would have been a run out of every bank in the world trying to borrow money to do it but at the same time I see that others have done it Ben so it's like a perpetual motion machine it's a motion machine and ultimately is it is it pointing towards the fact that our traditional financial system just can't exist now Bitcoin exists because you can just create this infinite money machine I mean it's getting this good and the more micro strategies are the more micro strategy type businesses that are out there the more apparent it will be that our traditional money system needs to change the way it works because it can't exist there's going to be these people who exploit and take advantage of it and they they just sidestepping to the infinite money machine and I think this goes back to the core and the beginning of the essential Bitcoin belief for me here again I'm a liberal right you guys are all libertarians are conservatives are cypher punks or whatever I'm still cypherpunk liberal but the idea that Bitcoin is inevitable it doesn't matter if you like it or you don't like it or if you think it's good for the environment or bad for the environment or you made money off it or you lost money off it or you think that all the smart people made money but not you or whatever it is whatever your belief is religiously on Bitcoin it doesn't matter like Ben saying here it's it's it's a rival it's existence the way that the network keeps working it hasn't been broken technically I think for a lot of people there was a big seal there where they're like Bitcoin will be hacked it will be broken people will ban it technically China will ban it technically they won't have it happening within their borders unbanable unbreakable right continues to survive and the idea then goes back to what I said earlier where we adapt to this Bitcoin we create a soft landing we create alternatives for charity programs and disaster reliefs we create maybe even Bitcoin funds similar to this strategic reserve but not if we print the dollar if we print the dollar we print the dollar to buy more Bitcoin we're caught in an infinite loop there of destroying our own asset but otherwise everyone else should be holding the Bitcoin thinking about the future with the Bitcoin adapting to the Bitcoin if you don't you're going to be left behind but more likely than that soft landing idea we're going to do the old crash into the wall thing because that's what we is as a people seem to do and after we crash into the wall there'll be pieces of everything everywhere and we'll have to try to pick it up and see if we can fix it and what kind of things we can still fund and I just can't guarantee things that way and it comes back as well to another large book that I read recently the foundation series by Isaac Asimov and what Asimov talks about with these psycho historians psycho psychology mixed with history is that they've plotted out the future with kind of like a computer system but like a big graph and they're like the future is going to do and they say well that the empire is going to end the bureaucratic center of the empire is too big the empire is going to end so there's two ways to go we can have a soft landing for the empire only 10,000 years of darkness or we can have a hard landing for the empire maybe a million years of darkness right a lot more people heard and and I see that with Bitcoin both from a government and a business and a finance and a technical way we can work on the soft landing together improve things for everyone or we can let it crash and then try to pick up the pieces later Ben what do you think if you read foundation? No but I mean I think I think you're I think you're right I think you just go accept the fact that this thing exists and the world is changed and as I mentioned before with with John Nash's ideal money it's competing with these this fear dichotomy we've had for all for however long and yeah the world has to change and adapt for for for Bitcoin and ultimately it will be a good thing because it is an apolitical money which people can use across the world and that will mean that there's less conflict in the world and that'll be a good thing but just like everything else there's going to be more conflict before there's less conflict or remember to get to the Star Trek. It's a dangerous prediction. I mean in the Star Trek future they have to go through this horrible eugenics war and nuclear war it's implied like planet of the apes to get Star Trek future where everyone's equal. That's the historical materialist outlook of history is to analyze history and say what every time there's a revolution is usually bloody and this is where marks went wrong in that he predicted that the the shift from you know capsis mode of production to socialist mode of production would be a bloody revolution and then it almost empowers a bloody revolution because then someone comes along and says okay well let's make this bloody revolution happen. So there's definitely a danger in kind of that historical materialist overview of history. I think a lot more clever if he had written the revolution as it would be good for the bourgeoisie. He writes the revolution up he says the social classes are going to rise up but this is actually going to be good for the bourgeoisie and they're going to give you more power and they're not going to put your heads on sticks and if you just written it like an opposite thing because you need to it provide a soft landing for everyone. Not just like I think where he fell short in you know the idea of a socialist revolution which is what Perquan points out to him was that by advocating for the Red Broxie by advocating for the people to overthrow the bourgeoisie you'll be replacing you know these corrupt forms of power which you're trying to you know rightfully rally against you'll be replacing them with something far worse which is what happened and what we saw in the USSR. So yeah you want in that context you would want you know widespread formations of cooperatives out competing companies in a free market as opposed to people taking to the streets and sending all the managers and the business owners into the fields and into the gulags like it's better if it's a soft revolution so let's advocate for a soft revolution and let's not imagine that just because historically revolutions tend to be bloody let's not advocate for them and let's just hope that the transition to a future which runs on the internet and actually embraces its digital revolution encourages direct forms of democracy and then engages with digital and active currencies like Bitcoin in a way which doesn't disrupt humanity too much. See it's all the the same thing we were talking about earlier we want the Bitcoin revolution from the ground up where every citizen every person has Bitcoin on their phone and they're all excited about Bitcoin but we're getting instead is the Bitcoin revolution from the top down where the czar says Bitcoin is super cool and that you should get into it and that's never going to work and it's not going to work in the same way so it is kind of interesting but I think we're well off topic here Ben we want to tell the people the true exit question the answer to all things so that people know where to invest next week the Bitcoin predictor ball Ben Arke must first predict against the ball will the ball will the price be higher or lower this time next week for Bitcoin and while Ben's muted you can tell us in the chat what do you think higher or lower tell us in the chat gives a thumbs up down below Ben are you still with us he's looking at the charts I think it's I'm sorry he's trying one of the triangles that yeah yeah so there's a there's a nine after an eight and that became before the three which means that it's definitely going to be I actually think it's probably going to be even or a little bit high last week my prediction was absolutely spot on and I made a point of tweeting oh no sorry it was the week before it was absolutely spot on and I made a point of tweeting it out and and pointing out how spot on I was over the whole Trump embracing Bitcoin debacle yeah okay nice share screen Thomas it says if we can buy one of the tone vase see pods we could avoid the revolution you really want to live in one of those little pods on a pole out there in the ocean you know how terrible that's even worse it's so face is I what you saw Tuesday selling seepals according to the chat I have no information I always think that it's going to be higher Ben and I've been right recently we did bounce but generally the Trump thing has been surprisingly horrible despite the havining run that crypto and I'm not crazy about how it's been no I'm showing screen here now Thomas and I'm showing you the magic eight ball here on the new Ellen bits extension magic eight ball which I actually paid for so the developer who made the magic eight ball extension is that every time someone installs it they get in 500 sets per install it's pretty impressive stuff but if I go in here I can make a new magic eight ball here and I'll call it oh there's bloody things in the way there we go I don't I always have this issue where I can't click on the top half of the screen maybe if I write it to your Linux developer I'm sure they'll fix it yeah just like talks and everything here right now okay so if I call this tb the Bitcoin group there we go and then we're gonna have to it all is ready to go right I'm gonna have that way there I'm gonna have the money go to Ben's money yo um amount to pay tons of Tarshi's so we got yes no maybe ask again later better not tell yeah there they all sound like eight ball responses I'm gonna create that now and then I'm gonna I can't click oh there we go um look at this and then I have to go over here and I click on this thing and there's an LNU role pay so if I pay that wait there one second Thomas standing by this prediction market we have right here okay so I'm gonna pay my Tens of Tarshi's and it's gonna say it's paying it's paying it's paying it's getting ascending oh Thomas lightning shout out to everybody in the chat uh sanatajin inspiring formula oh there we go Tarshi my reply is no all the crew my reply is no no that means the price is not gonna be higher next week the ball is pessimistic just to compare we'll have to compare with the analog ball for all the people that are old school will the price of Bitcoin be higher this time next week it is too dark for me to read he rolls says oh there's a lot of words it says better not tell you now better not tell you now that it is the ball has spoken and we also had a digital eight ball this check out world crypto network at worldcryptoneatwork.com we've got lots of shows like this going back 10 years 11 years three months and one day but we've got more show more issues bonus talk L Salvador announces more Bitcoin purchases but gives the IMF assurances that they won't they're saying in many articles that the L Salvador Bitcoin experiment is over they signed a deal with the IMF saying no more chivo wallet that they would allow their Bitcoin reserves to be audited and their control systems to be checked by the IMF and at a point of conflict and controversy L Salvador agreed to the IMF that they wouldn't buy any more Bitcoin but the president says that they will Ben Arck what do you think is the L Salvador Bitcoin experiment over and is the president really going to buy more or is it just posturing having signed the deal with the IMF I actually was very depressed about the whole L Salvador experiment and it made me sleep in I spent a much of a day kind of in bed in worry over the L Salvador experiment because I went to our Salvador I went to our Salvador a bunch of times I remember when it started and we had the the the the lightning conference there and I had a lot of high hopes and my assumption for our Salvador accepting Bitcoin payments was that someone was going to swoop in and that we would have some stable medium of exchange on lightning and on Bitcoin I thought it was going to be a block stream of lightning labs would swoop in and build this thing and then they would have like an L Salvador dollar for example which talking to our Salvadorans on the ground I think would have been received very well ultimately it's about 90% of that country is unbanked and they don't have access to a digital banking economy and then if they do get access to a digital banking economy and if the stats in their pockets are called an L Salvador dollar in its pegged to basket of fiasats whatever they would embrace that just for the cultural association maybe they you know we culturally as Bitcoin as we like Bitcoin so we want to use it whereas for the average our Salvadoran they don't all they want is a stable medium of exchange they want something which isn't going to have any traction so I kind of assumed that was going to be built and then nobody built it and I lump myself in with you know the sorts of people who should have probably built this thing so it's I'm not just accusing people of not putting enough effort for trying to build this thing there are loads of great projects who try to go out there and try to help the Bitcoin adoption phase in Bitcoin in our Salvador but yeah it was a real missed opportunity because I really feel that what happened in our Salvador it should have been a blueprint it should have been it should have shown the world that this this country with the highest murder rate in the world with one of the weakest economies in the world can accept something like Bitcoin except it is as a money in as a medium of exchange and then bootstrap their economy so everybody suddenly has access digital money and I feel that we fell short of that task we had that one job to do and we failed them and I do feel incredibly bad about that and I don't feel that that opportunity is going to happen again anytime soon and it's just a real wasted opportunity and now what we're having is Bitcoin for our Salvador is it's much more of a strategic reserve they just have their Bitcoin holdings and they're treating it more like gold you don't have to accept Bitcoin as legal tender now in in our Salvador and that's the shame that's a peak and I wish we'd done more work on making it more accepted and if someone had built the our Salvador dollar or something like standard satsal stable sats whatever then and if people could have just had that in their wallets in their lightning wallets then they would have used Bitcoin throughout the country because they would have been proud of it they would have been a sense of pride over them having this this superior technology where they can send and receive payments and and we didn't do that and it's a real shame over the IMF thing I mean it's it's there is also the way obviously the way in which it was rolled out wasn't ideal Chivo wallet was historically incredibly bad one fifth of every payment would fail and the locals would call it the Chivo tax so not fail but you would send the payment and then it wouldn't in the wallet it would acknowledge the payments so the person who's receiving the funds wouldn't know that they've actually got the money and yeah I just I wish I wish that I'd gone there for longer and I'd worked in our Salvador more just just building the stable minimum exchange on lightning assets using something like standard sats and made an ourselves a door dollar but now so the IMF has said that they're not allowed to use Chivo wallet which is probably isn't a bad thing because it was a piece of shit and they also need to have their Bitcoin reserves audited which also probably isn't a bad thing because who knows how they're storing the Bitcoin and that they can't accumulate more Bitcoin which because he's clearly doing so I don't know I mean like it's it's he's gone for this IMF loan maybe the IMF will just overlook the fact that he's accumulating more Bitcoin I know that Bikali felt betrayed by the Bitcoin community for not supporting this Bitcoin bond idea with the ridiculous volcano city idea like why wouldn't you want to invest in a city situated next door to a volcano but I don't know if you remember like when we had the crazy price pump and everyone was excited about El Salvador accepting Bitcoin that the the the thing which really honestly the the thing which the market reacted to and and made the price crash was the announcement of the Bitcoin bond and that they were going to mine using volcanoes and that they were going to build a new city a Bitcoin city because it's like the market reacted as oh okay this guy's insane if the if he turned around at the time I mean I mean I've around on stage like Elon Musk and they were time on invincible Bitcoin was and it was all the the pump you know yeah the pumpy CIO CIO mentality I think it yeah it did a disservice to the adoption of Bitcoin in El Salvador but the for anyone who went to El Salvador it was like great you've got this you know you're accepting Bitcoin you're accumulating some Bitcoin use the money you make to just improve somewhere like San St because San Salvador is a beautiful city and it really wouldn't doesn't take much you know just like a couple of weeks on each street to bring it up to bring it up to standard as it is or you know where we've been in a European or a US city or something so there's not that much investment which needs to be made but the idea of just creating this Bitcoin city that's honestly when you saw the Bitcoin price back in that pump in whatever it was 2020 when you saw it drop was when the world looked around and thought okay this guy's actually insane but anyway so it it feels like a failed opportunity and a wasted opportunity where we should have our job as developers and Bitcoiners was to give these unbanked people the best payment experience they could possibly have help them with their remittances getting money into the country from wherever country they're you know in the US or wherever else and then for people who had the the Bitcoin in that country just be able to send it and spend it in a way where it kept its its stable it's to build stable peg or and had some cultural associates our job was just to create the best money experience using the Bitcoin technology stack the it was possible then using the technology stack to build while Salvador needed and it's more possible now to to build what our Salvador needs but we didn't do it and it's a failure on our part like because that really that really was partly I know I know it was mandated from from from the president of our Salvador but on a on a world stage that really was kind of like a bottom-up revolution in that it was one of the world's poorest and most violent countries accepting Bitcoin for payments and I feel like we kind of like you know we we we failed in that task so I am sorry our Salvador we'll try harder next time there there are so many startups that are mandated by the government turn out so well and as far as the the other thing with El Salvador I agree Ben they they shouldn't been exposed to both the downside of the Bitcoin price and the upside of Bitcoin price that's far too much for people in a developing country to deal with they can't be expected to be hedging or savings or bringing their money in and out or having different streams of money if you give them money it needs to be relatively stable the fact that you can send it around without anything else that's not enough right that's not enough of a trick to make it useful for them to make it safe for them if they tried to use it they probably lost money they're probably mad at Bitcoin and they're probably right I've said this before and I'll say it again although it doesn't help anything we always do seem to try this Bitcoin thing with kind of a damaged country with a damaged company with a damaged area stuff like that we never try it somewhere that has computers somewhere that's technological somewhere that's maybe small maybe somewhere like Japan they have a lot of computers they have a lot of devices they have a technological population maybe we could try something like that there a chivalol it was bad it had to be it was a local product the same thing Ben if they'd tried a stable backed El Salvador coin using only El Salvador people the the real thing that you want and and you want it from the outside in hindsight but from the inside is you want these carpet baggers to come in with a ready to go on the book solution of El Salvador coin and just to stamp it on there and that way it's built by the best engineers in the world but you just pretend that it's local and maybe say that some guy built it some guy italic mutorin something like that I have a bag I gotta tell you Thomas so there's this incredible project called standard sets which which came about during the El Salvador event and it was just overlooked by Bitcoin it's no one cared about it cared about it and it was one of honestly the most impressive projects which was synthetic assets so it kept its stable peg through high frequency trading of of a lightning of sats on a lightning channel to an exchange and then exchanging it for for currencies and it was it kept its peg it worked and and they got so little support it pissed me off like they didn't get any grants no VCs invested in it and I thought this is the fucking solution right here like ultimately we'll have more sophisticated forms of localized stable coins on Bitcoin but this idea of a synthetic asset where you can have a stable peg to a currency or basket for your currencies but even a basket of assets so it could have been El Salvador could have pegged it to the price of coffee for example like that existed like developers hardcore coolers shit lightning and Bitcoin developers worked on this project and they had no support they had no one was interested in the project no one understood the power of that project a galo he did the company galo they made a very similar product off the back of it called stable sats and got a bunch of investment for it but in that if through when they did it it was it was all about you know the USD we're going to make USD stable coin that's oh it's fucking not what people want like we saw it with the Bristol pound like people love it when you have a localized stable coin they they have cultural association to it they have cultural pride in it and it makes them want to use it like that you know there's there's eight billion people on this planet who have an Android smart who have a smartphone like it is possible for people to do digital payments like all those people there's not that 90% of people who are unbanked in El Salvador like 90% of them have a smartphone and they can use digital currencies like it was such a missed opportunity and I just think that I don't know people became like the like you say there's something sometimes they went off on this this rampage of the CEO Pompey rampage of wanting to build cities and stuff and and then and then there was just a complete oversight over what the general populace like no one went out to just generalize El Salvadorians has said what do you want us to we have this amazing technology stack where we can create we have payment rails which are more efficient and faster than visa network what do you want like what can we build to help you use this thing and and if they if you did say that so then they would have said we want stability and then we want something you know localized and nobody did that and I'm included in that in that group of people who didn't didn't do that or didn't do enough work on that in that regard well I think part of the reason that the people didn't do that or didn't back that project is they didn't see a cut for themselves it's really about where they going to get their percentage and if you build a system that's too good a system that works on its own or a system that can be upkipped for a very small amount of money it's not going to fit with their plan because they need a system with large upkeep they the system when they get a large percentage every month and yeah it just seems like that was the thing and the same thing with why they would build by the volcano instead of rebuilding the existing city they own the land by the volcano they don't own the land in the existing city they'd be fixing up someone else's land they can only fix up things that they own similar to all back in the old day when coin base arrived instead of building an open Bitcoin exchange or something open source or something like that we built the closed Bitcoin exchange the Facebook of Bitcoin exchanges and we went from there and then we said well we can can we build a worse one you know we can build a Binance we can be able to distribute it octopus that moves around the world and so on and so forth and there's more there going back to this I never went to El Salvador so I don't have Stockholm syndrome like Ben I'm not crying for the people and the beaches and the wonderful tacos and whatever else happened to you. Papuses baby Papuses don't talk about this whatever all the same thing but again shall we for that too but I'm sure the Papuses are great but I've been against this the whole time Bitcoin never needed to be identified by a government Bitcoin never cared that it was identified by a government we don't need great men we don't need great countries to spread Bitcoin we have Bitcoin itself which is great and Bitcoin be spread person to person man to man software and there we go the only thing I was wrong about is that there was no giant rug pull by friends or family or the government there's still time time is not running out the IMF thing also could help maybe they have to bring the money out into the open oceans 11 style and they snatch it and there's a big car chase. I also the cheva was so incredibly bad and I did hear rumors that it was Bekele's brother who was running the company this year company allegedly rumors so I wouldn't be surprised if they lost some sats like we work on a Bitcoin wallet lightning wallet and there are hackers out there and they will attack you and I would be very surprised if cheva wallet hadn't lost money at some point so yeah when it comes to when it comes to proving that they have the money which they say they have or they say they have in chevo if IMF hold them to that then I think they're going to really struggle. I remember the other point of chevo wallet was that they could print a voucher they said they're going to give every person in the country $10 in Bitcoin and if you actually line that money up and send it to accounts that would be a lot of work and that would be a lot of money it's a lot easier to say you get $10 in Bitcoin then only if you claim it do I have to send you the money and then it's even easier if I don't send you the actual Bitcoin but I put a $10 credit in your chevo account but again just breaks Bitcoin, breaks Bitcoin, breaks Bitcoin and when you do things wrong like that from the beginning people get used to it being broken. If you look at the beginning of CurioCards I was reading about our project again we put all the CurioCards into the vending machines so if you want to buy them if you're from the company if you're from whoever you buy them from the vending machines so it's a fair start and if you start things fairly from the beginning people will expect fairness. Let's keep going we got a couple more issues we're kind of running long today Ben. Issue number whatever Craig Wright hit by General Civil Restraining Order in the United Kingdom what does that mean? Well according to this it says he cannot file new lawsuits in any UK court, county, high court or court of appeal without explicit judicial approval given his past this would be ultra difficult to get. Ben, it looks like it's over for Craig Wright no more ability to sue anybody even if he has a white powdered wig. So that's a restraining order against him being able to file lawsuits in the UK because he spammed this is a rate limit or an IP blocker for Craig Wright being able to spam the legal server of the UK is this correct? This is punishment for misuse of the network. So, right, right? They do that. To our scammer and false evidence. Well, let's not say that you're allegedly a scammer. Craig Wright's a scammer. We could say it now. We could say it in the UK. Okay, legal legal allowed to say no allegedly nonsense. Craig Wright you're a scammer. Fuck you. Craig Wright. Fuck, fuck, fuck, Craig Wright. Fuck Craig Wright. He would say as much as we want now because he's he has a he's not allowed to to have legal action against anyone. We shall sing it from the the towers, the castles. He didn't invent Bitcoin and he's not Satoshi Nakamoto and again he deserves this for his misuse of the court. He filed multiple evidence that seems to be falsified. The things with the wrong fonts on them all that kind of stuff. The emails that were from the wrong dates, the dates were falsified. When you act in bad faith with the court in that manner, you deserve this kind of illegal punishment. So while some people might say maybe it's too much or they're taking away his freedoms because he needs to shut Ben down for that whole middle finger dance thing, which was obviously satire and parody and absolutely it was real. It was real. Fuck you. Craig Wright. You're a scum. Craig Wright. Just like, I mean, I would leave it. We're rather than the street char and Craig Wright scum. Anti-marketing daughter. I'm a coward though. Peter McCormack said when it was when it was cool, you know, when it was when you could still be sued from Craig Wright, which you caught now. So you did and right has lost that power. But that's about it for that issue. We got a couple more. According to coffeezilla on YouTube as well as Twitter, he says, Sam Bankman freed's plan. If he got caught laughing out loud, go on Tucker Carlson, come out as a Republican. And according to another coffeezilla account on Twitter, it says, Bankman freed had a Google document with ideas on how to get all of this. Just some of the document file a document about chapter 11 problems. Go with the lawyers. We're in a shitty situation. I feel bad. They reacted poorly. Go on Tucker Carlson. Come out as a Republican show how he had super PAC contributions come out against the woke agenda. Come out for freedom. Attack the chapter 11. Basically, they're doing a bad job and all that. What do you think Thomas Hunt? Well, I think the horrible part about this is that it might have worked, right? Scooby. I mean, I think he could have gotten away with it. If it weren't for those kids shutting it down too quickly, I think a lot of people have looked back. SPF, whether you like it or not, was a major holder of soul of Salana. And I think he was holding around $10.20 and it went to 250 or something. It's been crazy up. He could have sold and paid those people back. He could have sold on some of his other assets and paid those people back for that missing money. If he'd been able to keep all that information inside and no one had ever known what was in that black box, it's very possible that he could have surfed over those waves even though he had all those bad bets and all the missing money and all the misused missed categorized money. He could have gotten away with it. I think it would have worked. Ben Arck, what do you think? Freedom, Liberty, Tucker Carlson? Ben is sharing screen. He's playing Warcraft. He's a muted Ben. Sam Bingman-Freet famously played League of Legends. I think it was during a meeting. Ben, are you playing during this meeting? You want a bunch of E.C. capital now? I still muted Ben. Yeah, sorry, sorry. I was just playing League of Legends. I like Ben, like a good old Sam Bingman-Freet in the VC meetings. He's playing League of Legends. He's talking to the VCs at the same time. He's writing his, I mean, clearly, clever lad, become a Republican. I mean, again, it shows where we are in the Bitcoin news cycle. The Sam Bingman-Freet story would still be a relevant story, but it doesn't seem to be these days. These days, the news cycle has moved on and everyone's kind of forgotten about Sam Bingman-Freet. But it is interesting that he had this document which he created in case he gets busted. And yeah, it's quite fine in his Google Docs. How do you get access to the Google Docs? Coffee Zeller. It's tough to say. It might have been in the trial, who knows. But, yeah, I think if you've gone away with it, I like the part, come out with a strong, anti-binault message. That's very good. I like the bit which was like, League, this document is kind of inception. It's like you see the document being leaked and then you read the document which then says, leak out this document. I would say the only update that we've had on the SPF story, SPF story lately has been that his parents are requesting a pardon and similar to the Ross Obert case. They think that Trump should just pardon him. But that's again, remember the Trump decisions are not based on moral decisions. He didn't pardon Ross because the drug war is over and it was all a mistake. He pardoned him because he was paid. So if SPF's parents want to pay him, the similar to the way we saw Justin Sun from last week from Tron, he bought a great deal of world liberty financial shares. And then he was freed. Perhaps if the bankman freed still have some money in there, came in bank accounts or whatever they made him in hiding out, perhaps they could purchase his freedom. It does seem a direct pay for play scenario. It is not a there's no, you know, it makes it simpler though. You know, you can get what you want. You just have to pay. Sometimes. Yeah, I mean, I suppose with Ross, he had been in prison for 15 years. So that was quiet a term he served. I mean, he did look like, you know, prison had taken his toll on him. But again, you know, like all those shows where he said, you know, free Ross all-break. He's free. And the real question now Ben will be, who will serve a longer jail time, Ross all-breaked or Sam Bankman freed? Well, oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah, you're right. Probably in a few years, he will be released. His parents do have some money in the coffers ready to spend his story. We've been always been really weak on financial crime. The Ross Oldbreak story for as much as it's an internet story, he makes a website, he's committing Bitcoin fraud, all of those things. Some drugs are sent to some people and some people get sick. It's a classic white collar crime scenario where you have someone stealing a packet of biscuits from a shop when they end up on the floor with a policeman's knee in their back and then you have someone who tells billions and they end up being carried away in their suit with our handcuffs and we're not carried away. They end up being escorted politely in their suit to a police car and it's all quite hushish and no one gets hurt. So sadly, the judicial system is always favoured the not white collar criminals, but the criminals who have the means to have political sway. But I do feel with Sam Bankman freed, there's just so much evidence that what he did was so apparent and he just embezzled and stole money and stole rich people's money too. So he never stole rich people's money. I think that's the message here. I was the message of the movie, The Paper, as well. And it will be interesting to see how it turns out who serves more time. I think we're running out of time. We got one more quick story. In things that are also hard to believe, Ben, check this out. Shout out to Frank Corva, who says on Twitter, I'll be covering the White House Crypto Summit for Bitcoin magazine as part of the White House Press Pool today. Stay tuned for updates. We've also got Sander Loots, who says exciting news. I will be reporting on crypto from the White House for decrypt media moving forward and on the ground representing the industry at today's crypto summit. Just incredible, amazing to be in this time where crypto reporters are in the White House. I assume just for the crypto summit, but for all I know, they could have added these guys to the regular White House Press Pool and they're going to file reports regularly. Ben, just really quick, what do you think on what it is to have come so far? Even if we're in disagreement with this administration, they're allowing in crypto reporters. Amazing. Thomas, I've heard that you have a back channel to Matt Bitcoin's and I would like to ask why he isn't also being recruited for the White House Press. What do we call him? We obviously should have asked if they were going by just years of experience in Bitcoin media. We have the most years of experience so that that would have worked. I think maybe if you reach out to my Bitcoin, Sadassian. It's so cold in Washington, DC, you probably have to live in Virginia or something and take the Metro in. It sounds very inconvenient. The White House Press Pool also is literally on top of a pool. William Howard Taft used to have a pool under there and they built a floor and they have a floor on top of it and there's no more pool. Is that what it is? Is that why it's called the Press Pool? No. It might be. It might be called the pool as well but literally ours is previously on top of a pool. Is that my Bitcoin's? We all know, can't go too near water. And it's cold in DC, but no, I've been great if they would have let me cover it from the press. Are you Thomas, my Bitcoin? Heather Thomas, mad Bitcoin's out of the hat and the goggles, the whole thing. Well, I'd like to say. What a thing. I think maybe my Bitcoin's just make a video where he asks the question and then it cuts the camera cuts to my Bitcoin's in the press pool in this press swimming pool. We'll have to see if Trump does a news conference today about the crypto summit. If they say anything good, maybe we can bounce off and bounce into it. I mean, you could have a yes, my Bitcoin's, what would you like to ask? And then it turns to my Bitcoin's and he's like, oh, just like to say that curial cards I've heard should probably be in the Bitcoin strategic reserve. Then you could say that. They did one of those today. It was, let's see if I can pull it up. It was Vitalik and he was in the Oval Office and he was wearing a Curio cards t-shirt. And you know how it is in this world of deep fakes and everything, you know, you can believe what you want to believe. But I look at this and I believe it's real. I look at this and I say he's never looked better. As you go in a reaction. He's like pretty flat. But how cool he does have curial cards. That's good. Good stuff. I think Ben, we're running out of time. So do you have a prediction or a story of the week? Go ahead. Not really, man. I mean, it's been one of them weeks to be honest. I've just been walking through sludge. So I've got nothing to show for it. Prediction. No, I've got nothing. And production. I mean, hopefully the world won't end before the next week's show. That's not my prediction, but my hope for next week. A whole seven days, like keeping the going. No, nuclear war. I mean, there's that book, isn't the fact that he's at Arthur's. You'll know Thomas, you'll well-read trap. That book about the Third World War and the Nuclear War and how it lasts two and a half hours. And then he monitors the book. He's set right back. Do you know the book by a female author? It's basically the scenario when someone fires the first nuke. And then it takes the third world war takes two and a half hours for humanity to be ended. Now, I think that just reminds me of the old quote where it's World War two was fought with missiles and planes and World War three will be fought with thermal nuclear weapons and World War four will be fought with sticks and stones. That's the time. What's going on? I think that kind of idea. But going back to the positive Ben, we want to stay positive here at the end of the show. The Big Lebowski was released on this date in 1998. How about that? The Big Lebowski 27 years of Lebowski. Just an amazing film if you haven't seen it. I remember I was there watching it in the theater with my buddies in college and our entire row was just cackling and laughing like bend it over like in pain from laughing too much. And the rest of the people and there weren't that many in the audience or five, ten other people. They weren't really getting it. They weren't getting it the way that we were getting it. So maybe it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy Lebowski. But it's a great film. The Big Lebowski. Many people have said it's perhaps a metaphor for American immigration, the melting pot of cultures as the Polish man, Lebowski, Carabotsof, Donnie, so many others. The Jesus, the Mexican man Liam, the Irishman, so many people mixed together, Pilar, etc., etc. Truly a great American film, the Big Lebowski. All fighting the Germans. Exactly. All fighting the Germans. World War II, the nihilists, the whole thing wrapped in the big sleep, the classic Humphrey Bogart film. And just fun. Just fun. It was the one rule in filmmaking is you don't use narration, narration, unless it's the Big Lebowski. The Big Lebowski could use narration. Any other film you can't use is cheating. You should just tell the story through the lens and through the script. But the Big Lebowski pulls off in cinema history, just the best narration. I still love narration. I think it can be lazy and it can be a cover like in Blade Runner, they re-did the film with the narration to try to fix it in a many ways, did fix it. But with Lebowski, that's the other interpretation. It could be the immigration melting pot. Everyone coming together, even mod with her fake British accent, the American fake British people coming together, is that with the narration, the narrator represents the West. Sam is the cowboy. He is the Old West and the dude, the surfer, the stoner, the laid-back character. He is the new West. So we see the cowboy meeting up with the dude. And those are some of the best scenes, the two scenes at the bar where he says, do you have to curse so much? He wouldn't have cursed so much in the past. But the dude doesn't understand that. And also in the introduction, when he says, dude, a name that no one would self-apply where I come from. Because dude and a cowboy means an amateur, means a dude ranch, children playing on horses. I can't tell that he isn't he God in the film. I always thought that he was God and the Lebowski. Yeah, he was, because he was, he was, he was, he was kind of God. No, is that all right? I always, I always see it as a Western analogy. In the beginning, he is the tumbling tumblewood. He is the old cowboy analogy and the cowboy represented the West and that now the West is represented by Los Angeles. And Los Angeles is a melting pot and kind of the king of the Los Angeles, the laziest of all laziest is the dude. So this kind of slacker character is the icon of the West now, not the cowboy. The dude abides. Because he's a slacker. He doesn't care. I mean, he's the exact opposite of the big Lebowski who is a businessman and who is also a fraud, right? If we take the big Lebowski as Trump, he is a false businessman. He is perhaps even not even in the wheelchair. That could be a fraud as well. But as Maud says, the money was all mothers. He inherited all the money. So he is a fraud. Whereas Lebowski, he might have 89 cents on a check at Ralph's. You know, he has no money in his banging account. He doesn't know how to pay his rent on time. All these things is a slacker. But he is authentic. And I think that's what Sam Elliott, the cowboy sees in Lebowski when he hands it off. Because the cowboy should disagree with the slacker. In many ways, there should be a conflict there. But it's a smooth handoff, right? He sees the value of the dude. He sees the inherent goodness of the slacker and divert you in the dude convert you with laziness, the Tao of Steve. And he allows for the culture to be handed off. And since then, well, in many ways, though, maybe we're being punished for the dude, for being so hands off, for being so laid back, allowing the government to go Soviet. Maybe if we had a more cowboy, John Wayne type attitude, we would say we shouldn't allow our country to do this. But the ship has sailed. So maybe I'm going to go worse the big Lebowski. I think everyone should celebrate the Lebowski. We're running out of time. So thanks to everybody for joining us. Give us a thumbs up down below. Hello to everybody in the chat. Send us a wave if you made it this far and a subscribe if you haven't already. We'll be here again next week, at least until they stop us. So until next time. Bye.