Bitcoin Veterans
Bitcoin Veterans SITREP: Navigating Bitcoin's Volatility - Lessons from MicroStrategy's Journey
In this episode of the Bitcoin Veteran Spaces, host Coleman and the crew dive into the latest developments in the Bitcoin world, including an insightful interview with Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of MicroStrategy. They discuss Saylor's perspective on Bitcoin as a digital asset, its performance compared to traditional investments, and the implications of Bitcoin ETFs.
Timestamps:
00:01:50 - Exciting Weekend Updates
00:04:32 - Michael Saylor's CNBC Interview
00:20:25 - Time Preference in Bitcoin Investment
00:23:43 - Dom's Announcement
00:33:39 - Political Landscape and Bitcoin
00:37:51 - Local Efforts in Bitcoin Adoption
00:42:46 - Community Engagement
Sponsors:
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- Duration:
- 1h 7m
- Broadcast on:
- 09 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- aac
(upbeat music) - Good morning, everybody. I hope you all had a terrific weekend. Today is Monday. This is episode 15 of the Bitcoin veteran spaces. I'm your host, Coleman. And I am joined on stage by Jordan on the Operation Libertas handle. Good morning. Good morning, brother. How you doing? - Fantastic, fantastic. I see AC out there. I see Gabe Lord. Good morning. Bob van Kirk. Good morning, everybody. Oh, there you are. DR Lewis. While everyone's getting the gunk out of their eyes, refilling their coffee mugs, I just want to give everyone a chance to hop in here and listen and make sure everyone understands the mission and purpose of this show. And it is to defend the values that our nations were founded upon. We want to champion decentralized trustless systems that empower individuals and communities to eliminate any central authorities so that we could advance our cause for a free and open society. We accomplish this mission by utilizing the power of Bitcoin to promote a world where every individual has the undeniable right to control their own destiny, their own assets, and their own privacy. We do not support tyranny in any of its forms. And together we will continue our oaths to safeguard the ideals that define us. We are veterans. We are Bitcoiners. And most importantly, we are for freedom. Who raw? - Let's go. - Anything exciting happen over the weekend for anybody on the panel? - Oh, I had something exciting happen this morning. I was driving back home after my F3 beatdown this morning. And I got a call for, he might be hiding and lurking in the audience as an anon, but I got a call from Gary in the BV chats. And he's like, "Hey, I just went to my first F3 beatdown," which today we were running. Most places are running the iron packs challenge. So it was like an extra tough beatdown. And so one awesome that he went to his first one. And what's hilarious though, is he got the nickname, 'cause he showed up wearing his BV sweatshirt. And so he got the nickname Doge, which I just think, if you know Gary, is just like the perfect freaking nickname for that dude. He's gonna hate it and love it all at the same time. - Yes, from my understanding, once they give you those nicknames at F3, they're forever, correct? - Well, no, you could complain about it, but you'll probably get a little one. - Hey, Jordan, do you mind just explaining what F3 is for anybody who doesn't know? - Yeah, so it stands for fitness fellowship and faith. And basically it's a group of like guys that meet up to work out, but they also try to incorporate the fellowship and faith aspects of it. And what it is, it's always, it's open to all men, it's always held outdoors, it's always free. It's always led in a rotating fashion, so everybody takes a turn leading, and then they always end it with like a circle of trust, where they just kind of talk about something. It could be faith-based, it could just be about like kind of being men or whatever. But then a lot of times they meet up afterwards to talk about different topics, or they'll just do things in the community. So it's much more than just like a fitness group, but that is kind of what brings everyone there for the first time. And it's honestly, they're like, they're great workouts and it's free. So save your money on the gym membership, put that towards SATs and go find a local F3 group. And for the women, I think there's a female version too. I think it's called fit, F-I-T, but I'm not sure what that stands for. - I thank you for explaining that. Yeah, I think it's good to have the camaraderie in your neighborhood, in your area, and it's always good sweating with everybody. Good morning, Terrence in the audience. Hope you join the stage today, sir. So today's episode, I definitely want to dive in on an interview that happened first thing this morning with Sailor, he came on Squawkbox on CNBC and spoke about his company, kind of the role Bitcoin is playing. Is it digital goal? Is it a safe haven? What's going on with the numbers? And so while Jacob gets that loaded up, we'll go ahead and play it. And then we're going to just kind of stop it in between different segments when they start switching gears and just kind of recap and just kind of go over everything. 'Cause I think everyone has a lot of confusion going on right now. We're supposed to be in the bull run. It's after the halving, what's going on with the numbers. And I think we can really dissect a lot of what Sailor was discussing and talking about, we can kind of make sense of what's going on in here. So Jacob, if you don't mind, just go ahead and start rolling that first little bit. Let's take a look at crypto prices this morning. Let's see, 55,000 now. Joining us, Michael Sailor, micro-strategy executive chairman. You've actually, you never stopped adding to the position of your company. And you have a lot of courage because there's been a lot of major swings in the past. And there were times when I was worried, can you tell me were you ever close to margin calls? Anything ever happening to micro-strategy? Well, when Silvergate bank failed, we had to redeem that. But it turned out to be a benefit for us. We made a lot of money on that redemption. We repaid our Silvergate loan. But it's been a great journey since August 10th of 2020. Micro-strategy has bought about $8.3 billion worth of Bitcoin. And Bitcoin's up 44% a year on average since then, the S&P is up 12%. And since we levered it, we're up 825%. The number one performing stock in the S&P is NVIDIA up 821% as of Friday. So we beat every single company in the S&P index using Bitcoin strategy. Does micro-strategy now do anything else? We still run the software business, and it's generally a cash cow for us. But our primary business is a Bitcoin development company. So what we're doing is we're securitizing Bitcoin. We're selling convertible bonds for people that don't want the full volatility and all the risk of Bitcoin. Some people want 150% risk, right? So some people want highly levered equity, and they trade the options. And so we have a very big, deep, rich options market. We've got high-performance equity, and then we've basically pioneered Bitcoin-backed bond market by issuing all of these convertible bonds that are backed by 5x more Bitcoin collateral. Has anything changed in terms of, you think, the investor class that's invested in-- We've bothered right there. The lower stock vertical. OK, so there's definitely a lot to talk about through that first little bit. But I watched the interview live when it was coming on. And one of the things I did notice is that all the hosts just seemed really flat. They just seemed deflated, defeated. So if you're looking for signs or signals, I would imagine that's a pretty good bottom signal. Everyone just kind of thinks that the price isn't doing anything. But I would definitely like to get everybody's thoughts on this. Terence, AC, if you guys don't mind joining in, and just kind of discuss what Samir was talking about. This is when we need the big smart brains to describe what he just said. I mean, I think I get it, but I'm kind of a little bit of a, you know. I'll definitely go over what I think. Again, just so everybody knows, I'm a professional crayon eater, so don't take anything I say too serious. But just want to make sure that we just kind of go over everything. So he was talking about why would you not want to buy the Bitcoin ETF and what would be the purpose of purchasing micro-strategy instead? And it's just a volatility factor. So again, if you purchase micro-strategy stock, you're able to leverage the return that you would get on the Bitcoin because even though they hold it on their balance sheet and it's a large portion, he said $8.3 billion, you also get the underlying return from the company as well because they also have the business front. So you're able to get those swings, but there's also the swing to the downside as well. So the Bitcoin price starts to tank. The price of micro-strategy really starts to swing with it. And when you're talking about the price, I think it's important to kind of just understand what's going on with it. This is just kind of my two cents. It's really easy to get sidetracked and be like, "Oh my gosh, you know, Samson Mao is notorious for over going to have the Omega candle, $100,000 wick." And it's really cool to get pumped up with that. But I think we all have to kind of stay humble and realistic. And the two people, I think, do a really good job with that are Dr. Jeff Ross. And even though he's kind of controversial, I still like to follow him, Joe Carlissari. And I think over the last 12 to 18 months, they've been the most based followers that you can listen to and get insight on. Dr. Jeff has been saying kind of for the whole year that right around the end of August on Michael Jackson's birthday was going to be a good time to start turning into the bull market. And he confirmed that on Noster because he's no longer on X. But Joe Carlissari, I was always waiting for both of them to get on the same page. And yesterday, Joe just tweeted that the factors that he looks for, he just saw a really strong bullish divergence or a bull flag on his TA charts. And so he's now just flipped bullish as well. So with that being said, even though the price is tanky right now, I do-- or not tanking, it's just a buying opportunity. I think there's a really good opportunity for this thing to start picking up really quick. Anybody have any thoughts on that? AC, are you speaking? I can't hear you. Yeah, I can't hear him either. You might want to drop down, AC. You got to press that mic button, AC. All right, so he hopped down real quick. Jacob, let's go ahead and start rolling that clip again. Changed in terms of, you think, the investor class that's investing in your stock versus now investing, for example, in an ETF. Obviously, one is more levered than the other. Yeah, if you're investing in the ETF, you're getting one-for-one performance paying 25 basis point fee, no yield. When we issue a billion-dollar convertible bond paying 1% interest, we're capturing a 50% premium or 50% type BTC yield on that upfront. And then we capture another yield on the back end. So if what you wanted was a sort of a tax-deferred yield on your asset, or you wanted to tap into the convertible bond market, if you want to borrow billion dollars for a percent by Bitcoin with it, hold it for seven years, you can't do that as an individual, but microstrategy can do it. What have you made? Right now, I think I just saw a headline that $1.2 billion in outflows took place out of the Bitcoin ETF. And I'm curious, sort of, what you think is going on with the impact of the ETF on the price of Bitcoin? I think generally it's been a good thing, and it's created more demand. But you've got to keep in mind the Bitcoin is smart, fast, strong money. So on a Saturday night, if you're worried about a missile strike, you can't teleport your $10 million apartment to Singapore, lever it up 10 to 1 in short $100 million worth of New York real estate. But you can short $100 million worth of Bitcoin by borrowing $10 million. So you have a lot of fast money traders, a lot of volatility, and that will cause and ripple into volatility in the ETFs. Can you explain this? One of the things you just talked about, if there was a missile strike or something, there was a sense that people talked about this as digital gold. Maybe you still think that's the case, but it often doesn't act like digital gold in the midst of a missile strike. It's the most liquid, fungible free capital market in the world. You're in New York apartments, it's not fungible, it's not liquid. I can't panic sell it. So when there's a short-term panic, Bitcoin is trading really, really hard to be the opposite. Over the long term, it's up 44% a year every year. And you either get 12% from the S&P with Vixvall, or you take 3X of all that to get 44%. So over the long term, if you're an investor. So you went over a lot there, but I think kind of the main talking point, was what the last host had just said. So I'm not familiar with his name, is that shouldn't it be a store of value? Shouldn't be people holding on to it in times of turbulence? And I think that more people are holding it and selling it during these times of turbulence, says a lot about Bitcoin itself. And let me elaborate a little bit on that. I think when they said when the rockets get launched or when we saw the yen crisis, Bitcoin really took a nosedive. And it's because it's liquid 24/7. And I think as more investors and hedge funds and larger corporations see that, that this thing trades all the time, even when the market is down. More people are going to start acquiring it because it makes their company more secure. Because during these times when the market's not active, they can sell this. Because again, it's liquid 24/7 and they can hedge it. So when their losses come in on the following morning, they're able to hedge that a little bit. I would definitely like to try and get some thoughts on this, Terence. You know, I didn't listen to this interview in full, but it's like all these clips that we hear and especially most of them all involved, Joe, Kiernan and Andrew Sorkin, Andrew just doesn't get it. It's like his biggest complaint is that he thinks the price needs to just stay the same, that it needs to somehow be stable. And so that if it dips short term, he's like, well, it can't be gold, even though gold will also dip short term. And if it goes up, then his complaint is, well, if it's a store of value, why is it going up? So it's odd to me. I mean, I get it. He's so favored by fiat. I mean, I think his annual salary right now is about 16 million a year at CNBC. And so maybe he just doesn't notice the leaks and the inflation. But I just can't believe that he's so stupid that he doesn't get and doesn't see what's happening with the numbers. So I'm happy that Michael Saylor of all people is there today, because you get a lot of people like Pomp and they're great in their own ways. But they sort of pile on Joe and he, Joe Karen says what he can. And I think he really gets Bitcoin, but he can only do so much. So it's like, at a certain point, numbers and math reveal the truth and what's going on. So it's, at a certain point, he's going to have to come around. I just don't get it. Well, before I say what I was going to say, I just want to say, I see Ella Huff in the audience would love to have you come up and talk. But what I found funny is he was like, well, this is supposed to be liquid gold. How come, or digital gold? How come it's not acting like digital gold? What do you mean how it is acting like digital gold? It's not actually gold. It's not just like he was talking about with the apartments. Gold is not as fungible, whereas this is, and that's the difference. That's some of the problems with gold. So it's going to have different characteristics than gold because it's digital. I mean, to hear him say that and be like, yeah, it's because it's not gold, exactly. That's just an analogy and you're kind of missing the other aspect of that analogy. Yeah, if you want to critique Bitcoin, just shrink your time preference down to a very short term. And if you want to understand and see what it's really doing, just lengthen out your time frame. And even Andrew Sorkin, he lengthens out his time frame when he talks about stocks and equities and why not. He tends to cherry pick the same way for the assets, investable goods that he believes in, and probably just because he understands. I just don't think he's read a single Bitcoin book. I really don't. And that would make sense on some of his takes. Again, people, we say this all the time, but everyone gets in at the price they deserve. And it's just unfortunate when, especially when he has such leaders in the industry coming up and talking and you still just don't get it. You can only lead a horse to water. You can force them to drink. And I think that's a little bit of what we're seeing here. I want to go ahead and just continue to play out the last little bit of the clip, Jacob, and then I'll discuss it and kind of talk about some of the points. It's going to be great because it's strong capital. Over the near term, if you're a trader, you get lots of arbitrage opportunities. Is it a non-correlated asset people can count on or is it just a risk on? You know, in the near term, whoever's got the most money can decide whether correlates or non-correlates. It's like, again, I can levered up 20 to 1 on Saturday night and I can trade it long or short. Hey, Michael, just the whole idea of leverage in something that is admittedly so volatile causes some people some real concern. I mean, I'm far more conservative. I would be worried about that. What's the worst-case scenario of something that would happen in a leverage situation like that with the Bitcoin ETF? I think what happens is people off short trading on Binance with 20 to 1 leverage get wiped out on Saturday night when there's a potential missile scare. And so they're the degenerate crypto traders. On the other hand, what you want is a free open capital market. Everybody can trade it any way they want. And so if you're going to hold it for more than four years, you're going to get superior performance with that volatility. Gensler, with all we've seen, and I wonder what you think. Do you have anecdotal? Okay, and he's going to start talking a little bit about politics. And we'll hear just a little bit for his take on it. And then we'll go ahead and start rolling into something else. But I think, Caylor, just summed it up perfectly right there. Your time preference has to be four or five years. And then these short little moves do not matter. Again, everyone is so conditioned to live in a now and just me, me, me, what's going to happen tonight, tomorrow morning. No one looks out and plans for even four months out, little on four years. And so that's the best, that's the best thing you can tell people is just just buy it. Don't worry about the short-term moves. And again, look at your portfolio in four in four years. That's why don't get over, don't get over your skis. And that's what you don't mind not looking at every single day. Anybody have any thoughts on that short little clip? Yeah, both, Caylor and President Bukele thinking about the three-year anniversary of El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin just three years ago. They both were buying high, especially Bukele. He started buying over 60k as a nation state reserve. And it just shows that buying as we dip and keeping a longer time frame wins out because a little El Salvador that's been adding one Bitcoin every single day, I think they're now up 30 to 35 million, even though they started buying much higher than we are today. But they bought as we went down to 30 and down to 20 and down to 15. And I think Caylor proved the same thing because a lot of people, a lot of the media and other nation states dunked on Bukele. And they dunked on Caylor when they were down, but these guys had conviction and they just kept plotting along and kept buying and kept learning. And that's the way. And that's what we've all learned. And technically, if you look at them, just by the way, just real technical, if you look at the monthly, if you do the monthly averages, yes, Bitcoin has never been down on any four-year timeframe ever, period. But if you look at the daily, there was like a two or three-day period where that doesn't actually hold up. But just FYI, that's why some people are like, "Oh, no, no, no, it's not four years. You guys are wrong. You don't know what you're talking about." But five years is probably the smart play anyway. And don't sell your Bitcoin anyway. Yeah, never sell your Bitcoin. And I think what a lot of people don't mention is that El Salvador and MicroStrategy really have a large advantage over everybody else who finally figures this out with that first mover advantage. I think Hoddle had a post on this clip. And he was talking about how Caylor has just kind of been on the back burner for the last 15 years. He had a great company in the late '90s, early 2000s, but it didn't really materialize as all of his other competitors did. And I think he's pretty even killed Caylor is. But I think he's got a chip on his shoulder. And I think over the next, this bull run does what we think it's going to do. I think you're going to see him just kind of being a little bit more boastful about it, just because nobody gave him the time of day when he started making this move. And now that once other companies try and get involved and want to try and mimic this play, no one's going to be able to catch him. He just has such a huge lead. Even if a big company like Dell was to try and make a large purchase, it just pushes the price up that much more where they're not acquiring anything like what Caylor has. And I think a lot of people missed that. Good morning, Dom Bay. What up, y'all? How's everyone doing? Dom is the Michael Caylor of firefighters. I need some time to break that down, Terrence, but thanks, man. Hey, Dom, I might have heard that you might have some news to share. Are you able to share it here first or sharing it later? Yeah, I can cover some light news. I wonder if I can get to try to pin some in a nest here. Here, let me just double. All right, I pinned some real quick. So, yeah, I connected with this like an online platform that connects municipalities with government job candidates. And they were really excited to do some stuff in Bitcoin. So, we kind of came up with a game plan on ways to provide financial literacy to public sector employees through Bitcoin, explore a bunch of things like how can employees learn about Bitcoin, dollar cost average, explore benefits, how can Bitcoin be used as a recruitment and retention tool in the public sector. So, we entered this partnership and we have a lot of cool stuff we're going to be working on together. They were a very large online platform. Like I'd say, they've been around for, gosh, a long time, almost a couple of decades. And so, they have a ton of contacts with cities, public agencies. So, they were really supportive and just excited to get proof of workforce's mission out there. And so, I think this is a very, you know, awesome partnership that is going to allow us to just make a ton of public sector candidates and employees aware of our service that we exist and come up with some really innovative ways for governments, local governments, to utilize Bitcoin in their operation. That's awesome. And congratulations on that. Yeah, thanks, man. It's exciting. And, of course, as always, it will involve, you know, the Bitcoin community because everyone brings a ton of great ideas. And we all know that this network is just an amazing collection of individuals. So, and also some great opportunities to collaborate with y'all, right? Because at the end of the day, you know, our veterans are, you know, in many ways, fall in line with this effort. And I know you guys are working on tons of great stuff. So, I'm looking forward to ways to connect and collab. Yeah, just let us, if you need us to do anything, and we're definitely all here for you, sir. Yeah, for sure. It'll be, I'll definitely drop some updates and announcements here as we roll some stuff out. I'm really excited about the recruitment tool. You know, I know we've talked, I've talked to Gabe about this and we talked a little bit on the Bitcoin veterans podcast. But, you know, cities, they do recruitment stuff all, you know, after 2020 and 2021 and everything that happened, you know, law enforcement became an area that became very difficult to recruit for. I just heard the city of Torrance was giving like, I don't know, $50,000 or $100,000 signing bonuses or, you know, some form of a signing bonus because of how difficult it is to recruit, you know, like good applicants. But, I mean, Bitcoin comes to mind as an amazing recruitment tool, right, where you can get, if you combine Bitcoin along with Bitcoin benefits with some vesting structure and let people know number one, you're a forward-facing public agency. And number two, you're going to give them like an incentive, you know, to apply and work at your city and there's some, you know, you're going to, you're not just going to give them something that's going to drop in value in a year or two, you know, you're going to educate them as well and give them something that they can really integrate into their long-term financial planning and find Bitcoin. So that's one of the most exciting areas, I think. As crazy, I was just thinking as you were saying that, could you imagine if a city started recruiting these police officers or firefighters by offering direct Bitcoin? So I'll give you, you know, one and a half Bitcoin right now equivalent of $80, $90,000 as a sign-on bonus. We'll hold it on for four years and after four years, it's yours. And imagine the return on that. It just, you know, it goes up and it's all of a sudden, it's three, four, $500,000. Yeah, you actually might have a problem where the people you just hired, just retired, you know, you're like, oh, yeah, they've been on for like four years, they kind of bull run, they're gone, we lost them, but good for them. You know, that's way too, that's way too much hype there. We'll get 58 forever, but, you know, no, just kidding. Yeah, I think like exactly what you're saying, as a recruitment tool, it's not just like a one-time thing to attract talent. And I really think that Bitcoin incorporating it into recruitment, not just for the public, but private sector will become a very mainstream thing because of, you know, like the promise it has for a long term and what Bitcoin represents too. Dom, when will we get the next walking video of you explaining all of this? I think the people demand it. I got some stuff to work on. I've been really analyzing that video. Oh, thanks. Thanks, Terrence. A lot of too much hand mode, Jackson, like, you know, the hand, you know, and he's doing the dance and like the right hands moving too much. So I'm going to really work on my walking and talking and come back stronger. That's just the Italian and you got to move those hands. Exactly. Dom, have you heard about Carleños work with voting systems for local governments? Yes, that was, they did the one in Guatemala, right, for their election. Yep, that's all on. Yeah, I've connected with them and, you know, I'm really looking at ways to potentially incorporate it because I love their platform and how they're going about doing stuff. And so I have connected with their team and just waiting for the right opportunity to maybe try to integrate them somewhere in the election process. As you guys know, like county elections, especially here in LA County, it's a very, you know, it's a very bureaucratic system. Welcome to the state, Pedro. Oh, thank you. We tried to take the Tarrant County road and unfortunately in Republican only states or jurisdictions, it doesn't seem to be any kind of a concern side. And primarily, I think that's because it's captured. So we were not able, I mean, like so captured, it's a little sick. We were not even able to get into the offices having two members of like the Tarrant County voting department, like completely sold on the idea that this was really good tech. One of the guys is married to a Venezuelan lady. And so speak Spanish. And so when I introduced him to Carlino, like really got it, like got it at a deep, deep, deep, this is important level, gnawing somebody from Venezuela, right? Like that makes it even a little bit more, especially with the way the election just went down, a little bit more, you know, sting for him, that working within the government, he can't even get something, he's a Marine too. So, you know, can't get something done that would actually improve the county and probably your reduced costs. But it's just hard to fight these vested systems that are captured. Yeah, it's really tough. And one of the things I was kind of sharing is is, you know, transparency is pivotal. And that's why I love their platform, right? But the transparency is what people crave right now. It's in demand for any voting system. Those systems are, you know, definitely tough to crack into. And here's the thing is, you know, whatever people's, let's just take like a system like LA County. It's well-funded, right? They're voting, like that's a well-funded operation. And so, you know, I think they can be pivotal in certain counties or jurisdictions where they're having issues funding the staff and the operation behind the voting because that's where you start getting into trouble, right? When, you know, you don't have adequate staff and personnel that are managing a voting process for like a local jurisdiction city or county. And then people, then you have whether there's, you know, foul play or not suspicious and they lose faith in that system. And so I think there's some opportunities there for sure. Yeah, definitely. Jacob, let's go ahead and start finish or firing up that last little bit of this segment. Gabe, I saw you just jump up here. Good morning, sir. And Ella Hough, I see you out there still. If you want to join us, please come on stage. Yeah, I'd love to hear about that. You know, in the near term, whoever's got the most money can decide whether correlates are non-correlates. It's like, again, I can lever it up 20 to 1 on Saturday night and I can trade it long or short. Hey, Michael, just the whole idea of leverage in something that is admittedly so volatile causes some people some real concern. I mean, I'm far more conservative. I would be worried about that. What's the worst-case scenario of something that would happen in a leverage situation like that with the Bitcoin ETF? I think what happens is people offshore trading on Binance with 20 to 1 leverage get wiped out on Saturday night when there's a potential missile scare. And so they're the degenerate crypto traders. On the other hand, what you want is a free open capital market. Everybody can trade it any way they want. And so if you're going to hold it for more than four years, you're going to get superior performance with that volatility. Gensler, with all we've seen, and I wonder what you think, do you have anecdotal evidence exactly what he's thinking in terms of Bitcoin regulation given that he, do you think he's done the 100 hours that you said need to be done to understand it? And if so, what do you attribute the, I don't know, he's been unable to stop it because of the courts, really, but he certainly tried. What do you attribute that to? I think this administration has been fairly conservative and they're embraced of the crypto economy. They want to go slow, carefully, deliberately. But do they want to go or do they not want to go? Well, before Gensler entered office, the rhetoric was even more controversial. After Gensler entered office, you heard Jerome Powell, Christina Lagarde, Gary Gensler, all say Bitcoin is a speculative digital asset. And that was actually a move forward. With the approval of the ETFs, it was a second move forward. I think clearly we're all waiting for big banks, bulge bracket banks, to start to custody and hold Bitcoin. That'll be the third big shoe to drop. Do you think that the election matters? And do you believe that Donald Trump is more Bitcoin friendly than a Biden and Harris? Well, there's no doubt the Republicans have taken a very pro-crypto stance. Republicans are Trump. Trump and you believe it, you don't believe it. In particular, there's a tension between the 21st century and the 20th century. In the 20th century, company comes public. It costs $100 million in four years to go public. I know I did it in '98. In the 21st century, I can create a public crypto token in four hours for a hundred bucks. So you have 100 million companies that want to be publicly trading an asset a million times cheaper, faster. That's the crypto economy. The traditional economy is, you take four years, you spend 20 million a year on compliance, and I think that the two sides are talking past each other. But clearly, the future is faster, smarter, stronger. I mean, you know what Senator Elizabeth Warren thinks about Bitcoin. I mean, if she becomes a, I've seen her big jobs. The political wins have shifted, and I would say that, at this point, the Republicans have shifted to way progressive and the Democrats are drifting to the middle. In terms of Bitcoin. We could go ahead and pick that there. Okay, and so I think that was a perfect thing to kind of get into right now. And it's crazy that we're having these discussions. Again, even a year and a half ago, no one really thought that this election was going to be about Bitcoin and it wouldn't even get mentioned, but you cannot deny that it is an active part of what's going to happen in the next couple of weeks. So I'd love to get everyone's thoughts on just this last little clip. Looks like Don Bay got your hand up. Yeah, just some some inside information for y'all and if y'all can keep it here. When Taylor refers to like the late night Binance 24 hour trader during a missile missile strike, that's actually a reference to Terence Michael, formerly lowercase Terence, now uppercase Terence, AKA T Mike. And he was up one night. The interesting thing is he was actually just watching Oppenheimer. And so it wasn't even a real missile scare when he started trading. It was literally Oppenheimer and he just kind of like dosed off woke up and thought it was the news. And so a lot of people don't realize that Taylor was referring to him there, but very interesting that he made it into that reference. Anybody else have have something they want to say on that? Inside information is is safe here. I'm pretty sure but you already signed a DNR before they came in. So thank you for that. But are you being an NDA or a DNR? They signed a DNR resuscitate on T Mike? We do Clinton rules in this in this space, all right? So don't slip on anything when you're in the bathroom. But yeah, kind of, I mean, because they're talking about how the political winds are shifting and obviously we're seeing that happen. One thing that I do want to point out is that, yes, the presidential election obviously is important. I think that it's symbolically perhaps even more important than it actually is in reality. Just for the simple fact that one of the main candidates did get up and declare basically his undying fealty towards Bitcoin and ensuring that everybody has the right to play with their bitcoins as they see fit. Now, at the same time, I believe that this election is a toss-up. I've said it several times that I don't think there's any way in hell that the current administration is going to let go of their power peacefully and there's nothing that they will stop at to keep him from winning, basically. And so there's that. But even if he does, then we can expect to see, he's not going to do everything that he's saying he's going to do because obviously he's a politician and there are other influences that are going to hit. But the fact, regardless, remains that that bucket of ingredients has been dumped into the stew, and that bucket of ingredients is Bitcoin. And it's a part of the conversation now that's not going away. And either Trump is going to do something about it or his sailor mentioned, the Republicans that are anybody but him are going to continue to push this. And I think that we're going to even see more people that are elected into office that are Bitcoiners before they go into office and they go in there specifically with the purpose of playing the long game and going in there and doing that. And it wouldn't surprise me if some of them are even in this spaces right now, but I'm not going to call it any names, because I haven't seen your DNRs. But at the same time, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens. And I do want to touch on Dom Bay, what you were talking about as well. We're seeing more of a receptiveness of it in general across the board. And when you're looking at these job services or anything that has to do with the public sector that is considering offering Bitcoin as any type of employment package or incentive, we're definitely seeing a shift. And I believe we're going to continue to see that in throughout public and private sectors. And I'm even exploring ways where we can tie this into the DoD. And I'll talk more about that later in a much smaller spaces. But it's happening. The movement is taking place. The shift is happening. That aircraft carrier is changing direction. Takes a while, but it is occurring. And it's things like what you're doing out there on the West Coast, Dom, that are really catching people's attention. And it's things that people in this room are doing and that the people that you're connected with that are, you know, we're pushing it and we're moving the needle. And it's not even going to be as much of a, okay, is it going to stay at 58 for all the time and eternity? Is it going to go to a billion? Is it going to go down to zero? People aren't even aren't even as concerned about that now as they were in the past. And we're beginning to see that shift. And I think we're just going to continue to keep on seeing it happen. Yeah, 100% and to add to add more fuel onto that fire that Gabe just said, you know, that that shift is happening and the openness is there. You know, we talk about this all the time. And I cannot emphasize enough for anyone listening on the space, the importance of focusing on local efforts. You know, you see a ton of election stuff. And of course, you know, there's like fundraising for presidential candidates, but the local adoption and kind of like the weaving of Bitcoin into the fabric of society, it can't be bypassed through a donation to a presidential candidate. You can't skip that phase. Otherwise, there's so longevity to the adoption. And so with the minds and hearts open to Bitcoin, a lot of times we want to, you know, we want to run through the monopoly board and skip right to the, you know, to the payoff. But that proof of work can't be bypassed. And I really encourage everyone, you know, that maybe watches what's happening at the national level gets frustrated to go like, have you orange pill your neighbor yet? Have you orange pill to your block? Have you orange pill to your local church or organization? Have you orange pill to your local city? These are where our efforts are best spent, in my opinion, right now, because when that is successful, these issues at the federal level melt away because right then to alter someone's ability to hold Bitcoin effectively, the people will not tolerate that. If there's a widespread adoption, it will be, they will handle itself. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing is, yes, the internet is fantastic and Bitcoin Twitter is really cool. But there's a difference between just blasting our opinions and our perspectives and our charts and our graphs into our own echo chambers and actually going, going outside, walking on the street, talking to your neighbors about it, going to your church, scheduling meetups. And I mean, even we were talking about elections earlier, going and talking to your election officials, they get ahold of the guys over there, it's proof and they'll walk you through the process and they'll give you exactly what you need to go and have that conversation with your local election officials. And they'll get you going in that direction to show them how to secure their voting records and not be that alanier or that state that has people running after them with pitchforks when their elections are a frickin mess, like we're going to see some happen in November. And even if we don't see a widespread acceptance and implementation of that type of voter verification, then the little pockets over that we do see are going to be compared to the mess that happens in the majority, I believe, of the voting precincts. And then as we again, it's the long game. And then as we move forward toward our future elections, people are going to be saying, okay, what the hell can we do to prevent this? Oh, wait a minute. Look at this. There's this company that uses the Bitcoin blockchain to secure, to amutably secure voting records into prevent fraud. So it's the long game, but you're right. It starts with getting out there and talking to people, turn off the phone for a few minutes, plug in with your community, tell people about Bitcoin, tell your story. Okay, you don't have to be a professional. You don't have to know everything about it. I know that we have people that are at different levels of understanding. Okay, I'm brand new at myself. It feels like there's so much more that I don't know than what I do know. But I know people. And so I go and I talk to them, I just share my story with them. And every single person in this space is an every single person that listens to this recording has something to offer. So just go out there into your world, talk to your people and share your story. And they'll come along when they're ready. That was perfect, Gabe. I just love your rants that it's and I can attest to it. I think you have to smart you have to start small. I want a business. I was trying to onboard all of my customers on the Bitcoin and I neglected to try and onboard my staff first. I just switched that around and I made an incentive for my employees and staff to start utilizing and paying it. And a 98 difference between the way they they talk to customers about it or bring it up in conversation. It goes a long way. So just start off small. You don't have to tackle the beast right now. Start off really, really local, like Gabe said, your friends, your neighbors, and then have them help you spread that bit petro. You got your hand up, sir? Yeah. I want to give you guys a little bit of, I guess, update feedback on my process of this. So obviously I'm in the petroleum world and I try to orange pill the oil and gas world by hosting quarterly. It really hasn't been quarterly as the goal. We're getting there. Having sponsored has been an issue even though I charged a small fee and pretty much pay for the lunch out of that fee. But look, the idea is I want to get to my industry in order to do that, I have to go to them. And the best place, at least in the oil and gas industry, I think it's this way for a lot of professional organizations is that they do continuing education type of environment. And in the world of oil and gas, it happens to be the petroleum clubs. So that's where people go eat lunches and listen to other speakers and stuff. And so I try to host something there in the format that they're already used to. So then I can plug them into the idea of Bitcoin by bringing the panel. They have lunch, they eat, they listen to something, they have some questions they leave. And that's one way to definitely get people. I have found, however, that my efforts at TCU and the University and also the Department of Energy have been better. And it's kind of like what Gabe is saying, you just have to get the conversation going. So what I have found that's a super ridiculous hack is that I went to a conference and spoke about Bitcoin as an option for plugging wells. So what do I mean by that? Wells leak. That's just what they do. And even if you plug it, eventually the casing, the metal wears out and gas and oil and stuff comes out. And especially in older wells, this is kind of a big problem. So I went to one of these conferences to offer up the solution of Bitcoin mining capturing this gas and doing something with it. What I found was the National Renewable Energy Labs who had been writing grants and writing stuff specifically about the topic had never been approached by anybody about the idea of, hey, that gas doesn't need to just be plugged. It could be pointed at something more useful at generating energy for Bitcoin. And so I got the idea introduced there, right? The next step was, I think, the critical step is that I invited them to come to the next thing that I was going to host. So I was going to speak about that. And I thought I failed because they didn't show up. I actually hosted an event at TCU that was a follow up to that. That was kind of like, let's continue the conversation and carbon credits and Bitcoin mining together. Even though I got turned down, what I didn't realize, I had set off that conversation inside of the National Renewable Energy Labs. And that fire had already started kind of blowing itself because there are a bunch of engineers and can't help themselves. So just understand that just having, just inviting somebody to something, even though it might be small, that's a really powerful way of opening the conversation for them. I like that. Thank you for sharing that. That's good. Remember, you don't have to see results instantly. A lot of time those seeds take time to grow. So don't give up if it takes a little longer than you expect. Long game, man, long game. Yeah, we're in more Bitcoiners. We have a really long time preference. So just make sure you utilize that. And I think it's interesting that you brought that up to Petro because there was an energy company out of Japan, TEPCO. They just announced that they're going to become green energy producers and operate their business on the assumption that part of the power that is wasted, they're going to start mining Bitcoin. And this is a state backed energy company in Japan. And so I know TEPCO mentioned about a year ago that they were going to start mining Bitcoin. But now it's just slowly starting to seep in. And these companies are utilizing that they can make money on things that they're just wasting. So I think that's a very interesting development coming out of Japan. We are getting close to the top of the hour. So I want to give a quick thank you to our partners who help us out. First off is going to be Sola Satoshi decentralized the Bitcoin miners run their own Bitcoin miner in our house. It's really easy to set up. I just set mine up over the weekend. It's really simple, really easy. And I believe that Hunter and his wife of Sola Satoshi will be joining us this week to talk about it and answer any questions. So make sure you stay tuned for updates with that. The next one we have is going to be Black Sheep Ammo. They were the ones who donated 6,009 millimeter ammo rounds to our Bitcoin Nashville range day. I was hoping just to get 500 rounds from them and they donated 6,000 without even thinking twice. So go check them out at black sheep ammo dot com. And last but not least, we have punch plate. Your Bitcoin seed phrase, make sure that you're storing it on a metal plate. Don't leave it on a piece of paper. That paper is susceptible to water damage, to fire damage. Put it on a metal plate. This way if something were to happen, you know, that's going to stay there. And this way you have redundancy. You have the 12 or 24 words in your head, but you have something else to back it up on. Check them out at punchplate.com. Before we start wrapping up the show, I'd like to see if anybody has anything else they'd like to start hitting on or touching on or what they're looking forward to in the week. So I'll go ahead first then. I'm looking forward actually to the debate on Tuesday. I think as boring it'll probably be, I think it'll give us a good outlook as to kind of what's going to happen in the coming weeks. I expect it to be very one-sided. I expect it to be kind of a clear winner. And I expect the price of Bitcoin to kind of follow those results. That's one of the things I'm looking forward to. And then the CPI results or yeah, the CPI numbers that are coming out on Wednesday. I think that'll kind of lay the ground work as to what the feds could do next week when they have the rate cuts. Anybody else have thoughts on that? I'm glad you brought that up about the debate because I didn't realize that was coming up or I guess I knew it was coming up soon. But I think that's going to be interesting because I don't know who all has ever seen Kamala Harris talk or do a debate like she did in 2019 when she was trying to become president. It's pretty awful. And the funny thing is like the reason why she's in her position is because of how poorly Biden did and that debate against Trump. And so what I would be looking forward to is more or not necessarily looking forward to but keeping an eye out for it. What are the things that happen after that debate? I mean, maybe she shocks us and she does a decent job and holds your own. But if you remember, like the corporate press didn't try to spin Biden, like they kind of jumped on him and he was out pretty quickly after that. So it'll be interesting to see what spin they might put on for her and then follow on actions maybe against Trump or just in general to distract people. Yes, absolutely, Jordan. That's a good thing to look at. It's just the headlines coming up from that. I think it's interesting that the Trump campaign brought in Tulsi Gabbard specifically because she kind of beat up Kamala really bad in the year prior. So I think it'll be good. Again, I think it's going to be, Jordan was going to be pretty boring. A lot of the same talking points but it'll be good to finally hear Harris no matter what side of the aisle you sit on to see her actually talk in an unscripted way for a length of time. It'll kind of give you an idea what we've got going on. If you have any no judgment, okay, maybe a little bit. But if you are a Kamala Harris supporter, I would just love to know what policies of hers is it that you like because I don't think she really has any policies. She hasn't really come out with anything very specific, just a bunch of things that have gotten highlighted. So I'm kind of interested to see what she actually says that she's going to do is it just going to be word salad or is she going to make concrete positions? Again, I don't believe what you don't know what we're going to say. She came out with a bomb. What are you talking about dude? Unrealized cap games? That's, I don't even know how to explain how insane that is as a political position. Here's how you explain it. You will be taxed on money that doesn't exist. Well, that's the current system. It's like, welcome to imaginary debt slavery. I mean, like, what, like, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make sense, but I think it's designed not to make sense. It's designed to be confusing and in a talking point. I really hope it doesn't get passed, but. Are you saying that this is by design? Are you saying that this is a a Hegelian dialectic and we are being spoken to by a puppet master? Yes, 100%. I think everybody on here believes that exactly to a T. I think the last four years have been pretty, pretty evident of that. This is when Coleman says the party's over and we're all standing in the doorway. Oh, how about the Roman Empire? No, no, no, no. I just, I know we got into it last Friday with upper capital parents. And again, I don't want to make this show political, but I do think we have to cover some of the points to make sure that we are covered fairly and make sure everybody's aware of what's going on. But that's not even a political point. That's a straight up imaginary number math problem. The unrealized text. Is that what you're talking about, Bitetro? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, think about this, or I'm going to tax you on the potential value of your home in the future. So when it first came out, I didn't really give it much thought because it was 100 million dollars was the threshold and I am nowhere near that, so it didn't apply to me. So I didn't give it much thought. That's how it always starts. Then that's exactly it. As I gave it more thought, I was like, well, how do we get out of the situation we're at? Do we just with with the debt? Do we just inflate it away? So dollars is really only a million dollars today to pay down our debt? Or do we do a debt jubilee and we start over? If money is there, then how does that apply? So I do think it is a slippery slope and I do think it will impact more people than originally thought. But with that being said, I still... And I'm sure most people in this space already know this, but for anybody who doesn't, the income tax, when it was first passed, was only for the top 1% of income earners. That's how it started. And now it's everybody. Yes. Wade, welcome up, sir. And I know you have something to say. Let's hear it. Good morning. I just like to say that there's no way that, in my opinion, there's no way that the unrealized capital gains is going to pass. It's just a talking point. And I'm not sure what... I'm not sure the fan base is... Let's just say that they passed it. That would mean that every year on the gains that I have not realized, I'm going to have to pay tax on. I'm going to have to cash in my assets, which drops the value of everybody else's 401(k), their stock portfolio, all retirement plans across the country. Every single person who has an unrealized gain has to sell their stocks in order to pay their taxes, which would negatively impact every political figure's portfolio. I can see the talking point in order to get elected, and I can see the debate back and forth to, "Is it good? Is it bad trying to cause tension between the two parties?" But there is absolutely no way I could ever see the political figure doing something that negatively impacts their stock portfolio. Coleman, I know you're probably strong. Yeah, you can move to rap. I'm going to put my tin foil hat on real quick, but I think this is a pretty good idea. So just bear with me if you think this is not based on facts. This is just based on my own reading of the tea leaves. I think most of the policy positions that Kamala Harris has come out on have been things like this that are just so bonkers that even her own people will not support it. I don't think she's smart enough to come up with her own ideas. I think she has people around her telling her, "Oh, yeah, yeah, this is a good idea. Say this. Say this." And she does. And I think she is purposely being set up as kind of a scapegoat. They couldn't really, they couldn't move on from Biden and pass her up as like the first female woman of color, vice president. They couldn't just pass her up. That's like goes against their whole agenda. But they also knew that they're not really, the chances of beating Trump are pretty slim. So I think she's not even smart enough to realize that the position she's being told to take are not even popular amongst her own party. She thinks because she's got a crowd of like young people or people looking for handouts cheering that it's a winner, but it's never going to go anywhere. So are you, I just want to make sure, are you just saying that they're trying to punt this election on the Democratic side and just have her kind of fail on purpose? Or are they just trying to say these outrageous things just for talking points? Yeah, it could be both. But yeah, I think they're pretty much just punting this election because it's just so abysmal. I don't even think, however you might feel about cheating or not, like if you subscribe to the fact that they do that or have done it and would do it again, I think it would have to be so blatant that like the numbers of registered voters wouldn't even, it would have surpassed that. We'd have like 110% voter turnout or something. It's just one theory that I'm working off of. I think you're onto something and I'll go into it again. We're going into a little bit of rabbit hole, but I like this. I think that they are trying to punt it. I don't think that they knew she was going to have a chance. I still think they're going to cheat and if they win, that's awesome. But I think what they're trying to do is allow the Republicans to win. And they know what's coming around the corner with our debt and the only way out of it is by just having inflation. And so they want to make sure that the Republicans just burn on this. Inflation is getting it going. Roaring back up, they're going to have to do a lot of stimulus, print money, implement different policies, and they're just going to have four years of just complete and utter chaos in the hopes that they get another election for another four to eight years. That's kind of my belief. Exactly. If you understand the economic environment, like almost all of us in this room do, would you want to be going into the presidency over these next four years? No, absolutely not. And I didn't know this, but I just read an article. I guess the debt ceiling or something is coming up at the end of this month. Did anyone read in on that or can share a little bit more? No, but can I step in and ask a quick rhetorical question before we get down that path is k bono. I was know what that means. A library bono k bono translates in Latin from to who benefits. So my question is who benefits from representing the most powerful man in the world as the weakest bitch in the world, replacing him with the crazy lady, and then having Teflon Don when the election? I mean, I think the regime kind of wins in that situation, especially if they just say, Oh, look, because they can still pin Trump as being this, you know, unique evil, they can keep going down these ramps on that and say everything that is failing is his fault. See, we told you so. And so they get to just blame everything on him. They get to booster their position, bolster their position by saying, see, we were fixing everything and he came in and screwed it all up. And most people, most normies aren't going to realize like, no, it doesn't matter. This thing is going under anyone. Yes. Yeah. And I think we're all kind of under that same assumption or agreement that things are definitely get a little crazier and fiat land. And that's really the only way out. You inflate your way out or you do a debt Jubilee, either one of those scenarios is good for what we love. And that's and that's Bitcoin. But I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to wrap up today's show. I really appreciate everyone coming up here and discussing this. Terence, Jordan, Gabe Lord, AC, Dom Bay, Wade, Bit Petro. I really appreciate you guys coming on here and speaking. And everybody in the audience, I didn't get a chance to mention. I do appreciate you all tuning in. We do this every Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. Central Standard Time. Please make sure give us a like, give us a follow. If you're a veteran, please send us a direct message and we'll get you connected with one of our extended communities of over 600 vets and we're just continually growing. Please tune in to the Bitcoin Veterans podcast tomorrow night. That will be 7 p.m. Eastern time, six o'clock central time. We're going to have Spetsky coming on as a guest. He wrote a book with Mark Moss, the Uncommunist Manifesto. Really short book takes a couple hours to read. If you haven't read it, I'd encourage you to just pick it up and give it a quick once over. But he will be there tomorrow night. Again, that's six o'clock central standard time, 7 p.m. Eastern time. And get out there and crush today and I will see you all tomorrow morning.