102: Acceptance To Adoption

Welcome in to This Week in Bitcoin, episode 102. My name is Chris, chrislas.com, jupiterbroadcasting.com. It's the week of the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas, and the vibe is very institutional, I guess is a nice way to put it. I have been watching hours and hours of talks, keynotes, presentations, live stream, chitter, chatter, filler, really just trying to look for some of the signal in all of this for you. And at the same time, Washington seems to be treating custody and enforcement around Bitcoin and how they treat that a lot more formally, which I think is an interesting development. Even if some of their bigger announcements, which we will cover, I think still should be labeled as claims rather than fact. It's still worth listening to. So let's get into it. Let's set a broader context, the macro context that is taking place during the Bitcoin 2026 conference. Anybody that's been listening to this show for a couple of weeks, you know that Morgan Stanley recently got into the Bitcoin game. And for us, this is now old and settled news. But for the financial wonks, this is the difference between living with Bitcoin and accepting Bitcoin and even transitioning to mass adoption for them. This is actually a really big transition for the financial wonks. So let's get wonky and listen to them processing the news. Morgan Stanley getting in is huge for a couple of reasons. One, they don't do a lot of ETFs. ETFs. Two, obviously, I'm a wire house baby myself coming through Merrill, but I think they have a large advisor base, huge scale. And ultimately, there's a possibility for an ETF to end up in model portfolios. Then you're talking about more scale. Also, I think for those of us that have been around 10 plus years, it's more validation, right? And then Schwab coming in right behind them just kind of was the ribbon on it. But I think Morgan Stanley means a lot of scale. I think it means really good institutional research and data that advisors or wealth managers want. So I think that was a really good way of saying, all right, we're crossing over here from mass acceptance to mass adoption. That's their signal, right? That's their signal. And to me, it's OK. It's OK. Great. I'm glad you're catching up. But let's stay wonky for a little bit because now we're going to the Bitcoin conference. And what financial wonks are realizing, I don't know, stick with me. This is getting there, but we're getting somewhere. What they're realizing is the game around, quote unquote, crypto might not be DeFi and crap coins, but might be products built on top of Bitcoin. I believe this is the week in which we finally have now seen iBit options open interest overtake Deribit's open interest. I believe this is Jeff Park and he is up on the Mara stage. For the first time in a meaningful way. What does that mean? Well, it's pretty important, right? Because for a long time, people would look at Deribit's devolve to calculate implied volatility. But Devol is flawed. Devol only uses Deribet options. The reality is there's lots of offshore exchanges. There's now Ibet options. And we actually need more intelligent ways to quantify the parameterization of implied volatility. All right. So let me break some of this down. Like I said, it's out there a bit. So Coinbase, I believe, owns the number one crypto like extra gambling market, if you will. I'm trying to think about how to. So there are people that are betting on the future direction of the price of crypto and derivatives. And there are a couple of exchanges out there right now, Deribit being the biggest one that support this. Deribit was bought not too long ago by Coinbase. And what Jeff is saying here is that we're transitioning from these offshore or quasi onshore markets that are just selling action on top of crypto to people are playing now in the iBit option space instead. And there's companies like Volmex that do a really good job on this. And the most interesting thing that I've noticed recently is if you look at BVIV US, which is the implied vol on Ibit versus BVIV, which is the offshore exchange aggregate correlation implied volatility, that spread is about five points. meaning iBit vol is five points higher than Deribit and other offshore exchanges vol. Where is that five points spread coming from? My guess is that there's a lot of retail demand for upside participation in a longer tenor than what is premised usually on Deribit because iBit options go out two years plus. So there's more action options. There's longer term action options with iBit. And what do we know? There's more volatility with iBit. And what do traders love. The traders love the vol. And so my bold prediction is that we're going to see a big Bitcoin move up. It might be within this year, as Matt said. My prediction is that it is going to be led by iBit options and the reflexive nature in which the gamma that is possibly created within something like Bitcoin due to its scarcity can really, really lead the next leg up in a meaningful way. And for me, watching iBit take market share over Deribit is actually a lot of excitement and theusement that it was here, we're heading in the right direction. So here's what's happening is IBIT is turning into a product that is appealing to people that are trying to hedge against volatility, like perhaps miners or people that have to provide liquidity based on Bitcoin. And it's also becoming a playground for people that like to bet on the more degenerate aspects of crypto. And so it's drawing in both at scale. And the supposition here is that that activity will lead to more Bitcoin purchasing, which will increase the scarcity effect. So this is the broader context of the market dynamics, then we have a lot of government or whatever you want, I don't know, U.S. officials, just a lot of politics at the Bitcoin conference this year. And so this is where I tried to cut it down the most for you. But there are some teases here that, like I say, are not necessarily announcement themselves, but something I'm definitely going to keep an eye on. On Bitcoin as an asset overall, the president signed the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve executive order last year, and we've gone to work in figuring out exactly the machinations necessary and legal interpretations that we need to get that right and solidify that and protect the digital assets, but specifically Bitcoin that we have on the government balance sheet. So in the next few weeks, we'll be making a big announcement. I think we have a bit of a breakthrough there. And obviously that needs to be followed up with legislation. Senator Lummis' is Bitcoin Act over in the House. Representative Begich has talked about the ARMA Act that he has put together. So we need to codify it. But in the meantime, we do believe we're going to be able to take a big step forward from the executive branch side of the next few weeks. I wonder if this isn't just related to the midterms, right? I mean, the Bitcoin stuff doesn't seem to have been a big priority for them. And then as the midterms approach, all of a sudden they got big stuff in the works. Announcements just around the corner. In order to vote yes on this legislation. And so we've been working with the Financial Services Committee to make some updates to that act. And we'll be planning on reintroducing this as the American Reserves Modernization Act or ARMA. All right. So this is the ARMA clip that he was referencing. So they're going to reintroduce the reserve as the ARMA Act. This is, oh boy, I'm so sorry. I'm going to really butcher his last name. I've only ever, I've only ever read it, but it's B-E-G-I-C-H, Bersh. This is Congressman Bersh, Bersh, Bersh. None of those are right. And the one reason you might pay attention to him is his track record at just about everybody in Congress is actually results in legislation getting passed. That's a pretty rare thing these days. And so they are I'll back it up a little bit. So they're going to reintroduce the reserve as a new packaged up thing with. Well, you'll get into it. Be planning on reintroducing this as the American Reserves Modernization Act or ARMA. So we're going to be keeping an eye out for ARMA. And why the renaming? Because it's so important for people both in Congress and across the nation to understand what we're actually trying to do. We're trying to make sure that Bitcoin is treated like the reserve asset that it is. we want to make sure that we have a place to store our Bitcoin, that that Bitcoin is going to be held for a long period of time, that it's going to be prevented from being attached, right? So you can't lend against it. And we can't have that political pendulum that we see so often in the United States impact our reserves policy as it relates to Bitcoin. It allows us to go out into those government agencies, identify where Bitcoin is currently being held and custody that Bitcoin in a responsible manner consistent with its reserve status. And so this has been one of the many things that I've been working on in Congress. I'm proud to say that as of today, I've passed more legislation into law than anyone in the House or Senate. And so we've got a strong, thank you, we've got a strong focus in my office to construct legislation that has an opportunity to pass both chambers, and that's what we're doing with the American Reserves Modernization Act. Wow. What's the rough timeline there? Good question. Good question. Well, whatever we can dangle in front of the midterms, do you think you'll say that? Well, I'll tell you what, I don't control the timeline. That's one thing I don't control. But we're looking at a reintroduction here within the next couple of weeks. Okay. All right. All right. So that is at least noteworthy. We'll watch for the details on that. Next up is the U.S. Attorney General. And there has been a shift in how they are going to prosecute around the use of software that is designed to maybe obscure your transaction. And the shift is, instead of going after the developers, they claim now they're going to go after the users of the software. And with the FBI as well. The basic principle is that if you are developing software, if you are a coder, if you are part of that process, and you are not the third-party user, and you are not helping and knowing the third party is using what you develop to commit crimes, you are not going to be investigated and not going to be charged. And obviously facts matter because if you're laundering money or violating sanctions, the mere fact that you happen to be a coder doesn't excuse you from criminal liability. So there's a distinction there. And that's why the facts of a particular case are very important. I'm not sure if he's implying maybe the Samurai Wall developer case where they were creating privacy software and yet this doesn't appear to apply to them. The nuance here is ridiculous. If you really listen to what he's saying, he's saying you can write software for freedom technology. You just can't use it. So you can write the software, but you better not use it yourself because then you might be violating the law. You see, that's essentially what he's saying, which is not much of an improvement. If you're laundering money or violating sanctions, the mere fact that you happen to be a coder doesn't excuse you from criminal liability. So there's a distinction there. And that's why the facts of a particular case are very important. Yeah. And so are the definitions of laundering money, et cetera. You know, if we're going to be nuancing the facts of the case, then we should also be nuancing the definition of the terms. But I really need coders to understand. I really need the industry to understand that we have fundamentally changed the game when it comes to our investigations. And if you're a coder out there and you're listening to me speak and you are under investigation or you have to hire a lawyer to respond to subpoenas, your lawyer should feel very comfortable communicating with the FBI, communicating with the prosecutor on the case, and making sure that they are not violating my memo. because if they are, that can be elevated all the way to me, but certainly elevated within the department because we are not doing that anymore. And I know that there's some lingering cases that are very fact-specific and very procedurally complicated. And I'm not saying that as an excuse. It's just, it's a fact. It's the way it is. But those cases are something that we're continuing to deal with. But let me make myself crystal clear that I want to put my money where my mouth is. And I expect Director Patel does as well. And when we say that we're not conducting those type of prosecutions anymore, we mean it. And I want to make sure that that is felt throughout the industry. Monday, Kash Patel also spoke. The message that was obvious was, if you are in the technology industry and you want to participate in the crypto space, we're not going to come after you with legalese games. We're going to try to make the rules as clear as possible. You can develop on this. You can write in this. You can et cetera, et cetera. It's it's as far as the U.S. government coming after you legally. You don't need to worry. That was essentially the messaging over and over and over again Monday. And they did it through a lot of painful public speaking and people that are better heard, not seen. Just my opinion. But so that was a good message. But again, a little confusing, a little confusing. How are you going to write the software and not use the software. And if depending on what they define as money laundering or whatever it might be, money transmitting, et cetera, you could still get screwed. So that's I have some more in the updates, but set some of the high level signal from Bitcoin 2026. So Paul Tudor Jones, pretty well known as a rich macro investor. And I thought This was a great clip of his. And I haven't played anything from him for quite a while. And then in 2020, when you saw, again, all the interventions, both the central bank and the treasury, you just knew that the inflation trades were going to take off. And what was, of all of them, what was the best one at that point in time? It was Bitcoin. Bitcoin is unequivocally the best inflation hedge that there is. more than gold because Bitcoin is finite. There's only so much Bitcoin that can be mined. The problem with it is inflation hedges. If you got into kinetic exchange, there's clearly going to be cyber warfare and anything that you have to deal with electronically is going down, including Bitcoin. So strike one. And then secondly, quantum computing, who knows if and when with AI advancing as fast as it is that we may actually have quantum computing. Now, quantum computing, someone can come in and can hack any bank and hack anything they want to. So in terms of it being a great inflation hedge, gold increasing supply every year by a couple of percent. Bitcoin, there's a finite amount that can be mined. It's decentralized. And so in that sense, it has the greatest scarcity value of anything. I mean, people are starting to get it. So here was my takeaway from the week. is we have at the high level, we have the Morgan Stanley's and the wonks that are moving from okay to actual adoption. You have Ibit attracting both the DGN types of betting and the financial responsible stabilization types of hedging and an incredible volumes Of course you also have sailors snapping up like nuts and some of the other treasury companies right And then you have the policymakers and the policy enforcers So both the policymakers and the ones that are out there with the guns enforcing the rules, both sides of that from the government at day one and day two of the Bitcoin conference, trying to message as hard as possible that you can work in this space and be safe and that we're going to try to pass some kind of legislation to make you happy. And then you zoom out with Paul Tudor Jones, who is hitting it right on the nose every single time now. This is he has a very sobering message. Bitcoin is the best inflation hedge. Boom. Hits it right there. It beats gold on scarcity. Boom. Hits that right there. Has the best supply fix. Nails that. We are really seeing serious realignment of how people view Bitcoin. from from product standpoint, from a technology standpoint, from a currency standpoint. If if this was a Linux podcast, I would claim this would be the year of the Bitcoin desktop. This is the year of the Bitcoin ecosystem or something. This is it since it's been happening since 98, 99. Something is shifting. And every week, more of these are falling into place. The arc we just covered here goes from the macro walks on Wall Street waking up, Like the big ones, like the final, final bears are waking up. Right. Do you understand what I'm saying? Like some of the final boss levels on Wall Street are now being beaten just by momentum, just by momentum, not even by not even by, you know, like violence or campaigning, just by momentum and consumer demand. And you have the policy creators and the enforcers that are bending over backwards to accept the new reality as fast as possible. And I really, truly mean that. Well, I never see government move this fast on any issue in my life, unless it's something to do with, you know, milking the citizens or war. It's really incredible. And I think it's because more and more of them realize there is no stopping this train. they realize it. And they don't want the people coming for their skin. So if they can do something to give the people a bit of an escape hatch, and of course their donors, and of course the businesses, and if they can try to make the U.S. financial system relevant during all of this, well, this is an IQ test. And if they fail this IQ test, then they probably deserve to have the people come for their skin. And we're slowly seeing each one of them wake up and realize it. There is no stopping that train. The lever you have pulled breaks is not in service. Please make a note of it. Well, you can support the show just by doing what you do. in the show notes, I got links if you want to buy sats on River, one of the best places to stack in the US. Using my link, support the show, and don't cost you anything extra. If you're all about self-custody, the Bitcoin well. It's an amazing automatic self-custody platform. They don't even host your wallet. You do. It's great in Canada and the US. If you've got sats on Lightning and you want to convert them to a gift card in seconds, the Bitcoin company only deals with Bitcoin and you can even log in with Lightning. You don't have to create an account. It's awesome. Now, if you want to passively stack sats, probably not going to be a lot of opportunities to do this in the long term. The Fold Card in the States makes that possible. StackSats is why you pay your bills. If it's time to get access to your Bitcoin, to your corn, without selling your corn, check out Salt Lending. They have some of the best limits, some of the best ways to protect your stack if the price drops crazy fast. And, you know, some of these companies out there, I like them a lot, but they have like $10,000, $12,000, $15,000 minimum loans. It's crazy. That's crazy if you're just trying to replace your tires or something. So salt lending is pretty great. I got a link to all of that in the show notes. You can support the show by doing what you do. All right, what do you say? Should we get into some of them boosts? Ask not what your podcast can boost for you, but what you can boost for your podcast. Okay. Our baller booster this week is ginkgo salad with 50,000 sats. Hey, rich lobster! It's ginkgo, really. I love it. It's a good one. Made me smile. And just simply says thank you for the value. Well, thank you for the boost. Appreciate it very much. Our baller this week. Chutoy comes in with 25,148 sats. I like you. You're a hot ticket. And my wife just suggested that we put our son's college fund into Bitcoin. Ah, she's a keeper. She's a keeper. That's a good bet. You know, I mean, I'm just, I'm not going to make any advice either way, but I'm just looking at the value of college jobs versus Bitcoin. Chute toy. Chute toy. I think it's going to be good. All right. Thank you for that. I love that update. Appreciate the boost, too. Bobby Pins here with 21,000 sats. Oh, he got a second node up and running. Very, very nice. I'll be using it to try out some of the stuff y'all talked about in the episode with Wes and Brent. In other news, did you see that the politician said he was mining Bitcoin 20 years ago and only got a fraction of a fraction of Bitcoin? Some real low effort grifting going on over there in Vegas. Yeah, I think, you know, there was also maybe he was he might have been talking about some sort of study they did where they threw it away later, but he got the timing wrong. But yeah, I saw that. You know, they want you to love them so much, Bobby Pin. They want you. Also, would you mind voting while you're at it? Thank you. Appreciate the boost. Joey DD is here with 2,000 sats. Oh, whoop. Pew, pew, pew. No message, just value, though. B-O-O-S-T. Paranoid Coder is here with 4,000 sats. Boost. No message, though, just value. Pew, pew, pew. Thank you, Paranoid Coder. And a turd in the punch bowl. Fun will now commence. 2,000 sats. Trump's happy to pump or break the market because he and his insiders are profiting off all the swings with well-timed trades and bets. Yeah, that's been interesting to watch. Also, I don't know, turd, if you're watching the Iranian social media, but they're basically straight up implying that they are also placing bets both in the actual market and in the poly markets and kashi markets. Have you seen this? they're basically claiming that like since they know what they're going to do next they're also doing some bad I mean what is going on here what is going on this is casino to the max thanks turds this is clearly not going to last forever I mean I would think it's going to be interesting to see what happens from all this tomato comes in with 9,000 one sats it's over 9,000 he's talking about last week's episode seems like an accurate description of Bitcoin to me and one that depends on two things, Bitcoin being hard money and Bitcoin being usable as money for trade. It's interesting that you asked if Saylor is downplaying Bitcoin as an asset when the clip you played is him describing it as capital. In the classic political economy, capital is a specific role played by hard money. So keeping it short, money used for money, commodity, money trades is capital. This is how institutionalists use money. Contrast this to commodity, money, commodity use of money saved by a poor farmer. Yeah, I think maybe you're right in that he's saying it. He's just saying it in a clever way is what he's doing. That's, I think, probably the best explanation is he is saying it. He's just not saying it in a way that, you know, I was hearing. But I do get what you're saying. And I like that you said it. I had to get it one more. Cosnow is here with 2,500 sats. Make it show. This is a great show. Well, thank you. Great boost. Appreciate the value. Mike Newman's here with 7,777 sats. In my humble opinion, regulation mixed with growing pains and VC expectations made the value for value flow of Satoshi's much more centralized. Related, my guess is that Sailor knows what's up and is playing things quiet. Thanks for the signal, Chris. So, Mike, one of the things that I think is when you're talking about boost and value for value flow and like boosting songs and things like that is the podcast side of it is built around Keysend, which is awesome and a great technology and works really well for boost, but is not really widely supported by the broader Lightning wallets. And so that also reduces the clients you can participate with, I guess is one way to put it. Right. And that's something that people are looking into. But, you know, it still has some issues. some stuff like that. And there hasn't been a lot of progress. We'll see. We'll see. I think some folks are probably just going to go off in their own directions pretty soon based on the things that I've been hearing. Thank you, Mike. Appreciate the boost. Ace Ackerman's here with a row of ducks. And Ace is predicting a delayed rate cut until September. And that, when I read it, felt right to me, right? Wersh comes in, assuming we're going to get more. We'll get into that in a little bit. I have some updates for you. But Wersh comes in. punts on the first rate cut does a September rate cuts at some point maybe I'm thinking what I'm thinking too is I think he's also going to change up the FOMC press conference structure so I'm wondering if he does that first I'm just trying to play that out in my head a little bit but I think you're probably right Aces we go May, June, July August with no rate cut possibly boy that's going to piss off Trump that might be too long Aces I don't know I like that you're putting it down though i really like that thank you lee lee lee lee lee is here with 17 500 sats every day we get closer to bip 110's admitted plan to execute a coup de taut against the protocol can you dedicate a small portion of twib to give a weekly update on all the fight against the selfish dumbassery i will you know what i didn't this week i did i am watching things lee and there is still very robust discussions across all of the various online Bitcoin communities, even as of this morning. It seems to be the knots community is moving ahead and they're loving it and you can find them flying their freak flag thinking that seizing people's property is the best idea they've ever come up with because of the spam boogeyman literally does not exist. They're worried about a spam Santa Claus that isn't delivering presents and they're willing to seize other people's property because they're scared of the Spam Santa Claus. So they continue to be scared of Spam Santa Claus and continue to be very proud of deploying N.O.T.s and love the idea of Bitcoin controlled by a tiny group of people. They just think that's fantastic as well. And so they're very happy and continue. But outside of that, I don't see a lot of technical discussion around the wider community adopting it. However, it's still brilliant. And, you know, what I had hoped is that this would have, we wouldn't have gone this direction, that we would have instead have gone a direction of walking back some of the changes in core or advocating a particular set of standard community configurations and overrides. I don't know, but not seizing people's property. So I will keep an eye on it. I have been watching it. And when I get some newsworthy stuff, I'll try to surface it. even, you know, even, you know, mildly, I suppose, because I think it is something we do need to keep an eye on. Thank you for the boost. Appreciate it. Derivation Dingus is here with 9,500 sats. Danger Zone. Love the bonus content. It was also great seeing you guys at Linux Fest. Have a good luck today. Oh, thank you, Derivation. Danger Zone. It's always really good to see you. Good guy. And also really appreciate that you were willing to come up and talk on mic during the live show for luck. You know, it always helps keep things moving. Somebody has to take some of those first steps. And you did it. You make me want to be a better man. Appreciate the boost. Odler's here with 2,102 sats. Why you got to put numbers and letters together? Why can't you just go for yourself? Hey, Chris, regarding the news bit where they talk about crypto but only show the Bitcoin-related B-roll, it got me thinking about how the word will eventually be used when shitcoins die down. Do you see a future where crypto would eventually be synonymous with Bitcoin and not an umbrella term? I did. Now I think it's too tainted. And especially, you know, you've got people out there that love to like like the failed actor Ben McKenzie, who loves to go out there and constantly conflate Bitcoin and crypto because either he can't keep it straight or he's doing it intentionally. And they just continue to degrade and damage the brand. I think crypto is damaged as far as the cryptography industry. I mean, I think it's I think it's cooked, as my kids would say. And so I've always thought the appropriate industry term that the banks will like will be digital assets and digital commodities and tokens. Right. I think that's what they'll go with. And then because the people that will consume this stuff at mass will be the sheep that buy it from the banks. That's what they'll call it, too. And it'll be like, you know, how you and I know that 802.11b is Wi-Fi. Right. But everybody else just calls it Wi-Fi. I don't I don't think it'll be crypto. I think it'll be like digital assets. Maybe. if somehow crypto came through some kind of you know brand refresh and people saw it differently than you know i think crypto right now is synonymous with scam and it harms bitcoin having that association with crypto and it's a shame so it'd be a massive brand refresh somehow otherwise they're gonna have to switch they're gonna have to pivot right digital assets i'd be curious to know what you think it could be what else could you call it besides crypto we need something because crypto it sounds you know it sounds like you're hiding something you know and which is all honestly not really how bitcoin works either good good thought-provoking boosts appreciate that very much and appreciate the value hodler ob is here with a row of ducks 2 222 sats more twib is good that's a great assessment thank you ob appreciate that nakamoto 6102 is here with 7 000 sats but That's not possible. Nothing can do that. Appreciate the value. Appreciate the boost. Thank you. Thank you very much. Eric PP is back with 3,333 sats. Tough little ship. Little. Yeah, I'm feeling like a Star Trek theme. No message, just value. I am programmed in multiple techniques. Let's keep with the Star Trek thing. Deckbot's here with 2,001 sats. You're doing a good job. I like that one a lot. Deckbot says, I thought the insight into the editorial decisions... Oh, right. This is in response to the bonus episode I released. I thought the insights into the editorial decisions were interesting. As a Jupiter Party members, if the leftovers are easier to produce, it might be good value add for members and Fountain subscribers. It touches on Macronews, shitcoin FUD, and politics without muddying up the main show and without the necessary analysis. Just editorial reason to exclude. But I am the type that likes to know how the sausage is made. Now, that's good feedback. I have been pondering that myself, actually. The challenge is I need to wire up some back RSS infrastructure to make it work for the Jupiter Party members and I just don want to go too hard until I have that solved It beautifully done on the Fountain side Fountain has a great solution for releasing early content, bonus content, member-only content. You can pay with fiat or sats. So if you're just interested in a Twib-only membership, the Fountain way is already wired up. And so I've been using it occasionally. But until I... I don't know what I'm going to do. But when I figure out a way to plumb it up for the Jupyter Party members, that's when I'll go hard. And that has been really a six-month delay because, I mean, who has time? Maybe with the assistance of an agent. Don't know. Thanks, Deckbot. Appreciate it. And stay tuned. I'm thinking like you're thinking. I think it's going to happen. Moon Knight's here with 10,100. One sat. Live long and prosper. Hey, let's give him an extra. Superior ability breeds superior ambition. And that wraps up the Star Tricks. I'm generally in agreement with everything that was cut regarding my bonus episode, especially the FUD stuff. I'm not the type to hate watch. So listening to FUD that's been busted 10,000 times isn't valuable to me. It's more infuriating than anything. I know, right? That's what I've, like some of the FUD is worth addressing, especially the more novel FUD, let's say. I think there's something to that. But like the same stupid stuff over like the McKenzie stuff, the Ben McKenzie stuff, failed actor Ben McKenzie. Oof, that's a little just obnoxious. Thanks, Moon and I agree with that. Hey, Kiwi, Bitcoin guides back $4,567. Put some macaroni and cheese on there, too. Thanks for the signal, as always. I'm watching some of the Las Vegas conference, and it's so far from the cyberpunk and freedom ideals Bitcoin started. We need more shows like this. Following on from last week, tell us more about what you'd like to do with membership. Something similar to LUP? Is there a membership model you've seen somewhere you like? Tell us more. You know, that's a great idea on membership models that I like. I'd have to think on that. I'd have to think on that. I'm not really a fan of putting most of the TWIB information behind a paywall because I think it's important that it's out there. I think that's why I want to make it value for value. But I do think there's something to like extra stuff that's supplemental to the show, stuff that people or longtime listeners would be more interested in, you know, that kind of thing. Maybe there's something there to make the show financially viable. But I think it's pretty important that the core analysis, the core news is out there for free for everybody. And if the show's not sustainable doing that, then it's probably not worth doing. But I think it is sustainable. We've had some really good support since episode 99. And I do have some ideas for membership stuff in the works. So, I mean, it's getting there. It's really just a matter now of my time. But, you know, who doesn't have plenty of time? That's my next thing to solve. Thanks, Kiwi. Appreciate it. Gene Bean's here with 2,222 Dots. He says the edits were spot on on the bonus. So I think Gene agrees with all the removals. That's good to hear. I don't really think anybody came in with a hard, you should have kept that in the show. Maybe some people thought the FUD stuff, but I did see that Mac Mahler's gave me a quick note saying he was 50-50. Some of it could have been left in, you know, but when in doubt, he agreed with leaving it out. Appreciate that signal, everybody. Appreciate the boost. That bonus episode also brought up the support a little bit, which is really, really great. And we had 33 of you stream sats. Collectively, you sat streamers were one of our baller boosters, the baller booster. 76,752 sats from our streamers out there just passively supporting the show. Well, I'll be dipped. Thank you very, very much. When you combine that with our boosters, the show stacked a grand total of 311,000 sats. 311, 400, jeez, I got a brain fart here. Let me add it all up. 311,440 sats. There it is. I did it, you guys. I got it. I did the math. 311,440 sats for episode 102. Oh, oh, oh, thank you very much. Fountain makes it easy to boost, but there's AlbiHub. You can connect that to Fountain and all kinds of apps, including just boosting from the podcast index website if you have Albi and the Albi extension. This here is a free podcast to try to make it as useful, high as signal as possible, because the idea is the higher value I make it, the more likely you are to support it. It is a virtuous cycle for podcast content creation, and I think it's the recipe to beat the algorithm-driven, ad clickbait driven, gotta grow at all costs driven kind of crap internet content that is poisoning the information out there. And it's wrecking Bitcoin information as well. This model, the idea is really simple. It does require participation on your part. And sometimes that can be a little bit of a stretch, but it continues to always incentivize the show to create the highest quality signal possible to try to get you the best information possible to continue to incentivize you to support the show. The other forums out there, like, you know, getting paid by X or YouTube or advertisers don't necessarily. Well, I mean, I'm trying to be put it nicely, but let's just be real. The incentives are just different there. Some people can walk that line better than others. But I think when you're dealing with signal and information like this, that's about Bitcoin, about your savings, about things that can be so heavily influenced by scams and other people's weird-ass priorities or selling crazy-ass tokens. I just think this model is so vital for this type of show. Out of all of the shows I do, it's the most vital for this type of show. So your support or a membership at jupiter.party or through Fountain, it really does make the difference because I think it's the only thing that really works. And if we can't have it that way, well, then we just can't have nice things. Well, it looks like Kevin Worsh is moving right along. This is going to have major ramifications for Bitcoin, not to mention Worsh holds some Bitcoin and is invested in a lightning company as well as other crypto companies. And not only was his Senate committee hearing smooth for the most part, but just as I got on the air, another group confirmed him and now he's moving forward in another process. and some of the politics that were playing around J-Pow seem to be settling down, clearing the way for Warsh. Republican Senator Tom Tillis says that he is willing to end his block of Kevin Warsh getting a vote to be the next head of the Federal Reserve. Tillis told Meet the Press that he thinks Warsh will be, in his words, a great Fed chair. The senator had said previously that he wouldn't vote for any new Fed nominees until the Department of Justice dropped a criminal probe into current Fed chair J-Pow. That happened on Friday. The Senate Banking Committee is set to vote on Warsh's confirmation on Wednesday this week with a full vote in the full Senate to follow. Yeah, that vote just happened and he passed and now the full vote is proceeding. So that to me is sort of signal all around that this thing's probably going to go forward. I mean, it's still not a shared thing, but we'll keep an eye on it. And then there's going to be, if he is approved, a massive realignment of reading the tea leaves around the Fed. Because there has been a regime of Jay Powell and Jay Powell's particular way of messaging and giving forward guidance that isn't the historical norm for the Fed. The way Jay Powell has done it isn't the way it's always been done. It's just what we're familiar with. And Kevin Warsh has hinted that he may change that. And if he changes that, we're going to see a reaction. We're going to see a response. And I think he should change it. I think he should. You know, if I'm going to inject my opinion here, I think he should. I think there's been too much of this, you know, living and breathing off of every little word that J-Pow utters. You know, the tone, even the tone that he answers is interpreted by these traders. It's absolutely ridiculous. They need the candy taken away. They've been on a sugar rush for far too long. Let's go back to the Bitcoin conference just for a moment. I have one or two updates maybe from there that we should play. And first up is going to be Senator Cynthia Lummis, who is almost all done with her terminus. She puts it she's out of time and she's out of patience and she expects to have an update on the Clarity Act soon. To craft legislation in Washington, we are going to mark up the Clarity Act in May. We are going to get it to the finish line. We are going to have the market structure that allows us to innovate, you to innovate, America to lead the world on this freedom asset. God bless you. Thank you very much for the privilege of serving you in Washington, D.C. And that will probably be the last we see from her, at least in an official senatorial capacity at a Bitcoin event. And she says the Clarity Act will get marked up in May. All right. All right. Now, let's stick here with the conference for a moment. Block was up on stage with a lot of news this week, some of which we'll get into in just a moment. But they also announced the number of merchants that are accepting Bitcoin payments using their terminals. Today, we have over 800,000 payments enabled businesses turning a new one on every eight seconds. So over 800,000, 808,000, I believe, was the number they had up on stage. They also announced that they have a new hardware wallet device for their, what's it called? BitKey, the BitKey. A new update to the BitKey that has a screen on it that shows you more information, which I think was one of the number one criticisms that you couldn't verify using the screen on the BitKey. They also announced connection in some bit with the Cash App where you'll get a percentage back on certain Bitcoin purchases. And they're getting pretty aggressive. It's nice to see. It's nice to see them up there. And 808,000 merchants that have turned on accepting Bitcoin payments is a big deal. Now, let's play one more from the conference that I passed over, but I think it's worth at least touching on. Mara, obviously a huge, huge player in the mining space, and their CEO, Fred Thiel, were a major presence at the Bitcoin conference. And while he had his time in the spotlight, he announced the Mara Foundation. So today I'm proud to announce the launch of the Mara Foundation. The Mara Foundation is our new initiative dedicated to supporting the long-term strength, resilience, and accessibility of the Bitcoin network. It will operate independently from Mara's core business. This isn't about driving revenue. It's about investing in the parts of the ecosystem that don't have clear economic incentives, but are critical to Bitcoin's future. That includes supporting Bitcoin's long-term security, including research into emerging threats like quantum computing, funding open source developers, the people who maintain and improve the protocol without centralized backing, Expanding access to self-custody so more people around the world can actually use Bitcoin, not just hold it on an exchange. Advancing policy and advocacy to ensure Bitcoin remains open, permissionless, and protected. And investing in education for users, developers, and policymakers who are all still early in understanding what this technology can do. I thought the comment there about quantum was interesting and self-custody. I you know if I were a major bitcoin miner I would definitely have some interest in this space okay last clip last clip I said there's only gonna be a couple but I want to also sneak this one in this is the tether ceo apollo and he is talking about lightning as you as lightning as rails for the ai economy he thinks that agents will require trillions of daily payments from people and ai agents in general just working between each other and that the current financial rails will not support that and that it's going to be lightning. Computer and AI agent to have a self-custodial wallet. So we believe in a future where billions of people, billions of machines and trillions of AI agents will need a self-custodial wallet. People need to be in charge of their own wealth. People need to be able to transact with whoever they want. And so we wanted to create something that everyone could use that would support any asset, but most importantly, would support Bitcoin. There is, even from the pure physics point of view, I mean, technology is physics, from the pure technological physics point of view, we know that the best way to scale the future need of payments when AI agents will be everywhere, there will be the need of trillions of payments per day. and the current financial transport layers are not going to be able to cope with that. Things like Lightning Network are the right way because Lightning Network is a peer-to-peer transaction layer for Bitcoin and I'm very happy to see WDK supporting that. You know, I do think he has something here because I have experimented a bit with my agent and using Nostra Wallet Connect to talk to AlbiHub. And I do think it actually has been pretty good. I think it's been pretty successful. There's also been a lot of talk about the companies like Bitcoin treasury companies like Strategy and MetaPlanet and what their role is, how useful they are, what their customer base is. I think everybody here is interacting with Bitcoin in some way. everybody here came to a Bitcoin conference. And so when George says... This is Dylan LeClaire. Of course, he works for MetaPlanet, Japan's version of the sailor strategy. Well, it's early. Maybe you're like, well, it doesn't feel early. I've known about Bitcoin for five years. But I think the reality is, and this is something that I didn't fully appreciate until kind of sitting on this side as an operating company, talking to various classes of institutional investors, 99% of the capital in the world can't buy Bitcoin. They can't even buy Bitcoin ETFs. And George, I think we spoke on this on a panel two days ago or yesterday. These big pools of capital, trillions and trillions of dollars, have mandates. And they can't buy Bitcoin. They can't buy commodities. They can't buy funds or ETFs. They can only do one thing. Some of them are fixed income. Some of them are equity investors. Some of them are long-short or convertible arbitrage. And so a lot of Bitcoiners, including myself, had this vision or has this thesis that Bitcoin wins and, you know, hyper-Bitcoinization is this event. And, you know, at some point, Bitcoin's worth a million or five or $10 million equivalent at some point in time. But what that actually looks like, right, if you're a Bitcoin maximalist in that fashion, it doesn't happen without all of this happening, right? It doesn't happen without, you know, big bad BlackRock and Wall Street coming in and institutionalizing the asset. Like, what do you think Bitcoin winning looks like. It looks like $200 trillion flooding into the market in some way or some form. And right, so that's, you know, there's private credit, there's equity investment, preferred investment, senior debt, right? All of this stuff, these are pools of capital that are latent, that are ready to be tapped into. And right, so the genius of, you know, Michael Saylor and strategy from 2020 onwards was realizing that and then creating an instrument for each of those pools, right? And so, Stretch is a big, big tam. Everybody wants no volatility and high yield. So I think that's the golden goose. But I think a lot of idealist Bitcoiners who think Bitcoin is going to go to $10 million simultaneously dislike Wall Street or dislike the treasury companies. And in my opinion, that's very paradoxical. Right I think he right And I cause I kind of I don love it I don love Saylor having you know one percent of the supply or you know almost a million coins It does leave me a bit uneasy But then at the same time I recognize he absolutely right You don you don get to be a you know five six ten trillion dollar twenty trillion dollar asset if the banks aren involved so it's it's an uncomfortable it's an uncomfortable thing it is a very uncomfortable thing for me and I thought that was a good clip from Dylan and you know he's seen it now from the MetaPlanet side and he's got a good point I'd like to know what you think if you're uncomfortable with it but think it's also I don't want to even say it's a necessary evil it's just a necessary part of the evolution of Bitcoin is that the right way to put it? I do have, let's just wrap it up. I do have one more MetaPlanet story. And then I think it's time to get to the state of the network and our final clip of the week. So MetaPlanet is launching a Bitcoin rewards credit card. There's going to be, I think, a lot of these. That's maybe more of the story is that this is a emerging category of products. One of the largest Bitcoin treasury companies in the world. But what's really cool about the MetaPlanet Lounge is it's a little piece of our history as a company. We still have the Royal Oak Gotonda Hotel in Tokyo, and we leveled one of the floors, essentially, and are now building out a really cool Bitcoin in-person space. We'll have podcast studios and events and meetups and so on. You're building out a lot more than a hotel, right? I think you have a car coming soon. I know you're working on Preferred So-I here. We're quite busy. Absolutely, yes. So recently at our annual shareholder meeting last month, we announced that we are releasing a MetaPlanet credit card. We're targeting an August release date for that, and users will get to earn 1.6% back in Bitcoin. Now, that's the shareholder rewards tier. Folks who are not MetaPlanet shareholders can also get the card, but it's going to be a slightly reduced reward. So it's a really nice benefit for our shareholders. Does this roll out to shareholders first before anyone else, or is it to the general public at the same time? It's my understanding that it'll be available to both, but yeah, the shareholders will have a higher reward tier to start. So just, you know, encouraging people to buy a few more shares. Get into the game. We love seeing the MetaPlanet community grow. We have a really outstanding shareholder benefits program that was just announced, and the credit card is really just one of those benefits among many. Smooth! Man, that was good. That was really smooth. but also come on all right last clip this is now again we're zooming out we're going outside of the bitcoin conference and the media discussing bitcoin around it because it is it's you know it's in the news this week this is mike novogratz i think he still has his luna tattoo maybe he got it lasered off i'm not sure and he thinks retail is back this is one of the discussions we've been having as a bitcoin community is why isn't retail in anymore did they get so burned out by, you know, maybe the October 10th crash and all of the crap coin scams. I mean, that would burn most people out. Where is retail? Everybody's been saying. Well, Novogratz thinks he knows where retail is. He thinks they're buying up strategies products. They're buying up the Sailor Strike stuff. It's interesting. U.S. retail has come back, period, end of story. And you see it through the ETS, but mostly you see it through MicroStrategy. sailor the wizard of micro strategy michael sailor is back and he is selling stock and he is selling perpetuals and he is buying bitcoin and his premium is expanding not contracting what it means by now you're 130 times nav his m nav is 130 relative to the bitcoin he owns And so he can sell micro strategy and make money, you know, create yield, as he says, for his investors. He dilutes his new investors or current investors and dilutes his new investors. And it's accretive to new investors, to old investors. And so it's a strategy that he has almost, he's almost the only guy that actually has this strategy built in. I wonder why. You know, he had all these other dats that tried it. They all traded discounts. But Michael has managed to create this cult of people that trust him and that buy MicroStrategy as their Bitcoin proxy. So they buy it as MicroStrategy and it's working. And that is, I mean, he bought two and a half billion dollars of Bitcoin last. There's not enough supply to eat up a billion a month from a billion a week from MicroStrategy. Yeah. Okay. All right. I mean, that's true. Boy, you're really not selling it there, Mike. I'm not sure retails. I'm not. I mean, I'm sure some. Right. This is where I would like your opinion, audience. I think the poly markets and the, you know, the cashy betting, all that, that's a way, way bigger draw for retail. Way bigger draw. Sports betting, sports stuff. You know, that's way bigger draw than buying Strike or MSTR. Right. Am I wrong here? I mean, I don't doubt that large buyers are buying up, you know, Mikey's product. I think that's probably very much happening right now. But I think retail, you know, they're there. I think it's beyond them. I think it's it smells like a Ponzi and the research required is beyond them. I don't think they're I don't I just don't think that it's what Mike says. I don't think that's where retail is going. Maybe some of it. Maybe. I think that was during the summer of last year. I think now it's betting markets and whatnot. And I think that's a real shame. You know, people that are, you know, maybe every now and then they're making some money. But on average, if they just would have taken that same money and DCA'd into Bitcoin, probably would be a lot better off. And so I just disagree with Novogratz. I'm curious, though, what you think. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe retail is going in here. And I'd also like to know your feelings on betting markets pulling action away from Bitcoin. Like, what can Bitcoin do there? There's nothing, right? It just feels like it's going to be, it's one of these things people are going to have to experience the pain, like going to the casino. And some people are going to get stuck. I hope, is there another, please tell me there's another version of this out there. Well, Jack Maulers will be taking the stage today, probably just a little bit after I publish this episode. So if he makes news, I'll cover it next week. I suspect he'll be talking about 21 and Strike. probably not anything that massively impacts Bitcoin, but you never know. He did have a moment on stage, though, and this is this is a good clip. Maybe you could save and play for those of you, for those out there that are struggling to understand why Bitcoin is still better than gold, because gold had a good run. You know, it had a really good run. And you could argue in times of uncertainty, going with a classic is the safer bet. But I thought Jack had a great explanation why Bitcoin still wins out in the end. Me trying to understand why Bitcoin was better than gold, believe it or not. And the reason Bitcoin is better than gold is because Bitcoin is uniquely both a monetary asset, lowercase b. It's a bearer instrument. It's a commodity, right? But it's also a monetary network, uppercase b. What's the gold monetary network? It's us. My human legs are the gold monetary network. The gold monetary network is if I need to get gold to Nigeria, I better take my ass to the airport. That's what the gold monetary network is. And Bitcoin was both. It was able to achieve transaction finality without me having to deposit it to the government, which gives me an IOU. And in 1971, they said, what's yours is no longer. And it was this monetary network idea. And I was like, holy crap. And this was 2019. I was however many years old. And I said, wait a second. So I can, the equivalent of throwing a gold bar from here to Nigeria in less than a second and at no cost. Well, that's kind of cool. and if the person wanted to send naira or dollars or euros or pounds well they can give it to me i'll turn it into the faster gold i'll throw it to nigeria in less than a second and for free and i'll convert it back into the currency no problem bitcoin's a global liquid saleable asset it's easy to get in and out and so it's this idea of my passion for using bitcoin as payments is actually to dematerialize the chokehold that card networks and centralized entities have on our ability to facilitate settlement. That's what I want to be free and open so that a David Marcus can launch what he wants, so that Miles can launch what he wants. And ultimately, as an American, what do I want when I go check out? I want all the greatest entrepreneurs in this country to compete to give me the best wallet to check out. And right now, I don't have access to the Visa rails. I don't have access to the MasterCard rails. They're abusing these merchants and treating them unfairly. And so if we can use Bitcoin, this network, as an open, interoperable, it does the job that Visa does. It does the job that Swift does. And we let everyone compete at the edges, drive costs down, be innovative. There'll be millions of wallets. If your favorite color is pink, if you like this, of course, why not? But right now, there's not a lot of options. You can either get a Visa or a MasterCard. That's it. So anyway, I think it's a consumer problem. So now if we have this network implemented, it works. How do we change consumer behavior? Do we need to give them more Napa Valley wine? If so, who's going to pay for that? Is Dorsey paying for that? I assume not. And so I think it's a consumer behavioral thing, but the long arching vision is using the network to free ourselves of an abusive relationship with corporations that I think have created duopoly and open up competition and innovation to what is core to money, which is value exchange. Let's check in on the state of the network. I'm wrapping up at Blockheight 947,165. The Bitcoin price for U.S. greenbacks is at 76,160. That makes our sats per dollar 1,313 sats for one U.S. greenback. We're currently down 39.6 percent. Down but not out. All-time high was on October 6th. Our retarget date for difficulty is now May 1st with an estimated downward adjustment of 3 percent. Reachable Bitcoin notes has spiked up nicely this week. Good job, everybody. 24,196 Powerful nodes! Yes! Back up at 24,000 So good to see Bitcoin price is up 0.3% In the last 24 hours Down 3.8% In the last 7 days And currently up 12.3% For the last 30 days We have 354 blocks Until the next target And If you want to spend Your Bitcoin fast Right now It's just Two sats for a V-byte Simple. Two sats per V-byte is cheap. Get a lightning channel set up, too. I mean, go for it. Consolidate. Move your stuff around. Get a lightning. Enjoy it. You'll look back at this one day. You'll look back at this one day. It is so great to see things moving along, seeing the nodes come back up. That is so fantastic. 64.8% of those nodes on tour. Things moving right along. The Bitcoin network is doing just fine. Well, if you made it this far, links to what I talked about will be at thisweekinbitcoin.show along with the Mac Catalog. A whole bunch of good stuff over there, Jupiter Broadcasting. My goal is a show that doesn't get distracted by the emotions around what's going on, but focuses on the signal so you can plan for yourself, your friends, your family, your business, whatever it might be. So you can always let me know how I did with the boost. And of course, It's a great way to support the show as well. And this week, I'm going to wrap it up with a value for value track. As you know, I always do. And this is a fun one. It's What You Mean to Me by the artist Strange Love. If you boost while the music plays, 95% of the sats go to the artist. See you back here next week. I know what can make you proud If I won't give you a chance To hear me Well you know You always bring me down Well I know You don't care about me as nearly As much as I want you to But now we shall explain Your three things we had before It'll take my pen Now I can't say So what the fudge I can't get you to see what you need to be So now I try to say to you Oh, how much I really want to say Well, it feels worse than it did for you Now you won't, you gave me the time That I needed to say How much love for what you have to give But now we shall explain the feelings we had before You say, nothing dark and fake Someone Who loves fun And I can't get you See what you mean to me Thank you.