Host Cole McCormick dives into the intriguing developments surrounding the Bitcoin Reserve and the broader economic policies under the Trump administration. Cole discusses the establishment of a Bitcoin Reserve, The conversation shifts to Trump's economic strategies, including tariffs and their potential impact on the economy. Cole expresses his belief in Trump's vision for the common man and discusses the implications of Bitcoin as a tool for financial empowerment. Join Cole as he navigates the complexities of Bitcoin, economic policies, and the future of digital assets in America.
Paypal
X
IG
[00:00:00]
Unknown:
The economy will be incredible. What's up, everyone? It's America Plus. I'm your host, McCormick. It's another week, another episode. What's going on, everybody? It's Sunday. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. March 16, '8 '40 '8 PM, y'all. What's going on? I'm happy to be here. I'm your host, Cole McCormick. We are live streaming right now in the podcast apps. We're in Fountain. We're in Podcast Guru. We were in Cast o Matic. We're also on X. We're on YouTube. We're live. I'm I'm strengthening these streaming muscles, y'all. So thank you for being here, if you are here right now, and tune in Sunday nights. I'm pretty sure I'm doing all this every Sunday night. Just, I'm just setting that up, dude. I'm coming to you in good vibes right now. It's been a really chill Sunday for me.
I've been just chilling, really. Just eating some dark chocolate. I went to the park today and, just laid in the grass. Have you ever just laid in the grass and just, like, enjoyed the sun and the and the ambiance of the park. That's just a beautiful day today. And so, right now, I'm just, I'm feeling good. Feeling pretty pretty pretty pretty fresh. Pretty fresh. Yeah. What I wanna talk about, this week is, something that happened a couple weeks ago. Okay. So the Bitcoin Reserve. Okay? Trump's economic policies.
These are serious shit, dude. It's so serious. We need to talk about it. I didn't want to talk about the Bitcoin Reserve when it fir when it was first, like, launched, just because, you know, I didn't really know what to say about it. I wanted to let it just simmer. I wanted to think about it. I wanted to see what other people had to say. You know, because I'm sort of I ride the line between, like, mainstream normie world and, like, super duper maximalist Bitcoiner world, and I I like to see what other people say, so that I can actually formulate what I'm thinking, and then I can hopefully have a different take. I can have I can have my own interesting perspective.
And, you know, here at America Plus, I'm always trying to be positive about America's future. I want America to be good. I I want our systems to be healthy, and I just want everything going on with that to be to be good. And I want to see the best in our leaders, you know. I voted for Trump. I voted for these things. I was hyped up that RFK and Trump were into Bitcoin. And so I was going into the election, I was super curious about what would really happen, with these types of policies. And, on March 7, it was officially made official that there is a Bitcoin reserve. I got a clip to share right now of, like, like, what is really going on with the reserve? Like like, what is this? You know?
We got this. America has this, quote unquote, cryptozar known as David Sachs. He was a pot first of all, this guy David Sachs, he's like an investor. He's a venture capitalist. I couldn't tell you what the fuck a venture capitalist does, dude. But somehow, this guy, on this podcast, was able to get his way, weasel his way into the Trump administration, and somehow be in charge of the entire crypto economy. And, like, just and shape it literally shaping the future of these digital assets. And here's a little bit of what he had to say about what the reserve and the broader, crypto
[00:03:30] Unknown:
stockpile is. So we have the reserve, we have the stockpile. So the reserve is just Bitcoin. The goal is long term preservation. Think of it as like a digital Fort Knox for digital gold. We wanna keep it secure. We'd never wanna sell it. That's the goal of the reserve. At one point in time, we had about 400,000 Bitcoin on the federal balance sheet. We sold roughly half of that for something like $360,000,000 If we had held all of that, just that portion we sold would be worth over 17,000,000,000. We don't wanna make that mistake with regard to the rest of it. We think there's around 200,000 coins left on the federal balance sheet, but the truth is that nobody knows because we've never done a proper audit. So part of what this executive order provides is that we're gonna do for the first time a government wide accounting of the digital assets that we actually have. That's Bitcoin. Okay. So then you got the stockpile. The purpose of the stockpile is responsible stewardship. It's a place for safekeeping. It's a centralized, you could say, account under the direction of the secretary of the treasury, and the secretary of the treasury will figure out how to maximize the values of these holdings. Now there's a couple of important differences between stockpile and reserve. So one is we're prohibited from selling the Bitcoin. There's no such prohibition with respect to the stockpile. If the secretary of treasury decides that's in the long term interest of The US to rebalance the portfolio or change the portfolio, the secretary has the discretion to do that. There's one other important difference between stockpile and reserve. So with respect to reserve, the EO provides that the secretaries, and I'm talking about treasury and commerce, they're allowed to figure out strategies to accumulate more Bitcoin for the reserve if those strategies are budget neutral and don't cost the taxpayer anything.
Okay. So we have So, that's really interesting.
[00:05:01] Unknown:
Pretty much, this is, like, the, like, the least they could do with creating this type of, this type of new asset class, you know? So we'll see if anything really comes about from it. I think it's interesting that the government is going to have more, quote unquote, authority over, over the value of Bitcoin, you know. Because anytime a government wants to own the narrative on on Bitcoin specifically, it's historically been a negative one. They have, like, denied its value. They have spoken about how how bad it is, how negative it is for the economy. And what's really interesting is that we're seeing a conscious, flip, and it's a switch.
And that goes into, like, the broader aspect of what's going on with, just with, the economy at large. Whenever you do research on what's going on with Trump and his economic policies, it seems like he is he's, like, refinancing everything. You know? That's the take. You know? He's allowing the stock market to go down a bit. He's comfortable with housing, prices going down a bit or, like, people say crashing. He's comfortable with, with just the general things not going very well right now. People are criticizing his tariffs, as being inflationary, and Trump keeps talking about how this all this stuff is, it's transitory. Like, this, like, this pain, this this is a a giant transition within the economy at large, and he's comfortable with that.
And what's interesting is, I think there's a plan. Okay? Some people wanna say that there isn't a plan, and Trump doesn't really know what he's doing, and the people around him don't really know what he what they're doing. But when you have a guy like David Sachs, you know, at least he he knew what Bitcoin was. You know, he he did hold, I believe, like, you know, close to some millions of dollars within within Bitcoin and and other cryptos. So I would assume that he knew what he was talking about, and and the people around Trump know the value or the or at least the potential value for these types of assets. Another guy that I wanna show you is this guy named Lutnick.
This guy is in charge of the, of commerce. He he's on the he's in the cabinet. He he's the secretary of commerce, and this is what he has to say. He said this last week during a during a cabinet meeting about just technology.
[00:07:36] Unknown:
Technology is at the foundation of the Trump presidency. He understands technology. He embraces technology, and he's gonna use technology to drive America forward. The blockchain and Bitcoin technology are a key part of that thinking, and embracing that and here today shows how much a leader the Trump administration and our president is. He understands it. He embraces it. As you said, you're a pioneer in this place, and this is where we're going. We're using the blockchain. We're using Bitcoin. We're going to use digital assets to pound forward, and Donald Trump is leading the way. Can't be more proud of you today. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[00:08:26] Unknown:
I can't be more proud of you today, man. I can't. Technology is the the foundation of everything that we do here at the White House. I love that guy's voice. Is technology really the foundation of it? You know, what technology moves is the Trump administration making? You know, they do have Elon. They do have Doge. They they made Elon in charge of IT over there and the entire government. So, you know, he Elon claims to be tech support, but when it comes to that, you know, who's in charge of, like, updating? Like, how how are we really going to update our money systems?
You know, that's the that's the real question that's going on right now. If you're a Bitcoin maximalist, you know, you're going to say that the money is broken. You're going to say that that Bitcoin is the first time in human history when real money has ever existed, and we need to replace the entire system at large with this real money. And if you're outside of that circle, you know, you're just sort of just saying, hey. Well, like, isn't the dollar in my pocket money? Isn't these like, aren't these coins money? You know, isn't isn't just, like, the money that we've been dealing with money?
And that's like a whole rabbit hole that you as an individual can go into if you want. But when it comes to what's going on with with America, you know, Trump is sort of they're they're going after the stable coins. They're going after, the local economy. They're going after taxes. And what I think is going on is I believe that Trump really believes in in the common man. You know? That's what I really believe. When I say that out loud, it, like, it calms me down. Like, I I I truly believe that to my core, and I think that I, as an individual, you know, I just work at a restaurant. You know? I'm I'm just a fucking guy.
When I hear no tax on tips, I get excited. When I hear no income tax, I get excited. And, you know, those are some main reasons why I voted for the guy. And when it comes to having that extra money due to no taxes, I then strategize, like, how can I like, where am I gonna put my money? You know, what am I gonna buy? What am I how am I gonna save it? You know, very few Americans have more than $500 in their checking accounts, you know, or their savings accounts, you know, whatever account. You know? Like, pretty much every American, the majority of Americans are paycheck to paycheck. You know, we're just barely holding on.
And that's been a truth for a very long time. And so when it comes to a tool like Bitcoin, you know, Bitcoin has has always been pitched as as, a, an inflation hedge, b, the strongest savings account you can ever do, and the last part is a it it is digital cash. Peer to peer digital cash. You're able to use Bitcoin as a way to pay for services, with the person right in front of you, whether they're selling you beef, blueberries, a service, whatever that person is selling you, you're able to just hold up your phone and just do a little bloop, and then it's paid. You know? That was the original promise with Bitcoin.
And some people want to say some people in the Bitcoin community want to say that the reserve and the ETFs, you know, it's not really helping Bitcoin. It's sort of like a distraction. It's not really, Like, it's interesting, but it's not helpful. And what I have to say to that is, I think anything the government does with Bitcoin is only bolstering the narrative for Bitcoin at large. You know? I'm one who believes in the peer to peer aspect of Bitcoin. I want it to be decentralized. I wanna I wanna be a part of helping the decentralization be stronger and stronger.
And so, on my end, you know, that means that I need to build a node, and I need to, engage with other merchants that are using Bitcoin. And I need to I need to further cement myself in that economy, in that circular economy. And when it comes to the government, you know, the government's gonna use it as digital gold. You know, that's really the main narrative that's going on. There's two main narratives sort of fighting. Like, the the institutions and the governments, they're saying digital gold. The people who are really a part of Bitcoin and really love Bitcoin and are obsessed with it, they're saying digital cash. And it's these two things that are sort of fighting right now.
But when you really just look at it, there's an opportunity for Bitcoin to be both things, and this is something that that is sometimes discussed. Bitcoin can sort of be all of those things, because of each single Bitcoin is divisible, by 100,000,000 Satoshis. You know? And so the value of that Satoshi, that the value of that one one of one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin, you know, that's that's always gonna be, theoretically lower, than than the price of one Bitcoin. You know, one Bitcoin right now, like, what is it? It's, like, around, like, $80.80 k or something like that?
$80.80 or $90,000. And $1.01 Satoshi is, or I'm sorry. Like, 1,000 Satoshis is barely worth a dollar. So, like, barely worth a dollar. You know? So the higher it goes, the more those Satoshis are worth. But if you're an individual, if you're a common guy like me, you know, you sort of want the Satoshis. I like Satoshis. You know? Like, of of course, I wanna have a Bitcoin. I want, like, 1 Bitcoin for every member of my family. But at the same time, I'm dealing with Satoshis. You know? I don't have a lot of money to continue to invest in Bitcoin all the time. I'm sort of just, like, paying my bills with all the money I have, and I'm doing my best to earn Bitcoin. Coin. That's been my philosophy for a long time, to actually earn Satoshis for the work that I put out. And that's why I I put out my podcast on apps like Fountain, and Podcast Guru, and within the, you know, the wider podcasting two point o space. And that's why I've gotten into Nostr, because you can people can send you Satoshis if they like your post.
And it's this idea of actually earning a hard asset, that I've actually been been into. And so to go back to, like, what it means if the government has ETFs and and a reserve, it only solidifies my my direction of using Bitcoin. I will continue to go to Bitcoin because it is the strongest asset, because it is the original crypto. And I will choose to use it as a peer to peer digital cash. I don't know why else I don't know why you would wanna use it as anything else, you know. Some people, like, maybe some older people, they wanna use it as gold, you know, they wanna use it as just something to just hold on to. But that's not really that's not interesting to me, you know. It's it's not very interesting. Right now, the government has about 200,000, and that's an estimate. You know, right now, they're doing an audit.
It said it's speculated that the government has sold they used to have 400,000 Bitcoin, and they sold half of that for, like, $390,000,000. And so, if they just held on to that, if they held on to to half of what they used to have, they would have had, like, 17,000,000,000 or some, like, crazy number like that, which I think is nuts. And you can use that those Bitcoins for for different things. What I'm hoping that comes from this is that there's some sort of more incentives, like, more incentive programs. You know?
Can the government use Bitcoin as an incentive for people to do something for the government? You know? Like, I saw, as I was, like, scrolling through Grok over here, you know, some companies you know how some companies have, like, a automatic stock buy? Like, you can set, like, a personal, like, like, a personal amount of, of your paycheck to go into the stock market. What if there was that before Bitcoin? You know? And, what if there was just less taxes on Bitcoin, on selling and exchanging Bitcoin into dollars? I think that could be an interesting idea. That would absolutely help the common American person. You know?
If it was a part of the broader economic system, and you had the common option to put $50 a paycheck into Bitcoin, and you can just let that stack up, you know, that's not a tax. You know, that would be your Bitcoin. You know, I I think that'd be really interesting. Of course, you can do that, like, on your own. Like, there are so many different financial tools that you can do that just right now. You can sign up on Strike. You can sign up on Cash App. You can sign up on, like, anywhere. You know? And you can already do that. But for their but, like like, culture is sort of, like, top down. You know?
And the government has authority on the narratives of, of money. You know? And especially within the boomers and gen x. You know, and just, you know, general millennials and and Gen z as well. People are gonna listen to the government when it comes to advice for money, you know, whether you agree with that or not. You know, the majority of people are going to listen to the government for what is for what the right thing to do is. You know, I don't necessarily agree with that, but what I'm saying is, I think, at large, it's a positive thing if the government set up some sort of situation where the person the the common person could understand that, hey. Bitcoin is valuable, and I can use it to build myself up, to build up my own finances.
Because within a year, you know, if you do $50 every paycheck, you know, how much money is that gonna be saved up in dollars? You know, let's just call it $2,000. If you can save $2 within one year and it's all in Bitcoin, and within five years, Bitcoin goes up, you know, that that $2,000 could be $6,000. It could be $10,000, you know, depending on how big the swings are. And, that's a big that that that's a big lift. That's a really big lift. So one of my hopes is that everything clicks together. You know? That's sort of what I wanna talk about. So many people wanna wanna say that the tariffs are inflationary, and they're no good for America, and and they're also just speculative.
People just don't know what the future is going to be like. You know? Like, what if if we start tariffing everything that comes out of Mexico, how much more expensive is Topo Chico? You know? Like, how much more expensive would that be? Would that be any would that be positive or negative for you, you know, if Topo Chico's more more expensive? In my life, more negative. I drink a lot of Topo Chico. So we'll see how that goes. But if the tariffs are working, if tariffs work at large, then that means that more Americans will have more money in their pocket. And if there's less taxes on the common American's paycheck, then that means that they'll also have more money. So there'll be more jobs available within the country because of tariffs, and then there'll be more money available to the common person because of less taxes.
And then if the government has a stronger narrative that if if Trump leads with the narrative that Bitcoin is good and you should use Bitcoin and you should buy Bitcoin, you know, that's, like, the anti FDR. You know what I mean? Like, in terms of presidents and narratives and, like, how we're gonna reformulate, how we're gonna rebuild the economy. Like, back in the fucking thirties, dude, when the Great Depression happened, FDR stole everyone's gold so that the banks would have stability. Like, the president literally stole people's money. Like, some people think taxation is theft.
Bro, FDR stole people's gold. Okay? And what I'm hoping is that Trump is not FDR. I don't want Trump to steal my shit. You know? And if he does, then we're fucked. But the positive side of how I can think about it is Trump can actually say, use Bitcoin. Buy Bitcoin. You buying Bitcoin helps the value of the reserve go up, and the the value of the reserve going up helps you helps the Bitcoin you own as well, because we're we all have Bitcoin. You know? And that's sort of the idea with just with Bitcoin at at large. Like, if you buy it and I buy it and you're using it and I'm using it and everyone around us is using it, then then the value of it is going to go up, because everyone is agreeing that it's valuable.
You know? The value of any of any asset is just based off of culture. You know? Like, why are the American bonds worth so much? Why is American debt positive? You know? Because somehow, the Fed and the people within the economic shit, they have created a narrative that that's just how it is. American debt is valuable. You know? You wanna own American dollars. If you own the debt, you own dollars, and the dollar is valuable. You know? So we just need to continue to build a culture and narrative that Bitcoin is valuable, and it's good to use, and and you should use it more and more and more, which is something I'm into, you know, to continue to build upon these things.
I have one more clip that I wanna share, and this is an audio clip I got from a podcast I was listening to. It's called Citadel Dispatch. And, they were interviewing Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter. Jack Dorsey is a really interesting guy. One theory that I've heard about Jack Dorsey is that he's actually Satoshi Nakamoto. I read this on Twitter. And, I read this whole thing about how Jack was around in the, like, in the nineties during Cypherpunks, and Jack was around, like, just around the general computing development, like, just he he he was a dev in the early two thousands.
And so, like, pretty much, I hear I read this whole thing about how there's, like, these these little signs that that, that Jack is Satoshi, which I fucking love. So I'm saying right here, right now, live, Jack Dorsey is Satoshi Nakamoto. And I wanna play a clip of what he has to say about about the value of peer to peer and how,
[00:23:54] Unknown:
people might even why a person will choose to go to Bitcoin. You know, that's where that's where Bitcoin comes in. Do you want these government protocols? Do you want the corporate protocols that don't work together? Or do you want a protocol owned by the people?
[00:24:09] Unknown:
I mean, but by that logic, it kinda seems that if you do have a least quasi CBDC with, like, a relatively open API, in the short term, Bitcoin adoption actually can get bootstrapped quicker. Right? Maybe. Your M Pesa point? Like, M Pesa is, like, kinda more than likely. Arguing for c d No. I just think it's kind of fascinating because that's an inch it's just an interesting point. And I think we're going there. Right? Like, I think in the West, like, the way CBDCs look is they're all gonna be corporate led, but there's gonna be public private partnerships. Right? Yeah. So all the people that are saying that they're anti CBDC will still use, like, x money
[00:24:49] Unknown:
Yep. Or
[00:24:51] Unknown:
USDC or whatever, Tether, whatever it becomes.
[00:24:54] Unknown:
Yeah. If you see them all as on ramps, then certainly it can be beneficial. But then the question is why do people go to Bitcoin? Right. Well, because you can't take it. What's the value? No permission required. Yep. And then And and how important is that to people right now? What's important when they get on deck? Convenience. Exactly. When they get rugged, it becomes important. Other things that there's other things that, can lead them there. Like, permissionless is not it. Like, we can build other utility on top of Bitcoin that, like, people run to instead of run away from the banks because they got rugged or because they got shut down. Like, we're still in this mode of, like, people are running away from a thing to get to Bitcoin instead of, like, running to Bitcoin to to get to it. And I know that a lot of, like, you know, permissionless folks and, cyberpunks are running to Bitcoin for the right reasons, but that's not 99% of the population.
[00:25:48] Unknown:
Yeah. No. I've noticed this as well. I mean, you gotta make it convenient. You have to make it accessible. We have to make it convenient. The most convenient option. Yes. And I think Nasr is gonna play a really big role in that. I I wanna get to. But before we go to Nasr, let's talk
[00:26:05] Unknown:
The most convenient option. That is sort of that's what they they end on. You know? The only reason a person is going to use any money is because it's a convenient option, and that goes into why you wanna invest in a stock and why you wanna invest in anything, really. The reason why people invest in homes is not because is not only because the value of a home goes up, it's also because it's a bit convenient. You know? What if an investment what if you could live inside of your investment? Like, talk about passive income. You know? You're literally sitting on your ass on your couch, and somehow, the value of of where you're sitting at is going up.
That's a great that's a great thing. Like, that's convenient. You know? It's convenient to invest in stocks because you can just download an app, and you can invest in a company that's been around for twenty plus years, and the stock keeps going up and up and up, and they're making the chips for all the AIs, and that's why you wanna buy that because it's convenient. It's a convenient idea, and it's simple to do. Right now, Bitcoin is, like it's barely semi convenient. It's only convenient because there are apps that you can download and and buy it. But it's not convenient in the sense of people still don't know how to use it and why they would use it.
And that's something that I'm struggling with as well, you know. Not to say that I don't know why I would use it. You know? I wanna use Bitcoin for peer to peer transactions because it's because it is money. It is the strongest asset. It is it is there's only 21,000,000. You know? It's that whole narrative of we know exactly what Bitcoin is, so why don't you just use a thing that you that you actually know? Okay? And I wanna use it to to buy things or to support things that I think are valuable for the world. There's this concept of value for value online, And it's something that I've been following for a while.
Value for value is an incredible concept, and it's how America Plus is ran. It's how it's how what I think the future of producing content online is, and it's also just a general culture. It's an international lifestyle, value for value. And, the whole thing is, if you're providing value, the person who's listening to you or watching you, they can reciprocate that. They can send you that value back in whatever way they think is appropriate. And in terms of Bitcoin, you know, that's the strongest money. And, for example, you know, so there's this thing called the Beef Initiative.
The Beef Initiative is this collection of beef ranchers within Texas and, like, the Southern part of of The US. And they're trying to make it more accessible to buy meat directly from a rancher. And you you're able to spend Bitcoin, and you're you're able to to to give these ranchers Bitcoin if they want it. And, it's about supporting the thing that is giving you value. Giving somebody the strongest money ever in human history for something that is nutritious and aligned with nature's cycles, you know, grass fed beef, you know, humanely raised grass fed beef. Is that worth some satoshis to you? You know, in my opinion, it is. If I could spend, some Bitcoin, if I could spend some sats on the raw milk that I buy, like, that would be like, I would totally do that. Like, that sounds legit. You know?
I'm sort of building my way into, like, living on a Bitcoin standard. I think that's really interesting. But that's really, like like, the main concept. You know? Like, if you're using a hard money, you're putting more thought into why you're spending this money. And, that's sort of, like, radically important and a bit countercultural as well, because just within the world, you know, we have all this like, the world I grew up in, the world my parents grew up in, it's all credit. It's always been credit. It's been credit since the seventies. And, you can just get a credit card and open up a line, and and you have free money, and if you're not able to pay off pay that off, then you're screwed, but, you know, there's always money available.
What if you were engaging in a system that was not that? You know? There's, like, this doubles like, the the whole problem that Bitcoin is trying to solve is a double spending problem. The government has a double spending problem. You know, people have a double spending problem. We might earn some cash, but then we're gonna spend the cash, and then we're gonna, swipe the credit card as well. We're spent we're almost spending double as as much as we're earning, and we're able to justify that because of some sort of, you know, whatever economic reasoning there is within the banks and credit card systems.
Bitcoin is just a stronger system, and it's a more transparent and authentic system to engage with. And, ultimately, that's what I wanna use it for. And I and I truly believe that the reserve strengthens the narrative of that. Having a Bitcoin reserve and having a a general, crypto stockpile, it just strengthens the idea of digital assets. And so now, we're at a point where we can actually we can actually compete. Okay? Like, Bitcoin can can actually compete with crypto. Some people in in the Bitcoin world might be like, what the fuck are you talking about, Cole? Like, we've been competing. We've been winning. I understand that, and I agree with that. But at the same time, now we can like, on a national level, we can really see which countries are going where.
What if some countries lean into XRP? What if some countries lean into Solana? What if some countries lean into Cardano? Like, these are things that will be happening. We know Cardano is going after Africa. You know? We know Solana's going after smaller economies. We know there are blockchain companies that are trying to be the main money for poor nations. Okay? And Bitcoin could be the money for all nations. You know? That's that is that's sort of what's going on. Okay? Is there something wrong with these different cryptos? You know, that's like a that's a culture. That's another culture thing. I'm not gonna get emotional about Solana. I'm not gonna get emotional about XRP or whatever bullshit that's out there. I'm not I'm not even gonna get emotional about about Trump coin. Like, who cares?
Who cares? You know, I care about Bitcoin. I'm focusing on Bitcoin. If you keep focusing on bullshit, you're giving more energy to bullshit. So just don't do that. Don't give energy to bullshit. You know? I think these things only strengthen Bitcoin's narrative. And it's up to the people to define which narrative they wanna lean into. And that's where we're in the middle of. So Jack Dorsey, he had to say, like like, why are people going to Bitcoin? That's where we are right now. That's the question we're asking right now in March 2025.
Why are people going to Bitcoin? And that's gonna be a journey. It might it it it might be fast. It might happen like, we might get an answer within one year. We might get an answer within two years, three years, five years, and, you know, I don't know exactly. But that's the question that we need to ask. And on my end, you know, I think I might just try to talk about Nostra a little bit more with my family. I might talk about the beef initiative a bit more with my family, to see what the people in my life are gravitating to. The Nostr situation is really strong, because it's social media with a payment layer that's not advertising.
That's really the strongest thing with, with Nostr. There's all these different, clients for Nostr, all these different apps. There's like a Substack version of Nostr, there's a Twitter version of Nostr, there's a YouTube version of Nostr, And it's all sort of disconnected, but it's also like, they all interlinked somehow. And between all these different clients, you can use Bitcoin to pay for whatever content you're you're reading and watching. And that's a really powerful idea. So I think that's a really good use case. But we're still so early.
We are so early. And I don't have the answers for everything. I'm not gonna pretend that I have the answers. Me as a Bitcoiner, I've been using the podcasting two point o and value for value system since 02/2022. I've been into Bitcoin since since 2020. I believe in the value of it, and I wanna earn Bitcoin, for my good work. And so that's the only thing that I that's what I'm personally focused on. And so it's a matter of educating and continuing to talking about it, and, in my opinion, to not be toxic. You know, I don't think we should be toxic about these things. I think we should just be science based and rational about these things.
I think Bitcoin is the best, so I think Bitcoin's gonna win. So I'm not gonna be an asshole when Bitcoin wins. You know, that's really what I where I'm at with that. So but I would love to know what you think. Like, what do you think about that? Do you think Bitcoin is strong? Do you think Bitcoin is bullshit? Do you think the Trump, Bitcoin reserve is positive or negative? You know, I tend to lean positive. I I tend to think that it's, like, actually hopeful, you know, because if all of Trump's economic policies come together and they all click together, I have more opportunity for jobs, I have more opportunity to make more money, and that means I have more opportunity to buy more Bitcoin, and the government has an incentive to buy more Bitcoin that doesn't inflate my dollars.
And so it's like a it there's like a yin yang, like, scratch my back, you scratch mine. Like, I scratch your back, you scratch my thing. You know? Like, it's I think it could work. Like, that's my crazy idea. It might work. So tell me what you think about that, man. I would love to know. That's all the value we got. I'm gonna head into the, value for value section, everybody. America Plus is a value for value show. What that means is I come forward on this feed, and I try to talk about something that I think is important, I think is useful for the world. I'm trying to focus on America's hopeful future through spiritual optimism and contrarian innovation.
So I might have an idea you vibe with, I might not. And, we just go from there, you know. If you wanna support me, please retweet me, comment down below, engage with the show however much you can. That's sending your value, that's your time, that's your talent. And, for the treasure portion, you can also support me with Satoshis within the fountain.fm app. Go to valueforvalue.info for more info, then download the fountain.fm app. It's the best way to support the show. So there's, like, a whole suite of podcasting apps that you can go into that actually you can hook up your Bitcoin wallet to the app, whether that be, an Albinode or you can download Fountain, and there's, like, a built in wallet for that.
You can buy Bitcoin, and then you can send Bitcoin to your favorite podcaster. So I encourage you to send me Bitcoin for that. And I I'm gonna be reading the boostograms, from last week. I got a few of them. The first one comes in from our friend at p yez. What up, p yez? He sends in oh, no. I'm sorry. Not not piaz. His name's Pies. What up Pies, dog? What's up, Pies? He says, he sends in 420 satoshis. He says, value for value, strength emoji. Fuck yeah, dude. Thank you. Boost. Thank you, Pies. The next one comes in from at mere mortals. My buddy, Kyron Down. He's in Australia. What up, Kyron? He says, sup, Cole?
I'm I'm just about caught up. Lots of fun topics, these last weeks. I've been enjoying them. Get that Grok bod, son. Yes, sir. Boosting is loving. Yes, sir. Yeah. He's talking about from last week or no, a couple weeks ago. I I put out a episode about how I was using Grok to help me with my fitness goals. I'm pretty on it. I'm losing weight. I'm getting that six pack. I'm getting in muscle. I'm on the creatine. So thank you, Kyren. Thank you so much. Let me do one more for Kyren. It's basically, you put Bitcoin with anything, and all of a sudden, that is more efficient. And then the last one comes in. It's the biggest one of the week, dude. We had this guy named Dreb Scott. Dreb Scott does all the chapters for all of Adam Curry's podcasts. Adam Curry is the inventor of podcasting. I'm, like, one degree, two degrees away from the inventor of podcasting.
Dreb Scott has to say he sends in, like, 8,000 satoshis, dog. What? 8,000? That's incredible. Thank you so much, Dreb. And, he he comments on last week. Last week was the episode about, Disclosure and Aliens. He says, aliens. To quote X Files, the truth is out there. I grew up watching Star Trek, so I've always been intrigued by the idea of space travel and aliens. Aliens among us? Not sure. But it wouldn't surprise me. Other dimensions? I like the idea. Yes, sir. And now, as the French say, it is time for Le Boost. Thank you so much, Drebin. Thank you to all those people who wanted to donate. That's value for value.
Get in on this boostagram, dawg. Download Fountain. Download Fountain right now, dude. This is Fountain. Get Fountain right now. Comment on my podcast. Send in some Satoshis. Be a part of the America Plus crew because this is it's just a fun time, dude. It's just special. It's it's casual. And if you download Fountain, you can be a part of the wider Nostr network, and I can retweet you like that. So, yeah, man. That's just, that's just fun. If if you wanna get your get your message read on air live, download Fountain and send in Boostagram. Yeah, man. So this is this has been it pretty much.
How I usually end every episode is I play a song at the very end. Every time I play a song, this is a this is another value for value thing. The artist is in on this system as well, and they have a Bitcoin wallet attached to their song, and I always give them 90 a 90% split. So in the podcast app, after I post all this, if you listen to the song and you donate some Satoshis, the artist is getting 90% of that donation. And I wanna play a song that I've played before, and I just freaking love it. The song is from a band called I R O H. It's a rock song. It's called In Exile.
Enjoy. I could see That's America Plus, bitch. Stay free.
The economy will be incredible. What's up, everyone? It's America Plus. I'm your host, McCormick. It's another week, another episode. What's going on, everybody? It's Sunday. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. March 16, '8 '40 '8 PM, y'all. What's going on? I'm happy to be here. I'm your host, Cole McCormick. We are live streaming right now in the podcast apps. We're in Fountain. We're in Podcast Guru. We were in Cast o Matic. We're also on X. We're on YouTube. We're live. I'm I'm strengthening these streaming muscles, y'all. So thank you for being here, if you are here right now, and tune in Sunday nights. I'm pretty sure I'm doing all this every Sunday night. Just, I'm just setting that up, dude. I'm coming to you in good vibes right now. It's been a really chill Sunday for me.
I've been just chilling, really. Just eating some dark chocolate. I went to the park today and, just laid in the grass. Have you ever just laid in the grass and just, like, enjoyed the sun and the and the ambiance of the park. That's just a beautiful day today. And so, right now, I'm just, I'm feeling good. Feeling pretty pretty pretty pretty fresh. Pretty fresh. Yeah. What I wanna talk about, this week is, something that happened a couple weeks ago. Okay. So the Bitcoin Reserve. Okay? Trump's economic policies.
These are serious shit, dude. It's so serious. We need to talk about it. I didn't want to talk about the Bitcoin Reserve when it fir when it was first, like, launched, just because, you know, I didn't really know what to say about it. I wanted to let it just simmer. I wanted to think about it. I wanted to see what other people had to say. You know, because I'm sort of I ride the line between, like, mainstream normie world and, like, super duper maximalist Bitcoiner world, and I I like to see what other people say, so that I can actually formulate what I'm thinking, and then I can hopefully have a different take. I can have I can have my own interesting perspective.
And, you know, here at America Plus, I'm always trying to be positive about America's future. I want America to be good. I I want our systems to be healthy, and I just want everything going on with that to be to be good. And I want to see the best in our leaders, you know. I voted for Trump. I voted for these things. I was hyped up that RFK and Trump were into Bitcoin. And so I was going into the election, I was super curious about what would really happen, with these types of policies. And, on March 7, it was officially made official that there is a Bitcoin reserve. I got a clip to share right now of, like, like, what is really going on with the reserve? Like like, what is this? You know?
We got this. America has this, quote unquote, cryptozar known as David Sachs. He was a pot first of all, this guy David Sachs, he's like an investor. He's a venture capitalist. I couldn't tell you what the fuck a venture capitalist does, dude. But somehow, this guy, on this podcast, was able to get his way, weasel his way into the Trump administration, and somehow be in charge of the entire crypto economy. And, like, just and shape it literally shaping the future of these digital assets. And here's a little bit of what he had to say about what the reserve and the broader, crypto
[00:03:30] Unknown:
stockpile is. So we have the reserve, we have the stockpile. So the reserve is just Bitcoin. The goal is long term preservation. Think of it as like a digital Fort Knox for digital gold. We wanna keep it secure. We'd never wanna sell it. That's the goal of the reserve. At one point in time, we had about 400,000 Bitcoin on the federal balance sheet. We sold roughly half of that for something like $360,000,000 If we had held all of that, just that portion we sold would be worth over 17,000,000,000. We don't wanna make that mistake with regard to the rest of it. We think there's around 200,000 coins left on the federal balance sheet, but the truth is that nobody knows because we've never done a proper audit. So part of what this executive order provides is that we're gonna do for the first time a government wide accounting of the digital assets that we actually have. That's Bitcoin. Okay. So then you got the stockpile. The purpose of the stockpile is responsible stewardship. It's a place for safekeeping. It's a centralized, you could say, account under the direction of the secretary of the treasury, and the secretary of the treasury will figure out how to maximize the values of these holdings. Now there's a couple of important differences between stockpile and reserve. So one is we're prohibited from selling the Bitcoin. There's no such prohibition with respect to the stockpile. If the secretary of treasury decides that's in the long term interest of The US to rebalance the portfolio or change the portfolio, the secretary has the discretion to do that. There's one other important difference between stockpile and reserve. So with respect to reserve, the EO provides that the secretaries, and I'm talking about treasury and commerce, they're allowed to figure out strategies to accumulate more Bitcoin for the reserve if those strategies are budget neutral and don't cost the taxpayer anything.
Okay. So we have So, that's really interesting.
[00:05:01] Unknown:
Pretty much, this is, like, the, like, the least they could do with creating this type of, this type of new asset class, you know? So we'll see if anything really comes about from it. I think it's interesting that the government is going to have more, quote unquote, authority over, over the value of Bitcoin, you know. Because anytime a government wants to own the narrative on on Bitcoin specifically, it's historically been a negative one. They have, like, denied its value. They have spoken about how how bad it is, how negative it is for the economy. And what's really interesting is that we're seeing a conscious, flip, and it's a switch.
And that goes into, like, the broader aspect of what's going on with, just with, the economy at large. Whenever you do research on what's going on with Trump and his economic policies, it seems like he is he's, like, refinancing everything. You know? That's the take. You know? He's allowing the stock market to go down a bit. He's comfortable with housing, prices going down a bit or, like, people say crashing. He's comfortable with, with just the general things not going very well right now. People are criticizing his tariffs, as being inflationary, and Trump keeps talking about how this all this stuff is, it's transitory. Like, this, like, this pain, this this is a a giant transition within the economy at large, and he's comfortable with that.
And what's interesting is, I think there's a plan. Okay? Some people wanna say that there isn't a plan, and Trump doesn't really know what he's doing, and the people around him don't really know what he what they're doing. But when you have a guy like David Sachs, you know, at least he he knew what Bitcoin was. You know, he he did hold, I believe, like, you know, close to some millions of dollars within within Bitcoin and and other cryptos. So I would assume that he knew what he was talking about, and and the people around Trump know the value or the or at least the potential value for these types of assets. Another guy that I wanna show you is this guy named Lutnick.
This guy is in charge of the, of commerce. He he's on the he's in the cabinet. He he's the secretary of commerce, and this is what he has to say. He said this last week during a during a cabinet meeting about just technology.
[00:07:36] Unknown:
Technology is at the foundation of the Trump presidency. He understands technology. He embraces technology, and he's gonna use technology to drive America forward. The blockchain and Bitcoin technology are a key part of that thinking, and embracing that and here today shows how much a leader the Trump administration and our president is. He understands it. He embraces it. As you said, you're a pioneer in this place, and this is where we're going. We're using the blockchain. We're using Bitcoin. We're going to use digital assets to pound forward, and Donald Trump is leading the way. Can't be more proud of you today. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[00:08:26] Unknown:
I can't be more proud of you today, man. I can't. Technology is the the foundation of everything that we do here at the White House. I love that guy's voice. Is technology really the foundation of it? You know, what technology moves is the Trump administration making? You know, they do have Elon. They do have Doge. They they made Elon in charge of IT over there and the entire government. So, you know, he Elon claims to be tech support, but when it comes to that, you know, who's in charge of, like, updating? Like, how how are we really going to update our money systems?
You know, that's the that's the real question that's going on right now. If you're a Bitcoin maximalist, you know, you're going to say that the money is broken. You're going to say that that Bitcoin is the first time in human history when real money has ever existed, and we need to replace the entire system at large with this real money. And if you're outside of that circle, you know, you're just sort of just saying, hey. Well, like, isn't the dollar in my pocket money? Isn't these like, aren't these coins money? You know, isn't isn't just, like, the money that we've been dealing with money?
And that's like a whole rabbit hole that you as an individual can go into if you want. But when it comes to what's going on with with America, you know, Trump is sort of they're they're going after the stable coins. They're going after, the local economy. They're going after taxes. And what I think is going on is I believe that Trump really believes in in the common man. You know? That's what I really believe. When I say that out loud, it, like, it calms me down. Like, I I I truly believe that to my core, and I think that I, as an individual, you know, I just work at a restaurant. You know? I'm I'm just a fucking guy.
When I hear no tax on tips, I get excited. When I hear no income tax, I get excited. And, you know, those are some main reasons why I voted for the guy. And when it comes to having that extra money due to no taxes, I then strategize, like, how can I like, where am I gonna put my money? You know, what am I gonna buy? What am I how am I gonna save it? You know, very few Americans have more than $500 in their checking accounts, you know, or their savings accounts, you know, whatever account. You know? Like, pretty much every American, the majority of Americans are paycheck to paycheck. You know, we're just barely holding on.
And that's been a truth for a very long time. And so when it comes to a tool like Bitcoin, you know, Bitcoin has has always been pitched as as, a, an inflation hedge, b, the strongest savings account you can ever do, and the last part is a it it is digital cash. Peer to peer digital cash. You're able to use Bitcoin as a way to pay for services, with the person right in front of you, whether they're selling you beef, blueberries, a service, whatever that person is selling you, you're able to just hold up your phone and just do a little bloop, and then it's paid. You know? That was the original promise with Bitcoin.
And some people want to say some people in the Bitcoin community want to say that the reserve and the ETFs, you know, it's not really helping Bitcoin. It's sort of like a distraction. It's not really, Like, it's interesting, but it's not helpful. And what I have to say to that is, I think anything the government does with Bitcoin is only bolstering the narrative for Bitcoin at large. You know? I'm one who believes in the peer to peer aspect of Bitcoin. I want it to be decentralized. I wanna I wanna be a part of helping the decentralization be stronger and stronger.
And so, on my end, you know, that means that I need to build a node, and I need to, engage with other merchants that are using Bitcoin. And I need to I need to further cement myself in that economy, in that circular economy. And when it comes to the government, you know, the government's gonna use it as digital gold. You know, that's really the main narrative that's going on. There's two main narratives sort of fighting. Like, the the institutions and the governments, they're saying digital gold. The people who are really a part of Bitcoin and really love Bitcoin and are obsessed with it, they're saying digital cash. And it's these two things that are sort of fighting right now.
But when you really just look at it, there's an opportunity for Bitcoin to be both things, and this is something that that is sometimes discussed. Bitcoin can sort of be all of those things, because of each single Bitcoin is divisible, by 100,000,000 Satoshis. You know? And so the value of that Satoshi, that the value of that one one of one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin, you know, that's that's always gonna be, theoretically lower, than than the price of one Bitcoin. You know, one Bitcoin right now, like, what is it? It's, like, around, like, $80.80 k or something like that?
$80.80 or $90,000. And $1.01 Satoshi is, or I'm sorry. Like, 1,000 Satoshis is barely worth a dollar. So, like, barely worth a dollar. You know? So the higher it goes, the more those Satoshis are worth. But if you're an individual, if you're a common guy like me, you know, you sort of want the Satoshis. I like Satoshis. You know? Like, of of course, I wanna have a Bitcoin. I want, like, 1 Bitcoin for every member of my family. But at the same time, I'm dealing with Satoshis. You know? I don't have a lot of money to continue to invest in Bitcoin all the time. I'm sort of just, like, paying my bills with all the money I have, and I'm doing my best to earn Bitcoin. Coin. That's been my philosophy for a long time, to actually earn Satoshis for the work that I put out. And that's why I I put out my podcast on apps like Fountain, and Podcast Guru, and within the, you know, the wider podcasting two point o space. And that's why I've gotten into Nostr, because you can people can send you Satoshis if they like your post.
And it's this idea of actually earning a hard asset, that I've actually been been into. And so to go back to, like, what it means if the government has ETFs and and a reserve, it only solidifies my my direction of using Bitcoin. I will continue to go to Bitcoin because it is the strongest asset, because it is the original crypto. And I will choose to use it as a peer to peer digital cash. I don't know why else I don't know why you would wanna use it as anything else, you know. Some people, like, maybe some older people, they wanna use it as gold, you know, they wanna use it as just something to just hold on to. But that's not really that's not interesting to me, you know. It's it's not very interesting. Right now, the government has about 200,000, and that's an estimate. You know, right now, they're doing an audit.
It said it's speculated that the government has sold they used to have 400,000 Bitcoin, and they sold half of that for, like, $390,000,000. And so, if they just held on to that, if they held on to to half of what they used to have, they would have had, like, 17,000,000,000 or some, like, crazy number like that, which I think is nuts. And you can use that those Bitcoins for for different things. What I'm hoping that comes from this is that there's some sort of more incentives, like, more incentive programs. You know?
Can the government use Bitcoin as an incentive for people to do something for the government? You know? Like, I saw, as I was, like, scrolling through Grok over here, you know, some companies you know how some companies have, like, a automatic stock buy? Like, you can set, like, a personal, like, like, a personal amount of, of your paycheck to go into the stock market. What if there was that before Bitcoin? You know? And, what if there was just less taxes on Bitcoin, on selling and exchanging Bitcoin into dollars? I think that could be an interesting idea. That would absolutely help the common American person. You know?
If it was a part of the broader economic system, and you had the common option to put $50 a paycheck into Bitcoin, and you can just let that stack up, you know, that's not a tax. You know, that would be your Bitcoin. You know, I I think that'd be really interesting. Of course, you can do that, like, on your own. Like, there are so many different financial tools that you can do that just right now. You can sign up on Strike. You can sign up on Cash App. You can sign up on, like, anywhere. You know? And you can already do that. But for their but, like like, culture is sort of, like, top down. You know?
And the government has authority on the narratives of, of money. You know? And especially within the boomers and gen x. You know, and just, you know, general millennials and and Gen z as well. People are gonna listen to the government when it comes to advice for money, you know, whether you agree with that or not. You know, the majority of people are going to listen to the government for what is for what the right thing to do is. You know, I don't necessarily agree with that, but what I'm saying is, I think, at large, it's a positive thing if the government set up some sort of situation where the person the the common person could understand that, hey. Bitcoin is valuable, and I can use it to build myself up, to build up my own finances.
Because within a year, you know, if you do $50 every paycheck, you know, how much money is that gonna be saved up in dollars? You know, let's just call it $2,000. If you can save $2 within one year and it's all in Bitcoin, and within five years, Bitcoin goes up, you know, that that $2,000 could be $6,000. It could be $10,000, you know, depending on how big the swings are. And, that's a big that that that's a big lift. That's a really big lift. So one of my hopes is that everything clicks together. You know? That's sort of what I wanna talk about. So many people wanna wanna say that the tariffs are inflationary, and they're no good for America, and and they're also just speculative.
People just don't know what the future is going to be like. You know? Like, what if if we start tariffing everything that comes out of Mexico, how much more expensive is Topo Chico? You know? Like, how much more expensive would that be? Would that be any would that be positive or negative for you, you know, if Topo Chico's more more expensive? In my life, more negative. I drink a lot of Topo Chico. So we'll see how that goes. But if the tariffs are working, if tariffs work at large, then that means that more Americans will have more money in their pocket. And if there's less taxes on the common American's paycheck, then that means that they'll also have more money. So there'll be more jobs available within the country because of tariffs, and then there'll be more money available to the common person because of less taxes.
And then if the government has a stronger narrative that if if Trump leads with the narrative that Bitcoin is good and you should use Bitcoin and you should buy Bitcoin, you know, that's, like, the anti FDR. You know what I mean? Like, in terms of presidents and narratives and, like, how we're gonna reformulate, how we're gonna rebuild the economy. Like, back in the fucking thirties, dude, when the Great Depression happened, FDR stole everyone's gold so that the banks would have stability. Like, the president literally stole people's money. Like, some people think taxation is theft.
Bro, FDR stole people's gold. Okay? And what I'm hoping is that Trump is not FDR. I don't want Trump to steal my shit. You know? And if he does, then we're fucked. But the positive side of how I can think about it is Trump can actually say, use Bitcoin. Buy Bitcoin. You buying Bitcoin helps the value of the reserve go up, and the the value of the reserve going up helps you helps the Bitcoin you own as well, because we're we all have Bitcoin. You know? And that's sort of the idea with just with Bitcoin at at large. Like, if you buy it and I buy it and you're using it and I'm using it and everyone around us is using it, then then the value of it is going to go up, because everyone is agreeing that it's valuable.
You know? The value of any of any asset is just based off of culture. You know? Like, why are the American bonds worth so much? Why is American debt positive? You know? Because somehow, the Fed and the people within the economic shit, they have created a narrative that that's just how it is. American debt is valuable. You know? You wanna own American dollars. If you own the debt, you own dollars, and the dollar is valuable. You know? So we just need to continue to build a culture and narrative that Bitcoin is valuable, and it's good to use, and and you should use it more and more and more, which is something I'm into, you know, to continue to build upon these things.
I have one more clip that I wanna share, and this is an audio clip I got from a podcast I was listening to. It's called Citadel Dispatch. And, they were interviewing Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter. Jack Dorsey is a really interesting guy. One theory that I've heard about Jack Dorsey is that he's actually Satoshi Nakamoto. I read this on Twitter. And, I read this whole thing about how Jack was around in the, like, in the nineties during Cypherpunks, and Jack was around, like, just around the general computing development, like, just he he he was a dev in the early two thousands.
And so, like, pretty much, I hear I read this whole thing about how there's, like, these these little signs that that, that Jack is Satoshi, which I fucking love. So I'm saying right here, right now, live, Jack Dorsey is Satoshi Nakamoto. And I wanna play a clip of what he has to say about about the value of peer to peer and how,
[00:23:54] Unknown:
people might even why a person will choose to go to Bitcoin. You know, that's where that's where Bitcoin comes in. Do you want these government protocols? Do you want the corporate protocols that don't work together? Or do you want a protocol owned by the people?
[00:24:09] Unknown:
I mean, but by that logic, it kinda seems that if you do have a least quasi CBDC with, like, a relatively open API, in the short term, Bitcoin adoption actually can get bootstrapped quicker. Right? Maybe. Your M Pesa point? Like, M Pesa is, like, kinda more than likely. Arguing for c d No. I just think it's kind of fascinating because that's an inch it's just an interesting point. And I think we're going there. Right? Like, I think in the West, like, the way CBDCs look is they're all gonna be corporate led, but there's gonna be public private partnerships. Right? Yeah. So all the people that are saying that they're anti CBDC will still use, like, x money
[00:24:49] Unknown:
Yep. Or
[00:24:51] Unknown:
USDC or whatever, Tether, whatever it becomes.
[00:24:54] Unknown:
Yeah. If you see them all as on ramps, then certainly it can be beneficial. But then the question is why do people go to Bitcoin? Right. Well, because you can't take it. What's the value? No permission required. Yep. And then And and how important is that to people right now? What's important when they get on deck? Convenience. Exactly. When they get rugged, it becomes important. Other things that there's other things that, can lead them there. Like, permissionless is not it. Like, we can build other utility on top of Bitcoin that, like, people run to instead of run away from the banks because they got rugged or because they got shut down. Like, we're still in this mode of, like, people are running away from a thing to get to Bitcoin instead of, like, running to Bitcoin to to get to it. And I know that a lot of, like, you know, permissionless folks and, cyberpunks are running to Bitcoin for the right reasons, but that's not 99% of the population.
[00:25:48] Unknown:
Yeah. No. I've noticed this as well. I mean, you gotta make it convenient. You have to make it accessible. We have to make it convenient. The most convenient option. Yes. And I think Nasr is gonna play a really big role in that. I I wanna get to. But before we go to Nasr, let's talk
[00:26:05] Unknown:
The most convenient option. That is sort of that's what they they end on. You know? The only reason a person is going to use any money is because it's a convenient option, and that goes into why you wanna invest in a stock and why you wanna invest in anything, really. The reason why people invest in homes is not because is not only because the value of a home goes up, it's also because it's a bit convenient. You know? What if an investment what if you could live inside of your investment? Like, talk about passive income. You know? You're literally sitting on your ass on your couch, and somehow, the value of of where you're sitting at is going up.
That's a great that's a great thing. Like, that's convenient. You know? It's convenient to invest in stocks because you can just download an app, and you can invest in a company that's been around for twenty plus years, and the stock keeps going up and up and up, and they're making the chips for all the AIs, and that's why you wanna buy that because it's convenient. It's a convenient idea, and it's simple to do. Right now, Bitcoin is, like it's barely semi convenient. It's only convenient because there are apps that you can download and and buy it. But it's not convenient in the sense of people still don't know how to use it and why they would use it.
And that's something that I'm struggling with as well, you know. Not to say that I don't know why I would use it. You know? I wanna use Bitcoin for peer to peer transactions because it's because it is money. It is the strongest asset. It is it is there's only 21,000,000. You know? It's that whole narrative of we know exactly what Bitcoin is, so why don't you just use a thing that you that you actually know? Okay? And I wanna use it to to buy things or to support things that I think are valuable for the world. There's this concept of value for value online, And it's something that I've been following for a while.
Value for value is an incredible concept, and it's how America Plus is ran. It's how it's how what I think the future of producing content online is, and it's also just a general culture. It's an international lifestyle, value for value. And, the whole thing is, if you're providing value, the person who's listening to you or watching you, they can reciprocate that. They can send you that value back in whatever way they think is appropriate. And in terms of Bitcoin, you know, that's the strongest money. And, for example, you know, so there's this thing called the Beef Initiative.
The Beef Initiative is this collection of beef ranchers within Texas and, like, the Southern part of of The US. And they're trying to make it more accessible to buy meat directly from a rancher. And you you're able to spend Bitcoin, and you're you're able to to to give these ranchers Bitcoin if they want it. And, it's about supporting the thing that is giving you value. Giving somebody the strongest money ever in human history for something that is nutritious and aligned with nature's cycles, you know, grass fed beef, you know, humanely raised grass fed beef. Is that worth some satoshis to you? You know, in my opinion, it is. If I could spend, some Bitcoin, if I could spend some sats on the raw milk that I buy, like, that would be like, I would totally do that. Like, that sounds legit. You know?
I'm sort of building my way into, like, living on a Bitcoin standard. I think that's really interesting. But that's really, like like, the main concept. You know? Like, if you're using a hard money, you're putting more thought into why you're spending this money. And, that's sort of, like, radically important and a bit countercultural as well, because just within the world, you know, we have all this like, the world I grew up in, the world my parents grew up in, it's all credit. It's always been credit. It's been credit since the seventies. And, you can just get a credit card and open up a line, and and you have free money, and if you're not able to pay off pay that off, then you're screwed, but, you know, there's always money available.
What if you were engaging in a system that was not that? You know? There's, like, this doubles like, the the whole problem that Bitcoin is trying to solve is a double spending problem. The government has a double spending problem. You know, people have a double spending problem. We might earn some cash, but then we're gonna spend the cash, and then we're gonna, swipe the credit card as well. We're spent we're almost spending double as as much as we're earning, and we're able to justify that because of some sort of, you know, whatever economic reasoning there is within the banks and credit card systems.
Bitcoin is just a stronger system, and it's a more transparent and authentic system to engage with. And, ultimately, that's what I wanna use it for. And I and I truly believe that the reserve strengthens the narrative of that. Having a Bitcoin reserve and having a a general, crypto stockpile, it just strengthens the idea of digital assets. And so now, we're at a point where we can actually we can actually compete. Okay? Like, Bitcoin can can actually compete with crypto. Some people in in the Bitcoin world might be like, what the fuck are you talking about, Cole? Like, we've been competing. We've been winning. I understand that, and I agree with that. But at the same time, now we can like, on a national level, we can really see which countries are going where.
What if some countries lean into XRP? What if some countries lean into Solana? What if some countries lean into Cardano? Like, these are things that will be happening. We know Cardano is going after Africa. You know? We know Solana's going after smaller economies. We know there are blockchain companies that are trying to be the main money for poor nations. Okay? And Bitcoin could be the money for all nations. You know? That's that is that's sort of what's going on. Okay? Is there something wrong with these different cryptos? You know, that's like a that's a culture. That's another culture thing. I'm not gonna get emotional about Solana. I'm not gonna get emotional about XRP or whatever bullshit that's out there. I'm not I'm not even gonna get emotional about about Trump coin. Like, who cares?
Who cares? You know, I care about Bitcoin. I'm focusing on Bitcoin. If you keep focusing on bullshit, you're giving more energy to bullshit. So just don't do that. Don't give energy to bullshit. You know? I think these things only strengthen Bitcoin's narrative. And it's up to the people to define which narrative they wanna lean into. And that's where we're in the middle of. So Jack Dorsey, he had to say, like like, why are people going to Bitcoin? That's where we are right now. That's the question we're asking right now in March 2025.
Why are people going to Bitcoin? And that's gonna be a journey. It might it it it might be fast. It might happen like, we might get an answer within one year. We might get an answer within two years, three years, five years, and, you know, I don't know exactly. But that's the question that we need to ask. And on my end, you know, I think I might just try to talk about Nostra a little bit more with my family. I might talk about the beef initiative a bit more with my family, to see what the people in my life are gravitating to. The Nostr situation is really strong, because it's social media with a payment layer that's not advertising.
That's really the strongest thing with, with Nostr. There's all these different, clients for Nostr, all these different apps. There's like a Substack version of Nostr, there's a Twitter version of Nostr, there's a YouTube version of Nostr, And it's all sort of disconnected, but it's also like, they all interlinked somehow. And between all these different clients, you can use Bitcoin to pay for whatever content you're you're reading and watching. And that's a really powerful idea. So I think that's a really good use case. But we're still so early.
We are so early. And I don't have the answers for everything. I'm not gonna pretend that I have the answers. Me as a Bitcoiner, I've been using the podcasting two point o and value for value system since 02/2022. I've been into Bitcoin since since 2020. I believe in the value of it, and I wanna earn Bitcoin, for my good work. And so that's the only thing that I that's what I'm personally focused on. And so it's a matter of educating and continuing to talking about it, and, in my opinion, to not be toxic. You know, I don't think we should be toxic about these things. I think we should just be science based and rational about these things.
I think Bitcoin is the best, so I think Bitcoin's gonna win. So I'm not gonna be an asshole when Bitcoin wins. You know, that's really what I where I'm at with that. So but I would love to know what you think. Like, what do you think about that? Do you think Bitcoin is strong? Do you think Bitcoin is bullshit? Do you think the Trump, Bitcoin reserve is positive or negative? You know, I tend to lean positive. I I tend to think that it's, like, actually hopeful, you know, because if all of Trump's economic policies come together and they all click together, I have more opportunity for jobs, I have more opportunity to make more money, and that means I have more opportunity to buy more Bitcoin, and the government has an incentive to buy more Bitcoin that doesn't inflate my dollars.
And so it's like a it there's like a yin yang, like, scratch my back, you scratch mine. Like, I scratch your back, you scratch my thing. You know? Like, it's I think it could work. Like, that's my crazy idea. It might work. So tell me what you think about that, man. I would love to know. That's all the value we got. I'm gonna head into the, value for value section, everybody. America Plus is a value for value show. What that means is I come forward on this feed, and I try to talk about something that I think is important, I think is useful for the world. I'm trying to focus on America's hopeful future through spiritual optimism and contrarian innovation.
So I might have an idea you vibe with, I might not. And, we just go from there, you know. If you wanna support me, please retweet me, comment down below, engage with the show however much you can. That's sending your value, that's your time, that's your talent. And, for the treasure portion, you can also support me with Satoshis within the fountain.fm app. Go to valueforvalue.info for more info, then download the fountain.fm app. It's the best way to support the show. So there's, like, a whole suite of podcasting apps that you can go into that actually you can hook up your Bitcoin wallet to the app, whether that be, an Albinode or you can download Fountain, and there's, like, a built in wallet for that.
You can buy Bitcoin, and then you can send Bitcoin to your favorite podcaster. So I encourage you to send me Bitcoin for that. And I I'm gonna be reading the boostograms, from last week. I got a few of them. The first one comes in from our friend at p yez. What up, p yez? He sends in oh, no. I'm sorry. Not not piaz. His name's Pies. What up Pies, dog? What's up, Pies? He says, he sends in 420 satoshis. He says, value for value, strength emoji. Fuck yeah, dude. Thank you. Boost. Thank you, Pies. The next one comes in from at mere mortals. My buddy, Kyron Down. He's in Australia. What up, Kyron? He says, sup, Cole?
I'm I'm just about caught up. Lots of fun topics, these last weeks. I've been enjoying them. Get that Grok bod, son. Yes, sir. Boosting is loving. Yes, sir. Yeah. He's talking about from last week or no, a couple weeks ago. I I put out a episode about how I was using Grok to help me with my fitness goals. I'm pretty on it. I'm losing weight. I'm getting that six pack. I'm getting in muscle. I'm on the creatine. So thank you, Kyren. Thank you so much. Let me do one more for Kyren. It's basically, you put Bitcoin with anything, and all of a sudden, that is more efficient. And then the last one comes in. It's the biggest one of the week, dude. We had this guy named Dreb Scott. Dreb Scott does all the chapters for all of Adam Curry's podcasts. Adam Curry is the inventor of podcasting. I'm, like, one degree, two degrees away from the inventor of podcasting.
Dreb Scott has to say he sends in, like, 8,000 satoshis, dog. What? 8,000? That's incredible. Thank you so much, Dreb. And, he he comments on last week. Last week was the episode about, Disclosure and Aliens. He says, aliens. To quote X Files, the truth is out there. I grew up watching Star Trek, so I've always been intrigued by the idea of space travel and aliens. Aliens among us? Not sure. But it wouldn't surprise me. Other dimensions? I like the idea. Yes, sir. And now, as the French say, it is time for Le Boost. Thank you so much, Drebin. Thank you to all those people who wanted to donate. That's value for value.
Get in on this boostagram, dawg. Download Fountain. Download Fountain right now, dude. This is Fountain. Get Fountain right now. Comment on my podcast. Send in some Satoshis. Be a part of the America Plus crew because this is it's just a fun time, dude. It's just special. It's it's casual. And if you download Fountain, you can be a part of the wider Nostr network, and I can retweet you like that. So, yeah, man. That's just, that's just fun. If if you wanna get your get your message read on air live, download Fountain and send in Boostagram. Yeah, man. So this is this has been it pretty much.
How I usually end every episode is I play a song at the very end. Every time I play a song, this is a this is another value for value thing. The artist is in on this system as well, and they have a Bitcoin wallet attached to their song, and I always give them 90 a 90% split. So in the podcast app, after I post all this, if you listen to the song and you donate some Satoshis, the artist is getting 90% of that donation. And I wanna play a song that I've played before, and I just freaking love it. The song is from a band called I R O H. It's a rock song. It's called In Exile.
Enjoy. I could see That's America Plus, bitch. Stay free.
Introduction and Streaming Platforms
Bitcoin Reserve and Economic Policies
Government's Role in Bitcoin and Economic Transition
Bitcoin as a Tool for the Common Man
The Future of Bitcoin and Government Policies
Convenience and Adoption of Bitcoin
Value for Value and Supporting Content Creators
Listener Engagement and Boostagrams
