Join me today for Episode 992 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- Infowars Falls to The Onion
- Polymarket Probe Seeks to End VPN Effectiveness
- The 60/40 Portfolio Revamped for BTC
- Pro Bitcoin AG? Possibly
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/11/14/polymarkets-probe-highlights-challenges-of-blocking-us-users-and-their-vpns/
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[00:00:00]
David Bennett:
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:0:6 AM Pacific Standard Time. It's the 14th day of November 2024, and this is episode 992 of Bitcoin and only 8 episodes left until the big one thousand.
What are we doing today? We're gonna talk some politics. We've got some other announcements out of the Trump thing. We've got a a poly market issue that's going on that is very reminiscent to some of the, chicanery we've seen out of the United States Justice Department. And, well, Alex Jones lost his entire empire. I have a big problem with these people and not with the Infowars people. You can you should be able to put out what the hell it is that you wanna put out. You should be able to say what you want to say without having everything taken away from you. I may not agree with everything that Alex Jones said. And there was a time when I listened to the Infowars show daily.
I I did, but I stopped listening to it not because the guy's batshit crazy. He kinda is. But sometimes you need to have batshit crazy people being batshit crazy in order to get people to listen to certain things that are going on in the environment around you. And he brought to light quite a bit of shit that wasn't exactly untrue. However, he'd had no answers. You know? And I just I got to the point where I I understand that these people are evil and some of them were actually potentially even demonic, but I'm not getting any answers as to how to get out, like, you know, move out of the cities, get to something more rural. That's that's something concrete.
I can hang on to that. You know, being able to form better relationships with the people around you because they're the ones that are going to help you instead of, like, oh, the government's bad, so you can't depend on them. Okay. But everybody needs help every once in a while. So what's the answer? And, honestly, the answer is you form better relationships and you focus on your family and you make you know, like, what I do with my children. I make sure that they understand that I'm not interested in them moving halfway across the country simply because that's where the opportunity is.
You have to create your own opportunity. Right? And you don't have to. I mean, you if if my kids want to, I'm not going to stop them. But I am certainly not going to be the person says you have to move to Dallas, Texas because that's where the opportunity is. Opportunity is everywhere, and that's an answer. Being able to keep your family close, forming your network, these are answers. And he never really had anything other than eat this silver compound, which I don't have a problem with. I think silver is good. I'm just saying that that's not the answer. These are not the droids I was looking for, and I just kinda stopped listening to them. But I don't believe that Alex Jones, because he didn't believe that, you know, some of the hooey going on at Sandy Hook, should have lost everything like, had his shit auctioned off.
Yeah. Infowars.com, the the it is now has now been purchased, and we'll get into that. But honestly, man, that's bad juju. It sets a very bad precedent. And in my opinion, it makes it even more it it intensifies our need to figure out ways to circumvent DNS, domain name services or servers or whatever you wanna call it, when, you know, I've got an IP address and I've got, like, I don't know, davidcbennett.com attached to that IP address. It's a DNS lookup to the IP address and somebody can block that. And that's what's going on with infowars.com. Nobody puts in IP addresses into their browser so that they can get to where they wanna go.
You know? I mean, I the whole thing is bad, and we're gonna get into it. I promise. But I need to start back into the Montreal area of Canada. I brought this to you yesterday. I said a few words about it, but I think it's important to reiterate why it is you, me, and anybody else that actually holds Bitcoin or purports to be a Bitcoiner should not wear Bitcoin swag out in public where people can target your ass. Braden Lindria from Cointelegraph tells us about the crypto influencer who was found dead in a Montreal park months after his abduction.
Yeah. The dude got kidnapped, and his name was Kevin Mirshahi or Mirshahi, a crypto influencer who was abducted from a condominium in June. Well, he was found at a park in Montreal, Canada according to local media reports. His decomposing remains let that picture sink very firmly into your psych psychology. His decomposing remains were discovered by a passerby in a park on October 30th. Police told the Gazette, a Montreal news outlet, an autopsy confirmed the body's identity as Mir Shahi, the Gazette said in a November 13th report. The 25 year old man was last seen June 21st when he and 3 other people were abducted from a condominium building in Montreal.
The 3 other abductees managed to escape. The incident adds a concerning trend of crypto executive and influencer abductions and murders often motivated by the intent to steal or recover large sums of money. Last week, the CEO of Canadian based WonderFi, Dean Scuraca, was reportedly abducted and forced to pay $1,000,000 in ransom for his release. Mirsashi's investigation is still ongoing. However, the Gazette noted that local police arrested a 32 year old woman named Joanne LePage in August who was charged with the first degree murder of Mir Shahi. Mir Shahi was well known in the Montreal crypto community, previously owning and operating a private crypto investment firm called Crypto Paradise Island.
While it is not clear whether LePage was an investor in Crypto Paradise Island, Twitter user bb claimed he had been scammed by Mir Shahi, while others also referred to Mir Shahi as a scammer. Rishahi was also known as Quebec's investment regulator, which banned Mersahi and 2 others from carrying out activities as a broker or investment adviser in 2021 or soon after. He was also ordered to stop posting related content on social media. The. Yeah. I I I I suck at French. Okay? I just I can't even pronounce it right. Alright? So do with that what you will. But they extended that ban of him not being able to post on social media on July 4th, about 2 weeks after Mirshahi was abducted.
In July, 4 suspects were arrested for allegedly kidnapping and murdering a 29 year old foreign national Bitcoiner in Kyiv, Ukraine, and stealing a $170,000 worth of Bitcoin. In August, 6 Malaysian nationals were charged with kidnapping a Chinese national and demanding a ransom of $1,000,000 worth of stablecoin, Tether. So just let it sink into your psychology. Let it brand itself upon your psyche. Right? Yes. You could say, well, he was obviously a scammer. Yeah. Probably. A lot of people in the in the space are just pure ass scammers. That doesn't that doesn't absolve you saying, okay. Well, I'm not a scammer, so therefore, I can wear my Bitcoin swag out in the parking lot in Miami or Nashville at the, Bitcoin 2024 conference, and absolutely nothing bad is going to happen to me. In fact, I trust everybody so much that I'm going to wear orange shoes with Bitcoin on it. I'm gonna wear orange pants with Bitcoin on it. I'm gonna wear an ugly ass orange t shirt with a big ass Bitcoin target on the back and the front, and then I'm gonna put on a a cap, a cover on my head that also has Bitcoin swag, you know, embalmed all over that son of a bitch. And I'm going to get fucking hammered, be bombed out of my tree at a bar in Nashville.
And when I close that song, bitch, down at 2 o'clock in the morning or whenever they close, I know it's it's 2 in Texas, I'm going to walk alone in the middle of the night back to my hotel room, barely able to function, and absolutely nothing bad is going to happen to me. You are fooling yourself. Okay? I mean, you'd be doing good to escape any kind of potential ramifications for your actions if you were stone cold sober. Right? The whole point that I'm trying to make is the more we let on to other people that we do not know, therefore cannot trust, that we have Bitcoin, that we play with Bitcoin, that we know about Bitcoin, the the more and more likely it becomes that we have serious problems.
Serious problems. So please, for the love of god, consider not wearing bitcoin swag. And I know this is not going to sit well with the vendors and the people that produce Bitcoin t shirts. Figure out a way to produce Bitcoin swag that really can only be identified if you've been in the space for, like, 10 years. I I I know that sounds elitist, but it is a hell of a lot better than having your decomposing remains found underneath the bush in a Montreal park 6 months or whatever after you got abducted. Alright? Just please keep that shit in mind. We we're no longer, you know, we're no longer I I don't know. What am I trying to say? It's no longer trivial that you are a Bitcoiner.
It's no longer point and laugh. It is now point and abduct. Be careful out there. And then there's there's other people that it doesn't matter if you hide or not, they're going to find you. From CoinDesk, Mark Hochstein writing this one, Polymarket's probe highlights challenges of blocking US users and their VPNs. Yikes. So here we go with this Polymarket dude. Polymarket's current predicament highlights long simmering compliance questions facing the crypto industry. You might call them very persistent nagging questions. At the heart of the matter is how blockchain protocols or even centralized crypto firms can address the widespread practice of users turning to virtual private networks, or VPNs, to circumvent geographical restrictions imposed by governments.
Because on Wednesday, federal law enforcement raided the New York home of Shane Copeland, PolyMarkets' 26 year old founder and CEO. Although it's not yet clear exactly why the raid took place and neither Copeland nor his company has been charged with wrongdoing, Bloomberg and The New York Times reported that the Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation of whether Polymarket let US residents trade on its site in violation of a 2022 regulatory settlement. Founded in 2020, Polymarket is one of crypto's breakout successes this year, logging 1,000,000,000 in trading volumes and 100 of 1,000,000 in open interest or contracts outstanding. Bets on the platform are settled in USDC, a stablecoin, which is a cryptocurrency that trades 1 for 1 with US dollars.
Traders use the prediction markets to bet on outcomes of real world events, everything from whether Jake Paul or Mike Tyson will win their boxing match or which actor will play the next James Bond. But the most popular subject by far has been the US presidential elections. A poly market spokesperson called this week's raid political retribution by the ongoing Biden administration for correctly predicting Trump's victory, an interpretation widely echoed on social media. If that take is correct, the investigation may be short lived with a crypto friendly president-elect set to take office in January.
Even so, the situation underscores broader questions that may need to be addressed if the new administration and congress try to foster a more accommodating environment for digital assets. Polymarket is forbidden to serve US residents under a 2022 settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It has been blocking users with US IP addresses from trading, but crafty American traders have been using VPNs to disguise their locations to bet on the platform. Polymarket does not collect customers' personal identification. Aside from an IP address, it has little way of knowing where where it's generally pseudo anonymous traders are located. And that's the rub, not just for Polymarket, but for a host of crypto entities trying to avoid US jurisdictions such as projects that airdrop tokens. Oh, for god's sake.
What can companies that geofence the US practically do to prevent Americans from accessing their services through VPNs? And what does the government expect firms to do? These are both the wrong question. These are not good questions to be asking. The real question to ask is why are American citizens so freakishly toxic to the rest of the world that their mere presence upon your sight invites a raid of your home. Why? I've been talking about this for at least a couple of years. We are persona non grata. Us, American citizens, scare the fire out of every other country's capitalist intended structures.
Nobody wants to build a company and then find out that Americans are using that company, as well, if it has anything to do with finance anyway. Sure. You wanna build a t shirt and sell it to Americans. Nobody gives a shit. But what we do give a shit about is finance. If you're an American citizen and you are buying or interacting with any kind of commercial or retail available financial instrument or service, the company providing that better be a United States company or else somebody's gonna get raided. So that's the question to ask.
Why are United States citizens so toxic? And it's not because of us. Because even that's the wrong question to ask, ladies and gentlemen. The real question to ask is why is our justice department, the SEC, the CFTC, so tightly wound up that the US just justice department is almost singularly interested in financial crimes? And by extension, watching like a hawk every single company in the world that does business with United States citizenry? That's the question. And I don't have an answer for that other than the fact that a bunch of ghouls, demons, and otherwise evil people have been in control of the United States government's at least at least a few, if not a good couple of handfuls of departments that actually matter in world decision making, like FinCEN, like US Justice Department, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, like the CFTC.
Right? Those are the levers of power that matter. And there's a few more, obviously, but those ones, that's that's the shit right now. Because everybody in the United States government and all governments of the West realize that they've destroyed the financial fabric of the world. And maybe they're scared of becoming abducted. But we've got some practical questions to ask otherwise because according to privacy and cybersecurity researcher, Runa Sandvik, the main thing a company could do to prevent people in restricted jurisdictions accessing its services is to make them go through a know your customer process. Here it comes, ladies and gentlemen. Quote, they need KYC, she told CoinDesk.
It's too easy to get around simple IP address blocks. Of course, k y c has downsides for users including law abiding citizens who are asked to share sensitive personal information. It adds more friction to the sign up process because you need to verify your identity. Also, you need to trust that the site is going to keep your data safe, Sandvik said. Aaron Brogan, a crypto industry lawyer, said that hypothetically, a company could strengthen IP address blocks by incorporating GPS data from users' mobile devices. But this might be impractical in commercial use. A customer using a laptop without GPS, for example, might have a hard time logging on without 2 factor authentication.
Other ways to mitigate risks would include not advertising into the United States clearly stating on all relevant products that they are not available to US users and so forth. Yeah. That's not gonna matter. Polymarket has a mobile app available to US users, but it only displays the odds generated by its markets and does not enable trading. The company is marketed aggressively on social media, but such platforms are global by definition. One thing companies can do is to, quote, monitor for users who change their IP address in a way that suggests the use of a VPN to circumvent a geofence, wrote Jake Chervinsky and Daniel Barabander, chief legal officer and deputy general counsel, respectively, for venture capital firm, Variant Fund.
For example, if a company observer or observes a user attempting to access a geofence product using a US IP address and then immediately reconnects to the same wallet address or account using a non US IP address, that's a sign of a wily American trying to get around the geoblock. An exchange could then block the rascal's account or wallet address. Generally, it's an open question whether companies need to block all VPN use, Chervinsky and Barbander wrote. However, regulators have cited screening IP addresses against known VPNs as a positive factor for effective geofencing.
Last year, in settling sanctions violations charges against coin list markets, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control approvingly noted that among other remedial measures, the San Francisco based crypto exchange had invested in tools to detect the use of VPNs that can obscure users' locations. Part of PolyMarkets' challenge is that having previously settled with CFTC, it may be held to a higher standard than a company with no history of running afoul of the United States. Quote, a company that did not have a track record of violations, practically speaking, is held to a different standard, David Ackerman, a seasoned compliance executive and lawyer, told CoinDesk, quote, now, obviously, Polymarket had a track record of violations, and and they had a settlement.
So the standard of care for somebody like that is going to be different, end quote. In Ackerman's view, simply blocking IP addresses from the United States would not be sufficient. Quote, geofencing is one thing, but it isn't very easy. Everyone has to k y c. So if there is a discrepancy between the information provided in the k y c and the IP address that is being used, that's very easy to monitor, he said. Brogan said that geofencing should be viewed as more of a risk mitigation strategy than a legal strategy. In 2018, Brian Kennetz, in a speech, then a CFTC commissioner articulated a forgiving standard for determining whether blockchain projects are liable for user behavior.
The appropriate question is whether these code developers could reasonably foresee at the time they created the code that it would likely be used by US persons in a manner violative so hold on. Violative of CFTC regulations. Since that speech, Brogan said there has been a sense among some practitioners that taking steps to block US persons might forestall enforcement, but that's not necessarily what the law says. The CFTC's 2022 order against Polymarket required them to wind down noncompliant markets but did not specify what that compliance would require.
I don't know, this is a quote, I don't know if the CFTC told them privately that geofencing was sufficient or if they've just been in detente for 2 years. Polymarket isn't a regulated organization in the United States, and the entity that operates it is formally organized in Panama. Remember the Panama Papers? But that doesn't necessarily mean it can ignore US law according to Ackerman. Yeah. We know, dude. A common misconception is that you need to domicile in the country in order for their laws to apply. So as long as your business has an has in effect in the jurisdiction, you are usually held to their laws. Yeah. We know this.
See, that's the end of the article, but that's not the end of the rant. Because none of this actually gets to the very heart of the matter. Only the United States citizen is deemed as a complete toxicity to any other country's financial services and retail market. I don't think Mexico really gives a shit. Pretty sure a Swedish, Swedish guy can probably buy stuff from, like, a Mexican retail financial services company and not have this kind of problem, or at least not to this degree. This is at this point, a the United States is not fencing out wrongdoers or the evil ones as George w Bush used to say. No. No. No. We're fencing our population in.
That's what this is about. It has nothing to do with protecting the United States citizen from getting scammed by some dude in France. This has everything to do with making sure that the United States citizen does not have access to anything but United States retail and industrial financial services and industries. So the question becomes, why? I don't know. I wish I did. I I can only speculate, and I can only do so with a gigantic tinfoil hat on my head that says they want to keep us poor because the evil has gotten in their way to the point that it filters everything that they see and that the evil ones now see us as the enemy, the United States citizen.
Even though they themselves are, quote unquote, United States citizenry, they are so powerful and have been for so long that their view of who their subjects are as kings and queens has been so corrupted that when they see us, they do not see United States citizenry. They see a threat. I'll take my tinfoil hat off, but I may put it back on again for this one. Trump taps Bitcoin fanned, Matt Getz, for attorney general, and everybody apparently is freaking out. Vismayevi tells us more decrypt in a move that left both allies and opponents reeling. Oh my god. They're reeling.
President-elect Donald Trump has trapped pro crypto Florida congressman Matt Getz to serve as the next attorney general of the United States. Known for his staunch advocacy of Bitcoin, Getz's appointment is a clear signal that Trump's second term will prioritize a pro crypto agenda even at the risk of deepening divisions within his own party. Getz would root out systemic corruption at the DOJ and return the department to its true mission of fighting crime, which is like Dick Tracy, end up holding our democracy and constitution. Yeah. Like, what, Superman. Yeah. Well, whatever. Trump wrote that all that in his true social network on Wednesday.
With Bitcoin soaring to a record high, the market is already responding positively to the prospect of a more supportive regulatory environment. But gets his nomination comes following the republican party's success in the 2024 elections where pro crypto candidates secured majorities in both the house and the senate. However, the announcement of his nomination was met with gasps during a closed door meeting of house Republicans with several members reportedly expressing disbelief as per an Axios report. Reportedly, multiple senators expecting expressing skepticism about his readiness for the position due to his confrontational approach and limited legal experience.
Gantz has previously advocated for deregulating the crypto industry, pushing back against what he views as federal overreach by agencies like the SEC. In June, Getz introduced legislation to allow Americans to pay their federal taxes using Bitcoin. The bill seeks to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, enabling the IRS to accept Bitcoin for tax payments and enter into contracts for related services. Despite the enthusiasm from the crypto sector, Getz faces a tough confirmation battle. His past legal troubles, are likely to be scrutinized during senate hearings. Apparently, he's under a federal investigation for sex trafficking.
Yikes. Oh, no. No. I'm sorry. That seems to have ended. That seems to have ended. But there's also some ethical battles that are going on in Florida. But since, I guess, he's resigned, that position, those ethical things go away. And I don't know anything about Matt Gaetz. I'm just reporting on what's out there in in in the media as as such, so take it with a grain of salt. But on Wednesday, house speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that Gaetz stepped down from his congressional seat. There we go. Effectively halting the ethics probe. Oh, yay. He's all free. For the crypto industry, however, the mere prospect of having a pro Bitcoin attorney general is already being seen as a significant win.
While Republicans have a majority, just a few dissenting votes could derail the nomination, yet Trump's allies are pushing for a swift confirmation saying Getz's reformist agenda is essential for overhauling the DOJ. Okay. So am I angry about it? No. No. I'd I'd I honestly kinda don't care. However, I do have a specific question. There's a lot of pro crypto stuff going on right now in the Trump administration, And I have to take pause. And you you'll say, but you're for Bitcoin. Yeah. Absolutely for Bitcoin. But when I see things going my way to this degree, I have to go, when's the other shoe going to drop?
And that doesn't mean that it's a rug pull. It just means that what are we not seeing about the potential ramifications of a secretary of defense who's pro crypto, an attorney general who's also pro crypto, and then a couple of other people that I was talking about yesterday who are also pro crypto. We got Trump who's getting into crypto with what with Liberty Financial something, some kind of meme coin or stable coin that he's releasing. And I've talked about that. I've talked about the the onset of the news game brian or scam brian explosion that's coming in the way of stable coins.
I got it's not that I have a terrible feeling about this. I don't even really have a bad feeling about this. But I gotta say, we should probably be on guard because this, this this may not be what we think we want it to be. Okay? Alright. Let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities. I got West Texas Intermediate Oil, but down only a little bit. $68.37. Brent Norsee is down pretty much the same. It's down to 72.25 a barrel. Natural gas, however, is swinging for the fences. But in the wrong goddamn direction, 3 and a half percent to the downside, and gasoline is up, of course, a half point to a buck 97 a gallon. And all your metal rocks are doing poorly today.
Gold is down a half point to 2574. Silver is down a third. Platinum is down a half. Copper is down a quarter. Palladium down over 1 full percent. Ag is mostly in the red today on futures. Biggest winner today is chocolate. I have chocolate just making it all all of its losses, like, 4 months ago are being made up. 6.87% to the upside. Biggest loser today is gonna be rough rice over 2 points to the downside. It got live cattle down a half. Lean hogs, wow, plunging 3 full points the downside. Feeder cattle are down 0.14%. The Dow is also down, including all the financial markets. Everything's down today. Why?
Because in just a little couple of hours over a couple of hours, the Fed chair is going to give a speech. So Jerome Powell is going to stand up in front of a podium, and people are going to immediately go, what's he wearing? What what color tie is he wearing? What's his body language like? Does he seem afraid? Is he leaning over the podium, the lectern? Is he leaning back away from the lectern? I swear I shit you not. There are professionals that get paid a paycheck to look at shit like this, to look at body language, to listen for intonation and voices. And that's where we are. We know that they took rates down another point 25%, but now we get to hear from the man himself as he gives his speech.
I think it's going to be at 12 noon Pacific Standard Time. So it'll be after the markets close. I want you to understand that it's he he is not going to start talking until after the markets close. So there will be at least one full trading day unless Friday is a a federal holiday that I don't know about. We will wake up to find out whatever he said Thursday afternoon is bad or good. Alright? So that's the way that the world works, which is stupid. It should be based on math, much like Bitcoin. But the Dow is down a third of a point. The S and P is down a half. So is the Nasdaq, and the S and P is down by 2 thirds.
Bitcoin kinda struggling today too. We're down to $89,040. That is now only a $1,76,000,000,000,000 dollar market cap, and we can only get a mere 34.7 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 Bitcoin, of which there are 19,000,000. 781,980 and a half of an average fees per block have risen to 0.19 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis, and there are 105 blocks carrying 259,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 12 satoshis per v byte. Low priority is gonna get you in at 11. 716.2 exahashes per second is a 1 week rolling average of the hash rate. That's 716.2 exahashes per second.
Now value for value. Why do I do it? No censorship. Look. Platforms and payment providers can censor content at the flick of a switch. But value for value takes that power away. By cutting out all the middlemen, it puts me and you, my audience, in control. Self sovereign hosting and monetization means it's just me and my work and you, the people who support me. There's no gatekeepers. Depending on where you are or me, getting paid through the usual routes can be a total nightmare or flat out impossible. Banks and payment platforms can drop creators over their politics and any other nonsense they choose. And let's not forget, millions don't even have access to traditional banking because where they live or who they are. And this podcast, ladies and gentlemen, is actually global.
I reach more countries in the world than I ever thought. In fact, I I reach very few countries. Oh, no. No. That that was the wrong way to say it. There are very few countries on my map when I'm looking at my bitcoin Bitcoin and analytics. There are very few countries who don't listen to the show. I've I literally, most of the countries on this planet listen to this show, at least a few of you guys out there. And you may not have bank accounts. That's why Bitcoin's the answer. It banks the unbanked. It makes censorship resistant value transfer possible, especially for those who need it most, not just me.
And free speech and open value transfer, man, that's the heart of value for value and why Bitcoin is the backbone of this entire movement. Nobody wants to bite the hand that feeds them. That's the problem. That's the problem with advertisers. This dynamic chills conversations around certain topics. After all, you're not going to slam an advertiser who's funding me or you. Because it's not just me that uses value for value, guys. There's other people that are trying to do this, and we all need to come together to make value for value work. For most people, it creates a level of self censorship when you have advertisers. The ads might pay the bill, but they also put a leash on my conversations that I can have with you, and value for value changes that game.
That's why when I ask you guys to donate to the show, it's to do a lot more than to keep the lights on. Do you want me to be able to call out the like, let's say okay. Who was that bald headed lipstick wearing wacko that was the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? The guy that that stole luggage, wears a dress. I don't even know I don't know I don't know what the guy is. Now if just those three sentences that I just said by themselves could have gotten me kicked off of every possible platform in on the world and lose all of my advertisers because none of them none of them can afford to be affiliated with somebody who will ask the question, why did that person who has absolutely no experience in regulatory commissions on nuclear energy they don't have a degree in nuclear energy or nuclear engineering, probably don't know what a beta particle is. I probably have more sense as to what's going on in nuclear energy than this yahoo. And yet just because of DEI, they put that fucking wacko into that chair, and then they immediately embarrassed the entirety of the United States by stealing expensive luggage out of an airport.
Yeah. Advertisers can't stand that shit. That's why I depend on you guys to donate to the show. You you can do it through boostograms in any podcasting 2.0 enabled application. You can do it through streaming satoshis to me on a minute over minute basis through the aforementioned podcasting 2.0 facilities that are available to you. Get off of your legacy podcasting apps. Get a brand new app. And that way, you'll be able to send me things like Mark 26 z did. With 991 sats, he says, keep up the good work. I will if you can keep donating to me through the value for value model. No waste BTC signs with a 1,000 sats says thank you, sir. No. Thank you.
Pies to Pleb with 420 says thank you, sir. As soon as that bullshit department of government efficiency was announced, I had people texting me. Should I buy Doge? Are you fucking kidding me? Let let the shit the coin shit show begin. My reply was bitcoin only. Good for you, Pies. Bitcoin Sandy with 500 says, great chat. Wartime with 333 gives me a bunch of emojis. Only half of them I can read and that's the fire and cheers emoji. Why? Because I'm using a prehistoric operating system. Ju Wong with 250 says, my hatred towards Elon is unmatched. He thinks the world is a joke.
He may. I don't hate him, but I certainly don't trust him. Nim, gives me no sats and says great show. Hey. Thanks, guys. That's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news. You can use Sandy Hook. See, this is this is what happens. This is what happens without a value for value model. Although, it gets more insidious with Alex Jones. It really it really does. Because it wasn't just advertisers. Because his advertisers, you know, they they definitely cottoned with what he was gonna say anyway. This is the other side of the value for value model that is absolutely essential for us to solve. Adam Curry's got a long way with being able to forge, you know, technologies that allow you to send me satoshis without a bank, without anything else so that I can try to live without advertising.
But I can't live without DNS. I can't live without VPN. I can't live without IP addresses. I can't live without my house. Can't live without a bunch of stuff. And they took it all away from Alex Jones because he questioned Sandy Hook. Let's read the story from AP. Satire publication named The Onion has bought Alex Jones' Infowars at auction alongside Sandy Hook families. They all threw in together to buy out Alex Jones. The satirical news publication, The Onion, won the bidding for Alex Jones Infowars at a bankruptcy auction backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims who Jones owes more than $1,000,000,000 in defamation judgments to for calling the massacre a hoax. Actually, that's gone down quite a bit. There he he doesn't actually owe 1,000,000,000.
But it was a ridiculous number to begin with. It was clearly, clearly a show trial, a show judgment. Whatever. The dissolution of Alex Jones' assets and the death of Infowars is the justice, the justice, that we have long awaited and fought for. Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emily was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers, did you see Robbie Parker? Do you know who I'm talking about? Do you know who I'm talking about? Robbie Parker was the the father of one of the children who I do believe actually died at Sandy Hook. I I I do believe that children and teachers got killed at Sandy Hook. As to why this whole thing occurred, I don't know. But I remember 2 things from that day.
A bunch of people I've had 100 of people walking around in a circle going through a building back out and in a line just in and out and in and out and in and out, and I still don't understand what that was. That happened. I'm not making that up. There was helicopter video footage of a huge ring of people coming out of the school on one side and then back into the school on the other side. I still don't know what the hell that was, but Robbie Parker gave a press conference, like, either the like, later on that day, and I I think it was actually the day after, where when he came out of the door, he was smiling and clearly laughing.
And then somehow or another saw that he was walking up to a microphone, and I he knew that he was about to do this. But somehow or another, his demeanor just changed. It was eerie. And, apparently, that is what caused Alex Jones to really start thinking hard about what the hell was going on at Sandy Hook because this guy who lost his 6 year old daughter should not be smiling, should not be laughing under any circumstances, no matter where the hell he is, not because it's proper, but because if you are truly the father of a fallen 6 year old daughter, there's nothing to laugh about.
And he was clearly laughing. I'm sorry. I saw that too. I will never be able to unsee it. I saw it from 2 different angles. I will never be able to unsee it. He was laughing when he came out to give a press conference about the death of his daughter and the tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook. And yet and yet The Onion, a satire place, with Robbie Parker's help, has bought Infowars. Let's continue. The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform's website, social media accounts, the studio, the physical studio in Austin, Texas, all the trademarks, and his entire video archive. The sale price was not immediately disclosed.
The Onion said its exclusive launch advertiser will be the gun violence prevention organization, Everytown, for gun safety. Yeah. Bunch of people that don't want the second amendment. They say it's because of say because this shit happened because of guns. No. It didn't. It happened because somebody who's a fucking psycho went into the Sandy Hook school and started shooting up little children. That's a problem with society. That's a problem not with guns, not with ammunition manufacturers. That's a problem with the financial tragedy that has been occurring in this United States since 1913 and has come into a fucking head because everybody's lost hope.
It's not the gun that does it. If I lay a gun down on a table, it does not form feet and mutate arms and goes around into a school all by itself and starts shooting people. That is a sick, twisted individual that's using any tool they can get their hands on to affect the most casualties they possibly can, and we still don't know why. But my tinfoil hat screams that because there's no hope for the future. And the only reason there's no hope for the future is what these people have done to the financial fabric of this planet, not just the United States. They're all to blame. It has nothing to do with Remington or Winchester or federal ammunition.
This is all bullshit. It's all fucking bullshit. The Infowars website appeared to have been taken down on Thursday morning. Jones was angry and defiant as he broadcast live with Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon, vowing to challenge the sale and the auction process in court. Jones said he would move to a new studio. Websites and social media accounts were already set up. The Onion, a satirical site that manages to persuade people to believe the absurd, bills itself as the world's leading news publication offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events and says it has 4,300,000,000,000 daily readers. It confirmed the sale with a satirical column on its website. Quote, no price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and mines, said the post. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of Infowars, a forgettable man with an already forgotten name, and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain, less than $1,000,000,000,000, end quote.
I love how they're laughing at destroying a man for having an opinion. The Onion consulted on the bidding with some of Sandy Hook families that sued Jones for defamation and emotional distress and lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas lawyers for the family said, quote, our clients knew the true that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones's ability to spread lies, pain, and fear at scale, said Christopher Mate, a lawyer for the families. Everytown For Gun Safety said it will use the Infowars platform to raise awareness about gun violence. Yeah. What about financial violence? What you doing about that shit? Nothing. Sandy Hook families sued Jones and his company for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting that killed 20 children and 6 educators in Newtown, Connecticut was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control.
Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones' conspiracies and threats by his followers. During his live show Thursday morning, Jones repeatedly said the bankruptcy trustee and others were in the building and threatening to shut down the show at any moment. That did not immediately happen. Quote, I'm gonna be here until they come in and turn the lights off, Jones said. Sealed bids for the private auction were opened on Wednesday. Both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars. Jones had been saying on his show that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platform. The bankruptcy trustee named First United American Companies, a company affiliated with one of Jones' products selling sites, as the backup bid in case the onion purchase fell through.
I'm not saying that everything that comes out of Alex Jones's mouth is the truth. Hell, I'm not even saying that he knows what the fuck he's talking about. What I am saying is that Alex Jones is a United States American citizen. K? He has rights. He has property rights, or at least so we're told. Right? Unless unless you say something that not only pisses off your advertisers, which value for value as it stands today actually fixes. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. We need a bigger fix than just value for value, ladies and gentlemen, because one of these days and I'm sure somebody's already turned off this show because I dare to bring up Robbie Parker and his smirking, smiling, laughing motherfucking ass coming out of the door on the way to a microphone to give a press conference about the death of his 6 year old daughter. That shit happened.
It happened. I saw it. I showed other people it. People in my office that were, like, going, oh my god. I can't believe you're you're siding with Alex Jones. No. I'm not siding with Alex Jones. I can I'm looking at at Robbie Parker, this distraught father whose 6 year old daughter died, laughing on his way to a press conference. He was coming out of double glass doors alongside what I assume was the lawyer, and he was laughing. He wasn't just smiling. He was actually laughing. Now you don't hear it, but when you look at somebody and they're laughing, you know they're laughing. You can see it in their face. We're not emotional degenerates.
We we can tell when somebody's sad. We can tell when somebody's happy. We can tell when somebody's crying. We can tell when somebody's laughing. That man was walking out of the door, and he was engaged in physical laughter. It doesn't mean that I don't think his daughter died. It doesn't mean that I don't think 20 other children died. What? Something was going on, and nobody really knows what the hell it was. I don't know if I agree with anything that Alice Jones says about Sandy Hook. All I know is I saw people coming in and out of that building in a large circular line, and I still don't understand what the hell that was.
But I can just forget about that because the real problem that I had was Robbie Parker coming out and laughing. But I can't say that, can I? I've already probably lost 2 or 3 listeners because I dare say that shit. Well, I'm sorry. I'm not going to shut my mouth and not say the things that are going to offend people for two reasons. 1, I don't know what offends everybody. I have no clue. Somebody in Morocco may be listening to this this podcast, and I've made so many cultural blunders that that would obviously offend people in Morocco that I probably have that I may not have any Moroccan citizenry listening to the podcast anymore, and there's no way I can know. 2nd, just have to be able to say what we think. Otherwise, what are we even talking about?
Are we talking about anything of import at all? The answer is no. We would not have any idea what the hell we're talking about because we're so busy trying to appease everybody, and we know that's impossible that we don't actually say anything of import. I don't know what happened at Sandy Hook, but I know what happened here. I know somebody lost their livelihood that they had been building for decades because they simply started asking questions and saying the sentence, They think this was a hoax. Okay. Fine. I don't agree that it was a hoax. I certainly think that it was possibly used to expand the this whole trying to get everybody to give up their second amendment right, But I don't know.
But just because I question it means that I'm a bad person. Well, then we've got bigger problems. And the other side of value for value is this. We gotta figure out a way to plug that into shit like DNS, trademarks, everything. Everything. We've gotta be able to plug it into where there's absolutely nothing that anybody can actually physically do to take these things away. Physical property is a very difficult thing to tackle. I don't think that that will ever, ever, ever be able to be solved because men with guns will come and take it from you. But at DNS, like infowars.com, davidcbennett.org, something like that, hey, we've gotta be able to figure out a way to protect that under the banner of value for value. And maybe we can do it by building better portfolios for ourselves, including Bitcoin, like this one from James Van Stratton writing for CoinDesk.
And he says, what does a 6040 portfolio look like if we replace bonds with Bitcoin? Apparently, it's a lot better according to Van Straten. Let's find out. It may be time to reassess the wisdom of the sixtyforty platform or portfolio, which was created back in the wow. The early 19 fifties and is often referred to as the modern portfolio theory. The theory was created by a guy named Harry Markowitz who tried to optimize a portfolio from a risk reward standpoint. The traditional sixty forty portfolio was split into equities at 60% and fixed income at 40%.
It was designed to make the portfolio diversified and balanced by both managing risk and growth at the same time. Equities would give you those much needed returns in the good times. But in the bad times, bonds were there to capture the drawdowns and weather the storm. However, we may need to change our thinking as we head into a new era of inflation above 2% and high interest rates. The US CPI inflation year over year has not been at the Federal Reserve mandate of 2 percent's percent since February of 2021. In fact, as of November 13th, the inflation was 2.6 percent which actually increased by 0.2% from the month prior.
Interest rates globally have continued to decline in the last 4 decades pushing bonds higher especially during the post 2008 zero rate policy environment. However, since 2021, interest rates have risen and bonds have suffered, experiencing their largest drawdowns. An example of this is the BlackRock iShares 20 plus treasury year bond ETF, which has witnessed a 54% drawdown from its peak in 2020 to the trough of 2023. Taking a look at data from Curvo, data and financial provider, we can see what a 6040 portfolio would actually look like. For equities, Curvo chose iShares Core MSCI World ETF USD in the MSCI World Index.
And for the bonds, they take X Tracker's global sovereign ETF, which is hedged in the FTSE World Government Bonds, developed markets index. Yeah. I know that's a big mouthful, but they're just basically playing with these bonds that have these very long names. Alright? So since the beginning of 2014, an initial investment of euro of 10,000 would have returned just above €20,000 or about $21,000 US essentially doubling it in 10 years seems like good returns But what if we what would happen if we added bitcoin to the mix? So for that analysis, we have taken a 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10% allocation in bitcoin.
A 1% allocation would see a 0.5% decrease in both equities and bonds to keep the split equal this would be the same as the btc allocation in as the btc allocation incrementally gets higher As you can see, the higher the bitcoin allocation, the greater the return. A 10% bitcoin allocation would yield over €70,000 or 3x returns compared to the traditional equity allocation. Just for fun, we adopted the original 6040 portfolio to include 60% equities and 40% bitcoin allocation to replace the bonds. The results show a whopping 50 x return.
€500,000. Remember, we're dealing with a €10,000 initial investment. And it's for in 2014, and it's returned, in this particular case of 40% Bitcoin, 60% equity, 500,000. To include 2024 data, the analysis takes a year to date return of 101% for bitcoin while taking the average annual performance of the original 6040 portfolio. Due to bitcoin's risk off monetary properties, such as not having a CEO or a central point of failure, bitcoin can act as a diversified entity in a 6040 portfolio. The analysis didn't include tech stocks such as Tesla or Nvidia for these reasons. Also, since its inception, Bitcoin has provided greater returns than gold annually.
Hence, we adopted or we opted for Bitcoin. Okay. So what does that mean? Well, it means that over since, like, 2014, if you would had a 60 40 portfolio that had Bitcoin in the mix or Bitcoin is the entirety of the 40% of the portfolio, you'd have made out like bandits. And then other people will say, yeah. But if I was just all in in 2014 of, you know, into Bitcoin, I would have made out even more like bandits. And the answer is, would you? Would you have been able to allocate that much into Bitcoin at that particular time? 2014 was before even I got into Bitcoin. It was a mess.
It was hard to get Bitcoin before before Coinbase. I know. I I hate saying the word Coinbase. But before Coinbase, it was very, very difficult to get a hold of Bitcoin. In my opinion, these kinds of mental, or intellectual gymnastics don't really do a whole lot other than say what would have happened? Well, woulda, coulda, shoulda, motherfucker. You should have bought Bitcoin. I don't know. I mean, it's all bullshit. However, the numbers do tend to be fairly eye watering. So now that the now my question becomes, well, what if we did all 3?
What if we had 40% equities, 20% bonds, and I don't know the rest made up with bitcoin? Do we have to have 6040 where it's because now we have a completely different asset. When you think about it, the only assets that you really have is equities and fixed income. Whether that fixed income is bonds or stuff like real estate, like maybe houses that you own that you rent out, that's like as long as you always have renters in there, as long as you're not changing you know, going down on how much you're charging for rent, it's kind of fixed income. It it's it has the hallmarks of fixed income, not all of them, but kinda acts that way. Or if you convert that real estate into, like, I don't know, using it to using it to borrow against for other property, then there's there's a yield because you're you know, there's there's something there.
I'm just saying that now we have a third type of asset class. We have a we have a, god forbid, crypto asset class. Let's just say call it Bitcoin. That's a completely different asset class. It doesn't generate a yield by itself. It's not giving dividends. It's not it's pretty much just sitting there. And it makes sense to start thinking about maybe a, I don't know, like a, let's say, a 64 let's say, a 50, 30, 20 type portfolio. Right? So we have 50% equities, 30% fixed income, 20% Bitcoin. Why not? I mean, I personally hate bonds. I think that they're toxic at this point. But if you're talking to a normie, if you're like an you know, trying to get grandpa to invest in Bitcoin or something, maybe a structured financial product like this would take the edge off of being into Bitcoin when they don't really know what it is? Because I guarantee you grandpa doesn't know what a treasury bond actually is. Nobody does.
And not unless you're like a nerd ass Bitcoiner and you're trying to figure out why people are shooting each other in schools because there's no hope and you start looking for root causes, you understand that it's because these financial instruments have done everything that it can to destroy wealth of every normal citizen in the West at least. And the only way that that has happened is because we had wealth to destroy, which means that the west basically destroyed the wealth of the rest of the world. I I I again, people are probably going, I'm never gonna listen to you again because you hate America. No. That that has nothing to do with it. I don't think America is being run by Americans.
I don't think the West is being run by people who purport to be Europeans. I I don't. I get the feeling that some really bad people have been in power for a very long time, and they have absolutely no compunction in giving that up without a huge fight. Grandpa does not know what a treasury bond actually does. And I can say that I do all day long. I understand the yield. I understand the principle. I get all that. Why do we even have it? And then somebody will say, well, it's to print debt. Yes. I agree. What does that mean? What are the what what are all of the implications?
Let's exhaust all of the implications of that, can you? No. You can't. This shit builds on itself. These this kind of chicanery does not come without costs that are hidden to even those that constructed the chicanery. Knock on effects. We don't know exactly what we're doing at this point. It's just one more derivative after one more derivative. So why not a 50, 30, 20 of equities, bonds, and Bitcoin? Or a a a a 40 just play with the numbers. Play with the numbers. We have a third asset class available to us. There's a lot of people that are kinda really weirded out about owning Bitcoin. So why not build a financial product that is equities and treasuries and Bitcoin?
Why not? I guarantee you, you will probably get more of the boomer class into Bitcoin by offering them a financial service package that they can look at and say, oh, I see you've taken the 6040, which I'm very used to doing, and add it as a singular asset class. And now it's broken up like 33333. This makes sense to me. Take my money. Why not? Why not? I'll bet you I'll bet you it would work. I'll bet you it would. Alright. So we are now 6 minutes over time, so I'm gonna go ahead and let you go. Just remember, don't wear Bitcoin swag in public, and you'll probably be okay. I'll see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin, and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:0:6 AM Pacific Standard Time. It's the 14th day of November 2024, and this is episode 992 of Bitcoin and only 8 episodes left until the big one thousand.
What are we doing today? We're gonna talk some politics. We've got some other announcements out of the Trump thing. We've got a a poly market issue that's going on that is very reminiscent to some of the, chicanery we've seen out of the United States Justice Department. And, well, Alex Jones lost his entire empire. I have a big problem with these people and not with the Infowars people. You can you should be able to put out what the hell it is that you wanna put out. You should be able to say what you want to say without having everything taken away from you. I may not agree with everything that Alex Jones said. And there was a time when I listened to the Infowars show daily.
I I did, but I stopped listening to it not because the guy's batshit crazy. He kinda is. But sometimes you need to have batshit crazy people being batshit crazy in order to get people to listen to certain things that are going on in the environment around you. And he brought to light quite a bit of shit that wasn't exactly untrue. However, he'd had no answers. You know? And I just I got to the point where I I understand that these people are evil and some of them were actually potentially even demonic, but I'm not getting any answers as to how to get out, like, you know, move out of the cities, get to something more rural. That's that's something concrete.
I can hang on to that. You know, being able to form better relationships with the people around you because they're the ones that are going to help you instead of, like, oh, the government's bad, so you can't depend on them. Okay. But everybody needs help every once in a while. So what's the answer? And, honestly, the answer is you form better relationships and you focus on your family and you make you know, like, what I do with my children. I make sure that they understand that I'm not interested in them moving halfway across the country simply because that's where the opportunity is.
You have to create your own opportunity. Right? And you don't have to. I mean, you if if my kids want to, I'm not going to stop them. But I am certainly not going to be the person says you have to move to Dallas, Texas because that's where the opportunity is. Opportunity is everywhere, and that's an answer. Being able to keep your family close, forming your network, these are answers. And he never really had anything other than eat this silver compound, which I don't have a problem with. I think silver is good. I'm just saying that that's not the answer. These are not the droids I was looking for, and I just kinda stopped listening to them. But I don't believe that Alex Jones, because he didn't believe that, you know, some of the hooey going on at Sandy Hook, should have lost everything like, had his shit auctioned off.
Yeah. Infowars.com, the the it is now has now been purchased, and we'll get into that. But honestly, man, that's bad juju. It sets a very bad precedent. And in my opinion, it makes it even more it it intensifies our need to figure out ways to circumvent DNS, domain name services or servers or whatever you wanna call it, when, you know, I've got an IP address and I've got, like, I don't know, davidcbennett.com attached to that IP address. It's a DNS lookup to the IP address and somebody can block that. And that's what's going on with infowars.com. Nobody puts in IP addresses into their browser so that they can get to where they wanna go.
You know? I mean, I the whole thing is bad, and we're gonna get into it. I promise. But I need to start back into the Montreal area of Canada. I brought this to you yesterday. I said a few words about it, but I think it's important to reiterate why it is you, me, and anybody else that actually holds Bitcoin or purports to be a Bitcoiner should not wear Bitcoin swag out in public where people can target your ass. Braden Lindria from Cointelegraph tells us about the crypto influencer who was found dead in a Montreal park months after his abduction.
Yeah. The dude got kidnapped, and his name was Kevin Mirshahi or Mirshahi, a crypto influencer who was abducted from a condominium in June. Well, he was found at a park in Montreal, Canada according to local media reports. His decomposing remains let that picture sink very firmly into your psych psychology. His decomposing remains were discovered by a passerby in a park on October 30th. Police told the Gazette, a Montreal news outlet, an autopsy confirmed the body's identity as Mir Shahi, the Gazette said in a November 13th report. The 25 year old man was last seen June 21st when he and 3 other people were abducted from a condominium building in Montreal.
The 3 other abductees managed to escape. The incident adds a concerning trend of crypto executive and influencer abductions and murders often motivated by the intent to steal or recover large sums of money. Last week, the CEO of Canadian based WonderFi, Dean Scuraca, was reportedly abducted and forced to pay $1,000,000 in ransom for his release. Mirsashi's investigation is still ongoing. However, the Gazette noted that local police arrested a 32 year old woman named Joanne LePage in August who was charged with the first degree murder of Mir Shahi. Mir Shahi was well known in the Montreal crypto community, previously owning and operating a private crypto investment firm called Crypto Paradise Island.
While it is not clear whether LePage was an investor in Crypto Paradise Island, Twitter user bb claimed he had been scammed by Mir Shahi, while others also referred to Mir Shahi as a scammer. Rishahi was also known as Quebec's investment regulator, which banned Mersahi and 2 others from carrying out activities as a broker or investment adviser in 2021 or soon after. He was also ordered to stop posting related content on social media. The. Yeah. I I I I suck at French. Okay? I just I can't even pronounce it right. Alright? So do with that what you will. But they extended that ban of him not being able to post on social media on July 4th, about 2 weeks after Mirshahi was abducted.
In July, 4 suspects were arrested for allegedly kidnapping and murdering a 29 year old foreign national Bitcoiner in Kyiv, Ukraine, and stealing a $170,000 worth of Bitcoin. In August, 6 Malaysian nationals were charged with kidnapping a Chinese national and demanding a ransom of $1,000,000 worth of stablecoin, Tether. So just let it sink into your psychology. Let it brand itself upon your psyche. Right? Yes. You could say, well, he was obviously a scammer. Yeah. Probably. A lot of people in the in the space are just pure ass scammers. That doesn't that doesn't absolve you saying, okay. Well, I'm not a scammer, so therefore, I can wear my Bitcoin swag out in the parking lot in Miami or Nashville at the, Bitcoin 2024 conference, and absolutely nothing bad is going to happen to me. In fact, I trust everybody so much that I'm going to wear orange shoes with Bitcoin on it. I'm gonna wear orange pants with Bitcoin on it. I'm gonna wear an ugly ass orange t shirt with a big ass Bitcoin target on the back and the front, and then I'm gonna put on a a cap, a cover on my head that also has Bitcoin swag, you know, embalmed all over that son of a bitch. And I'm going to get fucking hammered, be bombed out of my tree at a bar in Nashville.
And when I close that song, bitch, down at 2 o'clock in the morning or whenever they close, I know it's it's 2 in Texas, I'm going to walk alone in the middle of the night back to my hotel room, barely able to function, and absolutely nothing bad is going to happen to me. You are fooling yourself. Okay? I mean, you'd be doing good to escape any kind of potential ramifications for your actions if you were stone cold sober. Right? The whole point that I'm trying to make is the more we let on to other people that we do not know, therefore cannot trust, that we have Bitcoin, that we play with Bitcoin, that we know about Bitcoin, the the more and more likely it becomes that we have serious problems.
Serious problems. So please, for the love of god, consider not wearing bitcoin swag. And I know this is not going to sit well with the vendors and the people that produce Bitcoin t shirts. Figure out a way to produce Bitcoin swag that really can only be identified if you've been in the space for, like, 10 years. I I I know that sounds elitist, but it is a hell of a lot better than having your decomposing remains found underneath the bush in a Montreal park 6 months or whatever after you got abducted. Alright? Just please keep that shit in mind. We we're no longer, you know, we're no longer I I don't know. What am I trying to say? It's no longer trivial that you are a Bitcoiner.
It's no longer point and laugh. It is now point and abduct. Be careful out there. And then there's there's other people that it doesn't matter if you hide or not, they're going to find you. From CoinDesk, Mark Hochstein writing this one, Polymarket's probe highlights challenges of blocking US users and their VPNs. Yikes. So here we go with this Polymarket dude. Polymarket's current predicament highlights long simmering compliance questions facing the crypto industry. You might call them very persistent nagging questions. At the heart of the matter is how blockchain protocols or even centralized crypto firms can address the widespread practice of users turning to virtual private networks, or VPNs, to circumvent geographical restrictions imposed by governments.
Because on Wednesday, federal law enforcement raided the New York home of Shane Copeland, PolyMarkets' 26 year old founder and CEO. Although it's not yet clear exactly why the raid took place and neither Copeland nor his company has been charged with wrongdoing, Bloomberg and The New York Times reported that the Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation of whether Polymarket let US residents trade on its site in violation of a 2022 regulatory settlement. Founded in 2020, Polymarket is one of crypto's breakout successes this year, logging 1,000,000,000 in trading volumes and 100 of 1,000,000 in open interest or contracts outstanding. Bets on the platform are settled in USDC, a stablecoin, which is a cryptocurrency that trades 1 for 1 with US dollars.
Traders use the prediction markets to bet on outcomes of real world events, everything from whether Jake Paul or Mike Tyson will win their boxing match or which actor will play the next James Bond. But the most popular subject by far has been the US presidential elections. A poly market spokesperson called this week's raid political retribution by the ongoing Biden administration for correctly predicting Trump's victory, an interpretation widely echoed on social media. If that take is correct, the investigation may be short lived with a crypto friendly president-elect set to take office in January.
Even so, the situation underscores broader questions that may need to be addressed if the new administration and congress try to foster a more accommodating environment for digital assets. Polymarket is forbidden to serve US residents under a 2022 settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It has been blocking users with US IP addresses from trading, but crafty American traders have been using VPNs to disguise their locations to bet on the platform. Polymarket does not collect customers' personal identification. Aside from an IP address, it has little way of knowing where where it's generally pseudo anonymous traders are located. And that's the rub, not just for Polymarket, but for a host of crypto entities trying to avoid US jurisdictions such as projects that airdrop tokens. Oh, for god's sake.
What can companies that geofence the US practically do to prevent Americans from accessing their services through VPNs? And what does the government expect firms to do? These are both the wrong question. These are not good questions to be asking. The real question to ask is why are American citizens so freakishly toxic to the rest of the world that their mere presence upon your sight invites a raid of your home. Why? I've been talking about this for at least a couple of years. We are persona non grata. Us, American citizens, scare the fire out of every other country's capitalist intended structures.
Nobody wants to build a company and then find out that Americans are using that company, as well, if it has anything to do with finance anyway. Sure. You wanna build a t shirt and sell it to Americans. Nobody gives a shit. But what we do give a shit about is finance. If you're an American citizen and you are buying or interacting with any kind of commercial or retail available financial instrument or service, the company providing that better be a United States company or else somebody's gonna get raided. So that's the question to ask.
Why are United States citizens so toxic? And it's not because of us. Because even that's the wrong question to ask, ladies and gentlemen. The real question to ask is why is our justice department, the SEC, the CFTC, so tightly wound up that the US just justice department is almost singularly interested in financial crimes? And by extension, watching like a hawk every single company in the world that does business with United States citizenry? That's the question. And I don't have an answer for that other than the fact that a bunch of ghouls, demons, and otherwise evil people have been in control of the United States government's at least at least a few, if not a good couple of handfuls of departments that actually matter in world decision making, like FinCEN, like US Justice Department, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, like the CFTC.
Right? Those are the levers of power that matter. And there's a few more, obviously, but those ones, that's that's the shit right now. Because everybody in the United States government and all governments of the West realize that they've destroyed the financial fabric of the world. And maybe they're scared of becoming abducted. But we've got some practical questions to ask otherwise because according to privacy and cybersecurity researcher, Runa Sandvik, the main thing a company could do to prevent people in restricted jurisdictions accessing its services is to make them go through a know your customer process. Here it comes, ladies and gentlemen. Quote, they need KYC, she told CoinDesk.
It's too easy to get around simple IP address blocks. Of course, k y c has downsides for users including law abiding citizens who are asked to share sensitive personal information. It adds more friction to the sign up process because you need to verify your identity. Also, you need to trust that the site is going to keep your data safe, Sandvik said. Aaron Brogan, a crypto industry lawyer, said that hypothetically, a company could strengthen IP address blocks by incorporating GPS data from users' mobile devices. But this might be impractical in commercial use. A customer using a laptop without GPS, for example, might have a hard time logging on without 2 factor authentication.
Other ways to mitigate risks would include not advertising into the United States clearly stating on all relevant products that they are not available to US users and so forth. Yeah. That's not gonna matter. Polymarket has a mobile app available to US users, but it only displays the odds generated by its markets and does not enable trading. The company is marketed aggressively on social media, but such platforms are global by definition. One thing companies can do is to, quote, monitor for users who change their IP address in a way that suggests the use of a VPN to circumvent a geofence, wrote Jake Chervinsky and Daniel Barabander, chief legal officer and deputy general counsel, respectively, for venture capital firm, Variant Fund.
For example, if a company observer or observes a user attempting to access a geofence product using a US IP address and then immediately reconnects to the same wallet address or account using a non US IP address, that's a sign of a wily American trying to get around the geoblock. An exchange could then block the rascal's account or wallet address. Generally, it's an open question whether companies need to block all VPN use, Chervinsky and Barbander wrote. However, regulators have cited screening IP addresses against known VPNs as a positive factor for effective geofencing.
Last year, in settling sanctions violations charges against coin list markets, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control approvingly noted that among other remedial measures, the San Francisco based crypto exchange had invested in tools to detect the use of VPNs that can obscure users' locations. Part of PolyMarkets' challenge is that having previously settled with CFTC, it may be held to a higher standard than a company with no history of running afoul of the United States. Quote, a company that did not have a track record of violations, practically speaking, is held to a different standard, David Ackerman, a seasoned compliance executive and lawyer, told CoinDesk, quote, now, obviously, Polymarket had a track record of violations, and and they had a settlement.
So the standard of care for somebody like that is going to be different, end quote. In Ackerman's view, simply blocking IP addresses from the United States would not be sufficient. Quote, geofencing is one thing, but it isn't very easy. Everyone has to k y c. So if there is a discrepancy between the information provided in the k y c and the IP address that is being used, that's very easy to monitor, he said. Brogan said that geofencing should be viewed as more of a risk mitigation strategy than a legal strategy. In 2018, Brian Kennetz, in a speech, then a CFTC commissioner articulated a forgiving standard for determining whether blockchain projects are liable for user behavior.
The appropriate question is whether these code developers could reasonably foresee at the time they created the code that it would likely be used by US persons in a manner violative so hold on. Violative of CFTC regulations. Since that speech, Brogan said there has been a sense among some practitioners that taking steps to block US persons might forestall enforcement, but that's not necessarily what the law says. The CFTC's 2022 order against Polymarket required them to wind down noncompliant markets but did not specify what that compliance would require.
I don't know, this is a quote, I don't know if the CFTC told them privately that geofencing was sufficient or if they've just been in detente for 2 years. Polymarket isn't a regulated organization in the United States, and the entity that operates it is formally organized in Panama. Remember the Panama Papers? But that doesn't necessarily mean it can ignore US law according to Ackerman. Yeah. We know, dude. A common misconception is that you need to domicile in the country in order for their laws to apply. So as long as your business has an has in effect in the jurisdiction, you are usually held to their laws. Yeah. We know this.
See, that's the end of the article, but that's not the end of the rant. Because none of this actually gets to the very heart of the matter. Only the United States citizen is deemed as a complete toxicity to any other country's financial services and retail market. I don't think Mexico really gives a shit. Pretty sure a Swedish, Swedish guy can probably buy stuff from, like, a Mexican retail financial services company and not have this kind of problem, or at least not to this degree. This is at this point, a the United States is not fencing out wrongdoers or the evil ones as George w Bush used to say. No. No. No. We're fencing our population in.
That's what this is about. It has nothing to do with protecting the United States citizen from getting scammed by some dude in France. This has everything to do with making sure that the United States citizen does not have access to anything but United States retail and industrial financial services and industries. So the question becomes, why? I don't know. I wish I did. I I can only speculate, and I can only do so with a gigantic tinfoil hat on my head that says they want to keep us poor because the evil has gotten in their way to the point that it filters everything that they see and that the evil ones now see us as the enemy, the United States citizen.
Even though they themselves are, quote unquote, United States citizenry, they are so powerful and have been for so long that their view of who their subjects are as kings and queens has been so corrupted that when they see us, they do not see United States citizenry. They see a threat. I'll take my tinfoil hat off, but I may put it back on again for this one. Trump taps Bitcoin fanned, Matt Getz, for attorney general, and everybody apparently is freaking out. Vismayevi tells us more decrypt in a move that left both allies and opponents reeling. Oh my god. They're reeling.
President-elect Donald Trump has trapped pro crypto Florida congressman Matt Getz to serve as the next attorney general of the United States. Known for his staunch advocacy of Bitcoin, Getz's appointment is a clear signal that Trump's second term will prioritize a pro crypto agenda even at the risk of deepening divisions within his own party. Getz would root out systemic corruption at the DOJ and return the department to its true mission of fighting crime, which is like Dick Tracy, end up holding our democracy and constitution. Yeah. Like, what, Superman. Yeah. Well, whatever. Trump wrote that all that in his true social network on Wednesday.
With Bitcoin soaring to a record high, the market is already responding positively to the prospect of a more supportive regulatory environment. But gets his nomination comes following the republican party's success in the 2024 elections where pro crypto candidates secured majorities in both the house and the senate. However, the announcement of his nomination was met with gasps during a closed door meeting of house Republicans with several members reportedly expressing disbelief as per an Axios report. Reportedly, multiple senators expecting expressing skepticism about his readiness for the position due to his confrontational approach and limited legal experience.
Gantz has previously advocated for deregulating the crypto industry, pushing back against what he views as federal overreach by agencies like the SEC. In June, Getz introduced legislation to allow Americans to pay their federal taxes using Bitcoin. The bill seeks to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, enabling the IRS to accept Bitcoin for tax payments and enter into contracts for related services. Despite the enthusiasm from the crypto sector, Getz faces a tough confirmation battle. His past legal troubles, are likely to be scrutinized during senate hearings. Apparently, he's under a federal investigation for sex trafficking.
Yikes. Oh, no. No. I'm sorry. That seems to have ended. That seems to have ended. But there's also some ethical battles that are going on in Florida. But since, I guess, he's resigned, that position, those ethical things go away. And I don't know anything about Matt Gaetz. I'm just reporting on what's out there in in in the media as as such, so take it with a grain of salt. But on Wednesday, house speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that Gaetz stepped down from his congressional seat. There we go. Effectively halting the ethics probe. Oh, yay. He's all free. For the crypto industry, however, the mere prospect of having a pro Bitcoin attorney general is already being seen as a significant win.
While Republicans have a majority, just a few dissenting votes could derail the nomination, yet Trump's allies are pushing for a swift confirmation saying Getz's reformist agenda is essential for overhauling the DOJ. Okay. So am I angry about it? No. No. I'd I'd I honestly kinda don't care. However, I do have a specific question. There's a lot of pro crypto stuff going on right now in the Trump administration, And I have to take pause. And you you'll say, but you're for Bitcoin. Yeah. Absolutely for Bitcoin. But when I see things going my way to this degree, I have to go, when's the other shoe going to drop?
And that doesn't mean that it's a rug pull. It just means that what are we not seeing about the potential ramifications of a secretary of defense who's pro crypto, an attorney general who's also pro crypto, and then a couple of other people that I was talking about yesterday who are also pro crypto. We got Trump who's getting into crypto with what with Liberty Financial something, some kind of meme coin or stable coin that he's releasing. And I've talked about that. I've talked about the the onset of the news game brian or scam brian explosion that's coming in the way of stable coins.
I got it's not that I have a terrible feeling about this. I don't even really have a bad feeling about this. But I gotta say, we should probably be on guard because this, this this may not be what we think we want it to be. Okay? Alright. Let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities. I got West Texas Intermediate Oil, but down only a little bit. $68.37. Brent Norsee is down pretty much the same. It's down to 72.25 a barrel. Natural gas, however, is swinging for the fences. But in the wrong goddamn direction, 3 and a half percent to the downside, and gasoline is up, of course, a half point to a buck 97 a gallon. And all your metal rocks are doing poorly today.
Gold is down a half point to 2574. Silver is down a third. Platinum is down a half. Copper is down a quarter. Palladium down over 1 full percent. Ag is mostly in the red today on futures. Biggest winner today is chocolate. I have chocolate just making it all all of its losses, like, 4 months ago are being made up. 6.87% to the upside. Biggest loser today is gonna be rough rice over 2 points to the downside. It got live cattle down a half. Lean hogs, wow, plunging 3 full points the downside. Feeder cattle are down 0.14%. The Dow is also down, including all the financial markets. Everything's down today. Why?
Because in just a little couple of hours over a couple of hours, the Fed chair is going to give a speech. So Jerome Powell is going to stand up in front of a podium, and people are going to immediately go, what's he wearing? What what color tie is he wearing? What's his body language like? Does he seem afraid? Is he leaning over the podium, the lectern? Is he leaning back away from the lectern? I swear I shit you not. There are professionals that get paid a paycheck to look at shit like this, to look at body language, to listen for intonation and voices. And that's where we are. We know that they took rates down another point 25%, but now we get to hear from the man himself as he gives his speech.
I think it's going to be at 12 noon Pacific Standard Time. So it'll be after the markets close. I want you to understand that it's he he is not going to start talking until after the markets close. So there will be at least one full trading day unless Friday is a a federal holiday that I don't know about. We will wake up to find out whatever he said Thursday afternoon is bad or good. Alright? So that's the way that the world works, which is stupid. It should be based on math, much like Bitcoin. But the Dow is down a third of a point. The S and P is down a half. So is the Nasdaq, and the S and P is down by 2 thirds.
Bitcoin kinda struggling today too. We're down to $89,040. That is now only a $1,76,000,000,000,000 dollar market cap, and we can only get a mere 34.7 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 Bitcoin, of which there are 19,000,000. 781,980 and a half of an average fees per block have risen to 0.19 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis, and there are 105 blocks carrying 259,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 12 satoshis per v byte. Low priority is gonna get you in at 11. 716.2 exahashes per second is a 1 week rolling average of the hash rate. That's 716.2 exahashes per second.
Now value for value. Why do I do it? No censorship. Look. Platforms and payment providers can censor content at the flick of a switch. But value for value takes that power away. By cutting out all the middlemen, it puts me and you, my audience, in control. Self sovereign hosting and monetization means it's just me and my work and you, the people who support me. There's no gatekeepers. Depending on where you are or me, getting paid through the usual routes can be a total nightmare or flat out impossible. Banks and payment platforms can drop creators over their politics and any other nonsense they choose. And let's not forget, millions don't even have access to traditional banking because where they live or who they are. And this podcast, ladies and gentlemen, is actually global.
I reach more countries in the world than I ever thought. In fact, I I reach very few countries. Oh, no. No. That that was the wrong way to say it. There are very few countries on my map when I'm looking at my bitcoin Bitcoin and analytics. There are very few countries who don't listen to the show. I've I literally, most of the countries on this planet listen to this show, at least a few of you guys out there. And you may not have bank accounts. That's why Bitcoin's the answer. It banks the unbanked. It makes censorship resistant value transfer possible, especially for those who need it most, not just me.
And free speech and open value transfer, man, that's the heart of value for value and why Bitcoin is the backbone of this entire movement. Nobody wants to bite the hand that feeds them. That's the problem. That's the problem with advertisers. This dynamic chills conversations around certain topics. After all, you're not going to slam an advertiser who's funding me or you. Because it's not just me that uses value for value, guys. There's other people that are trying to do this, and we all need to come together to make value for value work. For most people, it creates a level of self censorship when you have advertisers. The ads might pay the bill, but they also put a leash on my conversations that I can have with you, and value for value changes that game.
That's why when I ask you guys to donate to the show, it's to do a lot more than to keep the lights on. Do you want me to be able to call out the like, let's say okay. Who was that bald headed lipstick wearing wacko that was the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? The guy that that stole luggage, wears a dress. I don't even know I don't know I don't know what the guy is. Now if just those three sentences that I just said by themselves could have gotten me kicked off of every possible platform in on the world and lose all of my advertisers because none of them none of them can afford to be affiliated with somebody who will ask the question, why did that person who has absolutely no experience in regulatory commissions on nuclear energy they don't have a degree in nuclear energy or nuclear engineering, probably don't know what a beta particle is. I probably have more sense as to what's going on in nuclear energy than this yahoo. And yet just because of DEI, they put that fucking wacko into that chair, and then they immediately embarrassed the entirety of the United States by stealing expensive luggage out of an airport.
Yeah. Advertisers can't stand that shit. That's why I depend on you guys to donate to the show. You you can do it through boostograms in any podcasting 2.0 enabled application. You can do it through streaming satoshis to me on a minute over minute basis through the aforementioned podcasting 2.0 facilities that are available to you. Get off of your legacy podcasting apps. Get a brand new app. And that way, you'll be able to send me things like Mark 26 z did. With 991 sats, he says, keep up the good work. I will if you can keep donating to me through the value for value model. No waste BTC signs with a 1,000 sats says thank you, sir. No. Thank you.
Pies to Pleb with 420 says thank you, sir. As soon as that bullshit department of government efficiency was announced, I had people texting me. Should I buy Doge? Are you fucking kidding me? Let let the shit the coin shit show begin. My reply was bitcoin only. Good for you, Pies. Bitcoin Sandy with 500 says, great chat. Wartime with 333 gives me a bunch of emojis. Only half of them I can read and that's the fire and cheers emoji. Why? Because I'm using a prehistoric operating system. Ju Wong with 250 says, my hatred towards Elon is unmatched. He thinks the world is a joke.
He may. I don't hate him, but I certainly don't trust him. Nim, gives me no sats and says great show. Hey. Thanks, guys. That's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news. You can use Sandy Hook. See, this is this is what happens. This is what happens without a value for value model. Although, it gets more insidious with Alex Jones. It really it really does. Because it wasn't just advertisers. Because his advertisers, you know, they they definitely cottoned with what he was gonna say anyway. This is the other side of the value for value model that is absolutely essential for us to solve. Adam Curry's got a long way with being able to forge, you know, technologies that allow you to send me satoshis without a bank, without anything else so that I can try to live without advertising.
But I can't live without DNS. I can't live without VPN. I can't live without IP addresses. I can't live without my house. Can't live without a bunch of stuff. And they took it all away from Alex Jones because he questioned Sandy Hook. Let's read the story from AP. Satire publication named The Onion has bought Alex Jones' Infowars at auction alongside Sandy Hook families. They all threw in together to buy out Alex Jones. The satirical news publication, The Onion, won the bidding for Alex Jones Infowars at a bankruptcy auction backed by families of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims who Jones owes more than $1,000,000,000 in defamation judgments to for calling the massacre a hoax. Actually, that's gone down quite a bit. There he he doesn't actually owe 1,000,000,000.
But it was a ridiculous number to begin with. It was clearly, clearly a show trial, a show judgment. Whatever. The dissolution of Alex Jones' assets and the death of Infowars is the justice, the justice, that we have long awaited and fought for. Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emily was killed in the 2012 shooting in Connecticut, said in a statement provided by his lawyers, did you see Robbie Parker? Do you know who I'm talking about? Do you know who I'm talking about? Robbie Parker was the the father of one of the children who I do believe actually died at Sandy Hook. I I I do believe that children and teachers got killed at Sandy Hook. As to why this whole thing occurred, I don't know. But I remember 2 things from that day.
A bunch of people I've had 100 of people walking around in a circle going through a building back out and in a line just in and out and in and out and in and out, and I still don't understand what that was. That happened. I'm not making that up. There was helicopter video footage of a huge ring of people coming out of the school on one side and then back into the school on the other side. I still don't know what the hell that was, but Robbie Parker gave a press conference, like, either the like, later on that day, and I I think it was actually the day after, where when he came out of the door, he was smiling and clearly laughing.
And then somehow or another saw that he was walking up to a microphone, and I he knew that he was about to do this. But somehow or another, his demeanor just changed. It was eerie. And, apparently, that is what caused Alex Jones to really start thinking hard about what the hell was going on at Sandy Hook because this guy who lost his 6 year old daughter should not be smiling, should not be laughing under any circumstances, no matter where the hell he is, not because it's proper, but because if you are truly the father of a fallen 6 year old daughter, there's nothing to laugh about.
And he was clearly laughing. I'm sorry. I saw that too. I will never be able to unsee it. I saw it from 2 different angles. I will never be able to unsee it. He was laughing when he came out to give a press conference about the death of his daughter and the tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook. And yet and yet The Onion, a satire place, with Robbie Parker's help, has bought Infowars. Let's continue. The Onion acquired the conspiracy theory platform's website, social media accounts, the studio, the physical studio in Austin, Texas, all the trademarks, and his entire video archive. The sale price was not immediately disclosed.
The Onion said its exclusive launch advertiser will be the gun violence prevention organization, Everytown, for gun safety. Yeah. Bunch of people that don't want the second amendment. They say it's because of say because this shit happened because of guns. No. It didn't. It happened because somebody who's a fucking psycho went into the Sandy Hook school and started shooting up little children. That's a problem with society. That's a problem not with guns, not with ammunition manufacturers. That's a problem with the financial tragedy that has been occurring in this United States since 1913 and has come into a fucking head because everybody's lost hope.
It's not the gun that does it. If I lay a gun down on a table, it does not form feet and mutate arms and goes around into a school all by itself and starts shooting people. That is a sick, twisted individual that's using any tool they can get their hands on to affect the most casualties they possibly can, and we still don't know why. But my tinfoil hat screams that because there's no hope for the future. And the only reason there's no hope for the future is what these people have done to the financial fabric of this planet, not just the United States. They're all to blame. It has nothing to do with Remington or Winchester or federal ammunition.
This is all bullshit. It's all fucking bullshit. The Infowars website appeared to have been taken down on Thursday morning. Jones was angry and defiant as he broadcast live with Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon, vowing to challenge the sale and the auction process in court. Jones said he would move to a new studio. Websites and social media accounts were already set up. The Onion, a satirical site that manages to persuade people to believe the absurd, bills itself as the world's leading news publication offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events and says it has 4,300,000,000,000 daily readers. It confirmed the sale with a satirical column on its website. Quote, no price would be too high for such a cornucopia of malleable assets and mines, said the post. And yet, in a stroke of good fortune, a formidable special interest group has outwitted the hapless owner of Infowars, a forgettable man with an already forgotten name, and forced him to sell it at a steep bargain, less than $1,000,000,000,000, end quote.
I love how they're laughing at destroying a man for having an opinion. The Onion consulted on the bidding with some of Sandy Hook families that sued Jones for defamation and emotional distress and lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas lawyers for the family said, quote, our clients knew the true that true accountability meant an end to Infowars and an end to Jones's ability to spread lies, pain, and fear at scale, said Christopher Mate, a lawyer for the families. Everytown For Gun Safety said it will use the Infowars platform to raise awareness about gun violence. Yeah. What about financial violence? What you doing about that shit? Nothing. Sandy Hook families sued Jones and his company for repeatedly saying on his show that the shooting that killed 20 children and 6 educators in Newtown, Connecticut was a hoax staged by crisis actors to spur more gun control.
Parents and children of many of the victims testified that they were traumatized by Jones' conspiracies and threats by his followers. During his live show Thursday morning, Jones repeatedly said the bankruptcy trustee and others were in the building and threatening to shut down the show at any moment. That did not immediately happen. Quote, I'm gonna be here until they come in and turn the lights off, Jones said. Sealed bids for the private auction were opened on Wednesday. Both supporters and detractors of Jones had expressed interest in buying Infowars. Jones had been saying on his show that if his supporters won the bidding, he could stay on the Infowars platform. The bankruptcy trustee named First United American Companies, a company affiliated with one of Jones' products selling sites, as the backup bid in case the onion purchase fell through.
I'm not saying that everything that comes out of Alex Jones's mouth is the truth. Hell, I'm not even saying that he knows what the fuck he's talking about. What I am saying is that Alex Jones is a United States American citizen. K? He has rights. He has property rights, or at least so we're told. Right? Unless unless you say something that not only pisses off your advertisers, which value for value as it stands today actually fixes. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. We need a bigger fix than just value for value, ladies and gentlemen, because one of these days and I'm sure somebody's already turned off this show because I dare to bring up Robbie Parker and his smirking, smiling, laughing motherfucking ass coming out of the door on the way to a microphone to give a press conference about the death of his 6 year old daughter. That shit happened.
It happened. I saw it. I showed other people it. People in my office that were, like, going, oh my god. I can't believe you're you're siding with Alex Jones. No. I'm not siding with Alex Jones. I can I'm looking at at Robbie Parker, this distraught father whose 6 year old daughter died, laughing on his way to a press conference. He was coming out of double glass doors alongside what I assume was the lawyer, and he was laughing. He wasn't just smiling. He was actually laughing. Now you don't hear it, but when you look at somebody and they're laughing, you know they're laughing. You can see it in their face. We're not emotional degenerates.
We we can tell when somebody's sad. We can tell when somebody's happy. We can tell when somebody's crying. We can tell when somebody's laughing. That man was walking out of the door, and he was engaged in physical laughter. It doesn't mean that I don't think his daughter died. It doesn't mean that I don't think 20 other children died. What? Something was going on, and nobody really knows what the hell it was. I don't know if I agree with anything that Alice Jones says about Sandy Hook. All I know is I saw people coming in and out of that building in a large circular line, and I still don't understand what the hell that was.
But I can just forget about that because the real problem that I had was Robbie Parker coming out and laughing. But I can't say that, can I? I've already probably lost 2 or 3 listeners because I dare say that shit. Well, I'm sorry. I'm not going to shut my mouth and not say the things that are going to offend people for two reasons. 1, I don't know what offends everybody. I have no clue. Somebody in Morocco may be listening to this this podcast, and I've made so many cultural blunders that that would obviously offend people in Morocco that I probably have that I may not have any Moroccan citizenry listening to the podcast anymore, and there's no way I can know. 2nd, just have to be able to say what we think. Otherwise, what are we even talking about?
Are we talking about anything of import at all? The answer is no. We would not have any idea what the hell we're talking about because we're so busy trying to appease everybody, and we know that's impossible that we don't actually say anything of import. I don't know what happened at Sandy Hook, but I know what happened here. I know somebody lost their livelihood that they had been building for decades because they simply started asking questions and saying the sentence, They think this was a hoax. Okay. Fine. I don't agree that it was a hoax. I certainly think that it was possibly used to expand the this whole trying to get everybody to give up their second amendment right, But I don't know.
But just because I question it means that I'm a bad person. Well, then we've got bigger problems. And the other side of value for value is this. We gotta figure out a way to plug that into shit like DNS, trademarks, everything. Everything. We've gotta be able to plug it into where there's absolutely nothing that anybody can actually physically do to take these things away. Physical property is a very difficult thing to tackle. I don't think that that will ever, ever, ever be able to be solved because men with guns will come and take it from you. But at DNS, like infowars.com, davidcbennett.org, something like that, hey, we've gotta be able to figure out a way to protect that under the banner of value for value. And maybe we can do it by building better portfolios for ourselves, including Bitcoin, like this one from James Van Stratton writing for CoinDesk.
And he says, what does a 6040 portfolio look like if we replace bonds with Bitcoin? Apparently, it's a lot better according to Van Straten. Let's find out. It may be time to reassess the wisdom of the sixtyforty platform or portfolio, which was created back in the wow. The early 19 fifties and is often referred to as the modern portfolio theory. The theory was created by a guy named Harry Markowitz who tried to optimize a portfolio from a risk reward standpoint. The traditional sixty forty portfolio was split into equities at 60% and fixed income at 40%.
It was designed to make the portfolio diversified and balanced by both managing risk and growth at the same time. Equities would give you those much needed returns in the good times. But in the bad times, bonds were there to capture the drawdowns and weather the storm. However, we may need to change our thinking as we head into a new era of inflation above 2% and high interest rates. The US CPI inflation year over year has not been at the Federal Reserve mandate of 2 percent's percent since February of 2021. In fact, as of November 13th, the inflation was 2.6 percent which actually increased by 0.2% from the month prior.
Interest rates globally have continued to decline in the last 4 decades pushing bonds higher especially during the post 2008 zero rate policy environment. However, since 2021, interest rates have risen and bonds have suffered, experiencing their largest drawdowns. An example of this is the BlackRock iShares 20 plus treasury year bond ETF, which has witnessed a 54% drawdown from its peak in 2020 to the trough of 2023. Taking a look at data from Curvo, data and financial provider, we can see what a 6040 portfolio would actually look like. For equities, Curvo chose iShares Core MSCI World ETF USD in the MSCI World Index.
And for the bonds, they take X Tracker's global sovereign ETF, which is hedged in the FTSE World Government Bonds, developed markets index. Yeah. I know that's a big mouthful, but they're just basically playing with these bonds that have these very long names. Alright? So since the beginning of 2014, an initial investment of euro of 10,000 would have returned just above €20,000 or about $21,000 US essentially doubling it in 10 years seems like good returns But what if we what would happen if we added bitcoin to the mix? So for that analysis, we have taken a 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10% allocation in bitcoin.
A 1% allocation would see a 0.5% decrease in both equities and bonds to keep the split equal this would be the same as the btc allocation in as the btc allocation incrementally gets higher As you can see, the higher the bitcoin allocation, the greater the return. A 10% bitcoin allocation would yield over €70,000 or 3x returns compared to the traditional equity allocation. Just for fun, we adopted the original 6040 portfolio to include 60% equities and 40% bitcoin allocation to replace the bonds. The results show a whopping 50 x return.
€500,000. Remember, we're dealing with a €10,000 initial investment. And it's for in 2014, and it's returned, in this particular case of 40% Bitcoin, 60% equity, 500,000. To include 2024 data, the analysis takes a year to date return of 101% for bitcoin while taking the average annual performance of the original 6040 portfolio. Due to bitcoin's risk off monetary properties, such as not having a CEO or a central point of failure, bitcoin can act as a diversified entity in a 6040 portfolio. The analysis didn't include tech stocks such as Tesla or Nvidia for these reasons. Also, since its inception, Bitcoin has provided greater returns than gold annually.
Hence, we adopted or we opted for Bitcoin. Okay. So what does that mean? Well, it means that over since, like, 2014, if you would had a 60 40 portfolio that had Bitcoin in the mix or Bitcoin is the entirety of the 40% of the portfolio, you'd have made out like bandits. And then other people will say, yeah. But if I was just all in in 2014 of, you know, into Bitcoin, I would have made out even more like bandits. And the answer is, would you? Would you have been able to allocate that much into Bitcoin at that particular time? 2014 was before even I got into Bitcoin. It was a mess.
It was hard to get Bitcoin before before Coinbase. I know. I I hate saying the word Coinbase. But before Coinbase, it was very, very difficult to get a hold of Bitcoin. In my opinion, these kinds of mental, or intellectual gymnastics don't really do a whole lot other than say what would have happened? Well, woulda, coulda, shoulda, motherfucker. You should have bought Bitcoin. I don't know. I mean, it's all bullshit. However, the numbers do tend to be fairly eye watering. So now that the now my question becomes, well, what if we did all 3?
What if we had 40% equities, 20% bonds, and I don't know the rest made up with bitcoin? Do we have to have 6040 where it's because now we have a completely different asset. When you think about it, the only assets that you really have is equities and fixed income. Whether that fixed income is bonds or stuff like real estate, like maybe houses that you own that you rent out, that's like as long as you always have renters in there, as long as you're not changing you know, going down on how much you're charging for rent, it's kind of fixed income. It it's it has the hallmarks of fixed income, not all of them, but kinda acts that way. Or if you convert that real estate into, like, I don't know, using it to using it to borrow against for other property, then there's there's a yield because you're you know, there's there's something there.
I'm just saying that now we have a third type of asset class. We have a we have a, god forbid, crypto asset class. Let's just say call it Bitcoin. That's a completely different asset class. It doesn't generate a yield by itself. It's not giving dividends. It's not it's pretty much just sitting there. And it makes sense to start thinking about maybe a, I don't know, like a, let's say, a 64 let's say, a 50, 30, 20 type portfolio. Right? So we have 50% equities, 30% fixed income, 20% Bitcoin. Why not? I mean, I personally hate bonds. I think that they're toxic at this point. But if you're talking to a normie, if you're like an you know, trying to get grandpa to invest in Bitcoin or something, maybe a structured financial product like this would take the edge off of being into Bitcoin when they don't really know what it is? Because I guarantee you grandpa doesn't know what a treasury bond actually is. Nobody does.
And not unless you're like a nerd ass Bitcoiner and you're trying to figure out why people are shooting each other in schools because there's no hope and you start looking for root causes, you understand that it's because these financial instruments have done everything that it can to destroy wealth of every normal citizen in the West at least. And the only way that that has happened is because we had wealth to destroy, which means that the west basically destroyed the wealth of the rest of the world. I I I again, people are probably going, I'm never gonna listen to you again because you hate America. No. That that has nothing to do with it. I don't think America is being run by Americans.
I don't think the West is being run by people who purport to be Europeans. I I don't. I get the feeling that some really bad people have been in power for a very long time, and they have absolutely no compunction in giving that up without a huge fight. Grandpa does not know what a treasury bond actually does. And I can say that I do all day long. I understand the yield. I understand the principle. I get all that. Why do we even have it? And then somebody will say, well, it's to print debt. Yes. I agree. What does that mean? What are the what what are all of the implications?
Let's exhaust all of the implications of that, can you? No. You can't. This shit builds on itself. These this kind of chicanery does not come without costs that are hidden to even those that constructed the chicanery. Knock on effects. We don't know exactly what we're doing at this point. It's just one more derivative after one more derivative. So why not a 50, 30, 20 of equities, bonds, and Bitcoin? Or a a a a 40 just play with the numbers. Play with the numbers. We have a third asset class available to us. There's a lot of people that are kinda really weirded out about owning Bitcoin. So why not build a financial product that is equities and treasuries and Bitcoin?
Why not? I guarantee you, you will probably get more of the boomer class into Bitcoin by offering them a financial service package that they can look at and say, oh, I see you've taken the 6040, which I'm very used to doing, and add it as a singular asset class. And now it's broken up like 33333. This makes sense to me. Take my money. Why not? Why not? I'll bet you I'll bet you it would work. I'll bet you it would. Alright. So we are now 6 minutes over time, so I'm gonna go ahead and let you go. Just remember, don't wear Bitcoin swag in public, and you'll probably be okay. I'll see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin, and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.
Have a great day.
