This week we welcome our new cohost!! Also, here in the United States there was minor little election and we took a few minutes to cover how that might impact Bitcoin both in the US and worldwide.
Bitcoin Price at Time of Recording
November 8th, 2024: 76,709 USD, 70,850 EUR
Block Height at Time of Recording
869,468
News and Notes
Denmark Considers Unrealized Capital Gains Tax
Official Announcement
Italy Plans to Raise Bitcoin Capital Gains Tax from 26% to 42%
EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA)
ECB’s paper on: The distributional consequences of Bitcoin
Software Updates
Bitcoin Core v28.0
Music Credits
Protofunk by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4247-protofunk
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Ethernight Club by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/7612-ethernight-club
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Website
Podcasting 2.0 Apps available at http://podcastapps.com and Value4Value information page available here: https://value4value.info
I can be reached by email at [email protected] and on Twitter at McIntoshFinTech. My mastodon handle is @[email protected]. Looking forward to hearing from you!
[00:00:00]
McIntosh:
What's up, Pleb Nation? Today is November 8th, and this is episode 183 of Satoshi's Plebs. I'm your host, Macintosh.
[00:00:08] Kenshin:
And this is Kenshin.
[00:00:39] McIntosh:
And today's episode is Trump's promises. So, of course, we have a new host. I am delighted to announce that Kenshin has agreed to, join the pod. He is from Europe, and he is going to provide a much needed European perspective because you know that us Americans are crazy. And, so we'll be talking about that in just a minute. Before we get started, as we record here, our price of Bitcoin is $76,709, which is just nuts. And we are at block 869 478. Kenshin put in the European, price. Why don't you go ahead and say what that is? Because I don't have the real time info on that.
[00:01:34] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's actually right now, it's €71,500. Sweet. So it is actually an all time high.
[00:01:44] McIntosh:
Yep. And we we just hit our all time high as well. We hit not right this minute, but about an hour ago, I think we hit 77,000 and just a little bit over that. So things are definitely pumping. I'm not gonna take a whole lot of time to go into this, but you guys know I've been talking for months. We've been in this block, box. We've been in this box, and we have now clearly broken out of that box. We played around with that box for months on end. If you trace it out, it actually goes back to March. And we built what they would call a nice bull pennant. Well, it has broken out of that pennant. And as I it's doing what I basically expected. Of course, we immediately shot upwards quite a bit, and we'll talk about some of the reasons for that in just a few minutes.
I'm guessing though that we will this will not, we may have a pullback. Like, right now, we can have a 10% pullback, and it would only go back to essentially $70,000. So we would still be outside of that pennant, outside of that box. And we may see that pullback, but we are going to steadily, in my opinion, march on from here to a 100 k, probably before the end of the year. I should not put a time frame on that, but that's what I just said. So, we will see how all that breaks down.
[00:03:08] Kenshin:
I I would agree with that too. Awesome.
[00:03:12] McIntosh:
Alright. Thanks. So I I just actually wanna throw this out. I mean, I'll be transparent with everybody. This is a little new for certainly for me. I've had some guests on here a few times, but it's always been within well defined segments. So if I kinda step on Kenshin from time to time, I do apologize, we will get into the swing of this. I think this is gonna be a a terrific partnership. So, last thing before we move out of this, the fees, and mem, mempool. So what we've got going on, you can look at this data at mempool.space, by the way.
We are looking at 4 sets per v byte. So it's about 43¢ right now to send a transaction. I actually just did 1 2 nights ago. It was actually 3 sets per v byte when I did it. Fees have stayed low. We've actually chewed through the, the memory pool, the basically all the, transactions that have not been, sent out. Right now, we're sitting at 512 megs. We were down at, like, 465 megabytes, just a couple of days ago. So, that is slowly coming down, and what that really means is there's not a huge amount of traffic going on, which is fine. It's a great time to move your, money around if you need to.
We do have the blocks coming in actually quite quickly. I'm gonna talk about this a little bit later, but just as to note it, we're looking right now at 9.8, minutes per block. So slightly under the average 10 blocks that we're always or 10 minutes per block that we're always targeting. Alright. So, Kenshin, before we get to our main topic, I did want to take a few minutes. I mentioned you were from Europe. Yes. And I kinda want you to let everybody know who's listening to the podcast, kind of a little bit of your background. We've talked in the past about kinda where I come from, how long I've been in Bitcoin, and kinda my reasons for being in Bitcoin. I would love it if you would kind of share that with the listeners as well.
[00:05:25] Kenshin:
Yeah. As you said, I'm from Europe, originally South Europe, more specifically Greece. And currently for the past, 15 years now, I've been in Sweden.
[00:05:39] McIntosh:
Okay.
[00:05:41] Kenshin:
So I came for studies and work in Sweden, and it coincided with a big economic crisis. So I just left, Greece when everything was going down in 2009. Yeah. It was a coincidence, but still,
[00:05:56] McIntosh:
I still have a few years. Well, it sounds like. Yeah.
[00:06:01] Kenshin:
It actually did. We started in and then found a a job eventually. So, yeah, that was a plan to to get a better future for myself, away from, let's say, politics and, this type of, yeah, more South European
[00:06:19] McIntosh:
societies. Okay.
[00:06:23] Kenshin:
And Bitcoin, I would say, I heard about it very early on. I even tried to mine very early on with a very bad laptop, those netbook type of laptops that had an atom processor, single core, very slow, computers. But, of course, I I didn't stay with it for long, and I was on and off, I would say, for many, many years until, yeah, until yeah. A few years ago, actually, that I went all in because, yeah, as you know, everybody needs to go through all the cycles, all the up and downs, trading and, you know, thinking it's a scam or it's too volatile.
So, yeah, I had to go through my cycles until I started really studying it and and getting in down the rabbit hole, let's say. Everybody
[00:07:20] McIntosh:
we have different stories, but invariably, I can honestly think of, like, literally one person that I know of who, like, read the white paper or heard about Bitcoin or whatever, had a in-depth conversation with somebody about it, and it just clicked and they never did anything else. They never you know, they they they did Bitcoin and that was it. And I don't know if they've held their, you know, entire stack or whatever, but they've certainly done well. You know what I mean? Right. We we just invariably we have to go through these different paths, and it's just the way that it is.
But that's that's okay. Now you're through that. And as you say, we kinda well, we kinda see the light. We understand what Bitcoin is and and how it can help us. So
[00:08:18] Kenshin:
Yeah. Absolutely. Alright. It's like, what's the saying? You get
[00:08:24] McIntosh:
Bitcoin at the price you deserve. No. I hate that saying. I hate that saying. You do. Okay. No. It's a good saying. I'm sorry. Good shit. I didn't mean to no. Just for the listeners, I've mentioned it before, I believe, but I got into Bitcoin. I originally the first Bitcoin I bought was, like, $300, 2013.
[00:08:52] Kenshin:
And I remember lower.
[00:08:54] McIntosh:
I wish I still had that Bitcoin, and I do not. Right? And I'm so I do. I get it at the price I deserve. You're exactly right, but it it is maddening. I mean, let's be honest. Yeah. It hurts. I know it hurts. So anyways, very good. Alright. Awesome. So we're gonna go ahead now, and jump into our main topic, and I'm going to go ahead and apologize. You all know I try not to make this a political show, but we're gonna talk politics, and that's just gonna have to be the way that it is. Because what is going on in my opinion in the United States right now will affect ultimately the rest of the world.
And it is about politics, it is about our election, and it is about who won. Because there were some very clear lines drawn in my opinion, and I think I've basically said this on this podcast. You had people on here in the United States, we have Democrats, we have Republicans. There's other parties, but those are the 2 major parties. They always, for decades, they've won the election. I don't know how far back it goes. It's actually probably over a 100 years. Okay? So you've got Democrats, you've got Republicans. Certainly, in the day in, I don't know, the last 50 plus years, the Democrats have tended to be more, left leaning and the Republicans have tended to be more right leaning. The Republicans have tended to be more business oriented, and I guess you could say the Democrats more socially oriented.
Okay? Now all that being said, what we have seen over the last few years in the Democratic Party, specifically around senator Warren out of Massachusetts, is a I don't even know how to what to say, like a, a crusade maybe, and maybe that's actually a really good word for it. A crusade against Bitcoin and crypto, not just Bitcoin. Okay? It's become very clear, to be honest, that her and the group of people that she pulled into all this shut down these banks. There's at least one of them is one of the banks at Silvergate or I think it's silver Silvergate because they said they essentially had the the bank overseeing regulatory agency go to that bank and say, you had to divest yourself of all of these crypto companies that are that are using you.
And the bank couldn't do that, and it essentially had to shut down. It had to be sold off to another bank. There's been all kinds of regulations and whatever. It's it's basically been a witch hunt. And as you all know, I'm certainly not pro crypto in that sense, but these are things that the SEC is telling us, which is another governmental agency here in the United States. They're legal things. There's rulings that are coming out. There's there's regulations that are being made in terms of the SEC that are saying these are these are legal things. These are legal activities, and yet you have a senator here in the United States with the group of people who she's involved herself with who are basically on a, on a on this crusade to to stop all this. And it's kinda crazy, really. Well, America did vote.
We had one of the highest percentages of voter turnout in history. And to be honest, I'm gonna do this as fairly as I can. Okay? Everybody on this podcast, if you've listened to me, you know I'm a conservative person, certainly in terms of finance, in terms of money. Okay? And I will note right now, there was no one no one, Trump nor Harris, who were talking about bringing down the deficit of the United States, which is now almost $36,000,000,000,000, and that is one of my biggest points. That is actually the real issue we've got as a nation, and yet we are still not talking about it. But regardless, the Republicans won. The Trump won.
The Senate is clearly going to be in Republican hands. It looks like the House of Representatives is going to be in Republican hands. So what that means is that, essentially, the two branches of Congress would be under Republican control. The executive branch would be under Republican control. Trump basically has the ability right now to do essentially whatever he wants. I that's not completely true, but all of the things that he has said were he wants to do, he can do. There there should not be any pushback in terms of Congress, because of the Democratic Party controlling one of those parts of Congress. Okay? So I will that's that's what's laid out.
Our inauguration day, the day that he goes into office is not until January 20th next year, but he is moving as quickly as he's already appointed as chief of staff, actually, just as an example. There's already lots of conversation about the people that he's going to bring on. Elon Musk apparently is going to be involved in the Trump administration, which that alone just blows my mind right there. I'm not a huge Elon fan, but he's clearly a very smart guy. You could argue he's a very successful businessman. He he's saying that he wants to go in there and help eliminate government waste. And I certainly applaud that because I think there's a huge amount of waste in our government.
So I don't know. I think it's going to be a very interesting thing, but we are going to actually talk. And I think, we what we'll do is we'll just kind of back and forth. There's like I've got 8 different points here. So Trump has been promising these things at least since back at in July at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville because many of these points came right out of the speech that he gave there. And I heard that I was I did not go see his speech at the conference. I went to the conference, but I didn't go see his speech. I did actually hear it live as it was being broadcast as I was driving back home.
And and a number of these actually just come word for word kind of out of that, but there's other things as well. So, Kim, why don't we just kind of back and forth? I will start no. Actually, I want you to start because I know this first one is maybe even more important to you than me. So we'll just start right there with the number one item.
[00:16:20] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. The first one is free rose Ulbrich. Okay. I mean, he he didn't actually it wasn't the first thing he promised, surprisingly, but, we put it number 1 because, yes, it's the most important one. And he promised, 1st day at the office that he would execute that. And I think the whole Bitcoin world is gonna keep him,
[00:16:46] McIntosh:
accountable. Yeah. I I I agree with that part. Do you wanna explain very briefly who he is? A lot of the listeners, he's been in jail for so long at this point. A lot of people may not really even have any idea who he is.
[00:17:02] Kenshin:
Yeah. Well, I don't remember exactly when he he went into jail. But he he was the, the creator of, the Silk Road. Silk Road. Right. The website Mhmm. Which was a dark dark net, let's say market for
[00:17:24] McIntosh:
drugs and other I I would like to call it a free market, but that's maybe Yeah. Splitting hairs. There were certainly lots of illegal things going on there. I'm not gonna dispute that at all. But you could use Bitcoin to buy, whatever. And these things were available over the Internet to anyone in the world. He was put in jail. I think he had a lifetime sentence if I'm not he was being made an example of. And I'm not gonna debate the merits of whether or not I don't know. But I do think 11 year he's it's at least 11 years. It may be Yeah. Slightly more than Yeah. It's
[00:18:06] Kenshin:
that's right. It was 2013.
[00:18:08] McIntosh:
So I see it. So he was and and to be honest, I won't swear to this, but that may have actually been the first time I heard of Bitcoin. Like, because it was in the tech world, it was kinda big news when that happened. So that may have actually been I'm not sure. But that may have actually been what kind of sent me down the rabbit hole, to be honest. Alright. Very good. And he is saying that on day 1 of his administration that he will commute that sentence and Ross will Yeah. Walk out a free person. And from all indications, it does look like that is what's going to happen. Number 2, this might be my favorite, and I will explain why.
Fire Gary Gensler. So Gary Gensler is the head of the SEC. Now, how can I explain this? We do need regulation. I do not believe I am not an anarchist. I'm just not. I know people who are. That's just not my bent. But this dude, very smart guy, taught Bitcoin at MIT, actually, a long time ago, back when it was essentially nothing. Clearly knows what Bitcoin is and and kind of the ins and outs of it. But the SEC has frank and the SEC is the Securities and Exchange Commission. They are responsible for kind of everything that's not a commodity. So, for basically the regulations around that.
And he's been very indecisive, very back and forth, very putting lots of lawsuits out there that just made no sense that ended up getting lost, the the government losing just mass chaos instead of actual clear regulation about what people could do. So, like, basically, people would go and do something, and then the SEC would step in and say, no. You can't do that. We're going to sue you. And that's not really, in my opinion, the way that it should be done. Now, interestingly, he actually cannot be fired, from his job. He can be demoted essentially. He's the chairperson of the SEC, and the president can appoint a new chairperson is what I understand. Now I put in my notes, Hester Pierce, because I like her.
She, has been very outspoken, in what must have been a very uncomfortable situation being directly at odds with Gary Gensler quite often. Now, apparently, she does not want to do this. So they're talking about other people, and that's fine. We just need somebody who's not Gary Gensler. And we do need clear legislation. And I think we'll actually talk about that some more in one of these further points. But number 3?
[00:21:14] Kenshin:
Number 3 is this strategic national Bitcoin Reserve or Stockpile as he announced it, which essentially, senator Loomis came in later and she clarified what that would mean. And based on her bill, it will be, to purchase 200,000 Bitcoin per year for a period of 5 years until they accumulate 1,000,000 Bitcoin. Okay. And that doesn't include the 200,000 that they already have.
[00:21:54] McIntosh:
Right. So well, that I think that's up for debate. I'm not actually I keep hearing people say different things about that. It actually doesn't matter. But let's just to put this in perspective, 1,000,000 Bitcoin. If you take out the 1,000,000 Bitcoin essentially that Satoshi locked up and has never used, what does that leave? 20,000,000 Bitcoin, which means that that is 5% of the total Bitcoin Yeah. In the world that will ever be made. You know, obviously, it's slightly less if the 1,000,000 gets used or whatever, but just whatever, over a 5 year period.
I don't and we worked this out the other day. That works out to roughly 500 and I think it was 547 a day, but somewhere around 550 a day, every day for 5 years. And when the ETF started up, they were they were actually doing that or or more, which by the way, roughly 450, if I'm remembering correctly, Bitcoin are mined every day. So Correct. If you just look at those two things, the ETFs that are sucking up Bitcoin even more, I know that, BlackRock had the biggest day ever just a couple of days ago. Okay? And if you just look at those two things, if this were to happen exactly as it's laid out, it would put such enormous market pressure that the price would have to go up. And then you would also if the US starts stockpiling Bitcoin, you know that there's going to be a lot of other countries who start doing the same. Now, fortunately, at least for these companies countries, there are several countries who are already doing this. El Salvador has a national Bitcoin reserve. They're stacking a a Bitcoin every day. They have something like 5,000, which for a country of their size is not insignificant.
Bhutan, little old Bhutan over and I I soak Kenshin. Can I just tell you, I really wanna go to Bhutan? I want to go to Bhutan. I want to go to Tibet. And I want to go to, Nepal, all 3 of them right there. And but I want to go to Bhutan. I want to go see their mining operation. They have been mining for years, and they now have stockpiled actually over, what was it? 13,000? It was a it was enough that their per person population had a significant amount of Bitcoin in terms of, like, Satoshis. It like, a lot. Like, I don't think any country is is ever going to be able to catch up with them in terms of their actual, like, Satoshis per person, if that makes sense.
So I really hope that they continue down the path they're going, and I hope that they use that Bitcoin well. So, sorry. I didn't mean to I I interjected too. I apologize. Like I said, this is gonna take a bit. But, yeah, we do hold 200,000. It's debatable as to whether those should I think the majority of those should actually be being held. They were stolen from Bitfinex, if I remember, in a hack. And then, essentially, the justice department caught the hacker, so we took the Bitcoin. That's what my country did. Good job. Now the problem is it's actually bit for Nexus. So I don't know.
They should either, like I guess there's a way to demonstrate that you're, quote, burning that Bitcoin. I've actually never looked into that, but I keep hearing it. I assume that it's something that's actually legitimate. Like, you could make it unavailable permanently, essentially. And then, you know or give it back to BigFinance, which is probably what we should really be doing since it was theirs in the first place. So I'm sorry. Why don't you go ahead there?
[00:26:20] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I've been hearing the same. I don't know technically how they are supposed to to lock it or, burn it, but, yeah, there is a way, to do it, and that would be one way. But I agree, why not give it back to Bitfinex? I mean, if it's provable theirs and it was stolen from them, and then why not return it?
[00:26:45] McIntosh:
Now I did wanna mention Cynthia Loomis, senator Cynthia Loomis, I think she's from Wyoming, has been instrumental in pushing this, Bitcoin reserve or whatever you wanna call it. So she has actually put forth a bill. Why don't you discuss that in detail there? You've got some stuff out of that.
[00:27:08] Kenshin:
Yeah. Exactly. She has a bill, and on the page 6 of the bill, and the quote is purchase not more than 200,000 bitcoins per year over a 5 year period for a total acquisition of 1,000,000 bitcoins,
[00:27:28] McIntosh:
end quote. So that settles what I was talking about. Right? So even though I have heard different things, this literally says a total acquisition of a 1000000 Bitcoin. So Yeah. There we go. Cool.
[00:27:44] Kenshin:
So even if they don't keep that, 200,000
[00:27:48] McIntosh:
from Bitfinex, then they still go to 1,000,000 in Bitcoin. I don't think that's actually gonna I mean, I don't. I hope they start purchasing Bitcoin in some amount, and I hope it's a significant amount. I think what they're gonna find out is that trying to game theory Bitcoin out over a 5 year period in this case, you can't you don't know. You don't know all the people on the board. What if China starts buying 500? What if Russia starts buying 500? What if all the countries in Africa put together, they start buying 500 today? I mean, there's gonna be a lot of buying going on and price of Bitcoin is going to be going to places that I don't even like to talk about because it's it's it's just crazy.
And are we gonna continue to do that? I mean, I I don't know. If they make it a law, I guess, or a bill or whatever, it's not a law, but I guess that means that they are going to do it. But they may have to amend that or whatever down the road just because if if Bitcoin is I don't know. Let's just throw out a crazy number. If it's $500,000 of Bitcoin, that's a lot of money being spent on Bitcoin every day, even by the United States. So I don't know.
[00:29:09] Kenshin:
Interestingly, it was, RFK Junior. His proposal was 5,000,000. Yeah. I remember that. Term of 20 years. But that that, turns out to be exactly the same Bitcoin per day because it was over 20 years, his proposal.
[00:29:27] McIntosh:
Yeah. And I mean, to be honest, I mean, you talk about speculating. There's no telling what Bitcoin will be in 20 years, and I don't know. But I'm glad that we're starting or at least we may start. I think as a nation state, that would be something that I would want my country to do. Alright. He keeps and he has said this multiple times, a Bitcoin and crypto advisory council. He's going to put together and he probably already is. This would be the kind of thing he'd be working on before January, and that they will have a recommendation or a series of recommendations really in the first 100 days. So basically, 3 months into office, they should have a a series of recommendations, and I would assume it would be around regulation, things like capital gains, taxes.
Well, I don't wanna let the cat out of the bag on that one, but, you know, stuff like that. So I don't wanna go too deeply because we just don't know any details, but this is frankly the exact opposite of not to harp on senator Warren, who by the way did win her reelection. And I'm a little bitter about that just in case you can't tell. And I do not live in Massachusetts, so I don't even have a dog in that hunt as we say. But regardless, this is the opposite of that. Let's put the regulations out there. Let's let everybody know what the playing field is. And he says things Trump does. He said it in the stump speech he gave at at the Bitcoin conference.
We want all the miners here in the United States. Well, that's not actually gonna happen, but it's a great idea. Right? We want to compete for these miners. Bring them here. Give them the power that they need. Give them the regulation. The clear regulation that they need, the right to do that, to to not be forced like these miners were earlier this year. I think it was this year. I'm pretty sure it was to justify their electricity usage and so on. So I'm looking forward to that. Now, number 5, sir.
[00:31:49] Kenshin:
He promised to to remove the capital gains tax on Bitcoin transactions. That's quite interesting.
[00:31:57] McIntosh:
Sorry. That was me clapping. Yeah. Yeah. Look.
[00:32:01] Kenshin:
Everybody else is trying to to put more tax
[00:32:05] McIntosh:
on the group. And I've I've, yes, I've said before that I I believe that the EU specifically is just absolutely going down the wrong road on this stuff. But let's talk about this because we do have a cap gains tax. And if you what that means, it's not even that you're taxed when you sell your Bitcoin. It is. That's part of it. But it becomes so, difficult to manage. If I'm using Bitcoin, look, The listeners know, if you've listened to this for very long, I have miners. Right? I have Bitcoin miners. I have a a number of them with a hosting company.
I pay for the mining electricity usage is what it amounts to in Bitcoin. I mine the Bitcoin, and then I turn around and pay for the electricity with the Bitcoin. Because of cap gains taxes, that becomes very difficult. I have to keep track when did I mine it, when literally to the day, when did I sell it, when you know, look, if Bitcoin is a currency, and that was one of its goals, let's be clear, We can't deal with that. I'm gonna go to a coffee shop and buy some coffee with my Bitcoin. I can't have a cap gains tax on it. That would be a nightmare. So this is a awesome little thing right here.
And I don't know. There are countries, that at least used to not have capital gains taxes. I know Portugal, for example, used to not have capital gains on crypto, but they actually reverse that if I'm remembering correctly. What is actually the the situation there where where you're at?
[00:34:00] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's a typical capital gains taxes with 25% on the gains.
[00:34:06] McIntosh:
Well, that and one of the things that's been floated around, which I could buy into at least as kind of a compromise is if it's less than $600, US dollars, that there's no cap gains. Now I don't know how you would implement that either, but at least it would be a step in saying, well, I'm buying some coffee. I don't need to worry about cap gains. Right? He says he's gonna repeal it. He says that there's not gonna be he literally says, and this is the quote, Bitcoin is money. It shouldn't be taxed. And I can applaud that. I mean, seriously. Now he's talking about tariffs and that gets everybody in an uproar. I'm gonna leave that completely alone. I am simply talking about the cap gain stacks on Bitcoin.
Alright. Let's see. No CBDC. Number 6? Yeah. Number 6 was no CBDC. So every country in the world to almost to a country has been floating the idea of CBDCs. There are countries who have already implemented this. China has. I mean, I've seen it myself. I saw the trials of it. I've not been there in a number of years at this point. But when they were first rolling out their digital currency with their digital, well, their central bank digital currency, I I saw it. Not a good thing for a number of reasons. It's a blockchain people. Your your transactions are being tracked. Everything will be there for the rest of eternity. And I don't want the government knowing what I'm spending my money on. I'm sorry. It to me, this is one of the things that's enshrined in our, amendments to the constitution.
Okay? And we do have a guaranteed right to privacy, and I don't need the government to know that I'm buying a a Coke. Okay? Because there's days well, Coke is not good for you. I'll just say that. It's got a lot of sugar in it. But they could say, well, we're gonna tax that, because because it's bad for you. Right? I don't know. I just there's a lot of reasons to not have that be done. And it begins with the tracking of everything that you do, and you buy and you sell and you earn. That's where it starts right there.
[00:36:36] Kenshin:
Right. Yeah. That's very important.
[00:36:40] McIntosh:
Number 7.
[00:36:42] Kenshin:
Number 7. That's very exciting for me also. He said he will defend the right to self custody. Yes. And especially here in Europe, we see the opposite. Right. They actually try to pass bills even in Sweden, where I'm I am right now, to ban self custody or make it illegal, essentially. So at some point, I I started to warn what's gonna happen if that that comes?
[00:37:12] McIntosh:
Yeah. That would be a tough spot. And I you don't really I don't know. You probably don't really wanna talk about that a whole lot, but it would put a lot of people in a tough spot. I will tell you, I love my seed signer. I talk about it all the time on this show. I promote them. I get nothing for that, by the way. As I always say, because it's absolutely true. And I think everybody should have the right to do that. Now whether they choose to do that or not, that's up to them. But, again, this goes back to some of these fundamental rights. And and look, we're here in America, I mean, we are we have historically been losing these rights. I mean, this is not news. And and in a lot of ways, like, if I go to the bank and I have money in the bank and I send money to someone else, it's it's a really big deal. Like, if it's more than just a few $1,000, and I don't know what the exact amount it is, but it is now less than $10,000, which is the price of a used car, a decent used car.
They want your they wanna know why. They wanna know who you're sending it to. They're gonna just like, you feel like you're on trial. And I just wanna send somebody some stupid money. You know? And I can't do that in a anonymous manner, so to speak, if I can't self custody. So it does actually start right there with self custody. So Yeah. That would be one if I lived in Europe or if this happens in the United States and and from time to time, there's rumblings about it here too. That's one that I would be, looking at going, I may have a duty to ignore that law and and buy the seed signer components off of Amazon because you can.
I'm not gonna go out and buy a, a gosh. I can't even think of all these different ones off hand. Foundation makes well, I'm not gonna go to Foundation or ledger or treasure and buy a wallet and have it sent to my house. That's stupid. I'm gonna buy the parts to a seed signer. You can go to the seed signer website. They tell you how to do it. They literally give all the secret sauce away, and and I'm gonna put together a seed signer, and I'm gonna self custody my Bitcoin, and I'm gonna tell them where they can go.
[00:39:49] Kenshin:
Alright. But but another advice is don't buy all the components from 1 Oh, no. Store either.
[00:39:56] McIntosh:
Very fair. Buy a couple from Amazon Right. And the rest from somewhere else. Yeah. You're really getting in the weeds if you're gonna do it to that level, in terms of, like, the government trying to figure that out, but I would never put it I would never say that they wouldn't do that either. So you're right. Buying the components from several different places, probably a good idea. But it's it's literally just a raspberry pi, which there are people in the hardware wallet business who get all twisted out of shape over that, but that's actually the point. It's literally a raspberry pi that you can buy off the shelf.
And you don't have to worry about that because those Raspberry Pis are used for literally hundreds of different things. Alright. Very cool. And there's one last one, and to wrap this up, number 8. On day 1, Trump vows to end Biden's anti crypto policies. This is what I was talking about. I mean, this is Biden was or is actually our current president. He's the outgoing president, and Warren was working with him on these all these anti crypto policies. What they called operation choke point 2 point o. That's literally what it's referred to as. And he promises a new era for digital assets. And, of course, that can mean a number of different things, but I I love the fact that at least we will have regulatory clarity, and we'll know where we stand.
And all of this, I don't know, backroom stuff will go away. Alright. Very, very good. So I hope that is helpful, and I hope for at least for those here in the United States that that gives you an idea of where the executive branch of the government, the president, and the people that he is surrounding himself with are saying that they're going to go. This is the direction that they're saying they're gonna go. Now, Ken Chenoweth and I have talked about this. One of the things that we're going to do is keep this list and we're gonna see what he actually does. Because as I've said on here multiple times, I trust no politician.
I don't, and we'll see. I suspect probably half of these will get done. The rest, I'm not sure about. I'm pretty sure number 8 is going to happen. I'm pretty sure number 7 might happen. I'd just saying that is one thing. I believe that that really needs to be put into law, and I would almost, make that a requirement of number 7 because just having just saying it doesn't mean anything because the next administration may not be republican or may not be pro crypto or however you wanna put it. They may be somebody like the last administration and all the people that were around it, and they may run that right back.
I don't think there's gonna be a CBDC set up under Trump. Now again, I would love to see the legislation. We have no reason to have that here in the United States. I don't think cap gains are going away. I just hope they can make a compromise, but we'll see. If if they do that, Macintosh will be dancing in the streets. I'm sorry, but it's it's true. And I don't dance very well. So, you know, that's a really big deal and so on. I mean, I I just I think about half of these will get done. I certainly hope for more. I am positive at this point. I mean, I'm positive at this point. I mean, I'm positive looking forward to the next 4 years, but I'm also not naive if that makes sense.
Alright. We do need to move on. I we've been going for quite a while. I haven't even looked at the recording time. I'm afraid to. It's been 45 minutes, Kenshin. We were talking about this earlier. We have got to keep these down. Alright. We're gonna roll through the supporters. I'm gonna go ahead and do it this week because these were for the last episode. I think from now on, we'll probably go back forth. Who knows? But we'll see. Alright. We did have 2 booths come in. To be honest, it was a little a little bleak. But when you get on there and say you're leaving, maybe you shouldn't expect a whole lot. And I I think I made that clear in the episode that I was planning on coming back.
It was a I thought it was gonna be a little sooner than it has been, and I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, to be honest, but I did make some progress on some projects and whatnot. Alright. Pod home, actually, our host, the host of the podcast itself, Barry is is the guy who runs that. He sent a message. He said, take care for now. I'm looking forward to more episodes in the future. I hope everything falls into place soon. Thanks a lot, Barry. I appreciate that. I'm glad you listened to the episode. You may have just picked it up from the title just because you were the host of the of the hosting company of the podcast, but, I take what I can get.
25100 sats, so I very much appreciate that. And then our friend, Kyron, over at Mare Mortals sent in a boost. Kyron has been super faithful. Kyron, I have not forgotten, by the way, not to get off on a sidetrack. This is actually one of the projects I wanted to work on. I got ideas, but I've I've not pulled this together. I'm actually gonna be talking to Kenshin about this. I promised y'all when you reach levels or when you reached a certain level that we would send you something, And I am gonna do that. I have not forgotten about it, and I actually have some ideas, and I need to talk to him about that. But I did wanna actually mention that. He said, enjoy your time off, Macintosh. I've been busy traveling, and now coming back to reality and also been actively trying to consume less financial crypto Bitcoin content. So sorry about that. Can't really help you there. So the break times nicely with me. Hope you get more free time soon. And he sent in a row of sticks, 11:11 sats. We had a total boosted and streamed of 38129 sats from our supporters. I sincerely appreciate that as I always do. It's a great way to show the support for this podcast.
And we're gonna be doing some things. Obviously, we've got a new cohost, and I think that's gonna work out really great. He is going to balance me because I tend to get a little off the rails sometimes, and I can just see him sitting over there going crazy American. Come on. I know you're doing it. Yeah. Yep. Yep. See you right there. Oh, jump in. Yeah. So alright. We're gonna roll through this news really quickly. I am gonna skip the software updates. A lot of this stuff is actually pretty old at this point. Oh, you added some stuff. So, I think we better just we'll pick this up next week, though.
Yeah. But let's roll through this news really quick. I did wanna mention Denmark, unrealized cap gains tax. This is so stupid. This is like this is like cap gains on steroids. So you don't even have to sell your crypto, your Bitcoin. They're just gonna tax it. So that'll be great.
[00:47:37] Kenshin:
Yeah. And we've had Yeah. And that's and that's very close to me here and Mhmm. Started getting nervous about this.
[00:47:44] McIntosh:
That is, like, literally right across the gulf or or whatever there from you. Yeah. And yeah. It's there are going to be countries who do this, and they're going to regret it. And I I don't know. We'll see.
[00:48:00] Kenshin:
Yeah. You also Italy wants to to raise also the capital gains tax from 26% to 42. Mhmm.
[00:48:09] McIntosh:
So Now you gotta understand Italy not doing so great. They're one of the poorest countries in the EU. And so they're scrambling around. They're looking for, revenue. And, oh, we got this Bitcoin thing. We can just raise the tax on it. But the reality is with Bitcoin, if you have a significant amount of Bitcoin and you're going to be taxed that heavily, it becomes very, enticing just to move somewhere else. I'll just say that. So, yeah, finance expensive election promises while cutting the physical deficit fiscal deficit. So there you go. I don't think that's gonna work out well either.
In fact, somebody recently did this. Was it Norway? No. They did it. Yeah. And they also saw a bunch of people leave. So there you go. What's this next one, Kenshin?
[00:49:11] Kenshin:
No. And then, I mean, it's to round off all the European craziness that's going on that, there is this, MICA or MICA. Mhmm. It's the markets in crypto assets, regulation that will come in effect in December, and it's to regulate, financial institutions and any company or organization offering crypto services or products. And that is already pushing some companies out of business or to close their Bitcoin, Bitcoin services like a Dutch company that they were an exchange or only Bitcoin, exchange. Right. And they are forced to close down because they are so they will they will start being so heavily regulated within the 27 countries.
[00:50:04] McIntosh:
Yeah. Your note here says that they would have to be authorized by 27 national financial regulators. 1 of the Yes. 1 of the countries. 27 countries. Is that what it is? In the EU. In the EU. Long distance. So they would have to be authorized by one of those countries in order to so, essentially, this is kind of like what is it called? We have similar things here to be honest, where if you're handling money for clients, essentially, you have to be authorized to do that. You have to file stuff. You have to pay fees. You have to, you know, there's regulations. And it it gets very very difficult to manage that. And companies, they like you said, this Dutch company closed down. There will be companies who do that going forward, certainly.
I don't know. I can't I I just see a lot of regulation more regulation in the EU rather than less. And I see a lot more pushback on things like self custody or private transactions of Bitcoin or, you know, whatever. Let's make it illegal for you to use a p to p, crypto buying service. You know? Ayaya.
[00:51:26] Kenshin:
Yeah. And that and that's the point that I'm excited about now with the US going to be be Bitcoin friendly. Mhmm. That that might push the European countries to switch
[00:51:39] McIntosh:
their Do you think so? I'm very curious about that. I would love that. I think every country should. I've I've never look. I Russia is basically the, quote, worst enemy of the United States that there is. I mean, if you just wanna say who's the worst, that's it. I want Russia to be involved in Bitcoin because Bitcoin is for everyone. And until people get that in their heads, we're not all on the same page. It's it's it it is for everyone, and it will solve a lot of this nonsense. So, anyways, I hope they do. I honestly from my perspective, I I would have we'll see. I will be very interested. I know that am I correct? Let me put it this way. Am I correct in that kind of the European perspective of the bit of the Bitcoin election. Well, it was the Bitcoin election, but of the US election is that Harris was gonna win.
[00:52:45] Kenshin:
Oh, yes. Yeah. I mean, it's it's ridiculous how how they thought it was ridiculous for for Trump to win. Mhmm. And there were some polls that, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, they were over 70% towards Harris winning.
[00:53:05] McIntosh:
Well, they were not voting in our election. No. It's okay. I do think that it's interesting though, and I think that they get that perspective in large part from the media and from their politicians just like we do here. Look. There was a lot of people I was probably I told my wife. I did. I told my wife, and I have no way of proving this, but I said, I would not be surprised if he essentially won every state. That did not happen, but it was actually the states that she she and I knew he wasn't gonna win California. I said every state but California, actually, because California is a mess. But even California has become more red, so to speak, more Republican than 4 years ago. You can go look at the data.
People are fed up here with the economy. It's always the economy. Sorry. I didn't wanna say stupid because I you I don't want you thinking I'm calling you stupid. But there's a saying, it's always the economy stupid, and that's true. That's where it starts, and and that's we go from there. The economy in the United States has been terrible for the last 4 years. That's why Trump won. He also had other things that he talked about a lot, that weren't necessarily election swinging. Probably this country, to be honest, is very divided on the border, how we handle illegal aliens, that kind of thing.
But when he went to the Bitcoin conference in July and and, vice president Harris did not, and she was offered that invitation, He between July and the election, that probably swung 5% of the voters that were involved in crypto because, they realized what was going on under the current administration, at least in part. And be because of what Trump has said endlessly about Bitcoin crypto good, we're gonna make crypto great and all this kind of stuff. The he got that. He got that part of the thing. And if you look at the data, he won the electoral election. He also won the popular election, and it was not close. It was by over 5,000,000 votes. It was, the last numbers I saw, he had 65,000,000 popular votes.
She had, 60. So there was 5,000,000 difference between the 2. It has been decades since this has happened. Okay? This was, in my opinion, kind of a landmark election. And if he does not fumble the ball, which he may, I'm I'm just gonna say it. He may. Mhmm. Maybe the EU does take notice. I hope it's sooner rather than 4 years down the road. I mean, honestly, 4 years is a long time, but we'll see.
[00:56:20] Kenshin:
Yeah. I hope so too. It's, yeah. For Europe, it's important to to follow that example now. And, because more importantly, some things are starting to get implemented soon in Europe.
[00:56:36] McIntosh:
What is this you have here about the the war? You're talking about the Ukraine war, I think. The Ukraine war. Can you expand on that? Because I think that's very interesting.
[00:56:47] Kenshin:
Yeah. For for me, to be honest, even more important than the Bitcoin Mhmm. Consequences is actually, putting a stop to the wars around Europe Mhmm. With Ukraine and further down. Because we already see I just saw an article today, in Sweden that the stock, fell from, from the Saab company.
[00:57:14] McIntosh:
Okay. Saab. They make cars.
[00:57:16] Kenshin:
They used to make cars, and they bankrupt. But they kept making, weapons, jets and engines. I did not know that. Various weapons. Yeah. And they were getting very, very popular the last couple of years. They had the highest number of, shareholders they ever had recently with 600,000 unique sharehold shareholders. And, basically, shareholders, wanted to benefit from the the war and, how good the company was doing exporting weapons to US and to the war. That's sad. So yeah. So the second Trump got elected now Mhmm. The the stock price fell. And the article says, oh, no. We worry the war is gonna end, which
[00:58:11] McIntosh:
which is crazy. Is that I mean, is that essentially I know it it is it actually in Swedish or is it in English, this newspaper?
[00:58:19] Kenshin:
It's in Swedish, but you can translate it. It translates very good. That literally
[00:58:24] McIntosh:
is they're saying, oh, no. The war is stopping. That's nuts. I mean, who says that? I Yeah.
[00:58:32] Kenshin:
It's crazy. I mean, and I can pull it up, or we can link it later. Okay. But it's it's easy to translate.
[00:58:43] McIntosh:
I have a solution for Saab, by the way. Buy Bitcoin. I'm just saying. Exactly. We and that's something maybe we do need to talk about soon because it's happening with a lot of companies. They are starting to take the micro strategy approach, and I I don't wanna get off into all that. But some people view that as kind of a way that at least the United States can work our way out of the $36,000,000,000,000 in debt that we have. So I I don't know. We'll see. Okay. Are there any of these software updates that we really wanna talk about? I mean, the most important one is the Bitcoin Core. Yes. We should talk about that. A new version of Bitcoin Core came out. Version 28, I need to update my my, node, actually.
Did you update to the latest version every time as soon as possible? I tend to lag a little bit. I think I'm on 20 I may still be on 26.
[00:59:44] Kenshin:
I don't think I'm on 27 yet at all. Mhmm. I am also on 26, so I also wait a bit. I
[00:59:53] McIntosh:
the one so let's see. I run 2 different nodes actually. I run one that's just online just doing stuff, and then I one run one that's part of my seed signer setup. I use it to pull my data from. Okay? And so that one, I tend to lag a little bit because that's the one that I really worry about, like, something bad happening. But they are really pushing people to upgrade, to newer versions because because of undisclosed vulnerabilities, essentially. So Right. Alright. Very cool. There's a lot of other things. We're we're just gonna have to skip them or talk about them another day. We do need to wrap this up. I appreciate everyone's patience. And, Kinshan, I hope this has been fun, first of all. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Very fun for me, for sure. We are gonna have a jam up, show.
I I am just this is I think this is gonna be very valuable for me, to be honest, if I can be really transparent. I've done this. This is my 183rd episode, and I've done every one of them except when I've done the few interviews that I've done solo. And I like it. I'm not sure that it's maybe the best for the listeners. So I'm really hoping that we can move this whole thing to the next level, to be honest. And that's actually I did, actually I'm I'm trying not to segue here, but I'm going to that's going to require your support listeners. So it is.
We talked about, the 2 listeners that boosted in earlier. We are a podcasting 2 point o podcast, and what that means is we're basically following the latest trends. We've got transcripts. We got chapters as well, and you can stream and boost. There's a number of other features. But as you're listening to a show, you can you can stream sats to us. If you if you're getting value from what we're putting out there, and I hope you are, then we would love to say, we'll give us some value back. And that is one of the best ways to do it. Boost like, Kyron did.
We don't have ads. We don't have sponsorships. I'm not gonna tell you that I will never do that, but certainly for the foreseeable future, we do not. And it would be very difficult for me to bring on a sponsor. Let's say I went to Fountain and said, hey, Fountain, I've got 10,000 downloads a week. Why don't you give me some money and I'll start shilling Fountain? Do you think I'm gonna talk about SeedSiner like that as being the way that you can solve your self custody needs in the EU if they say you can't self custody? No. I'm not gonna do that. So that's why we are very, very careful, very, very specific about not just shilling anything, essentially.
But we do want you to support this podcast. I'm gonna let's see. Oh, how can you get a hold of us now, not just me? You can. I'm I'm on Twitter at Macintosh Fintech. I'm also on Nostr, and we really need to talk about this because I gotta figure out something. I love Nostr. I can't handle 2 different platforms, and I'm trying to figure out a way to kinda solve that. I'm also on mastodon@[email protected]. I've got an email of [email protected]. Kenshin, how can people actually oh, here you go. You can find me on Noster at Kenshin BTC Ninja and on Twitter at Kenshin_ninja.
So that's kenshin_ninja. And I don't know if you've done this, Kenshin, but you might wanna post your pub key for Nostr. Like Yeah. Pin it to the top of your Twitter.
[01:03:52] Kenshin:
That's Yeah. I have done it, but not pin it. So I think Yeah. Yeah. I can pin it because it's easier to find it. Alright.
[01:03:59] McIntosh:
And that is gonna wrap it up. We will talk to you soon. Do you have any final thoughts, Kenshin?
[01:04:07] Kenshin:
No. That's that's been fun. Looking forward to the next one. Alright. See you around. Thanks a lot. Bye.
What's up, Pleb Nation? Today is November 8th, and this is episode 183 of Satoshi's Plebs. I'm your host, Macintosh.
[00:00:08] Kenshin:
And this is Kenshin.
[00:00:39] McIntosh:
And today's episode is Trump's promises. So, of course, we have a new host. I am delighted to announce that Kenshin has agreed to, join the pod. He is from Europe, and he is going to provide a much needed European perspective because you know that us Americans are crazy. And, so we'll be talking about that in just a minute. Before we get started, as we record here, our price of Bitcoin is $76,709, which is just nuts. And we are at block 869 478. Kenshin put in the European, price. Why don't you go ahead and say what that is? Because I don't have the real time info on that.
[00:01:34] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's actually right now, it's €71,500. Sweet. So it is actually an all time high.
[00:01:44] McIntosh:
Yep. And we we just hit our all time high as well. We hit not right this minute, but about an hour ago, I think we hit 77,000 and just a little bit over that. So things are definitely pumping. I'm not gonna take a whole lot of time to go into this, but you guys know I've been talking for months. We've been in this block, box. We've been in this box, and we have now clearly broken out of that box. We played around with that box for months on end. If you trace it out, it actually goes back to March. And we built what they would call a nice bull pennant. Well, it has broken out of that pennant. And as I it's doing what I basically expected. Of course, we immediately shot upwards quite a bit, and we'll talk about some of the reasons for that in just a few minutes.
I'm guessing though that we will this will not, we may have a pullback. Like, right now, we can have a 10% pullback, and it would only go back to essentially $70,000. So we would still be outside of that pennant, outside of that box. And we may see that pullback, but we are going to steadily, in my opinion, march on from here to a 100 k, probably before the end of the year. I should not put a time frame on that, but that's what I just said. So, we will see how all that breaks down.
[00:03:08] Kenshin:
I I would agree with that too. Awesome.
[00:03:12] McIntosh:
Alright. Thanks. So I I just actually wanna throw this out. I mean, I'll be transparent with everybody. This is a little new for certainly for me. I've had some guests on here a few times, but it's always been within well defined segments. So if I kinda step on Kenshin from time to time, I do apologize, we will get into the swing of this. I think this is gonna be a a terrific partnership. So, last thing before we move out of this, the fees, and mem, mempool. So what we've got going on, you can look at this data at mempool.space, by the way.
We are looking at 4 sets per v byte. So it's about 43¢ right now to send a transaction. I actually just did 1 2 nights ago. It was actually 3 sets per v byte when I did it. Fees have stayed low. We've actually chewed through the, the memory pool, the basically all the, transactions that have not been, sent out. Right now, we're sitting at 512 megs. We were down at, like, 465 megabytes, just a couple of days ago. So, that is slowly coming down, and what that really means is there's not a huge amount of traffic going on, which is fine. It's a great time to move your, money around if you need to.
We do have the blocks coming in actually quite quickly. I'm gonna talk about this a little bit later, but just as to note it, we're looking right now at 9.8, minutes per block. So slightly under the average 10 blocks that we're always or 10 minutes per block that we're always targeting. Alright. So, Kenshin, before we get to our main topic, I did want to take a few minutes. I mentioned you were from Europe. Yes. And I kinda want you to let everybody know who's listening to the podcast, kind of a little bit of your background. We've talked in the past about kinda where I come from, how long I've been in Bitcoin, and kinda my reasons for being in Bitcoin. I would love it if you would kind of share that with the listeners as well.
[00:05:25] Kenshin:
Yeah. As you said, I'm from Europe, originally South Europe, more specifically Greece. And currently for the past, 15 years now, I've been in Sweden.
[00:05:39] McIntosh:
Okay.
[00:05:41] Kenshin:
So I came for studies and work in Sweden, and it coincided with a big economic crisis. So I just left, Greece when everything was going down in 2009. Yeah. It was a coincidence, but still,
[00:05:56] McIntosh:
I still have a few years. Well, it sounds like. Yeah.
[00:06:01] Kenshin:
It actually did. We started in and then found a a job eventually. So, yeah, that was a plan to to get a better future for myself, away from, let's say, politics and, this type of, yeah, more South European
[00:06:19] McIntosh:
societies. Okay.
[00:06:23] Kenshin:
And Bitcoin, I would say, I heard about it very early on. I even tried to mine very early on with a very bad laptop, those netbook type of laptops that had an atom processor, single core, very slow, computers. But, of course, I I didn't stay with it for long, and I was on and off, I would say, for many, many years until, yeah, until yeah. A few years ago, actually, that I went all in because, yeah, as you know, everybody needs to go through all the cycles, all the up and downs, trading and, you know, thinking it's a scam or it's too volatile.
So, yeah, I had to go through my cycles until I started really studying it and and getting in down the rabbit hole, let's say. Everybody
[00:07:20] McIntosh:
we have different stories, but invariably, I can honestly think of, like, literally one person that I know of who, like, read the white paper or heard about Bitcoin or whatever, had a in-depth conversation with somebody about it, and it just clicked and they never did anything else. They never you know, they they they did Bitcoin and that was it. And I don't know if they've held their, you know, entire stack or whatever, but they've certainly done well. You know what I mean? Right. We we just invariably we have to go through these different paths, and it's just the way that it is.
But that's that's okay. Now you're through that. And as you say, we kinda well, we kinda see the light. We understand what Bitcoin is and and how it can help us. So
[00:08:18] Kenshin:
Yeah. Absolutely. Alright. It's like, what's the saying? You get
[00:08:24] McIntosh:
Bitcoin at the price you deserve. No. I hate that saying. I hate that saying. You do. Okay. No. It's a good saying. I'm sorry. Good shit. I didn't mean to no. Just for the listeners, I've mentioned it before, I believe, but I got into Bitcoin. I originally the first Bitcoin I bought was, like, $300, 2013.
[00:08:52] Kenshin:
And I remember lower.
[00:08:54] McIntosh:
I wish I still had that Bitcoin, and I do not. Right? And I'm so I do. I get it at the price I deserve. You're exactly right, but it it is maddening. I mean, let's be honest. Yeah. It hurts. I know it hurts. So anyways, very good. Alright. Awesome. So we're gonna go ahead now, and jump into our main topic, and I'm going to go ahead and apologize. You all know I try not to make this a political show, but we're gonna talk politics, and that's just gonna have to be the way that it is. Because what is going on in my opinion in the United States right now will affect ultimately the rest of the world.
And it is about politics, it is about our election, and it is about who won. Because there were some very clear lines drawn in my opinion, and I think I've basically said this on this podcast. You had people on here in the United States, we have Democrats, we have Republicans. There's other parties, but those are the 2 major parties. They always, for decades, they've won the election. I don't know how far back it goes. It's actually probably over a 100 years. Okay? So you've got Democrats, you've got Republicans. Certainly, in the day in, I don't know, the last 50 plus years, the Democrats have tended to be more, left leaning and the Republicans have tended to be more right leaning. The Republicans have tended to be more business oriented, and I guess you could say the Democrats more socially oriented.
Okay? Now all that being said, what we have seen over the last few years in the Democratic Party, specifically around senator Warren out of Massachusetts, is a I don't even know how to what to say, like a, a crusade maybe, and maybe that's actually a really good word for it. A crusade against Bitcoin and crypto, not just Bitcoin. Okay? It's become very clear, to be honest, that her and the group of people that she pulled into all this shut down these banks. There's at least one of them is one of the banks at Silvergate or I think it's silver Silvergate because they said they essentially had the the bank overseeing regulatory agency go to that bank and say, you had to divest yourself of all of these crypto companies that are that are using you.
And the bank couldn't do that, and it essentially had to shut down. It had to be sold off to another bank. There's been all kinds of regulations and whatever. It's it's basically been a witch hunt. And as you all know, I'm certainly not pro crypto in that sense, but these are things that the SEC is telling us, which is another governmental agency here in the United States. They're legal things. There's rulings that are coming out. There's there's regulations that are being made in terms of the SEC that are saying these are these are legal things. These are legal activities, and yet you have a senator here in the United States with the group of people who she's involved herself with who are basically on a, on a on this crusade to to stop all this. And it's kinda crazy, really. Well, America did vote.
We had one of the highest percentages of voter turnout in history. And to be honest, I'm gonna do this as fairly as I can. Okay? Everybody on this podcast, if you've listened to me, you know I'm a conservative person, certainly in terms of finance, in terms of money. Okay? And I will note right now, there was no one no one, Trump nor Harris, who were talking about bringing down the deficit of the United States, which is now almost $36,000,000,000,000, and that is one of my biggest points. That is actually the real issue we've got as a nation, and yet we are still not talking about it. But regardless, the Republicans won. The Trump won.
The Senate is clearly going to be in Republican hands. It looks like the House of Representatives is going to be in Republican hands. So what that means is that, essentially, the two branches of Congress would be under Republican control. The executive branch would be under Republican control. Trump basically has the ability right now to do essentially whatever he wants. I that's not completely true, but all of the things that he has said were he wants to do, he can do. There there should not be any pushback in terms of Congress, because of the Democratic Party controlling one of those parts of Congress. Okay? So I will that's that's what's laid out.
Our inauguration day, the day that he goes into office is not until January 20th next year, but he is moving as quickly as he's already appointed as chief of staff, actually, just as an example. There's already lots of conversation about the people that he's going to bring on. Elon Musk apparently is going to be involved in the Trump administration, which that alone just blows my mind right there. I'm not a huge Elon fan, but he's clearly a very smart guy. You could argue he's a very successful businessman. He he's saying that he wants to go in there and help eliminate government waste. And I certainly applaud that because I think there's a huge amount of waste in our government.
So I don't know. I think it's going to be a very interesting thing, but we are going to actually talk. And I think, we what we'll do is we'll just kind of back and forth. There's like I've got 8 different points here. So Trump has been promising these things at least since back at in July at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville because many of these points came right out of the speech that he gave there. And I heard that I was I did not go see his speech at the conference. I went to the conference, but I didn't go see his speech. I did actually hear it live as it was being broadcast as I was driving back home.
And and a number of these actually just come word for word kind of out of that, but there's other things as well. So, Kim, why don't we just kind of back and forth? I will start no. Actually, I want you to start because I know this first one is maybe even more important to you than me. So we'll just start right there with the number one item.
[00:16:20] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. The first one is free rose Ulbrich. Okay. I mean, he he didn't actually it wasn't the first thing he promised, surprisingly, but, we put it number 1 because, yes, it's the most important one. And he promised, 1st day at the office that he would execute that. And I think the whole Bitcoin world is gonna keep him,
[00:16:46] McIntosh:
accountable. Yeah. I I I agree with that part. Do you wanna explain very briefly who he is? A lot of the listeners, he's been in jail for so long at this point. A lot of people may not really even have any idea who he is.
[00:17:02] Kenshin:
Yeah. Well, I don't remember exactly when he he went into jail. But he he was the, the creator of, the Silk Road. Silk Road. Right. The website Mhmm. Which was a dark dark net, let's say market for
[00:17:24] McIntosh:
drugs and other I I would like to call it a free market, but that's maybe Yeah. Splitting hairs. There were certainly lots of illegal things going on there. I'm not gonna dispute that at all. But you could use Bitcoin to buy, whatever. And these things were available over the Internet to anyone in the world. He was put in jail. I think he had a lifetime sentence if I'm not he was being made an example of. And I'm not gonna debate the merits of whether or not I don't know. But I do think 11 year he's it's at least 11 years. It may be Yeah. Slightly more than Yeah. It's
[00:18:06] Kenshin:
that's right. It was 2013.
[00:18:08] McIntosh:
So I see it. So he was and and to be honest, I won't swear to this, but that may have actually been the first time I heard of Bitcoin. Like, because it was in the tech world, it was kinda big news when that happened. So that may have actually been I'm not sure. But that may have actually been what kind of sent me down the rabbit hole, to be honest. Alright. Very good. And he is saying that on day 1 of his administration that he will commute that sentence and Ross will Yeah. Walk out a free person. And from all indications, it does look like that is what's going to happen. Number 2, this might be my favorite, and I will explain why.
Fire Gary Gensler. So Gary Gensler is the head of the SEC. Now, how can I explain this? We do need regulation. I do not believe I am not an anarchist. I'm just not. I know people who are. That's just not my bent. But this dude, very smart guy, taught Bitcoin at MIT, actually, a long time ago, back when it was essentially nothing. Clearly knows what Bitcoin is and and kind of the ins and outs of it. But the SEC has frank and the SEC is the Securities and Exchange Commission. They are responsible for kind of everything that's not a commodity. So, for basically the regulations around that.
And he's been very indecisive, very back and forth, very putting lots of lawsuits out there that just made no sense that ended up getting lost, the the government losing just mass chaos instead of actual clear regulation about what people could do. So, like, basically, people would go and do something, and then the SEC would step in and say, no. You can't do that. We're going to sue you. And that's not really, in my opinion, the way that it should be done. Now, interestingly, he actually cannot be fired, from his job. He can be demoted essentially. He's the chairperson of the SEC, and the president can appoint a new chairperson is what I understand. Now I put in my notes, Hester Pierce, because I like her.
She, has been very outspoken, in what must have been a very uncomfortable situation being directly at odds with Gary Gensler quite often. Now, apparently, she does not want to do this. So they're talking about other people, and that's fine. We just need somebody who's not Gary Gensler. And we do need clear legislation. And I think we'll actually talk about that some more in one of these further points. But number 3?
[00:21:14] Kenshin:
Number 3 is this strategic national Bitcoin Reserve or Stockpile as he announced it, which essentially, senator Loomis came in later and she clarified what that would mean. And based on her bill, it will be, to purchase 200,000 Bitcoin per year for a period of 5 years until they accumulate 1,000,000 Bitcoin. Okay. And that doesn't include the 200,000 that they already have.
[00:21:54] McIntosh:
Right. So well, that I think that's up for debate. I'm not actually I keep hearing people say different things about that. It actually doesn't matter. But let's just to put this in perspective, 1,000,000 Bitcoin. If you take out the 1,000,000 Bitcoin essentially that Satoshi locked up and has never used, what does that leave? 20,000,000 Bitcoin, which means that that is 5% of the total Bitcoin Yeah. In the world that will ever be made. You know, obviously, it's slightly less if the 1,000,000 gets used or whatever, but just whatever, over a 5 year period.
I don't and we worked this out the other day. That works out to roughly 500 and I think it was 547 a day, but somewhere around 550 a day, every day for 5 years. And when the ETF started up, they were they were actually doing that or or more, which by the way, roughly 450, if I'm remembering correctly, Bitcoin are mined every day. So Correct. If you just look at those two things, the ETFs that are sucking up Bitcoin even more, I know that, BlackRock had the biggest day ever just a couple of days ago. Okay? And if you just look at those two things, if this were to happen exactly as it's laid out, it would put such enormous market pressure that the price would have to go up. And then you would also if the US starts stockpiling Bitcoin, you know that there's going to be a lot of other countries who start doing the same. Now, fortunately, at least for these companies countries, there are several countries who are already doing this. El Salvador has a national Bitcoin reserve. They're stacking a a Bitcoin every day. They have something like 5,000, which for a country of their size is not insignificant.
Bhutan, little old Bhutan over and I I soak Kenshin. Can I just tell you, I really wanna go to Bhutan? I want to go to Bhutan. I want to go to Tibet. And I want to go to, Nepal, all 3 of them right there. And but I want to go to Bhutan. I want to go see their mining operation. They have been mining for years, and they now have stockpiled actually over, what was it? 13,000? It was a it was enough that their per person population had a significant amount of Bitcoin in terms of, like, Satoshis. It like, a lot. Like, I don't think any country is is ever going to be able to catch up with them in terms of their actual, like, Satoshis per person, if that makes sense.
So I really hope that they continue down the path they're going, and I hope that they use that Bitcoin well. So, sorry. I didn't mean to I I interjected too. I apologize. Like I said, this is gonna take a bit. But, yeah, we do hold 200,000. It's debatable as to whether those should I think the majority of those should actually be being held. They were stolen from Bitfinex, if I remember, in a hack. And then, essentially, the justice department caught the hacker, so we took the Bitcoin. That's what my country did. Good job. Now the problem is it's actually bit for Nexus. So I don't know.
They should either, like I guess there's a way to demonstrate that you're, quote, burning that Bitcoin. I've actually never looked into that, but I keep hearing it. I assume that it's something that's actually legitimate. Like, you could make it unavailable permanently, essentially. And then, you know or give it back to BigFinance, which is probably what we should really be doing since it was theirs in the first place. So I'm sorry. Why don't you go ahead there?
[00:26:20] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I've been hearing the same. I don't know technically how they are supposed to to lock it or, burn it, but, yeah, there is a way, to do it, and that would be one way. But I agree, why not give it back to Bitfinex? I mean, if it's provable theirs and it was stolen from them, and then why not return it?
[00:26:45] McIntosh:
Now I did wanna mention Cynthia Loomis, senator Cynthia Loomis, I think she's from Wyoming, has been instrumental in pushing this, Bitcoin reserve or whatever you wanna call it. So she has actually put forth a bill. Why don't you discuss that in detail there? You've got some stuff out of that.
[00:27:08] Kenshin:
Yeah. Exactly. She has a bill, and on the page 6 of the bill, and the quote is purchase not more than 200,000 bitcoins per year over a 5 year period for a total acquisition of 1,000,000 bitcoins,
[00:27:28] McIntosh:
end quote. So that settles what I was talking about. Right? So even though I have heard different things, this literally says a total acquisition of a 1000000 Bitcoin. So Yeah. There we go. Cool.
[00:27:44] Kenshin:
So even if they don't keep that, 200,000
[00:27:48] McIntosh:
from Bitfinex, then they still go to 1,000,000 in Bitcoin. I don't think that's actually gonna I mean, I don't. I hope they start purchasing Bitcoin in some amount, and I hope it's a significant amount. I think what they're gonna find out is that trying to game theory Bitcoin out over a 5 year period in this case, you can't you don't know. You don't know all the people on the board. What if China starts buying 500? What if Russia starts buying 500? What if all the countries in Africa put together, they start buying 500 today? I mean, there's gonna be a lot of buying going on and price of Bitcoin is going to be going to places that I don't even like to talk about because it's it's it's just crazy.
And are we gonna continue to do that? I mean, I I don't know. If they make it a law, I guess, or a bill or whatever, it's not a law, but I guess that means that they are going to do it. But they may have to amend that or whatever down the road just because if if Bitcoin is I don't know. Let's just throw out a crazy number. If it's $500,000 of Bitcoin, that's a lot of money being spent on Bitcoin every day, even by the United States. So I don't know.
[00:29:09] Kenshin:
Interestingly, it was, RFK Junior. His proposal was 5,000,000. Yeah. I remember that. Term of 20 years. But that that, turns out to be exactly the same Bitcoin per day because it was over 20 years, his proposal.
[00:29:27] McIntosh:
Yeah. And I mean, to be honest, I mean, you talk about speculating. There's no telling what Bitcoin will be in 20 years, and I don't know. But I'm glad that we're starting or at least we may start. I think as a nation state, that would be something that I would want my country to do. Alright. He keeps and he has said this multiple times, a Bitcoin and crypto advisory council. He's going to put together and he probably already is. This would be the kind of thing he'd be working on before January, and that they will have a recommendation or a series of recommendations really in the first 100 days. So basically, 3 months into office, they should have a a series of recommendations, and I would assume it would be around regulation, things like capital gains, taxes.
Well, I don't wanna let the cat out of the bag on that one, but, you know, stuff like that. So I don't wanna go too deeply because we just don't know any details, but this is frankly the exact opposite of not to harp on senator Warren, who by the way did win her reelection. And I'm a little bitter about that just in case you can't tell. And I do not live in Massachusetts, so I don't even have a dog in that hunt as we say. But regardless, this is the opposite of that. Let's put the regulations out there. Let's let everybody know what the playing field is. And he says things Trump does. He said it in the stump speech he gave at at the Bitcoin conference.
We want all the miners here in the United States. Well, that's not actually gonna happen, but it's a great idea. Right? We want to compete for these miners. Bring them here. Give them the power that they need. Give them the regulation. The clear regulation that they need, the right to do that, to to not be forced like these miners were earlier this year. I think it was this year. I'm pretty sure it was to justify their electricity usage and so on. So I'm looking forward to that. Now, number 5, sir.
[00:31:49] Kenshin:
He promised to to remove the capital gains tax on Bitcoin transactions. That's quite interesting.
[00:31:57] McIntosh:
Sorry. That was me clapping. Yeah. Yeah. Look.
[00:32:01] Kenshin:
Everybody else is trying to to put more tax
[00:32:05] McIntosh:
on the group. And I've I've, yes, I've said before that I I believe that the EU specifically is just absolutely going down the wrong road on this stuff. But let's talk about this because we do have a cap gains tax. And if you what that means, it's not even that you're taxed when you sell your Bitcoin. It is. That's part of it. But it becomes so, difficult to manage. If I'm using Bitcoin, look, The listeners know, if you've listened to this for very long, I have miners. Right? I have Bitcoin miners. I have a a number of them with a hosting company.
I pay for the mining electricity usage is what it amounts to in Bitcoin. I mine the Bitcoin, and then I turn around and pay for the electricity with the Bitcoin. Because of cap gains taxes, that becomes very difficult. I have to keep track when did I mine it, when literally to the day, when did I sell it, when you know, look, if Bitcoin is a currency, and that was one of its goals, let's be clear, We can't deal with that. I'm gonna go to a coffee shop and buy some coffee with my Bitcoin. I can't have a cap gains tax on it. That would be a nightmare. So this is a awesome little thing right here.
And I don't know. There are countries, that at least used to not have capital gains taxes. I know Portugal, for example, used to not have capital gains on crypto, but they actually reverse that if I'm remembering correctly. What is actually the the situation there where where you're at?
[00:34:00] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's a typical capital gains taxes with 25% on the gains.
[00:34:06] McIntosh:
Well, that and one of the things that's been floated around, which I could buy into at least as kind of a compromise is if it's less than $600, US dollars, that there's no cap gains. Now I don't know how you would implement that either, but at least it would be a step in saying, well, I'm buying some coffee. I don't need to worry about cap gains. Right? He says he's gonna repeal it. He says that there's not gonna be he literally says, and this is the quote, Bitcoin is money. It shouldn't be taxed. And I can applaud that. I mean, seriously. Now he's talking about tariffs and that gets everybody in an uproar. I'm gonna leave that completely alone. I am simply talking about the cap gain stacks on Bitcoin.
Alright. Let's see. No CBDC. Number 6? Yeah. Number 6 was no CBDC. So every country in the world to almost to a country has been floating the idea of CBDCs. There are countries who have already implemented this. China has. I mean, I've seen it myself. I saw the trials of it. I've not been there in a number of years at this point. But when they were first rolling out their digital currency with their digital, well, their central bank digital currency, I I saw it. Not a good thing for a number of reasons. It's a blockchain people. Your your transactions are being tracked. Everything will be there for the rest of eternity. And I don't want the government knowing what I'm spending my money on. I'm sorry. It to me, this is one of the things that's enshrined in our, amendments to the constitution.
Okay? And we do have a guaranteed right to privacy, and I don't need the government to know that I'm buying a a Coke. Okay? Because there's days well, Coke is not good for you. I'll just say that. It's got a lot of sugar in it. But they could say, well, we're gonna tax that, because because it's bad for you. Right? I don't know. I just there's a lot of reasons to not have that be done. And it begins with the tracking of everything that you do, and you buy and you sell and you earn. That's where it starts right there.
[00:36:36] Kenshin:
Right. Yeah. That's very important.
[00:36:40] McIntosh:
Number 7.
[00:36:42] Kenshin:
Number 7. That's very exciting for me also. He said he will defend the right to self custody. Yes. And especially here in Europe, we see the opposite. Right. They actually try to pass bills even in Sweden, where I'm I am right now, to ban self custody or make it illegal, essentially. So at some point, I I started to warn what's gonna happen if that that comes?
[00:37:12] McIntosh:
Yeah. That would be a tough spot. And I you don't really I don't know. You probably don't really wanna talk about that a whole lot, but it would put a lot of people in a tough spot. I will tell you, I love my seed signer. I talk about it all the time on this show. I promote them. I get nothing for that, by the way. As I always say, because it's absolutely true. And I think everybody should have the right to do that. Now whether they choose to do that or not, that's up to them. But, again, this goes back to some of these fundamental rights. And and look, we're here in America, I mean, we are we have historically been losing these rights. I mean, this is not news. And and in a lot of ways, like, if I go to the bank and I have money in the bank and I send money to someone else, it's it's a really big deal. Like, if it's more than just a few $1,000, and I don't know what the exact amount it is, but it is now less than $10,000, which is the price of a used car, a decent used car.
They want your they wanna know why. They wanna know who you're sending it to. They're gonna just like, you feel like you're on trial. And I just wanna send somebody some stupid money. You know? And I can't do that in a anonymous manner, so to speak, if I can't self custody. So it does actually start right there with self custody. So Yeah. That would be one if I lived in Europe or if this happens in the United States and and from time to time, there's rumblings about it here too. That's one that I would be, looking at going, I may have a duty to ignore that law and and buy the seed signer components off of Amazon because you can.
I'm not gonna go out and buy a, a gosh. I can't even think of all these different ones off hand. Foundation makes well, I'm not gonna go to Foundation or ledger or treasure and buy a wallet and have it sent to my house. That's stupid. I'm gonna buy the parts to a seed signer. You can go to the seed signer website. They tell you how to do it. They literally give all the secret sauce away, and and I'm gonna put together a seed signer, and I'm gonna self custody my Bitcoin, and I'm gonna tell them where they can go.
[00:39:49] Kenshin:
Alright. But but another advice is don't buy all the components from 1 Oh, no. Store either.
[00:39:56] McIntosh:
Very fair. Buy a couple from Amazon Right. And the rest from somewhere else. Yeah. You're really getting in the weeds if you're gonna do it to that level, in terms of, like, the government trying to figure that out, but I would never put it I would never say that they wouldn't do that either. So you're right. Buying the components from several different places, probably a good idea. But it's it's literally just a raspberry pi, which there are people in the hardware wallet business who get all twisted out of shape over that, but that's actually the point. It's literally a raspberry pi that you can buy off the shelf.
And you don't have to worry about that because those Raspberry Pis are used for literally hundreds of different things. Alright. Very cool. And there's one last one, and to wrap this up, number 8. On day 1, Trump vows to end Biden's anti crypto policies. This is what I was talking about. I mean, this is Biden was or is actually our current president. He's the outgoing president, and Warren was working with him on these all these anti crypto policies. What they called operation choke point 2 point o. That's literally what it's referred to as. And he promises a new era for digital assets. And, of course, that can mean a number of different things, but I I love the fact that at least we will have regulatory clarity, and we'll know where we stand.
And all of this, I don't know, backroom stuff will go away. Alright. Very, very good. So I hope that is helpful, and I hope for at least for those here in the United States that that gives you an idea of where the executive branch of the government, the president, and the people that he is surrounding himself with are saying that they're going to go. This is the direction that they're saying they're gonna go. Now, Ken Chenoweth and I have talked about this. One of the things that we're going to do is keep this list and we're gonna see what he actually does. Because as I've said on here multiple times, I trust no politician.
I don't, and we'll see. I suspect probably half of these will get done. The rest, I'm not sure about. I'm pretty sure number 8 is going to happen. I'm pretty sure number 7 might happen. I'd just saying that is one thing. I believe that that really needs to be put into law, and I would almost, make that a requirement of number 7 because just having just saying it doesn't mean anything because the next administration may not be republican or may not be pro crypto or however you wanna put it. They may be somebody like the last administration and all the people that were around it, and they may run that right back.
I don't think there's gonna be a CBDC set up under Trump. Now again, I would love to see the legislation. We have no reason to have that here in the United States. I don't think cap gains are going away. I just hope they can make a compromise, but we'll see. If if they do that, Macintosh will be dancing in the streets. I'm sorry, but it's it's true. And I don't dance very well. So, you know, that's a really big deal and so on. I mean, I I just I think about half of these will get done. I certainly hope for more. I am positive at this point. I mean, I'm positive at this point. I mean, I'm positive looking forward to the next 4 years, but I'm also not naive if that makes sense.
Alright. We do need to move on. I we've been going for quite a while. I haven't even looked at the recording time. I'm afraid to. It's been 45 minutes, Kenshin. We were talking about this earlier. We have got to keep these down. Alright. We're gonna roll through the supporters. I'm gonna go ahead and do it this week because these were for the last episode. I think from now on, we'll probably go back forth. Who knows? But we'll see. Alright. We did have 2 booths come in. To be honest, it was a little a little bleak. But when you get on there and say you're leaving, maybe you shouldn't expect a whole lot. And I I think I made that clear in the episode that I was planning on coming back.
It was a I thought it was gonna be a little sooner than it has been, and I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, to be honest, but I did make some progress on some projects and whatnot. Alright. Pod home, actually, our host, the host of the podcast itself, Barry is is the guy who runs that. He sent a message. He said, take care for now. I'm looking forward to more episodes in the future. I hope everything falls into place soon. Thanks a lot, Barry. I appreciate that. I'm glad you listened to the episode. You may have just picked it up from the title just because you were the host of the of the hosting company of the podcast, but, I take what I can get.
25100 sats, so I very much appreciate that. And then our friend, Kyron, over at Mare Mortals sent in a boost. Kyron has been super faithful. Kyron, I have not forgotten, by the way, not to get off on a sidetrack. This is actually one of the projects I wanted to work on. I got ideas, but I've I've not pulled this together. I'm actually gonna be talking to Kenshin about this. I promised y'all when you reach levels or when you reached a certain level that we would send you something, And I am gonna do that. I have not forgotten about it, and I actually have some ideas, and I need to talk to him about that. But I did wanna actually mention that. He said, enjoy your time off, Macintosh. I've been busy traveling, and now coming back to reality and also been actively trying to consume less financial crypto Bitcoin content. So sorry about that. Can't really help you there. So the break times nicely with me. Hope you get more free time soon. And he sent in a row of sticks, 11:11 sats. We had a total boosted and streamed of 38129 sats from our supporters. I sincerely appreciate that as I always do. It's a great way to show the support for this podcast.
And we're gonna be doing some things. Obviously, we've got a new cohost, and I think that's gonna work out really great. He is going to balance me because I tend to get a little off the rails sometimes, and I can just see him sitting over there going crazy American. Come on. I know you're doing it. Yeah. Yep. Yep. See you right there. Oh, jump in. Yeah. So alright. We're gonna roll through this news really quickly. I am gonna skip the software updates. A lot of this stuff is actually pretty old at this point. Oh, you added some stuff. So, I think we better just we'll pick this up next week, though.
Yeah. But let's roll through this news really quick. I did wanna mention Denmark, unrealized cap gains tax. This is so stupid. This is like this is like cap gains on steroids. So you don't even have to sell your crypto, your Bitcoin. They're just gonna tax it. So that'll be great.
[00:47:37] Kenshin:
Yeah. And we've had Yeah. And that's and that's very close to me here and Mhmm. Started getting nervous about this.
[00:47:44] McIntosh:
That is, like, literally right across the gulf or or whatever there from you. Yeah. And yeah. It's there are going to be countries who do this, and they're going to regret it. And I I don't know. We'll see.
[00:48:00] Kenshin:
Yeah. You also Italy wants to to raise also the capital gains tax from 26% to 42. Mhmm.
[00:48:09] McIntosh:
So Now you gotta understand Italy not doing so great. They're one of the poorest countries in the EU. And so they're scrambling around. They're looking for, revenue. And, oh, we got this Bitcoin thing. We can just raise the tax on it. But the reality is with Bitcoin, if you have a significant amount of Bitcoin and you're going to be taxed that heavily, it becomes very, enticing just to move somewhere else. I'll just say that. So, yeah, finance expensive election promises while cutting the physical deficit fiscal deficit. So there you go. I don't think that's gonna work out well either.
In fact, somebody recently did this. Was it Norway? No. They did it. Yeah. And they also saw a bunch of people leave. So there you go. What's this next one, Kenshin?
[00:49:11] Kenshin:
No. And then, I mean, it's to round off all the European craziness that's going on that, there is this, MICA or MICA. Mhmm. It's the markets in crypto assets, regulation that will come in effect in December, and it's to regulate, financial institutions and any company or organization offering crypto services or products. And that is already pushing some companies out of business or to close their Bitcoin, Bitcoin services like a Dutch company that they were an exchange or only Bitcoin, exchange. Right. And they are forced to close down because they are so they will they will start being so heavily regulated within the 27 countries.
[00:50:04] McIntosh:
Yeah. Your note here says that they would have to be authorized by 27 national financial regulators. 1 of the Yes. 1 of the countries. 27 countries. Is that what it is? In the EU. In the EU. Long distance. So they would have to be authorized by one of those countries in order to so, essentially, this is kind of like what is it called? We have similar things here to be honest, where if you're handling money for clients, essentially, you have to be authorized to do that. You have to file stuff. You have to pay fees. You have to, you know, there's regulations. And it it gets very very difficult to manage that. And companies, they like you said, this Dutch company closed down. There will be companies who do that going forward, certainly.
I don't know. I can't I I just see a lot of regulation more regulation in the EU rather than less. And I see a lot more pushback on things like self custody or private transactions of Bitcoin or, you know, whatever. Let's make it illegal for you to use a p to p, crypto buying service. You know? Ayaya.
[00:51:26] Kenshin:
Yeah. And that and that's the point that I'm excited about now with the US going to be be Bitcoin friendly. Mhmm. That that might push the European countries to switch
[00:51:39] McIntosh:
their Do you think so? I'm very curious about that. I would love that. I think every country should. I've I've never look. I Russia is basically the, quote, worst enemy of the United States that there is. I mean, if you just wanna say who's the worst, that's it. I want Russia to be involved in Bitcoin because Bitcoin is for everyone. And until people get that in their heads, we're not all on the same page. It's it's it it is for everyone, and it will solve a lot of this nonsense. So, anyways, I hope they do. I honestly from my perspective, I I would have we'll see. I will be very interested. I know that am I correct? Let me put it this way. Am I correct in that kind of the European perspective of the bit of the Bitcoin election. Well, it was the Bitcoin election, but of the US election is that Harris was gonna win.
[00:52:45] Kenshin:
Oh, yes. Yeah. I mean, it's it's ridiculous how how they thought it was ridiculous for for Trump to win. Mhmm. And there were some polls that, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, they were over 70% towards Harris winning.
[00:53:05] McIntosh:
Well, they were not voting in our election. No. It's okay. I do think that it's interesting though, and I think that they get that perspective in large part from the media and from their politicians just like we do here. Look. There was a lot of people I was probably I told my wife. I did. I told my wife, and I have no way of proving this, but I said, I would not be surprised if he essentially won every state. That did not happen, but it was actually the states that she she and I knew he wasn't gonna win California. I said every state but California, actually, because California is a mess. But even California has become more red, so to speak, more Republican than 4 years ago. You can go look at the data.
People are fed up here with the economy. It's always the economy. Sorry. I didn't wanna say stupid because I you I don't want you thinking I'm calling you stupid. But there's a saying, it's always the economy stupid, and that's true. That's where it starts, and and that's we go from there. The economy in the United States has been terrible for the last 4 years. That's why Trump won. He also had other things that he talked about a lot, that weren't necessarily election swinging. Probably this country, to be honest, is very divided on the border, how we handle illegal aliens, that kind of thing.
But when he went to the Bitcoin conference in July and and, vice president Harris did not, and she was offered that invitation, He between July and the election, that probably swung 5% of the voters that were involved in crypto because, they realized what was going on under the current administration, at least in part. And be because of what Trump has said endlessly about Bitcoin crypto good, we're gonna make crypto great and all this kind of stuff. The he got that. He got that part of the thing. And if you look at the data, he won the electoral election. He also won the popular election, and it was not close. It was by over 5,000,000 votes. It was, the last numbers I saw, he had 65,000,000 popular votes.
She had, 60. So there was 5,000,000 difference between the 2. It has been decades since this has happened. Okay? This was, in my opinion, kind of a landmark election. And if he does not fumble the ball, which he may, I'm I'm just gonna say it. He may. Mhmm. Maybe the EU does take notice. I hope it's sooner rather than 4 years down the road. I mean, honestly, 4 years is a long time, but we'll see.
[00:56:20] Kenshin:
Yeah. I hope so too. It's, yeah. For Europe, it's important to to follow that example now. And, because more importantly, some things are starting to get implemented soon in Europe.
[00:56:36] McIntosh:
What is this you have here about the the war? You're talking about the Ukraine war, I think. The Ukraine war. Can you expand on that? Because I think that's very interesting.
[00:56:47] Kenshin:
Yeah. For for me, to be honest, even more important than the Bitcoin Mhmm. Consequences is actually, putting a stop to the wars around Europe Mhmm. With Ukraine and further down. Because we already see I just saw an article today, in Sweden that the stock, fell from, from the Saab company.
[00:57:14] McIntosh:
Okay. Saab. They make cars.
[00:57:16] Kenshin:
They used to make cars, and they bankrupt. But they kept making, weapons, jets and engines. I did not know that. Various weapons. Yeah. And they were getting very, very popular the last couple of years. They had the highest number of, shareholders they ever had recently with 600,000 unique sharehold shareholders. And, basically, shareholders, wanted to benefit from the the war and, how good the company was doing exporting weapons to US and to the war. That's sad. So yeah. So the second Trump got elected now Mhmm. The the stock price fell. And the article says, oh, no. We worry the war is gonna end, which
[00:58:11] McIntosh:
which is crazy. Is that I mean, is that essentially I know it it is it actually in Swedish or is it in English, this newspaper?
[00:58:19] Kenshin:
It's in Swedish, but you can translate it. It translates very good. That literally
[00:58:24] McIntosh:
is they're saying, oh, no. The war is stopping. That's nuts. I mean, who says that? I Yeah.
[00:58:32] Kenshin:
It's crazy. I mean, and I can pull it up, or we can link it later. Okay. But it's it's easy to translate.
[00:58:43] McIntosh:
I have a solution for Saab, by the way. Buy Bitcoin. I'm just saying. Exactly. We and that's something maybe we do need to talk about soon because it's happening with a lot of companies. They are starting to take the micro strategy approach, and I I don't wanna get off into all that. But some people view that as kind of a way that at least the United States can work our way out of the $36,000,000,000,000 in debt that we have. So I I don't know. We'll see. Okay. Are there any of these software updates that we really wanna talk about? I mean, the most important one is the Bitcoin Core. Yes. We should talk about that. A new version of Bitcoin Core came out. Version 28, I need to update my my, node, actually.
Did you update to the latest version every time as soon as possible? I tend to lag a little bit. I think I'm on 20 I may still be on 26.
[00:59:44] Kenshin:
I don't think I'm on 27 yet at all. Mhmm. I am also on 26, so I also wait a bit. I
[00:59:53] McIntosh:
the one so let's see. I run 2 different nodes actually. I run one that's just online just doing stuff, and then I one run one that's part of my seed signer setup. I use it to pull my data from. Okay? And so that one, I tend to lag a little bit because that's the one that I really worry about, like, something bad happening. But they are really pushing people to upgrade, to newer versions because because of undisclosed vulnerabilities, essentially. So Right. Alright. Very cool. There's a lot of other things. We're we're just gonna have to skip them or talk about them another day. We do need to wrap this up. I appreciate everyone's patience. And, Kinshan, I hope this has been fun, first of all. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Very fun for me, for sure. We are gonna have a jam up, show.
I I am just this is I think this is gonna be very valuable for me, to be honest, if I can be really transparent. I've done this. This is my 183rd episode, and I've done every one of them except when I've done the few interviews that I've done solo. And I like it. I'm not sure that it's maybe the best for the listeners. So I'm really hoping that we can move this whole thing to the next level, to be honest. And that's actually I did, actually I'm I'm trying not to segue here, but I'm going to that's going to require your support listeners. So it is.
We talked about, the 2 listeners that boosted in earlier. We are a podcasting 2 point o podcast, and what that means is we're basically following the latest trends. We've got transcripts. We got chapters as well, and you can stream and boost. There's a number of other features. But as you're listening to a show, you can you can stream sats to us. If you if you're getting value from what we're putting out there, and I hope you are, then we would love to say, we'll give us some value back. And that is one of the best ways to do it. Boost like, Kyron did.
We don't have ads. We don't have sponsorships. I'm not gonna tell you that I will never do that, but certainly for the foreseeable future, we do not. And it would be very difficult for me to bring on a sponsor. Let's say I went to Fountain and said, hey, Fountain, I've got 10,000 downloads a week. Why don't you give me some money and I'll start shilling Fountain? Do you think I'm gonna talk about SeedSiner like that as being the way that you can solve your self custody needs in the EU if they say you can't self custody? No. I'm not gonna do that. So that's why we are very, very careful, very, very specific about not just shilling anything, essentially.
But we do want you to support this podcast. I'm gonna let's see. Oh, how can you get a hold of us now, not just me? You can. I'm I'm on Twitter at Macintosh Fintech. I'm also on Nostr, and we really need to talk about this because I gotta figure out something. I love Nostr. I can't handle 2 different platforms, and I'm trying to figure out a way to kinda solve that. I'm also on mastodon@[email protected]. I've got an email of [email protected]. Kenshin, how can people actually oh, here you go. You can find me on Noster at Kenshin BTC Ninja and on Twitter at Kenshin_ninja.
So that's kenshin_ninja. And I don't know if you've done this, Kenshin, but you might wanna post your pub key for Nostr. Like Yeah. Pin it to the top of your Twitter.
[01:03:52] Kenshin:
That's Yeah. I have done it, but not pin it. So I think Yeah. Yeah. I can pin it because it's easier to find it. Alright.
[01:03:59] McIntosh:
And that is gonna wrap it up. We will talk to you soon. Do you have any final thoughts, Kenshin?
[01:04:07] Kenshin:
No. That's that's been fun. Looking forward to the next one. Alright. See you around. Thanks a lot. Bye.
Introduction
Bitcoin Price Update and Market Analysis
Kenshin's Background and Bitcoin Journey
US Politics and Its Impact on Bitcoin
Trump's Promises for Bitcoin and Crypto
Bitcoin and Crypto Advisory Council
Capital Gains Tax on Bitcoin
Evaluating Political Promises
European Crypto Regulations
Global Reactions to US Elections
