Satoshi's Plebs

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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

Sometimes Bitcoin is called a "hard asset". What makes something a hard asset?  As an investment what does that mean to you?  We discuss and more in today's episode of Satoshi's Plebs. Join us!

Bitcoin  Price at Time of Recording

December 18th, 2024: 103,238 USD | 99,750 EUR

Block Height at Time of Recording

875,341

News and notes

Canga buys into Bitcoin Mining
EU Transfer of Funds Regulation
Argentina Exits Recession
Italy scaling back cap gains

Software Updates

Core Lightning v24.11
Coracle Nostr Web App - v0.5.0
Bitcoin Keeper v1.3.0

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

https://satoshis-plebs.com

Podcasting 2.0 Apps available at http://podcastapps.com and Value4Value information page available here: https://value4value.info

McIntosh can be reached by email at [email protected] and on Twitter at @McIntoshFinTech. His mastodon handle is @[email protected] and his Nostr.  Kenshin can be reached on Twitter at @kenshin_ninja or on Nostr. Kenshin’s email is [email protected]. You can also follow the Satoshi’s Plebs podcast account on Nostr. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

We are looking forward to hearing from you!

[00:00:00] McIntosh:

What is up, Pleb Nation? Today is December 20th, and this is episode 189   of satoshi's plebs. I'm Mcintosh.  

[00:00:08] Kenshin:

And I am Kenshin. And today's episode is bitcoin is hard.  

[00:00:42] McIntosh:

Alright.   Alright, Kinsheng. Good to see you.   We are almost to Christmas.   I don't know about you, but it's got this is a crazy time of year for me, to be honest.   No way.   Been busy, but we've got some things to talk about today.   We are gonna begin as normal with our price. And if you go on Bitcoin Twitter, Kenshin, I know you try and stay off of there. Right? But  

[00:01:10] Kenshin:

Trying to. But  

[00:01:12] McIntosh:

crazy, man. They're like, when it pulls you back in going down, we're all gonna die.   So our price as we record is a 100 and 3914.   Let's see. Do I have that right? Nope. A 103238.   I'm I apologize. I read the wrong note.   And how many euros does it take? Are we up above a 100?  

[00:01:34] Kenshin:

Not right now. We're 99,750   around. But yesterday, we had the all time high.   102.9.  

[00:01:44] McIntosh:

Finally got above a 100. I was so happy for you. It's like now we're all in  

[00:01:49] Kenshin:

6 digits.   Now it's important. Now it's important.  

[00:01:52] McIntosh:

Now we're all gonna die.   So everybody don't panic.   This is a great opportunity to do what? What do we preach here on   Stochi Splebs, DCA,   which stands for   dollar cost average which so much. Or euro cost. What is that? Year?   I don't know. Anyways, it's all complicated.   I don't know English, so, you know, whatever.   Yeah. Dollar cost average. Just have Strike or whatever the app is that you're using for your buys, if possible, automatic,   which Strike does do a great job of that. Have it by your your   allowance   of Bitcoin. Right? Are you going to buy $10 a day or $100   a week or, I don't know, $1,000   a week maybe?  

Don't worry about this price.   Look. We're a long way from going down. We're not going to 0 because people like me are nuts, and we will buy as much as we can the lower it gets. That's just the way it is.   So stop worrying about it. We are literally keep saying too. Higher than we were 1 week ago.   I cannot get over this. People are, like, off it's it's crazy. It's like, man, y'all need to push back from Twitter.  

[00:03:08] Kenshin:

Alright. I keep saying too also, if the price goes down, it means Bitcoin is on discounts. That's true. We always like discounts. So I like discounts. It's it's the after Christmas sale.  

[00:03:21] McIntosh:

Alright. So and our block height as we record is 875341,   which that went to Foundry, which maybe one day I'll talk about because I'm not a fan of Foundry   and amp pool, which actually mines the block before this.   And we're looking at what? 8, 10, and 12 for our transaction fees for low, medium, and high, which means you're gonna spend anywhere between a dollar 15 and about a dollar 73   to send the best asset in the world all the way around the world if that's what you want.  

[00:03:53] Kenshin:

And we have in the mempool, we have 679   megabytes,   of transactions waiting to be  

[00:04:01] McIntosh:

I think that's about what it was last week.  

[00:04:04] Kenshin:

Yeah. Very close.  

[00:04:06] McIntosh:

6 Which is interesting. 600. Yeah. Kenshin, I forgot to make my tea.  

[00:04:11] Kenshin:

Oh, sweet.  

[00:04:13] McIntosh:

That's bad. All's I have is coffee. Coffee doesn't do my voice very good. I know y'all.   Well, I need all the help I can get. But Are you gonna survive?   What's that?  

[00:04:24] Kenshin:

Are you gonna survive?  

[00:04:25] McIntosh:

I'll manage. We're gonna make this short. Right? I   alright.   So what is up with Kenshin?   Today, actually, I wanted to talk to you. You mentioned this off air,   and I'm very curious. So, apparently,   in Sweden, y'all have a Christmas tradition, which I would say is not normal.  

[00:04:48] Kenshin:

Why so? What is your Because it's not What is normal?  

[00:04:51] McIntosh:

Wait. I'm sorry. Am I being American here? I guess I am.   I would dare say, though, that frankly, around the world, this is not normal. I I've actually never heard of this, and I'm I'm very curious. Please share with our listeners.  

[00:05:08] Kenshin:

So the normal tradition in Sweden,   is that Christmas is celebrated on the 24th.   We get together on the 24th with the families.   Mhmm.   With lunch together,   and then we open the presents   at 3   PM. Is that 3 PM? Right? At a specific time, at 3 o'clock. Yeah. Yeah. 3 o'clock is actually you're supposed to have finished with lunch and everything and coffee,   and you sit in front of the TV at 3 PM,   and you watch,   a Disney movie.   Okay.   And it's a specific one from, I don't know, 50 sixties or something.   It's a specific clip   that lasts for, like, 10, 15 minutes, and it's always the same.  

And then after that, it shows the more modern Disney stuff.   But it's it has become a tradition, so they they keep A tradition for your family or for just No. Really?  

[00:06:11] McIntosh:

This is fascinating.  

[00:06:13] Kenshin:

It's like the the how is it called? The main channel in Sweden? The the public channel?   Number one channel?  

[00:06:20] McIntosh:

So we have the Macy's Day parade on Thanksgiving Day, and you have Disney on Christmas Eve at, You know?   And you call us commercial. No. I'm just kidding. No.   That's funny. Now I I see, I would have a problem with this. Right? Because   I love to eat. I know you could never tell that by looking at me.   And so   when it comes to Christmas dinner, which for us can mean different things,   I think a pretty traditional dinner here in the United States would be turkey or   ham.   And actually, this year, we're not having either. We're actually having a roast.   You know, you have the mashed potatoes and all the different sides and all that kind of stuff. And then by the time you get done eating, I would not be wanting to open presents or watch Disney, or I'd be wanting to find a couch. That's what I'd wanna be doing and taking a nap.  

So that would be a challenge.   That's interesting. Now I'm sure my kids would love to open presents the day earlier.   That would be fabulous. Now we do,   so kind of our tradition, which   I don't know. I I can't I'm not gonna speak for all Americans, certainly.   And I know you're not either, but speaking for all the Swedish people, but just in general, I don't know if this is really normal.   But on Christmas Eve, we typically go to, like, a church service, like a Christmas Eve,   candlelight service.   And then when we come home, we would open one present. So, you know, we kind of let them have a little taste, I guess.   And then they go, you know, they go to bed, and they're supposed to, wait until   at least sun up   and then get up and do the presents. And we have our big dinner on Christmas day for for lunch about 1 o'clock or so. So it kinda lines up what you're talking about just 24 hours later.  

Yeah. So I don't know if that's normal or not, but that's kinda what we do.  

[00:08:26] Kenshin:

Right. And, honestly, my preferred way is what you described. That's what I'm used to as a kid.   And I always argue with my wife. It's That's that's not normal. You are too early. Some mistake happened somewhere in Sweden.  

[00:08:40] McIntosh:

Now I will say this. When I was a kid I do not know why my parents let us do this. But   we would go to   bed, and then I I have a brother. And and one or the other of us, usually him, but one or the other of us would wake up at some god awful hour in the morning. It'd still be dark outside, like 1 o'clock or 2 or 3 AM. Right?   And would wake everybody up, and we'd go open presents.   I don't know why they did that.   I told my kids when, you know, when they got started getting to that age, I'm like, nope. It's better be light outside before anybody's waking anybody up. Sorry.  

[00:09:21] Kenshin:

I can tell you a funny story about my   tradition when I was a kid.   My mother used to be the Santa Claus.  

[00:09:29] McIntosh:

Mhmm.  

[00:09:30] Kenshin:

And she she used   to put the the presents under the tree the night before 25th. So I would find them on 25th in the morning. Okay. Mhmm. But she would have set up the this,   scene in the Christmas tree. Like, she would put, like, this glass of milk and a cookie for Santa Claus to pretend that we need to offer something. Mhmm. And then she she told me when I grew up, she said, oh, and then I had to, in the middle of the night,   drink that milk and eat the cookies and force herself to drink Right. In the middle of the night. That's what parents do everywhere.  

[00:10:07] McIntosh:

I hope no kids are listening.   Alright.   That's funny.   Alright. So really quickly,   I I I guess I actually did miss the difficulty adjustment. We did get an adjustment 4.43%   up, unfortunately,   right now. And we're still 11 days out, so this could definitely change. We're actually,   a little bit of a downward difficulty adjustment is looking like 1.25%   as we're talking. I don't know if that'll hold up. We'll just have to see. And the next one is on the 29th,   which that's funny because It was on the 23rd. Oh, it's because they're going faster.   So it's showing the 29th at 11:47   PM, and that would be at the current pace. Last night, when I looked, it actually showed 11:30. Alright. Excuse me. 12:30.  

So December 30th.  

[00:10:59] Kenshin:

10 minutes ago, it's it's December 30th.   So you're changing within 10 minutes. It's changing.  

[00:11:05] McIntosh:

And and it'll do that, and that's fine. When we get closer, it'll it'll be a lot more accurate. So probably next week when we talk. Oh, which, by the way, I guess we need to talk about that. We are trying to work out between the 2 of us how we can record   next week. We may not be able to. And if we don't,   I'd   this is my merry Christmas to you, the listeners. I'm sorry. We are going to try, though, to get a recording out even if it's a short one.   Okay?   And before we move on to our topic,   we've got a question,   actually.  

After we sat here and talked about our traditions, we'd love to hear what some of yours are,   listeners. You can boost in and let us know. Okay?   Mhmm. Okay. So we got a few things.   Sorry, Kenshin.  

[00:11:55] Kenshin:

Yeah. It would be nice to hear some Yeah. Traditions  

[00:11:58] McIntosh:

for sure. We we kinda got a few things we wanna talk about this week. So I am going to let you talk about Europe's collapse because,   frankly,   the listeners have heard me for 3, 4 years at this, however long I've been doing this, talk about how I thought Europe was collapsing. So it's good to get some,   outside,   what's the word I'm looking for again, shit?  

[00:12:23] Kenshin:

Or insider view.  

[00:12:26] McIntosh:

Yeah. It well, let's go with insight for now. That's not really, but close enough. You know, some outside insight   from Europe   who apparently thinks at least somewhat along the lines that I do.   Maybe I'm not crazy.   I don't know. We'll see. So tell us, Kenshin. I think this comes from some news items that we've got this week. So I maybe we can just kinda weave those in.  

[00:12:52] Kenshin:

Yeah. I mean, we got the Germany's   government collapsing   Mhmm. This week.   The prime minister is   fired,   and the chancellor  

[00:13:06] McIntosh:

Now I I would love to be able to do that in the United could we just fire the president?   Because we got one that's been hanging around a little too oh, sorry. I apologize, Kinshan.  

[00:13:17] Kenshin:

No. It's okay. It's it's just   in the beginning, it sounds very intriguing,   story, but it seems like   it was not the people that fired him as I was thinking as the some of the news,   said in in some ways. But it it was a chance chancellor, I don't know how to pronounce that,   who fired first   the finance minister   Mhmm. Because the chancellor   wanted   Germany to get into more debt,   to print more money to send to Ukraine.   So that was a breaking point.   Mhmm. So it all fit fits back to our favorite subject of printing money and getting into debt. Right.   So the finance minister  

[00:14:04] McIntosh:

directly fund a war, which that happens very frequently, but it certainly was the case here. Mhmm. Yeah. So for his credit, the finance minister said no.  

[00:14:15] Kenshin:

And the chancellor fire fired him, and then the whole party   from that side of of that finance minister, they  

[00:14:23] McIntosh:

they quit. They quit.   Wow.  

[00:14:27] Kenshin:

So, yes, it was not actually firing the prime minister. That was my my mistake earlier, but it was the finance minister.   And   and in that sense, then there is a minority   power right now in the German parliament.   And,   so they're in this unique situation   where the ones in power have minority say, but still this chancellor who is still in power   wants to get in debt and fund the war as soon as possible   before the year end or before January something.   So they're all racing for that.  

[00:15:03] McIntosh:

In some respects, the chancellor would be the equivalent of our president here in the United States. I I don't know what you have in Sweden,   but they're the person who's kind of in in charge of everything. Is that correct?  

[00:15:17] Kenshin:

My understanding seems like it. I I don't know the in ins and outs of the German politics, but it seems that he has the power, and they need to get to vote.   They're pushing him to vote as soon as possible   to get him out of there.   It seems that they cannot get him out  

[00:15:35] McIntosh:

any other way. I don't recognize this guy's name. I do remember his predecessor. So he   succeeded   Angela Merkel in December of 2021. So basically, 3 years ago at this point.   His name is Olaf   Scholz.   Wow. I do not speak German.   Yeah. And he is a member of the Social Democrat Party, which I am   okay.   I don't think I have to say anything else to express my opinion on that.   So so, essentially, he fired the finance minister because the finance minister said we don't need to be printing money to send you the crane. And he said, no. We're printing money. So we're gonna fire you and then a bunch of the other people in the   finance minister's   party quit.  

Yeah.   I my opinion about kind of what is going to happen in Germany, I guess, maybe has evolved. I don't want well,   sharpened.   I view Europe in general, the EU, let me put it that way, as   leading the way in terms of debt   financing.   What I mean is   they have all these social programs,   like in France, for example. I mean, like, the retirement age is ridiculously   young. And then when they tried to raise it, the entire population just kind of flipped their lid,   just as one little example.   Right? They have all of these programs that they're paying for. They're all deeply in debt and so on and so forth.   I view them as kind of the the   the tip of all of this. Japan   may collapse first   simply because of the amount of debt that they have.  

China   may,   I think China hides a lot of things, frankly, and that's maybe me being conspiratorial.   But there was actually some news this week about the amount of Chinese debt that's ongoing and and how they're dealing with that. I don't think I included that in our notes, but it is a steady drumbeat coming out of China about their   collapsing economy.   We will see how all this ties together. But, unfortunately,   I think that Europe in general, the EU in general, is going to have to get to a very low level,   a level that,   I probably   do not understand in the sense that if I lived there, I'd be, like, freaking out.  

We look at I mean, just like and I guess   Britain, England is no longer part of the EU, but still they're very closely tied to it. I mean, they're in   desperate straits right now in terms of,   of energy. And that's it. Then Germany has got the same issues ongoing. They won't deal with these fundamental base issues. They won't deal with their record spending   and all of this. And it's it will collapse. It has to. And how they sort that out after the fact, I don't know. I don't know.  

[00:18:41] Kenshin:

Gosh. But It's very worrying for Europe for sure. It I it should be because  

[00:18:45] McIntosh:

these things, frankly and I I hate talking like this.   But these are the kind of things that lead to war.   You can look at that as   what the run up to World War 1   and the run up to World War 2.   Bad, bad financial situations in both cases.   And it led to essentially breathe in an environment that created   what happened. I'm not   trying to   move blame around, but I'm just saying that that   people don't understand the financial aspect of all of that, especially with World War 2. There's a lot of   details at this point about how that   that happened. But World War 1 as well. I mean, it's same   situation   anyways.  

Wow. I hope they   figure things out.   It doesn't sound to me like the person in charge over there is   making   wise choices.   So No. And and as you said, I hope they don't escalate things in the opposite direction also. I I don't either. But, man, I I do know what history teaches me. You know, history is not a perfect   image of itself   in the future. What do they say? But it rhymes, something like that. I didn't say that quite right. But,   you know, you can look at the past and say, oh, these things happened, and then this happened.   And these things happened and this happened. Well, most likely, again, if these things happen, this is going to happen or something similar to it. Right.  

So, ma'am.   All right.   Yeah. Is there other   news articles there you wanted to talk about   as to tie into that? There was the you wanna talk about Italy? I thought that was interesting.  

[00:20:40] Kenshin:

Well A little bit of bright news.   Yeah. So the e Italy   just was in the news a few a couple of months ago and said that they they would,   increase the capital gains taxes   to 42%.   And, of course, we were freaking out as well. Well,  

[00:21:00] McIntosh:

if I were Italian, I certainly would be.  

[00:21:03] Kenshin:

Yeah. And it's a bad example to set for the countries around. Yes. Definitely.   And now they decide to go back to from 42 to 26%.   So Mhmm. That's good. I don't know what pressure it is. Which is where it lies.  

[00:21:19] McIntosh:

Which is still very high, but at least they're not pushing it forward.  

[00:21:25] Kenshin:

Yeah. I mean, it's it's a bit typical level 20 something percent. It's similar, I think, in Sweden and many other countries with capital gains. And in general, any type of gains if, I guess, is the same when you sell a house, for example, here. Mhmm.   And other assets like that.  

[00:21:43] McIntosh:

And I do want to to tie up the Europe news in this Europe discussion.   Tour de Miester,   which I know he's from Europe. I do not know where he's from. I want to say he's Dutch, but   I may be wrong. Anyways, he lives over there, has a good handle on this stuff.   Posted   on Twitter. And I'm basically just going to read what he says because I think this is actually if you live in Europe, this is something that you need to hear. 13 days, this was yesterday,   day before,   EU Bitcoin exchanges   are forced to store your personal Bitcoin address and your home address.   So not only are they going to store your name and the address that's associated with the Bitcoin address, now they're going to store your   mailing address essentially right where you live.  

When that data gets stolen and it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, then that becomes   extremely valuable data.   Right. So let me just read what else he says, though. In sum, they become lethal honeypots,   making hodlers vulnerable to hacks,   home invasions and future aggressive taxation. Now,   aside from the aggressive taxation, we've certainly seen   both hacks and home invasions already occur.   I know there have been a number of cases.   It's one of the Nordic countries.   It is Sweden. I've seen Nordic countries. Sweden? Okay. I was gonna say Sweden, but I just wanted to make sure,   where where people are getting attacked because   their information has been leaked out. Okay? It is not a good situation.  



[00:23:29] Kenshin:

Yeah. And in general, in Sweden,   if you Google my name, my real name in Sweden   Mhmm. It it's 10 different websites, literally 10, but all of them show my address first thing. It's nothing You  

[00:23:43] McIntosh:

know, it's so crazy because   the company that I work for, we deal with Europe in part. They're one of our   outside of the US, they're our biggest customer area, okay, with the product that we we have.   And I've told you all before, I manage data. I'm a database administrator of sorts.   I manage the data for this company.   There are EU regulations   that   about   the privacy   aspects of European   personal data that it has to be treated   completely   different than the data from the United States.   But   you go to a website and Google your name and you see your address all over the place.   I I don't understand that.  



[00:24:33] Kenshin:

Yeah. I I don't but that's   more to do with, Sweden, I think, how they do things here.   And then what you described is the g t p r to try to protect privacy,   and and that goes mainly to companies, how they   they treat information of customers.   And that's good,   and it works in in in Europe. And the for example, Facebook had huge fines Mhmm. How they were processing European's data. And I like that because I I never liked how some   companies like Facebook were processing data.   Right. So in in that sense, they were forcing them to have a European service,   and that worked. But how Sweden does things and maybe some other countries around here, like Norway, I think,   everything is public.  



[00:25:23] McIntosh:

Well,   I guess January 1st is gonna get worse. And   it's something you need to think of in terms of your Bitcoin. What we always say here,   I think you would agree with this, Kenshin.   You don't need to be having your Bitcoin on the exchange. Right? You should have it in cold storage   in your possession,   not   controlled by anyone else.   And,   I don't know.   You can't buy Bitcoin on Coinbase if it's available, and I'm sure it's available in most of Europe anyways,   and move it to your cold storage and not have that tracked.   They're going to retain that information.  

They'll   abide by this rule,   and that data will be available forever.   Okay?   You can count on that.   The only way that you can   really   anonymously   get your Bitcoin,   you can mine it,   and then you even have to worry about, well, where do I mine it? But that's a different issue.   Or you can,   buy it p to p, which is probably what I would suggest. Use a tool like offhand, I don't know, Robosats.   There's HODL HODL.   There are a number of them, and they are actually more popular over in Europe, I would argue, because of rulings like this   than they are here in the United States.  

And what you said PDP is person to person? Peer to peer. Yep. Mhmm. Peer to peer. So   I meet you, we exchange Bitcoin or you don't even have to meet people and they have ways of doing that. You need to do your own work, look into how they do that.   But, you know,   you can do that without going through Coinbase or whoever the exchanges are over in Europe that are going to have to abide by this ruling.  

[00:27:14] Kenshin:

And just to add on on this ruling, because I saw that,   being implemented last year in Revolut. So they were ahead of time implementing this Mhmm. In September last year.   I remember it because I got the email.   I was using them, to exchange some,   DCA, some Bitcoin, small amounts there. And then they said,   we need to register   all Bitcoin addresses.   So, of course, they had KYC me, so they knew already all my information.   Right. And then on top of that, they had I had to when I gave them a Bitcoin address, I had to put my name or the   owner's name of that address.  



[00:27:54] McIntosh:

And I think that ruling is what is now obligatory to everybody from January 1st. Right. For for for for this case. And that is not a place. I that would be very worrisome to me. Okay?   And I'm not the kind of person   I mean, at this point in my life, I can't just pick up and move somewhere.   I just can't   because of family obligations and whatever.   But these are the kind of things that   I would strongly consider   what how am I gonna deal with this? Am I gonna, you know, am I gonna use p to p? Am I gonna just stop buying Bitcoin?   Am I going to move somewhere else? Because, you know, some of us at least have that option.  

If you're working remotely, digitally,   you know,   if I'll be honest, if I were   20 years old,   I'd probably be down in Argentina. I'm just saying because   I love what's going on down there. Right?   And we got some Argentina news as well, but we'll get to that later. Right? I mean, there are places where Bitcoin is welcome,   and and it's there's no indication that things like this are gonna happen there. So   I know that's crazy talk for a lot of people, but, man, this stuff is serious.   It's something you need to consider very strongly.   Alright.  

Alright. Let's move on, sir.   Let's talk about our main topic for today.  

[00:29:21] Kenshin:

Yeah. So Bitcoin is hard. What does that mean?  

[00:29:25] McIntosh:

It is hard. We are talking I had to I had to study a long time to to understand it. Oh, wait. That's not what you're talking about.  

[00:29:34] Kenshin:

No. Alright. It's, it's a hard asset.   That's what we're talking about.  

[00:29:39] McIntosh:

So So   What is a hard asset? What does that actually mean?  

[00:29:45] Kenshin:

Right. So hard asset is   an asset that is rare.   It's difficult to produce.   It's,   and and it for example, if it's easier if we see an example in that case. Gold is a hard asset. Okay. Gold is difficult   to to find. It's difficult to mine,   and it has some properties as well,   that are unique.   And all of these in combination give it a value and a rarity.   So   so we can equate   hard asset to a rare asset in a way.   And I have another example. A hard asset is also art.   So art in that sense.  

[00:30:30] McIntosh:

Right? So the model, Lisa, is a hard asset.  

[00:30:34] Kenshin:

Yes.   So, for example   and in that sense, because,   I will go back to gold for a second.   Because gold's,   people   like to say that gold is very unique in the properties, and that's true.   And that it's used in applications,   and that's also true.   And they say that's why it's hard asset and Bitcoin is not.   But Right. For example, art is made out of, let's say, Mona Lisa or   let's say, any other,   painting. It's made out of wood and paper and dry paint. Right?   Mhmm. So in that sense, it's not valuable in terms of material   Right. Like gold is.  

And you cannot use arts   as a useful,   component like they also talk about gold.   Again, it you're just hanging on the wall. It does nothing. Right. But it's rare.   Right. Right?  

[00:31:30] McIntosh:

And it's valuable. And that makes it possible. Lisa, which I believe is hanging in the Louvre.   Yes. In France. I I saw it live. I hope I saw it live. That's awesome. I would love to go to France, but that's maybe it'll stop. That's amazing.   Rioting.   I don't know. Okay.   So so So if there's our asset, do we have soft assets as well? Is is there the opposite of that? Yes.  

[00:31:58] Kenshin:

Yes. So money, fiat money, or  

[00:32:02] McIntosh:

soft assets. Because Why is that?  

[00:32:05] Kenshin:

Because the government can print as much as they want or as much as at least they agree upon. Right.   Right. And like we saw during the COVID year, the US government,   Mhmm. Let's say up to   the year 2020, let's say they had a $100   printed   over the period of a 100 something years. Right? Okay.   Let's say that was a supply, 100.   Mhmm. In the end of 2020,   they had a 130.   So they printed over 30%   of the whole   dollar   supply   they had printed.  

[00:32:43] McIntosh:

Diluting the supply?  

[00:32:46] Kenshin:

Yeah. Does that make sense? Essentially, they they were trying to,   yeah,   put injection in the economy   here and there.   Yeah. That's the same happened to Sweden.  

[00:32:57] McIntosh:

Yeah. That is the Keynesian theory. If we just inject money at the right times, it'll boost the economy, and it'll all balance out, and it never does. But that's a different Yeah. Topic.   Okay.   So I also saw that these bonds bonds were were another form of soft assets. Right? You can't Right.   They depend on other things.   The company has to perform well. They   there's counterparty   risk there.   Yes. And one thing that which I did not I would not have thought of is actually intellectual property. Right?   Because they're not durable or scarce necessarily   according to what I was reading here. Okay? So that's like,   patents and that kind of thing.  

They may be for a time or whatever, but in the long term, I don't think those are necessarily hard assets, if that makes sense.   So  

[00:33:59] Kenshin:

If there are assets, maybe for a time for the company.   Yes. And it can affect their stock in that sense. Right.  

[00:34:07] McIntosh:

So So That's   We have hard versus soft.   Typically. Well, certainly I would consider hard assets to be better   than soft assets. I would consider some hard assets to be better than others. Now, one example of a hard asset   would be real estate.   A lot of people invest in real estate.   One of my   problems with real estate, and it's not that I'm against it necessarily, but I view real estate as a   gauge of inflation.   It's not really   going up in value. It's keeping pace with the value.   Unlike the dollar, which is going down in value over time, it's basically keeping pace with   the   the current   worth of the property. Does that make sense? That didn't come out well. But I can give you an example.  

4 years ago in our area, houses   were like 40% less than they are now. No. It was 30% less. Excuse me.   30% less, which means over the 4 year span,   they went up roughly 8%   per,   year.   I that's a perfectly plausible amount of inflation to me on average over the last 4 years   here in the United States. I actually think it was even slightly higher than that. But yeah.  

[00:35:36] Kenshin:

And it's matching precisely the supply   Right. That the US injected.   So Mhmm. So they injected 30% more money.   Right. Right. Money, ex all the economy   devalued by 30%.   Prices had to go up by 30%,   basically.  

[00:35:55] McIntosh:

I don't   argue that it's a hard asset. And I it's if you wanna own a home or whatever,   that's fine.   But there's this myth that you can buy a couple of houses and you're just gonna be rich down the road. That's just not true. What you're actually doing is just retaining the value that you that you already had down the into the future, which there's nothing wrong with that. But it's   it's not quite what people kind of think of. Plus, if you're renting, you have to deal with   tenants   and maintenance and all this kind I mean, there there are issues   with real estate. It is not a rosy   thing. It's not perfect, certainly. And it's not liquid  

[00:36:38] Kenshin:

and it's not liquid because you cannot sell it.   Right. You decided to use it. Night to sell it and Mhmm. You cannot just do it, and then you cannot even transfer it to another place   if you want to take it with you somewhere.  

[00:36:52] McIntosh:

Gold is commonly referred to as a hard asset. And I do wanna talk about it for just a minute   because   as a good example of that, we don't really know   down in the future   what   what gold how much gold will be available. Okay?   There's a couple of things that could happen.   A a meteorite could crash to Earth that's just literally filled with gold. It could happen.   It's not inconceivable.   We could explore   the   ocean   and find large deposits of gold. That's also possible, just as another example.   Or we could just find deposits on land. For example, this is actually a a truth.   El Salvador has announced that they have found a very large deposit, and we're talking about they're estimating a $1,000,000,000,000.  

Okay? So if the market cap of gold is $10,000,000,000,000,   which I   18 right now. Is it 18? Sorry. Well, that's fine. It's $18,000,000,000,000.   They've now found, if that's accurate,   1 18th of that. What was the percent?   What was it? Yeah. Close to 5. 5%. Roughly to 1 20th. Right. Yeah. So so let's say 5%.   That's 5%.   So   is that going to affect the value of gold?   I would argue, yes. It will.  

[00:38:16] Kenshin:

And in a normal year, gold,   supply goes up by approximately 2% on average.  

[00:38:23] McIntosh:

Yep. That's roughly what gets more gold.   And   so that's kind of the inflation rate of gold. That's if you want to look at it that way. And then you have other issues with gold, for example. I if you can tell, I'm not a gold bug, and that's fine.   But gold is heavy.   If you've ever dealt with any kind of gold, go try and pick up a gold bar. I mean, you get a workout. Right? And that's just a gold bar, which is worth a substantial amount of money, mind you. But,   you know, it is not a light thing.   So there are issues there. I mean, that causes transport issues. And, hey, if I'm going to carry around, let's say, a block of   gold, now I'm gonna have to worry about protecting that. So how am I gonna do that and so on and so forth. Right? Because somebody can grab that and just run off with it.  

Right?   Exactly. Alright. So what makes Bitcoin a hard asset? Because some people would argue that it's not. They're like, it's just a joke. It's whatever.   But we would, I think, argue that it is a hard asset. And in fact, I think I would certainly argue. I don't wanna put words into your mouth, but I would argue that it's the best hard asset.   I agree. Okay. So we're in agreement there. That's good. Which, I mean, you cannot. That's fine. But let's talk about why   it   what what makes it a hard asset, first of all, and why we think that it's the best.  

[00:39:52] Kenshin:

Yep. So one reason it's a hard asset,   it's,   it has a   a specific supply.   As we said, gold, we don't even know how much supply there is out there. We have estimates, and we don't know how much it's gonna come every year.   For Bitcoin,   we know,   that the supply right now is 19,000,000   how much is it? There is a exact number right now that we can see it.   And we know that in 10 minutes, it's gonna go up by 3 Bitcoin.   In another 3 10 minutes, 3.   And we know that in 4 years, we will go down to 1 and a half bitcoin every 10 minutes. And we know the total supply will be   out,   in the market   in the year 2,140,   and we will have 21,000,000   Bitcoins. Right. So we have   a fixed,   or a set supply.  

Mhmm. And that makes it   rare because   the the supply that comes every day or if we talk about it every year,   right now is less than 1% of the supply that is,   of the of the Bitcoin that is already out there in the market.   So that makes   it twice   as, at least right now, twice as rare as gold Right. In terms of how much   new gold and Bitcoin are produced   Right.   Compared to the existing   supply out there.  

[00:41:23] McIntosh:

Okay.  

[00:41:24] Kenshin:

I I just want to say that this also   means that more people getting interested in Bitcoin   and less Bitcoin there there is per person,   if we say it like that, which makes it,   truly,   increases its rarity in some way. So We go back to that discussion with, Art, for example.  

[00:41:48] McIntosh:

If I'm remembering   correctly, roughly 450   bit bitcoin are mined in a day right now   until the next time. 450. Yes. Okay.   Interesting thing is that maybe a lot of people don't realize. And we're over here. Oh, we're at a 108,000,   and now we've dropped down actually to a 101,100.   Okay?   Whatever.   We mined   450   Bitcoin today.   On an average day,   there are thousands   of Bitcoin,   literally thousands that are getting bought   by the ETFs   and by other people   and moved off the market.   That cannot continue forever.   You've got 450   being made. You've got 1,000 that are being bought.  

This price,   it it will have to go up at some point. Okay? And I don't know when, and I don't know how fast. I have ideas, and maybe one day we'll talk about I thought we were actually gonna talk about that today, but we didn't. And that's fine.   But, you know, it's it's bound to happen over time,   Especially when you factor in every 4 years, we have this happening event. Right? We have, as one place saw it that I   was looking at, a predictable monetary policy.   Every 4 years, the amount of Bitcoin that gets mined gets cut in half. So again, so we're at 450.   Well, now we're down to 225   in what? 3,   2 and a half years? Are we down to 2 and a half? No. No. It's only been less than a year. So 3 and a half ish year. Half. Yeah. Okay?  

We'll be down, you know, to 225   and then a 100 and   12 roughly.   And so and   the demand is gonna go up. The supply the amount of supply issuance is going to go down.   It's like the perfect, I I don't I peep I don't understand why people have so much trouble understanding that. Right. Yeah. So supply ship   right there in front of you. Another thing which I actually thought was fascinating,   unlike a normal commodity, which some people would consider like oil to be a hard asset. The problem with oil is it comes in these big barrels.   You can't really get too much of it dropped off in your driveway. Right?  

But let's call it a hard asset. Unlike something like that, unlike a commodity, a regular commodity, which it is classified   here in the United States as a commodity anyways.   But unlike a commodity like oil or corn,   Bitcoin does not get consumed.   Just because I send   you some sats doesn't mean those sats are gone forever.   It doesn't get burned up or consumed or used or whatever. We will always have those as long as they're not lost, so to speak, by losing the keys. And we can account for every single one of them. And we can.   We have a completely open ledger   to show that. So that provides a lot of,   man, I'm having trouble with words today, Kenshin.  



[00:45:02] Kenshin:

Transparency?  

[00:45:03] McIntosh:

More than well, it does. We'll go with that. That wasn't what I was trying to think of, but it does provide a lot of transparency.   Boy, this will be a fun episode.   Alright.   But I thought that was very it was a very interesting comparison. These are the reasons why   that Bitcoin is better than these other,   quote, hard assets.   Right?   Eventually,   my house is going to fall down. There may be there are houses I I love watching these old house shows. It's one of my things that I probably shouldn't do, but I love doing.   They'll be over in Britain. Right? And they're like remodeling this house that's like a 1000 years old. Okay? But eventually,   those houses will be gone. There'll be   a pile of rubble. They'll just be gone.  

Bitcoin,   you know, is not going away. It's just   entries in a blockchain.   So it doesn't go away unless all those copies of the blockchain are wiped out forever. And that's just not going to happen.   So it's extremely durable in that aspect, more so than basically any other hard asset.  

[00:46:13] Kenshin:

Yep. It's durable in that sense. There are thousands of nodes out there that have saved the Bitcoin blockchain.   I think there is even a node in the International Space Station.  

[00:46:23] McIntosh:

Yeah. So if the if the whole  

[00:46:26] Kenshin:

Earth goes down, electricity goes down. Of course, we have bigger problems. But Right.  

[00:46:31] McIntosh:

The blockchain will be I'll be honest. At that point, I'm just not actually gonna be worrying about Bitcoin.   Exactly. Keep up with my 12 seed words. But beyond that, I'm just, I got other things to deal with.  

[00:46:43] Kenshin:

Oh, man. And and that's the other thing with the seed words. You can transfer Bitcoin,   all of it, from one country to the other   just with some words on your mind. Right. You don't need to transfer, as you said, the heavy metals or the barrels or anything like that. Or even a device that looks like a I'll give you an example. On Twitter,  

[00:47:05] McIntosh:

some dude was sitting in the US Customs office   with his passport on one knee and his cold card, I think. I think it was a cold card m k 4 or something.   It looked like a little calculator kind of type device, but it was a hardware wallet   sitting on his other knee.   Did they get that? I doubt it. But still, you don't even have to have that. It is literally if you can memorize 12 or 24 words,   that's all you need.   That is literally all you need. It is so crazy that you can you can go anywhere in the world with those numb not those numbers, those letters in your mind, and that's all you need.   Try doing that with a gold bar.  



[00:47:47] Kenshin:

Yeah. And you can also exchange it any time of the week, even on a Saturday midnight.   Yeah. That's that's why we see Bitcoin react in price in in the weekend and then on Monday when the markets open. Then we see the reaction on the actual market. Happens a lot. And it will happen more  

[00:48:04] McIntosh:

during this bull run as Bitcoin is so volatile. I know a couple weeks ago we saw it. It jumped up quite a bit over the weekend.   And then you saw   when the ETFs came online essentially Monday morning,   those guys were buying and buying and buying, and it gave it another little pump. Right? Because, man, it keep going up. It's there are so many   divisibility,   one of them.   You can   Gold is basically divisible down to maybe 10 grams or so. It's not a whole lot, but it's still   kind of a a a little amount. And I don't know how much how much would 10 grams of gold cost these days.   Let me look this up real quick.  

Oh, maybe it's less than that. Can you buy a gram of gold?  

[00:48:56] Kenshin:

I guess so. In jewelry, maybe,   form.  

[00:49:00] McIntosh:

Yes. You can buy 1 okay.   So what's is what's a gram?   What is 1 gram? I can't imagine you go any smaller than that.   Sorry.   I know this is similiating. I'll cut out some of this. $85.58.   So for almost a $100   for a gram of gold.   Wow. Excellent. Hey, Kenshin. I've got, I need to buy   a pack of gum from you.  

[00:49:27] Kenshin:

Yeah. Could could Can I,  

[00:49:31] McIntosh:

can can I get that with a gram of gold?  

[00:49:34] Kenshin:

I can give you a 100 packs of gum. That doesn't make any sense.  

[00:49:38] McIntosh:

Right?   But with Bitcoin,   even at the tremendous levels that we're looking at, what a lot of people I don't know. It just doesn't they don't understand or whatever.   Even currently, Bitcoin is divisible,   each Bitcoin down a 100000000 times into what's called a satoshi. And and actually it could go less than that. But just leaving   that aside,   that means it takes a 1000 satoshis   at $100,000,   which we're almost exactly at,   to make $1.   Right? Did I do that, or is it a I always get Your said it correctly. So with $1, you can buy A 1,000 satoshis.   Right? Yep. So a 1,000 satoshis,   which means   1¢   is a 100.  

I I really should write this out.  

[00:50:29] Kenshin:

Correct.   With 1¢, you can buy a 100 satoshis. Right. So  

[00:50:34] McIntosh:

I I can buy your gum. I can buy   something that costs less than a cent with Satoshis,   and the overhead is not crazy.   You know, it it's a great   system, and it looks to me like for a long time, it's going to be very, very useful   in terms of how divisible it is. They can actually, at this point on the lightning network, if I'm understanding   correctly,   even go sub   satoshi. So, like,   divide a satoshi up into a 100 pieces, a milli   satoshi, I think, is what it's called. Or maybe that's a 1,000. I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's all mathematical, and it will all roll up in the end   to 21,000,000 Bitcoin.  

Right?  

[00:51:22] Kenshin:

It's just a number so they can cut it down.   Of course, they need to settle it in the Bitcoin,   blockchain   Mhmm. Up to a one satoshi again. But   within lightning, you can do, yes, much lower than one satoshi,   which is cool.  

[00:51:39] McIntosh:

Alright. So   is there anything else we need to   I there's I mean, there's I think that's a good start.  

[00:51:48] Kenshin:

I I would say that   once we understand why it's a hard asset and   the issuance plays a big part for it. Right? Mhmm.   How many as as we discuss, how many Bitcoin we get every 10 minutes and how it goes down   to half in 4 years.   I think that discussion, then we can roll over to some   mining basics   to follow-up and and discuss a bit more about topic.  

[00:52:16] McIntosh:

Yeah. I could talk about mining?   Okay. I think so. We'll do that soon.  

[00:52:22] Kenshin:

I think we can do that. Yes. Soon. And it will tie up and give better understanding of how Bitcoin works and why even better, why it's hard to ask it with the examples that we can Mining  

[00:52:34] McIntosh:

in general and nodes   as well. The Bitcoin nodes, the nodes that run like Bitcoin Core   are a big reason that Bitcoin is decentralized,   which is   another thing that I think makes it be a very strong asset. Right. A very strong, hard asset.   You look, worst case scenario, the United States   does stupid things and we fall in on ourselves and blah, blah, blah. And we're,   you know, removed from the face of the earth.   It doesn't matter   because there's stuff outside. It'd matter to me, but there's stuff outside   of the United States that would allow Bitcoin to   to continue to grow. We are definitely decentralized   enough that there is no nation   that matters. And I think that's actually very important.  

We saw that with the China mining ban, by the way. Like 60% of the global hash rate in the space of a month   was taken offline, which for those who were mining still was a great opportunity to make some money. And they did.   And all that came back on within the space of 6 months. It got moved around and shuffled and whatever because   we can talk about that with the mining. Yeah. Yeah. We can talk about it. I think we should talk about our supporters, though. They don't wanna hear about mining right now. They wanna hear what awesome people they are.   Yeah. So   I will take the first few of these,   and you can take the last few. How about that?  

Episode 185. So a couple episodes ago. Send it Mike. It's kinda catching up, it seems.   And so he's been going back through the back catalog. He sent us 10 69   sats, so a 1069   sats.   And he said gave us a great message. I wanna read through this. We'll talk about it briefly.   Great stuff on the Trump building blockchain   voting stuff. I think it's most mostly be a crony payback to crypto campaign donors.   I'm afraid you may be absolutely right. And there's always gonna be that with politicians. Remember, politicians are not your friend.   That's your public address message. There is a real way to use bitcoins,   blockchain. Boy, he must be old. He must an old school person. He calls them bitcoins, not bitcoin.  

That is a throwback. I never actually did that.   But, anyways,   there's a real way to use Bitcoin's blockchain to verify election integrity, and they implemented it in Guatemala. We will include this in the show notes. I'm not gonna go through it right now, but they did do that very thing to help fight fraud.   I,   man, I don't even wanna get off on voting   and integrity of voting in this kind of thing. It's one of the things that here in the United States, frankly,   I think we do very poorly.   I think we could do it. I would rather they all hand vote, like literal   ballots and people counted them than the system that we've got.  

On Stablecoins,   my favorite onboarding app is Aqua by Jan 3,   that supports base chain, lightning, and tether.   It is non KYC and super fast onboard. I have not, frankly,   looked into that a whole lot. I am aware of it. I've not tried it, and I probably need to before we start talking about it. It is something I would like to talk to. Do you have it, Kenshin?  

[00:55:52] Kenshin:

I I have Aqua. Yes. I have installed it and used it a couple of times. Mhmm. I'm not so familiar with the,   how is it called, with the liquid side of it. Right. But I And we should talk about that too,  

[00:56:06] McIntosh:

which he didn't mention   directly on here. But, yeah, it does support the, liquid network.   And then he said, come on over to Nostramore. Leave the x Twitter nonsense behind. It is just so much more pleasant here. That is absolutely true.   And he included his, end pub essentially   so that you can find him on,   on Nostrum. I did that actually last night.   We'll get down to the   software updates, and I came across one that   I ended up testing out. I'll talk about that, but I actually did follow him. Hey, Mike. How are you doing?   Good to see you on there. And, so, yeah, it is more pleasant. I would agree with that. Unfortunately,   I think it might be because there's just fewer people.  

The algorithms   are part of it as well.   But I'm already starting to see, like, in fact,   one of my posts yesterday,   a fake account, it was supposed to be Jack,   Jack   Dorsey,   the Twitter guy that left and   right.   And it it clearly wasn't. And his name was not spelled quite right, and you could tell. And it's just somebody,   I don't know, engagement farming or whatever. It was just stupid.   So I don't know. But it is better than Twitter is right now, and it is certainly more versatile. And that will never change. It's always going to be more versatile than Twitter. So that's cool.   Alright.  

So, yes, I 2025,   that's one of my,   goals. I will be posting at least as much on Noster as on Twitter.   And then I'll go ahead and do the next one as well, which also was send at Mike. And, Mike, I caught you, buddy. You you   you send it on fountain and you're sending on podcast guru, which is absolutely fine, but it kinda threw us for a little bit of a loop until we figured it out.   You boosted   do I have the amount here? I don't see it, but I think it may have been 10.69   as well, which we do appreciate. But to get to the meat of this, you said question this week, of course, Microsoft should have voted to buy BTC.   Okay.  

I think that's what we said as well. So 3 to nothing.   So   taking a solid lead, I think that would be a fairly safe vote, at least for most people.   The only argument is that's not their core business. And actually, that brings me to one of our news items. So I'll leave that and we'll talk about that in a minute.   I agree that Russia will buy Bitcoin before the US. I think they already have. And I have an unpopular opinion about the   Bitcoin strategic reserve.   Mike, to be honest, I forgot to read this. You gave a link to it,   and it's on oh, here it is right here. I need to read this. I wouldn't respond to this properly and not just kind of   throw something out there. So I promise we'll talk about it next week. I'll put it in the notes to do that or the week after if we don't record next week.  

Alright. You wanna do the last one there?  

[00:59:19] Kenshin:

Yes.   Let's see the last one.   Episode   188, the last episode.   Mhmm. We had HPH   Gardens.   I think that his name is Will with Right. It's also showing up as Will with a 1,000 shots.   And he leaves a nice comment for us. Can't beat the   juxtaposition   of an American and a Euro man.  

[00:59:44] McIntosh:

Thank you.   We have met a goal. Alright. Yeah. That's kind of one of the ideas when   Kenshin and I first started talking. I'm like,   that would be a really good mix, I think, you know, to not just get somebody from the United States from the echo chamber that I know that we can be sometimes. So I think this is working out really well. So appreciate that.   Appreciate that a lot, Will,   and thanks for the boost. We had a total.   We did have some streaming as well, and thank you very much. Appreciate that a lot. We had a total of   3,577   sats. So   very cool. Certainly up for the last couple of months, and that can't be beat. So I do have a couple of more news items to talk about.  

Kenshin, we're already over on our time. So   I guess I'm just gonna keep sliding stuff back. Some of this stuff we've already talked about. I do wanna talk about,   Kanga. I have a take on this that ties into actually what Mike was just talking about. So I do wanna go ahead and go into this. So, apparently,   like, the 3rd largest Chinese automaker, which I've never heard of this company, but   I'm not that deeply,   versed on Chinese autos.   Cango   Incorporated, the they actually traded the New York New York Stock Exchange, so pay attention, kids,   has quietly become one of the largest public Bitcoin miners in the world. According to a press release from November 15th,   they purchased   32   exahash.  

Okay? So the Ocean mining pool right now is roughly 4 exahash.   So that would be 8 times   larger than the Ocean mining pool.   Of Antminer ASICs,   and and it says 4% of the Bitcoin network hash rate. That sounds about right. From Bitmain   for $256,000,000   in cash, and it has another 18 exahash   under contract   with a company that's owned by Bitmain's former CFO, Max Hua. As the 18   exahash deal closes,   they would operate   50 x a hash, putting it on par with Mera in terms of self mining hash rate. Now,   first of all, I'm going to throw this out there as just a little incendiary   bomb.  

I own bitmain miners.   Unfortunately,   if I buy more miners, they will probably be bit Bitmain, but I do not think Bitmain. So I'm gonna be hypocritical   because I'm telling   you, my next miners will probably be Bitmain as well,   but they're not good for the ecosystem.   They do things, and eventually I'll get mad enough about it and I'll stop buying them.   But   this is not good. They run their own network, by the way. I don't know if you know that. They run miners and then they'll turn around and sell them. It happens all the time.   They do not have our best interest in mind as miners. They are just trying to scrape as much money as possible out of the system. It's   not really. I want more diversity   in the Bitcoin mining ASIC space. There's not a whole lot.  

I think that is slowly changing, and maybe one day we can talk about that. But   my point is   I posted this on Twitter. I may have post oh, actually, I did post it on Nostra, I think. And I said,   I don't I'm gonna go ahead and say, and literally, this is the only article I've read about this. I don't think this is gonna end well.   These people don't know what they're doing.   They've never been involved in Bitcoin or Bitcoin mining before.   They just went if all this goes through and bought 50 x a hash of Bitcoin miners,   That's a disaster waiting to happen. I expect during the next bear market that they go broke and they they divest themselves of all this and you get a flood of cheap basics out of the market. That's just my prediction.  

Mhmm.  

[01:03:48] Kenshin:

I have   an interesting   thought about this that,   some companies now figure out that buying   Bitcoin instead of investing in their company is more profitable for them Right. Which at the same time is good   because   that means they need to innovate more   Mhmm. Than what a Bitcoin would give you as a return,   which theoretically   should push companies to either innovate   a lot more than the what they are currently doing or buy more Bitcoin.  

[01:04:23] McIntosh:

When these companies do this, I view them as putting an asset on their balance sheets that's performing very well. It's not innovation.   They're just   taking   their currency, which isn't always a dollar. I'll get to that in just a second. But if it's a dollar,   they're flipping something that's going down in value and turning it into something that   is going up in value year over year.   There's companies,   multiple companies around the world that are doing this. Meta Planet is one in Japan,   And it's funny because they operate a single hotel.   They were in the hospitality business   and COVID basically wiped them out. Japan   COVID lockdowns were terrible   and   they basically ended up with 1 hotel.  

They started buying Bitcoin.   They've done really well with it.   Their stock is up 2,000   percent this year   and they continue to buy Bitcoin,   which is in their case, probably what they should be doing. I, you know, sell the hotel off and just become   a we're going to have companies who just hold Bitcoin. And   I don't really have a problem with that if that's what they want to do.   It's just going to be one of the effects of this.   The digital asset instead of physical asset. Right. It's going to be more scarce than physical asset. I do want to cover this last one. I don't I think we're just going to stop after this, but I can't I have to I have to talk about Argentina. I'm sorry, guys. Y'all think I'm nuts.   I I hope in some manner the United States can emulate   Argentina. I have hope of that, but we will see. They are now officially out of recession.  

And I'm not going to go into details on that,   but they have been struggling for decades.   You can go and look at their currency, their debt, their all of this stuff is just it's insane.   And Malay has gone in there   using what amounts to libertarian principles.   And he has turned that country around   in 12   months.   And that gives me I just saw a thing today.   He went to   Germany. No. What well, maybe. Where's   the Stellantis? You may not know. You may know this. I don't know. Stellantis,   the people who own Dodge.   Anyways, it's the auto corporation that owns Dodge and Ram and all these other,   Chrysler,   and there's probably several more.  

They're gonna start building Ram trucks, which I'm a Ram truck guy. Okay? I just I'm gonna throw that out there. A little bit of trivia about me.   You can pry my truck from me. Well,   I don't own a truck right now. That's another story. But if I bought, which I will be buying 1,   when I buy 1, it'll be another Dodge and it will be my 3rd.   So   anyways,   they're going to start building them down in,   Argentina   and Cordoba,   if I'm remembering correctly, which is out side of Buenos Aires, it's to the north and   west.   And that's going to bring in more tax money, more jobs, more. You know, these are the kind of things that countries that are growing will do.  

So   I love to see it. I really want to get down to Argentina.   And, like I said, if I were 20 years old, I might be down there right now living. I mean, I'm just being honest.   It's a great example to set for the rest of the world. Oh, man. And and we need it. The world needs it right now. They really do.   So that one day, Germany will turn around and go, oh, maybe we should act like Argentina.   Mhmm. Just throwing it out there.   We're gonna go through   these software updates really quick. We're already over an hour by a decent amount.   I do wanna talk about Coracle.  

If you don't mind, can you talk about the other 2?   Because I used Coreacle. It's a Nostra web app. They got a brand new version, 0 dot 5 dot 0. They have continued to innovate on this, and I actually cranked it up for the first time last night.   Built an extension to put my pub key in or my private key, actually, so that I could log into it without it holding my key.   And then I was able to post and do my things.   And I started using it. I do. I like their new editor, which they talk about in here, their new text editor. They've got a number of new features.   But if you're into Nostra and you want a web browser,   this is certainly   one I would check out.  



[01:09:02] Kenshin:

Alright.   It's very good. Then we have core lightning. It's a lightning,   interface or back end.   And this update is,   includes,   I'm sorry, includes updates to enhance the user experience   and refinements to the Bolt 12 functionality. I think they made Bolt 12 default  

[01:09:26] McIntosh:

now. Okay. Which was good.   Yeah. And this other thing other updates.   I don't know what this is all about. This is some kind of optimization   plugin, this XPay.   I I don't know anything about it, but they're trying to optimize the routing and payments on the lightning network. So  

[01:09:46] Kenshin:

Yeah. So there is a constant development on lightning, which is really good to see. Yes.  

[01:09:52] McIntosh:

And we can talk about lightning in detail in another We need to. We need to. We have not done that a long time either. So and then the last one will be Bitcoin Keeper,   a new version of that.  

[01:10:04] Kenshin:

Yeah. 1.3   into open source,   mobile wallet,   Bitcoin wallet that now supports inheritance keys and remote sharing.   So it's an interesting wallet that, you can do multisig, which we can also go into Right. In the future   and implement those inheritance keys.   Yes. For obvious reasons, do you have some I would say this about this Bitcoin,  

[01:10:33] McIntosh:

yeah, Bitcoin Keeper. It's very interesting. I love the inheritance stuff that they're promote that they're integrating,   and Mini Script is very, very useful. That's how they're doing the inheritance stuff.   What I would say, they do have a free version, but they also have 2 other   versions that are providing additional functionality.   I'm not a huge fan of that, to be honest,   especially on something that I intend to keep for years, really.   I would throw that out there. It might not be ideal, but   I don't know if you're   storing a lot. Does it matter?  

$10 a month? I don't know.   That's for other people to decide.   But they do have a very nice interface and a very clean way to get into multi sig and this type of thing, which will lead you to   really to better   security, a better security posture. Right? Yeah.  

[01:11:33] Kenshin:

But I would I would say   I wouldn't use   a service that is locked to one specific app and company.   I don't know if that is or not.  

[01:11:45] McIntosh:

I need to we need to do some more research on this. I mean, I don't mind   saying that they're got a new version out of it. I know we're gonna be putting our stamp of approval on that, though, It's, I guess, kind of what I'm getting. So   all right.   Interesting update. Yes. Look, I'm going to go and wrap this up. I want to make this pretty short. We actually haven't been going through kind of our wrap up, but we're already over today.   We're going to try and get on next week. It will be short.   If we do, we probably won't have a regular topic. Probably just go over the news and maybe chat a little bit.   It's Christmas time. You guys don't need to be listening to us. You need to be with your family. Right?  

But we are value for value podcast.   We depend on people like Mike,   like   sorry. Like Will   at HBH Gardens,   to support this show,   whether that's through streaming or through boosting, you need to go grab a podcasting 2.0 app.   You can do that at podcastapps.com.   And I want to have one other request of you. The absolute best way you can support this show. Please listen to me. Just tell somebody about it.   One of the things that Kenshin and I are struggling with, how do we bring this show to more people? And to be honest, I went out. I'm not going to give you all the details, but we spent some money on a promotion,   on a platform.  

We had   a minuscule number of people who actually showed up because of that. It literally cost us $0.12   for someone to listen to this show to even decide if they liked it. That does not scale. It does not. I do not have that kind of money.   And Kenshin told me that he didn't either. And I'm going to believe you.   So,   you know, the best way and the cheapest way for us to expand the show, if you like it, just go tell somebody about it. That's all I ask. You don't even have to boost. That is a better way for you to   support this show. Please boost, but you don't have to.  

I get it.  

[01:13:51] Kenshin:

And if you have some family member or friend that wants to   get into Bitcoin, maybe this episode is useful to them to to know   what is a hard asset and why Bitcoin is is   probably the best hard asset as we described, and how it compares with gold and other assets.  

[01:14:10] McIntosh:

So there we go. So you guys stay humble. Go out and make it a great week. If we do not   talk to you next week, have a Merry Christmas.  

[01:14:19] Kenshin:

Have a happy holidays. Merry Christmas. And StackSets.  

[01:14:23] McIntosh:

Stack   sets. Hey. Hey. Cheap sets.   Come on. I don't think it's gonna go below a 100,   but if it does, double down.   Talk to you later.   Holy   little discounts.