The world seems like it is on fire. The US stock market has dropped about 15% in a three day trading period. Tariff talk abound. Bitcoin hit levels we haven't seen in a number of months.
Where is this going? Is the President of the US insane? What's the point of all this? And how can you navigate this turbulent environment?
Stick around to the very end for a new v4v track, “Too Young For Growing Up” by Matt Johner!
Bitcoin Price at Time of Recording
April 7th, 2025: 78,650 USD | 72,000 EUR
Block Height at Time of Recording
891,379
Episode Page
https://satoshis-plebs.com/episode-204
Music Credits
Matt Johner
Too Young For Growing Up
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 April, and this is episode 204 of Satoshi's Plebs. I'm McIntosh.
[00:00:09] Kenshin:
And I am Kenshin. And today's episode is, how low can we go?
[00:00:29] Unknown:
He said this whole life won't roll away, won't it? Lots of curve balls could go out swinging. Use your head, but don't overthink it. So listen when I sing.
[00:00:51] McIntosh:
Alright, Kenshin. That was some great music by, by by Matt Jonner Joyner. Sorry, Matt. I still don't know how to say your name. I really need to look that up. And I we were discussing right before we started recording about music. Kenshin just doesn't he could probably, I guess, maybe take it or leave it. Is that a good way of saying it? You don't care? I
[00:01:15] Kenshin:
mean, it goes from one ear, comes out from the other ear,
[00:01:18] McIntosh:
kind of. You live in Sweden. I think we all know that. I have a question for you, Kenshin. Do you know who Abba is?
[00:01:28] Kenshin:
Yes. Okay. That I know. Yes. Okay.
[00:01:31] McIntosh:
Heard of him. I will allow you to continue to be the co host of the show. Not to get off track, but to be honest, and I do not consider ABBA to be rock or I mean, they're almost disco, and they come from that era, from the early from the mid seventies. I think they had a like, their earliest album might have been around 1972. But when I was a kid, we borrowed some ABBA albums from the county library, and my dad recorded them on reel to reel tape. And it was literally the only kind of rock music that we had in the household. My parents listened to country, gospel music, and, like, Barbra Streisand.
Okay? Like, easy listening kind of music. They I don't remember them ever listening to, like, rock and roll at all. And we bring home it was I think it was the visitors album. I'm almost sure it was, at least one of the first ones. And we recorded on reel to reel, and I would literally sit in front of the speakers and listen to ABBA just, like, nonstop. And so, unfortunately, I love ABBA. I I I even tell people that. I do. I can sing most of their songs. Certainly, they're popular songs. And I can, you know, it's I can literally go for decades without hearing a song, and this is in general. I don't know why my brain works like this, but I can go for decades without hearing a song and listen to it and still remember all the words, but then sometimes I struggle to remember, like, a word like I did earlier. I could not come up with a certain word. I don't even remember what it was.
I I don't know. It just engages a different part of your brain. Sorry. That was a really long story, but I think we need some levity today. It's it's rough out there. Let's go through our normal stuff. Our Bitcoin price, at time of recording, 04/08/2025, '70 '8 thousand '6 hundred and '50 US dollars. And what do we have in euros, sir?
[00:03:49] Kenshin:
€72,000.
[00:03:51] McIntosh:
Up and down. Nice even round number. 71.
[00:03:54] Kenshin:
Yeah. $71,900 or something.
[00:03:57] McIntosh:
Alright. Our price last April, so one year ago, was 71,622. So, wow, that one's going up and ours is going down week over week. So, I'm not sure about that. And what do we have for our market caps, sir?
[00:04:17] Kenshin:
So Bitcoin market cap is at 1,600,000,000,000.0 US dollars, and gold market cap, we have at $20,800,000,000,000, which means that Bitcoin is 7.5%
[00:04:30] McIntosh:
of gold's market cap, which has dropped a bit from eight. Yeah. Yeah. It was like 8.1 or something. It was somewhere around eight, so about half a percent or so. Mhmm. So gold has been holding its value a little better than Bitcoin in the last few days. Now we are recording on Monday. We just put out our last episode on Friday, so we're doing this a little bit different than normal. So let's take a look at the mempool. Let's take a look at the mempool kitchen, and our block height right now is 891,379. We've got a difficulty adjustment that went down just a tiny bit.
3.75 is our current, and then our previous one was 6.81% up. So it still looks like we're getting an upward difficulty adjustment, when that takes place, which I'm not sure, actually. April. So, we not looking forward to that as a minor. However, I will say this before we move on. I'm sorry. But, Ocean has been doing really well. So far this month, we've already mined 11 blocks. Thank you very much. Seven days in, we've already mined 11 blocks. And I'm doing my part. Hopefully, a little more soon, but, yeah, that's where we're at. And can you carry on from there, sir?
[00:05:56] Kenshin:
Yes. Then we have the mempool fees, and we are at two two to three sets per Vbyte for transactions from low to high and 50 megabytes in the pool and, around 4,000 transactions unprocessed, which means we are actually pretty much empty in the pool.
[00:06:20] McIntosh:
It keeps clearing up these days. Mhmm. So that also yesterday, we had a few blocks that were quite empty. Even right now, we're at two, three, and three sats per v byte. But if I were going to post something, I would just go ahead and do it at one sat per v byte because Yeah. There's no reason not to most likely within a short period of time, it's gonna get cleared. Yeah. Definitely. So I I even saw some transactions with zero such review bytes. How is it wait. What does that mean? Does that literally mean they're not paying?
[00:06:53] Kenshin:
I guess it's for free. Yeah. If you go eleven hours ago,
[00:06:58] McIntosh:
Zero. I don't recall ever hearing about that. That's interesting. Why would a miner do that? I don't want those things on my miner. That's probably something well, we'll look into that. Okay. Interesting. Alright. What's going on with you, sir? Besides listening to Abba, I know you do. Come on.
[00:07:21] Kenshin:
I I don't. But you don't. My my my wife and son, they do karaoke sometimes, so I'm a bit more familiar with her brother than I used. I could I could see your wife. Dancing
[00:07:34] McIntosh:
queen. Yeah. Sorry.
[00:07:37] Kenshin:
Yes. My son the same.
[00:07:40] McIntosh:
Oh, that's funny. Alright. What what else is going on with you?
[00:07:46] Kenshin:
Well, I have news. I have not mind the blow yet.
[00:07:53] McIntosh:
I thought you were gonna tell me you had a new job.
[00:07:56] Kenshin:
No. Not yet. But no. But it's, it's been a good spring start of the spring here in Sweden. Gets cold and hot cold out. But, otherwise, it's good weather and sunny. And, yeah, we're trying our best with the Fiat mining, as we call it now. And, I have actually started looking into into the Bitcoin world more into the cashier stuff. Okay. The e cash. So that's quite exciting.
[00:08:33] McIntosh:
Is there some news there this week? No. I'm not sure, actually. There's a little bit. Some. Maybe.
[00:08:41] Kenshin:
Is there? Okay.
[00:08:43] McIntosh:
Remind me when we get to the news section. I I wasn't actually gonna talk about it, but, yeah, it's probably worth mentioning. Okay. Very cool. Yeah. What's up with you? You have been working on your shit. That's what I said. I so I took off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday from work, my my Fiat job, and worked on the shed. And the outside is finished. I'm not quite done, if that makes any sense. But I'll be getting with the owner at this point and kinda going through a checklist and saying, what do you want finished? What you know, to to wrap things up. So, I will be posting, if you look at chapters, if you look at your podcasting two point o app right now, there is a picture of the front of the shed, and I've removed all the location data and whatever.
Cross my fingers. I think we're good. I didn't really wanna do this, but I feel like I've been talking about it so long. I kinda owe y'all, a view of this of this thing. And, no, it's not for sale. No. I'm not going to come build you one. No. Right now, I don't even wanna look at a shed, to be honest. But I actually have to build my own this fall, so we've got that going for us. Anyways, the one that we're gonna build is not nearly so big. This shed was, 16 by 20, just to give you an idea. 16 feet. I have no idea what that is in meters. It'd be roughly, like, five meters. Five. Yeah. Five by 40 feet. So it's a big boy shed built with trusses inside that we built. So if you walk in the shed and look and if you walk in the shed and look up, you see the, you know, the triangular trusses that we built that the roof is sitting on.
All hand built, built from pine that we harvested, in the local area. And, I'm proud of it, but it frankly took way longer than it should have. A lot of it due to, frankly, my I don't wanna say mistakes, but shortcomings. I don't know. This is not the first shed I've built, but I still made some mistakes.
[00:11:09] Kenshin:
Wasn't that the the reason why you took that break back in Mhmm. What was it? September, October. Right? To start that project. I have,
[00:11:17] McIntosh:
I've taken multiple breaks for this shed. So I don't even like saying this, but unfortunately, I've been working on this shed for over a year, which is crazy if you think about it. Originally, I took a week off to start with. And then, during that week, we we already had the kind of the foundation ready, but we built the frame, and then, you know, steadily worked on it. I don't know. At some point along the way, basically, we got burned out. We couldn't which I just could not keep going over there every afternoon and working on the shed and having a full time job, which is actually more than a full time job. I I do not work forty hours a week. I never it's been a long time since I've worked forty hours a week. Okay?
But I would do my regular work and then go over and try and work on the shed. So I did end up taking another week off, I think, somewhere along the way and then these three days, to to kinda finish it up. But we did. It's done. What we have left is is very, I I wanna say, minor at this point. The outside is complete. I've you know, it I like it. It looks good. What can I say? I don't wanna brag, but yeah.
[00:12:46] Kenshin:
So can you build me one?
[00:12:49] McIntosh:
No. What do you say? If you'll fly me to Sweden and hire me a full crew to do it, pay for my ticket both ways first class, of course, I cannot do coach. I don't know. Right. I don't know what else I can come up with. Maybe pay me a lot, and, yeah, we'll do it.
[00:13:08] Kenshin:
How much Bitcoin do you want?
[00:13:11] McIntosh:
I would do it for 1 Bitcoin. For 1 Bitcoin, I'll be there tomorrow. 1 Bitcoin in today's interview. Sure. That's fine. Because 1 Bitcoin is equal to 1 Bitcoin. I didn't don't know if you knew that, Elmo. Elmo. I sorry. I looked at my notes. I don't know if you knew that, Kenshin, but 1 Bitcoin is 1 Bitcoin. It is a hundred thousand satoshis. Today, tomorrow. Million. I'm sorry. You're right. I'm gonna yeah. Correct. A hundred million. Forever, it will be a hundred million Satoshis.
[00:13:48] Kenshin:
That that's part of my good morning routine. Oh, man. 1 Bitcoin exchange. That's right.
[00:13:53] McIntosh:
So yeah. So that's kinda my week. I'm glad it's done, and I've talked about it enough, and I will stop talking about it after this. But I will put a picture there. I'll put one I'll put one of the front and one of the side. I'll put two pictures up. Because you can't just looking at it from the front, you don't have a perspective on how big it is, really. Cool. Yeah. Alright. Well, what are we talking about today? How low can we go? What are we playing limbo here? What's going on? Right.
[00:14:26] Kenshin:
Well, it's, it's a bit of a crazy week. Last week and this week, it seems, the start of the week. The weekend was also interesting. Bitcoin started to move yesterday. Right? Yeah. It did. It went down. And this and this morning, all all had broke loose. Global markets were down. I was, I was looking ahead for The US market to open up today.
[00:14:52] McIntosh:
Well, they did, and they went down. Well, they went up first. I mean, I guess, I think that false announcement, and we'll get to that in just a minute, but it came out right before market opened. So it shot up, and then it went right back down. And it's been going down. So let's back up for just a minute. First of all, let me throw this little fact out, Kenshin. I we were talking about prior to the show. I think everybody knows if you've listened to this show long enough, I'm a Gen x. Because of the things that I talk about, you can kinda piece that together. So that's no big surprise. That means I was born between, like, 1960 and 1980 or '60 I think it's actually Somewhere in that range.
Gen xers like me, so this is now our fourth major recession. And I think it's frankly unavoidable at this point that we will be in at least a brief recession. You can call it what you want. But we looked we looked at, I looked this up. We had the .com bubble in 1999, which I lost my job. I told you about that. I lost my my tech job. I had just gotten a tech job and lost it because of the stupid well, it was all a bunch of stupid nonsense. You know, chewy.com or whatever. I mean, the some of the ridiculous things that were going on. I was working one of the companies I was working on, they actually literally were it's it was a a phone directory. It was an online phone directory.
Like, that's just Is it
[00:16:30] Kenshin:
like the meme meme coins of today, kind of Maybe.
[00:16:34] McIntosh:
Maybe. That's actually a really good point. I think there's a lot of so, anyways, I lost my job. I had to move back across the country. I was out of the IT business for for a long time, and it kinda wrecked me and put me in a really bad place. 2,008 was next. That was the bank meltdown, mortgage crisis, COVID in March of twenty twenty. And now whatever we're going to end up calling this. I don't know, the tariff war, trade war with China. I don't know. And we're gonna get into that a little bit here in just a second. But I wanna be, you know, there's a saying, if you don't laugh, you cry.
And I wanna be respectful, especially for the listeners who, maybe you've got a big four zero one ks. And you're looking at it going, what the, you know, I just lost 20% of my value in the in three days. I mean, it's it's just nuts. And I actually think that's important that that can even happen in what's supposed to be a not a volatile market. We don't talk about the S and P stock market as being something that can drop so dramatically in such a short period of time. And yet, that's exactly what we've seen. Three days in a row, we're looking at five plus percent. It was I think it's approaching 20% now since last Thursday.
So if you're in that situation, I'm sorry. It's not a good situation to be in. But we are here to actually talk about a solution to that. Is that fair, Kenshin? Yeah. Quite fair. Because in my opinion, a lot of this mess is caused by fiat. Money. Literally, money that's backed by hopes and promises and weapons. And he who has the biggest weapon, he wins. And that's the case with The United States. Let's be let's be blunt because I think that that factors into this. The US dollar is the global reserve currency of the world. It has been since the Bretton Woods agreements, which were in the nineteen forties post World War two.
The basically, we said we'll bail everybody out, and you'll use our dollars to do it. And that's what happened. And that's rolled into the petrodollar in the early seventies, and it's rolled into the situation that we're in now. Now The US is in a great amount of debt, just like virtually every other country around the world. We cannot dispute that. In fact, we lead the way because, baby, we're number one. 30 six and a half, roughly, I think at this point, trillion dollars. It's an immense stupid amount of debt. And part of the problem is we have turned into now this is my opinion. Let me tell you something. Go get on Twitter because there are people who would disagree with what I'm about to say.
And that's fine. But in my opinion, a lot of this debt, aside from stupid spending, comes from the fact that we send dollars overseas by buying products in China. Let's just I'm not I don't wanna pick on anybody, but China's easy. We spend a lot of money in China. They're shipping product to us. They're keeping our dollars. That essentially And look, there's people who can explain this better than I can. But that becomes debt on our books. It's a trade imbalance. And not only that, we've shipped all the manufacturing jobs overseas in the last fifty years as part of this. Actually, sixty plus years.
We used to have a large amount of manufacturing, you know, autos and just all the things. And because of cost competitiveness, because of cheaper wages and etcetera and slacker business regulations and probably a few other reasons, a lot of these industries have, in large part moved overseas, and it is gutted, in my opinion, the middle class of The United States. You're either rich or you're poor. When and and here's my definition of poor. I've changed this recently. If you can't buy a house, you're poor. Now that does not meet the government's criteria. But in The United States right now, you can make $70,000 a year and not be able to buy a house.
Because the average house now costs 500,000. Right? So Trump comes in. And look, tariffs with Trump are nothing new. This, he's been talking about these since literally the eighties. I did not realize it went back so far. But he was on talk shows in the eighties, not a politician talking about tariffs. This is not new for him. He says, well, we're gonna we're gonna try and move some of this back. We're gonna try and settle things up. And the way to do that is is tariffs. Because a lot of these countries have tariffs against us. And I know some of this is a repeat of what I did last week. But please bear with me because I it sets up all of this. So anyways, he starts implementing all these tariffs. And I will tell you, I do not like the way he's doing it. Kitchen, I don't.
I think he's doing it way too fast. It's like coming in it's my picture of this is a bull in a China shop. Right? You know what I mean? You go in the shop. You got the fragile stuff all around. You take a 2,000 pound bull and you put him in there. He can't turn around without knocking something over. And that's what we're seeing. He comes in and he says, well, we're just basically gonna tariff everybody 10%. And based on whatever the criteria it is, we're gonna give these other countries more. I think China is sitting at roughly 50% right now. And the market has gone crazy.
Now my question would be, one question I have is why is the market going crazy? Are these like meme coins? Does Intel make computer parts? I I think so. Why would they drop 20%?
[00:23:27] Kenshin:
How does that happen so quickly, I guess? Do do you have an answer for that? Yeah. I mean, everybody is is going up and down like they used to blame Bitcoin of doing. Right? It go up 5% one day, 10% the next day down. It's like I have a widget on my phone with a lot of stocks including Bitcoin, and and I see all of them green or red at the same time, same percentages, including Bitcoin. I mean, it's crazy. And that I I actually don't like it personally when I say Bitcoin following all the Wall Street stocks in the same way.
But I guess we're early. That that's what it means for now. We're not there yet with the digital gold aspect of it. Yeah. I I definitely agree with that.
[00:24:15] McIntosh:
I remember back and I was not involved in the stock market, say, in the eighties or nineties. But I do remember, like, people would talk about your what is it called? Your PE, your profit to earnings or whatever. Send it. Mike actually mentioned this last week. Fundamental fundamentals of these stocks. Nobody ever talks about it anymore. They're just like, oh, no. Gosh. I don't know. NVIDIA is the new hot stock because of because of AI. Send it. Right? It's gonna go go to the moon, and and then it crashes because at some point, because there's nothing to support that. I don't it's almost like roulette, but the problem is is that for decades, people have been taught you put your money into the stock market because we have to save our money from being debased because we all realized the dollar was going down in value. So what do you do? You invest. You put it in real estate. You put it in stocks and bonds, and you buy that index fund.
And then you're supposed to be okay. Except during the last four times when we had these major downturns for us Gen Xers. Right? So excuse me if I'm a little a little irritated that that's actually not true. And a lot of these gen xers are getting close to retirement age. We're starting to think about it. Maybe we're not ready for it, but what if this takes ten more years to turn around? I mean, according to some of the people that I work with, we were talking about this this morning in our our little water cooler meeting. It could take ten years for the stock market to recover.
I don't it may take ten minutes. We actually don't know. I mean, if Trump comes out and says this is all all off, I I don't know. But How how fast was the .com bubble to It wasn't it wasn't this fast. It wasn't anything like this from what I remember. So I will say, statistically, like, this is the worst three day drawdown since the Great Depression in '19 in the 1930s.
[00:26:38] Kenshin:
Someone was,
[00:26:39] McIntosh:
saying the numbers look very similar to the .com bubble. I would have to look at that because from what I remember and again so this was the late nineties. I was not involved. I haven't and I'm not heavily involved in this top market. Okay? It's not like I'm trading stocks or have a giant four zero one k, but, you know, it doesn't feel like it. Because with the .com bubble, the when the bubble popped, when people started realizing, I don't know, it whatever. Like this company I used to work for, what they were doing made no sense. There was no way they were ever gonna make any money. They were just sucking up investor money.
That didn't happen everywhere all at once. It was it was more of a gradual, maybe six months, maybe a year. Probably six months, I would say, from the worst part of it, certainly. Now, I may be wrong about that. Maybe there is a lot of parallels. But I don't remember the stock market ever going down. The S and P going down, like, 15%, twenty % in three days. It's just it it is I think it's going to be fairly historical. And the one thing that gives me hope for those of us who are invested in the stock market, it went down so fast. Once this gets sorted out, which it will and we're gonna talk about I need to finish up the tariff stuff.
I think it could go back up just as fast. So maybe within a few months, this is all sorted out. I do wanna follow this up. I said Trump did a terrible job of handling this. But what we are seeing literally in real time is Taiwan is saying, hey. We'll reach out and we'll negotiate something. The Japan is saying, the I think it's the prime minister, and I'm sorry if I'm wrong. But the prime minister of Japan, he's gonna come over here to The United States and meet with Trump and solve this. The EU, we'll negotiate. Yeah.
[00:28:56] Kenshin:
We'll do zero this time. We'll do zero.
[00:28:59] McIntosh:
You know, so I think we're going to see these things happen very, very quickly in a lot of cases. Now, China, on the other hand, has said, nope. We're doubling down. You put a 35% tariff on us. We're gonna put a 35% tariff on you. They refuse to realize why we're doing this or that well, I don't know how else to read it. We're doing this because of the trade imbalance between us and China. I mean, they are our biggest trading partner. Right? And China, in my opinion, and this is definitely something that people disagree on, but I will say this is my opinion.
They are in a very weak state. Their real estate market is in shambles. Their stock markets have been going down for a long time. They're now dropping very quickly. They were 10% down, this morning when they opened the week. I guess that was last night for us, but whatever. Monday morning for them. I don't think they're going to be able to push this very far. I think The United States can, and I think that Trump will push this to the point where they capitulate. Now, I may be mistaken, but I you know, we've got to come to an agreement with China. We've got to figure this out. We've got to be able to say, hey, you can't just block our cars from being or slap, you know, super high tariffs on our cars in order to protect your market.
You can't, I I don't know. I I don't know, and I'm not well, I'm not going to get into that. I don't know. But we have to make an agreement with them, or we're going to end up in war with them. And I hate to say that, but it's true. I mean, it would be a terrible, ugly thing. But we have to be able to figure this out. Both of those countries are too important. They just are. There's too many people and too much GDP involved to not not get this figured out. Yeah. I agree. No one will benefit from a war. That's for sure. So the good news is, Kenshin, I think you're gonna be able to drink your, Jim Beam, I think is what it's called. It's a whiskey.
You know you guys have, like, terribly high tariffs on our whiskey.
[00:31:35] Kenshin:
I we have a I have no idea what you drink if you drink it all. So what? Well well, Sweden, the the alcohol is not free in Sweden, you know, the trading, trade of alcohol. Now it's only a government,
[00:31:51] McIntosh:
place that where you can buy alcohol in Sweden. So Oh, you mean like the liquor store that you actually go to? Yeah. So that's not private label. But one of the things I understand from the EU is they do have a fairly high tariff, like, on our liquor because they're trying to, you know, protect their market. So Jim Beam, it's Beam, b e a m, whatever. I don't know. I don't drink this stuff. So but it's a bourbon. It's a whiskey. Okay. Comes from Kentucky, if I remember. It may be Tennessee. Yeah. And, you know, I guess at least you can get that without a big tariff on it. So that'll be good.
[00:32:30] Kenshin:
Sorry. I I bought a bottle, actually. I don't know what brand now. I bought a bottle on my last trip in US.
[00:32:37] McIntosh:
The prices looked a lot cheaper than Sweden. That's what you're saying. Because they are. Because they don't have a tariff. So you can come over here and buy it, and then you declare it when you go back, and you get a certain exemption. Well, you may maybe didn't. I I think you're supposed to. I don't know. But regardless, that's they don't view that as a threat, because everybody's not gonna come over there to buy their whiskey. Right? But if we ship it over there, that's a whole different thing. You see what I'm saying? This will all get sorted out. I hope. I do. And I hope it's quick.
[00:33:14] Kenshin:
Now you make me think. Did I have to declare it? I think you were supposed to whether you did or not. I did. I did. Let's see. I did. Anyways. I forgot. Okay.
[00:33:25] McIntosh:
So all that being said, I don't know if I maybe let too much out there, but let's talk about this market for just a second. You've got some figures here I think are are very good.
[00:33:39] Kenshin:
I mean, yeah. I don't know if we should go to the equity markets in general. We can talk a little bit about Bitcoin that if if people are afraid of the state of Bitcoin right now, I think a good reminder is to look at the latest big, crisis or how do you want to call it? Recession temporary recession with the COVID Yep. In March. So at that time, it was Bitcoin was around 10,000 when the year started, the year 2020. And in the March or whenever, ever. That was the time with the COVID peak, and Bitcoin dropped to 4,000. That was a 60%
[00:34:26] McIntosh:
drop. You scooped up 3 Bitcoin, didn't you?
[00:34:30] Kenshin:
I wish.
[00:34:33] McIntosh:
I can't say I really bought I'm not sure I even bought any, to be honest. Mhmm. I'm trying to remember. If I did, it wasn't a significant amount. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunate. And I knew I knew I knew when it happened, that's what was but yeah.
[00:34:53] Kenshin:
C'est la vie as the first thing. Happened that year. Right? Mhmm. From that $4,000, Bitcoin went up to I don't know how much it closed that year, but the next year, for sure, it picks the all time high at 69.
[00:35:06] McIntosh:
I think that 300% is, yeah, 69.
[00:35:10] Kenshin:
Mhmm. So That is true. So those things happen, and they can be temporary, as you said, also.
[00:35:18] McIntosh:
Bitcoin is a very liquid market. It is the only market in the world that I'm aware of that's open twenty four seven to anyone, anyone who has an account anywhere that they can buy or sell Bitcoin. Right? And it does make it I view it there's a saying, a canary in the coal mine. They used to take canaries down that would die from the gases that would be released before they would affect the coal miners. That's where that saying comes from. But it's so liquid and it's so and because it's available all the time, it's out there and you may see it fall and then something else will go behind it. Because people are they're scared, but they can't move out of their $4.00 1 k so they ditch some of their Bitcoin, which in my mind is the wrong thinking, but that is human nature and that is what occurs.
So I don't know, actually, if that will ever change. Maybe? Yeah. Maybe a while. Let me put it that way. I would it will change. It has to, but I think it could be a while.
[00:36:30] Kenshin:
And what we see now is actually more day trading, I would say, actions. It's funny. I was actually on NoSur this morning Mhmm. Just browsing casually, and then I follow this wrecked bot, it's called. Mhmm. And then I see, like, five, six in a row post from that saying, like, this, trader lost, or short trader lost x amount. Right? Five of them in a row, short traders. And then literally an hour later or half an hour later The long term traders. The long traders were all wrecked. Right. It's like, holy shit. It was going up and down.
[00:37:10] McIntosh:
This whipsaw action. Right? This up and down. It is not good for the traders. No. Like, you cannot monitor twenty four seven unless you have some really tight constraints on your trading. Like, if you're using a bot and it's very well coded, you get wrecked in a heartbeat in this kind of stuff.
[00:37:33] Kenshin:
Yeah. So I don't think it's good to day trade Bitcoin, but I, it it seems like that's what's going on and that's what moves the price as well. And this everybody's following the news. Yeah. Those liquidations
[00:37:46] McIntosh:
cause cascading effects on the price because somebody will see it, and then they'll be like, oh my gosh. Everything's falling. And then they'll sell, and then it just kinda it snowballs.
[00:37:58] Kenshin:
So, yeah, that's what is going on today. But I would say
[00:38:04] McIntosh:
Historically, though, what we're looking at if if you don't mind me sorry. But historically, we're seeing that even though we may have a significant crash, 60% from January 1 to whatever that point was in March of twenty twenty, within within really a short period of time, it had already recovered. And in fact, gone on to significantly rally 15 nicks.
[00:38:33] Kenshin:
More than 15 nicks. Yeah.
[00:38:35] McIntosh:
So is this the point where I go ahead and make my prediction about where we are going? I'm just kidding. We'll wait for later. Alright. So yeah. Definitely. And it's so helpful to look back at those I mean, we saw the same thing with the Ukraine War. We hit a a bottom 16 something was that bottom. I did buy that one, by the way, when when that started. And within a very short period of time, it had gone back right back up. So you see this over and over, and we'll see it again. Bitcoin is not going to zero. I'm sorry.
[00:39:15] Kenshin:
It's just not. No. Exactly. And there are some psychological support levels that we can mention. If we if we go back to that question, how low can we go, we could give those numbers because it's a psychological game, isn't it? It's a human human nature. Yeah. So there are those supports. One is the 74 k that we briefly hit, I think, today at some point. And that 74 k was a twenty twenty three high. So it seems people are still looking at that point. And then another point, if we go lower, is a 69, obviously. It's the peak of, 2021, the all time high that's that was for a few years in place.
[00:40:03] McIntosh:
I think that will prove to be a very strong level, but Yeah. That's just my opinion. But, historically, there is a point there that, historically,
[00:40:12] Kenshin:
I don't think Bitcoin in any cycle went below a previous all time high after that is, I believe, true. After a boom if we say that we are in the current bull market, historically, while Bitcoin is in a bull market or after bull market, never dropped below the previous bull market's all time high.
[00:40:41] McIntosh:
So what's our previous high? 69. Right. Yeah. That's why that's one of the reasons why I'm thinking that that's such a Must be. Strong support level. I don't think it'll break below that. If it does, then
[00:40:56] Kenshin:
Opportunity.
[00:40:58] McIntosh:
I would start to float the idea that maybe this cycle's a bust for whatever reason, which is insane if you think about it, given all of the factors that we've been talking about for so long. But, I mean, yeah, that would be a hard one right there. I think
[00:41:14] Kenshin:
we are in a unique situation, and that's we never had this in previous cycles. Even in the COVID, it was very temporary. Mhmm. It was a panic, but it was a bit temporary panic, I would say. Now it's a bit more global economic. We hit some levels with the money supply and the money printing from the COVID year, that we see the effects right now. So I would say all the inflation that we've seen also, we see the effects now from that as well. You know what I mean? With the you see, with inflation, how everybody's a bit careful with spending money and investing and buying things.
I mean, I definitely see it in normal people, as well as traders. When when I heard some traders, they were saying, oh, we need to wait and see what happens, with all the interest rates and announcements and things like that. So there is some some tension, and everybody's a bit careful. So I would say it's a unique unique situation where we are, and we might not follow the cycles for once.
[00:42:35] McIntosh:
So that would then surprise me. Do you know how many people have said that?
[00:42:40] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:42:41] McIntosh:
I am going to follow the theory of the four year cycle until it's been demonstrably proven wrong. And if for no other reason, I will still stand by what I say fourth quarter twenty twenty five this year. So we're only talking about six to nine months from now being, the high. And I still think look. We're at 70 well, we're at 78,000. Wow. That was quite a rebound. But we were at 73,000 earlier today. I I don't have any problem seeing that triple by the end of the year, which sounds crazy, but Bitcoin has done it, I believe, a number of times before.
Similar things, just like the one you were just talking about with COVID.
[00:43:37] Kenshin:
Actually, with that, I agree. I think we will be at an all time high end of the year. I just already see that we have broken through some patterns that we had in the previous cycles. There is You mean going down? Yeah. It's like we have, I mean previous cycles, bull markets, we have gone down a lot, even 50%, I think Mhmm. Before rebounding. Yes. So that's nothing unique. But when you see where we are on this cycle, there is this nice circular chart. Have you seen it? That it's all the cycles.
[00:44:13] McIntosh:
No. I'm not oh, rational roots
[00:44:17] Kenshin:
circular chart? Yeah. It it goes through all the years, and then it goes Like a spiral. Right? That's rational, really. And I think it's the first time now that we hit we almost hit the previous year's, price in that sense, at this point of the cycle, at least.
[00:44:38] McIntosh:
But but we haven't, have we?
[00:44:44] Kenshin:
I think we did earlier in March.
[00:44:47] McIntosh:
Okay.
[00:44:48] Kenshin:
No. No. You're right. No. We haven't yet. No. We haven't.
[00:44:52] McIntosh:
Look. We we hit a hundred and seven. Is that our all time high, I think? Hundred and 9. Okay. Right. It it you're right. Hundred and 9. What's half of a hundred and $9.50
[00:45:05] Kenshin:
$54.04.
[00:45:07] McIntosh:
I'm not panicking until we hit 54.
[00:45:12] Kenshin:
That's a good target.
[00:45:13] McIntosh:
Actually, I'm not panicking then either, but yeah. Until we do things that we've never done in previous bull cycles, I I'm not panicking. And we know that we've had 50% drawdowns during the bull part of the cycle and still gone on to have all time highs. So, you know, maybe you think I'm cracked at this point and we're not gonna be there. We could hit 200. I don't know where we're going. It could be it, to an extent, certainly depends on the governments of the world and how they sort all of this out. And by the way, Kenshin, I really did want to get your input kind of on I want to get your European perspective.
Yeah. I do. On on this terror stuff. I actually took some time over the weekend to listen to Sky News and, France Twenty Four. Okay? So that's Great Britain and France. And I will say this about Sky News. I watched this little thing, which I thought was a, like, a full blown Sky News show. It was called electoral dysfunction, and it's branded Sky News. And I think some of the ladies on there might actually work for Sky News, but it was literally these three ladies on a Zoom call talking politics. And let me tell you something, those people do not like Trump. No.
[00:46:48] Kenshin:
No one does in Europe. No. I I keep hearing at my work. I sit on my desk at work and hear all the time. Oh, these idiots, Trump, those terrorists. This is destroying everything, and this and that. And that's all I hear around me.
[00:47:07] McIntosh:
On the surface level, I understand that. But do they not actually take the time to why would he do that?
[00:47:17] Kenshin:
No. Exactly. No. No one is looking at the, at the numbers. Beyond the beyond the surface. No. There there is no willingness.
[00:47:25] McIntosh:
So they're okay with a 20% VAT tax in Europe. I mean, I don't know. Just throwing it out there that might impede trade. I don't know. It's look, I'm a Homer just like everybody else. But at some point, you just have to try and be logical and think things through.
[00:47:51] Kenshin:
In my opinion, I go back to this Einstein quote that said, you the definition of insanity. Right? You keep doing the same thing over and over again. You expect a different result. I mean, we've done this with the the the fiat system, with the politics, with everything. Now, this tariffs for me is is As you said new. Yeah. It's It's something new. As you said, it was really badly managed, this I would call it the change management, as I call it in my fiat company. They they don't know how to implement change. Mhmm.
The the idea can be good, but implement the change is even more important than the idea itself.
[00:48:30] McIntosh:
The change will be implemented as far as I can tell. He has no he will not back down.
[00:48:36] Kenshin:
Yeah. Exactly. But and for me, that that's all almost a negotiation ploy. I mean, didn't he do that with Mexico and Canada? And in the end, they actually negotiated. So Yes.
[00:48:48] McIntosh:
Oddly enough, they actually said, well, maybe we won't do that. Yeah.
[00:48:53] Kenshin:
So for me, it's it's interesting. I'm not losing anything right now. I'm not day trading anything. I don't have stocks, and my Bitcoin is in cold storage. So, yeah, if I look at the numbers, maybe I see that in in dollar value or euro value, it has dropped, but it it hasn't changed my stock in that sense. So it's fine. So in that sense, it's it's just interesting to go through a new scenario. And if we think even further back, tariffs were a thing a hundred years ago. Mhmm. And taxes were not a thing Right. At the time. So you had tariffs and no taxes, and that wasn't the gold standard
[00:49:38] McIntosh:
at the time. I would be 100% in favor of that, by the way. Yeah. I mean, I'm just gonna that that's just me being the Homer. I don't I hate taxes. I don't think they're fair. They're not progressive. I'm sorry. But when half of your population doesn't pay taxes, that's not fair. It's just not. I'm sorry. So I'm all for tariffs in that respect. But I will tell you, and I'm sure you will see this in Europe as well. There's going to be some price fluctuations. There may be most likely will be some inflation, And things are go as as during this period of change, it may be rough.
But things need to be fair, or it long term doesn't make sense.
[00:50:33] Kenshin:
So Yeah. The only thing that worries me now, at least here in Europe, is that those knee knee jerk reactions.
[00:50:42] McIntosh:
Mhmm.
[00:50:43] Kenshin:
Everybody panics, and I've seen it in my I worked in a big, huge corporation in Sweden, and they have already, a meeting set for Friday, very secretive, out of the blue, huge meeting for the whole company. So
[00:51:02] McIntosh:
What does that mean? I have heard
[00:51:05] Kenshin:
already more and more about moving factors here and there, and so there is so much knee jerk reactions.
[00:51:14] McIntosh:
Yeah. And this is a multibillion dollar company, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it it has to be. Yeah. And so they're based on one week, they're going to
[00:51:26] Kenshin:
Yeah. They're talking talking
[00:51:28] McIntosh:
even, which I mean, it would take a while, but about moving factories or or whatever, that that's not good management. No. Right now, your management should be saying, hey. Everybody stay calm. We've got money in the bank. I hope they do. And we're good. We'll figure this out. We'll see what happens, and then we'll go from there. But there's
[00:51:53] Kenshin:
it Now people panic. It's like, oh, it's disappointing. You go around, and I hear it behind my back. It's like, oh, they know they don't know what they're doing in US, and they're destroying everything. And we need to fix it for them and you know? We need to fix it for them. Yeah.
[00:52:09] McIntosh:
Please come fix it. What What are they gonna do? I don't I don't know. How are they gonna fix it? But that's the attitude. You know? There's
[00:52:17] Kenshin:
there is this complex of superiority here in Sweden.
[00:52:22] McIntosh:
We seriously have a trade debt with virtually everyone in the world. That's doesn't You can't do that No. Long term. We're we're exporting our debt, and eventually, it comes home to roost. And I wished I could eloquently explain how that happens, but I cannot. Anyways, aye aye aye. It's gonna be an interesting week. That's for sure. No. It's gonna be an interesting week. I hope next week things are a little calmer and we can move on to some other things, but I just felt like this was way too important not to talk about. Alright. So, Kitchin, I wanna kinda wrap things up because we've been chatting for a while.
Yeah. How low do you actually see Bitcoin going? I mean, I guess maybe worst case, let's say this gets drug out for a couple more weeks. You know, the whole world's mad at The United States. We're still mad at everybody else.
[00:53:24] Kenshin:
I don't know. Where are we going? I I don't see it going lower than 69, but we said that for the 84 limit. Mhmm. We saw now the 74 as well. So we never
[00:53:37] McIntosh:
We just kinda keep ratcheting down. Yeah. I do think that $69,000 level, and I would have to agree with that. If it goes through 69, you know, I think that changes our base thesis. I think we're we could consider this cycle to kind of be over. We've reached our top already. What are we gonna do from here? You know, for me, frankly, it wouldn't change. It'd be stack sets and keep doing things. Right? But I also don't think I think it's very unlikely we break that for more than a split second of time. You know, if if it were let's say somebody I don't know. Maybe MicroStrategy liquidates at $699,000.
I don't think they're anywhere near that level, but let's just say they did. And they dump a half million Bitcoin on the market. That's going to create a flash crash. And I will be taking out my credit card at that point and buying as many as I can, to be honest. But, you know, maybe we go down some crazy low level, but it would only be for a brief period of time. And it would be because of that specific thing. So I would be prepared to say, well, that doesn't really break the cycle, but I think a lot of people would disagree with me on that as well. So I'm still standing, you know I'll just say this.
Look. We've already been at a hundred and nine. I think we're over 200 by the end of the year. I probably shouldn't say that out loud. I'm not sure I've said that so far in all of this, but that's kind of my my pencil. Now it may be significantly higher than 200, but I think we're at least hitting two two fifty.
[00:55:25] Kenshin:
Remember, my prediction for end of the year was that we will be over Microsoft's market cap.
[00:55:32] McIntosh:
You did say that. And that would be to write this down. Yes. Or did we? I think we may have had a note somewhere.
[00:55:40] Kenshin:
Yeah. You have a better memory than I do, Ken. You're but you're right. That is what you said. And that would be only hundred and 50 k.
[00:55:49] McIntosh:
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. That's right. And depending on what Microsoft does. Yeah. But yeah. Certainly. Okay. So, you know, look. Just hang in there. All right now, it's a bunch of hot air. People are talking. I think things are gonna get settled in large part. I do not know what's gonna happen with China, unfortunately. They appear to wish to, drag this out. I they don't wanna lose face. You always had to remember that about Chinese. I I mean, that's just I know that's what's the word? I'm gonna say I wanna rephrase that. The Chinese Communist Party Mhmm. They do not like to lose face.
K? I don't wanna just indiscriminately say that about all Chinese. Yeah. It is very true about the Chinese party, and I will stand by that statement. They do not like to lose face. They don't like to lose. They don't like to lose face. So Xi Jinping I man, I think I said that right. You know, he is gonna have to come to the table and talk. And we will see when or if that happens. I hope it's sooner rather than later. Because that issue of China US trade is very complicated, and, you know, it's not gonna get solved over Twitter Twitter. It's not.
[00:57:18] Kenshin:
Mhmm.
[00:57:19] McIntosh:
So alright. We do not have any supporters this week. We also have a short week, of course, because we're recording so early, so I will not put up the sad puppy. We're going to ascribe it to that. We really don't have any news this week either. Oh, I will say this. Did you not see this announcement? Zeus is going to start supporting Oh. ECash. Cash too. That. Yeah. Okay. That was what I was referencing. Yeah. Yeah. So that's exciting. It's not out yet. It's blah blah blah, but the beta is out there, I guess, apparently. They're looking at for whatever. It is interesting.
I do think long term, we will see eCash in a lot of places like like we see Lightning now, kinda coexist because they can.
[00:58:12] Kenshin:
For Casio, we have, our follower, and, Nostrand, I would call him now Mhmm. Bullish Bitcoiner. And he has a Casio wallet. One of his Okay. Has the bullish apps, and he has I think it's called bullishnuts.com.
[00:58:32] McIntosh:
He's the guy who had the, shop. Right? Or am I thinking of somebody else? I think I am. In the shop. Maybe not. I think you did. He has a few things. A few cool stuff. Yeah. He sounds like he's got his fingers in a lot of different things. Well, that's cool. I also see FEDIMENT's about to put out a big release, And they have got the ability, which is super important for them. They're preparing the ability for to deploy a FEDIMENT, a guardian, what's called the guardian Right. To a like an Umbrel. So they'll be running it in Docker. On on Stars nine, they are preparing it also. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So That's cool. I think that's critical for them to be able to even be in the same conversation with Cashew and these other, mints.
I think there's a place for Feta Mint. I was actually really interested in them to start with. And to be honest, they've kinda just stalled. I don't know how else to put it. It seems like for a long time they weren't doing a whole lot. Now I have no idea what was going on in the background, but it does seem like they're starting to make some moves. I personally think that FEDIMENT would work in a lot of places that cashew doesn't make sense. So I'm glad to see that regardless. So
[01:00:03] Kenshin:
Quite similar. Both eCash. Right?
[01:00:06] McIntosh:
Right. They're both eCash. The difference is with FEDAMIT, it's, it's more of a model of Sig. Yeah. Exactly. Like a multi sig model, where you have these guardians who sign everything or whatever, which means to to rug the the the MET, you have to compromise a number of those Yeah. Guardians. So it's a more security it's a stronger security posture. I'll put it that way. Mhmm. Okay. So, Ken Chen, we've got a good question, I think, for the week for the audience. Why don't you go ahead and throw that out there, and I'll wrap it up? Well,
[01:00:49] Kenshin:
are you buying Bitcoin today?
[01:00:54] McIntosh:
I bought some Saturday night. No. Sunday morning. And, I mined some. Does that work? No. Doesn't count. That was seven hours ago. I mined Bitcoin. When was the last time you bought Bitcoin, Kenshin?
[01:01:09] Kenshin:
This morning.
[01:01:10] McIntosh:
Seven hours ago or less? No. Three hours. Was it in the last three hours? Oh, I think I got you. No. Because your morning was a long time ago. Yeah.
[01:01:21] Kenshin:
That was thirteen hours ago, I put mine. It's my DCA. Morning DCA. Smaller. Yes.
[01:01:31] McIntosh:
You you have that going on. I have my miners, and I do a weekly And then I I should say,
[01:01:37] Kenshin:
I buy it and then I lose it. I don't have any Bitcoin for your information. No Bitcoin here. No.
[01:01:44] McIntosh:
So we're clear. Well, if you ever need somebody to hold that Bitcoin, let me give you an address.
[01:01:50] Kenshin:
I'm happy buying it and losing it in a boat in Iceland.
[01:01:54] McIntosh:
I don't understand. I cannot hold on to this Bitcoin.
[01:01:59] Kenshin:
I I I zap it away on Oscar every morning.
[01:02:03] McIntosh:
Sometimes it seems like. Alright. Let's wrap this up. Do we have anything coming up, Kenshin? Do we have anything we wanna announce or anything before we should we have we mentioned episode two ten? Like, what No. Should we do that, or should we tease it? Let's tease it. I think we're gonna do it earlier. Yeah. We should've done it earlier. We can do that. I think we tease it until next episode. Either that or we have to go clip this and put it back earlier. It's your call. We can tease. We can say it's coming up soon. Well, it's gonna be episode two ten. We are going to be doing something different, and we will tell you next week.
[01:02:43] Kenshin:
Yep.
[01:02:44] McIntosh:
Okay. Exciting. How's that for a terrible tease? I think we kinda dropped the ball off. Let's wrap this up. Oh, man. We have fun. If you clip an episode if you go to an app like Fountain, you clip a couple minutes from an episode of something really relevant. Post it on Nostr. Post it on Fountain. Do whatever. Let us know about it, and we'll boost you some sats. I typically would boost 500 sats for a current episode. If it's older than that, like 300 sats. It's a way for you to make some treasure. It's a way for you to make some sats from us, and it's a way for us to spread the message. And so you're welcome to do that.
Of course, we support podcasting two point o. It is the way that we can do things like put a silly picture of my shed in the chapter notes so that you can see that in your podcasting two point o app or transcripts or boosting and streaming, which is a way to support us. We do not have any sponsors. We don't have any advertisers. We do not have any sponsors. We don't have any advertisers. I don't I do that on purpose. I don't want the advertisers or the sponsors compromising what we say. I'm kind of a loose cannon in case you didn't notice. I say things like, ledger is stupid, even though I've got a ledger sitting right over here.
Right? That because I bought one a few years actually, it's been a number of years ago. And I'm about to throw it out in the garbage, because Ledger, they've been compromised. They support all kinds of coins besides Bitcoin, just a number of reason reasons. And yet, I know there are podcasts out there who get thousands of dollars a month from Ledger. So instead of that, we simply come to you, kinda like the the guy on the street corner playing the music and say, hey. If you like what you hear, please support our show. You know, you can grab it, one of those podcasting two point o apps.
So if you wanna see those kind of things, go grab a podcasting two point o app at podcastapps.com. Grab Fountain. Real quick, Kenshin. Podcast Podcast Guru. Here's what I have. Tell me what you've got. Let's see here. I have Fountain. I have Podcast Guru. I have Cast o Matic. And, yes, I still have the podcast app from Apple even though it is not a podcasting two point o app, and that is simply to test that is simply to test from time to time to make sure the show's working on it. What do you have? Podcast Guru,
[01:05:26] Kenshin:
Fountain, and Podverse.
[01:05:29] McIntosh:
Podverse. Cool. Alright. So grab one of those. Another way that you can help support this show is also simply telling people about it. Just tell somebody, hey. I'm listening to this show. It's a great way to spread the message. We benefit from that greatly, and, of course, it doesn't cost us a thing. We do stuff on Nostr from time to time to promote the show, and it's been helpful. But frankly, it costs money, and that's something that we just can't do a whole lot right now. So thanks for being here. I hope this has been helpful. We would, we would sure love to hear from you. We have all the different ways of reaching us listed at the bottom of the episode pages, on our satoshis-plebs,uh,.com website. You can go to slash episodes, and there's a whole list of all of the episodes.
So stay humble, friends. Go out. Make it a great week. We will talk to you soon.
[01:06:30] Kenshin:
Stay humble.
[01:06:41] Unknown:
My old man's old man sat down and got to talking. He said this whole life won't roll the way you want it. Lots of curve balls, but go out swinging. Use your head, but don't overthink it.
[01:07:17] Unknown:
Change a thing. Got everything I wanted. So do what's right, but have some fun before you know it. Twenty years are gone, or you'll get there sure enough. But you're still too young for growing up.
[01:07:48] Unknown:
He said the good old days for you are just beginning. If you take it from me, it's so hard to know when you're ill If you love someone, don't let them go Every chance you get, make sure they know it So listen when I say Remember this until you're dying
[01:08:23] Unknown:
Yeah. I found faith, and I found love and lost it. I wouldn't change a thing. I'd everything I wanted. So do what's right, but have some fun before you know it. Forty years are gone. Boy, you'll get there sure enough.
[01:09:13] Unknown:
Yeah. I found faith and I found love and lost her. Wouldn't change a thing. She was everything I wanted.
[01:09:41] Unknown:
You're just too young. Yeah. You're still too young for growing up.
[01:09:54] Unknown:
Up.
What is up, Pleb Nation? Today is April, and this is episode 204 of Satoshi's Plebs. I'm McIntosh.
[00:00:09] Kenshin:
And I am Kenshin. And today's episode is, how low can we go?
[00:00:29] Unknown:
He said this whole life won't roll away, won't it? Lots of curve balls could go out swinging. Use your head, but don't overthink it. So listen when I sing.
[00:00:51] McIntosh:
Alright, Kenshin. That was some great music by, by by Matt Jonner Joyner. Sorry, Matt. I still don't know how to say your name. I really need to look that up. And I we were discussing right before we started recording about music. Kenshin just doesn't he could probably, I guess, maybe take it or leave it. Is that a good way of saying it? You don't care? I
[00:01:15] Kenshin:
mean, it goes from one ear, comes out from the other ear,
[00:01:18] McIntosh:
kind of. You live in Sweden. I think we all know that. I have a question for you, Kenshin. Do you know who Abba is?
[00:01:28] Kenshin:
Yes. Okay. That I know. Yes. Okay.
[00:01:31] McIntosh:
Heard of him. I will allow you to continue to be the co host of the show. Not to get off track, but to be honest, and I do not consider ABBA to be rock or I mean, they're almost disco, and they come from that era, from the early from the mid seventies. I think they had a like, their earliest album might have been around 1972. But when I was a kid, we borrowed some ABBA albums from the county library, and my dad recorded them on reel to reel tape. And it was literally the only kind of rock music that we had in the household. My parents listened to country, gospel music, and, like, Barbra Streisand.
Okay? Like, easy listening kind of music. They I don't remember them ever listening to, like, rock and roll at all. And we bring home it was I think it was the visitors album. I'm almost sure it was, at least one of the first ones. And we recorded on reel to reel, and I would literally sit in front of the speakers and listen to ABBA just, like, nonstop. And so, unfortunately, I love ABBA. I I I even tell people that. I do. I can sing most of their songs. Certainly, they're popular songs. And I can, you know, it's I can literally go for decades without hearing a song, and this is in general. I don't know why my brain works like this, but I can go for decades without hearing a song and listen to it and still remember all the words, but then sometimes I struggle to remember, like, a word like I did earlier. I could not come up with a certain word. I don't even remember what it was.
I I don't know. It just engages a different part of your brain. Sorry. That was a really long story, but I think we need some levity today. It's it's rough out there. Let's go through our normal stuff. Our Bitcoin price, at time of recording, 04/08/2025, '70 '8 thousand '6 hundred and '50 US dollars. And what do we have in euros, sir?
[00:03:49] Kenshin:
€72,000.
[00:03:51] McIntosh:
Up and down. Nice even round number. 71.
[00:03:54] Kenshin:
Yeah. $71,900 or something.
[00:03:57] McIntosh:
Alright. Our price last April, so one year ago, was 71,622. So, wow, that one's going up and ours is going down week over week. So, I'm not sure about that. And what do we have for our market caps, sir?
[00:04:17] Kenshin:
So Bitcoin market cap is at 1,600,000,000,000.0 US dollars, and gold market cap, we have at $20,800,000,000,000, which means that Bitcoin is 7.5%
[00:04:30] McIntosh:
of gold's market cap, which has dropped a bit from eight. Yeah. Yeah. It was like 8.1 or something. It was somewhere around eight, so about half a percent or so. Mhmm. So gold has been holding its value a little better than Bitcoin in the last few days. Now we are recording on Monday. We just put out our last episode on Friday, so we're doing this a little bit different than normal. So let's take a look at the mempool. Let's take a look at the mempool kitchen, and our block height right now is 891,379. We've got a difficulty adjustment that went down just a tiny bit.
3.75 is our current, and then our previous one was 6.81% up. So it still looks like we're getting an upward difficulty adjustment, when that takes place, which I'm not sure, actually. April. So, we not looking forward to that as a minor. However, I will say this before we move on. I'm sorry. But, Ocean has been doing really well. So far this month, we've already mined 11 blocks. Thank you very much. Seven days in, we've already mined 11 blocks. And I'm doing my part. Hopefully, a little more soon, but, yeah, that's where we're at. And can you carry on from there, sir?
[00:05:56] Kenshin:
Yes. Then we have the mempool fees, and we are at two two to three sets per Vbyte for transactions from low to high and 50 megabytes in the pool and, around 4,000 transactions unprocessed, which means we are actually pretty much empty in the pool.
[00:06:20] McIntosh:
It keeps clearing up these days. Mhmm. So that also yesterday, we had a few blocks that were quite empty. Even right now, we're at two, three, and three sats per v byte. But if I were going to post something, I would just go ahead and do it at one sat per v byte because Yeah. There's no reason not to most likely within a short period of time, it's gonna get cleared. Yeah. Definitely. So I I even saw some transactions with zero such review bytes. How is it wait. What does that mean? Does that literally mean they're not paying?
[00:06:53] Kenshin:
I guess it's for free. Yeah. If you go eleven hours ago,
[00:06:58] McIntosh:
Zero. I don't recall ever hearing about that. That's interesting. Why would a miner do that? I don't want those things on my miner. That's probably something well, we'll look into that. Okay. Interesting. Alright. What's going on with you, sir? Besides listening to Abba, I know you do. Come on.
[00:07:21] Kenshin:
I I don't. But you don't. My my my wife and son, they do karaoke sometimes, so I'm a bit more familiar with her brother than I used. I could I could see your wife. Dancing
[00:07:34] McIntosh:
queen. Yeah. Sorry.
[00:07:37] Kenshin:
Yes. My son the same.
[00:07:40] McIntosh:
Oh, that's funny. Alright. What what else is going on with you?
[00:07:46] Kenshin:
Well, I have news. I have not mind the blow yet.
[00:07:53] McIntosh:
I thought you were gonna tell me you had a new job.
[00:07:56] Kenshin:
No. Not yet. But no. But it's, it's been a good spring start of the spring here in Sweden. Gets cold and hot cold out. But, otherwise, it's good weather and sunny. And, yeah, we're trying our best with the Fiat mining, as we call it now. And, I have actually started looking into into the Bitcoin world more into the cashier stuff. Okay. The e cash. So that's quite exciting.
[00:08:33] McIntosh:
Is there some news there this week? No. I'm not sure, actually. There's a little bit. Some. Maybe.
[00:08:41] Kenshin:
Is there? Okay.
[00:08:43] McIntosh:
Remind me when we get to the news section. I I wasn't actually gonna talk about it, but, yeah, it's probably worth mentioning. Okay. Very cool. Yeah. What's up with you? You have been working on your shit. That's what I said. I so I took off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday from work, my my Fiat job, and worked on the shed. And the outside is finished. I'm not quite done, if that makes any sense. But I'll be getting with the owner at this point and kinda going through a checklist and saying, what do you want finished? What you know, to to wrap things up. So, I will be posting, if you look at chapters, if you look at your podcasting two point o app right now, there is a picture of the front of the shed, and I've removed all the location data and whatever.
Cross my fingers. I think we're good. I didn't really wanna do this, but I feel like I've been talking about it so long. I kinda owe y'all, a view of this of this thing. And, no, it's not for sale. No. I'm not going to come build you one. No. Right now, I don't even wanna look at a shed, to be honest. But I actually have to build my own this fall, so we've got that going for us. Anyways, the one that we're gonna build is not nearly so big. This shed was, 16 by 20, just to give you an idea. 16 feet. I have no idea what that is in meters. It'd be roughly, like, five meters. Five. Yeah. Five by 40 feet. So it's a big boy shed built with trusses inside that we built. So if you walk in the shed and look and if you walk in the shed and look up, you see the, you know, the triangular trusses that we built that the roof is sitting on.
All hand built, built from pine that we harvested, in the local area. And, I'm proud of it, but it frankly took way longer than it should have. A lot of it due to, frankly, my I don't wanna say mistakes, but shortcomings. I don't know. This is not the first shed I've built, but I still made some mistakes.
[00:11:09] Kenshin:
Wasn't that the the reason why you took that break back in Mhmm. What was it? September, October. Right? To start that project. I have,
[00:11:17] McIntosh:
I've taken multiple breaks for this shed. So I don't even like saying this, but unfortunately, I've been working on this shed for over a year, which is crazy if you think about it. Originally, I took a week off to start with. And then, during that week, we we already had the kind of the foundation ready, but we built the frame, and then, you know, steadily worked on it. I don't know. At some point along the way, basically, we got burned out. We couldn't which I just could not keep going over there every afternoon and working on the shed and having a full time job, which is actually more than a full time job. I I do not work forty hours a week. I never it's been a long time since I've worked forty hours a week. Okay?
But I would do my regular work and then go over and try and work on the shed. So I did end up taking another week off, I think, somewhere along the way and then these three days, to to kinda finish it up. But we did. It's done. What we have left is is very, I I wanna say, minor at this point. The outside is complete. I've you know, it I like it. It looks good. What can I say? I don't wanna brag, but yeah.
[00:12:46] Kenshin:
So can you build me one?
[00:12:49] McIntosh:
No. What do you say? If you'll fly me to Sweden and hire me a full crew to do it, pay for my ticket both ways first class, of course, I cannot do coach. I don't know. Right. I don't know what else I can come up with. Maybe pay me a lot, and, yeah, we'll do it.
[00:13:08] Kenshin:
How much Bitcoin do you want?
[00:13:11] McIntosh:
I would do it for 1 Bitcoin. For 1 Bitcoin, I'll be there tomorrow. 1 Bitcoin in today's interview. Sure. That's fine. Because 1 Bitcoin is equal to 1 Bitcoin. I didn't don't know if you knew that, Elmo. Elmo. I sorry. I looked at my notes. I don't know if you knew that, Kenshin, but 1 Bitcoin is 1 Bitcoin. It is a hundred thousand satoshis. Today, tomorrow. Million. I'm sorry. You're right. I'm gonna yeah. Correct. A hundred million. Forever, it will be a hundred million Satoshis.
[00:13:48] Kenshin:
That that's part of my good morning routine. Oh, man. 1 Bitcoin exchange. That's right.
[00:13:53] McIntosh:
So yeah. So that's kinda my week. I'm glad it's done, and I've talked about it enough, and I will stop talking about it after this. But I will put a picture there. I'll put one I'll put one of the front and one of the side. I'll put two pictures up. Because you can't just looking at it from the front, you don't have a perspective on how big it is, really. Cool. Yeah. Alright. Well, what are we talking about today? How low can we go? What are we playing limbo here? What's going on? Right.
[00:14:26] Kenshin:
Well, it's, it's a bit of a crazy week. Last week and this week, it seems, the start of the week. The weekend was also interesting. Bitcoin started to move yesterday. Right? Yeah. It did. It went down. And this and this morning, all all had broke loose. Global markets were down. I was, I was looking ahead for The US market to open up today.
[00:14:52] McIntosh:
Well, they did, and they went down. Well, they went up first. I mean, I guess, I think that false announcement, and we'll get to that in just a minute, but it came out right before market opened. So it shot up, and then it went right back down. And it's been going down. So let's back up for just a minute. First of all, let me throw this little fact out, Kenshin. I we were talking about prior to the show. I think everybody knows if you've listened to this show long enough, I'm a Gen x. Because of the things that I talk about, you can kinda piece that together. So that's no big surprise. That means I was born between, like, 1960 and 1980 or '60 I think it's actually Somewhere in that range.
Gen xers like me, so this is now our fourth major recession. And I think it's frankly unavoidable at this point that we will be in at least a brief recession. You can call it what you want. But we looked we looked at, I looked this up. We had the .com bubble in 1999, which I lost my job. I told you about that. I lost my my tech job. I had just gotten a tech job and lost it because of the stupid well, it was all a bunch of stupid nonsense. You know, chewy.com or whatever. I mean, the some of the ridiculous things that were going on. I was working one of the companies I was working on, they actually literally were it's it was a a phone directory. It was an online phone directory.
Like, that's just Is it
[00:16:30] Kenshin:
like the meme meme coins of today, kind of Maybe.
[00:16:34] McIntosh:
Maybe. That's actually a really good point. I think there's a lot of so, anyways, I lost my job. I had to move back across the country. I was out of the IT business for for a long time, and it kinda wrecked me and put me in a really bad place. 2,008 was next. That was the bank meltdown, mortgage crisis, COVID in March of twenty twenty. And now whatever we're going to end up calling this. I don't know, the tariff war, trade war with China. I don't know. And we're gonna get into that a little bit here in just a second. But I wanna be, you know, there's a saying, if you don't laugh, you cry.
And I wanna be respectful, especially for the listeners who, maybe you've got a big four zero one ks. And you're looking at it going, what the, you know, I just lost 20% of my value in the in three days. I mean, it's it's just nuts. And I actually think that's important that that can even happen in what's supposed to be a not a volatile market. We don't talk about the S and P stock market as being something that can drop so dramatically in such a short period of time. And yet, that's exactly what we've seen. Three days in a row, we're looking at five plus percent. It was I think it's approaching 20% now since last Thursday.
So if you're in that situation, I'm sorry. It's not a good situation to be in. But we are here to actually talk about a solution to that. Is that fair, Kenshin? Yeah. Quite fair. Because in my opinion, a lot of this mess is caused by fiat. Money. Literally, money that's backed by hopes and promises and weapons. And he who has the biggest weapon, he wins. And that's the case with The United States. Let's be let's be blunt because I think that that factors into this. The US dollar is the global reserve currency of the world. It has been since the Bretton Woods agreements, which were in the nineteen forties post World War two.
The basically, we said we'll bail everybody out, and you'll use our dollars to do it. And that's what happened. And that's rolled into the petrodollar in the early seventies, and it's rolled into the situation that we're in now. Now The US is in a great amount of debt, just like virtually every other country around the world. We cannot dispute that. In fact, we lead the way because, baby, we're number one. 30 six and a half, roughly, I think at this point, trillion dollars. It's an immense stupid amount of debt. And part of the problem is we have turned into now this is my opinion. Let me tell you something. Go get on Twitter because there are people who would disagree with what I'm about to say.
And that's fine. But in my opinion, a lot of this debt, aside from stupid spending, comes from the fact that we send dollars overseas by buying products in China. Let's just I'm not I don't wanna pick on anybody, but China's easy. We spend a lot of money in China. They're shipping product to us. They're keeping our dollars. That essentially And look, there's people who can explain this better than I can. But that becomes debt on our books. It's a trade imbalance. And not only that, we've shipped all the manufacturing jobs overseas in the last fifty years as part of this. Actually, sixty plus years.
We used to have a large amount of manufacturing, you know, autos and just all the things. And because of cost competitiveness, because of cheaper wages and etcetera and slacker business regulations and probably a few other reasons, a lot of these industries have, in large part moved overseas, and it is gutted, in my opinion, the middle class of The United States. You're either rich or you're poor. When and and here's my definition of poor. I've changed this recently. If you can't buy a house, you're poor. Now that does not meet the government's criteria. But in The United States right now, you can make $70,000 a year and not be able to buy a house.
Because the average house now costs 500,000. Right? So Trump comes in. And look, tariffs with Trump are nothing new. This, he's been talking about these since literally the eighties. I did not realize it went back so far. But he was on talk shows in the eighties, not a politician talking about tariffs. This is not new for him. He says, well, we're gonna we're gonna try and move some of this back. We're gonna try and settle things up. And the way to do that is is tariffs. Because a lot of these countries have tariffs against us. And I know some of this is a repeat of what I did last week. But please bear with me because I it sets up all of this. So anyways, he starts implementing all these tariffs. And I will tell you, I do not like the way he's doing it. Kitchen, I don't.
I think he's doing it way too fast. It's like coming in it's my picture of this is a bull in a China shop. Right? You know what I mean? You go in the shop. You got the fragile stuff all around. You take a 2,000 pound bull and you put him in there. He can't turn around without knocking something over. And that's what we're seeing. He comes in and he says, well, we're just basically gonna tariff everybody 10%. And based on whatever the criteria it is, we're gonna give these other countries more. I think China is sitting at roughly 50% right now. And the market has gone crazy.
Now my question would be, one question I have is why is the market going crazy? Are these like meme coins? Does Intel make computer parts? I I think so. Why would they drop 20%?
[00:23:27] Kenshin:
How does that happen so quickly, I guess? Do do you have an answer for that? Yeah. I mean, everybody is is going up and down like they used to blame Bitcoin of doing. Right? It go up 5% one day, 10% the next day down. It's like I have a widget on my phone with a lot of stocks including Bitcoin, and and I see all of them green or red at the same time, same percentages, including Bitcoin. I mean, it's crazy. And that I I actually don't like it personally when I say Bitcoin following all the Wall Street stocks in the same way.
But I guess we're early. That that's what it means for now. We're not there yet with the digital gold aspect of it. Yeah. I I definitely agree with that.
[00:24:15] McIntosh:
I remember back and I was not involved in the stock market, say, in the eighties or nineties. But I do remember, like, people would talk about your what is it called? Your PE, your profit to earnings or whatever. Send it. Mike actually mentioned this last week. Fundamental fundamentals of these stocks. Nobody ever talks about it anymore. They're just like, oh, no. Gosh. I don't know. NVIDIA is the new hot stock because of because of AI. Send it. Right? It's gonna go go to the moon, and and then it crashes because at some point, because there's nothing to support that. I don't it's almost like roulette, but the problem is is that for decades, people have been taught you put your money into the stock market because we have to save our money from being debased because we all realized the dollar was going down in value. So what do you do? You invest. You put it in real estate. You put it in stocks and bonds, and you buy that index fund.
And then you're supposed to be okay. Except during the last four times when we had these major downturns for us Gen Xers. Right? So excuse me if I'm a little a little irritated that that's actually not true. And a lot of these gen xers are getting close to retirement age. We're starting to think about it. Maybe we're not ready for it, but what if this takes ten more years to turn around? I mean, according to some of the people that I work with, we were talking about this this morning in our our little water cooler meeting. It could take ten years for the stock market to recover.
I don't it may take ten minutes. We actually don't know. I mean, if Trump comes out and says this is all all off, I I don't know. But How how fast was the .com bubble to It wasn't it wasn't this fast. It wasn't anything like this from what I remember. So I will say, statistically, like, this is the worst three day drawdown since the Great Depression in '19 in the 1930s.
[00:26:38] Kenshin:
Someone was,
[00:26:39] McIntosh:
saying the numbers look very similar to the .com bubble. I would have to look at that because from what I remember and again so this was the late nineties. I was not involved. I haven't and I'm not heavily involved in this top market. Okay? It's not like I'm trading stocks or have a giant four zero one k, but, you know, it doesn't feel like it. Because with the .com bubble, the when the bubble popped, when people started realizing, I don't know, it whatever. Like this company I used to work for, what they were doing made no sense. There was no way they were ever gonna make any money. They were just sucking up investor money.
That didn't happen everywhere all at once. It was it was more of a gradual, maybe six months, maybe a year. Probably six months, I would say, from the worst part of it, certainly. Now, I may be wrong about that. Maybe there is a lot of parallels. But I don't remember the stock market ever going down. The S and P going down, like, 15%, twenty % in three days. It's just it it is I think it's going to be fairly historical. And the one thing that gives me hope for those of us who are invested in the stock market, it went down so fast. Once this gets sorted out, which it will and we're gonna talk about I need to finish up the tariff stuff.
I think it could go back up just as fast. So maybe within a few months, this is all sorted out. I do wanna follow this up. I said Trump did a terrible job of handling this. But what we are seeing literally in real time is Taiwan is saying, hey. We'll reach out and we'll negotiate something. The Japan is saying, the I think it's the prime minister, and I'm sorry if I'm wrong. But the prime minister of Japan, he's gonna come over here to The United States and meet with Trump and solve this. The EU, we'll negotiate. Yeah.
[00:28:56] Kenshin:
We'll do zero this time. We'll do zero.
[00:28:59] McIntosh:
You know, so I think we're going to see these things happen very, very quickly in a lot of cases. Now, China, on the other hand, has said, nope. We're doubling down. You put a 35% tariff on us. We're gonna put a 35% tariff on you. They refuse to realize why we're doing this or that well, I don't know how else to read it. We're doing this because of the trade imbalance between us and China. I mean, they are our biggest trading partner. Right? And China, in my opinion, and this is definitely something that people disagree on, but I will say this is my opinion.
They are in a very weak state. Their real estate market is in shambles. Their stock markets have been going down for a long time. They're now dropping very quickly. They were 10% down, this morning when they opened the week. I guess that was last night for us, but whatever. Monday morning for them. I don't think they're going to be able to push this very far. I think The United States can, and I think that Trump will push this to the point where they capitulate. Now, I may be mistaken, but I you know, we've got to come to an agreement with China. We've got to figure this out. We've got to be able to say, hey, you can't just block our cars from being or slap, you know, super high tariffs on our cars in order to protect your market.
You can't, I I don't know. I I don't know, and I'm not well, I'm not going to get into that. I don't know. But we have to make an agreement with them, or we're going to end up in war with them. And I hate to say that, but it's true. I mean, it would be a terrible, ugly thing. But we have to be able to figure this out. Both of those countries are too important. They just are. There's too many people and too much GDP involved to not not get this figured out. Yeah. I agree. No one will benefit from a war. That's for sure. So the good news is, Kenshin, I think you're gonna be able to drink your, Jim Beam, I think is what it's called. It's a whiskey.
You know you guys have, like, terribly high tariffs on our whiskey.
[00:31:35] Kenshin:
I we have a I have no idea what you drink if you drink it all. So what? Well well, Sweden, the the alcohol is not free in Sweden, you know, the trading, trade of alcohol. Now it's only a government,
[00:31:51] McIntosh:
place that where you can buy alcohol in Sweden. So Oh, you mean like the liquor store that you actually go to? Yeah. So that's not private label. But one of the things I understand from the EU is they do have a fairly high tariff, like, on our liquor because they're trying to, you know, protect their market. So Jim Beam, it's Beam, b e a m, whatever. I don't know. I don't drink this stuff. So but it's a bourbon. It's a whiskey. Okay. Comes from Kentucky, if I remember. It may be Tennessee. Yeah. And, you know, I guess at least you can get that without a big tariff on it. So that'll be good.
[00:32:30] Kenshin:
Sorry. I I bought a bottle, actually. I don't know what brand now. I bought a bottle on my last trip in US.
[00:32:37] McIntosh:
The prices looked a lot cheaper than Sweden. That's what you're saying. Because they are. Because they don't have a tariff. So you can come over here and buy it, and then you declare it when you go back, and you get a certain exemption. Well, you may maybe didn't. I I think you're supposed to. I don't know. But regardless, that's they don't view that as a threat, because everybody's not gonna come over there to buy their whiskey. Right? But if we ship it over there, that's a whole different thing. You see what I'm saying? This will all get sorted out. I hope. I do. And I hope it's quick.
[00:33:14] Kenshin:
Now you make me think. Did I have to declare it? I think you were supposed to whether you did or not. I did. I did. Let's see. I did. Anyways. I forgot. Okay.
[00:33:25] McIntosh:
So all that being said, I don't know if I maybe let too much out there, but let's talk about this market for just a second. You've got some figures here I think are are very good.
[00:33:39] Kenshin:
I mean, yeah. I don't know if we should go to the equity markets in general. We can talk a little bit about Bitcoin that if if people are afraid of the state of Bitcoin right now, I think a good reminder is to look at the latest big, crisis or how do you want to call it? Recession temporary recession with the COVID Yep. In March. So at that time, it was Bitcoin was around 10,000 when the year started, the year 2020. And in the March or whenever, ever. That was the time with the COVID peak, and Bitcoin dropped to 4,000. That was a 60%
[00:34:26] McIntosh:
drop. You scooped up 3 Bitcoin, didn't you?
[00:34:30] Kenshin:
I wish.
[00:34:33] McIntosh:
I can't say I really bought I'm not sure I even bought any, to be honest. Mhmm. I'm trying to remember. If I did, it wasn't a significant amount. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunate. And I knew I knew I knew when it happened, that's what was but yeah.
[00:34:53] Kenshin:
C'est la vie as the first thing. Happened that year. Right? Mhmm. From that $4,000, Bitcoin went up to I don't know how much it closed that year, but the next year, for sure, it picks the all time high at 69.
[00:35:06] McIntosh:
I think that 300% is, yeah, 69.
[00:35:10] Kenshin:
Mhmm. So That is true. So those things happen, and they can be temporary, as you said, also.
[00:35:18] McIntosh:
Bitcoin is a very liquid market. It is the only market in the world that I'm aware of that's open twenty four seven to anyone, anyone who has an account anywhere that they can buy or sell Bitcoin. Right? And it does make it I view it there's a saying, a canary in the coal mine. They used to take canaries down that would die from the gases that would be released before they would affect the coal miners. That's where that saying comes from. But it's so liquid and it's so and because it's available all the time, it's out there and you may see it fall and then something else will go behind it. Because people are they're scared, but they can't move out of their $4.00 1 k so they ditch some of their Bitcoin, which in my mind is the wrong thinking, but that is human nature and that is what occurs.
So I don't know, actually, if that will ever change. Maybe? Yeah. Maybe a while. Let me put it that way. I would it will change. It has to, but I think it could be a while.
[00:36:30] Kenshin:
And what we see now is actually more day trading, I would say, actions. It's funny. I was actually on NoSur this morning Mhmm. Just browsing casually, and then I follow this wrecked bot, it's called. Mhmm. And then I see, like, five, six in a row post from that saying, like, this, trader lost, or short trader lost x amount. Right? Five of them in a row, short traders. And then literally an hour later or half an hour later The long term traders. The long traders were all wrecked. Right. It's like, holy shit. It was going up and down.
[00:37:10] McIntosh:
This whipsaw action. Right? This up and down. It is not good for the traders. No. Like, you cannot monitor twenty four seven unless you have some really tight constraints on your trading. Like, if you're using a bot and it's very well coded, you get wrecked in a heartbeat in this kind of stuff.
[00:37:33] Kenshin:
Yeah. So I don't think it's good to day trade Bitcoin, but I, it it seems like that's what's going on and that's what moves the price as well. And this everybody's following the news. Yeah. Those liquidations
[00:37:46] McIntosh:
cause cascading effects on the price because somebody will see it, and then they'll be like, oh my gosh. Everything's falling. And then they'll sell, and then it just kinda it snowballs.
[00:37:58] Kenshin:
So, yeah, that's what is going on today. But I would say
[00:38:04] McIntosh:
Historically, though, what we're looking at if if you don't mind me sorry. But historically, we're seeing that even though we may have a significant crash, 60% from January 1 to whatever that point was in March of twenty twenty, within within really a short period of time, it had already recovered. And in fact, gone on to significantly rally 15 nicks.
[00:38:33] Kenshin:
More than 15 nicks. Yeah.
[00:38:35] McIntosh:
So is this the point where I go ahead and make my prediction about where we are going? I'm just kidding. We'll wait for later. Alright. So yeah. Definitely. And it's so helpful to look back at those I mean, we saw the same thing with the Ukraine War. We hit a a bottom 16 something was that bottom. I did buy that one, by the way, when when that started. And within a very short period of time, it had gone back right back up. So you see this over and over, and we'll see it again. Bitcoin is not going to zero. I'm sorry.
[00:39:15] Kenshin:
It's just not. No. Exactly. And there are some psychological support levels that we can mention. If we if we go back to that question, how low can we go, we could give those numbers because it's a psychological game, isn't it? It's a human human nature. Yeah. So there are those supports. One is the 74 k that we briefly hit, I think, today at some point. And that 74 k was a twenty twenty three high. So it seems people are still looking at that point. And then another point, if we go lower, is a 69, obviously. It's the peak of, 2021, the all time high that's that was for a few years in place.
[00:40:03] McIntosh:
I think that will prove to be a very strong level, but Yeah. That's just my opinion. But, historically, there is a point there that, historically,
[00:40:12] Kenshin:
I don't think Bitcoin in any cycle went below a previous all time high after that is, I believe, true. After a boom if we say that we are in the current bull market, historically, while Bitcoin is in a bull market or after bull market, never dropped below the previous bull market's all time high.
[00:40:41] McIntosh:
So what's our previous high? 69. Right. Yeah. That's why that's one of the reasons why I'm thinking that that's such a Must be. Strong support level. I don't think it'll break below that. If it does, then
[00:40:56] Kenshin:
Opportunity.
[00:40:58] McIntosh:
I would start to float the idea that maybe this cycle's a bust for whatever reason, which is insane if you think about it, given all of the factors that we've been talking about for so long. But, I mean, yeah, that would be a hard one right there. I think
[00:41:14] Kenshin:
we are in a unique situation, and that's we never had this in previous cycles. Even in the COVID, it was very temporary. Mhmm. It was a panic, but it was a bit temporary panic, I would say. Now it's a bit more global economic. We hit some levels with the money supply and the money printing from the COVID year, that we see the effects right now. So I would say all the inflation that we've seen also, we see the effects now from that as well. You know what I mean? With the you see, with inflation, how everybody's a bit careful with spending money and investing and buying things.
I mean, I definitely see it in normal people, as well as traders. When when I heard some traders, they were saying, oh, we need to wait and see what happens, with all the interest rates and announcements and things like that. So there is some some tension, and everybody's a bit careful. So I would say it's a unique unique situation where we are, and we might not follow the cycles for once.
[00:42:35] McIntosh:
So that would then surprise me. Do you know how many people have said that?
[00:42:40] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:42:41] McIntosh:
I am going to follow the theory of the four year cycle until it's been demonstrably proven wrong. And if for no other reason, I will still stand by what I say fourth quarter twenty twenty five this year. So we're only talking about six to nine months from now being, the high. And I still think look. We're at 70 well, we're at 78,000. Wow. That was quite a rebound. But we were at 73,000 earlier today. I I don't have any problem seeing that triple by the end of the year, which sounds crazy, but Bitcoin has done it, I believe, a number of times before.
Similar things, just like the one you were just talking about with COVID.
[00:43:37] Kenshin:
Actually, with that, I agree. I think we will be at an all time high end of the year. I just already see that we have broken through some patterns that we had in the previous cycles. There is You mean going down? Yeah. It's like we have, I mean previous cycles, bull markets, we have gone down a lot, even 50%, I think Mhmm. Before rebounding. Yes. So that's nothing unique. But when you see where we are on this cycle, there is this nice circular chart. Have you seen it? That it's all the cycles.
[00:44:13] McIntosh:
No. I'm not oh, rational roots
[00:44:17] Kenshin:
circular chart? Yeah. It it goes through all the years, and then it goes Like a spiral. Right? That's rational, really. And I think it's the first time now that we hit we almost hit the previous year's, price in that sense, at this point of the cycle, at least.
[00:44:38] McIntosh:
But but we haven't, have we?
[00:44:44] Kenshin:
I think we did earlier in March.
[00:44:47] McIntosh:
Okay.
[00:44:48] Kenshin:
No. No. You're right. No. We haven't yet. No. We haven't.
[00:44:52] McIntosh:
Look. We we hit a hundred and seven. Is that our all time high, I think? Hundred and 9. Okay. Right. It it you're right. Hundred and 9. What's half of a hundred and $9.50
[00:45:05] Kenshin:
$54.04.
[00:45:07] McIntosh:
I'm not panicking until we hit 54.
[00:45:12] Kenshin:
That's a good target.
[00:45:13] McIntosh:
Actually, I'm not panicking then either, but yeah. Until we do things that we've never done in previous bull cycles, I I'm not panicking. And we know that we've had 50% drawdowns during the bull part of the cycle and still gone on to have all time highs. So, you know, maybe you think I'm cracked at this point and we're not gonna be there. We could hit 200. I don't know where we're going. It could be it, to an extent, certainly depends on the governments of the world and how they sort all of this out. And by the way, Kenshin, I really did want to get your input kind of on I want to get your European perspective.
Yeah. I do. On on this terror stuff. I actually took some time over the weekend to listen to Sky News and, France Twenty Four. Okay? So that's Great Britain and France. And I will say this about Sky News. I watched this little thing, which I thought was a, like, a full blown Sky News show. It was called electoral dysfunction, and it's branded Sky News. And I think some of the ladies on there might actually work for Sky News, but it was literally these three ladies on a Zoom call talking politics. And let me tell you something, those people do not like Trump. No.
[00:46:48] Kenshin:
No one does in Europe. No. I I keep hearing at my work. I sit on my desk at work and hear all the time. Oh, these idiots, Trump, those terrorists. This is destroying everything, and this and that. And that's all I hear around me.
[00:47:07] McIntosh:
On the surface level, I understand that. But do they not actually take the time to why would he do that?
[00:47:17] Kenshin:
No. Exactly. No. No one is looking at the, at the numbers. Beyond the beyond the surface. No. There there is no willingness.
[00:47:25] McIntosh:
So they're okay with a 20% VAT tax in Europe. I mean, I don't know. Just throwing it out there that might impede trade. I don't know. It's look, I'm a Homer just like everybody else. But at some point, you just have to try and be logical and think things through.
[00:47:51] Kenshin:
In my opinion, I go back to this Einstein quote that said, you the definition of insanity. Right? You keep doing the same thing over and over again. You expect a different result. I mean, we've done this with the the the fiat system, with the politics, with everything. Now, this tariffs for me is is As you said new. Yeah. It's It's something new. As you said, it was really badly managed, this I would call it the change management, as I call it in my fiat company. They they don't know how to implement change. Mhmm.
The the idea can be good, but implement the change is even more important than the idea itself.
[00:48:30] McIntosh:
The change will be implemented as far as I can tell. He has no he will not back down.
[00:48:36] Kenshin:
Yeah. Exactly. But and for me, that that's all almost a negotiation ploy. I mean, didn't he do that with Mexico and Canada? And in the end, they actually negotiated. So Yes.
[00:48:48] McIntosh:
Oddly enough, they actually said, well, maybe we won't do that. Yeah.
[00:48:53] Kenshin:
So for me, it's it's interesting. I'm not losing anything right now. I'm not day trading anything. I don't have stocks, and my Bitcoin is in cold storage. So, yeah, if I look at the numbers, maybe I see that in in dollar value or euro value, it has dropped, but it it hasn't changed my stock in that sense. So it's fine. So in that sense, it's it's just interesting to go through a new scenario. And if we think even further back, tariffs were a thing a hundred years ago. Mhmm. And taxes were not a thing Right. At the time. So you had tariffs and no taxes, and that wasn't the gold standard
[00:49:38] McIntosh:
at the time. I would be 100% in favor of that, by the way. Yeah. I mean, I'm just gonna that that's just me being the Homer. I don't I hate taxes. I don't think they're fair. They're not progressive. I'm sorry. But when half of your population doesn't pay taxes, that's not fair. It's just not. I'm sorry. So I'm all for tariffs in that respect. But I will tell you, and I'm sure you will see this in Europe as well. There's going to be some price fluctuations. There may be most likely will be some inflation, And things are go as as during this period of change, it may be rough.
But things need to be fair, or it long term doesn't make sense.
[00:50:33] Kenshin:
So Yeah. The only thing that worries me now, at least here in Europe, is that those knee knee jerk reactions.
[00:50:42] McIntosh:
Mhmm.
[00:50:43] Kenshin:
Everybody panics, and I've seen it in my I worked in a big, huge corporation in Sweden, and they have already, a meeting set for Friday, very secretive, out of the blue, huge meeting for the whole company. So
[00:51:02] McIntosh:
What does that mean? I have heard
[00:51:05] Kenshin:
already more and more about moving factors here and there, and so there is so much knee jerk reactions.
[00:51:14] McIntosh:
Yeah. And this is a multibillion dollar company, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, it it has to be. Yeah. And so they're based on one week, they're going to
[00:51:26] Kenshin:
Yeah. They're talking talking
[00:51:28] McIntosh:
even, which I mean, it would take a while, but about moving factories or or whatever, that that's not good management. No. Right now, your management should be saying, hey. Everybody stay calm. We've got money in the bank. I hope they do. And we're good. We'll figure this out. We'll see what happens, and then we'll go from there. But there's
[00:51:53] Kenshin:
it Now people panic. It's like, oh, it's disappointing. You go around, and I hear it behind my back. It's like, oh, they know they don't know what they're doing in US, and they're destroying everything. And we need to fix it for them and you know? We need to fix it for them. Yeah.
[00:52:09] McIntosh:
Please come fix it. What What are they gonna do? I don't I don't know. How are they gonna fix it? But that's the attitude. You know? There's
[00:52:17] Kenshin:
there is this complex of superiority here in Sweden.
[00:52:22] McIntosh:
We seriously have a trade debt with virtually everyone in the world. That's doesn't You can't do that No. Long term. We're we're exporting our debt, and eventually, it comes home to roost. And I wished I could eloquently explain how that happens, but I cannot. Anyways, aye aye aye. It's gonna be an interesting week. That's for sure. No. It's gonna be an interesting week. I hope next week things are a little calmer and we can move on to some other things, but I just felt like this was way too important not to talk about. Alright. So, Kitchin, I wanna kinda wrap things up because we've been chatting for a while.
Yeah. How low do you actually see Bitcoin going? I mean, I guess maybe worst case, let's say this gets drug out for a couple more weeks. You know, the whole world's mad at The United States. We're still mad at everybody else.
[00:53:24] Kenshin:
I don't know. Where are we going? I I don't see it going lower than 69, but we said that for the 84 limit. Mhmm. We saw now the 74 as well. So we never
[00:53:37] McIntosh:
We just kinda keep ratcheting down. Yeah. I do think that $69,000 level, and I would have to agree with that. If it goes through 69, you know, I think that changes our base thesis. I think we're we could consider this cycle to kind of be over. We've reached our top already. What are we gonna do from here? You know, for me, frankly, it wouldn't change. It'd be stack sets and keep doing things. Right? But I also don't think I think it's very unlikely we break that for more than a split second of time. You know, if if it were let's say somebody I don't know. Maybe MicroStrategy liquidates at $699,000.
I don't think they're anywhere near that level, but let's just say they did. And they dump a half million Bitcoin on the market. That's going to create a flash crash. And I will be taking out my credit card at that point and buying as many as I can, to be honest. But, you know, maybe we go down some crazy low level, but it would only be for a brief period of time. And it would be because of that specific thing. So I would be prepared to say, well, that doesn't really break the cycle, but I think a lot of people would disagree with me on that as well. So I'm still standing, you know I'll just say this.
Look. We've already been at a hundred and nine. I think we're over 200 by the end of the year. I probably shouldn't say that out loud. I'm not sure I've said that so far in all of this, but that's kind of my my pencil. Now it may be significantly higher than 200, but I think we're at least hitting two two fifty.
[00:55:25] Kenshin:
Remember, my prediction for end of the year was that we will be over Microsoft's market cap.
[00:55:32] McIntosh:
You did say that. And that would be to write this down. Yes. Or did we? I think we may have had a note somewhere.
[00:55:40] Kenshin:
Yeah. You have a better memory than I do, Ken. You're but you're right. That is what you said. And that would be only hundred and 50 k.
[00:55:49] McIntosh:
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. That's right. And depending on what Microsoft does. Yeah. But yeah. Certainly. Okay. So, you know, look. Just hang in there. All right now, it's a bunch of hot air. People are talking. I think things are gonna get settled in large part. I do not know what's gonna happen with China, unfortunately. They appear to wish to, drag this out. I they don't wanna lose face. You always had to remember that about Chinese. I I mean, that's just I know that's what's the word? I'm gonna say I wanna rephrase that. The Chinese Communist Party Mhmm. They do not like to lose face.
K? I don't wanna just indiscriminately say that about all Chinese. Yeah. It is very true about the Chinese party, and I will stand by that statement. They do not like to lose face. They don't like to lose. They don't like to lose face. So Xi Jinping I man, I think I said that right. You know, he is gonna have to come to the table and talk. And we will see when or if that happens. I hope it's sooner rather than later. Because that issue of China US trade is very complicated, and, you know, it's not gonna get solved over Twitter Twitter. It's not.
[00:57:18] Kenshin:
Mhmm.
[00:57:19] McIntosh:
So alright. We do not have any supporters this week. We also have a short week, of course, because we're recording so early, so I will not put up the sad puppy. We're going to ascribe it to that. We really don't have any news this week either. Oh, I will say this. Did you not see this announcement? Zeus is going to start supporting Oh. ECash. Cash too. That. Yeah. Okay. That was what I was referencing. Yeah. Yeah. So that's exciting. It's not out yet. It's blah blah blah, but the beta is out there, I guess, apparently. They're looking at for whatever. It is interesting.
I do think long term, we will see eCash in a lot of places like like we see Lightning now, kinda coexist because they can.
[00:58:12] Kenshin:
For Casio, we have, our follower, and, Nostrand, I would call him now Mhmm. Bullish Bitcoiner. And he has a Casio wallet. One of his Okay. Has the bullish apps, and he has I think it's called bullishnuts.com.
[00:58:32] McIntosh:
He's the guy who had the, shop. Right? Or am I thinking of somebody else? I think I am. In the shop. Maybe not. I think you did. He has a few things. A few cool stuff. Yeah. He sounds like he's got his fingers in a lot of different things. Well, that's cool. I also see FEDIMENT's about to put out a big release, And they have got the ability, which is super important for them. They're preparing the ability for to deploy a FEDIMENT, a guardian, what's called the guardian Right. To a like an Umbrel. So they'll be running it in Docker. On on Stars nine, they are preparing it also. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So That's cool. I think that's critical for them to be able to even be in the same conversation with Cashew and these other, mints.
I think there's a place for Feta Mint. I was actually really interested in them to start with. And to be honest, they've kinda just stalled. I don't know how else to put it. It seems like for a long time they weren't doing a whole lot. Now I have no idea what was going on in the background, but it does seem like they're starting to make some moves. I personally think that FEDIMENT would work in a lot of places that cashew doesn't make sense. So I'm glad to see that regardless. So
[01:00:03] Kenshin:
Quite similar. Both eCash. Right?
[01:00:06] McIntosh:
Right. They're both eCash. The difference is with FEDAMIT, it's, it's more of a model of Sig. Yeah. Exactly. Like a multi sig model, where you have these guardians who sign everything or whatever, which means to to rug the the the MET, you have to compromise a number of those Yeah. Guardians. So it's a more security it's a stronger security posture. I'll put it that way. Mhmm. Okay. So, Ken Chen, we've got a good question, I think, for the week for the audience. Why don't you go ahead and throw that out there, and I'll wrap it up? Well,
[01:00:49] Kenshin:
are you buying Bitcoin today?
[01:00:54] McIntosh:
I bought some Saturday night. No. Sunday morning. And, I mined some. Does that work? No. Doesn't count. That was seven hours ago. I mined Bitcoin. When was the last time you bought Bitcoin, Kenshin?
[01:01:09] Kenshin:
This morning.
[01:01:10] McIntosh:
Seven hours ago or less? No. Three hours. Was it in the last three hours? Oh, I think I got you. No. Because your morning was a long time ago. Yeah.
[01:01:21] Kenshin:
That was thirteen hours ago, I put mine. It's my DCA. Morning DCA. Smaller. Yes.
[01:01:31] McIntosh:
You you have that going on. I have my miners, and I do a weekly And then I I should say,
[01:01:37] Kenshin:
I buy it and then I lose it. I don't have any Bitcoin for your information. No Bitcoin here. No.
[01:01:44] McIntosh:
So we're clear. Well, if you ever need somebody to hold that Bitcoin, let me give you an address.
[01:01:50] Kenshin:
I'm happy buying it and losing it in a boat in Iceland.
[01:01:54] McIntosh:
I don't understand. I cannot hold on to this Bitcoin.
[01:01:59] Kenshin:
I I I zap it away on Oscar every morning.
[01:02:03] McIntosh:
Sometimes it seems like. Alright. Let's wrap this up. Do we have anything coming up, Kenshin? Do we have anything we wanna announce or anything before we should we have we mentioned episode two ten? Like, what No. Should we do that, or should we tease it? Let's tease it. I think we're gonna do it earlier. Yeah. We should've done it earlier. We can do that. I think we tease it until next episode. Either that or we have to go clip this and put it back earlier. It's your call. We can tease. We can say it's coming up soon. Well, it's gonna be episode two ten. We are going to be doing something different, and we will tell you next week.
[01:02:43] Kenshin:
Yep.
[01:02:44] McIntosh:
Okay. Exciting. How's that for a terrible tease? I think we kinda dropped the ball off. Let's wrap this up. Oh, man. We have fun. If you clip an episode if you go to an app like Fountain, you clip a couple minutes from an episode of something really relevant. Post it on Nostr. Post it on Fountain. Do whatever. Let us know about it, and we'll boost you some sats. I typically would boost 500 sats for a current episode. If it's older than that, like 300 sats. It's a way for you to make some treasure. It's a way for you to make some sats from us, and it's a way for us to spread the message. And so you're welcome to do that.
Of course, we support podcasting two point o. It is the way that we can do things like put a silly picture of my shed in the chapter notes so that you can see that in your podcasting two point o app or transcripts or boosting and streaming, which is a way to support us. We do not have any sponsors. We don't have any advertisers. We do not have any sponsors. We don't have any advertisers. I don't I do that on purpose. I don't want the advertisers or the sponsors compromising what we say. I'm kind of a loose cannon in case you didn't notice. I say things like, ledger is stupid, even though I've got a ledger sitting right over here.
Right? That because I bought one a few years actually, it's been a number of years ago. And I'm about to throw it out in the garbage, because Ledger, they've been compromised. They support all kinds of coins besides Bitcoin, just a number of reason reasons. And yet, I know there are podcasts out there who get thousands of dollars a month from Ledger. So instead of that, we simply come to you, kinda like the the guy on the street corner playing the music and say, hey. If you like what you hear, please support our show. You know, you can grab it, one of those podcasting two point o apps.
So if you wanna see those kind of things, go grab a podcasting two point o app at podcastapps.com. Grab Fountain. Real quick, Kenshin. Podcast Podcast Guru. Here's what I have. Tell me what you've got. Let's see here. I have Fountain. I have Podcast Guru. I have Cast o Matic. And, yes, I still have the podcast app from Apple even though it is not a podcasting two point o app, and that is simply to test that is simply to test from time to time to make sure the show's working on it. What do you have? Podcast Guru,
[01:05:26] Kenshin:
Fountain, and Podverse.
[01:05:29] McIntosh:
Podverse. Cool. Alright. So grab one of those. Another way that you can help support this show is also simply telling people about it. Just tell somebody, hey. I'm listening to this show. It's a great way to spread the message. We benefit from that greatly, and, of course, it doesn't cost us a thing. We do stuff on Nostr from time to time to promote the show, and it's been helpful. But frankly, it costs money, and that's something that we just can't do a whole lot right now. So thanks for being here. I hope this has been helpful. We would, we would sure love to hear from you. We have all the different ways of reaching us listed at the bottom of the episode pages, on our satoshis-plebs,uh,.com website. You can go to slash episodes, and there's a whole list of all of the episodes.
So stay humble, friends. Go out. Make it a great week. We will talk to you soon.
[01:06:30] Kenshin:
Stay humble.
[01:06:41] Unknown:
My old man's old man sat down and got to talking. He said this whole life won't roll the way you want it. Lots of curve balls, but go out swinging. Use your head, but don't overthink it.
[01:07:17] Unknown:
Change a thing. Got everything I wanted. So do what's right, but have some fun before you know it. Twenty years are gone, or you'll get there sure enough. But you're still too young for growing up.
[01:07:48] Unknown:
He said the good old days for you are just beginning. If you take it from me, it's so hard to know when you're ill If you love someone, don't let them go Every chance you get, make sure they know it So listen when I say Remember this until you're dying
[01:08:23] Unknown:
Yeah. I found faith, and I found love and lost it. I wouldn't change a thing. I'd everything I wanted. So do what's right, but have some fun before you know it. Forty years are gone. Boy, you'll get there sure enough.
[01:09:13] Unknown:
Yeah. I found faith and I found love and lost her. Wouldn't change a thing. She was everything I wanted.
[01:09:41] Unknown:
You're just too young. Yeah. You're still too young for growing up.
[01:09:54] Unknown:
Up.
Introduction
Music Discussion and Personal Stories
Bitcoin Price and Market Analysis
Historical Market Crashes and Recessions
Tariffs and Global Trade Tensions
Bitcoin's Resilience and Future Predictions
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
