McIntosh and Kenshin dive into Bitcoin’s massive breakout and its ripple effects across tech, finance, and geopolitics. With Bitcoin briefly overtaking Amazon, Google, and even silver in market cap, the plebs break down what’s fueling this rally—and what it means for the future.
Stick around to the very end for a new v4v track, “Jump Right In” by DJ Yo!
Bitcoin Price at Time of Recording
April 23th, 2025: 94,150 USD | 83,150 EUR
Block Height at Time of Recording
893,672
Episode Page
https://satoshis-plebs.com/episode-206
Music Credits
DJ Yo!
Jump Right In
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 206 of Satoshi's Plebs. I'm McUntosh.
[00:00:08] Kenshin:
I am Kenshin. And today's episode is Bitcoin dethrones Silicon Valley.
[00:00:32] McIntosh:
Awesome. Alright, Kenshin. First of all, real quick. Obviously, we had some new music there. Something a little different. That was DJ Yo with his song Jump Right In. He does a variety of music, I would say. That was one of his more jazz type songs. He does some stuff, frankly, that if you're into jazz music at all, you know who Miles Davis is, and some of it actually reminds me of some of the later Miles Davis stuff. It's kind of interesting. So, hopefully, you enjoy that. The whole song will be at the end. And as always, if you're boosting or streaming during that song, that will go straight to DJ Yo.
How are you, sir?
[00:01:20] Kenshin:
I'm good. How are you? Good.
[00:01:24] McIntosh:
I'm better. We'll talk about that in just a minute, but let's get on through this rest of this. Let's let's go through our our stats. We need to we need to come up with a good name for our stats section, Kinshin. This is a marketing opportunity that we have lost. Right. We have dropped it completely. I am terrible at this kind of crap. Hey, plebs, I want you to boost in and give us a name for our marketing segment, please, for our marketing segment. Man, my brain is a scramble, for for our statistics section, for the Bitcoin price, for the kind of the market update. We need a name for it. We need something clever.
Let's go. Need some help. Help McIntosh out. But regardless of that Bitcoin price at time of recording, April here, 94,150. So we are definitely up. And how many euros is that, Kenshin?
[00:02:24] Kenshin:
Eighty three thousand one hundred and fifty. So yep. It's for sure up. And the price last April this time was 66,400, dollars. So we're up 39.6%
[00:02:39] McIntosh:
since last year. Just a little 39.6%. I have a question. Has the euros, has that ever gotten over a hundred? It has not yet. Has oh, it did. It has. Yeah. Okay. Good. I have photos of my book. You have photos of it. See, honey? I have pictures. Up that high. Alright. And what's our Bitcoin market cap?
[00:03:05] Kenshin:
We're at 1,900,000,000,000.0 USD. The gold market cap is at 22.9, which brings Bitcoin at 8.1%
[00:03:16] McIntosh:
of gold's market cap. So we are above 8% once again. Again. That's good to see. Even though gold has been on a tear, do you have I know that gold hit $3,500 2 days ago. I think it actually dropped down. It's, like, 33 something right now unless it's moved around.
[00:03:34] Kenshin:
It was $34.00. Yesterday. Yes. Down to 33 today. Yes. Right. Right. Correct. So,
[00:03:44] McIntosh:
it's definitely making moves, which for gold, frankly, is rather dramatic. It's kinda crazy. But Bitcoin being Bitcoin, it has now woken up and has decided that it wants to gain some of that market cap back. We'll see how that goes.
[00:04:01] Kenshin:
Alright. Are we announcing the the name, the the gold plebs now? Or The gold plebs.
[00:04:09] McIntosh:
Hey. If you send me a million sats, I'll call you a gold pleb. How about that? Is that is that good marketing? I think that might be. Not only that, I'll well, no. Anyways yeah. Just send your sats, people. It's okay. Alright. Our block height as we record is 893,671. Don't forget that last one. And we were looking at the blocks just a few minutes ago, and the mempool has gone crazy. So for weeks, we've been saying, what, one SAT to, like, three SATs. Right? What is it right now, Kenshin?
[00:04:52] Kenshin:
Oh, right now is at, where is it? Sixteen, nineteen, and 20. Most blocks recently were over 20 sats per vbyte, which that is around 2 and a half dollars per transaction. Now it has actually dropped the last few minutes, but yeah. That's Yeah. Definitely up to five though. Yeah. It's a lot of transactions flooding in the mempool. No.
[00:05:18] McIntosh:
Yeah. We're up to a 39 megs of transactions, which that's, like, 10 times more than what was in there just like a week ago. So I don't know. Maybe Bitcoin's not dead. I wonder who wrote the article. Right. But, yeah. And then we'll cover we'll round this out. Our statistics our our to be named statistics sections, I'm counting on you people. Come on. We'll round that out with our difficulty adjustment talking about mining, of course. And right now, it's actually showing, like, a downward adjustment of 7.71%. Yeah. I I'm not sure when the last adjustment took place, so I can't tell you honestly what that means. If it just flipped, then, you know, that's not don't take that with any grain of salt. But yeah. It says in ten days So it was four days ago, the previous one. Is it every two weeks? It's it's every it's a certain number of blocks, but it does fall roughly every two weeks. So that sounds about right. If it's already been four days, then, yeah, we may have a serious downward adjustment, which would be sweet because ocean went dry.
We'll talk about that real quick, but I think as part of what we've got coming up, but, man, there was a spell for, like, five days when we didn't have a block. And our previous adjustment was 1.42% up. So Yeah. April 19. Yeah. Four days ago. Speaking of ocean, Kenshin, I see you have that on your list. So why don't you start things off? Yeah. I moved one of my two nodes,
[00:07:03] Kenshin:
home miners, very small, to Ocean, because I thought I would like some sads actually than just waiting for a block. So and since I moved, nothing has happened. So
[00:07:19] McIntosh:
Well, there were three blocks that were when did you move?
[00:07:23] Kenshin:
In the weekend.
[00:07:25] McIntosh:
Okay. So there have been three blocks, Mark. Haven't checked. Just just in the last day. The first one fired off I don't know. They all fired off in very short order. Eight forty. I don't know. I can't read this because it's in UTC time. Sorry. I wanna it's been in less than twenty four hours. Right. So you you you you got some sats coming your way. That's always good. Mhmm. Sats are good. Wild sats like that are even better. Yeah.
[00:07:59] Kenshin:
Oh, what's this about your DCA? Yeah. And my DCA starts to look a bit sad lately because of the price of Bitcoin going up. I I get a notification every morning. And I see, okay. And now you got this many sats today and this many sats the next day. And then Yeah. Today and yesterday starts looking less and less. So it's coming my way.
[00:08:21] McIntosh:
Maybe we should talk about that, actually. So as y'all know, I use Strike. I've had a little bit of trouble, and it wasn't Strike's fault. It was actually my wife's fault, but I'm not gonna blame her. You just did? We well, I did. But, yeah, it it's okay. She she makes up for it. Basically, some money was moved that shouldn't have been moved, and so Strike tried to pull the money and it wasn't there. And so everything's kinda locked up. I've reinitialized it or whatever, but it takes, like, a week, for them to verify because now they're all paranoid, which I get that.
Because I got Bitcoin in my account. I could actually, I think, send it out. And, you know, that Bitcoin's not was not paid for for a little bit, if that makes any kind of sense. So we're working through that, but, unfortunately, I have a week without DCA. And, yeah, I was looking at it, and, of course, things are cranking up. And as the number goes up, your sats go down for your purchase. My suggestion would be to ignore it. Just ignore it. Yep. If you know where Bitcoin's going, and this is the thing that you have to figure out. If you if you've determined Bitcoin's going to whatever x is, x. Right?
And you see no logical reason why that won't happen because of nation state adoption, people adopting it, more people investing in it, more businesses, big one we're gonna talk about today, actually. Those kind of things, then don't worry about it. You do what you can, and the rest is just time. Just waiting. That's the hard part about all this.
[00:10:19] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's actually the, let's say, the inverse problem. Right? You you feel sad about Bitcoin going up. It's a it's a good problem to have. It's going up like that.
[00:10:31] McIntosh:
Yeah. No. It is a good problem, but yeah. Boy, I think about back when $16,000 beep Bitcoin just recently. Right? What? Three years ago? Four? I don't know. Five years ago. I think two. Now when would oh, I'm sorry. No. You're right. I'm thinking even for I was thinking of the, what, $4,000 Bitcoin. Yes. Two years ago. Where don't we wish we had that? Yep.
[00:11:02] Kenshin:
Alright. Is there anything else? No. What about you? How is your health recently?
[00:11:08] McIntosh:
Well, so I have a little confession to make. I told y'all last week I had a cold. Turns out I had COVID. I did not know that. So, basically, last Sunday, a week and a half ago now, I started getting sick, and I actually took the next day off from work. Worked on Tuesday because I didn't feel terrible. You know, it's just like a cold, whatever. And then Wednesday, it started really kinda hammering me. Thursday was the worst, so almost a week ago now. And to be honest, I don't remember Thursday a whole lot, which is crazy. I don't know that I really wanna broadcast this, but I'm going to, I guess.
At one point, I ended up laying in my bathroom on the tile, and it wasn't really by choice. I didn't fall, but it was really close to that. You know, I was I was in there and started having some real problems and ended up having to just lay down on the floor. I think my blood pressure dropped a lot, which I have pretty low blood pressure anyways. And then I think it it basically dropped. And, actually, after that, my wife gets me back to the bed, and, I kinda started feeling better. But I spent a lot of time in bed for the last week, week and a half. I'm tired of it.
I am feeling better. In fact, I'm over it, essentially, although I have not regained all my strength back. I think officially after today, it will have been ten days, which is kind of the what they say, you know, I'm no longer contagious or whatever, and I should be able to go out in public without mask and all this kind of nonsense. So, you know, it's wrecked my work, stuff because, of course, I have, like, 14 projects in midair. Mhmm. And I just basically had to take a week off. I didn't have a choice.
[00:13:13] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:13:15] McIntosh:
I could not look at a screen. I've COVID brain fog is is a real thing. I mean, like, that Thursday, I couldn't remember anything. For a few days after that, it was pretty bad, and it's I'm still kind of having issues with it. It is getting better, and I'm hoping in a couple more weeks, it'll be back to normal amounts of forgetfulness. But, I mean, there was literally days. I can't remember what I just, like, I just I don't know. Just, like, repeat it to me like I'm a five year old or something. I don't know. So she got sick after I did. Oh, no.
So I think she got sick, like, five days after. So she's just now turned the corner, and is starting to get better. But, yeah, we've had a lot of sickness going on. Children have dispersed out of the house and, like, you know, they're all, like, one staying with another one and all, you know, all this kind of stuff. But we're getting there. Okay. Good. Yeah. And I don't I don't have anything. That's it. That was the sum of my week because it's all I've dealt with. That was your week. Yeah. That was it. Well COVID sucks. Don't get it. And thank you, China and Fauci and whoever was involved in all that crap. Because every time I start thinking about it, it just makes me so much we shouldn't be going through this. This is nonsense, but I don't wanna turn this into a a show. I probably already gonna get banned for saying COVID. Are they, like, deleting accounts still on YouTube? Not deleting, but, you know I think they got over those things. Of COVID, or did they finally decide that, oh, wow. Those nut jobs are actually right.
Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. But on podcasting two point o, it doesn't matter. Right? Because we don't censor the
[00:15:10] Kenshin:
Exactly.
[00:15:11] McIntosh:
The index. That was actually literally why the index was created because Apple would just arbitrarily say, nope. We're not gonna have you on our platform. Mhmm. Yeah.
[00:15:24] Kenshin:
Right. There we go. Oh, we have a saying in Greek if you say, what ends well is all is well, something like that.
[00:15:33] McIntosh:
I thought it was baklava is tasty.
[00:15:37] Kenshin:
Yeah. That too.
[00:15:39] McIntosh:
That too. Right? Some Do you like baklava? I mean, not to get completely off track. So much. It's too sweet. I love sweet stuff like that. I do. I got I have oh, lord. Anyways, there's somebody who sells baklava at, like, the Bitcoin conferences. Have you ever heard this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he raises like, he used to well, I think he used to make a lot of money doing it, I mean, in terms of Bitcoin. Maybe not so much now, but, yeah, he literally sells Baklava at the conferences. Yeah. He was early on. Right? Very early. Yes.
Yeah. Still around. Yep. Alright. And that's today's cooking episode.
[00:16:23] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:16:25] McIntosh:
Alright. What do we got going on this week? What is this Bitcoin dethroned Silicon Valley?
[00:16:33] Kenshin:
Well, we thought this week to talk a bit about the latest news. Bitcoin's on the headlines again, especially yesterday and today. It's going up a lot. So everybody likes to talk about Bitcoin and where it's gonna go and why. So we will talk about a bit about the news. Yeah. More specifically, Bitcoin, went over $94,000, today and I think yesterday or today anyway, Wednesday. And that was up from 84 last week. So that was a big move the last few days. And we have gone up 25% since the lowest point in March. So so that's been quite a big big percent move.
And the biggest news is that we surpassed briefly, Amazon and Google in market cap. So and silver as well. So we were at the fifth place at some point today. Now we're back down below them. Right. But we're basically the same.
[00:17:45] McIntosh:
I think prior to market opening, essentially, we were Yeah. Bitcoin was above them. And and the stock market is having a good day too for for whatever reasons. It's something about Jerome Powell and, you know, he's not gonna get tarred and feathered and I don't know. China tariffs may be down. I I don't know. It it whatever the news speak is of the day, the stock market liked it, so it's taken off as well. So they did get back ahead. But I don't I I suspect that Bitcoin's not done. It spent a long time kind of down in that box, and it has now woken up. I did want to point out there's if you go back and look at the data, all the way back to 02/2009, when Bitcoin was first started, Bitcoin can go through extremely long periods of kind of this sideways market.
And then it'll wake up, and it'll just do these dramatic moves in a very short period of time. And literally, it's a significantly high percentage of the market movement upwards will occur. It's like nine days out of the year. So in other words, if you knew when those nine days were, you could kinda just target it and, oh, there it is and there it is and, you know, that would be it. You cannot. You do not know when that will be. And that's why you should continue to be DCA. You know, you do not know next week Bitcoin could be at 200. Next week, Bitcoin could be at 80.
Don't try and guess that market. But, you know, we're gonna see these time periods, and I believe they're coming very soon, maybe, where it's just, it's going to boggle your mind, you're gonna be like, what just happened? Like, we just went up $20,000 in, like, a day or two. I mean, you know, we've already have we not already seen a $10,000
[00:20:03] Kenshin:
move this cycle? Yeah. Yeah. We did. We have. In March.
[00:20:07] McIntosh:
Almost maybe twice or at least very close. I mean, we've already had some major moves. But, guys, just to be clear, at least my position, I don't wanna presume to speak for you. This bull market is not over. And I have never said that this bull market was over. Pack it up. Go home. Not that you should. You should regardless, you should continue to DCA. But, you know, there are people out there acting like this thing's dead. That's it. It's already done, and there's no evidence of that. The evidence will be well, I I think we've had this discussion. I think we both agree it would have to get below at least 69,000 in order for it to be dead.
Right? Right. That's not happening. It certainly doesn't appear to be. And we've got some news today, for example, that that very much could affect that. We'll get to that in just a minute. But, yeah, I just kinda wanted to throw that out there. Bitcoin, you know, the summary, Bitcoin's gonna move in very small periods of time, very dramatically, but you're always gonna see these long periods of chop. This chop is what kills people. They can't handle it. Right. Okay. The ETF inflows have certainly picked back up. There was a a number of weeks.
I'm not gonna say months, but certainly weeks where the ETFs what is that exchange traded fund? I don't know exactly what that stands for. But regardless, the Bitcoin ETFs that people can invest in where it was negative outflow. Right? Well, that's now flipped back around. The inflow is happening again, and it's gotten to be very, very large.
[00:22:02] Kenshin:
You know, it's it was at $936,000,000 today, the inflows. Almost a billion dollars. Almost a billion dollars. Yeah. And that was the biggest inflow since January 17.
[00:22:15] McIntosh:
Mhmm.
[00:22:18] Kenshin:
Which that was near the all time high. Yeah. With the big expectation with Trump coming into office and all this. So so we are back up at that level now.
[00:22:30] McIntosh:
So I think one interesting metric, you mentioned that Bitcoin was right at, $2,000,000,000,000, like 1.9.
[00:22:39] Kenshin:
Yeah.
[00:22:41] McIntosh:
Investors, for whatever reason, love these psychological levels. 2,000,000,000,000 would be one. It's a nice even number. When it breaks that, I think that's another trigger that would send it even higher. We've certainly been there before, but it's looking like we're about to be there again.
[00:22:59] Kenshin:
Right. And another highlight point, is, yeah, that we will talk today is about the European regulations that continue with this MICA MICA implementation.
[00:23:14] McIntosh:
So we have Can you give the listeners a brief overview of that? Here in America, here in The United States, we don't I don't know what that means other than it's some EU regulation.
[00:23:25] Kenshin:
Right? Yeah. Right. I think we talked briefly about it before. It it Briefly. That came up this framework. It's called, let me find it again. Markets in crypto assets, I think. Yes. Markets in crypto assets, MICA. It's a framework that they started in the end of last year and all the companies that deal with cryptocurrencies in any form like selling services, exchanges, you know, they need to, comply with this framework, and it's very, very strict. A lot of companies had to close down in anticipation of those coming up. And I can talk briefly about it. What happened today was that Google actually had to implement stricter, advertising policies because of this framework, and they started doing that today.
So Interesting. Even for advertising cryptocurrencies in Europe, you need to adhere to those, rules or whatever they are, regulations. So
[00:24:38] McIntosh:
I I have a question. Yeah. You guys seem to have a lot bigger, a lot more control over things like that in terms of these type regulations. I could never see something like that happening in America. Is the average person's view that that's a good thing? Are they sticking it to Google or Apple or Amazon, or it is this onerous? Is this just Honestly a headache? I would say
[00:25:12] Kenshin:
the average person, and me included, was not aware of any of the European Union regulations that affect us in that sense. The the one big thing that affected everybody knew it was visible a lot was the GDPR. Mhmm. Right? So the privacy for online, for information. So all my information online needed to be protected, and companies couldn't keep data about me without having a valid reason to have that information. So that was very, very strict. It came when it came on, it was so strict that all the companies were serious about implementing and following the guidelines.
So in that sense, that was very strict, but it was welcomed from because it wanted to protect the privacy of individuals within Europe. It was a big headache for the companies to implement because you needed to go through so many articles and change your terms and conditions and change actually in practice how you conduct your business and how you collect your data and how you save that data. But apart from that, all the other that are more invasive and annoying to people like us, we never hear really about it.
[00:26:48] McIntosh:
Mhmm.
[00:26:49] Kenshin:
It just may because I wonder if that's on purpose. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, because we have our own governments, you know, in in our countries, people are more focused on on on the country level governments and issues and not on the overall European issues, if that makes sense.
[00:27:08] McIntosh:
So Yeah. It does. I'd like to maybe not today. I'd like to actually explore that more because Mhmm. To be honest, that's kind of news to me, and I don't really understand. So let's say well, Spain is one of the members of the EU. Right. Right? What does that mean? Like, does the EU have control over Spain in at least in certain areas? I mean, I I believe that that's true. I'd I'd like to maybe even spend an entire episode. Yeah. I don't know. That'd be boring and drive people off, but I think it would be interesting. What does this do in terms of the country's sovereignty and this kind of thing? I mean, there is a very good example with Greece and,
[00:27:54] Kenshin:
economic collapse in 02/2009. And Greece was very much affected by the European Union, and Greece couldn't do what they wanted to do to get out of that situation.
[00:28:08] McIntosh:
What did they want to do? Because they well
[00:28:12] Kenshin:
They they didn't want to get into more. They didn't want to be bailed out, essentially. They didn't want to get into more debts to get out of the debts. And the EU was forcing them to. Yeah. And there was a referendum in Greece. The citizens voted no. The government wanted wanted to say no. They actually said no. They came with a referendum's decision from the people. Not everybody voted in Greece who said no. And they did it anyway. They forced Greece and the government to take the new loans, etcetera etcetera.
[00:28:51] McIntosh:
This reminds me of the IMF. Yeah.
[00:28:54] Kenshin:
I I I bet it was IMF also behind all of this. After
[00:28:57] McIntosh:
understanding I really wanna talk about this some more. I Yeah. I that's interesting because now this was a number of years ago. I maybe wasn't interested in this as back then as I am now, but I thought what I heard was and I may be wrong about this, so please. But my perception is that the EU was forcing austerity measures is what they would call it on Greece. Now maybe I'm completely wrong about that. I think that's But what you're saying is they were essentially requiring them to take on more debt Yeah. Which, of course, exacerbated the situation, made things worse.
[00:29:40] Kenshin:
Yeah. Well, it was at the time, even when people were doing this referendum, they were not really % sure what saying yes and no meant. Mhmm. You know, it was the rules or not the rules, the the outcome was not certain what those austerity measures meant. You know? It was not a %. No no one was clear about it. And and Germany, yeah, they were saying things. I mean, even in Sweden, I heard things like weird things like it was Greece problem and they were lazy and that's why they got in trouble and stuff like that. Right.
[00:30:20] McIntosh:
And that's kind of my perception. I mean, to be honest to to to be honest, but that's also been a while. And, again, I'm not it wasn't well, it was what it was. But I think well, I don't wanna turn this into a discussion about the EU, but I think in terms of economic policy, like, literally, like trading policy, I don't really have a problem with a group of countries. In this case, however many there are 20 or 30, forming a coalition. But when that becomes, hey. You can't do what you think is in your best interest. Personally, if somebody were to tell me as an American, the United States could not, I don't know, burn coal power. Mhmm. Let's just make this real controversial.
I'm a tell them to pound sand. Okay? I that's the part where I start and that's what they've done. It's certainly what it sounds like. I mean, Europe That they have that ability. Yeah. European Union was very good as an idea, and I was very for it
[00:31:40] Kenshin:
growing up. It was very positive to go through all the European countries without borders essentially. Right. The same, currency,
[00:31:50] McIntosh:
you know, it's like one big country. It was very positive. Or it I would argue that the one currency is probably not a good idea. But I understand why people would want it at the same time. Because I could imagine in in you know, you can travel five countries in one day in Europe without any problem just if you're just driving. Right? And now there's five different currencies and and what I I'm sure it's a headache. I get that. But you're tying yourself to that currency. Who's gonna control it? Well, the the EU central bank. And so, I mean, it just cascades. It's an interesting well, I don't wanna turn this into a discussion about that. We probably need to move on. But that is interesting because, apparently, my perception of what happened in Greece during that time was incorrect for whatever reason, whether that was the perception in general or or whatever. But it doesn't sound like, it sounds like Greece was trying to do the right thing, and the EU was trying to force things on them that was just gonna make it worse Yeah. Is what it sounds like. Yeah. I will tell you one thing, and then we can bring it in another episode. But the the finance minister was a professor in economics
[00:33:12] Kenshin:
university in US. So he was very experienced with with the subject. And after two weeks, I think, when once he got into government, he quit.
[00:33:24] McIntosh:
So that's I'd be curious. When you when people say things like, well, they're they are professor or economics, whatever, there's very few economics, programs, at universities here in in, I think, in general around the world, but here in The United States that don't teach just raw Keynesian economics. That's true. Okay. So I always wanna know where what that means. You know? Are they are they Austrian? Are they Keynesian? I mean because I cannot reconcile Keynesian economics with reality. Yeah. And anybody who thinks that Keynesian economics is okay, they either don't understand it.
I should I shouldn't say this stuff, Kenshin, but I'm going to. They either don't understand it or there's a motive or they're just not very smart, I mean, to to be tactful. Okay? There's a there's a motive of money for them, right,
[00:34:33] Kenshin:
Or they don't understand it. Yeah. But even if you would follow a % Keynesian economics, you would want to do what the ECB, European Central Bank, wants to do.
[00:34:44] McIntosh:
So Well, yeah. They're they're they're all a bunch of Keynesians at the East. Yeah. Of course. Any of the central banks are are going to be and look. We don't even talk about this in The United States. This is not a left right thing in The United States. It's interesting because by and large, the conservatives, the Republicans, whatever he they're just as Keynesian as as the Democrats. It's just for their programs, not the democratic programs. Does that make sense? Mhmm. There's not really that much difference. There's very few people. You got somebody like, say, Ron Paul, who was very much about balance the budget. We can't be spending money like this, etcetera, etcetera.
You know, there's very few people like that. I wanna say I wanna go out on a limb. I may even I'll probably get his name wrong, and I may even be incorrect about what I'm about to say, but I it feels like Thomas Massie, I think he's a senator, is kind of taken on that Ron Paul mantle in terms of, the same kind of rhetoric, if you wanna call it that. Let's see. He's a representative. If so he's not a senator. Yeah. I think that's the person I'm thinking of from Kentucky. Yeah. That sounds right. So, you know, there's just very few people like that. Nobody else and look.
Alright. We're way off. Let's let's Yeah. I think Stop.
[00:36:24] Kenshin:
Let's get back to it. Hey, Kenshin.
[00:36:27] McIntosh:
What is making Bitcoin go up? We're gonna just completely pivot because we'll just we'll spend an hour sitting here talking about this. And I don't know that the plebs wanna listen to this. No. Maybe not. Maybe. I don't know. Y'all boost in and let us know. Alright. So we are actually gonna talk, though, I think, about what we feel like is is making this rally kinda kickoff.
[00:36:52] Kenshin:
Exactly. I mean, let's let's go through them really fast. We identified four main, topic or factors that are driving this. Of course, we have the geopolitical, subject. Right? Again, political stuff. But we have Trump's, stating that he's, yeah, slowing down with the tariffs with China. So all these tariffs talk,
[00:37:22] McIntosh:
yeah, made a big impact. Yeah. Now it's And I I'm not surprised that that didn't help the market. Yeah. Right? What I don't understand is why is he saying this? Does he trying to understand Trump is is difficult at best. I don't know if this is because he's just backing down or if this is part of his plan or you know? I know there's a lot of people who would say he has no plan, but maybe he does. Is this part of it? I don't know. And that actually creates confusion in and of itself. Mhmm. It seems like he's just like, oh my gosh. The market has, you know, dropped whatever it's done, and everybody's yelling at me, and I can't get Jerome Powell to quit. So I'm gonna back down on the China tariffs. That's what it seems like. And that, to me, actually kind of weakens his position, frankly.
[00:38:22] Kenshin:
We'll see. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I I apologize. But yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. I mean, it's just it was just a negotiation tactic in a way that's yeah. No. They backtrack to all of it. They need each other. Or you need each other, China and US, I guess. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So
[00:38:43] McIntosh:
Well and the second thing that we have here is just the institutional demand in general. Now we've we discussed, for example, the ETF inflows hitting almost a billion dollars yesterday, which is up, like, a 50% from the previous day. So a dramatic increase. If that continues, that's certainly going to to help. I I would, one thing that I would tie into that, we need to go ahead and talk about, Mallard's new position because I I do think that directly ties into this as well. So it was announced today, that Cantor Fitzgerald, who the CEO used well, he was the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. He's now the secretary of treasurer.
Commerce? No. He's commerce. Best sent as treasurer, I think. I always get the two of them mixed up. But, anyways, he has a position in the administration now. So his sons are actually running Cantor Fitzgerald, but they have announced this big conglomeration of a new business that SoftBank is what it's called. Right? Yes. And so it's it's a new crypto bank. Right? Except it's Bitcoin only. And they've set aside a tremendous amount of money to buy Bitcoin. I the number I saw was they're starting with 40,000 Bitcoin.
[00:40:25] Kenshin:
40 thousand.
[00:40:27] McIntosh:
Yes. $4.00
[00:40:28] Kenshin:
$0.00 0. I saw a number $3,000,000,000.
[00:40:33] McIntosh:
I think that's correct. That's I think those two numbers intersect. Yeah. So it's it's a lot of money being spent to buy a lot of Bitcoin, and that's what they're going to start with. They've already announced they're gonna follow Michael Saylor's playbook. So what they're gonna do is try and basically sell bonds or whatever it is to raise more money, to buy more Bitcoin, to raise their stock price, to raise more money, to buy more Bitcoin. Right? That's what Sailor's doing. Yeah. He's doing these private offerings, essentially, that you could buy into.
And and then they use that money to buy more Bitcoin. And our our boy, Jack Mallers, the CEO of Strike, they have announced that he's going to be the CEO of this company, which I think is an interesting choice. Wait. What? I didn't hear about that. You didn't hear this? No. This is breaking news, Plex. No. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating.
[00:41:45] Kenshin:
Jack Mallers. Let's see. Bank.
[00:41:49] McIntosh:
There it is. Strike CEO Mallers to lead Bitcoin investment company. So I I I don't guess it's actually a bank. Sorry. They call it SoftBank. So it's a little and, yes, $3,000,000,000 in Bitcoin. But the number I saw was 40,000. Strike c so, yeah, Mallers is gonna be leading it. Okay? It's what they call a SPAC, which I I'm not gonna get into, but it's a type of investment vehicle, essentially. I think what you're gonna find out is this isn't gonna be some company that has a big office somewhere and all that. It's just kind of a almost like a legal put together, thing that's used as an as an investment vehicle, to invest in Bitcoin. Headed up by, like I said, Jack Mallers.
[00:42:44] Kenshin:
He's the cofounder and CEO of Twenty One Capital.
[00:42:50] McIntosh:
So You you who who is he? Mallers. So he's Okay. So that's the 21 Yeah. So that they're calling the new company twenty one Capital. They're merging with something with Cantor. So Cantor Fitzgerald is gonna have a big part of this. Right? So so that it's, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick. That's actually, it's listed right here.
[00:43:14] Kenshin:
And it's also Tether
[00:43:16] McIntosh:
is a big part in it. And Tether. Yeah. Oh, this actually says that Brandon Lutnick is launching. Okay. I'm sure all this will shake out. Obviously, Lutnick some Lutnick has some involvement in it. I don't know that, actually, Howard, the commerce sec, he could not have direct involvement in this, not in his position. I don't think. But, yeah, that makes sense. But, yes, Tether is investing. Bitfinex is investing. Oh, I'm sorry. It's backed by SoftBank. So that's where I got that from. The name of I apologize, ladies and gentlemen. I've been giving y'all misinformation. Yeah. As you said, Kinshan, the company is called twenty one Capital. Yeah. But, yeah, it's got some heavy investment from some big companies.
And they're gonna buy a lot of Bitcoin, and they're gonna start rolling that and try and make it even more Bitcoin.
[00:44:16] Kenshin:
Yeah.
[00:44:18] McIntosh:
So Jack will probably have another podcast about that.
[00:44:22] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. Because I just listened to him, but that was from yesterday, I guess.
[00:44:28] McIntosh:
I think he's been teasing this a little bit, but he hasn't been allowed. Yeah. Until today, they haven't been allowed to talk about it. Mhmm. I think he said there was gonna be a big announcement, and I think that's what he was talking about. This. I I think that's very big news, actually, because Yeah. I think it's bigger than MicroStrategy.
[00:44:48] Kenshin:
Because Saylor is doing his own thing, but he's not, let's say, so close to the Bitcoin Ethos. He's doing completely in one direction.
[00:44:58] McIntosh:
Who knows what these people are gonna Well, if We don't know. If you have Jack Mallers as the CEO
[00:45:03] Kenshin:
of that twenty one Capital, cofounder and CEO Yes. I mean, he's gonna keep a direction that is more Bitcoin friendly, let's say.
[00:45:11] McIntosh:
You would certainly hope. I don't expect them to start investing in ETH. That would be a poor investment anyways, but I don't know. I'm not gonna speculate on that. I speculate a lot of things. I'm not gonna speculate on that. I I get what you're saying about Michael Saylor. He's not, you know, kind of the perfect Bitcoiner, but the reality is that his company holds more Bitcoin than any other company in the world. So simply by that standard, they are the, you know, they're the leader. And I don't think that this company will be able to catch up with him. There there's too much of a head start. He has over 400,000 Bitcoin now.
[00:45:56] Kenshin:
Yeah. But do you know how much it is to to buy 1,000,000 Bitcoin?
[00:46:03] McIntosh:
Well, if someone were to buy a million Bitcoin, the price would skyrocket. Like, you can't. It it would put too much pressure on on the market. Yeah. It would. And I I don't oh, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I've not actually seen any kind of figure for how how much would it cost. And, of course, that's gonna change over time.
[00:46:29] Kenshin:
If there was a million available to buy right now, which it might not be. But if there was, it would be around 95,000,000,000. Right?
[00:46:41] McIntosh:
95,000,000,000.
[00:46:42] Kenshin:
That's all? Yeah. But so Kenshin, let's just let's just buy a million. What are we doing? Yeah. If if if the hackers. If the price wouldn't move while buying that million.
[00:46:53] McIntosh:
Well, right. It it would, but, yes, you're you're a % correct. Alright. So the point to all this now now we don't have to talk about this in the news section, but this is part of that institutional demand. They will start buying Bitcoin very quickly. They've already done all the paperwork. They're just moving the money around at this point, probably cursing the banks because it takes too long to move that kind of money. They're like, I know what Jack would be like. He'd be like, Bitcoin fixes this.
[00:47:23] Kenshin:
Yeah.
[00:47:24] McIntosh:
I can send it anywhere in the world at Dittman, and and he's right. Why they want my ID? Why they wanna know where I'm sending this money? That's what I would be saying. But, anyways
[00:47:40] Kenshin:
I have fun Back on the times I had for sure.
[00:47:43] McIntosh:
Yeah. But this this institutional demand is starting to kick in even more, and it's part of what's driving this rally. Mhmm. Alright. So the next thing so this coincides with what has been going on in The United States, and that's right a dollar weakness. The US dollar is becoming weaker. That's partially why we see some of the things that we see going on in The United States. Now I think the argument could be made that this was on purpose. They're trying to do this in order to lower interest rates. The problem is it's not working. But regardless, the dollar is getting weaker.
And that's why you see gold ripping, by the way, up to 3,400, 30 5 hundred dollars. And that is also seems to be partially why Bitcoin is starting to go up very rapidly. Does that make sense?
[00:48:59] Kenshin:
Absolutely. What else do we have? Then we have also regular regulatory tailwinds as it says. Mhmm. So is that another, SCC related topic? Do you know who Paul Ortiz is?
[00:49:22] McIntosh:
Well, other than the fact that no. No. I don't. Other than he was appointed SEC chairman, he is Bitcoin friendly, apparently. In fact, I think he's really more crypto friendly. Let's be honest. And so I think the idea is his appointment is going to create even better regulation, whatever clarity for the market in terms of Bitcoin, in terms of crypto, in terms of stable coin, which I think stable coins are going to become a very big part of the landscape. Yeah. They already is, but even more so because Tether, for example, is, like, literally the world's largest buyer of of US bonds at this point, which is I'm not sure why they're even putting themselves in that position, but that's what they're doing.
[00:50:18] Kenshin:
And Europe already starts, stressing about the fact, US is going into the stable coins direction.
[00:50:27] McIntosh:
I've seen a lot of news. I wanted to get your thoughts on that. Why do you why is that? Why did they care? I don't I Hey. Europe. Make a digital EU and see who cares. Sorry. I I know that sounds terrible. Yeah.
[00:50:43] Kenshin:
I think that's why because there is a competition between the dollar and the euro. And they have been taking that stance. No cryptocurrencies, no Bitcoin, and only maybe the digital euro. So they see that as a threat, and they see that as a way out for the dollar to be more powerful through the stablecoins. And maybe they I my personal opinion, as I see it, is that they feel that they might have to follow that route forcefully to to keep competitive.
[00:51:18] McIntosh:
Okay. So You mean making a digital EU,
[00:51:22] Kenshin:
euro. Sorry. Or or no. The opposite. Following one of the established stablecoins or or even Bitcoin for that matter because Interesting. They are trying to do the digital euro, for years, and it hasn't been taken off. It's not hard.
[00:51:40] McIntosh:
Oh, people aren't adopting it. Okay. I'm like No. It doesn't exist. Hard to make stablecoin. Doesn't exist. I I think you and I could make one. Maybe we should. Y'all invest in Statute's Pebs dollars.
[00:51:53] Kenshin:
Excellent. Is it gone beyond so long anyways?
[00:52:01] McIntosh:
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not doing that. Please do not send in hate boost. Okay? Why not? If you can't tell what I'm telling a joke at this point. Boost is still a boost. Right? Well, it needs to be at least 200,000 sats. Right, Genshin? That's the minimum, or we won't read it on the air. Oh, man. Oh, man. Alright.
[00:52:28] Kenshin:
Yeah. We're completely off the rails in this episode, but okay. We are. This the entire episode has been like this. We should rename it
[00:52:37] McIntosh:
off the rails. Macintosh brain own COVID brain. Okay.
[00:52:47] Kenshin:
Yes. Cut over most of the points, I think.
[00:52:51] McIntosh:
We have seen for years market adoption taking place. And, like, I don't know, a year ago, two years ago maybe, there was, like, a big chain down in Africa South Africa that adopted, like, Bitcoin payments at their terminals, and everybody went rah rah rah. And then, of course, it doesn't really move the price. We see stuff like this over oh, Tesla, which I guess they've moving their crypto around their Bitcoin around, which I don't know what that's all about, but maybe they're doing something. But Tesla, they're accepting Bitcoin. Rah, rah, rah. You know?
And yet we don't we can't look at one of these things and say, oh, that's driving the price of Bitcoin up. But it is leading to the wider scale adoption, and ultimately, it does. But we are starting to see more and more and more businesses. You listed a few here. A supermarket in Switzerland is accepting Bitcoin via lightning network as they should. We want a good experience for our users. Right? Switzerland now has a thousand businesses accepting Bitcoin. That's that's crazy. Now I understand Switzerland's really expensive,
[00:54:14] Kenshin:
but, man, I would love to live. It's not really. If you if you work in Switzerland, it's it's not
[00:54:20] McIntosh:
If I work in I mean, I'm retiring and, like, ski in the mountains. So I've literally never been skiing in my skiing in my life, but okay. We'll do that. But, yeah, it's it's a big supermarket chain in Switzerland, and they're starting to accept lightning. Spa. Have you ever been in a spa? Yeah. I think so. What does that mean? It's gotta mean something in Swiss. Right? Yeah. I don't even know if it's
[00:54:44] Kenshin:
originally from there. I'm not sure where it's from. Switzerland.
[00:54:48] McIntosh:
Is that maybe German? Is a I know they speak French in Switzerland a lot. One side. Is there another? Is it actually called Swiss? Is that I'm sorry. It's German. I am being a complete holder. German. Okay. So German,
[00:55:03] Kenshin:
is that the primary? Okay. More than half of it, I think, is German, and the the part that is next to France, I speak French. Yeah.
[00:55:11] McIntosh:
There we go. See, that'd be where I'd live. Yeah.
[00:55:14] Kenshin:
Geneva. Spend the weekends in Paris. In Geneva. I I did a trip from Geneva to Paris, actually.
[00:55:21] McIntosh:
It's it's really good. Oh, man. It sounds awesome. I envy you sometimes, Kenshin.
[00:55:29] Kenshin:
It's long time ago.
[00:55:31] McIntosh:
A long time ago. But you've done it. Yeah. Okay. Alright. We need to yeah. Let's let's let's wrap this up. So we got some questions. Are we gonna do this? Are we really gonna do this? Will Bitcoin hit a hundred thousand by the April? Why not? It seems possible right now. So what Oh, I think it's I I would actually think it's more than likely. If you say hit, not go over because I could see it hitting it. I don't think it's gonna I mean, the breakthrough and I mean, that's only a week away. Does anyone care anymore? We've been over a hundred k No. A few times. Well, you're right. Well, certainly, yeah, twice.
I'm sure we dip back and forth a number of times, but, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. But, yeah, I I think we could I could go with yes for that. I think we're gonna start seeing a grind upwards, but that's not trading advice and, remember, just DCA people. But, yeah, I could see that. How might the upcoming stable coin regulation affect the broader crypto market? What are we talking about here? What regulation? You talking about in the EU?
[00:56:50] Kenshin:
Actually, I think it's for the SEC, the new
[00:56:55] McIntosh:
Oh,
[00:56:57] Kenshin:
right. With, like, his appointment Yeah. And all that. Being more positive towards the stable coins and stuff. Well,
[00:57:03] McIntosh:
how is that a bad thing? I'm not for government regulation, but at least the regulation will be there, and it will be clear. We will see, like, it was, like, the Eclair wallet that was kicked out or shut down Mhmm. In The United States, not Phoenix. I said Phoenix one time recently. They'll be back. Why would they not Phoenix is back in US now. I'm gonna have to look this up. I thought Phoenix it doesn't matter. But there have been companies that have left, and they'll come back. Right? They have no reason not to. Largest market in the world, most penetration.
And if the regulations are there saying, hey. You know, we're not gonna, like, prosecute you for moving a dollar from here to there. Right? You know, they're gonna flock to that. That's that's the way it works. Mhmm. And you've got a great question here. Why don't you answer why don't you talk about this?
[00:58:13] Kenshin:
Why don't you talk about this? Yeah. I mean This next We talked a little bit about Europe. We dive into the how strict regulations are in Europe, especially with crypto. So if the audience, are curious, what what do you think, Europe's, regulation policies, and how strict and cautious they are? Is that gonna put Europe in a disadvantage compared to, let's say, now US going to to be more trending? Already is at a disadvantage.
[00:58:48] McIntosh:
I think so too. I don't think and there are some, so please don't send your hate mail. But if you do, $200,000, sound boost. There are some. For example, Fountain. He's from Europe, Oscar. There's Eclair, which is it's a lightning node and a wallet, if I'm not mistaken. They're French, if I'm not mistaken. Sounds French. I mean, even, like, is it Tether, Ledger, maybe both of them? I think they're European. Tether. Why did I say tether? The Treasure. Yes. Treasure. Not ledger. I'm telling you, this brain fog is a thing. This is nuts.
Yeah. One of them I know is made in Europe. Yeah. True. That's true. Things. But when you're worried about the EU coming after you rather than, can I develop this great piece of software to bring people sovereignty and freedom, that's going to cause less advancement?
[01:00:04] Kenshin:
Mhmm.
[01:00:05] McIntosh:
It's just going to. It's unfortunate. If I lived in Europe and I could and I was not willing or able to leave, I would minimally have my company set up elsewhere. Mhmm. And, you know, you can do that. It's it's not ideal. It certainly costs more. But, yeah, I'd I'd do my work through some kind of shell company, you know, have it set up in Panama or something. I it's too dangerous.
[01:00:41] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's too many regulations. Too strict.
[01:00:48] McIntosh:
Okay. And you the last one, we've got here is what's it gonna take for Bitcoin to surpass Apple or Microsoft? You're you love your Microsoft in market caps. My prediction is You mean in terms of adoption or Market cap. Or what? Okay. What would it take to Oh, I don't think it's gonna take I don't think Apple or Microsoft are gonna make huge strides over the next few months. I Bitcoin just needs to keep going up. You've done the figure. It's for Microsoft. It's what? 200,000?
[01:01:24] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's no. Hundred and 50.
[01:01:31] McIntosh:
A hundred and 50.
[01:01:32] Kenshin:
If it's a hundred and 50, then, you know Yeah. But and, basically, Microsoft and Apple are very close. It's 2,800,000,000,000.0 for Microsoft and 3,000,000,000,000 for Apple. No? Yep.
[01:01:43] McIntosh:
I would say it's getting pretty certain by the end of this bull market that they will it will be bigger. And what does that leave? Gold. Gold. Just gold. Good old gold. That one's gonna take a bit. I I you know, we won't pass gold, I don't think, this market this bull run. It would be nice if it did. Oh. But it won't take a few more years. Well, I maybe next cycle. Don't that's not that far off. I'm already thinking about the next cycle. I don't know what you're doing. It's four years away. You you you you're still thinking about 2021, aren't you? Yeah. No.
Yeah. Four years from from whatever. I there's a lot of people who think this market this bull run's gonna extend to 2026. That will be something I have to see proven. I may be wrong, but I'll be cautious before I say that. I'm not gonna say that, yeah, 2026 is just gonna keep right on going up. Right. I don't know. Don't sell you Bitcoins, people. I'm gonna start saying Bitcoins. If you ever notice the old timers, they say Bitcoins because they used to have a bunch or they still do. They got Bitcoins. I got 50 Bitcoins in my block that I mined with my laptop. But
[01:03:12] Kenshin:
but it was Bitcoins was the the amount of coins and Bitcoin with a capital b was the network.
[01:03:23] McIntosh:
Yeah. Fair enough. 100%. Hey. We had a supporter. You know what? Mhmm. They used our lightning node. I'm so happy about that. And that supporter was? Anonymous.
[01:03:39] Kenshin:
Send it mic.
[01:03:40] McIntosh:
No. It was Send it mic. We know from the amounts. The Send it mic is awesome. And, now that's interesting because yours says anonymous. Yeah. Fountain. And on the boost, on helipad, it shows Send It Mike. Anyways, I'm gonna read it right off of helipad if you don't mind. A 69 sets from Send It Mike. He said, I pretty much oh, sorry. We were talking about using Bitcoin to buy and sell that stuff. Right? I buy pretty much nothing with Bitcoin because it is way more friction than just using a credit card. And this is the thing that I was saying, Kenshin. It's too hard. You have to deal with the taxes, blah blah blah.
I do pay people back in Bitcoin for when they buy lunch or whatever. I'm not opposed to using lightning to pay for things at all. I just don't see it as an option. And the whole gift card thing seems silly. Why Square, AKA Block, isn't doing this? I don't know. Dorsey is a great champion of Bitcoin in Nostra, but somehow their point of sale machine doesn't support this. It does seem kinda crazy. And I'm not gonna put myself in Jack's shoes because if I were Jack, I would have sold it all off and probably moved to my own island, but that's a different story.
So I don't know. Square one day will, support Bitcoin. I'm quite sure. Probably over lightning. I don't know why they haven't done it yet. I still see the cap gain stuff as an issue. Yeah. That has to be resolved. And I don't know when that I I don't know when that's gonna happen. I'd hoped there was some glimmer of hope that, you know, maybe that was something that Trump was going to do. And maybe he will. I don't think so at this point. I think he's got a lot of other things to deal with. It's too hard to do so fast. Yes.
[01:05:52] Kenshin:
Yeah. I I kind of agree with the gift card. I think it's great, the gift cards, but it's like a shortcut.
[01:06:00] McIntosh:
Yeah. Exactly. It's like a Exactly. A trick.
[01:06:04] Kenshin:
But you still need to pick up two gains, but you don't have to. I don't know. It's it's it's weird.
[01:06:14] McIntosh:
I love that there are places that we can go. El Salvador, Costa Rica, couple places in Africa, you know, and just buy and sell with Bitcoin. I think we're going to see more and more people online use it because it is frictionless online with something like BTCPay. And so I think we will see more and more adoption there. But we ultimately have to deal with this whole issue of, is it a currency or is it not? Because if it's not a currency, then a lot of this just doesn't work, and that's that's pretty sad. And I don't wanna be the guy out there, but but man, that would stink.
[01:07:00] Kenshin:
I heard that in another podcast. I I don't know if it has to be all three to succeed. I think it can be store value and still be Or for some people Oh, I agree. I mean, for some El Salvador, they use it as a, exchange. Right? So
[01:07:22] McIntosh:
Yeah. I don't know. Definitely. I agree with that. I just it's not ideal. I'll put it that way. I just wanna become a citizen of the Internet and say you know? But I guess I wouldn't know who to send my taxes to.
[01:07:38] Kenshin:
You don't have to. You know? That's another conversation.
[01:07:43] McIntosh:
Yeah. Alright. Anyways, I so send it, Mike. Appreciate the boost. I you always have great insight, and we always appreciate that. So thank you. Thank you. And to be honest, we didn't have any streaming this week other than what I was doing testing things. So that was it. Ten sixty nine. Appreciate that. I know we've had a lot going on lately, guys, but we're trying to make things better. We are making things better. In just a few short episodes, we're gonna be going live. I'm excited for that. I don't think y'all are prepared for me live. I might have to stand up. Could you, like can I let's see? Can I do this? Maybe. I don't know. Oh, no. I could do it like this, but then I gotta move this up.
I gotta figure out some. Sorry about all the noise. I'm sure it's those racing desks. You know? I have that. Yes. I need okay. Well, I don't have the money for that. Oh. Have you seen the price of Bitcoin lately? I'm too busy stacking the sats, man. Yeah. We need I gotta stand up. I gotta we'll play some, cool in the game to get things started. Maybe that'll get y'all to show up. I gotta figure out how to do that. We really because like earlier, you could not hear. I that's actually why I had black holes set up. I was doing trying to do some stuff like that, and then it partially screwed up my whole system. So I don't know.
Maybe I need to crank up, like, pipe wire on on Linux and really see if I can get things going. Nice. Hey. Ladies and gentlemen, I need some sats. Okay? This is me begging at this point. I gotta buy some stuff so we can do the I need to play cool in the game. Oh, come on. Come on now. Help a brother out. News and notes. What do we got for the do we even have anything else? Is that it? If we talked enough, can we go home? Through the news, I think, enough to tell. I think they want us to stop, Kenshin. I think we've, outworn our welcome as they say. Yeah.
I'm glad I'm feeling better. Yeah. Last week was rough.
[01:10:00] Kenshin:
You sound much better.
[01:10:03] McIntosh:
I thank you. I'm I'm sure I do, for multiple reasons because this is actually the first week now in, like, a month that my sound sound has actually worked the way it's supposed to. But yeah. You guys boost in. Let us know what you think. If you got ideas for topics. Look. I don't wanna turn into the rah rah number go up guy. I mean, this is stuff we wanna talk about. It's part of the landscape, but, you know, I don't do stuff just to get views. I do stuff because we want to provide you with quality content. And one way that you can help with that is boost us and let us know.
And it doesn't have to be a big boost. I know as price of Bitcoin goes up, the sats get more expensive. I get it. But still, just boost a hundred sats and say, hey. What about this? What about that? Because we can't think of everything, especially me these days. Sorry, Kenshin. I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you I'm gonna use this for, like, six months. COVID brain. Well, you I'd what? I just
[01:11:17] Kenshin:
Use it while you have it. Right?
[01:11:20] McIntosh:
Oh, man.
[01:11:22] Kenshin:
Yeah. Oh, alright. Yeah. Just let us also know if you want us to talk, as you said, Mike, about this European talk. It might not be fully Bitcoin related, but it was at the time when I think it's rolling. When Bitcoin was starting up. So
[01:11:39] McIntosh:
You guys know I spent a long time talking about the IMF, about what they did to Africa and other, well, the Continent Of Africa, obviously, and other countries outside of Africa. It's horrible, terrible, terrible things, and I don't wanna see that going on in Europe. And it's it's it's kind of shocking to me that I need to do some investigation because it sounds like that's what's going on. One last thought about that, Kenshin. Did they do the same thing to Italy?
[01:12:14] Kenshin:
I don't know.
[01:12:16] McIntosh:
Okay. Maybe I need to look at it. It seems like I'm thinking there were something like, they were demanding austerity out of Italy, and now I'm wondering if that's what was going on. I need to look into that. Yeah. But let's look into that and make an episode out of it. I think it's
[01:12:33] Kenshin:
Yeah. I like that topic also. It's it was interesting times back then.
[01:12:39] McIntosh:
Yep. Alright. This is why you need to be sovereign, people. I don't know how you do it, but this is why you need to be so How you do it? I wish I could tell you. I look. I can't blow smoke at you and say, well, you can be Bitcoin. Because especially if you've got a family and you, you know, you just can't go out and do things crazy things. You know? I'm not gonna go up in the woods of Tennessee and say, well, screw The United States, and I'm never sending the IRS any money. They will show up. And as far as I know, the IRS still has guns. Okay?
I don't know that they've taken them away. I hope one day they do. Hey. Let's wrap this up, Kenshin. I hope you guys have enjoyed this. I you know, thanks for being here. We'd love to hear from you. We got all our different ways that you can reach us listed at the bottom of each episode page, on the website at satoshis-plebs.com. Stay humble friends. Go out. Make it a great week. We'll talk to you soon.
[01:13:45] Kenshin:
Keep stacking. Stay patient.
What is up, Pleb Nation? Today is April, and this is episode 206 of Satoshi's Plebs. I'm McUntosh.
[00:00:08] Kenshin:
I am Kenshin. And today's episode is Bitcoin dethrones Silicon Valley.
[00:00:32] McIntosh:
Awesome. Alright, Kenshin. First of all, real quick. Obviously, we had some new music there. Something a little different. That was DJ Yo with his song Jump Right In. He does a variety of music, I would say. That was one of his more jazz type songs. He does some stuff, frankly, that if you're into jazz music at all, you know who Miles Davis is, and some of it actually reminds me of some of the later Miles Davis stuff. It's kind of interesting. So, hopefully, you enjoy that. The whole song will be at the end. And as always, if you're boosting or streaming during that song, that will go straight to DJ Yo.
How are you, sir?
[00:01:20] Kenshin:
I'm good. How are you? Good.
[00:01:24] McIntosh:
I'm better. We'll talk about that in just a minute, but let's get on through this rest of this. Let's let's go through our our stats. We need to we need to come up with a good name for our stats section, Kinshin. This is a marketing opportunity that we have lost. Right. We have dropped it completely. I am terrible at this kind of crap. Hey, plebs, I want you to boost in and give us a name for our marketing segment, please, for our marketing segment. Man, my brain is a scramble, for for our statistics section, for the Bitcoin price, for the kind of the market update. We need a name for it. We need something clever.
Let's go. Need some help. Help McIntosh out. But regardless of that Bitcoin price at time of recording, April here, 94,150. So we are definitely up. And how many euros is that, Kenshin?
[00:02:24] Kenshin:
Eighty three thousand one hundred and fifty. So yep. It's for sure up. And the price last April this time was 66,400, dollars. So we're up 39.6%
[00:02:39] McIntosh:
since last year. Just a little 39.6%. I have a question. Has the euros, has that ever gotten over a hundred? It has not yet. Has oh, it did. It has. Yeah. Okay. Good. I have photos of my book. You have photos of it. See, honey? I have pictures. Up that high. Alright. And what's our Bitcoin market cap?
[00:03:05] Kenshin:
We're at 1,900,000,000,000.0 USD. The gold market cap is at 22.9, which brings Bitcoin at 8.1%
[00:03:16] McIntosh:
of gold's market cap. So we are above 8% once again. Again. That's good to see. Even though gold has been on a tear, do you have I know that gold hit $3,500 2 days ago. I think it actually dropped down. It's, like, 33 something right now unless it's moved around.
[00:03:34] Kenshin:
It was $34.00. Yesterday. Yes. Down to 33 today. Yes. Right. Right. Correct. So,
[00:03:44] McIntosh:
it's definitely making moves, which for gold, frankly, is rather dramatic. It's kinda crazy. But Bitcoin being Bitcoin, it has now woken up and has decided that it wants to gain some of that market cap back. We'll see how that goes.
[00:04:01] Kenshin:
Alright. Are we announcing the the name, the the gold plebs now? Or The gold plebs.
[00:04:09] McIntosh:
Hey. If you send me a million sats, I'll call you a gold pleb. How about that? Is that is that good marketing? I think that might be. Not only that, I'll well, no. Anyways yeah. Just send your sats, people. It's okay. Alright. Our block height as we record is 893,671. Don't forget that last one. And we were looking at the blocks just a few minutes ago, and the mempool has gone crazy. So for weeks, we've been saying, what, one SAT to, like, three SATs. Right? What is it right now, Kenshin?
[00:04:52] Kenshin:
Oh, right now is at, where is it? Sixteen, nineteen, and 20. Most blocks recently were over 20 sats per vbyte, which that is around 2 and a half dollars per transaction. Now it has actually dropped the last few minutes, but yeah. That's Yeah. Definitely up to five though. Yeah. It's a lot of transactions flooding in the mempool. No.
[00:05:18] McIntosh:
Yeah. We're up to a 39 megs of transactions, which that's, like, 10 times more than what was in there just like a week ago. So I don't know. Maybe Bitcoin's not dead. I wonder who wrote the article. Right. But, yeah. And then we'll cover we'll round this out. Our statistics our our to be named statistics sections, I'm counting on you people. Come on. We'll round that out with our difficulty adjustment talking about mining, of course. And right now, it's actually showing, like, a downward adjustment of 7.71%. Yeah. I I'm not sure when the last adjustment took place, so I can't tell you honestly what that means. If it just flipped, then, you know, that's not don't take that with any grain of salt. But yeah. It says in ten days So it was four days ago, the previous one. Is it every two weeks? It's it's every it's a certain number of blocks, but it does fall roughly every two weeks. So that sounds about right. If it's already been four days, then, yeah, we may have a serious downward adjustment, which would be sweet because ocean went dry.
We'll talk about that real quick, but I think as part of what we've got coming up, but, man, there was a spell for, like, five days when we didn't have a block. And our previous adjustment was 1.42% up. So Yeah. April 19. Yeah. Four days ago. Speaking of ocean, Kenshin, I see you have that on your list. So why don't you start things off? Yeah. I moved one of my two nodes,
[00:07:03] Kenshin:
home miners, very small, to Ocean, because I thought I would like some sads actually than just waiting for a block. So and since I moved, nothing has happened. So
[00:07:19] McIntosh:
Well, there were three blocks that were when did you move?
[00:07:23] Kenshin:
In the weekend.
[00:07:25] McIntosh:
Okay. So there have been three blocks, Mark. Haven't checked. Just just in the last day. The first one fired off I don't know. They all fired off in very short order. Eight forty. I don't know. I can't read this because it's in UTC time. Sorry. I wanna it's been in less than twenty four hours. Right. So you you you you got some sats coming your way. That's always good. Mhmm. Sats are good. Wild sats like that are even better. Yeah.
[00:07:59] Kenshin:
Oh, what's this about your DCA? Yeah. And my DCA starts to look a bit sad lately because of the price of Bitcoin going up. I I get a notification every morning. And I see, okay. And now you got this many sats today and this many sats the next day. And then Yeah. Today and yesterday starts looking less and less. So it's coming my way.
[00:08:21] McIntosh:
Maybe we should talk about that, actually. So as y'all know, I use Strike. I've had a little bit of trouble, and it wasn't Strike's fault. It was actually my wife's fault, but I'm not gonna blame her. You just did? We well, I did. But, yeah, it it's okay. She she makes up for it. Basically, some money was moved that shouldn't have been moved, and so Strike tried to pull the money and it wasn't there. And so everything's kinda locked up. I've reinitialized it or whatever, but it takes, like, a week, for them to verify because now they're all paranoid, which I get that.
Because I got Bitcoin in my account. I could actually, I think, send it out. And, you know, that Bitcoin's not was not paid for for a little bit, if that makes any kind of sense. So we're working through that, but, unfortunately, I have a week without DCA. And, yeah, I was looking at it, and, of course, things are cranking up. And as the number goes up, your sats go down for your purchase. My suggestion would be to ignore it. Just ignore it. Yep. If you know where Bitcoin's going, and this is the thing that you have to figure out. If you if you've determined Bitcoin's going to whatever x is, x. Right?
And you see no logical reason why that won't happen because of nation state adoption, people adopting it, more people investing in it, more businesses, big one we're gonna talk about today, actually. Those kind of things, then don't worry about it. You do what you can, and the rest is just time. Just waiting. That's the hard part about all this.
[00:10:19] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's actually the, let's say, the inverse problem. Right? You you feel sad about Bitcoin going up. It's a it's a good problem to have. It's going up like that.
[00:10:31] McIntosh:
Yeah. No. It is a good problem, but yeah. Boy, I think about back when $16,000 beep Bitcoin just recently. Right? What? Three years ago? Four? I don't know. Five years ago. I think two. Now when would oh, I'm sorry. No. You're right. I'm thinking even for I was thinking of the, what, $4,000 Bitcoin. Yes. Two years ago. Where don't we wish we had that? Yep.
[00:11:02] Kenshin:
Alright. Is there anything else? No. What about you? How is your health recently?
[00:11:08] McIntosh:
Well, so I have a little confession to make. I told y'all last week I had a cold. Turns out I had COVID. I did not know that. So, basically, last Sunday, a week and a half ago now, I started getting sick, and I actually took the next day off from work. Worked on Tuesday because I didn't feel terrible. You know, it's just like a cold, whatever. And then Wednesday, it started really kinda hammering me. Thursday was the worst, so almost a week ago now. And to be honest, I don't remember Thursday a whole lot, which is crazy. I don't know that I really wanna broadcast this, but I'm going to, I guess.
At one point, I ended up laying in my bathroom on the tile, and it wasn't really by choice. I didn't fall, but it was really close to that. You know, I was I was in there and started having some real problems and ended up having to just lay down on the floor. I think my blood pressure dropped a lot, which I have pretty low blood pressure anyways. And then I think it it basically dropped. And, actually, after that, my wife gets me back to the bed, and, I kinda started feeling better. But I spent a lot of time in bed for the last week, week and a half. I'm tired of it.
I am feeling better. In fact, I'm over it, essentially, although I have not regained all my strength back. I think officially after today, it will have been ten days, which is kind of the what they say, you know, I'm no longer contagious or whatever, and I should be able to go out in public without mask and all this kind of nonsense. So, you know, it's wrecked my work, stuff because, of course, I have, like, 14 projects in midair. Mhmm. And I just basically had to take a week off. I didn't have a choice.
[00:13:13] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:13:15] McIntosh:
I could not look at a screen. I've COVID brain fog is is a real thing. I mean, like, that Thursday, I couldn't remember anything. For a few days after that, it was pretty bad, and it's I'm still kind of having issues with it. It is getting better, and I'm hoping in a couple more weeks, it'll be back to normal amounts of forgetfulness. But, I mean, there was literally days. I can't remember what I just, like, I just I don't know. Just, like, repeat it to me like I'm a five year old or something. I don't know. So she got sick after I did. Oh, no.
So I think she got sick, like, five days after. So she's just now turned the corner, and is starting to get better. But, yeah, we've had a lot of sickness going on. Children have dispersed out of the house and, like, you know, they're all, like, one staying with another one and all, you know, all this kind of stuff. But we're getting there. Okay. Good. Yeah. And I don't I don't have anything. That's it. That was the sum of my week because it's all I've dealt with. That was your week. Yeah. That was it. Well COVID sucks. Don't get it. And thank you, China and Fauci and whoever was involved in all that crap. Because every time I start thinking about it, it just makes me so much we shouldn't be going through this. This is nonsense, but I don't wanna turn this into a a show. I probably already gonna get banned for saying COVID. Are they, like, deleting accounts still on YouTube? Not deleting, but, you know I think they got over those things. Of COVID, or did they finally decide that, oh, wow. Those nut jobs are actually right.
Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. But on podcasting two point o, it doesn't matter. Right? Because we don't censor the
[00:15:10] Kenshin:
Exactly.
[00:15:11] McIntosh:
The index. That was actually literally why the index was created because Apple would just arbitrarily say, nope. We're not gonna have you on our platform. Mhmm. Yeah.
[00:15:24] Kenshin:
Right. There we go. Oh, we have a saying in Greek if you say, what ends well is all is well, something like that.
[00:15:33] McIntosh:
I thought it was baklava is tasty.
[00:15:37] Kenshin:
Yeah. That too.
[00:15:39] McIntosh:
That too. Right? Some Do you like baklava? I mean, not to get completely off track. So much. It's too sweet. I love sweet stuff like that. I do. I got I have oh, lord. Anyways, there's somebody who sells baklava at, like, the Bitcoin conferences. Have you ever heard this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he raises like, he used to well, I think he used to make a lot of money doing it, I mean, in terms of Bitcoin. Maybe not so much now, but, yeah, he literally sells Baklava at the conferences. Yeah. He was early on. Right? Very early. Yes.
Yeah. Still around. Yep. Alright. And that's today's cooking episode.
[00:16:23] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:16:25] McIntosh:
Alright. What do we got going on this week? What is this Bitcoin dethroned Silicon Valley?
[00:16:33] Kenshin:
Well, we thought this week to talk a bit about the latest news. Bitcoin's on the headlines again, especially yesterday and today. It's going up a lot. So everybody likes to talk about Bitcoin and where it's gonna go and why. So we will talk about a bit about the news. Yeah. More specifically, Bitcoin, went over $94,000, today and I think yesterday or today anyway, Wednesday. And that was up from 84 last week. So that was a big move the last few days. And we have gone up 25% since the lowest point in March. So so that's been quite a big big percent move.
And the biggest news is that we surpassed briefly, Amazon and Google in market cap. So and silver as well. So we were at the fifth place at some point today. Now we're back down below them. Right. But we're basically the same.
[00:17:45] McIntosh:
I think prior to market opening, essentially, we were Yeah. Bitcoin was above them. And and the stock market is having a good day too for for whatever reasons. It's something about Jerome Powell and, you know, he's not gonna get tarred and feathered and I don't know. China tariffs may be down. I I don't know. It it whatever the news speak is of the day, the stock market liked it, so it's taken off as well. So they did get back ahead. But I don't I I suspect that Bitcoin's not done. It spent a long time kind of down in that box, and it has now woken up. I did want to point out there's if you go back and look at the data, all the way back to 02/2009, when Bitcoin was first started, Bitcoin can go through extremely long periods of kind of this sideways market.
And then it'll wake up, and it'll just do these dramatic moves in a very short period of time. And literally, it's a significantly high percentage of the market movement upwards will occur. It's like nine days out of the year. So in other words, if you knew when those nine days were, you could kinda just target it and, oh, there it is and there it is and, you know, that would be it. You cannot. You do not know when that will be. And that's why you should continue to be DCA. You know, you do not know next week Bitcoin could be at 200. Next week, Bitcoin could be at 80.
Don't try and guess that market. But, you know, we're gonna see these time periods, and I believe they're coming very soon, maybe, where it's just, it's going to boggle your mind, you're gonna be like, what just happened? Like, we just went up $20,000 in, like, a day or two. I mean, you know, we've already have we not already seen a $10,000
[00:20:03] Kenshin:
move this cycle? Yeah. Yeah. We did. We have. In March.
[00:20:07] McIntosh:
Almost maybe twice or at least very close. I mean, we've already had some major moves. But, guys, just to be clear, at least my position, I don't wanna presume to speak for you. This bull market is not over. And I have never said that this bull market was over. Pack it up. Go home. Not that you should. You should regardless, you should continue to DCA. But, you know, there are people out there acting like this thing's dead. That's it. It's already done, and there's no evidence of that. The evidence will be well, I I think we've had this discussion. I think we both agree it would have to get below at least 69,000 in order for it to be dead.
Right? Right. That's not happening. It certainly doesn't appear to be. And we've got some news today, for example, that that very much could affect that. We'll get to that in just a minute. But, yeah, I just kinda wanted to throw that out there. Bitcoin, you know, the summary, Bitcoin's gonna move in very small periods of time, very dramatically, but you're always gonna see these long periods of chop. This chop is what kills people. They can't handle it. Right. Okay. The ETF inflows have certainly picked back up. There was a a number of weeks.
I'm not gonna say months, but certainly weeks where the ETFs what is that exchange traded fund? I don't know exactly what that stands for. But regardless, the Bitcoin ETFs that people can invest in where it was negative outflow. Right? Well, that's now flipped back around. The inflow is happening again, and it's gotten to be very, very large.
[00:22:02] Kenshin:
You know, it's it was at $936,000,000 today, the inflows. Almost a billion dollars. Almost a billion dollars. Yeah. And that was the biggest inflow since January 17.
[00:22:15] McIntosh:
Mhmm.
[00:22:18] Kenshin:
Which that was near the all time high. Yeah. With the big expectation with Trump coming into office and all this. So so we are back up at that level now.
[00:22:30] McIntosh:
So I think one interesting metric, you mentioned that Bitcoin was right at, $2,000,000,000,000, like 1.9.
[00:22:39] Kenshin:
Yeah.
[00:22:41] McIntosh:
Investors, for whatever reason, love these psychological levels. 2,000,000,000,000 would be one. It's a nice even number. When it breaks that, I think that's another trigger that would send it even higher. We've certainly been there before, but it's looking like we're about to be there again.
[00:22:59] Kenshin:
Right. And another highlight point, is, yeah, that we will talk today is about the European regulations that continue with this MICA MICA implementation.
[00:23:14] McIntosh:
So we have Can you give the listeners a brief overview of that? Here in America, here in The United States, we don't I don't know what that means other than it's some EU regulation.
[00:23:25] Kenshin:
Right? Yeah. Right. I think we talked briefly about it before. It it Briefly. That came up this framework. It's called, let me find it again. Markets in crypto assets, I think. Yes. Markets in crypto assets, MICA. It's a framework that they started in the end of last year and all the companies that deal with cryptocurrencies in any form like selling services, exchanges, you know, they need to, comply with this framework, and it's very, very strict. A lot of companies had to close down in anticipation of those coming up. And I can talk briefly about it. What happened today was that Google actually had to implement stricter, advertising policies because of this framework, and they started doing that today.
So Interesting. Even for advertising cryptocurrencies in Europe, you need to adhere to those, rules or whatever they are, regulations. So
[00:24:38] McIntosh:
I I have a question. Yeah. You guys seem to have a lot bigger, a lot more control over things like that in terms of these type regulations. I could never see something like that happening in America. Is the average person's view that that's a good thing? Are they sticking it to Google or Apple or Amazon, or it is this onerous? Is this just Honestly a headache? I would say
[00:25:12] Kenshin:
the average person, and me included, was not aware of any of the European Union regulations that affect us in that sense. The the one big thing that affected everybody knew it was visible a lot was the GDPR. Mhmm. Right? So the privacy for online, for information. So all my information online needed to be protected, and companies couldn't keep data about me without having a valid reason to have that information. So that was very, very strict. It came when it came on, it was so strict that all the companies were serious about implementing and following the guidelines.
So in that sense, that was very strict, but it was welcomed from because it wanted to protect the privacy of individuals within Europe. It was a big headache for the companies to implement because you needed to go through so many articles and change your terms and conditions and change actually in practice how you conduct your business and how you collect your data and how you save that data. But apart from that, all the other that are more invasive and annoying to people like us, we never hear really about it.
[00:26:48] McIntosh:
Mhmm.
[00:26:49] Kenshin:
It just may because I wonder if that's on purpose. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, because we have our own governments, you know, in in our countries, people are more focused on on on the country level governments and issues and not on the overall European issues, if that makes sense.
[00:27:08] McIntosh:
So Yeah. It does. I'd like to maybe not today. I'd like to actually explore that more because Mhmm. To be honest, that's kind of news to me, and I don't really understand. So let's say well, Spain is one of the members of the EU. Right. Right? What does that mean? Like, does the EU have control over Spain in at least in certain areas? I mean, I I believe that that's true. I'd I'd like to maybe even spend an entire episode. Yeah. I don't know. That'd be boring and drive people off, but I think it would be interesting. What does this do in terms of the country's sovereignty and this kind of thing? I mean, there is a very good example with Greece and,
[00:27:54] Kenshin:
economic collapse in 02/2009. And Greece was very much affected by the European Union, and Greece couldn't do what they wanted to do to get out of that situation.
[00:28:08] McIntosh:
What did they want to do? Because they well
[00:28:12] Kenshin:
They they didn't want to get into more. They didn't want to be bailed out, essentially. They didn't want to get into more debts to get out of the debts. And the EU was forcing them to. Yeah. And there was a referendum in Greece. The citizens voted no. The government wanted wanted to say no. They actually said no. They came with a referendum's decision from the people. Not everybody voted in Greece who said no. And they did it anyway. They forced Greece and the government to take the new loans, etcetera etcetera.
[00:28:51] McIntosh:
This reminds me of the IMF. Yeah.
[00:28:54] Kenshin:
I I I bet it was IMF also behind all of this. After
[00:28:57] McIntosh:
understanding I really wanna talk about this some more. I Yeah. I that's interesting because now this was a number of years ago. I maybe wasn't interested in this as back then as I am now, but I thought what I heard was and I may be wrong about this, so please. But my perception is that the EU was forcing austerity measures is what they would call it on Greece. Now maybe I'm completely wrong about that. I think that's But what you're saying is they were essentially requiring them to take on more debt Yeah. Which, of course, exacerbated the situation, made things worse.
[00:29:40] Kenshin:
Yeah. Well, it was at the time, even when people were doing this referendum, they were not really % sure what saying yes and no meant. Mhmm. You know, it was the rules or not the rules, the the outcome was not certain what those austerity measures meant. You know? It was not a %. No no one was clear about it. And and Germany, yeah, they were saying things. I mean, even in Sweden, I heard things like weird things like it was Greece problem and they were lazy and that's why they got in trouble and stuff like that. Right.
[00:30:20] McIntosh:
And that's kind of my perception. I mean, to be honest to to to be honest, but that's also been a while. And, again, I'm not it wasn't well, it was what it was. But I think well, I don't wanna turn this into a discussion about the EU, but I think in terms of economic policy, like, literally, like trading policy, I don't really have a problem with a group of countries. In this case, however many there are 20 or 30, forming a coalition. But when that becomes, hey. You can't do what you think is in your best interest. Personally, if somebody were to tell me as an American, the United States could not, I don't know, burn coal power. Mhmm. Let's just make this real controversial.
I'm a tell them to pound sand. Okay? I that's the part where I start and that's what they've done. It's certainly what it sounds like. I mean, Europe That they have that ability. Yeah. European Union was very good as an idea, and I was very for it
[00:31:40] Kenshin:
growing up. It was very positive to go through all the European countries without borders essentially. Right. The same, currency,
[00:31:50] McIntosh:
you know, it's like one big country. It was very positive. Or it I would argue that the one currency is probably not a good idea. But I understand why people would want it at the same time. Because I could imagine in in you know, you can travel five countries in one day in Europe without any problem just if you're just driving. Right? And now there's five different currencies and and what I I'm sure it's a headache. I get that. But you're tying yourself to that currency. Who's gonna control it? Well, the the EU central bank. And so, I mean, it just cascades. It's an interesting well, I don't wanna turn this into a discussion about that. We probably need to move on. But that is interesting because, apparently, my perception of what happened in Greece during that time was incorrect for whatever reason, whether that was the perception in general or or whatever. But it doesn't sound like, it sounds like Greece was trying to do the right thing, and the EU was trying to force things on them that was just gonna make it worse Yeah. Is what it sounds like. Yeah. I will tell you one thing, and then we can bring it in another episode. But the the finance minister was a professor in economics
[00:33:12] Kenshin:
university in US. So he was very experienced with with the subject. And after two weeks, I think, when once he got into government, he quit.
[00:33:24] McIntosh:
So that's I'd be curious. When you when people say things like, well, they're they are professor or economics, whatever, there's very few economics, programs, at universities here in in, I think, in general around the world, but here in The United States that don't teach just raw Keynesian economics. That's true. Okay. So I always wanna know where what that means. You know? Are they are they Austrian? Are they Keynesian? I mean because I cannot reconcile Keynesian economics with reality. Yeah. And anybody who thinks that Keynesian economics is okay, they either don't understand it.
I should I shouldn't say this stuff, Kenshin, but I'm going to. They either don't understand it or there's a motive or they're just not very smart, I mean, to to be tactful. Okay? There's a there's a motive of money for them, right,
[00:34:33] Kenshin:
Or they don't understand it. Yeah. But even if you would follow a % Keynesian economics, you would want to do what the ECB, European Central Bank, wants to do.
[00:34:44] McIntosh:
So Well, yeah. They're they're they're all a bunch of Keynesians at the East. Yeah. Of course. Any of the central banks are are going to be and look. We don't even talk about this in The United States. This is not a left right thing in The United States. It's interesting because by and large, the conservatives, the Republicans, whatever he they're just as Keynesian as as the Democrats. It's just for their programs, not the democratic programs. Does that make sense? Mhmm. There's not really that much difference. There's very few people. You got somebody like, say, Ron Paul, who was very much about balance the budget. We can't be spending money like this, etcetera, etcetera.
You know, there's very few people like that. I wanna say I wanna go out on a limb. I may even I'll probably get his name wrong, and I may even be incorrect about what I'm about to say, but I it feels like Thomas Massie, I think he's a senator, is kind of taken on that Ron Paul mantle in terms of, the same kind of rhetoric, if you wanna call it that. Let's see. He's a representative. If so he's not a senator. Yeah. I think that's the person I'm thinking of from Kentucky. Yeah. That sounds right. So, you know, there's just very few people like that. Nobody else and look.
Alright. We're way off. Let's let's Yeah. I think Stop.
[00:36:24] Kenshin:
Let's get back to it. Hey, Kenshin.
[00:36:27] McIntosh:
What is making Bitcoin go up? We're gonna just completely pivot because we'll just we'll spend an hour sitting here talking about this. And I don't know that the plebs wanna listen to this. No. Maybe not. Maybe. I don't know. Y'all boost in and let us know. Alright. So we are actually gonna talk, though, I think, about what we feel like is is making this rally kinda kickoff.
[00:36:52] Kenshin:
Exactly. I mean, let's let's go through them really fast. We identified four main, topic or factors that are driving this. Of course, we have the geopolitical, subject. Right? Again, political stuff. But we have Trump's, stating that he's, yeah, slowing down with the tariffs with China. So all these tariffs talk,
[00:37:22] McIntosh:
yeah, made a big impact. Yeah. Now it's And I I'm not surprised that that didn't help the market. Yeah. Right? What I don't understand is why is he saying this? Does he trying to understand Trump is is difficult at best. I don't know if this is because he's just backing down or if this is part of his plan or you know? I know there's a lot of people who would say he has no plan, but maybe he does. Is this part of it? I don't know. And that actually creates confusion in and of itself. Mhmm. It seems like he's just like, oh my gosh. The market has, you know, dropped whatever it's done, and everybody's yelling at me, and I can't get Jerome Powell to quit. So I'm gonna back down on the China tariffs. That's what it seems like. And that, to me, actually kind of weakens his position, frankly.
[00:38:22] Kenshin:
We'll see. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. I I apologize. But yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. I mean, it's just it was just a negotiation tactic in a way that's yeah. No. They backtrack to all of it. They need each other. Or you need each other, China and US, I guess. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So
[00:38:43] McIntosh:
Well and the second thing that we have here is just the institutional demand in general. Now we've we discussed, for example, the ETF inflows hitting almost a billion dollars yesterday, which is up, like, a 50% from the previous day. So a dramatic increase. If that continues, that's certainly going to to help. I I would, one thing that I would tie into that, we need to go ahead and talk about, Mallard's new position because I I do think that directly ties into this as well. So it was announced today, that Cantor Fitzgerald, who the CEO used well, he was the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. He's now the secretary of treasurer.
Commerce? No. He's commerce. Best sent as treasurer, I think. I always get the two of them mixed up. But, anyways, he has a position in the administration now. So his sons are actually running Cantor Fitzgerald, but they have announced this big conglomeration of a new business that SoftBank is what it's called. Right? Yes. And so it's it's a new crypto bank. Right? Except it's Bitcoin only. And they've set aside a tremendous amount of money to buy Bitcoin. I the number I saw was they're starting with 40,000 Bitcoin.
[00:40:25] Kenshin:
40 thousand.
[00:40:27] McIntosh:
Yes. $4.00
[00:40:28] Kenshin:
$0.00 0. I saw a number $3,000,000,000.
[00:40:33] McIntosh:
I think that's correct. That's I think those two numbers intersect. Yeah. So it's it's a lot of money being spent to buy a lot of Bitcoin, and that's what they're going to start with. They've already announced they're gonna follow Michael Saylor's playbook. So what they're gonna do is try and basically sell bonds or whatever it is to raise more money, to buy more Bitcoin, to raise their stock price, to raise more money, to buy more Bitcoin. Right? That's what Sailor's doing. Yeah. He's doing these private offerings, essentially, that you could buy into.
And and then they use that money to buy more Bitcoin. And our our boy, Jack Mallers, the CEO of Strike, they have announced that he's going to be the CEO of this company, which I think is an interesting choice. Wait. What? I didn't hear about that. You didn't hear this? No. This is breaking news, Plex. No. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating.
[00:41:45] Kenshin:
Jack Mallers. Let's see. Bank.
[00:41:49] McIntosh:
There it is. Strike CEO Mallers to lead Bitcoin investment company. So I I I don't guess it's actually a bank. Sorry. They call it SoftBank. So it's a little and, yes, $3,000,000,000 in Bitcoin. But the number I saw was 40,000. Strike c so, yeah, Mallers is gonna be leading it. Okay? It's what they call a SPAC, which I I'm not gonna get into, but it's a type of investment vehicle, essentially. I think what you're gonna find out is this isn't gonna be some company that has a big office somewhere and all that. It's just kind of a almost like a legal put together, thing that's used as an as an investment vehicle, to invest in Bitcoin. Headed up by, like I said, Jack Mallers.
[00:42:44] Kenshin:
He's the cofounder and CEO of Twenty One Capital.
[00:42:50] McIntosh:
So You you who who is he? Mallers. So he's Okay. So that's the 21 Yeah. So that they're calling the new company twenty one Capital. They're merging with something with Cantor. So Cantor Fitzgerald is gonna have a big part of this. Right? So so that it's, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick. That's actually, it's listed right here.
[00:43:14] Kenshin:
And it's also Tether
[00:43:16] McIntosh:
is a big part in it. And Tether. Yeah. Oh, this actually says that Brandon Lutnick is launching. Okay. I'm sure all this will shake out. Obviously, Lutnick some Lutnick has some involvement in it. I don't know that, actually, Howard, the commerce sec, he could not have direct involvement in this, not in his position. I don't think. But, yeah, that makes sense. But, yes, Tether is investing. Bitfinex is investing. Oh, I'm sorry. It's backed by SoftBank. So that's where I got that from. The name of I apologize, ladies and gentlemen. I've been giving y'all misinformation. Yeah. As you said, Kinshan, the company is called twenty one Capital. Yeah. But, yeah, it's got some heavy investment from some big companies.
And they're gonna buy a lot of Bitcoin, and they're gonna start rolling that and try and make it even more Bitcoin.
[00:44:16] Kenshin:
Yeah.
[00:44:18] McIntosh:
So Jack will probably have another podcast about that.
[00:44:22] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. Because I just listened to him, but that was from yesterday, I guess.
[00:44:28] McIntosh:
I think he's been teasing this a little bit, but he hasn't been allowed. Yeah. Until today, they haven't been allowed to talk about it. Mhmm. I think he said there was gonna be a big announcement, and I think that's what he was talking about. This. I I think that's very big news, actually, because Yeah. I think it's bigger than MicroStrategy.
[00:44:48] Kenshin:
Because Saylor is doing his own thing, but he's not, let's say, so close to the Bitcoin Ethos. He's doing completely in one direction.
[00:44:58] McIntosh:
Who knows what these people are gonna Well, if We don't know. If you have Jack Mallers as the CEO
[00:45:03] Kenshin:
of that twenty one Capital, cofounder and CEO Yes. I mean, he's gonna keep a direction that is more Bitcoin friendly, let's say.
[00:45:11] McIntosh:
You would certainly hope. I don't expect them to start investing in ETH. That would be a poor investment anyways, but I don't know. I'm not gonna speculate on that. I speculate a lot of things. I'm not gonna speculate on that. I I get what you're saying about Michael Saylor. He's not, you know, kind of the perfect Bitcoiner, but the reality is that his company holds more Bitcoin than any other company in the world. So simply by that standard, they are the, you know, they're the leader. And I don't think that this company will be able to catch up with him. There there's too much of a head start. He has over 400,000 Bitcoin now.
[00:45:56] Kenshin:
Yeah. But do you know how much it is to to buy 1,000,000 Bitcoin?
[00:46:03] McIntosh:
Well, if someone were to buy a million Bitcoin, the price would skyrocket. Like, you can't. It it would put too much pressure on on the market. Yeah. It would. And I I don't oh, yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I've not actually seen any kind of figure for how how much would it cost. And, of course, that's gonna change over time.
[00:46:29] Kenshin:
If there was a million available to buy right now, which it might not be. But if there was, it would be around 95,000,000,000. Right?
[00:46:41] McIntosh:
95,000,000,000.
[00:46:42] Kenshin:
That's all? Yeah. But so Kenshin, let's just let's just buy a million. What are we doing? Yeah. If if if the hackers. If the price wouldn't move while buying that million.
[00:46:53] McIntosh:
Well, right. It it would, but, yes, you're you're a % correct. Alright. So the point to all this now now we don't have to talk about this in the news section, but this is part of that institutional demand. They will start buying Bitcoin very quickly. They've already done all the paperwork. They're just moving the money around at this point, probably cursing the banks because it takes too long to move that kind of money. They're like, I know what Jack would be like. He'd be like, Bitcoin fixes this.
[00:47:23] Kenshin:
Yeah.
[00:47:24] McIntosh:
I can send it anywhere in the world at Dittman, and and he's right. Why they want my ID? Why they wanna know where I'm sending this money? That's what I would be saying. But, anyways
[00:47:40] Kenshin:
I have fun Back on the times I had for sure.
[00:47:43] McIntosh:
Yeah. But this this institutional demand is starting to kick in even more, and it's part of what's driving this rally. Mhmm. Alright. So the next thing so this coincides with what has been going on in The United States, and that's right a dollar weakness. The US dollar is becoming weaker. That's partially why we see some of the things that we see going on in The United States. Now I think the argument could be made that this was on purpose. They're trying to do this in order to lower interest rates. The problem is it's not working. But regardless, the dollar is getting weaker.
And that's why you see gold ripping, by the way, up to 3,400, 30 5 hundred dollars. And that is also seems to be partially why Bitcoin is starting to go up very rapidly. Does that make sense?
[00:48:59] Kenshin:
Absolutely. What else do we have? Then we have also regular regulatory tailwinds as it says. Mhmm. So is that another, SCC related topic? Do you know who Paul Ortiz is?
[00:49:22] McIntosh:
Well, other than the fact that no. No. I don't. Other than he was appointed SEC chairman, he is Bitcoin friendly, apparently. In fact, I think he's really more crypto friendly. Let's be honest. And so I think the idea is his appointment is going to create even better regulation, whatever clarity for the market in terms of Bitcoin, in terms of crypto, in terms of stable coin, which I think stable coins are going to become a very big part of the landscape. Yeah. They already is, but even more so because Tether, for example, is, like, literally the world's largest buyer of of US bonds at this point, which is I'm not sure why they're even putting themselves in that position, but that's what they're doing.
[00:50:18] Kenshin:
And Europe already starts, stressing about the fact, US is going into the stable coins direction.
[00:50:27] McIntosh:
I've seen a lot of news. I wanted to get your thoughts on that. Why do you why is that? Why did they care? I don't I Hey. Europe. Make a digital EU and see who cares. Sorry. I I know that sounds terrible. Yeah.
[00:50:43] Kenshin:
I think that's why because there is a competition between the dollar and the euro. And they have been taking that stance. No cryptocurrencies, no Bitcoin, and only maybe the digital euro. So they see that as a threat, and they see that as a way out for the dollar to be more powerful through the stablecoins. And maybe they I my personal opinion, as I see it, is that they feel that they might have to follow that route forcefully to to keep competitive.
[00:51:18] McIntosh:
Okay. So You mean making a digital EU,
[00:51:22] Kenshin:
euro. Sorry. Or or no. The opposite. Following one of the established stablecoins or or even Bitcoin for that matter because Interesting. They are trying to do the digital euro, for years, and it hasn't been taken off. It's not hard.
[00:51:40] McIntosh:
Oh, people aren't adopting it. Okay. I'm like No. It doesn't exist. Hard to make stablecoin. Doesn't exist. I I think you and I could make one. Maybe we should. Y'all invest in Statute's Pebs dollars.
[00:51:53] Kenshin:
Excellent. Is it gone beyond so long anyways?
[00:52:01] McIntosh:
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not doing that. Please do not send in hate boost. Okay? Why not? If you can't tell what I'm telling a joke at this point. Boost is still a boost. Right? Well, it needs to be at least 200,000 sats. Right, Genshin? That's the minimum, or we won't read it on the air. Oh, man. Oh, man. Alright.
[00:52:28] Kenshin:
Yeah. We're completely off the rails in this episode, but okay. We are. This the entire episode has been like this. We should rename it
[00:52:37] McIntosh:
off the rails. Macintosh brain own COVID brain. Okay.
[00:52:47] Kenshin:
Yes. Cut over most of the points, I think.
[00:52:51] McIntosh:
We have seen for years market adoption taking place. And, like, I don't know, a year ago, two years ago maybe, there was, like, a big chain down in Africa South Africa that adopted, like, Bitcoin payments at their terminals, and everybody went rah rah rah. And then, of course, it doesn't really move the price. We see stuff like this over oh, Tesla, which I guess they've moving their crypto around their Bitcoin around, which I don't know what that's all about, but maybe they're doing something. But Tesla, they're accepting Bitcoin. Rah, rah, rah. You know?
And yet we don't we can't look at one of these things and say, oh, that's driving the price of Bitcoin up. But it is leading to the wider scale adoption, and ultimately, it does. But we are starting to see more and more and more businesses. You listed a few here. A supermarket in Switzerland is accepting Bitcoin via lightning network as they should. We want a good experience for our users. Right? Switzerland now has a thousand businesses accepting Bitcoin. That's that's crazy. Now I understand Switzerland's really expensive,
[00:54:14] Kenshin:
but, man, I would love to live. It's not really. If you if you work in Switzerland, it's it's not
[00:54:20] McIntosh:
If I work in I mean, I'm retiring and, like, ski in the mountains. So I've literally never been skiing in my skiing in my life, but okay. We'll do that. But, yeah, it's it's a big supermarket chain in Switzerland, and they're starting to accept lightning. Spa. Have you ever been in a spa? Yeah. I think so. What does that mean? It's gotta mean something in Swiss. Right? Yeah. I don't even know if it's
[00:54:44] Kenshin:
originally from there. I'm not sure where it's from. Switzerland.
[00:54:48] McIntosh:
Is that maybe German? Is a I know they speak French in Switzerland a lot. One side. Is there another? Is it actually called Swiss? Is that I'm sorry. It's German. I am being a complete holder. German. Okay. So German,
[00:55:03] Kenshin:
is that the primary? Okay. More than half of it, I think, is German, and the the part that is next to France, I speak French. Yeah.
[00:55:11] McIntosh:
There we go. See, that'd be where I'd live. Yeah.
[00:55:14] Kenshin:
Geneva. Spend the weekends in Paris. In Geneva. I I did a trip from Geneva to Paris, actually.
[00:55:21] McIntosh:
It's it's really good. Oh, man. It sounds awesome. I envy you sometimes, Kenshin.
[00:55:29] Kenshin:
It's long time ago.
[00:55:31] McIntosh:
A long time ago. But you've done it. Yeah. Okay. Alright. We need to yeah. Let's let's let's wrap this up. So we got some questions. Are we gonna do this? Are we really gonna do this? Will Bitcoin hit a hundred thousand by the April? Why not? It seems possible right now. So what Oh, I think it's I I would actually think it's more than likely. If you say hit, not go over because I could see it hitting it. I don't think it's gonna I mean, the breakthrough and I mean, that's only a week away. Does anyone care anymore? We've been over a hundred k No. A few times. Well, you're right. Well, certainly, yeah, twice.
I'm sure we dip back and forth a number of times, but, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. But, yeah, I I think we could I could go with yes for that. I think we're gonna start seeing a grind upwards, but that's not trading advice and, remember, just DCA people. But, yeah, I could see that. How might the upcoming stable coin regulation affect the broader crypto market? What are we talking about here? What regulation? You talking about in the EU?
[00:56:50] Kenshin:
Actually, I think it's for the SEC, the new
[00:56:55] McIntosh:
Oh,
[00:56:57] Kenshin:
right. With, like, his appointment Yeah. And all that. Being more positive towards the stable coins and stuff. Well,
[00:57:03] McIntosh:
how is that a bad thing? I'm not for government regulation, but at least the regulation will be there, and it will be clear. We will see, like, it was, like, the Eclair wallet that was kicked out or shut down Mhmm. In The United States, not Phoenix. I said Phoenix one time recently. They'll be back. Why would they not Phoenix is back in US now. I'm gonna have to look this up. I thought Phoenix it doesn't matter. But there have been companies that have left, and they'll come back. Right? They have no reason not to. Largest market in the world, most penetration.
And if the regulations are there saying, hey. You know, we're not gonna, like, prosecute you for moving a dollar from here to there. Right? You know, they're gonna flock to that. That's that's the way it works. Mhmm. And you've got a great question here. Why don't you answer why don't you talk about this?
[00:58:13] Kenshin:
Why don't you talk about this? Yeah. I mean This next We talked a little bit about Europe. We dive into the how strict regulations are in Europe, especially with crypto. So if the audience, are curious, what what do you think, Europe's, regulation policies, and how strict and cautious they are? Is that gonna put Europe in a disadvantage compared to, let's say, now US going to to be more trending? Already is at a disadvantage.
[00:58:48] McIntosh:
I think so too. I don't think and there are some, so please don't send your hate mail. But if you do, $200,000, sound boost. There are some. For example, Fountain. He's from Europe, Oscar. There's Eclair, which is it's a lightning node and a wallet, if I'm not mistaken. They're French, if I'm not mistaken. Sounds French. I mean, even, like, is it Tether, Ledger, maybe both of them? I think they're European. Tether. Why did I say tether? The Treasure. Yes. Treasure. Not ledger. I'm telling you, this brain fog is a thing. This is nuts.
Yeah. One of them I know is made in Europe. Yeah. True. That's true. Things. But when you're worried about the EU coming after you rather than, can I develop this great piece of software to bring people sovereignty and freedom, that's going to cause less advancement?
[01:00:04] Kenshin:
Mhmm.
[01:00:05] McIntosh:
It's just going to. It's unfortunate. If I lived in Europe and I could and I was not willing or able to leave, I would minimally have my company set up elsewhere. Mhmm. And, you know, you can do that. It's it's not ideal. It certainly costs more. But, yeah, I'd I'd do my work through some kind of shell company, you know, have it set up in Panama or something. I it's too dangerous.
[01:00:41] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's too many regulations. Too strict.
[01:00:48] McIntosh:
Okay. And you the last one, we've got here is what's it gonna take for Bitcoin to surpass Apple or Microsoft? You're you love your Microsoft in market caps. My prediction is You mean in terms of adoption or Market cap. Or what? Okay. What would it take to Oh, I don't think it's gonna take I don't think Apple or Microsoft are gonna make huge strides over the next few months. I Bitcoin just needs to keep going up. You've done the figure. It's for Microsoft. It's what? 200,000?
[01:01:24] Kenshin:
Yeah. It's no. Hundred and 50.
[01:01:31] McIntosh:
A hundred and 50.
[01:01:32] Kenshin:
If it's a hundred and 50, then, you know Yeah. But and, basically, Microsoft and Apple are very close. It's 2,800,000,000,000.0 for Microsoft and 3,000,000,000,000 for Apple. No? Yep.
[01:01:43] McIntosh:
I would say it's getting pretty certain by the end of this bull market that they will it will be bigger. And what does that leave? Gold. Gold. Just gold. Good old gold. That one's gonna take a bit. I I you know, we won't pass gold, I don't think, this market this bull run. It would be nice if it did. Oh. But it won't take a few more years. Well, I maybe next cycle. Don't that's not that far off. I'm already thinking about the next cycle. I don't know what you're doing. It's four years away. You you you you're still thinking about 2021, aren't you? Yeah. No.
Yeah. Four years from from whatever. I there's a lot of people who think this market this bull run's gonna extend to 2026. That will be something I have to see proven. I may be wrong, but I'll be cautious before I say that. I'm not gonna say that, yeah, 2026 is just gonna keep right on going up. Right. I don't know. Don't sell you Bitcoins, people. I'm gonna start saying Bitcoins. If you ever notice the old timers, they say Bitcoins because they used to have a bunch or they still do. They got Bitcoins. I got 50 Bitcoins in my block that I mined with my laptop. But
[01:03:12] Kenshin:
but it was Bitcoins was the the amount of coins and Bitcoin with a capital b was the network.
[01:03:23] McIntosh:
Yeah. Fair enough. 100%. Hey. We had a supporter. You know what? Mhmm. They used our lightning node. I'm so happy about that. And that supporter was? Anonymous.
[01:03:39] Kenshin:
Send it mic.
[01:03:40] McIntosh:
No. It was Send it mic. We know from the amounts. The Send it mic is awesome. And, now that's interesting because yours says anonymous. Yeah. Fountain. And on the boost, on helipad, it shows Send It Mike. Anyways, I'm gonna read it right off of helipad if you don't mind. A 69 sets from Send It Mike. He said, I pretty much oh, sorry. We were talking about using Bitcoin to buy and sell that stuff. Right? I buy pretty much nothing with Bitcoin because it is way more friction than just using a credit card. And this is the thing that I was saying, Kenshin. It's too hard. You have to deal with the taxes, blah blah blah.
I do pay people back in Bitcoin for when they buy lunch or whatever. I'm not opposed to using lightning to pay for things at all. I just don't see it as an option. And the whole gift card thing seems silly. Why Square, AKA Block, isn't doing this? I don't know. Dorsey is a great champion of Bitcoin in Nostra, but somehow their point of sale machine doesn't support this. It does seem kinda crazy. And I'm not gonna put myself in Jack's shoes because if I were Jack, I would have sold it all off and probably moved to my own island, but that's a different story.
So I don't know. Square one day will, support Bitcoin. I'm quite sure. Probably over lightning. I don't know why they haven't done it yet. I still see the cap gain stuff as an issue. Yeah. That has to be resolved. And I don't know when that I I don't know when that's gonna happen. I'd hoped there was some glimmer of hope that, you know, maybe that was something that Trump was going to do. And maybe he will. I don't think so at this point. I think he's got a lot of other things to deal with. It's too hard to do so fast. Yes.
[01:05:52] Kenshin:
Yeah. I I kind of agree with the gift card. I think it's great, the gift cards, but it's like a shortcut.
[01:06:00] McIntosh:
Yeah. Exactly. It's like a Exactly. A trick.
[01:06:04] Kenshin:
But you still need to pick up two gains, but you don't have to. I don't know. It's it's it's weird.
[01:06:14] McIntosh:
I love that there are places that we can go. El Salvador, Costa Rica, couple places in Africa, you know, and just buy and sell with Bitcoin. I think we're going to see more and more people online use it because it is frictionless online with something like BTCPay. And so I think we will see more and more adoption there. But we ultimately have to deal with this whole issue of, is it a currency or is it not? Because if it's not a currency, then a lot of this just doesn't work, and that's that's pretty sad. And I don't wanna be the guy out there, but but man, that would stink.
[01:07:00] Kenshin:
I heard that in another podcast. I I don't know if it has to be all three to succeed. I think it can be store value and still be Or for some people Oh, I agree. I mean, for some El Salvador, they use it as a, exchange. Right? So
[01:07:22] McIntosh:
Yeah. I don't know. Definitely. I agree with that. I just it's not ideal. I'll put it that way. I just wanna become a citizen of the Internet and say you know? But I guess I wouldn't know who to send my taxes to.
[01:07:38] Kenshin:
You don't have to. You know? That's another conversation.
[01:07:43] McIntosh:
Yeah. Alright. Anyways, I so send it, Mike. Appreciate the boost. I you always have great insight, and we always appreciate that. So thank you. Thank you. And to be honest, we didn't have any streaming this week other than what I was doing testing things. So that was it. Ten sixty nine. Appreciate that. I know we've had a lot going on lately, guys, but we're trying to make things better. We are making things better. In just a few short episodes, we're gonna be going live. I'm excited for that. I don't think y'all are prepared for me live. I might have to stand up. Could you, like can I let's see? Can I do this? Maybe. I don't know. Oh, no. I could do it like this, but then I gotta move this up.
I gotta figure out some. Sorry about all the noise. I'm sure it's those racing desks. You know? I have that. Yes. I need okay. Well, I don't have the money for that. Oh. Have you seen the price of Bitcoin lately? I'm too busy stacking the sats, man. Yeah. We need I gotta stand up. I gotta we'll play some, cool in the game to get things started. Maybe that'll get y'all to show up. I gotta figure out how to do that. We really because like earlier, you could not hear. I that's actually why I had black holes set up. I was doing trying to do some stuff like that, and then it partially screwed up my whole system. So I don't know.
Maybe I need to crank up, like, pipe wire on on Linux and really see if I can get things going. Nice. Hey. Ladies and gentlemen, I need some sats. Okay? This is me begging at this point. I gotta buy some stuff so we can do the I need to play cool in the game. Oh, come on. Come on now. Help a brother out. News and notes. What do we got for the do we even have anything else? Is that it? If we talked enough, can we go home? Through the news, I think, enough to tell. I think they want us to stop, Kenshin. I think we've, outworn our welcome as they say. Yeah.
I'm glad I'm feeling better. Yeah. Last week was rough.
[01:10:00] Kenshin:
You sound much better.
[01:10:03] McIntosh:
I thank you. I'm I'm sure I do, for multiple reasons because this is actually the first week now in, like, a month that my sound sound has actually worked the way it's supposed to. But yeah. You guys boost in. Let us know what you think. If you got ideas for topics. Look. I don't wanna turn into the rah rah number go up guy. I mean, this is stuff we wanna talk about. It's part of the landscape, but, you know, I don't do stuff just to get views. I do stuff because we want to provide you with quality content. And one way that you can help with that is boost us and let us know.
And it doesn't have to be a big boost. I know as price of Bitcoin goes up, the sats get more expensive. I get it. But still, just boost a hundred sats and say, hey. What about this? What about that? Because we can't think of everything, especially me these days. Sorry, Kenshin. I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you I'm gonna use this for, like, six months. COVID brain. Well, you I'd what? I just
[01:11:17] Kenshin:
Use it while you have it. Right?
[01:11:20] McIntosh:
Oh, man.
[01:11:22] Kenshin:
Yeah. Oh, alright. Yeah. Just let us also know if you want us to talk, as you said, Mike, about this European talk. It might not be fully Bitcoin related, but it was at the time when I think it's rolling. When Bitcoin was starting up. So
[01:11:39] McIntosh:
You guys know I spent a long time talking about the IMF, about what they did to Africa and other, well, the Continent Of Africa, obviously, and other countries outside of Africa. It's horrible, terrible, terrible things, and I don't wanna see that going on in Europe. And it's it's it's kind of shocking to me that I need to do some investigation because it sounds like that's what's going on. One last thought about that, Kenshin. Did they do the same thing to Italy?
[01:12:14] Kenshin:
I don't know.
[01:12:16] McIntosh:
Okay. Maybe I need to look at it. It seems like I'm thinking there were something like, they were demanding austerity out of Italy, and now I'm wondering if that's what was going on. I need to look into that. Yeah. But let's look into that and make an episode out of it. I think it's
[01:12:33] Kenshin:
Yeah. I like that topic also. It's it was interesting times back then.
[01:12:39] McIntosh:
Yep. Alright. This is why you need to be sovereign, people. I don't know how you do it, but this is why you need to be so How you do it? I wish I could tell you. I look. I can't blow smoke at you and say, well, you can be Bitcoin. Because especially if you've got a family and you, you know, you just can't go out and do things crazy things. You know? I'm not gonna go up in the woods of Tennessee and say, well, screw The United States, and I'm never sending the IRS any money. They will show up. And as far as I know, the IRS still has guns. Okay?
I don't know that they've taken them away. I hope one day they do. Hey. Let's wrap this up, Kenshin. I hope you guys have enjoyed this. I you know, thanks for being here. We'd love to hear from you. We got all our different ways that you can reach us listed at the bottom of each episode page, on the website at satoshis-plebs.com. Stay humble friends. Go out. Make it a great week. We'll talk to you soon.
[01:13:45] Kenshin:
Keep stacking. Stay patient.
Introduction
Bitcoin Market Stats and Updates
Personal Updates
European Regulations and MICA
Factors Driving Bitcoin's Rally
Institutional Demand and New Investments
Bitcoin Adoption and Global Impact
Future Market Predictions and Comparisons
Listener Feedback
