In episode 227, McIntosh and Kenshin examine Executive Order 6102 from 1933, when FDR forced Americans to surrender their gold at $20.67 per ounce before the government revalued it to $35, creating a massive wealth transfer. They debate whether a similar Bitcoin confiscation could occur, discussing how centralized exchanges would be vulnerable while self-custodied Bitcoin presents unique enforcement challenges since it exists as cryptographic keys rather than physical asset and compare the regulatory environments between the US and Europe.
Stick around to the very end for Send It Mike's track, “Freedom Code Revolution”.
Resources
https://reason.com/2025/09/12/donald-trump-is-not-the-bitcoin-president/
Bitcoin Price at Time of Recording
Sep 24th, 2025: 113,661 USD | 96,856 euro
Block Height at Time of Recording
916,219
Episode Page
https://satoshis-plebs.com/episode-227
Music Credits
Freedom Code Revolution
Send It Mike
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:
Welcome back to Satoshis Plebs for episode 227. I'm McIntosh.
[00:00:05] Kenshin:
And I am Kenshin. And today, we're talking about the 6102 executive order.
[00:00:12] McIntosh:
Alright. Awesome. Good to see you. Good well, I can't actually see you. We're having a little bit of technical trouble today, but it's good to good to talk to you. Well, you're gonna talk about that. I see.
[00:00:24] Kenshin:
Good to hear you. Yeah. Yeah. Good to hear you.
[00:00:27] McIntosh:
So as we get started, we're at a block height. I'm actually gonna update this because I'm pretty sure 916219. Kenshin, can you edit that, please?
[00:00:41] Kenshin:
91621
[00:00:43] McIntosh:
It's been a week. Correct. I think maybe for both of us. So Kenshin, what's going on with you? What's these tech meltdowns going on over there?
[00:00:52] Kenshin:
I mean, yeah, everything is crushing around me these days. Yeah. My computer, I did a big update or well, I thought it was a routine update and, it just, yeah, restarted in black screen. So I had no computer for a couple of days. I tried to troubleshoot it with Claude, and that went smoother than usual. Mhmm. So that was good. So I got my PC back and running a bit earlier today,
[00:01:26] McIntosh:
with the update installed. So that's great. Great. I did not realize you actually did your troubleshooting with Claude when you told me that earlier. So I now know why that went so smoothly. Do you know why?
[00:01:40] Kenshin:
Yeah. I mean, it it would take me a couple of days to to go through forms and stuff. You missed my point.
[00:01:50] McIntosh:
Sorry. Oh, no. No. It's okay. So Claude was smart about your setup because I had done the same thing, like, two weeks ago, and I talked to Claude to figure it out as well. So it just literally turned around. Probably not. But I'd like to think so. Yeah. So it's all good now. Right? And what are you running on that PC?
[00:02:15] Kenshin:
The that's the thing. What I'm running is Omarchy, o m a, Omarchy. You heard of it?
[00:02:24] McIntosh:
I so I know exactly what you're talking about. I was listening to a what is that show called? The Linux podcast. Unplugged? Linux Unplugged. Thank you. Podcast, and they were talking about that. I'd already heard about so it's like a highly curated version
[00:02:45] Kenshin:
of Of Artronics. And Hyperland.
[00:02:47] McIntosh:
Right. And Hyperland. And by somebody who's pretty famous in, I guess, the Linux community.
[00:02:55] Kenshin:
And, no. In the actually, in the Apple community. He just Really? Came to the Linux community recently. Yeah.
[00:03:04] McIntosh:
Okay. Correction. What he said. I'm very tired. We'll get to that in just a second. Yeah. But, yeah, you're right. So, anyways, I actually did hear about that just a couple days ago. So my question is, aside from the, so was it an update of a current install or was it a new install?
[00:03:30] Kenshin:
No. The issue was a current install. So when I installed that one, I installed it with a script. That that was a way to do it. So you install art and then you you put a script and it installed everything. And now the new version, the version three, the release is a completely redesigned version. They offer an ISO and you can boot through an ISO and install the, like, a normal distribution. Right. But I still run the script from their scripts. I I run this omarche dash update. So I thought, okay. I should do it because I I knew there is a new version. Mhmm. And, yeah, I I guess that was not the right way to do it. And probably I was version one, and from version one, I went to three. So I never went to two, version two, I think that's why.
So I was missing a lot of components in between.
[00:04:23] McIntosh:
So you did get it all sorted out, though?
[00:04:26] Kenshin:
Yeah. Somehow, I managed with some help from Claude, of course. But With some help from Claude.
[00:04:33] McIntosh:
So I'm getting a little bit of upgrade fever myself. I didn't wanna I wasn't gonna talk about this, but we'll talk about this real quick. I run Ubuntu Studio on my desktop slash server computer here, and, I'm on 24.1. And it's like the KDE version of Ubuntu, and it's tuned for audio video production. Well, the new version of Ubuntu comes out. It's, October. I think they've set the date. It's somewhere around the October. It doesn't matter. But, like, the beta version got released a couple of days ago, which I'm certainly not gonna run. But Right. It's only a few weeks. I it's kinda snuck up on me, when it's going to be released. And so I'm kinda pumped about that because, that'll have the latest version of KDE plasma.
I think it's 6.3 maybe. No. No. I think that's what I'm on now. It doesn't matter. All up to date, you know, all the all the bleeding edge stuff to let it crash awesomely. Anyways
[00:05:48] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:05:51] McIntosh:
I know exactly how you hybrid. I'm glad that you got that solved. My update for the week is real simple. I hate work right now. I hate my life. I hate everything because it's just all a blur. I mean, seriously, I'm actually on call. I'm in the middle of this major upgrade to our monitoring system, which, you know, we cannot screw up. Datadog, which was our previous system, it goes away, September 30, which says next Tuesday. And it doesn't matter whether we're done or not. The agent is they're gonna turn off the API keys, and it's gonna stop stop working. So, we're really down to the end, and we're not as far along as I would like. I mean, I'm not gonna say we're well, we're certainly making progress, but we're not as far along as I would like. And it's gotten gotten hairy.
I I would say this, so, of course, looking forward to our next, Bitcoin meetup, which will be happening soon. And, yeah, that's about the only little bright spot right now in my life. I did not get my minors up for sale. I just I have not had time. I but yeah. That's that's on me. Alright. They're gonna be going on eBay very soon, though. Hopefully, in the next day or two. What are we talking about today, Kenshin?
[00:07:31] Kenshin:
Oh, well, a number. Very important number. 6102. Or how do you call how do you pronounce it in American?
[00:07:41] McIntosh:
That was perfect. That was perfect.
[00:07:45] Kenshin:
So it's the executive order 6102 that was signed by Roosevelt on 04/05/1933. Right. And it, yeah, it's it's the one that fundamentally changed the relationship with gold,
[00:08:03] McIntosh:
globally, I would say. Right? It's not only Yeah. In The US. It certainly impacted America, but this I would I would argue certainly that this would affect the world in general as well. So I wanted to get out of the way real quick what an actual executive order was. This was not a law that was signed or created by Congress and then signed by the president. This was an executive order, which is a privilege given to the president of The United States. I do not understand why, but I'm not gonna debate that. That's not what we're here for. It basically, he can write he or she can write a law and put it into effect. And then unless Congress basically overturns that law by writing a new one, that's the law of the land.
Now I maybe you could argue it's not really a law. I don't know. Whatever. I'm not gonna get all down in the weeds on that, but it was, it was enforced. It was enforced across The United States. And, basically, what it said was if you had any gold coins or gold bullion or gold certificates, which I should have looked that up. I do not know what that is. You had to bring those they had to be turned in by 05/01/1933. In return, you were given $20.67 per ounce of gold, and that was, of course, in US dollars. As with any good political law, there were some exemptions, gold coins with, you know, special value like collector type coins, gold used for industry and the arts, apparently, which I don't know what they would use that for. But, and you could keep a small amount up to a $100 in gold coin. So basically, five ounces of gold.
Alright? Alright. Yeah. So why why would they do this? I I think it's important to I I don't think that I don't think FDR well, I don't think FDR understood the ramifications of what he was doing, frankly. But I don't think he was being malicious in signing this order. Let me just say that. Alright? Do you think that? Why do you think that? I I think he was trying to solve a problem. I I I no. I don't know. Well, let's talk about it. Right?
[00:10:51] Kenshin:
There there is precedent to that. From the from England.
[00:10:57] McIntosh:
Okay. What's the precedent? Can you explain that?
[00:11:02] Kenshin:
Yeah. What happened? I don't have it in front of me. So that's from memory when I read Okay. It's either in the Bitcoin standard or another Bitcoin book, I think. Yeah. Yeah. When the British empire asked for the gold to borrow or temporarily ask everybody to return gold to, to the banks and the post offices and wherever. In 1915, I think, over fourteen or somewhere around those years before the first world war. And, and then there is a letter by Keynes himself Mhmm. To some one, someone, I don't remember who. So it's a letter by Keynes, signed by Keynes, and says, what an amazing plan or, turn of events, or what British empire did to collect all the gold and give paper money back or however they they have that term before.
So so there was that precedent and so they knew what they were doing in 1933, almost twenty years later, they knew exactly what they were doing, I think.
[00:12:16] McIntosh:
So, well, I wanna try I'm not gonna argue with you about that. I I don't know what you're talking about, to be honest. I don't. And I'm not I a 100% believe it happened. I just don't have those facts on top of my my head. But let me explain at least what was presented as the reasoning. So the order came during the banking crisis of the Great Depression, which was ongoing during this time. And this was not very long after FDR took office. So I believe he went he went quite a few terms, if I'm not I think he went three terms. I think actually the law about two term limit is because of him.
But the goal was, that was given was to prevent the hoarding of gold, whatever that means, and allow the government to increase the money supply to combat deflation. So that would be the official reason. By removing gold from the private hands, the government could then devalue the dollar against gold, which it did in 1934. We mentioned this last week by raising the price to $35 per ounce under the Gold Reserve Act. So that was the reason they were, you know, supposedly trying to combat deflation, which I don't know why deflation is viewed. I know it by the Keynesians is viewed as a terrible thing, which these were the people in charge by this point in time. But I don't know. Yes. Things got cheaper. Oh, that's terrible.
I I don't know. I mean, kitchen, I just I feel like sometimes I was just born in the wrong place. I don't know. It just
[00:14:12] Kenshin:
Yeah. That's not true. To me.
[00:14:15] McIntosh:
It's like, no. Don't do that. What? Alright. Anyways, back on track here. There were fines and imprisonment if you violated the order. It did essentially in the domestic gold standard and prohibited private gold ownership. Actually, I did not realize this until the restrictions were lifted in 1974 under under president Ford. So that went on for forty years. I I actually thought I thought it had been repealed long before that. So Mhmm. I know that, like, people in my dad's era, there were like, he he's told me stories. Like, he had a classmate who collected gold. I don't know how he did that. Now it makes a lot more sense why my dad doesn't have a whole bunch of gold.
Anyways Yeah. Alright. So this executive order remains one of the most controversial economic actions in US history. I would call it a pivotal moment in economic US history, representing an unprecedented assertion of federal power over private property. I would also call it unconstitutional, probably a few other things as well. But that being said, they revalue gold $35 per ounce, with that Gold Reserve Act in 1934. This devalued the dollar by about 69% against gold.
[00:16:01] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:16:02] McIntosh:
And what that did, that gave the government a big boost. It gave a big monetary boost. Right? They're selling gold. They're buying gold essentially at one price, and then they're repricing it a lot higher the next year. Fairly early the next year, I believe. The treasury gained a bunch of purchasing power. It made our exports cheaper and more competitive internationally while making imports more expensive, which helped domestic industry during the depression. At least that's the argument. Alright. So anybody who surrendered their gold effectively lost 41% of their wealth, when that price was raised to 35%.
So you had a wealth transfer from those gold holders to the government. They were compelled to sell, and then they watched the value. And I I would be extremely upset if it were me. Yeah. Of course. You know, if I sold a 100 ounces of gold to the government and then turned around and watched them reprice that. And I'm sure there were people who hit it. I'm sure there were, you know, whatever. But, I think by and large, they basically vacuumed up everything in The United States in terms of gold.
[00:17:26] Kenshin:
I mean, it is it is quite quite frustrating. Right? And and if we try to do something like that with anything, right, you you go to prison for insider trading or whatever. So I think they knew what they were doing. That was all planned. It's it's Why why is it criminal for private people?
[00:17:54] McIntosh:
Well, it it is wrong for them to do what they did and I on the grounds of the constitution in my opinion. However, I don't know that they knew exactly what they were they saw the immediate benefits, but I don't know that they saw the long term ramifications of that. They're all they saw was we need a bunch of money, and we need it now. And if we take the the gold and reprice it, that gains us a bunch of money. I mean, I don't think they're exceptionally smart people, frankly. I don't, you know, think that they were geniuses
[00:18:29] Kenshin:
that could see No. You don't. You you didn't need to be a genius to do that. No. I agree to that. But it's still malicious in in a way. It's, I don't think they did it for the best of of US. They did for the best of their interests, I I would say. Because the long term, this was not a good No. Even if you don't know what you're doing, you would know that long term, this wouldn't help. No. I agree. It would damage I agree with that.
[00:18:57] McIntosh:
Alright. So one of the concerns that's batted around with Bitcoin is, hey. You could have this happen to Bitcoin. So I want to, talk about that for a few minutes. And if that were possible, if it's likely, that kind of thing. So, you know, whatever the executive order would be, it would not be sixty one zero two. It would you know, whatever it is. Let's talk about that for just a minute. Does that make sense? Right. So first of all, let's talk about the enforcement. Right? Gold was physical. You put it in banks. You put it in safe deposit boxes, both of which could be, you know, searched or seized.
What is Bitcoin, Kenshin?
[00:19:52] Kenshin:
Oh, it's digital. It's digital.
[00:19:57] McIntosh:
Yes.
[00:19:58] Kenshin:
Yeah. And no one can really physic well, yeah. Well, they could physically take this, the sign in devices, of course. Let let me ask you something. Fundamentally,
[00:20:09] McIntosh:
what does Bitcoin come down to? What is it? It's a set of of keys Yeah. That control, those UTXOs, I think, would be the correct phrasing.
[00:20:23] Kenshin:
It's, yeah, it's keys that control that consign the UTXOs. Right.
[00:20:33] McIntosh:
Right. Right. So the keys essentially represent Bitcoin. They're not Bitcoin, but they they do represent them in a sense. So if the government comes and says, I want your Bitcoin, can they do that if it's a set of keys?
[00:20:55] Kenshin:
And Right.
[00:20:58] McIntosh:
I would argue, yes, they could. It depends on how you have them custody. Right? Are you do you have your keys, which are which you generate with a seed for a set of seed phrases. Right? Are are they written down on a piece of paper that's laying on your desk?
[00:21:21] Kenshin:
Yeah. Or But I Yeah. But in this case, I think they would target first the centralized exchanges that have KYC. They know exactly who have what. They could even make an agreement with Binance or or which one is the Coinbase.
[00:21:40] McIntosh:
Coinbase and Kraken are both in The United States.
[00:21:45] Kenshin:
And Right. So those ones that could easily Yep. Take over. Right?
[00:21:50] McIntosh:
I've said it here on this show. You know, if they wanted to do something like this, they would go to Brian Armstrong, who's the CEO of Coinbase, and say, Brian, you're either going to turn over whatever percent if it's a 100% or some, you know, 10% or whatever of everyone's Bitcoin in that account in in the accounts that are on Coinbase and, or we're gonna shut you down. We'll we'll just sic the justice department on you, and we'll we'll drain you of all your money, and you'll just end up with nothing. So which one is it gonna be, Brian? Or we'll put you in jail.
Right? Right. I mean, the the things that they can do when you're a US based public company with a CEO, it can be very harsh. And it can be in ways that we don't really, as Americans, frankly, even like to talk about. Because the government can the government can and will harass people into submission, essentially. And even a company like Coinbase, you know, they don't have unlimited money. They they they eventually will run out. So, it puts them in a very difficult position.
[00:23:22] Kenshin:
LavaBeat. Have you heard of LavaBeat?
[00:23:25] McIntosh:
No. I haven't. So tell me, what is this about?
[00:23:29] Kenshin:
So Lavabits was or is again, open source encrypted email service. I see that. And that was the sir and that was the service that Edward Snowden was using before he left. Right? So the government went to love a bit and said, give us everything or else. And that was, is that called a gag order? That you're not supposed to say anything? Yeah. That was a gag order. Mhmm. Right. So they did exactly that to love a bit, to to take every all the details on Edward Snowden. And instead of giving it over, what they did, CEO of that company, I don't remember who, they turned off all the servers, destroyed all the servers or something like that. They closed the company instantly. Right.
Instead of turning over.
[00:24:29] McIntosh:
I did not know this little bit of history. I've got the summary brought up here. His name was Yeah. That's a great story. Leidar Levison. And he chose to shut down the company rather than complying. I I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say Brian Armstrong is not gonna shut down Coinbase. No. It's not gonna happen. I this type of story apparently, they've restarted the company, and I need to look into this. But, you know In 2017. Yeah. The average company is not gonna do that. They're just not. They're gonna be like, oh, here's the list, sir.
Right? Because the government has the guns in case anybody is unclear, and they have a stable of lawyers. It's called the justice department, and they don't have any problem siccing those on you. So, yes, I would certainly agree that centralized places like Coinbase, like Kraken, especially those that are US based oh, and by the way, let's take Binance for an example. If they do not have a US based office, which I do not know offhand, the government can still harass the company. It's just not quite as effective. And, you know, they have all of our money to spend, so they'll just, you know, they'll do that.
Those just keep harassing them. So just because your company that you deal with is outside The United States doesn't mean that it cannot be, harassed.
[00:26:10] Kenshin:
Mhmm.
[00:26:11] McIntosh:
Right?
[00:26:13] Kenshin:
Right. And then and that's with centralized places, which is very easy to harass and get all the information they need. And they could confiscate that Bitcoin or Mhmm. Threaten people, by name. They would know who has what and possibly get private keys out of them also. Right?
[00:26:36] McIntosh:
But then we have us, but we're not on centralized. So So we're not on a centralized exchange. I haven't had any, any coin on Coinbase for years, as an example. So what about us? Well, again, let's say we'll go to Coinbase. I need a list of everyone who's bought Bitcoin off of your, service. Okay. Let's just assume they're gonna do that because ultimately that is what's gonna happen. They give them the list. And even if you moved the Bitcoin off the serve serve service wow. Words hard today. Even if you move the Bitcoin off the service, now the government knows that you bought it there.
They know that, say, in 2018, I bought Bitcoin on Coinbase. That's probably a safe statement. Okay. Alright. Knock. Knock. Knock. Hey, mister McIntosh. I saw that you bought, some amount of Bitcoin on Coinbase in 2018. Where is that Bitcoin? Why do you wanna know? Well, I have executive order, you know, 03/1956. Oh, no. It'd be much higher than that. 30,456, that says that the government has a right to 25% of your Bitcoin. Okay. Now what? Are you not going to let those people in this house, the people who have guns, the people who have badges, the people who can make your life miserable if you tell them go read the constitution and pound sand while you're at it?
Right? No. You're gonna bring them into your house. And then what do you say? Where is your Bitcoin? Again, where are your keys? These cryptographic keys, are they laying out on your desk? Are they stored away in a safe, which is a little safer, or are they someplace even more difficult to have access gain to. Is that a fair line of reasoning?
[00:28:56] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yes. And I mean, the original, the 60 one zero two, right, it had you you had to pay a fee. Was it up to $10,000 if you wouldn't comply? That is correct. It was $10,000
[00:29:10] McIntosh:
and ten years in jail if they found out that you did not comply. Now Right. I don't know how often that was done. It was just a threat. I do know that there were probably people, in fact, I'm quite sure of it, who did not comply with that order. Or maybe they gave them a little bit of their money, their gold, and kept the rest. So I believe the same type thing would happen if this were to and now I don't think we're gonna get to some other things, but I would be shocked if a country, I'll just say a country in general, tried to take Bitcoin from private individuals.
Now it could happen. I'm I I'm just saying that me personally, I would be shocked if that happened. Why? I don't know. Maybe I'm being
[00:30:13] Kenshin:
I mean, they did it with gold. Why not Bitcoin?
[00:30:17] McIntosh:
Yeah. Because because it is more difficult. It's one thing to to gather gold. It is more difficult to gather Bitcoin. Does that make sense? And just the just the No. Not difficult to get it.
[00:30:32] Kenshin:
Of it. Okay. I mean, to to to gather up all the Bitcoin from Coinbase, not this one click away.
[00:30:41] McIntosh:
I'm not talking about Coinbase and Kraken. I'm talking about from private individuals.
[00:30:46] Kenshin:
Yeah. But from private individuals, then it's that threat of of imprisonment and fees. And then people just give the private key away. And it's easier to collect because it's just a piece of paper.
[00:31:02] McIntosh:
Well, I hope you're wrong. You may not be.
[00:31:07] Kenshin:
I hope so too. I had I I don't want this future, but,
[00:31:12] McIntosh:
well Yeah. So that's certainly a scenario. Right? I believe that the reason why this would happen would simply be for the same reasons. The government needs an injection of money, of a hard asset to be able to reprice do need to know. Well, they do need that now. Now what's working in our favor? We have, here in The United States, and I want you to speak about the EU in just a second. Okay? Please. Alright. But, but here in The United States, we have a fairly concise regulatory framework. Things have become clearer. The government itself is owning Bitcoin. Now you can say, well, that gives it an incentive to steal from from the citizens, and that may be true, but I do believe that they are legitimizing it. Right? Bitcoin's no longer something that's, fringe. It's something that everyone on Wall Street knows about whether they're involved in it or not.
The government is involved in it, essentially. That kind of momentum, I think, works in our favor at this point. Now what doesn't work in our favor is the fact that our government is spending money like drunken sailors, as I often say. You know, we we had a month here last month, I believe, that if you extrapolated it out for the year, we would be, a deficit a twelve month deficit of over $3,000,000,000,000, which is just mind boggling to me. And that that eventually has to come from somewhere. So that may that would be the forcing function of this. Right? That may be why they would go down this path. Alright. Let's talk about the EU. Do you is that kind of how it what what are things looking like there?
[00:33:21] Kenshin:
No. It's it's, in EU, it's it's horrible. I mean, they they keep trying to put Bitcoin down. They they they published a paper, ECB, European Central Bank. Right? They published a paper a couple of months ago saying how Bitcoin, how terrible it is and how it was distributed unfairly. So those early adopters have such a high advantage and it's bad for the society. And I mean, some some incredible stuff they have written and the way they fight it and the way they try to also fight open source software and end to end encryption and everything like that. And including that, there was a talk very specifically that they were targeting through those end to end encryption and open source software and some other I don't remember what, but it was targeting, self custodian wallets. So essentially, it would be illegal in Europe to have, yeah, to have, a seed phrase.
Right? To protect your Bitcoin, which is crazy. But those were serious discussions and they were trying to pass them into some sort of law or whatever they call it. Some regulations similar to this KYC stuff and anti man money laundering stuff.
[00:34:46] McIntosh:
I just realized one important difference between what happened in nineteen thirty three and thirty four and if something like this were to happen with Bitcoin. Let's say that the government took 10% or let well, let's say they took all the Bitcoin off of Coinbase. Can six months later, the US government say Bitcoin's price is a 100 k today. Tomorrow, it's, a 150 k. That's how the US government in the 1930s made the money, so to speak, by repricing gold. What would happen if the US government tried to do the same thing? I've gathered up all this Bitcoin. What does that actually do to the to the price?
[00:35:38] Kenshin:
Oh, if if they hold it, it would force the price up. But I don't know.
[00:35:43] McIntosh:
I'm not sure that it would, but that would be the own I mean, that's the only thing they could do. They could not make people trade at a different price than they whatever it is that the level is at. No. They cannot turn around a day later and say it was a 100,000. Now it's a 125. Because everybody would just laugh at them. They're gonna be like, no. It's not. I just bought it over here on Binance for, you know, 100 and or 99,000. It doesn't matter. The but you see my point about the numbers. They don't have the control over it like they did over the gold, price.
[00:36:27] Kenshin:
No. But it would push the demand up. So they they would achieve the same result, but in a in a more honest way, let's say.
[00:36:39] McIntosh:
Yeah. I'm not sure why. So how are we arriving at it pushes the the demand up because if they take a bunch of coin off Coinbase that was sitting there and they move it to their reserves, it's not in circulation. It's not being used. It's not going to new people. How is that driving is it because it's not going to new people that the price goes up?
[00:37:06] Kenshin:
Yeah. First of all, you have a supply squeeze there. So for sure, then the leftover Bitcoin raising price, and then you have all the other countries that want to compete with The US. And that is raising the demand because they are trying to do the same then. It's like, oh, now we're going to a Bitcoin standard. Now we need to accumulate Bitcoin, all of us.
[00:37:26] McIntosh:
Otherwise, you're left behind. Yeah. That's a good point. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I you know, it's interesting to talk about these things, and theoretically, I think they're possible. They may even happen in certain countries. I don't know that it would go well if they did. I believe, personally, we're kinda too far along for something like this to happen, but it's certainly worthwhile thinking about, especially you need to think through the scenario. What are you going to do if somebody says, hey. Give me your Bitcoin. And maybe that someone is the US government or maybe it's actually a burglar.
Right? But we've talked about safety and backups and all this kind of stuff previously. This kind of follows along those same things. You don't wanna leave your your seed phrases sitting underneath the keyboard. Wait. Hold on. No. Not there. On your desk. Right? Just kidding. I knew it wasn't there. Right.
[00:38:36] Kenshin:
Or in a post it note. Yeah. Or on a post it note. That has happened. Right? Do people have a time posting note?
[00:38:43] McIntosh:
I'm sure. Alright. I, you know, I don't know. I I could see them regulating exchanges on off ramps, this kind of thing. Tax penalties, especially on undeclared holdings. Although, to be honest, it's so difficult to track Bitcoin, not in terms of, the blockchain itself, in terms of when did I buy this and when did I sell this? And, you know, we do not have good systems for that at this point. It would be very easy to make mistakes unintentionally. Does that make sense? Right. Yeah. And, you know, they could just make it difficult to use Bitcoin as a money, which I think is where we're at here in The United States, frankly, because because of the cap gains tax, because of a de minimis, a lack of a de minimis tax or whatever the the tax freedom, if it's like $600 or less.
Every time you do something with Bitcoin, it's taxable event. There's one exception. Earlier this year, they said, for creators, for content creators, for people who get tips and that kind of thing, there's no cap gains on that. So, actually, if you boost me a thousand sats, I don't I can it's a tip. I mean, that's what it is. I don't like using that word in regards to a podcast because I don't feel like it's a tip. I feel like it's a return of value, but, you know, that's how the IRS views it. So I wouldn't have to declare that, I guess, up to, like, $20,000 a year. So that's kind of a loophole. It's kinda crazy.
But yeah. I this stuff has to get solved eventually. If Bitcoin's going to continue to grow, and I believe that it is. So alright. You got anything else before we move
[00:40:49] Kenshin:
on? No. I mean, it would also be quite straightforward to ignore any threats, if you can ignore, and just pretend that you don't have any Bitcoin and use it whenever you have to use it. Mhmm. The normal way, and no one would know, basically. Unless if someone has has connected a, address with your name. But, I mean,
[00:41:19] McIntosh:
the normal way that we should be using Bitcoin then. I am gonna point out when you mine your own Bitcoin, that Bitcoin does not have a record. And I'll leave it at that. Oh, no, Sean. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. We did get a great boost this week. I wanna highlight this because it is right along in lines with what we're talking about. So Send It Mike boosted us a thousand and 69 sats. I I appreciate that, Send It Mike. Will be playing his song at the end of the podcast, by the way, so stick around for that. It's a great tune. And, this is what he had to say. If I needed so this was in regards to kind of the '61.
Is it sixty one zero two? I cannot remember. It is sixty one zero two. Yeah. You think by now I I would know. You know, this is in regards to what would happen, you know, if something like this like, it was gonna happen. What would you do? That was kind of the question. He said, if I needed to move to another country to keep my Bitcoin, where would I go? I'm super conflicted on the question as a proud American who strongly believes in our founding principles. I want to work hard to keep America a great place for my kids to have kids and grandkids, but my loyalty is to my family first.
And if taking care of them means leaving The US, then see you, and that's s e e y a. As in see you later, sucka. Oh, sorry. With all that being said, I like Costa Rica. They they seem to be on a good place that is sticking a good balance of ensuring safety for citizens and keeping mostly out of people's lives and wallets. Maybe Argentina haven't been there yet, though, so tough to judge. So I appreciate that, Sidet, Mike. Kishan, do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:43:28] Kenshin:
I'm really curious about Costa Rica, but, unfortunately, it's it's quite far from here. But, I've been talking to my wife about Costa Rica. It would be great to leave everything behind and go there. Very tension.
[00:43:40] McIntosh:
Kenshin is just across the pond, man. Come on.
[00:43:44] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit harder,
[00:43:48] McIntosh:
from the side of the ocean. Way, for you. It'd be about a six hour flight for me, and I would love to go. Argentina, I would love to go there. Although, as you rightly said, I think I think Costa Rica probably of these two is the safest at this point. Argentina has a long history of it's going back to the eighties, actually, probably prior to that, really, of political economic turmoil. Malay has at least attempted to try and solve that. I'm not so sure that he's the answer to everything, and I'm really glad I didn't kinda stick all my eggs in that basket.
I I've been supporting him, and, frankly, he's probably been better than maybe the opposition. I'm not so sure that he's not a politician in some pretty deep disguise. Mhmm. Because some of the things that he's done, are and continues to do are are being they're they don't really line up with kind of the way that he talks. They're not libertarian. They're not, you know, they're probably not smart money choices. I've got one of them today we're gonna talk about actually. But recently, they went to the IMF, if I'm not mistaken, about a loan.
Now The US is saying, we'll kick you guys some dollars. That's the kind of thing that has to be broken. You cannot continue to do that and flourish.
[00:45:34] Kenshin:
I'm listening if they have a choice.
[00:45:36] McIntosh:
I disagree. I don't think he's willing to make that choice. He's done the political calculus, and he realizes if he continues, he probably will not be reelected. I think that's now I could be wrong. I would love to talk to some more people from Argentina about this, actually.
[00:46:00] Kenshin:
Yeah. Because I don't know if you remember that we discussed a bit about Greece, and Greece was in a similar position, and the government didn't want to do it. The people did a referendum and clearly said they didn't want to take another loan, And then they just did it. They they had no choice. Right. The EU forced them to. Correct? Yeah. I think it's I No. Yeah. I I don't know exactly how they forced them, but, yeah, there was no choice. I I understand that. They should have done it, but
[00:46:35] McIntosh:
Argentina is not in the same situation. They're not affiliated with any organization that could force them to do that. They are choosing to do that.
[00:46:45] Kenshin:
I I don't think. I don't know. We don't know the behind the scenes. These are there might be blackmail somehow. I don't know. Well,
[00:46:57] McIntosh:
I okay. I. You're correct. I I I don't know. Alright. So our Costa Rica going back to Costa Rica, they have a great history of peace, which is a nice thing Right. Of getting along with their neighbors of now I've looked into them in terms of a business, and they're not as free in terms of businesses as I would like. Like, if you import a computer device into that country, it costs, like, an extra 30%. It's an import tariff. It's a tax. That's what it is. There's a lot of things like that that kind of make it more difficult to operate in that country compared to currently, say, Argentina. But Argentina could change in four years. We don't know. We really don't at this point.
It just depends. So there's there's things on both sides that would, you know I don't know. It's a tough decision. I will say this, Argentina Look. Costa Rica is beautiful. It's got the jungles. It's got the oceans, and it's got the mountains. But Argentina goes so far north and so far south, it basically has all the climate zones. It's got the Andes Mount the Andes Mountains, right, running along one side. It's got, all this what is that thing called down at the south the tip of South of Matera Del Fuego? No.
What is Patagonia. Right? Patagonia down in South, Argentina. It's it's just an amazing and amazing environment that Costa Rica can't match. And as somebody who doesn't really wanna live in a jungle, and even if you lived up in the mountains in Costa Rica, basically, it's hot every day, and it gets down to, like, 69 at night, and it's probably still super humid. And, you know, it's just not a great you're not gonna have seasons there. There's no there's there's a wet and a dry season, and that's it. So
[00:49:17] Kenshin:
I don't know. Is it tropical? Right?
[00:49:20] McIntosh:
Yes. It's very tropical. It's, very near the Equator. Okay. Enough about that. I, you know, I will say this in the bite. You're doing the right thing by thinking through this stuff. These are things that I'm personally doing myself. My wife and I continually we kinda have this long term discussion about, but it's tough when you live in any country. It's not just America. I mean, we we we have a great country despite all of our faults, ones that I frequently rail about, frankly. But, you know, I'm sure it well, it would not be easy on you, Kinshan, if y'all wanted to move from Sweden because you're you're uprooting everything.
[00:50:06] Kenshin:
Yeah. I mean, we we don't have a good answer, me and my wife, where to go. I mean, we we're even thinking about New Zealand because it's so far away from nonsense, but they have been doing some weird decisions politically there. I can't track what they're doing politically myself. I can't. It it's crazy.
[00:50:27] McIntosh:
Plus Yeah. Earthquakes. I'm just gonna say that.
[00:50:34] Kenshin:
Anyways May maybe which one is that? The Canary Islands. Wasn't that the Bitcoin conference center there? Right?
[00:50:44] McIntosh:
Madeira. Is that where you're talking about? Yeah. Madeira. So that's technically part of one of, it's either Spain or Portugal. And you gotta be careful there because even though they operate semi independently, they're still kind of part of that whole system. And I'm I'm not I think it's Portugal, but I'm not comfortable with that personally. But it's an interesting place. And right now, I mean, you could make the same argument with the Isle Of Man. The Isle Of Man has great Bitcoin regulations right now. It's very easy to set up a business there, do your stuff. But that doesn't mean four years from now it can be different because, I believe the Isle Of Man is part of, The UK. I I'm pretty sure that that's a safe statement.
[00:51:34] Kenshin:
Yeah. It is UK. Yes. So, you know,
[00:51:37] McIntosh:
who knows? I don't know. Those people are over there throwing people in jail for liking a post on Facebook. I mean, it's kinda crazy. I'm just saying.
[00:51:48] Kenshin:
The the the world feels a very small place
[00:51:51] McIntosh:
when those
[00:51:53] Kenshin:
discussions come up.
[00:51:55] McIntosh:
Yeah. It is, for good or for bad. I mean, it's it it it easier to keep up with people back home with the Internet and all that kind of stuff, but, you can't really get away from it. You just can't. I don't know. Alright. Hey. We've gone long enough. We have. Let's run through some news and notes, software updates, some Bitcoin price. I did have a couple of little things, not a whole lot. I posted this stuff on Noster this week, and I would highly recommend that you follow Kenshin and I on Noster. But there's a new chart out for the m two global money supply. I wanna talk about this for just a second, Kenshin.
[00:52:40] Kenshin:
Yes.
[00:52:41] McIntosh:
Bitcoin has essentially gone flat for the last, what, three months? Yeah. Since June. The m two money supply has gone almost vertical. So it's way outstripped Bitcoin. Now on the one hand, this kind of it doesn't look good because because, how can I put this? Traditionally, Bitcoin follows that m two money supply. Right? You talk about this a lot, Keisha. And right now, it's separate. Happy to see that. I believe, though, frankly, we're perfectly lined up for October, November, December that's just gonna, you know, melt your melt your eyeballs, melt your face. Right?
It's I don't think that's gonna matter in the end. I think Bitcoin I for whatever reason, gold has gone on a tear. It was up over a $100 this week. We're gonna get to that in just a minute. But I think gold, to an extent, has taken over some of that for right now, but that will not last in the long run. Alright. So that was one of the news items I wanna talk about. There were a fuse. That's a software release. I I'm gonna actually run through this real quick. It's very short. I reposted this from Guy Swan. He said debt based money and privacy cannot coexist.
You cannot issue unsustainable debt without vetting borrowers on a deeper and deeper level. Credit based money is inextricably tied to ever more invasive surveillance. Surveillance, capitalism, and debt based money are the same thing. I thought that was a great,
[00:54:37] Kenshin:
post. Yeah. That's great. Great analysis. Yeah.
[00:54:40] McIntosh:
Makes sense. So here's what I was talking about with Argentina. The treasury secretary of The United States, Scott Besant, said Argentina is a systematically important US ally in Latin America, and the US treasury stands ready to do what is needed within its mandate to support Argentina. I do not know what's going on with Argentina. I've kind of I've not gotten enough information from them lately, but apparently they're having some troubles. I need to catch up on my news down there. Mhmm. But, you know, we're ready to step in and pile on more debt on top of the debt that you've already got because I don't know. Just because it's crazy, crazy stuff.
I I don't know if they're being blackmailed like you said. I I I don't know. I I don't. But I believe that Malay is making wrong choices right now. I'll just say that. For whatever reason, I do not think these things are the best for the for Argentina. It is better to suffer right now than continue to stay in bed with people like the IMF.
[00:55:52] Kenshin:
Yeah. That's just my idea. That for the first few months. Right? Yes. Exactly. The right choices. And now how come they make all the wrong choices? So it must be somewhere in the public. Reelection, but that's just me being, you know No.
[00:56:08] McIntosh:
Oh, you haven't had enough politicians let you down then. Okay. Alright. On the software, and and then we'll do our wrap up stuff and get on out of here. X chat, which is a Nostra based chat system, you should check it out, has a new release, zero dot two dot three. There was two more. There was another one. Oh, peach Bitcoin? Yep. Peach Bitcoin of version 69 came out. That's, zap dot stream also had a big update, especially for those of us. We're not doing this yet, and I haven't talked to you about this yet, but we can host our own zap. Stream. It's something I think we ought to look at.
I'm not gonna say we're gonna do it because I say stuff too quickly, and then we end up not doing it. Well, anyways, and I think that's it on the software updates. What's our price, sir?
[00:57:13] Kenshin:
Well, in dollars, it's 113,600, and euros is €96,850.
[00:57:22] McIntosh:
K. So we are definitely down from last week, although we are up a little bit for the last twenty four hours. So that's good to see. Yeah. And our price last September 24 was 64,301. And so what that means, if you plug in the numbers, you get 76.76%. One year, higher. Whatever. I'm I'm at a loss for words. Right. Alright. Growth over the last year. What do we got for our market caps, Kenshin?
[00:57:59] Kenshin:
So Bitcoin is now at 2,300,000,000,000.0, dollars. And, as comparison, gold is at $25,900,000,000,000, which brings us to 8.8% from gold. Right. So we're definitely down. Yeah.
[00:58:16] McIntosh:
1.2% from, 10%, which is the highest I've certainly seen lately. Yeah. You know, Bitcoin's kinda going sideways. Gold is going up. That's what's going on. Very quiet in the mempool in terms of sats per vbyte. So transaction cost is only 1 sat per vbyte. We do have 293 megabytes of unprocessed transactions and, which is almost 300 megabytes, which is a normal mempool. A 126,000 of those unprocessed transactions. I did wanna mention this week, I don't normally do this, but our block times are down nine point three minutes, our average block time since the last difficulty adjustment.
And what that does mean is right now, what's we're looking at another 7.43% up up, difficulty adjustment up in about six days. Our previous one was 4.63, so it was already pretty high. What that really means in the real world is there's a lot of new miners going online. I have not mentioned it, of late. A long months ago, I mentioned when we first kinda touched one set of hash, which is, a lot of compute power, like, for a brief instance. And now we are well above that And solidly, like, all the time, there's ones that I hash online. So the network is continuing to grow in terms of miners, which makes people like me cry because that means our little slice of that pie goes down.
Right.
[01:00:13] Kenshin:
Alright. I see a lot of transactions with 0.3
[01:00:16] McIntosh:
such per week. Yeah. We try to talk about that at some point. It's it's ridiculous. I don't know why they're doing that, but it is worth it. Ever done a transaction
[01:00:27] Kenshin:
that's less than once at ProviBike? No. I never done that. A one set transaction
[01:00:31] McIntosh:
is 16¢ for the entire transaction. That look. If you're not willing to pay 16¢ to move a transaction across the main net of Bitcoin, then maybe go find something else to do. I it's all I gotta say. I mean, seriously. Alright. Satoshi's Plebs is a value for value podcast supporting podcasting two point o. No ads, no sponsorships, just honest Bitcoin content, our opinions, and so on and so forth. I deliberately avoid sponsors because even if I love a company, taking their money is going to influence my opinion. And if something goes wrong with that company, I would hesitate to warn you. Instead, I ask a simple question. Are you getting value from the show? Support it through time, talent, or treasure. Help with future projects.
Stream some sats. By the way, we've been seeing some streaming of sats, and I haven't really said anything about it because for one thing, I don't have a great deal of visibility into all that right now. I do appreciate that. I know you do as well, Kenshin. We see you. We can't take the time to, like, honor the the streamers, but, they're important And boost with messages like send that Mike did earlier. Even if it's only a 100 sats saying great show or, you know, you stink or whatever, we're gonna read it right here on the air. Check out our apps at podcastapps.com and support independent Bitcoin media. If you like the content, I would love it if you tell your friends about the podcast. That is simply the best way for us to grow. This week's music, by the way, is Freedom Code Revolution by one of our listeners. Send it Mike.
[01:02:14] Kenshin:
So thank you all for being here. We hope this has been helpful, and we would like like to hear from you. You can find all our contact information at satoshi's.plebs.com. Stay humble. This is all set, and have a great weekend.
[01:02:30] McIntosh:
We'll talk to you all soon. Bye bye. Behind the screen, we forge the key. Unlock the chains and set minds free. The printer's row will fade to dust. In code and truth, we place our trust. No more kings, no paper lies. Open the phones beneath the sky. Zeros, ones, I'll battle cry. We'll burn the thrones beneath the sky. Sypherpunks will lead the way. Freedom tech will light the day.
Welcome back to Satoshis Plebs for episode 227. I'm McIntosh.
[00:00:05] Kenshin:
And I am Kenshin. And today, we're talking about the 6102 executive order.
[00:00:12] McIntosh:
Alright. Awesome. Good to see you. Good well, I can't actually see you. We're having a little bit of technical trouble today, but it's good to good to talk to you. Well, you're gonna talk about that. I see.
[00:00:24] Kenshin:
Good to hear you. Yeah. Yeah. Good to hear you.
[00:00:27] McIntosh:
So as we get started, we're at a block height. I'm actually gonna update this because I'm pretty sure 916219. Kenshin, can you edit that, please?
[00:00:41] Kenshin:
91621
[00:00:43] McIntosh:
It's been a week. Correct. I think maybe for both of us. So Kenshin, what's going on with you? What's these tech meltdowns going on over there?
[00:00:52] Kenshin:
I mean, yeah, everything is crushing around me these days. Yeah. My computer, I did a big update or well, I thought it was a routine update and, it just, yeah, restarted in black screen. So I had no computer for a couple of days. I tried to troubleshoot it with Claude, and that went smoother than usual. Mhmm. So that was good. So I got my PC back and running a bit earlier today,
[00:01:26] McIntosh:
with the update installed. So that's great. Great. I did not realize you actually did your troubleshooting with Claude when you told me that earlier. So I now know why that went so smoothly. Do you know why?
[00:01:40] Kenshin:
Yeah. I mean, it it would take me a couple of days to to go through forms and stuff. You missed my point.
[00:01:50] McIntosh:
Sorry. Oh, no. No. It's okay. So Claude was smart about your setup because I had done the same thing, like, two weeks ago, and I talked to Claude to figure it out as well. So it just literally turned around. Probably not. But I'd like to think so. Yeah. So it's all good now. Right? And what are you running on that PC?
[00:02:15] Kenshin:
The that's the thing. What I'm running is Omarchy, o m a, Omarchy. You heard of it?
[00:02:24] McIntosh:
I so I know exactly what you're talking about. I was listening to a what is that show called? The Linux podcast. Unplugged? Linux Unplugged. Thank you. Podcast, and they were talking about that. I'd already heard about so it's like a highly curated version
[00:02:45] Kenshin:
of Of Artronics. And Hyperland.
[00:02:47] McIntosh:
Right. And Hyperland. And by somebody who's pretty famous in, I guess, the Linux community.
[00:02:55] Kenshin:
And, no. In the actually, in the Apple community. He just Really? Came to the Linux community recently. Yeah.
[00:03:04] McIntosh:
Okay. Correction. What he said. I'm very tired. We'll get to that in just a second. Yeah. But, yeah, you're right. So, anyways, I actually did hear about that just a couple days ago. So my question is, aside from the, so was it an update of a current install or was it a new install?
[00:03:30] Kenshin:
No. The issue was a current install. So when I installed that one, I installed it with a script. That that was a way to do it. So you install art and then you you put a script and it installed everything. And now the new version, the version three, the release is a completely redesigned version. They offer an ISO and you can boot through an ISO and install the, like, a normal distribution. Right. But I still run the script from their scripts. I I run this omarche dash update. So I thought, okay. I should do it because I I knew there is a new version. Mhmm. And, yeah, I I guess that was not the right way to do it. And probably I was version one, and from version one, I went to three. So I never went to two, version two, I think that's why.
So I was missing a lot of components in between.
[00:04:23] McIntosh:
So you did get it all sorted out, though?
[00:04:26] Kenshin:
Yeah. Somehow, I managed with some help from Claude, of course. But With some help from Claude.
[00:04:33] McIntosh:
So I'm getting a little bit of upgrade fever myself. I didn't wanna I wasn't gonna talk about this, but we'll talk about this real quick. I run Ubuntu Studio on my desktop slash server computer here, and, I'm on 24.1. And it's like the KDE version of Ubuntu, and it's tuned for audio video production. Well, the new version of Ubuntu comes out. It's, October. I think they've set the date. It's somewhere around the October. It doesn't matter. But, like, the beta version got released a couple of days ago, which I'm certainly not gonna run. But Right. It's only a few weeks. I it's kinda snuck up on me, when it's going to be released. And so I'm kinda pumped about that because, that'll have the latest version of KDE plasma.
I think it's 6.3 maybe. No. No. I think that's what I'm on now. It doesn't matter. All up to date, you know, all the all the bleeding edge stuff to let it crash awesomely. Anyways
[00:05:48] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:05:51] McIntosh:
I know exactly how you hybrid. I'm glad that you got that solved. My update for the week is real simple. I hate work right now. I hate my life. I hate everything because it's just all a blur. I mean, seriously, I'm actually on call. I'm in the middle of this major upgrade to our monitoring system, which, you know, we cannot screw up. Datadog, which was our previous system, it goes away, September 30, which says next Tuesday. And it doesn't matter whether we're done or not. The agent is they're gonna turn off the API keys, and it's gonna stop stop working. So, we're really down to the end, and we're not as far along as I would like. I mean, I'm not gonna say we're well, we're certainly making progress, but we're not as far along as I would like. And it's gotten gotten hairy.
I I would say this, so, of course, looking forward to our next, Bitcoin meetup, which will be happening soon. And, yeah, that's about the only little bright spot right now in my life. I did not get my minors up for sale. I just I have not had time. I but yeah. That's that's on me. Alright. They're gonna be going on eBay very soon, though. Hopefully, in the next day or two. What are we talking about today, Kenshin?
[00:07:31] Kenshin:
Oh, well, a number. Very important number. 6102. Or how do you call how do you pronounce it in American?
[00:07:41] McIntosh:
That was perfect. That was perfect.
[00:07:45] Kenshin:
So it's the executive order 6102 that was signed by Roosevelt on 04/05/1933. Right. And it, yeah, it's it's the one that fundamentally changed the relationship with gold,
[00:08:03] McIntosh:
globally, I would say. Right? It's not only Yeah. In The US. It certainly impacted America, but this I would I would argue certainly that this would affect the world in general as well. So I wanted to get out of the way real quick what an actual executive order was. This was not a law that was signed or created by Congress and then signed by the president. This was an executive order, which is a privilege given to the president of The United States. I do not understand why, but I'm not gonna debate that. That's not what we're here for. It basically, he can write he or she can write a law and put it into effect. And then unless Congress basically overturns that law by writing a new one, that's the law of the land.
Now I maybe you could argue it's not really a law. I don't know. Whatever. I'm not gonna get all down in the weeds on that, but it was, it was enforced. It was enforced across The United States. And, basically, what it said was if you had any gold coins or gold bullion or gold certificates, which I should have looked that up. I do not know what that is. You had to bring those they had to be turned in by 05/01/1933. In return, you were given $20.67 per ounce of gold, and that was, of course, in US dollars. As with any good political law, there were some exemptions, gold coins with, you know, special value like collector type coins, gold used for industry and the arts, apparently, which I don't know what they would use that for. But, and you could keep a small amount up to a $100 in gold coin. So basically, five ounces of gold.
Alright? Alright. Yeah. So why why would they do this? I I think it's important to I I don't think that I don't think FDR well, I don't think FDR understood the ramifications of what he was doing, frankly. But I don't think he was being malicious in signing this order. Let me just say that. Alright? Do you think that? Why do you think that? I I think he was trying to solve a problem. I I I no. I don't know. Well, let's talk about it. Right?
[00:10:51] Kenshin:
There there is precedent to that. From the from England.
[00:10:57] McIntosh:
Okay. What's the precedent? Can you explain that?
[00:11:02] Kenshin:
Yeah. What happened? I don't have it in front of me. So that's from memory when I read Okay. It's either in the Bitcoin standard or another Bitcoin book, I think. Yeah. Yeah. When the British empire asked for the gold to borrow or temporarily ask everybody to return gold to, to the banks and the post offices and wherever. In 1915, I think, over fourteen or somewhere around those years before the first world war. And, and then there is a letter by Keynes himself Mhmm. To some one, someone, I don't remember who. So it's a letter by Keynes, signed by Keynes, and says, what an amazing plan or, turn of events, or what British empire did to collect all the gold and give paper money back or however they they have that term before.
So so there was that precedent and so they knew what they were doing in 1933, almost twenty years later, they knew exactly what they were doing, I think.
[00:12:16] McIntosh:
So, well, I wanna try I'm not gonna argue with you about that. I I don't know what you're talking about, to be honest. I don't. And I'm not I a 100% believe it happened. I just don't have those facts on top of my my head. But let me explain at least what was presented as the reasoning. So the order came during the banking crisis of the Great Depression, which was ongoing during this time. And this was not very long after FDR took office. So I believe he went he went quite a few terms, if I'm not I think he went three terms. I think actually the law about two term limit is because of him.
But the goal was, that was given was to prevent the hoarding of gold, whatever that means, and allow the government to increase the money supply to combat deflation. So that would be the official reason. By removing gold from the private hands, the government could then devalue the dollar against gold, which it did in 1934. We mentioned this last week by raising the price to $35 per ounce under the Gold Reserve Act. So that was the reason they were, you know, supposedly trying to combat deflation, which I don't know why deflation is viewed. I know it by the Keynesians is viewed as a terrible thing, which these were the people in charge by this point in time. But I don't know. Yes. Things got cheaper. Oh, that's terrible.
I I don't know. I mean, kitchen, I just I feel like sometimes I was just born in the wrong place. I don't know. It just
[00:14:12] Kenshin:
Yeah. That's not true. To me.
[00:14:15] McIntosh:
It's like, no. Don't do that. What? Alright. Anyways, back on track here. There were fines and imprisonment if you violated the order. It did essentially in the domestic gold standard and prohibited private gold ownership. Actually, I did not realize this until the restrictions were lifted in 1974 under under president Ford. So that went on for forty years. I I actually thought I thought it had been repealed long before that. So Mhmm. I know that, like, people in my dad's era, there were like, he he's told me stories. Like, he had a classmate who collected gold. I don't know how he did that. Now it makes a lot more sense why my dad doesn't have a whole bunch of gold.
Anyways Yeah. Alright. So this executive order remains one of the most controversial economic actions in US history. I would call it a pivotal moment in economic US history, representing an unprecedented assertion of federal power over private property. I would also call it unconstitutional, probably a few other things as well. But that being said, they revalue gold $35 per ounce, with that Gold Reserve Act in 1934. This devalued the dollar by about 69% against gold.
[00:16:01] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:16:02] McIntosh:
And what that did, that gave the government a big boost. It gave a big monetary boost. Right? They're selling gold. They're buying gold essentially at one price, and then they're repricing it a lot higher the next year. Fairly early the next year, I believe. The treasury gained a bunch of purchasing power. It made our exports cheaper and more competitive internationally while making imports more expensive, which helped domestic industry during the depression. At least that's the argument. Alright. So anybody who surrendered their gold effectively lost 41% of their wealth, when that price was raised to 35%.
So you had a wealth transfer from those gold holders to the government. They were compelled to sell, and then they watched the value. And I I would be extremely upset if it were me. Yeah. Of course. You know, if I sold a 100 ounces of gold to the government and then turned around and watched them reprice that. And I'm sure there were people who hit it. I'm sure there were, you know, whatever. But, I think by and large, they basically vacuumed up everything in The United States in terms of gold.
[00:17:26] Kenshin:
I mean, it is it is quite quite frustrating. Right? And and if we try to do something like that with anything, right, you you go to prison for insider trading or whatever. So I think they knew what they were doing. That was all planned. It's it's Why why is it criminal for private people?
[00:17:54] McIntosh:
Well, it it is wrong for them to do what they did and I on the grounds of the constitution in my opinion. However, I don't know that they knew exactly what they were they saw the immediate benefits, but I don't know that they saw the long term ramifications of that. They're all they saw was we need a bunch of money, and we need it now. And if we take the the gold and reprice it, that gains us a bunch of money. I mean, I don't think they're exceptionally smart people, frankly. I don't, you know, think that they were geniuses
[00:18:29] Kenshin:
that could see No. You don't. You you didn't need to be a genius to do that. No. I agree to that. But it's still malicious in in a way. It's, I don't think they did it for the best of of US. They did for the best of their interests, I I would say. Because the long term, this was not a good No. Even if you don't know what you're doing, you would know that long term, this wouldn't help. No. I agree. It would damage I agree with that.
[00:18:57] McIntosh:
Alright. So one of the concerns that's batted around with Bitcoin is, hey. You could have this happen to Bitcoin. So I want to, talk about that for a few minutes. And if that were possible, if it's likely, that kind of thing. So, you know, whatever the executive order would be, it would not be sixty one zero two. It would you know, whatever it is. Let's talk about that for just a minute. Does that make sense? Right. So first of all, let's talk about the enforcement. Right? Gold was physical. You put it in banks. You put it in safe deposit boxes, both of which could be, you know, searched or seized.
What is Bitcoin, Kenshin?
[00:19:52] Kenshin:
Oh, it's digital. It's digital.
[00:19:57] McIntosh:
Yes.
[00:19:58] Kenshin:
Yeah. And no one can really physic well, yeah. Well, they could physically take this, the sign in devices, of course. Let let me ask you something. Fundamentally,
[00:20:09] McIntosh:
what does Bitcoin come down to? What is it? It's a set of of keys Yeah. That control, those UTXOs, I think, would be the correct phrasing.
[00:20:23] Kenshin:
It's, yeah, it's keys that control that consign the UTXOs. Right.
[00:20:33] McIntosh:
Right. Right. So the keys essentially represent Bitcoin. They're not Bitcoin, but they they do represent them in a sense. So if the government comes and says, I want your Bitcoin, can they do that if it's a set of keys?
[00:20:55] Kenshin:
And Right.
[00:20:58] McIntosh:
I would argue, yes, they could. It depends on how you have them custody. Right? Are you do you have your keys, which are which you generate with a seed for a set of seed phrases. Right? Are are they written down on a piece of paper that's laying on your desk?
[00:21:21] Kenshin:
Yeah. Or But I Yeah. But in this case, I think they would target first the centralized exchanges that have KYC. They know exactly who have what. They could even make an agreement with Binance or or which one is the Coinbase.
[00:21:40] McIntosh:
Coinbase and Kraken are both in The United States.
[00:21:45] Kenshin:
And Right. So those ones that could easily Yep. Take over. Right?
[00:21:50] McIntosh:
I've said it here on this show. You know, if they wanted to do something like this, they would go to Brian Armstrong, who's the CEO of Coinbase, and say, Brian, you're either going to turn over whatever percent if it's a 100% or some, you know, 10% or whatever of everyone's Bitcoin in that account in in the accounts that are on Coinbase and, or we're gonna shut you down. We'll we'll just sic the justice department on you, and we'll we'll drain you of all your money, and you'll just end up with nothing. So which one is it gonna be, Brian? Or we'll put you in jail.
Right? Right. I mean, the the things that they can do when you're a US based public company with a CEO, it can be very harsh. And it can be in ways that we don't really, as Americans, frankly, even like to talk about. Because the government can the government can and will harass people into submission, essentially. And even a company like Coinbase, you know, they don't have unlimited money. They they they eventually will run out. So, it puts them in a very difficult position.
[00:23:22] Kenshin:
LavaBeat. Have you heard of LavaBeat?
[00:23:25] McIntosh:
No. I haven't. So tell me, what is this about?
[00:23:29] Kenshin:
So Lavabits was or is again, open source encrypted email service. I see that. And that was the sir and that was the service that Edward Snowden was using before he left. Right? So the government went to love a bit and said, give us everything or else. And that was, is that called a gag order? That you're not supposed to say anything? Yeah. That was a gag order. Mhmm. Right. So they did exactly that to love a bit, to to take every all the details on Edward Snowden. And instead of giving it over, what they did, CEO of that company, I don't remember who, they turned off all the servers, destroyed all the servers or something like that. They closed the company instantly. Right.
Instead of turning over.
[00:24:29] McIntosh:
I did not know this little bit of history. I've got the summary brought up here. His name was Yeah. That's a great story. Leidar Levison. And he chose to shut down the company rather than complying. I I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say Brian Armstrong is not gonna shut down Coinbase. No. It's not gonna happen. I this type of story apparently, they've restarted the company, and I need to look into this. But, you know In 2017. Yeah. The average company is not gonna do that. They're just not. They're gonna be like, oh, here's the list, sir.
Right? Because the government has the guns in case anybody is unclear, and they have a stable of lawyers. It's called the justice department, and they don't have any problem siccing those on you. So, yes, I would certainly agree that centralized places like Coinbase, like Kraken, especially those that are US based oh, and by the way, let's take Binance for an example. If they do not have a US based office, which I do not know offhand, the government can still harass the company. It's just not quite as effective. And, you know, they have all of our money to spend, so they'll just, you know, they'll do that.
Those just keep harassing them. So just because your company that you deal with is outside The United States doesn't mean that it cannot be, harassed.
[00:26:10] Kenshin:
Mhmm.
[00:26:11] McIntosh:
Right?
[00:26:13] Kenshin:
Right. And then and that's with centralized places, which is very easy to harass and get all the information they need. And they could confiscate that Bitcoin or Mhmm. Threaten people, by name. They would know who has what and possibly get private keys out of them also. Right?
[00:26:36] McIntosh:
But then we have us, but we're not on centralized. So So we're not on a centralized exchange. I haven't had any, any coin on Coinbase for years, as an example. So what about us? Well, again, let's say we'll go to Coinbase. I need a list of everyone who's bought Bitcoin off of your, service. Okay. Let's just assume they're gonna do that because ultimately that is what's gonna happen. They give them the list. And even if you moved the Bitcoin off the serve serve service wow. Words hard today. Even if you move the Bitcoin off the service, now the government knows that you bought it there.
They know that, say, in 2018, I bought Bitcoin on Coinbase. That's probably a safe statement. Okay. Alright. Knock. Knock. Knock. Hey, mister McIntosh. I saw that you bought, some amount of Bitcoin on Coinbase in 2018. Where is that Bitcoin? Why do you wanna know? Well, I have executive order, you know, 03/1956. Oh, no. It'd be much higher than that. 30,456, that says that the government has a right to 25% of your Bitcoin. Okay. Now what? Are you not going to let those people in this house, the people who have guns, the people who have badges, the people who can make your life miserable if you tell them go read the constitution and pound sand while you're at it?
Right? No. You're gonna bring them into your house. And then what do you say? Where is your Bitcoin? Again, where are your keys? These cryptographic keys, are they laying out on your desk? Are they stored away in a safe, which is a little safer, or are they someplace even more difficult to have access gain to. Is that a fair line of reasoning?
[00:28:56] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yes. And I mean, the original, the 60 one zero two, right, it had you you had to pay a fee. Was it up to $10,000 if you wouldn't comply? That is correct. It was $10,000
[00:29:10] McIntosh:
and ten years in jail if they found out that you did not comply. Now Right. I don't know how often that was done. It was just a threat. I do know that there were probably people, in fact, I'm quite sure of it, who did not comply with that order. Or maybe they gave them a little bit of their money, their gold, and kept the rest. So I believe the same type thing would happen if this were to and now I don't think we're gonna get to some other things, but I would be shocked if a country, I'll just say a country in general, tried to take Bitcoin from private individuals.
Now it could happen. I'm I I'm just saying that me personally, I would be shocked if that happened. Why? I don't know. Maybe I'm being
[00:30:13] Kenshin:
I mean, they did it with gold. Why not Bitcoin?
[00:30:17] McIntosh:
Yeah. Because because it is more difficult. It's one thing to to gather gold. It is more difficult to gather Bitcoin. Does that make sense? And just the just the No. Not difficult to get it.
[00:30:32] Kenshin:
Of it. Okay. I mean, to to to gather up all the Bitcoin from Coinbase, not this one click away.
[00:30:41] McIntosh:
I'm not talking about Coinbase and Kraken. I'm talking about from private individuals.
[00:30:46] Kenshin:
Yeah. But from private individuals, then it's that threat of of imprisonment and fees. And then people just give the private key away. And it's easier to collect because it's just a piece of paper.
[00:31:02] McIntosh:
Well, I hope you're wrong. You may not be.
[00:31:07] Kenshin:
I hope so too. I had I I don't want this future, but,
[00:31:12] McIntosh:
well Yeah. So that's certainly a scenario. Right? I believe that the reason why this would happen would simply be for the same reasons. The government needs an injection of money, of a hard asset to be able to reprice do need to know. Well, they do need that now. Now what's working in our favor? We have, here in The United States, and I want you to speak about the EU in just a second. Okay? Please. Alright. But, but here in The United States, we have a fairly concise regulatory framework. Things have become clearer. The government itself is owning Bitcoin. Now you can say, well, that gives it an incentive to steal from from the citizens, and that may be true, but I do believe that they are legitimizing it. Right? Bitcoin's no longer something that's, fringe. It's something that everyone on Wall Street knows about whether they're involved in it or not.
The government is involved in it, essentially. That kind of momentum, I think, works in our favor at this point. Now what doesn't work in our favor is the fact that our government is spending money like drunken sailors, as I often say. You know, we we had a month here last month, I believe, that if you extrapolated it out for the year, we would be, a deficit a twelve month deficit of over $3,000,000,000,000, which is just mind boggling to me. And that that eventually has to come from somewhere. So that may that would be the forcing function of this. Right? That may be why they would go down this path. Alright. Let's talk about the EU. Do you is that kind of how it what what are things looking like there?
[00:33:21] Kenshin:
No. It's it's, in EU, it's it's horrible. I mean, they they keep trying to put Bitcoin down. They they they published a paper, ECB, European Central Bank. Right? They published a paper a couple of months ago saying how Bitcoin, how terrible it is and how it was distributed unfairly. So those early adopters have such a high advantage and it's bad for the society. And I mean, some some incredible stuff they have written and the way they fight it and the way they try to also fight open source software and end to end encryption and everything like that. And including that, there was a talk very specifically that they were targeting through those end to end encryption and open source software and some other I don't remember what, but it was targeting, self custodian wallets. So essentially, it would be illegal in Europe to have, yeah, to have, a seed phrase.
Right? To protect your Bitcoin, which is crazy. But those were serious discussions and they were trying to pass them into some sort of law or whatever they call it. Some regulations similar to this KYC stuff and anti man money laundering stuff.
[00:34:46] McIntosh:
I just realized one important difference between what happened in nineteen thirty three and thirty four and if something like this were to happen with Bitcoin. Let's say that the government took 10% or let well, let's say they took all the Bitcoin off of Coinbase. Can six months later, the US government say Bitcoin's price is a 100 k today. Tomorrow, it's, a 150 k. That's how the US government in the 1930s made the money, so to speak, by repricing gold. What would happen if the US government tried to do the same thing? I've gathered up all this Bitcoin. What does that actually do to the to the price?
[00:35:38] Kenshin:
Oh, if if they hold it, it would force the price up. But I don't know.
[00:35:43] McIntosh:
I'm not sure that it would, but that would be the own I mean, that's the only thing they could do. They could not make people trade at a different price than they whatever it is that the level is at. No. They cannot turn around a day later and say it was a 100,000. Now it's a 125. Because everybody would just laugh at them. They're gonna be like, no. It's not. I just bought it over here on Binance for, you know, 100 and or 99,000. It doesn't matter. The but you see my point about the numbers. They don't have the control over it like they did over the gold, price.
[00:36:27] Kenshin:
No. But it would push the demand up. So they they would achieve the same result, but in a in a more honest way, let's say.
[00:36:39] McIntosh:
Yeah. I'm not sure why. So how are we arriving at it pushes the the demand up because if they take a bunch of coin off Coinbase that was sitting there and they move it to their reserves, it's not in circulation. It's not being used. It's not going to new people. How is that driving is it because it's not going to new people that the price goes up?
[00:37:06] Kenshin:
Yeah. First of all, you have a supply squeeze there. So for sure, then the leftover Bitcoin raising price, and then you have all the other countries that want to compete with The US. And that is raising the demand because they are trying to do the same then. It's like, oh, now we're going to a Bitcoin standard. Now we need to accumulate Bitcoin, all of us.
[00:37:26] McIntosh:
Otherwise, you're left behind. Yeah. That's a good point. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I you know, it's interesting to talk about these things, and theoretically, I think they're possible. They may even happen in certain countries. I don't know that it would go well if they did. I believe, personally, we're kinda too far along for something like this to happen, but it's certainly worthwhile thinking about, especially you need to think through the scenario. What are you going to do if somebody says, hey. Give me your Bitcoin. And maybe that someone is the US government or maybe it's actually a burglar.
Right? But we've talked about safety and backups and all this kind of stuff previously. This kind of follows along those same things. You don't wanna leave your your seed phrases sitting underneath the keyboard. Wait. Hold on. No. Not there. On your desk. Right? Just kidding. I knew it wasn't there. Right.
[00:38:36] Kenshin:
Or in a post it note. Yeah. Or on a post it note. That has happened. Right? Do people have a time posting note?
[00:38:43] McIntosh:
I'm sure. Alright. I, you know, I don't know. I I could see them regulating exchanges on off ramps, this kind of thing. Tax penalties, especially on undeclared holdings. Although, to be honest, it's so difficult to track Bitcoin, not in terms of, the blockchain itself, in terms of when did I buy this and when did I sell this? And, you know, we do not have good systems for that at this point. It would be very easy to make mistakes unintentionally. Does that make sense? Right. Yeah. And, you know, they could just make it difficult to use Bitcoin as a money, which I think is where we're at here in The United States, frankly, because because of the cap gains tax, because of a de minimis, a lack of a de minimis tax or whatever the the tax freedom, if it's like $600 or less.
Every time you do something with Bitcoin, it's taxable event. There's one exception. Earlier this year, they said, for creators, for content creators, for people who get tips and that kind of thing, there's no cap gains on that. So, actually, if you boost me a thousand sats, I don't I can it's a tip. I mean, that's what it is. I don't like using that word in regards to a podcast because I don't feel like it's a tip. I feel like it's a return of value, but, you know, that's how the IRS views it. So I wouldn't have to declare that, I guess, up to, like, $20,000 a year. So that's kind of a loophole. It's kinda crazy.
But yeah. I this stuff has to get solved eventually. If Bitcoin's going to continue to grow, and I believe that it is. So alright. You got anything else before we move
[00:40:49] Kenshin:
on? No. I mean, it would also be quite straightforward to ignore any threats, if you can ignore, and just pretend that you don't have any Bitcoin and use it whenever you have to use it. Mhmm. The normal way, and no one would know, basically. Unless if someone has has connected a, address with your name. But, I mean,
[00:41:19] McIntosh:
the normal way that we should be using Bitcoin then. I am gonna point out when you mine your own Bitcoin, that Bitcoin does not have a record. And I'll leave it at that. Oh, no, Sean. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. We did get a great boost this week. I wanna highlight this because it is right along in lines with what we're talking about. So Send It Mike boosted us a thousand and 69 sats. I I appreciate that, Send It Mike. Will be playing his song at the end of the podcast, by the way, so stick around for that. It's a great tune. And, this is what he had to say. If I needed so this was in regards to kind of the '61.
Is it sixty one zero two? I cannot remember. It is sixty one zero two. Yeah. You think by now I I would know. You know, this is in regards to what would happen, you know, if something like this like, it was gonna happen. What would you do? That was kind of the question. He said, if I needed to move to another country to keep my Bitcoin, where would I go? I'm super conflicted on the question as a proud American who strongly believes in our founding principles. I want to work hard to keep America a great place for my kids to have kids and grandkids, but my loyalty is to my family first.
And if taking care of them means leaving The US, then see you, and that's s e e y a. As in see you later, sucka. Oh, sorry. With all that being said, I like Costa Rica. They they seem to be on a good place that is sticking a good balance of ensuring safety for citizens and keeping mostly out of people's lives and wallets. Maybe Argentina haven't been there yet, though, so tough to judge. So I appreciate that, Sidet, Mike. Kishan, do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:43:28] Kenshin:
I'm really curious about Costa Rica, but, unfortunately, it's it's quite far from here. But, I've been talking to my wife about Costa Rica. It would be great to leave everything behind and go there. Very tension.
[00:43:40] McIntosh:
Kenshin is just across the pond, man. Come on.
[00:43:44] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit harder,
[00:43:48] McIntosh:
from the side of the ocean. Way, for you. It'd be about a six hour flight for me, and I would love to go. Argentina, I would love to go there. Although, as you rightly said, I think I think Costa Rica probably of these two is the safest at this point. Argentina has a long history of it's going back to the eighties, actually, probably prior to that, really, of political economic turmoil. Malay has at least attempted to try and solve that. I'm not so sure that he's the answer to everything, and I'm really glad I didn't kinda stick all my eggs in that basket.
I I've been supporting him, and, frankly, he's probably been better than maybe the opposition. I'm not so sure that he's not a politician in some pretty deep disguise. Mhmm. Because some of the things that he's done, are and continues to do are are being they're they don't really line up with kind of the way that he talks. They're not libertarian. They're not, you know, they're probably not smart money choices. I've got one of them today we're gonna talk about actually. But recently, they went to the IMF, if I'm not mistaken, about a loan.
Now The US is saying, we'll kick you guys some dollars. That's the kind of thing that has to be broken. You cannot continue to do that and flourish.
[00:45:34] Kenshin:
I'm listening if they have a choice.
[00:45:36] McIntosh:
I disagree. I don't think he's willing to make that choice. He's done the political calculus, and he realizes if he continues, he probably will not be reelected. I think that's now I could be wrong. I would love to talk to some more people from Argentina about this, actually.
[00:46:00] Kenshin:
Yeah. Because I don't know if you remember that we discussed a bit about Greece, and Greece was in a similar position, and the government didn't want to do it. The people did a referendum and clearly said they didn't want to take another loan, And then they just did it. They they had no choice. Right. The EU forced them to. Correct? Yeah. I think it's I No. Yeah. I I don't know exactly how they forced them, but, yeah, there was no choice. I I understand that. They should have done it, but
[00:46:35] McIntosh:
Argentina is not in the same situation. They're not affiliated with any organization that could force them to do that. They are choosing to do that.
[00:46:45] Kenshin:
I I don't think. I don't know. We don't know the behind the scenes. These are there might be blackmail somehow. I don't know. Well,
[00:46:57] McIntosh:
I okay. I. You're correct. I I I don't know. Alright. So our Costa Rica going back to Costa Rica, they have a great history of peace, which is a nice thing Right. Of getting along with their neighbors of now I've looked into them in terms of a business, and they're not as free in terms of businesses as I would like. Like, if you import a computer device into that country, it costs, like, an extra 30%. It's an import tariff. It's a tax. That's what it is. There's a lot of things like that that kind of make it more difficult to operate in that country compared to currently, say, Argentina. But Argentina could change in four years. We don't know. We really don't at this point.
It just depends. So there's there's things on both sides that would, you know I don't know. It's a tough decision. I will say this, Argentina Look. Costa Rica is beautiful. It's got the jungles. It's got the oceans, and it's got the mountains. But Argentina goes so far north and so far south, it basically has all the climate zones. It's got the Andes Mount the Andes Mountains, right, running along one side. It's got, all this what is that thing called down at the south the tip of South of Matera Del Fuego? No.
What is Patagonia. Right? Patagonia down in South, Argentina. It's it's just an amazing and amazing environment that Costa Rica can't match. And as somebody who doesn't really wanna live in a jungle, and even if you lived up in the mountains in Costa Rica, basically, it's hot every day, and it gets down to, like, 69 at night, and it's probably still super humid. And, you know, it's just not a great you're not gonna have seasons there. There's no there's there's a wet and a dry season, and that's it. So
[00:49:17] Kenshin:
I don't know. Is it tropical? Right?
[00:49:20] McIntosh:
Yes. It's very tropical. It's, very near the Equator. Okay. Enough about that. I, you know, I will say this in the bite. You're doing the right thing by thinking through this stuff. These are things that I'm personally doing myself. My wife and I continually we kinda have this long term discussion about, but it's tough when you live in any country. It's not just America. I mean, we we we have a great country despite all of our faults, ones that I frequently rail about, frankly. But, you know, I'm sure it well, it would not be easy on you, Kinshan, if y'all wanted to move from Sweden because you're you're uprooting everything.
[00:50:06] Kenshin:
Yeah. I mean, we we don't have a good answer, me and my wife, where to go. I mean, we we're even thinking about New Zealand because it's so far away from nonsense, but they have been doing some weird decisions politically there. I can't track what they're doing politically myself. I can't. It it's crazy.
[00:50:27] McIntosh:
Plus Yeah. Earthquakes. I'm just gonna say that.
[00:50:34] Kenshin:
Anyways May maybe which one is that? The Canary Islands. Wasn't that the Bitcoin conference center there? Right?
[00:50:44] McIntosh:
Madeira. Is that where you're talking about? Yeah. Madeira. So that's technically part of one of, it's either Spain or Portugal. And you gotta be careful there because even though they operate semi independently, they're still kind of part of that whole system. And I'm I'm not I think it's Portugal, but I'm not comfortable with that personally. But it's an interesting place. And right now, I mean, you could make the same argument with the Isle Of Man. The Isle Of Man has great Bitcoin regulations right now. It's very easy to set up a business there, do your stuff. But that doesn't mean four years from now it can be different because, I believe the Isle Of Man is part of, The UK. I I'm pretty sure that that's a safe statement.
[00:51:34] Kenshin:
Yeah. It is UK. Yes. So, you know,
[00:51:37] McIntosh:
who knows? I don't know. Those people are over there throwing people in jail for liking a post on Facebook. I mean, it's kinda crazy. I'm just saying.
[00:51:48] Kenshin:
The the the world feels a very small place
[00:51:51] McIntosh:
when those
[00:51:53] Kenshin:
discussions come up.
[00:51:55] McIntosh:
Yeah. It is, for good or for bad. I mean, it's it it it easier to keep up with people back home with the Internet and all that kind of stuff, but, you can't really get away from it. You just can't. I don't know. Alright. Hey. We've gone long enough. We have. Let's run through some news and notes, software updates, some Bitcoin price. I did have a couple of little things, not a whole lot. I posted this stuff on Noster this week, and I would highly recommend that you follow Kenshin and I on Noster. But there's a new chart out for the m two global money supply. I wanna talk about this for just a second, Kenshin.
[00:52:40] Kenshin:
Yes.
[00:52:41] McIntosh:
Bitcoin has essentially gone flat for the last, what, three months? Yeah. Since June. The m two money supply has gone almost vertical. So it's way outstripped Bitcoin. Now on the one hand, this kind of it doesn't look good because because, how can I put this? Traditionally, Bitcoin follows that m two money supply. Right? You talk about this a lot, Keisha. And right now, it's separate. Happy to see that. I believe, though, frankly, we're perfectly lined up for October, November, December that's just gonna, you know, melt your melt your eyeballs, melt your face. Right?
It's I don't think that's gonna matter in the end. I think Bitcoin I for whatever reason, gold has gone on a tear. It was up over a $100 this week. We're gonna get to that in just a minute. But I think gold, to an extent, has taken over some of that for right now, but that will not last in the long run. Alright. So that was one of the news items I wanna talk about. There were a fuse. That's a software release. I I'm gonna actually run through this real quick. It's very short. I reposted this from Guy Swan. He said debt based money and privacy cannot coexist.
You cannot issue unsustainable debt without vetting borrowers on a deeper and deeper level. Credit based money is inextricably tied to ever more invasive surveillance. Surveillance, capitalism, and debt based money are the same thing. I thought that was a great,
[00:54:37] Kenshin:
post. Yeah. That's great. Great analysis. Yeah.
[00:54:40] McIntosh:
Makes sense. So here's what I was talking about with Argentina. The treasury secretary of The United States, Scott Besant, said Argentina is a systematically important US ally in Latin America, and the US treasury stands ready to do what is needed within its mandate to support Argentina. I do not know what's going on with Argentina. I've kind of I've not gotten enough information from them lately, but apparently they're having some troubles. I need to catch up on my news down there. Mhmm. But, you know, we're ready to step in and pile on more debt on top of the debt that you've already got because I don't know. Just because it's crazy, crazy stuff.
I I don't know if they're being blackmailed like you said. I I I don't know. I I don't. But I believe that Malay is making wrong choices right now. I'll just say that. For whatever reason, I do not think these things are the best for the for Argentina. It is better to suffer right now than continue to stay in bed with people like the IMF.
[00:55:52] Kenshin:
Yeah. That's just my idea. That for the first few months. Right? Yes. Exactly. The right choices. And now how come they make all the wrong choices? So it must be somewhere in the public. Reelection, but that's just me being, you know No.
[00:56:08] McIntosh:
Oh, you haven't had enough politicians let you down then. Okay. Alright. On the software, and and then we'll do our wrap up stuff and get on out of here. X chat, which is a Nostra based chat system, you should check it out, has a new release, zero dot two dot three. There was two more. There was another one. Oh, peach Bitcoin? Yep. Peach Bitcoin of version 69 came out. That's, zap dot stream also had a big update, especially for those of us. We're not doing this yet, and I haven't talked to you about this yet, but we can host our own zap. Stream. It's something I think we ought to look at.
I'm not gonna say we're gonna do it because I say stuff too quickly, and then we end up not doing it. Well, anyways, and I think that's it on the software updates. What's our price, sir?
[00:57:13] Kenshin:
Well, in dollars, it's 113,600, and euros is €96,850.
[00:57:22] McIntosh:
K. So we are definitely down from last week, although we are up a little bit for the last twenty four hours. So that's good to see. Yeah. And our price last September 24 was 64,301. And so what that means, if you plug in the numbers, you get 76.76%. One year, higher. Whatever. I'm I'm at a loss for words. Right. Alright. Growth over the last year. What do we got for our market caps, Kenshin?
[00:57:59] Kenshin:
So Bitcoin is now at 2,300,000,000,000.0, dollars. And, as comparison, gold is at $25,900,000,000,000, which brings us to 8.8% from gold. Right. So we're definitely down. Yeah.
[00:58:16] McIntosh:
1.2% from, 10%, which is the highest I've certainly seen lately. Yeah. You know, Bitcoin's kinda going sideways. Gold is going up. That's what's going on. Very quiet in the mempool in terms of sats per vbyte. So transaction cost is only 1 sat per vbyte. We do have 293 megabytes of unprocessed transactions and, which is almost 300 megabytes, which is a normal mempool. A 126,000 of those unprocessed transactions. I did wanna mention this week, I don't normally do this, but our block times are down nine point three minutes, our average block time since the last difficulty adjustment.
And what that does mean is right now, what's we're looking at another 7.43% up up, difficulty adjustment up in about six days. Our previous one was 4.63, so it was already pretty high. What that really means in the real world is there's a lot of new miners going online. I have not mentioned it, of late. A long months ago, I mentioned when we first kinda touched one set of hash, which is, a lot of compute power, like, for a brief instance. And now we are well above that And solidly, like, all the time, there's ones that I hash online. So the network is continuing to grow in terms of miners, which makes people like me cry because that means our little slice of that pie goes down.
Right.
[01:00:13] Kenshin:
Alright. I see a lot of transactions with 0.3
[01:00:16] McIntosh:
such per week. Yeah. We try to talk about that at some point. It's it's ridiculous. I don't know why they're doing that, but it is worth it. Ever done a transaction
[01:00:27] Kenshin:
that's less than once at ProviBike? No. I never done that. A one set transaction
[01:00:31] McIntosh:
is 16¢ for the entire transaction. That look. If you're not willing to pay 16¢ to move a transaction across the main net of Bitcoin, then maybe go find something else to do. I it's all I gotta say. I mean, seriously. Alright. Satoshi's Plebs is a value for value podcast supporting podcasting two point o. No ads, no sponsorships, just honest Bitcoin content, our opinions, and so on and so forth. I deliberately avoid sponsors because even if I love a company, taking their money is going to influence my opinion. And if something goes wrong with that company, I would hesitate to warn you. Instead, I ask a simple question. Are you getting value from the show? Support it through time, talent, or treasure. Help with future projects.
Stream some sats. By the way, we've been seeing some streaming of sats, and I haven't really said anything about it because for one thing, I don't have a great deal of visibility into all that right now. I do appreciate that. I know you do as well, Kenshin. We see you. We can't take the time to, like, honor the the streamers, but, they're important And boost with messages like send that Mike did earlier. Even if it's only a 100 sats saying great show or, you know, you stink or whatever, we're gonna read it right here on the air. Check out our apps at podcastapps.com and support independent Bitcoin media. If you like the content, I would love it if you tell your friends about the podcast. That is simply the best way for us to grow. This week's music, by the way, is Freedom Code Revolution by one of our listeners. Send it Mike.
[01:02:14] Kenshin:
So thank you all for being here. We hope this has been helpful, and we would like like to hear from you. You can find all our contact information at satoshi's.plebs.com. Stay humble. This is all set, and have a great weekend.
[01:02:30] McIntosh:
We'll talk to you all soon. Bye bye. Behind the screen, we forge the key. Unlock the chains and set minds free. The printer's row will fade to dust. In code and truth, we place our trust. No more kings, no paper lies. Open the phones beneath the sky. Zeros, ones, I'll battle cry. We'll burn the thrones beneath the sky. Sypherpunks will lead the way. Freedom tech will light the day.
Kickoff, hosts, and today’s topic: Executive Order 6102
Tech troubles and Linux talk: Arch/Hyprland, Omarchy, Ubuntu Studio
Life updates: on-call chaos, mining gear sale, meetup plans
Framing 6102: what it was and why it mattered
How 6102 worked: turn-ins, exemptions, enforcement, timelines
Motives and precedent: Keynes, UK wartime gold, and FDR’s intent
Devaluation fallout: Gold Reserve Act and wealth transfer
Could a ‘6102 for Bitcoin’ happen? Enforcement realities
Centralized choke points: KYC exchanges, gag orders, Lavabit analogy
Self‑custody scenarios: lists, knock-at-the-door, keys and seed security
Why Bitcoin isn’t gold: price control vs market pricing dynamics
Practical opsec: backups, seed storage, and burglary threats
Policy levers likely first: on/off-ramps, taxation, and US framework
EU posture: pushes against self-custody and encryption
Listener boosts
Relocation dilemmas: New Zealand, Madeira, Isle of Man tradeoffs
News & notes: M2 vs Bitcoin, gold’s move, macro setup
Software updates
Market check: BTC price, YoY, market cap vs gold, mempool, difficulty
Fee sanity check and closing V4V reminder
Outro music: “Freedom Code Revolution” (Send It Mike)
