McIntosh and Kenshin discuss the European Central Bank's push for a digital euro as a sovereignty move against US dollar dominance and stablecoins. They cover Switzerland's erosion of privacy laws forcing Proton to relocate servers, the EU's proposed chat control legislation, and September's bullish close for Bitcoin signaling potential strong Q4 gains. Plus: next week's listener Q&A Zapathon.
Stick around to the very end for Send It Mike's track, “Freedom Code Revolution”.
Resources
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2025/html/ecb.sp250929~9a94367d26.en.html
https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2025/09/29/digital-euro-ecb-breakthrough-offline-app-more-sovereignty-in-payments/
https://fightchatcontrol.eu/
https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/is-proton-leaving-switzerland-legal-uncertainty-of-proposed-surveillance-laws-is-pushing-them-to-make-several-changes
https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/vpns/proton-refuses-to-be-held-hostage-by-controversial-swiss-surveillance-law
Bitcoin Price at Time of Recording
Oct 1st, 2025: 116,939 USD | 99,800 euro
Block Height at Time of Recording
917,265
Episode Page
https://satoshis-plebs.com/episode-228
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 Satoshi's Plebs for episode two twenty eight. I'm Mcintosh.
[00:00:05] Kenshin:
And I am Kenshin. And today, we're talking about Europe wants your money.
[00:00:11] McIntosh:
Man, what's that all about? Europe wants your money. I guess we'll have to find out. Before we get there, we got a few things we need to talk about. Our block height as we begin recording, Kenshin, is nine one seven two six five nine hundred and seventeen thousand two hundred and sixty five. TikTok, next block. It's moving along. Yeah. Almost exactly a thousand blocks since last week. It was within, like, 30 or 40 blocks or something. I don't remember exactly, but it was really close. It was kinda crazy. Mhmm. Okay. What's going on over there in Sweden, sir?
[00:00:52] Kenshin:
Keeps getting colder here. And and I say that because I'm actually quite cold, and I don't like it. It feels like winter is coming fast and strong this year. Yeah. But it was quite exciting week because my it was my son's sixth birthday. Yay. Six. I remember
[00:01:13] McIntosh:
children being six. I was gonna say I remember being six. Yeah. That's a cool age. So I I you can talk about this however much you want, but is he like that's school age. Right? So he's, like, starting school or just started this year?
[00:01:29] Kenshin:
Or Yeah. Just started. But here, they don't really have a first grade. They have, like, a half grade. Okay. So it's, like, in between now, it's still not school school in that sense? Mhmm.
[00:01:43] McIntosh:
But You got him saved with his Toshi's yet? Yeah. Get him an open dime, I think that's what they're called, for his birthday.
[00:01:52] Kenshin:
Oh, you know what I have, actually? I have the
[00:01:56] McIntosh:
the next version of it that they made it into a court. Yeah. But that's not the same company. I don't think, but I know what you're talking about. It is. It is. Well, yeah. I know what you're talking about. That's cool. Very cool. Cool. Very, very cool. Cards. Yeah. Size card. Mhmm. Well, I thought you were gonna give him a whole Bitcoin.
[00:02:14] Kenshin:
Oh, wow. Yeah. I should take
[00:02:17] McIntosh:
from the one of the early blocks with the 50 Bitcoin. Right? Can you imagine if you gave your kid a Bitcoin when he was six years old? Like, by the time that he was an adult, he'd probably be stupid and, you know, doing crazy things with it. But I I what is that? Like, twelve twelve years until he's 18, three three turnings for now, three, havenings for now. Who knows? Is it a million dollars? Is it I I don't know. Well, it'd be crazy, though. I'll tell you that.
[00:02:51] Kenshin:
Yeah. But I did see a for him also. And sometimes when, relatives give some fiat money, I I put that into Bitcoin and put it in his account. Do you tell the relatives?
[00:03:04] McIntosh:
Yes. I do. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. I gotta be honest. We don't do that with our kids because, for for for when they have more kids than you do. And, they're they're older. We don't have any that are that age anymore. And they're a wide enough spread that it it just wouldn't there's just no way. Like, the to be to be honest, one of them just told me the other day. I think I talked to you about this offline, but not on the show. I hope I'm not repeating myself. But one of my kids was like, hey, dad. How do I use strike? I'm like, what? Wait. What?
[00:03:50] Kenshin:
Yes. You too.
[00:03:52] McIntosh:
That was cool. And, honestly, we've had a little struggle with that, but we'll get him squared away. And he's not doing a whole lot, but, you know, he's young. That's that that is cool. That made my that made my heart glad. I'll be honest. Alright. I don't even know what day it is. Up with you. I really don't. We had a really bad day at work yesterday. I told you about it essentially because of a work issue in production. I was on a Zoom call for eight plus hours yesterday, which I hate. First of all, I just hate being on Zoom. And, you know, everything came down to that problem and trying to get it fixed, which, you know, it doesn't have a clear root cause. It's just not that clear. I've been doing this for a long time, and sometimes it's like, that's the issue. Fix that. Everything's fine.
In this case, that's just not true. It's really a combination of things. So it's gonna take a while to sort it out. I think we've kinda got the maybe the patient stable at this point to use an operating analogy and, you know, a surgical analogy or whatever. And now we're doing the work to kind of fix things up. I wasn't even sure we were gonna be able to record today unless you were gonna do it by yourself, which I'm perfectly fine with, by the way. I don't wanna put you on the spot, but you can do that. But it worked out, unless I get paged in the middle of things.
So we'll deal with that if it happens.
[00:05:31] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:05:33] McIntosh:
Alright. What's our topic? We're I think we've got something. I've been pressing you about this a little bit, for the last few weeks to kinda talk about, and we I think we've had some things come up that I I think this is important. So I want you just to dive right on in here, and and let's cover this because the world does not but despite popular opinion, certainly of leadership of The United States, I'll say that the world does not revolve around The United States. There are other places that are important.
[00:06:07] Kenshin:
Yeah. But you're saying that, actually, it it gave a kick start to Europe to think ahead on the digital money side. And there's been a few times they mentioned that they are, worried or they don't say exactly those words. But, essentially, the Europeans said through bank, they're worried, with the stable coins and all the moves that US is doing.
[00:06:38] McIntosh:
So they're worried about what The United States is going to do in regards to stablecoins. And we've discussed that a little bit. We're not gonna talk about it right now, but, like, we had a an act that passed a law that passed about stablecoin regulation and this kind of thing. I think it's passed. Yeah. I don't know. Anyways Yep. Okay.
[00:07:01] Kenshin:
I I have a clip from, Christine Lagarde. Okay. Very recent clip where she talks about it. It's one minute long. Alright. Let's get started.
[00:07:15] Christine Lagarde:
On the digital euro, I would like to really command and express gratitude to our president of the euro group, to his team, and to all those who have worked long and hard during the summer to make sure that we arrive at a compromised solution that both secures the institutional competences of all institutions, addresses the concern of those who think, rightly so, that the digital euro is not just a means of payment. It is also, a political statement concerning the sovereignty of Europe and its capacity to handle the payment, including on a cross border basis, with a European infrastructure and solution. So what has been discussed and approved, unanimously inside, the room, which included euro group members, but also non euro group members, is the starting point of further work that will continue to be done both at the European Parliament. We're very anxious to see that, moving, fast and what will be conducted at the council level and, of course, amongst technical experts. So this was from my perspective as president of the ECB and a strong advocate of the digital euro together with my colleague Piero Cipollone, a good step in the direction that we hope will be completed in as short order as possible. Thank you.
[00:08:46] McIntosh:
That's definitely interesting. Go ahead with your analysis, sir.
[00:08:53] Kenshin:
Yeah. So this ties into an article also from this Piero where is his name again? So I don't make, Piero Cipollone. So this Italian banker who is in the executive board of European Central Bank. Okay. And so they're talking about how the how Europe, currently is not fully in control Mhmm. Of the money in Europe. So this is funny now. So they want to be sovereign with their money.
[00:09:41] McIntosh:
I have a solution for that, by the way.
[00:09:44] Kenshin:
Yeah. They want to be sovereign and have control of their money. So the whole point of the digital euro is for the ECB to be sovereign and private and in control.
[00:10:02] McIntosh:
Right. It's for the ECB to be sovereign, not Europe in general or you as a EU citizen. And I would like to note that.
[00:10:14] Kenshin:
Yeah. Correct. And it was another clip, also from Christine Lagarde that she explicitly said about the stable coins and that there, I can find that later, but it was not in that clip. But in any case, there's explicitly also says about the stable coins coming up and they're looking into how it affects things and stuff. And to go back to this Piero Cipollone, his article, which I also have the first link under topic there. So there, he also has a lot of, statistics, how many transactions happen by cash, how many transactions starts to happen digitally, how it's moved over year over the last few years, the trend going less cash and more digital. Mhmm. And they also start to see how many of those digital transactions happen with infrastructure outside of Europe, meaning Visa, Mastercard. Right?
[00:11:25] McIntosh:
So that's what they see. Or some do you have that percentage there? Do you happen to know that? Like, currently, what it is. Right? These payments that are happening digital payments that are happening inside the EU that are basically controlled by outside entities like Visa and Mastercard. I you may not. If not, that's fine. I I have it. I had it.
[00:11:55] Kenshin:
I was doing all this from my other computer, so now I don't have anything.
[00:12:00] McIntosh:
It's okay. Let's just go oh, there it is.
[00:12:04] Kenshin:
Anyway, so in the article, they say that, they want to take back control and offer their solution for Europe to be independent and strong. So that's why they want to develop the digital Europe that essentially will work they also say work along alongside cash, physical cash, but, eventually, they mean they it will replace it and and have it also in a way that it will foster innovation, you know, all this fancy talk that they try to convince us that is the best idea ever to foster innovation and, everybody accept it in Europe and all of this. The interesting thing is they say that the infrastructure, it's gonna be decentralized.
But how decentralized? That's the interesting part. It's gonna be distributed across three regions and each region will have multiple servers. So they mean Regions in the region is down. Is that correct? Yeah. In in Okay. Yes. Yeah. It's all in the EU. Right? So, theoretically, if yeah. Europe gets hit by a cyber attack or whatever as they describe an example, one region is down. The system should still keep working. And the interesting part is in the worst case scenario that you're offline for whatever reason, you should still be able to use it to pay somewhere with your digital wallet.
So that I find interesting. Then they will learn the double spend issue. But, anyway, so they have they have all the they took all the, let's say, the headlines. Right? The pure, features of Bitcoin. Like, it's decentralized. It's sovereign. It's private. And they really use those keywords everywhere now. Even the word sovereign, they use it sovereign. And I couldn't understand in the beginning, what do they mean sovereign? And it's sovereign for them. So they will become sovereign against The US to control fully the digital aspect of of money in Europe.
So I find this very interesting because there is nothing here about the actual users. It's about them controlling everything. At in another interview, I heard Christine Lagarde say someone asked her about privacy. Or it was not Christine. Anyway, someone else. And they said, yeah. But we will not increase the the privacy checks. But then he said, but we already check everything anyway with the Right. Anti money laundering and the KYCs. Exactly. And I Yeah. We already have all the information, he said. So we will use it in a better ways or whatever. So there's, there's nothing nothing there to improve. They already have everything.
So it's, yeah. It sounds a bit dystopian and everything. It's a bit silly. The when you read and hear them, and you really try to imagine how they, if they are honest, you know, that they believe in it. It sounds quite good in that way. They use all the right words and keywords and but still, even when you try to do this best case scenario of, understanding them, it still doesn't include anything about the users, the the actual European people. Why is it bad to use Visa, Mastercard, or Stablecoins? They they don't say anywhere. Right. Why do they want all the control?
[00:16:13] McIntosh:
I I can answer that. Do you want me to answer that? Yeah. Please. For Visa and Mastercard, they want the profit margin. For stablecoins, specifically for US stablecoins, they want the dollar out of the EU essentially because the digital dollar really has a chance to dominate in transactions there. There's this concept called the euro dollar, which I have heard a fair amount about, and I don't truly understand it. So I don't wanna, like, wade into it. But there it's it's almost like the shadow market, if you wanna call it that. That's dollar based. That's US dollar based. And one of the things that people some people, myself included, believe that the Trump administration specifically is pushing the digital dollar, the USD dollar, like Circle and Tether for is to help basically replace that market with the stable coin, the digital dollar, and grow it as a way to increase our sales of bonds, actually. The financing of our debt, which is actually the real problem. How do we how do we keep foisting our debt off on the world? Right?
Well, this is one way of doing it because Tether, for example, we talked about this. What's are they seventh largest holder of Tether of, bonds? I it's I wanna say it's seventh. If you like, put them in a list of here's the countries holding The US debt, the bonds, Tether's seventh on that list, which is just unbelievable. But but there you got it. So Right. Over here, The US is pushing on that. Over there, the EU is saying, no. We don't want that, and I understand that, by the way. It makes perfect sense why they don't want that. And this is their way of pushing back. And at the same time, I believe they're like just like the guy said that you were talking about. It's a way to kinda complete the circle, and now we can truly monitor everything that's going on. Right. It's it's actually it's it's it's very clever.
[00:18:41] Kenshin:
Yeah. By the way, I found the quote from that article. It was not a number in percentage. It was two thirds of card based transactions in the Euro Area are processed by international
[00:18:57] McIntosh:
schemes. Visa and Mastercard. The vast majority of that. I'm sure. So that's 66% roughly.
[00:19:06] Kenshin:
Right? Mhmm. Yeah. Correct. So that's a lot majority. Yeah. And I see here also in my notes how they end up, one of the main arguments they say, and I quote, a digital euro would give people the freedom to transact seamlessly and securely without being dependent on decisions made outside the EU. Right. With a digital euro, Europeans would remain in control of their money, their choices, and their future. Sounds fancy. Mhmm. How how is that gonna put me in control of my money? It's it's not If you say digital euro instead of digital dollar. Right. What's the difference? It's all about
[00:20:00] McIntosh:
them pushing this as as their way of maintaining sovereignty versus the US dollar or anything else. Yeah. They just conveniently leave out this is the sovereignty of the European Central Bank, the ECB. It's not your sovereignty pleb, so sit down and shut up. So, you know, they couch it in nice language, and a lot of people will hear that and not think through the implications of any of it and just say, oh, yeah. That's good. Great. We're more sovereign. When in fact, it's I mean exact opposite.
[00:20:43] Kenshin:
Yeah. I I just find it hilarious that every everywhere I see Europeans, I put you the European Central Bank Right. And then it everything makes sense. It all makes sense now. Exactly. Yeah. The European Central Bank Yeah. Would remain in control of their money, their choices, and their future. It makes complete sense. Yes. 100%.
[00:21:06] McIntosh:
So so you have caught on, you clever pleb. Now what?
[00:21:12] Kenshin:
Now it's a huge fight. Right? Right. Between US and Europe. That's what I see now. Is there anything that people like you can do to
[00:21:23] McIntosh:
what should you do? Let me just let me phrase it that way. What should you do in this case? Is it just hide and stack more Bitcoin? I mean, is it what?
[00:21:35] Kenshin:
Well, personally, I stay away from politics, so I'm not sure where where there I I know there are some political groups that they go and, argue the other side in those forums, those lobbies. Right? However they're called. Mhmm. So I know even in Sweden, there is a group, my wife has talked to me about them. So there are ways if you look it up, that you can find them and put your signature somewhere, and then they have more power when they go to the parliament or wherever to oppose those decisions. And then they have more votes. So I think that's the way, but I personally don't do it because I I get too upset thinking about politics.
[00:22:21] McIntosh:
We are we are cut from the same cloth when it comes to that, I believe, but I forced myself to get involved from time to time because just it's I don't know. It's just so important. But yeah.
[00:22:36] Kenshin:
Yeah. I agree. You know, it's very important. And it will affect our future. But, yeah. Unfortunately, I don't do it much.
[00:22:46] McIntosh:
You actually mentioned Switzerland.
[00:22:50] Kenshin:
Yes. I have some stuff for Switzerland too. Let's talk about that because
[00:22:56] McIntosh:
I have a question. Does that actually tie into this directly, or is this just a side effect or what?
[00:23:04] Kenshin:
Well, of course, it ties in to the whole European strategy to try to take away, end to end encryption and try to control an eavesdropping all conversations no matter the technology. So Switzerland historically historically has been the best place in Europe with privacy laws. Okay. And and by the way, there still are nothing has changed. Right. So they still have the best privacy laws in Europe now as we speak. But there is a big proposal and there is and that proposal is is, how do we say, in such an advanced stage that the CEO of Proton Mhmm. You know, ProtonMail, ProtonVPN, etcetera, has officially stated that he's planning to leave Switzerland to to transfer many servers out of Switzerland and into Germany and Norway.
And they are investing a €100,000,000
[00:24:14] McIntosh:
to do that. That's a fair amount of money. Let me ask a question though, as a dumb US pleb. Aren't Norway and Germany in the EU?
[00:24:27] Kenshin:
Yes. But if Switzerland passes this law or whatever it that will be Mhmm. Then Norway and Germany in this aspect will be better than Switzerland at that point. Okay. I truly don't understand. So
[00:24:47] McIntosh:
in my naive way, granted, my naive way, I I view the EU I realize these are separate come countries. I'm I'm not stupid. So please, if you're gonna boost, make it a big boost. But the EU to me, in terms of laws, is like states in The United States. The federal government No. Can't make a law that only works for Arkansas, but not in Alabama. That that doesn't it's the law that's made is across the country. Why would Norway and Germany use their shake? I
[00:25:29] Kenshin:
Right. There I I don't think there are laws that are across Europe. There are there are laws that are shared between European countries that they they establish the same laws, but it's different governments, different laws, different partners Okay. I'm in each country, and they have their own laws. Okay. So that's why that way. Some countries are much better than those. Confused.
[00:25:57] McIntosh:
The EU, the European Union, it has an assembly. Right? A legislative body. And it makes rules. It makes laws.
[00:26:09] Kenshin:
For yes. For the they have the commission. Right? And then the union. And it's laws how to interact and
[00:26:18] McIntosh:
to trade and all this. So this is not an EU law, this this privacy law that we're talking about. This is
[00:26:26] Kenshin:
No. No. That's a Switzerland. That's a Swiss law. Okay. Now it all makes sense. So Switzerland is changing their yeah. So Switzerland is changing their own Swiss privacy law from really, really private to open and the government can go and ask anyone for any information. And they need to comply, and the companies need to comply, which essentially means that Proton cannot offer their private services based in Switzerland anymore.
[00:27:00] McIntosh:
So they are forced basically to That makes perfect sense. Service outside of service. That makes perfect sense. Now I understand. That was the piece I didn't I guess I just didn't know. I thought this was an EU law, and it's not. It's it's from Switzerland. So
[00:27:17] Kenshin:
No. It yeah. What what what is you what you're thinking is the other discussion about the,
[00:27:27] McIntosh:
where is that one? No. It's okay. There was a separate issue going on that Chat control. Shut down, essentially. Correct?
[00:27:38] Kenshin:
Oh, it's not shut down yet. Great. So this is called the, quote, chat control It's a proposal that would mandate scanning all private digital communications, including encrypted messages and photos.
[00:27:56] McIntosh:
So this affects the whole EU. This is the one that the signal CEO is pushing back on. Right?
[00:28:04] Kenshin:
Well, I think he's pushing back on this also, but it's the in Switzerland, it's another one. Right. So everybody's trying to do that right now in Europe. And you have some members it's in Europe that oppose it. Mhmm. So who is opposing it right now is Austria, Czech, Estonia, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Poland. But not Switzerland.
[00:28:30] McIntosh:
That's so weird.
[00:28:31] Kenshin:
Well, Switzerland is not even in no. Switzerland is not even in Europe. They're not in European Union.
[00:28:39] McIntosh:
Man, I am looking like such a dumb American right now. Are you serious?
[00:28:45] Kenshin:
Yes. Switzerland is not in Europe. I had no idea. Hold
[00:28:49] McIntosh:
on. Map of
[00:28:51] Kenshin:
EU. Oh, it is in Asians. It is in Europe, but it's not yeah. It's not in No. I know it's in Europe. Union.
[00:29:00] McIntosh:
I I'm yeah. I'm I'm not that dumb. Look at that right in the middle of it. I've never seen this. It is the only country, like, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy. They're all EU. They're Switzerland. They never joined the EU.
[00:29:18] Kenshin:
No. Right in the center. Neither did Norway.
[00:29:21] McIntosh:
I Okay. Not not right. Ladies and gentlemen, I am gonna leave this on here for posterity. I look like a goofball, but I bet a lot of you listeners in The United States did not know this. So don't you be jumping all over me. Alright?
[00:29:39] Kenshin:
But but look. For sure, I have probably said something wrong about the how the European laws work across Europe, but I'm not a 100% sure. Makes sense what you're saying, though. I now understand
[00:29:52] McIntosh:
this Swiss law is it's ironically forcing them well, they're going to Norway potentially, which is a non EU country. If they go to Germany and the EU passes this law, they're gonna be in trouble there anyways. It's the way I read it.
[00:30:11] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. If they pass this other law yes. So for so they are two separate, I think, items right now. But yeah.
[00:30:19] McIntosh:
But they will be in trouble if that passes in Europe. As a as a bystander to all this, what I think is hilarious, not real it's not hilarious. I don't wanna call it it's not funny. The UK struggled to depart the EU, which they did, February 2020. Right. And yet they are now passing a draconian law that, you you know, their clamp down on free speech right now is just it's it's off the charts. Oh my goodness. I'm gonna show up at your house and bang on your door as a policeman in The UK because you posted something on Twitter.
[00:30:59] Kenshin:
Yeah. What? What?
[00:31:01] McIntosh:
I I'm embarrassed that The United States got their idea of law from the from The UK right now. I mean, seriously. The the whole Magna Carta thing, the whole like, you guys might wanna go back and check on some things. I'm just saying. Sorry. I I it's not funny. It really isn't, but you know what I mean? It's funny that they left the EU, and then that's actually it's like they're leading the charge on all this. Anyways, I look. I learned something today. Seriously, I'm thank you. I how I got through my life for the number of years that I have, and I did not realize this. I I don't know. It's hey. We learn new things every day. Well, y'all just heard me learn something, and I hope you did too, at least some of you. But that's that's why Switzerland was so good. Now it all makes sense.
Yeah. No. I I used to be baffled by that. I was like, why Switzerland? Why are they so special? But they're part of the EU. But now it all makes sense.
[00:32:13] Kenshin:
And they were also special because they were the last country on the planet to get rid of the gold standard.
[00:32:20] McIntosh:
And now it's too late. Now they're gonna go and blow it all. Wow. I would have moved to Switzerland if I'd have realized. But Seriously? That was
[00:32:33] Kenshin:
that was my number one choice. We were talking about this last week. Yeah. Switzerland has been my number one choice for the last few years.
[00:32:42] McIntosh:
No. I I could that makes so much sense now why you would say something like that. They're not a member of the EU, and they have this history of privacy. And yet, now they don't or they won't.
[00:32:56] Kenshin:
You know? And that was the reason also why most of the the the Bitcoin European companies moved to Switzerland.
[00:33:02] McIntosh:
Yes. No. It makes it's just this puts together so many little pieces for me. It is unbelievable. Alright. We need to move on, though. Enough of Yeah. Macintosh's education. By the way, we're up another $500, but, never mind. Anyways,
[00:33:22] Kenshin:
Bitcoin. I need to check. Where is the yep. No? Okay. We can move on. I think we touched on the biggest points. Mhmm. Yeah. I told you that Proton based on that.
[00:33:40] McIntosh:
So they're basically looking at moving. Now it says Yeah. Germany and Norway. I'm look, guys. You're throwing a $100,000,000 at this or a €100,000,000. You could cut me out a little bit of that. I'm gonna tell you don't go to Germany. Just go ahead and go to Norway because when these laws get passed in the EU, that's gonna affect Germany too. Right? So Yeah. Look. Just send me a couple Bitcoin. We'll call it a day.
[00:34:11] Kenshin:
Thanks. And the funny thing is that they said if we yeah. We also chose, Norway. Sorry. They also chose Norway because of the temperatures because the service can run cooler then.
[00:34:24] McIntosh:
100%. Hydro power abounds there. Look. As a miner, it's a place I would look at. Now knowing that it's actually not in the EU, I'm all the more interested. It's like the one place in Europe I would consider mining.
[00:34:40] Kenshin:
Yeah. But, I mean, you say yeah. But Norway has other weird shit. They do. I mean, they They're right. They if you make a profit out of crypto, they publish you in a public list by name and ridicule you. I mean, is they have some other ridiculous stuff in Norway, which I I would never go for. That will eventually get sorted out. At least I hope it will. Alright.
[00:35:04] McIntosh:
Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Is that it?
[00:35:08] Kenshin:
Yeah. I think that's So
[00:35:11] McIntosh:
in summary, Macintosh says this, EU bad, Switzerland bad. Did that cover it? It? Just kidding. I'm just kidding. The whole world is bad. The whole world is bad. No. Unfortunately, we've been watching this unfold, and this doesn't really surprise maybe a little bit, but yeah. Yeah. This doesn't I mean, they're surrounded by all this. I I can't even imagine the pressure that's on them.
[00:35:43] Kenshin:
Yeah. I don't know. And just just to close this up, we started with a digital euro, just for the ones who don't know, this was supposed to come, around this time in Yes. Of the year, around 2025. So they're still saying as soon as possible. They don't say anymore October or November, but they're saying soon. And they're putting a lot of money in development in this.
[00:36:10] McIntosh:
Yes. But this is a government boondoggle. So I'm going to guess October '20 I'm debating '27 or '28. '27. 2027.
[00:36:27] Kenshin:
Yeah. In the end of the day, I would say it doesn't really matter. It will whatever happens, it will start something. It will cross and burn eventually because it will have bugs. It will be hacked. And it will eventually fold. Will have double spending.
[00:36:43] McIntosh:
Right. Yeah. They will eventually fold just as as everyone will to Bitcoin's dominance. It's just a matter of when that happens. That that's my opinion. It's not financial advice, blah blah blah. But there you go. Okay, sir. Do you wanna do the well, you've been talking a lot. I'll do the supporters, this week. Send it Mike sent us a boost of a thousand and 69 sats. If you're a longtime listener, I know that's shocking, but that's what he sent. Appreciate that. Send it Mike as always. And he had this to say, and I actually did wanna do this because I wanna talk about this for just a second. A good episode even though the host were tired, and I was. Kenshin, you were not, but, you know, it's all good. Was also In Argent it's late over there in Sweden.
In Argentina, I don't think the pressure to take the money or to take money from the IMF or The US is for the election. Malay ran and won on a platform of we can keep kicking the can and borrowing from the future. We have to make some sacrifice. I believe he meant we cannot keep kicking the can and borrowing from the future. We have to make some sacrifices. We've certainly seen that. Maybe he's borrowing money to start mining Bitcoin. Even with our recent run up, mining isn't very profitable, but it is valuable to nation states to be able to ensure blockchain access as well as accumulate Bitcoin.
I think hash rate progress recently can only be explained by nation states doing it. I there's a few things here I'm gonna we're gonna talk about. You may be a 100% correct about the hash rate progress because it has been crazy for the last year, really. And I I don't personally think it's Argentina, but I do believe Russia, China, maybe even some other countries are bringing hash rate online. Now, Now after the show, Kenshin, you and I, I sent you a message. I did a little research. And to be honest, I've kinda dropped the ball on Argentina, for several reasons. It's just it's just falling off my radar.
But I sent you something, and I wanna find that real quick. Did I send it by signal?
[00:39:23] Kenshin:
No. About Argentina?
[00:39:25] McIntosh:
Yes. About Argentina.
[00:39:28] Kenshin:
Not a link. Some message Maybe we should have changed.
[00:39:31] McIntosh:
Okay. Yeah. I did send a message. I didn't. So I'll read this, and this is the most I'm gonna be able to do about this. I came across a news article. Act I it may have been a video or both, that Malay's party. So whatever that is, his liberty his libertarian party that he created are it certainly heads. In Argentina did just recently lose some elections, like, in the Buenos Aires area, and it was actually pretty bad. So the Peronistas, the kind of the left wing, not kind of the left wing, the socialist, basically gained some ground in Argentina over the Liberty Party.
Okay? And I'm going to stand by, and we do not know, but I'm gonna stand by what I said that this money stuff, whether it's from the IMF or whether it's from The United States, is simply him trying to stay in power. Now I may be incorrect about that. We can disagree, Senator Mike. One of us will be right at some point down the road, and neither one of us will remember even having said it, and that's okay. I look. I have no faith anymore in politicians. I had hope for Malay, maybe even too much hope. But in the end of the day, I don't think the average pleb this is my contention. The average pleb cannot understand what kind of power these people have.
The fact that let's and I don't mean just The United States. Any major political figure, that could just be somebody in congress. You got your surrounded by lackeys who are sitting there saying, good idea, boss. Great job, boss. You're doing the best, boss. Hey, boss. Maybe we should do this, this, this, and this. Everybody's patting your back. Everybody wants your ear. Everybody wants to to to be your friend, and nobody says anything bad. And it it breeds narcissism. It breeds an environment where you just wanna create you just wanna grab more power. And in the end, Malay is just trying to stay elected, I believe. Again, I'm that's just my opinion.
And he's realizing this is a rough road. I knew he thought it was gonna be, but it's gonna take years for Argentina to truly turn around. And this is a this is the problem with cyclical pot like, four year cycles in politics. You can't do things long term. The incentives are not there. Now that's I don't know. That's my thought.
[00:42:31] Christine Lagarde:
Right. I
[00:42:33] McIntosh:
I personally align a little bit more with Mike on this. You guys just wanna I think I said You did say that. I I agree.
[00:42:41] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. I told you on the messages. And I I also thought now, what's his name in El Salvador? Bukele. Bukele. He also was forced to take an IMF loan. Yes. He was.
[00:42:56] McIntosh:
And he's also gotten a law passed that he could be reelected indefinitely. Why do you think that is? Is it really because he believes he needs to be running things, or is it because he just wants to stay on top? I don't know. Time will tell, and I'm not gonna speculate on that situation. I don't live there. I don't live in Argentina. I'll flap my gums a lot longer about The United States. But if anybody in The United States who's a conservative or a libertarian or whatever who doesn't think that Trump is there for the power, baby, we just see the world different. That's all I gotta say about that. I mean, seriously.
First thing he did when he got in office was do a stupid Trump coin. I mean, come on. That's just ridiculous. Yeah. Such a power grab, and everything is about money and extracting wealth, really, as much as possible for Trump and Trump enterprises.
[00:44:07] Kenshin:
I don't know. Is it not always the case with politicians? It always sounds good before the elections.
[00:44:13] McIntosh:
I think this is the inevitable results of being in an office that you and I, frankly, we don't understand. We can only kind of imagine what it's really like to be my gosh. And you talk about the US president, which is such a powerful position. I'm gonna leave it at that. I mean, people are fawning all over him. I I can't I would not want to be in that position personally because I I don't think it would be healthy for me.
[00:44:50] Kenshin:
Yeah. No. It's a special
[00:44:53] McIntosh:
person. Well, it takes a narcissist. Need to be a narcissist. It does. Yeah. So, anyways, I I just wanted to spend a few minutes of that. Look, guys, I appreciate all this feedback, and I hope y'all take it in the right manner when I sit there and say, maybe that's not I I you may be right. Send it, Mike. I I do appreciate the dialogue. And to be honest, you're one of the listeners I would love to sit down with at a conference sometime and and, you know, just talk seriously. You and I think a lot alike, but we do think differently about some things, and I would love to explore those areas. You know?
Before we move on to our news and notes, let's talk about next week because next week is gonna be a little special. So I have convinced Kenshin. I'm not sure he's really on board with this yet, but I've convinced Kenshin he's not, to do his appathon. I want so this is the quarter. Right? We just started the fourth quarter. This is kind of our quarterly thing. We got people I'd like y'all to send in questions. We get the best questions from our listeners, seriously. Yeah. And I wanna encourage people to use Noster. And this is one way that we give back even though, frankly, it's it's really just costing us money because we're not making that much. So but that's okay.
So what are the guidelines, Kenshin? If we if we so I think we need to pick 10 questions. Does that sound good to you? So 10 questions. However many gets proposed, we're gonna have to keep it down to 10 or so. If you, post a question on Nasr and tag us, what's what are they what is the big reward that they are gonna get, Kenshin?
[00:46:51] Kenshin:
Well, they we will we will put a post on Nostr, and they should reply to that post with a question. I always forget that part. It's a good thing you're here.
[00:47:03] McIntosh:
I mean, I thought Switzerland was the EU. So, you know, what do I know?
[00:47:10] Kenshin:
Well, it is in Europe. Yes.
[00:47:12] McIntosh:
I'm aware of that. Hi. Ladies and gentlemen, I did not fail tenth grade geography. Okay? Seriously. I do know I could probably name most of the countries in Europe, to be honest. I'd it gets a little hazy over on the Eastern side, but yeah. Nice. If you gave me a map, I could give it a good go, and I'd get most of them. I'd pass the test. How about that?
[00:47:41] Kenshin:
Yes. Fair enough? Anyway, sorry. Yeah. So we'll post a note on those two to yeah. With the hashtag Zapathon, etcetera. You leave a question, and we will zap that question. So the ten first ones, we zap for
[00:48:05] McIntosh:
How much?
[00:48:06] Kenshin:
How much? We haven't talked about.
[00:48:10] McIntosh:
You throw out a number and I'll raise your hand yes or no.
[00:48:14] Kenshin:
Okay. To to 20 questions. 20 questions, 210 subs per question. Okay. And from those 20, we will choose 10. Okay. But we was up to twenty twenty one. 21. 21. Yeah. You can. Yes. Obviously.
[00:48:32] McIntosh:
21 questions, 2,210. I think the people who get their question picked should get extra. Seriously. Okay. I will have to go back and, like, rezap, I guess. I don't know how else to do it, but I think the people who actually get their questions on the air, I really want to encourage thought into this. Right. And it can be about anything. If you guys want to talk about macroeconomics, that's fine. I know y'all don't want to, but you could. Bitcoin, don't ask about our personal lives. That's not your business. But beyond that, yeah, whatever.
And we'll go ahead. I will say this. We'll at least we'll at least boost another 210 to the 10 that get through.
[00:49:28] Kenshin:
Okay? Yes. I agree. Alright.
[00:49:33] McIntosh:
Alright. Excellent. Hey. I wanna talk about September. We just closed up September. We record on October 1 here on Wednesday, and we had something happen last month that's only happened five times out of the last fifteen years. Alright. Now Kenshin, you we talked about this earlier this month, and we said, historically, September is a bad month for Bitcoin. Bitcoin. For whatever reason, it doesn't matter what the reason is. You can look at the chart. Only five times out of the last fifteen years has September been positive. Let's see.
One yep. Five times. And that includes what the month that we just closed because we were positive. We opened I've got the figures right here. 1,000 excuse me. 100,008. Numbers are hard today. A 108,000. We opened the month at a 108,228, and we closed at a 114,056. So we were actually up 5.4 for the month. Now I'm gonna read off a little bit data a little data here. So, again, five times out of the last fifteen years, when September does close positive, historically, it's been a very strong bullish signal for the fourth quarter. So in 2015, 2016, 2023, 2024, and now 2025, we produced average returns exceeding 53% with those fourth quarter gains ranging between 4566%.
So what that means, as far as I can tell, is that based on past history, this is not financial advice, etcetera, etcetera. 01/01/2026, we should be at least 45% higher than a 108 no. Not a 108. A $114,056. I do not know what that figure is offhand, but it's pretty high. Woah. Yes. Wait. That is that is
[00:51:59] Kenshin:
I'm trying to understand this. Mhmm. So 40 minimum, 45% from the start of the fourth quarter Correct. To the end of the fourth quarter. That's fourth quarter gains. Oh.
[00:52:15] McIntosh:
This is how we get to 250,000 by the end of the year. Now that would be a 100% up, which would be more than any of these. But it, you know, it's in the realm of possibility based on past history. I am not saying we're gonna be at 250. I am saying we're not gonna be at a 115 or a 100 and whatever our all time high is, a 125.
[00:52:39] Kenshin:
Well, if I think if that happens, we'll be above Microsoft's market cap. And you win the bet. 45%. Yeah. The 45%.
[00:52:49] McIntosh:
You just wanna win that bet. Yeah. That's okay. I'm just looking at Microsoft. That's okay. Yes. I could very easily see I I would just go ahead and say this, and I've been pretty confident. I've been pretty I don't I don't think I've deviated from this too much. I believe based on the past, the fourth quarter will mark the high. It may not. It may be next year. It may be who knows? But I believe based on the cycle history, essentially, we've got the high coming in the fourth quarter. I believe that it will be at least a 150, which we're certainly not at yet. I believe it could go higher than that. I think $2.50 that I mentioned earlier is a stretch because that's essentially a 100% gains from here, actually a little bit more.
And that's more than we've ever seen in the past fourth quarter gains after a green September. Does that make does that all make sense? So Yeah. We're looking at somewhere between a hundred and fifty and two fifty. At least that's the theory that I'm operating on. Ladies and gentlemen, it could drop to a 100,000. It could drop to 58,000 that those poor people have been saying we're going to for, I don't know, a year or more at this point. I have no idea. It's not financial advice, and that literally is why we say you should DCA. Don't worry about the price. It's fun to talk about this stuff. But at the end of the day, you DCA.
And if it falls, you put in more if you can. That's my financial advice If I've gotta have any, but I can't because somebody will sue me. So
[00:54:44] Kenshin:
alright. My suing suing McIntosh from this associate play flips podcast.
[00:54:49] McIntosh:
Yeah. It'd be worth about, I don't know. I think there's, like, a $100 in the kitty in the bank of whatever in the Bitcoin in the Satoshis. Yeah. Not a whole lot there, guys. Sorry. So but I don't need the hassle of being sued. It's a lot of work. Alright. And we got any other news, or is that it?
[00:55:15] Kenshin:
No. I I just want to remind people that, Bitcoin core version 30 is coming up. So that's a software update. Yeah. Mhmm.
[00:55:25] McIntosh:
Oh, sorry. No. You're good. We're so sorry. So we'll roll right into that. That's really the only one we've got. So
[00:55:31] Kenshin:
Yeah. So that is coming up, and that's the big controversial version where they take away the OP return limit. And it could open some floodgates unknown yet. So we don't know what could happen and who is waiting to do what. So I would say if anyone is running a node, it's a good idea to switch over to notes. It will not change anything apart from the statistics of it's like a vote in that sense. So the more notes notes are out there, the more it gives a signal that people are not happy with that. And, I think there is already, a patch for the next version of Bitcoin Core. They are preparing something actually to bring some control already.
[00:56:26] McIntosh:
Yeah. There's something. I'm I'm not clear on that. There's so there's, like, a pull request that would kinda add some of this back. I don't know. The whole thing's just a big giant stinking mess, and, I mean, people are just, as far as I can tell, lying and yelling and screaming, and I I don't know. I it's a mess. I'm all for diversity of clients in Bitcoin. That's what I'm for. How about that? I know that having one client run 95% of the nodes is not a good thing. Okay. Let's talk about the price of Bitcoin. When I started recording, it was $1.01 $6.09 $3.09, US dollars. And how many euros we got?
[00:57:14] Kenshin:
Euros, we're across the 100,000. So we're just over a €100,000. 100,100.
[00:57:22] McIntosh:
One year ago, we were looking at $60,837. So we are up 92.22% since then. We got a Bitcoin market cap of $2,300,000,000,000. Gold is up for the week as well. I saw that it hit 2,900, per ounce, and so it has a market cap of 26,900,000,000,000.0, which makes a market cap of Bitcoin versus gold. It's 8.6 percent, which is, I believe, down some from the week before. And that makes sense given even though Bitcoin has gone up, certainly, gold has been moving as well. You wanna do the fees? Mhmm.
[00:58:08] Kenshin:
Yes. The fees are still low at one set per vbyte, and the unprocessed transactions are 142,000 unprocessed transactions, which way up to 313 megabytes right now.
[00:58:24] McIntosh:
Alright. We're gonna go ahead and wrap this up. Satoshi's Plebs is a value for value podcast supporting podcasting two point o. We don't have ads, sponsorships. We just have content, guys, about Bitcoin, things like that. I avoid sponsors because even if I love a company, taking their money is going to influence my opinion. If something goes wrong with a company, I may not tell you about it. Instead, we simply ask, are you getting value from this show? Support it through time, talent, or treasure. Help with our future projects, stream sets, boost messages just like, Send It Mike did, even a 100 sets saying great show or you suck. Whatever. We read it. Check out the apps at at podcastapps.com and support Bitcoin, independent Bitcoin media. If you like the content, I would love it if you would tell your friends about the podcast.
That's the best way for us to grow. We are growing slow. It's painful. I'm hoping that with this, booster Zapathon that we've got next week, that always seems to help. So use this to spread the word about Satoshi's Plebs. This week's music, I'm gonna go ahead and do the freedom code revolution one last time from our listener. Send It Mike. Mike, I really appreciate it. It's a great song. So thanks for being here.
[00:59:43] Kenshin:
We hope this had been helpful and we would love to hear from you especially on Nostril this weekend. Find all our contact info also at satoshis.plebs.com. Stay humble. This is it. And have a great weekend.
[00:59:57] McIntosh:
We'll talk to you all soon. Bye bye.
[01:00:08] Unknown:
They print the power in the dead of night. Shadows rise, beneath the sky. I thought punks will lead the way. Freedom tank will light the day. Behind the screen, we forge the key. Locked the chains and set minds free. The printer's role will fade to dust. In code and truth we place our trust. No more kings, no paper lies. Open the thrones the Zeros, ones, our battle cry. Decentral
[01:02:31] McIntosh:
day.
Welcome back to Satoshi's Plebs for episode two twenty eight. I'm Mcintosh.
[00:00:05] Kenshin:
And I am Kenshin. And today, we're talking about Europe wants your money.
[00:00:11] McIntosh:
Man, what's that all about? Europe wants your money. I guess we'll have to find out. Before we get there, we got a few things we need to talk about. Our block height as we begin recording, Kenshin, is nine one seven two six five nine hundred and seventeen thousand two hundred and sixty five. TikTok, next block. It's moving along. Yeah. Almost exactly a thousand blocks since last week. It was within, like, 30 or 40 blocks or something. I don't remember exactly, but it was really close. It was kinda crazy. Mhmm. Okay. What's going on over there in Sweden, sir?
[00:00:52] Kenshin:
Keeps getting colder here. And and I say that because I'm actually quite cold, and I don't like it. It feels like winter is coming fast and strong this year. Yeah. But it was quite exciting week because my it was my son's sixth birthday. Yay. Six. I remember
[00:01:13] McIntosh:
children being six. I was gonna say I remember being six. Yeah. That's a cool age. So I I you can talk about this however much you want, but is he like that's school age. Right? So he's, like, starting school or just started this year?
[00:01:29] Kenshin:
Or Yeah. Just started. But here, they don't really have a first grade. They have, like, a half grade. Okay. So it's, like, in between now, it's still not school school in that sense? Mhmm.
[00:01:43] McIntosh:
But You got him saved with his Toshi's yet? Yeah. Get him an open dime, I think that's what they're called, for his birthday.
[00:01:52] Kenshin:
Oh, you know what I have, actually? I have the
[00:01:56] McIntosh:
the next version of it that they made it into a court. Yeah. But that's not the same company. I don't think, but I know what you're talking about. It is. It is. Well, yeah. I know what you're talking about. That's cool. Very cool. Cool. Very, very cool. Cards. Yeah. Size card. Mhmm. Well, I thought you were gonna give him a whole Bitcoin.
[00:02:14] Kenshin:
Oh, wow. Yeah. I should take
[00:02:17] McIntosh:
from the one of the early blocks with the 50 Bitcoin. Right? Can you imagine if you gave your kid a Bitcoin when he was six years old? Like, by the time that he was an adult, he'd probably be stupid and, you know, doing crazy things with it. But I I what is that? Like, twelve twelve years until he's 18, three three turnings for now, three, havenings for now. Who knows? Is it a million dollars? Is it I I don't know. Well, it'd be crazy, though. I'll tell you that.
[00:02:51] Kenshin:
Yeah. But I did see a for him also. And sometimes when, relatives give some fiat money, I I put that into Bitcoin and put it in his account. Do you tell the relatives?
[00:03:04] McIntosh:
Yes. I do. Good for you. Yeah. Yeah. I gotta be honest. We don't do that with our kids because, for for for when they have more kids than you do. And, they're they're older. We don't have any that are that age anymore. And they're a wide enough spread that it it just wouldn't there's just no way. Like, the to be to be honest, one of them just told me the other day. I think I talked to you about this offline, but not on the show. I hope I'm not repeating myself. But one of my kids was like, hey, dad. How do I use strike? I'm like, what? Wait. What?
[00:03:50] Kenshin:
Yes. You too.
[00:03:52] McIntosh:
That was cool. And, honestly, we've had a little struggle with that, but we'll get him squared away. And he's not doing a whole lot, but, you know, he's young. That's that that is cool. That made my that made my heart glad. I'll be honest. Alright. I don't even know what day it is. Up with you. I really don't. We had a really bad day at work yesterday. I told you about it essentially because of a work issue in production. I was on a Zoom call for eight plus hours yesterday, which I hate. First of all, I just hate being on Zoom. And, you know, everything came down to that problem and trying to get it fixed, which, you know, it doesn't have a clear root cause. It's just not that clear. I've been doing this for a long time, and sometimes it's like, that's the issue. Fix that. Everything's fine.
In this case, that's just not true. It's really a combination of things. So it's gonna take a while to sort it out. I think we've kinda got the maybe the patient stable at this point to use an operating analogy and, you know, a surgical analogy or whatever. And now we're doing the work to kind of fix things up. I wasn't even sure we were gonna be able to record today unless you were gonna do it by yourself, which I'm perfectly fine with, by the way. I don't wanna put you on the spot, but you can do that. But it worked out, unless I get paged in the middle of things.
So we'll deal with that if it happens.
[00:05:31] Kenshin:
Right.
[00:05:33] McIntosh:
Alright. What's our topic? We're I think we've got something. I've been pressing you about this a little bit, for the last few weeks to kinda talk about, and we I think we've had some things come up that I I think this is important. So I want you just to dive right on in here, and and let's cover this because the world does not but despite popular opinion, certainly of leadership of The United States, I'll say that the world does not revolve around The United States. There are other places that are important.
[00:06:07] Kenshin:
Yeah. But you're saying that, actually, it it gave a kick start to Europe to think ahead on the digital money side. And there's been a few times they mentioned that they are, worried or they don't say exactly those words. But, essentially, the Europeans said through bank, they're worried, with the stable coins and all the moves that US is doing.
[00:06:38] McIntosh:
So they're worried about what The United States is going to do in regards to stablecoins. And we've discussed that a little bit. We're not gonna talk about it right now, but, like, we had a an act that passed a law that passed about stablecoin regulation and this kind of thing. I think it's passed. Yeah. I don't know. Anyways Yep. Okay.
[00:07:01] Kenshin:
I I have a clip from, Christine Lagarde. Okay. Very recent clip where she talks about it. It's one minute long. Alright. Let's get started.
[00:07:15] Christine Lagarde:
On the digital euro, I would like to really command and express gratitude to our president of the euro group, to his team, and to all those who have worked long and hard during the summer to make sure that we arrive at a compromised solution that both secures the institutional competences of all institutions, addresses the concern of those who think, rightly so, that the digital euro is not just a means of payment. It is also, a political statement concerning the sovereignty of Europe and its capacity to handle the payment, including on a cross border basis, with a European infrastructure and solution. So what has been discussed and approved, unanimously inside, the room, which included euro group members, but also non euro group members, is the starting point of further work that will continue to be done both at the European Parliament. We're very anxious to see that, moving, fast and what will be conducted at the council level and, of course, amongst technical experts. So this was from my perspective as president of the ECB and a strong advocate of the digital euro together with my colleague Piero Cipollone, a good step in the direction that we hope will be completed in as short order as possible. Thank you.
[00:08:46] McIntosh:
That's definitely interesting. Go ahead with your analysis, sir.
[00:08:53] Kenshin:
Yeah. So this ties into an article also from this Piero where is his name again? So I don't make, Piero Cipollone. So this Italian banker who is in the executive board of European Central Bank. Okay. And so they're talking about how the how Europe, currently is not fully in control Mhmm. Of the money in Europe. So this is funny now. So they want to be sovereign with their money.
[00:09:41] McIntosh:
I have a solution for that, by the way.
[00:09:44] Kenshin:
Yeah. They want to be sovereign and have control of their money. So the whole point of the digital euro is for the ECB to be sovereign and private and in control.
[00:10:02] McIntosh:
Right. It's for the ECB to be sovereign, not Europe in general or you as a EU citizen. And I would like to note that.
[00:10:14] Kenshin:
Yeah. Correct. And it was another clip, also from Christine Lagarde that she explicitly said about the stable coins and that there, I can find that later, but it was not in that clip. But in any case, there's explicitly also says about the stable coins coming up and they're looking into how it affects things and stuff. And to go back to this Piero Cipollone, his article, which I also have the first link under topic there. So there, he also has a lot of, statistics, how many transactions happen by cash, how many transactions starts to happen digitally, how it's moved over year over the last few years, the trend going less cash and more digital. Mhmm. And they also start to see how many of those digital transactions happen with infrastructure outside of Europe, meaning Visa, Mastercard. Right?
[00:11:25] McIntosh:
So that's what they see. Or some do you have that percentage there? Do you happen to know that? Like, currently, what it is. Right? These payments that are happening digital payments that are happening inside the EU that are basically controlled by outside entities like Visa and Mastercard. I you may not. If not, that's fine. I I have it. I had it.
[00:11:55] Kenshin:
I was doing all this from my other computer, so now I don't have anything.
[00:12:00] McIntosh:
It's okay. Let's just go oh, there it is.
[00:12:04] Kenshin:
Anyway, so in the article, they say that, they want to take back control and offer their solution for Europe to be independent and strong. So that's why they want to develop the digital Europe that essentially will work they also say work along alongside cash, physical cash, but, eventually, they mean they it will replace it and and have it also in a way that it will foster innovation, you know, all this fancy talk that they try to convince us that is the best idea ever to foster innovation and, everybody accept it in Europe and all of this. The interesting thing is they say that the infrastructure, it's gonna be decentralized.
But how decentralized? That's the interesting part. It's gonna be distributed across three regions and each region will have multiple servers. So they mean Regions in the region is down. Is that correct? Yeah. In in Okay. Yes. Yeah. It's all in the EU. Right? So, theoretically, if yeah. Europe gets hit by a cyber attack or whatever as they describe an example, one region is down. The system should still keep working. And the interesting part is in the worst case scenario that you're offline for whatever reason, you should still be able to use it to pay somewhere with your digital wallet.
So that I find interesting. Then they will learn the double spend issue. But, anyway, so they have they have all the they took all the, let's say, the headlines. Right? The pure, features of Bitcoin. Like, it's decentralized. It's sovereign. It's private. And they really use those keywords everywhere now. Even the word sovereign, they use it sovereign. And I couldn't understand in the beginning, what do they mean sovereign? And it's sovereign for them. So they will become sovereign against The US to control fully the digital aspect of of money in Europe.
So I find this very interesting because there is nothing here about the actual users. It's about them controlling everything. At in another interview, I heard Christine Lagarde say someone asked her about privacy. Or it was not Christine. Anyway, someone else. And they said, yeah. But we will not increase the the privacy checks. But then he said, but we already check everything anyway with the Right. Anti money laundering and the KYCs. Exactly. And I Yeah. We already have all the information, he said. So we will use it in a better ways or whatever. So there's, there's nothing nothing there to improve. They already have everything.
So it's, yeah. It sounds a bit dystopian and everything. It's a bit silly. The when you read and hear them, and you really try to imagine how they, if they are honest, you know, that they believe in it. It sounds quite good in that way. They use all the right words and keywords and but still, even when you try to do this best case scenario of, understanding them, it still doesn't include anything about the users, the the actual European people. Why is it bad to use Visa, Mastercard, or Stablecoins? They they don't say anywhere. Right. Why do they want all the control?
[00:16:13] McIntosh:
I I can answer that. Do you want me to answer that? Yeah. Please. For Visa and Mastercard, they want the profit margin. For stablecoins, specifically for US stablecoins, they want the dollar out of the EU essentially because the digital dollar really has a chance to dominate in transactions there. There's this concept called the euro dollar, which I have heard a fair amount about, and I don't truly understand it. So I don't wanna, like, wade into it. But there it's it's almost like the shadow market, if you wanna call it that. That's dollar based. That's US dollar based. And one of the things that people some people, myself included, believe that the Trump administration specifically is pushing the digital dollar, the USD dollar, like Circle and Tether for is to help basically replace that market with the stable coin, the digital dollar, and grow it as a way to increase our sales of bonds, actually. The financing of our debt, which is actually the real problem. How do we how do we keep foisting our debt off on the world? Right?
Well, this is one way of doing it because Tether, for example, we talked about this. What's are they seventh largest holder of Tether of, bonds? I it's I wanna say it's seventh. If you like, put them in a list of here's the countries holding The US debt, the bonds, Tether's seventh on that list, which is just unbelievable. But but there you got it. So Right. Over here, The US is pushing on that. Over there, the EU is saying, no. We don't want that, and I understand that, by the way. It makes perfect sense why they don't want that. And this is their way of pushing back. And at the same time, I believe they're like just like the guy said that you were talking about. It's a way to kinda complete the circle, and now we can truly monitor everything that's going on. Right. It's it's actually it's it's it's very clever.
[00:18:41] Kenshin:
Yeah. By the way, I found the quote from that article. It was not a number in percentage. It was two thirds of card based transactions in the Euro Area are processed by international
[00:18:57] McIntosh:
schemes. Visa and Mastercard. The vast majority of that. I'm sure. So that's 66% roughly.
[00:19:06] Kenshin:
Right? Mhmm. Yeah. Correct. So that's a lot majority. Yeah. And I see here also in my notes how they end up, one of the main arguments they say, and I quote, a digital euro would give people the freedom to transact seamlessly and securely without being dependent on decisions made outside the EU. Right. With a digital euro, Europeans would remain in control of their money, their choices, and their future. Sounds fancy. Mhmm. How how is that gonna put me in control of my money? It's it's not If you say digital euro instead of digital dollar. Right. What's the difference? It's all about
[00:20:00] McIntosh:
them pushing this as as their way of maintaining sovereignty versus the US dollar or anything else. Yeah. They just conveniently leave out this is the sovereignty of the European Central Bank, the ECB. It's not your sovereignty pleb, so sit down and shut up. So, you know, they couch it in nice language, and a lot of people will hear that and not think through the implications of any of it and just say, oh, yeah. That's good. Great. We're more sovereign. When in fact, it's I mean exact opposite.
[00:20:43] Kenshin:
Yeah. I I just find it hilarious that every everywhere I see Europeans, I put you the European Central Bank Right. And then it everything makes sense. It all makes sense now. Exactly. Yeah. The European Central Bank Yeah. Would remain in control of their money, their choices, and their future. It makes complete sense. Yes. 100%.
[00:21:06] McIntosh:
So so you have caught on, you clever pleb. Now what?
[00:21:12] Kenshin:
Now it's a huge fight. Right? Right. Between US and Europe. That's what I see now. Is there anything that people like you can do to
[00:21:23] McIntosh:
what should you do? Let me just let me phrase it that way. What should you do in this case? Is it just hide and stack more Bitcoin? I mean, is it what?
[00:21:35] Kenshin:
Well, personally, I stay away from politics, so I'm not sure where where there I I know there are some political groups that they go and, argue the other side in those forums, those lobbies. Right? However they're called. Mhmm. So I know even in Sweden, there is a group, my wife has talked to me about them. So there are ways if you look it up, that you can find them and put your signature somewhere, and then they have more power when they go to the parliament or wherever to oppose those decisions. And then they have more votes. So I think that's the way, but I personally don't do it because I I get too upset thinking about politics.
[00:22:21] McIntosh:
We are we are cut from the same cloth when it comes to that, I believe, but I forced myself to get involved from time to time because just it's I don't know. It's just so important. But yeah.
[00:22:36] Kenshin:
Yeah. I agree. You know, it's very important. And it will affect our future. But, yeah. Unfortunately, I don't do it much.
[00:22:46] McIntosh:
You actually mentioned Switzerland.
[00:22:50] Kenshin:
Yes. I have some stuff for Switzerland too. Let's talk about that because
[00:22:56] McIntosh:
I have a question. Does that actually tie into this directly, or is this just a side effect or what?
[00:23:04] Kenshin:
Well, of course, it ties in to the whole European strategy to try to take away, end to end encryption and try to control an eavesdropping all conversations no matter the technology. So Switzerland historically historically has been the best place in Europe with privacy laws. Okay. And and by the way, there still are nothing has changed. Right. So they still have the best privacy laws in Europe now as we speak. But there is a big proposal and there is and that proposal is is, how do we say, in such an advanced stage that the CEO of Proton Mhmm. You know, ProtonMail, ProtonVPN, etcetera, has officially stated that he's planning to leave Switzerland to to transfer many servers out of Switzerland and into Germany and Norway.
And they are investing a €100,000,000
[00:24:14] McIntosh:
to do that. That's a fair amount of money. Let me ask a question though, as a dumb US pleb. Aren't Norway and Germany in the EU?
[00:24:27] Kenshin:
Yes. But if Switzerland passes this law or whatever it that will be Mhmm. Then Norway and Germany in this aspect will be better than Switzerland at that point. Okay. I truly don't understand. So
[00:24:47] McIntosh:
in my naive way, granted, my naive way, I I view the EU I realize these are separate come countries. I'm I'm not stupid. So please, if you're gonna boost, make it a big boost. But the EU to me, in terms of laws, is like states in The United States. The federal government No. Can't make a law that only works for Arkansas, but not in Alabama. That that doesn't it's the law that's made is across the country. Why would Norway and Germany use their shake? I
[00:25:29] Kenshin:
Right. There I I don't think there are laws that are across Europe. There are there are laws that are shared between European countries that they they establish the same laws, but it's different governments, different laws, different partners Okay. I'm in each country, and they have their own laws. Okay. So that's why that way. Some countries are much better than those. Confused.
[00:25:57] McIntosh:
The EU, the European Union, it has an assembly. Right? A legislative body. And it makes rules. It makes laws.
[00:26:09] Kenshin:
For yes. For the they have the commission. Right? And then the union. And it's laws how to interact and
[00:26:18] McIntosh:
to trade and all this. So this is not an EU law, this this privacy law that we're talking about. This is
[00:26:26] Kenshin:
No. No. That's a Switzerland. That's a Swiss law. Okay. Now it all makes sense. So Switzerland is changing their yeah. So Switzerland is changing their own Swiss privacy law from really, really private to open and the government can go and ask anyone for any information. And they need to comply, and the companies need to comply, which essentially means that Proton cannot offer their private services based in Switzerland anymore.
[00:27:00] McIntosh:
So they are forced basically to That makes perfect sense. Service outside of service. That makes perfect sense. Now I understand. That was the piece I didn't I guess I just didn't know. I thought this was an EU law, and it's not. It's it's from Switzerland. So
[00:27:17] Kenshin:
No. It yeah. What what what is you what you're thinking is the other discussion about the,
[00:27:27] McIntosh:
where is that one? No. It's okay. There was a separate issue going on that Chat control. Shut down, essentially. Correct?
[00:27:38] Kenshin:
Oh, it's not shut down yet. Great. So this is called the, quote, chat control It's a proposal that would mandate scanning all private digital communications, including encrypted messages and photos.
[00:27:56] McIntosh:
So this affects the whole EU. This is the one that the signal CEO is pushing back on. Right?
[00:28:04] Kenshin:
Well, I think he's pushing back on this also, but it's the in Switzerland, it's another one. Right. So everybody's trying to do that right now in Europe. And you have some members it's in Europe that oppose it. Mhmm. So who is opposing it right now is Austria, Czech, Estonia, Finland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Poland. But not Switzerland.
[00:28:30] McIntosh:
That's so weird.
[00:28:31] Kenshin:
Well, Switzerland is not even in no. Switzerland is not even in Europe. They're not in European Union.
[00:28:39] McIntosh:
Man, I am looking like such a dumb American right now. Are you serious?
[00:28:45] Kenshin:
Yes. Switzerland is not in Europe. I had no idea. Hold
[00:28:49] McIntosh:
on. Map of
[00:28:51] Kenshin:
EU. Oh, it is in Asians. It is in Europe, but it's not yeah. It's not in No. I know it's in Europe. Union.
[00:29:00] McIntosh:
I I'm yeah. I'm I'm not that dumb. Look at that right in the middle of it. I've never seen this. It is the only country, like, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy. They're all EU. They're Switzerland. They never joined the EU.
[00:29:18] Kenshin:
No. Right in the center. Neither did Norway.
[00:29:21] McIntosh:
I Okay. Not not right. Ladies and gentlemen, I am gonna leave this on here for posterity. I look like a goofball, but I bet a lot of you listeners in The United States did not know this. So don't you be jumping all over me. Alright?
[00:29:39] Kenshin:
But but look. For sure, I have probably said something wrong about the how the European laws work across Europe, but I'm not a 100% sure. Makes sense what you're saying, though. I now understand
[00:29:52] McIntosh:
this Swiss law is it's ironically forcing them well, they're going to Norway potentially, which is a non EU country. If they go to Germany and the EU passes this law, they're gonna be in trouble there anyways. It's the way I read it.
[00:30:11] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. If they pass this other law yes. So for so they are two separate, I think, items right now. But yeah.
[00:30:19] McIntosh:
But they will be in trouble if that passes in Europe. As a as a bystander to all this, what I think is hilarious, not real it's not hilarious. I don't wanna call it it's not funny. The UK struggled to depart the EU, which they did, February 2020. Right. And yet they are now passing a draconian law that, you you know, their clamp down on free speech right now is just it's it's off the charts. Oh my goodness. I'm gonna show up at your house and bang on your door as a policeman in The UK because you posted something on Twitter.
[00:30:59] Kenshin:
Yeah. What? What?
[00:31:01] McIntosh:
I I'm embarrassed that The United States got their idea of law from the from The UK right now. I mean, seriously. The the whole Magna Carta thing, the whole like, you guys might wanna go back and check on some things. I'm just saying. Sorry. I I it's not funny. It really isn't, but you know what I mean? It's funny that they left the EU, and then that's actually it's like they're leading the charge on all this. Anyways, I look. I learned something today. Seriously, I'm thank you. I how I got through my life for the number of years that I have, and I did not realize this. I I don't know. It's hey. We learn new things every day. Well, y'all just heard me learn something, and I hope you did too, at least some of you. But that's that's why Switzerland was so good. Now it all makes sense.
Yeah. No. I I used to be baffled by that. I was like, why Switzerland? Why are they so special? But they're part of the EU. But now it all makes sense.
[00:32:13] Kenshin:
And they were also special because they were the last country on the planet to get rid of the gold standard.
[00:32:20] McIntosh:
And now it's too late. Now they're gonna go and blow it all. Wow. I would have moved to Switzerland if I'd have realized. But Seriously? That was
[00:32:33] Kenshin:
that was my number one choice. We were talking about this last week. Yeah. Switzerland has been my number one choice for the last few years.
[00:32:42] McIntosh:
No. I I could that makes so much sense now why you would say something like that. They're not a member of the EU, and they have this history of privacy. And yet, now they don't or they won't.
[00:32:56] Kenshin:
You know? And that was the reason also why most of the the the Bitcoin European companies moved to Switzerland.
[00:33:02] McIntosh:
Yes. No. It makes it's just this puts together so many little pieces for me. It is unbelievable. Alright. We need to move on, though. Enough of Yeah. Macintosh's education. By the way, we're up another $500, but, never mind. Anyways,
[00:33:22] Kenshin:
Bitcoin. I need to check. Where is the yep. No? Okay. We can move on. I think we touched on the biggest points. Mhmm. Yeah. I told you that Proton based on that.
[00:33:40] McIntosh:
So they're basically looking at moving. Now it says Yeah. Germany and Norway. I'm look, guys. You're throwing a $100,000,000 at this or a €100,000,000. You could cut me out a little bit of that. I'm gonna tell you don't go to Germany. Just go ahead and go to Norway because when these laws get passed in the EU, that's gonna affect Germany too. Right? So Yeah. Look. Just send me a couple Bitcoin. We'll call it a day.
[00:34:11] Kenshin:
Thanks. And the funny thing is that they said if we yeah. We also chose, Norway. Sorry. They also chose Norway because of the temperatures because the service can run cooler then.
[00:34:24] McIntosh:
100%. Hydro power abounds there. Look. As a miner, it's a place I would look at. Now knowing that it's actually not in the EU, I'm all the more interested. It's like the one place in Europe I would consider mining.
[00:34:40] Kenshin:
Yeah. But, I mean, you say yeah. But Norway has other weird shit. They do. I mean, they They're right. They if you make a profit out of crypto, they publish you in a public list by name and ridicule you. I mean, is they have some other ridiculous stuff in Norway, which I I would never go for. That will eventually get sorted out. At least I hope it will. Alright.
[00:35:04] McIntosh:
Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Is that it?
[00:35:08] Kenshin:
Yeah. I think that's So
[00:35:11] McIntosh:
in summary, Macintosh says this, EU bad, Switzerland bad. Did that cover it? It? Just kidding. I'm just kidding. The whole world is bad. The whole world is bad. No. Unfortunately, we've been watching this unfold, and this doesn't really surprise maybe a little bit, but yeah. Yeah. This doesn't I mean, they're surrounded by all this. I I can't even imagine the pressure that's on them.
[00:35:43] Kenshin:
Yeah. I don't know. And just just to close this up, we started with a digital euro, just for the ones who don't know, this was supposed to come, around this time in Yes. Of the year, around 2025. So they're still saying as soon as possible. They don't say anymore October or November, but they're saying soon. And they're putting a lot of money in development in this.
[00:36:10] McIntosh:
Yes. But this is a government boondoggle. So I'm going to guess October '20 I'm debating '27 or '28. '27. 2027.
[00:36:27] Kenshin:
Yeah. In the end of the day, I would say it doesn't really matter. It will whatever happens, it will start something. It will cross and burn eventually because it will have bugs. It will be hacked. And it will eventually fold. Will have double spending.
[00:36:43] McIntosh:
Right. Yeah. They will eventually fold just as as everyone will to Bitcoin's dominance. It's just a matter of when that happens. That that's my opinion. It's not financial advice, blah blah blah. But there you go. Okay, sir. Do you wanna do the well, you've been talking a lot. I'll do the supporters, this week. Send it Mike sent us a boost of a thousand and 69 sats. If you're a longtime listener, I know that's shocking, but that's what he sent. Appreciate that. Send it Mike as always. And he had this to say, and I actually did wanna do this because I wanna talk about this for just a second. A good episode even though the host were tired, and I was. Kenshin, you were not, but, you know, it's all good. Was also In Argent it's late over there in Sweden.
In Argentina, I don't think the pressure to take the money or to take money from the IMF or The US is for the election. Malay ran and won on a platform of we can keep kicking the can and borrowing from the future. We have to make some sacrifice. I believe he meant we cannot keep kicking the can and borrowing from the future. We have to make some sacrifices. We've certainly seen that. Maybe he's borrowing money to start mining Bitcoin. Even with our recent run up, mining isn't very profitable, but it is valuable to nation states to be able to ensure blockchain access as well as accumulate Bitcoin.
I think hash rate progress recently can only be explained by nation states doing it. I there's a few things here I'm gonna we're gonna talk about. You may be a 100% correct about the hash rate progress because it has been crazy for the last year, really. And I I don't personally think it's Argentina, but I do believe Russia, China, maybe even some other countries are bringing hash rate online. Now, Now after the show, Kenshin, you and I, I sent you a message. I did a little research. And to be honest, I've kinda dropped the ball on Argentina, for several reasons. It's just it's just falling off my radar.
But I sent you something, and I wanna find that real quick. Did I send it by signal?
[00:39:23] Kenshin:
No. About Argentina?
[00:39:25] McIntosh:
Yes. About Argentina.
[00:39:28] Kenshin:
Not a link. Some message Maybe we should have changed.
[00:39:31] McIntosh:
Okay. Yeah. I did send a message. I didn't. So I'll read this, and this is the most I'm gonna be able to do about this. I came across a news article. Act I it may have been a video or both, that Malay's party. So whatever that is, his liberty his libertarian party that he created are it certainly heads. In Argentina did just recently lose some elections, like, in the Buenos Aires area, and it was actually pretty bad. So the Peronistas, the kind of the left wing, not kind of the left wing, the socialist, basically gained some ground in Argentina over the Liberty Party.
Okay? And I'm going to stand by, and we do not know, but I'm gonna stand by what I said that this money stuff, whether it's from the IMF or whether it's from The United States, is simply him trying to stay in power. Now I may be incorrect about that. We can disagree, Senator Mike. One of us will be right at some point down the road, and neither one of us will remember even having said it, and that's okay. I look. I have no faith anymore in politicians. I had hope for Malay, maybe even too much hope. But in the end of the day, I don't think the average pleb this is my contention. The average pleb cannot understand what kind of power these people have.
The fact that let's and I don't mean just The United States. Any major political figure, that could just be somebody in congress. You got your surrounded by lackeys who are sitting there saying, good idea, boss. Great job, boss. You're doing the best, boss. Hey, boss. Maybe we should do this, this, this, and this. Everybody's patting your back. Everybody wants your ear. Everybody wants to to to be your friend, and nobody says anything bad. And it it breeds narcissism. It breeds an environment where you just wanna create you just wanna grab more power. And in the end, Malay is just trying to stay elected, I believe. Again, I'm that's just my opinion.
And he's realizing this is a rough road. I knew he thought it was gonna be, but it's gonna take years for Argentina to truly turn around. And this is a this is the problem with cyclical pot like, four year cycles in politics. You can't do things long term. The incentives are not there. Now that's I don't know. That's my thought.
[00:42:31] Christine Lagarde:
Right. I
[00:42:33] McIntosh:
I personally align a little bit more with Mike on this. You guys just wanna I think I said You did say that. I I agree.
[00:42:41] Kenshin:
Yeah. Yeah. I told you on the messages. And I I also thought now, what's his name in El Salvador? Bukele. Bukele. He also was forced to take an IMF loan. Yes. He was.
[00:42:56] McIntosh:
And he's also gotten a law passed that he could be reelected indefinitely. Why do you think that is? Is it really because he believes he needs to be running things, or is it because he just wants to stay on top? I don't know. Time will tell, and I'm not gonna speculate on that situation. I don't live there. I don't live in Argentina. I'll flap my gums a lot longer about The United States. But if anybody in The United States who's a conservative or a libertarian or whatever who doesn't think that Trump is there for the power, baby, we just see the world different. That's all I gotta say about that. I mean, seriously.
First thing he did when he got in office was do a stupid Trump coin. I mean, come on. That's just ridiculous. Yeah. Such a power grab, and everything is about money and extracting wealth, really, as much as possible for Trump and Trump enterprises.
[00:44:07] Kenshin:
I don't know. Is it not always the case with politicians? It always sounds good before the elections.
[00:44:13] McIntosh:
I think this is the inevitable results of being in an office that you and I, frankly, we don't understand. We can only kind of imagine what it's really like to be my gosh. And you talk about the US president, which is such a powerful position. I'm gonna leave it at that. I mean, people are fawning all over him. I I can't I would not want to be in that position personally because I I don't think it would be healthy for me.
[00:44:50] Kenshin:
Yeah. No. It's a special
[00:44:53] McIntosh:
person. Well, it takes a narcissist. Need to be a narcissist. It does. Yeah. So, anyways, I I just wanted to spend a few minutes of that. Look, guys, I appreciate all this feedback, and I hope y'all take it in the right manner when I sit there and say, maybe that's not I I you may be right. Send it, Mike. I I do appreciate the dialogue. And to be honest, you're one of the listeners I would love to sit down with at a conference sometime and and, you know, just talk seriously. You and I think a lot alike, but we do think differently about some things, and I would love to explore those areas. You know?
Before we move on to our news and notes, let's talk about next week because next week is gonna be a little special. So I have convinced Kenshin. I'm not sure he's really on board with this yet, but I've convinced Kenshin he's not, to do his appathon. I want so this is the quarter. Right? We just started the fourth quarter. This is kind of our quarterly thing. We got people I'd like y'all to send in questions. We get the best questions from our listeners, seriously. Yeah. And I wanna encourage people to use Noster. And this is one way that we give back even though, frankly, it's it's really just costing us money because we're not making that much. So but that's okay.
So what are the guidelines, Kenshin? If we if we so I think we need to pick 10 questions. Does that sound good to you? So 10 questions. However many gets proposed, we're gonna have to keep it down to 10 or so. If you, post a question on Nasr and tag us, what's what are they what is the big reward that they are gonna get, Kenshin?
[00:46:51] Kenshin:
Well, they we will we will put a post on Nostr, and they should reply to that post with a question. I always forget that part. It's a good thing you're here.
[00:47:03] McIntosh:
I mean, I thought Switzerland was the EU. So, you know, what do I know?
[00:47:10] Kenshin:
Well, it is in Europe. Yes.
[00:47:12] McIntosh:
I'm aware of that. Hi. Ladies and gentlemen, I did not fail tenth grade geography. Okay? Seriously. I do know I could probably name most of the countries in Europe, to be honest. I'd it gets a little hazy over on the Eastern side, but yeah. Nice. If you gave me a map, I could give it a good go, and I'd get most of them. I'd pass the test. How about that?
[00:47:41] Kenshin:
Yes. Fair enough? Anyway, sorry. Yeah. So we'll post a note on those two to yeah. With the hashtag Zapathon, etcetera. You leave a question, and we will zap that question. So the ten first ones, we zap for
[00:48:05] McIntosh:
How much?
[00:48:06] Kenshin:
How much? We haven't talked about.
[00:48:10] McIntosh:
You throw out a number and I'll raise your hand yes or no.
[00:48:14] Kenshin:
Okay. To to 20 questions. 20 questions, 210 subs per question. Okay. And from those 20, we will choose 10. Okay. But we was up to twenty twenty one. 21. 21. Yeah. You can. Yes. Obviously.
[00:48:32] McIntosh:
21 questions, 2,210. I think the people who get their question picked should get extra. Seriously. Okay. I will have to go back and, like, rezap, I guess. I don't know how else to do it, but I think the people who actually get their questions on the air, I really want to encourage thought into this. Right. And it can be about anything. If you guys want to talk about macroeconomics, that's fine. I know y'all don't want to, but you could. Bitcoin, don't ask about our personal lives. That's not your business. But beyond that, yeah, whatever.
And we'll go ahead. I will say this. We'll at least we'll at least boost another 210 to the 10 that get through.
[00:49:28] Kenshin:
Okay? Yes. I agree. Alright.
[00:49:33] McIntosh:
Alright. Excellent. Hey. I wanna talk about September. We just closed up September. We record on October 1 here on Wednesday, and we had something happen last month that's only happened five times out of the last fifteen years. Alright. Now Kenshin, you we talked about this earlier this month, and we said, historically, September is a bad month for Bitcoin. Bitcoin. For whatever reason, it doesn't matter what the reason is. You can look at the chart. Only five times out of the last fifteen years has September been positive. Let's see.
One yep. Five times. And that includes what the month that we just closed because we were positive. We opened I've got the figures right here. 1,000 excuse me. 100,008. Numbers are hard today. A 108,000. We opened the month at a 108,228, and we closed at a 114,056. So we were actually up 5.4 for the month. Now I'm gonna read off a little bit data a little data here. So, again, five times out of the last fifteen years, when September does close positive, historically, it's been a very strong bullish signal for the fourth quarter. So in 2015, 2016, 2023, 2024, and now 2025, we produced average returns exceeding 53% with those fourth quarter gains ranging between 4566%.
So what that means, as far as I can tell, is that based on past history, this is not financial advice, etcetera, etcetera. 01/01/2026, we should be at least 45% higher than a 108 no. Not a 108. A $114,056. I do not know what that figure is offhand, but it's pretty high. Woah. Yes. Wait. That is that is
[00:51:59] Kenshin:
I'm trying to understand this. Mhmm. So 40 minimum, 45% from the start of the fourth quarter Correct. To the end of the fourth quarter. That's fourth quarter gains. Oh.
[00:52:15] McIntosh:
This is how we get to 250,000 by the end of the year. Now that would be a 100% up, which would be more than any of these. But it, you know, it's in the realm of possibility based on past history. I am not saying we're gonna be at 250. I am saying we're not gonna be at a 115 or a 100 and whatever our all time high is, a 125.
[00:52:39] Kenshin:
Well, if I think if that happens, we'll be above Microsoft's market cap. And you win the bet. 45%. Yeah. The 45%.
[00:52:49] McIntosh:
You just wanna win that bet. Yeah. That's okay. I'm just looking at Microsoft. That's okay. Yes. I could very easily see I I would just go ahead and say this, and I've been pretty confident. I've been pretty I don't I don't think I've deviated from this too much. I believe based on the past, the fourth quarter will mark the high. It may not. It may be next year. It may be who knows? But I believe based on the cycle history, essentially, we've got the high coming in the fourth quarter. I believe that it will be at least a 150, which we're certainly not at yet. I believe it could go higher than that. I think $2.50 that I mentioned earlier is a stretch because that's essentially a 100% gains from here, actually a little bit more.
And that's more than we've ever seen in the past fourth quarter gains after a green September. Does that make does that all make sense? So Yeah. We're looking at somewhere between a hundred and fifty and two fifty. At least that's the theory that I'm operating on. Ladies and gentlemen, it could drop to a 100,000. It could drop to 58,000 that those poor people have been saying we're going to for, I don't know, a year or more at this point. I have no idea. It's not financial advice, and that literally is why we say you should DCA. Don't worry about the price. It's fun to talk about this stuff. But at the end of the day, you DCA.
And if it falls, you put in more if you can. That's my financial advice If I've gotta have any, but I can't because somebody will sue me. So
[00:54:44] Kenshin:
alright. My suing suing McIntosh from this associate play flips podcast.
[00:54:49] McIntosh:
Yeah. It'd be worth about, I don't know. I think there's, like, a $100 in the kitty in the bank of whatever in the Bitcoin in the Satoshis. Yeah. Not a whole lot there, guys. Sorry. So but I don't need the hassle of being sued. It's a lot of work. Alright. And we got any other news, or is that it?
[00:55:15] Kenshin:
No. I I just want to remind people that, Bitcoin core version 30 is coming up. So that's a software update. Yeah. Mhmm.
[00:55:25] McIntosh:
Oh, sorry. No. You're good. We're so sorry. So we'll roll right into that. That's really the only one we've got. So
[00:55:31] Kenshin:
Yeah. So that is coming up, and that's the big controversial version where they take away the OP return limit. And it could open some floodgates unknown yet. So we don't know what could happen and who is waiting to do what. So I would say if anyone is running a node, it's a good idea to switch over to notes. It will not change anything apart from the statistics of it's like a vote in that sense. So the more notes notes are out there, the more it gives a signal that people are not happy with that. And, I think there is already, a patch for the next version of Bitcoin Core. They are preparing something actually to bring some control already.
[00:56:26] McIntosh:
Yeah. There's something. I'm I'm not clear on that. There's so there's, like, a pull request that would kinda add some of this back. I don't know. The whole thing's just a big giant stinking mess, and, I mean, people are just, as far as I can tell, lying and yelling and screaming, and I I don't know. I it's a mess. I'm all for diversity of clients in Bitcoin. That's what I'm for. How about that? I know that having one client run 95% of the nodes is not a good thing. Okay. Let's talk about the price of Bitcoin. When I started recording, it was $1.01 $6.09 $3.09, US dollars. And how many euros we got?
[00:57:14] Kenshin:
Euros, we're across the 100,000. So we're just over a €100,000. 100,100.
[00:57:22] McIntosh:
One year ago, we were looking at $60,837. So we are up 92.22% since then. We got a Bitcoin market cap of $2,300,000,000,000. Gold is up for the week as well. I saw that it hit 2,900, per ounce, and so it has a market cap of 26,900,000,000,000.0, which makes a market cap of Bitcoin versus gold. It's 8.6 percent, which is, I believe, down some from the week before. And that makes sense given even though Bitcoin has gone up, certainly, gold has been moving as well. You wanna do the fees? Mhmm.
[00:58:08] Kenshin:
Yes. The fees are still low at one set per vbyte, and the unprocessed transactions are 142,000 unprocessed transactions, which way up to 313 megabytes right now.
[00:58:24] McIntosh:
Alright. We're gonna go ahead and wrap this up. Satoshi's Plebs is a value for value podcast supporting podcasting two point o. We don't have ads, sponsorships. We just have content, guys, about Bitcoin, things like that. I avoid sponsors because even if I love a company, taking their money is going to influence my opinion. If something goes wrong with a company, I may not tell you about it. Instead, we simply ask, are you getting value from this show? Support it through time, talent, or treasure. Help with our future projects, stream sets, boost messages just like, Send It Mike did, even a 100 sets saying great show or you suck. Whatever. We read it. Check out the apps at at podcastapps.com and support Bitcoin, independent Bitcoin media. If you like the content, I would love it if you would tell your friends about the podcast.
That's the best way for us to grow. We are growing slow. It's painful. I'm hoping that with this, booster Zapathon that we've got next week, that always seems to help. So use this to spread the word about Satoshi's Plebs. This week's music, I'm gonna go ahead and do the freedom code revolution one last time from our listener. Send It Mike. Mike, I really appreciate it. It's a great song. So thanks for being here.
[00:59:43] Kenshin:
We hope this had been helpful and we would love to hear from you especially on Nostril this weekend. Find all our contact info also at satoshis.plebs.com. Stay humble. This is it. And have a great weekend.
[00:59:57] McIntosh:
We'll talk to you all soon. Bye bye.
[01:00:08] Unknown:
They print the power in the dead of night. Shadows rise, beneath the sky. I thought punks will lead the way. Freedom tank will light the day. Behind the screen, we forge the key. Locked the chains and set minds free. The printer's role will fade to dust. In code and truth we place our trust. No more kings, no paper lies. Open the thrones the Zeros, ones, our battle cry. Decentral
[01:02:31] McIntosh:
day.
Opening, hosts check-in, and block height
Life updates: Sweden cold snap and a 6th birthday
Kids, savings in Bitcoin, and OpenDime-style cards
Work fire drill: marathon Zoom
Main topic intro: "Europe wants your money"
ECB signals: Christine Lagarde clip on the Digital Euro
ECB perspective: sovereignty, stablecoins, and Piero Cipollone
Card rails dependence: 2/3 of EU card tx via Visa/Mastercard
Design claims vs reality: "decentralized" CBDC and privacy checks
Who gains control? ECB sovereignty vs citizens' freedom
Why push Digital Euro? Fees, USD stablecoins, and bond markets
Reading between the lines: marketing language vs control
What can plebs do? Politics, lobbies, and personal choices
Switzerland privacy shake-up: Proton’s potential move
EU vs nation laws: clearing up misconceptions
EU "chat control" proposal and member-state pushback
Switzerland’s unique status and privacy legacy
Implications for Bitcoin companies in Europe
When Digital Euro? Timelines, risks, and likely delays
Value 4 Value: Listener boost and Argentina/Milei debate
Market stats: Rare green September and Q4 outlook
Housekeeping: lawsuits joke, Core v30, and OP_RETURN debate
Market close: BTC price, gold, and mempool/fees
Wrap-up: No ads, Zapathon teaser, and outro music
