Beef and Bitcoin

This was recorded on Sunday July 27th, right before the break above $10,000. Topics include the altcoin pump/defi madness and the recent news that banks can now custody bitcoin and other digital assets. 

Join Brett and Happy Shillmore as they discuss the recent twitter hack that took control of many verified accounts and tweeted out a bitcoin giveaway scam. There are many different ways to think about how this may or may not impact bitcoin (the price was stable during the hack and up slightly after) in the public eye. Tell us what you think below!

Join Brett and Happy as they discuss the recent news surrounding a Coinbase IPO and how that fits within the macro landscape and who may want exposure to that, Tesla surging to new all time highs and whether or not that is a leading indicator, and the recent DeFi FOMO with yield farming 

Join Brett and Happy Shillmore (what do you think of the name change btw?) as they discuss the recent discovery of 93 tons of fake gold found in the gold markets. Fake gold is nothing new, but it made for a good discussion in how bitcoin and gold have their own pros and cons when being used as collateral. HODLers appear to be in 'full blown prep mode' according to data from Glassnode that shows 61% of btc hasn't moved in a year. The last time this amount of btc was 'hodled' was prior to the 2017 bull run. There may be an argument that hodlers are accumulating and hodling in preparation for the next move. The 'crypto industry' also benefitted from government loans from the recent stimulus bills. All of this and more.

Join CH as he discusses the recent news that PayPal and Venmo will enable their users to buy and sell bitcoin directly inside of the app.  There are pros and cons to "legacy FinTech" companies starting to interact with bitcoin. Over 300 million customers are now about to have access to bitcoin, but that also comes along with more custodian risk and more KYCed bitcoin.  Not all is lost though, as this will also help to increase the distribution of bitcoins to new users, so long as they can eventually take self-custody.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss JP Morgan recently opening its doors to offer banking services to the bitcoin industry like Gemini and Coinbase, Goldman recently planned a call on inflation, Gold, and Bitcoin, and CashApp & Grayscale inflows have bought a significant amount of bitcoin in the last two quarters. All of this and more.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss and celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day and how those 2 Papa Johns pizzas that were ordered for $40 10 years ago would for 10,000 bitcoins would now be worth over $90 million dollars. An old coinbase transaction from 2009 recently moved for the first time, sending rumors that Satoshi may have moved some of his coins. This *may* have caused bitcoins price to pull back on the news, but many articles came out shortly thereafter to explain how those coins were most likely NOT Satoshi's. The Satoshi FUD spurred the conversation on what the future of FUD may look like during the next bull market.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent topic surrounding explaining bitcoin to celebrities. JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, recently tweeted to her followers asking them to explain bitcoin to them. Many bitcoiners made an attempt, and Elon Musk even gave it a shot!  They discuss if celebrities are a good thing when it comes to the adoption of bitcoin, and if it even matters in the long term. Hash Rate futures contacts have also launched, which will have tremendous implications for miners as they can use this new tool to offload some risk (at a cost) to speculators in order to dampen their revenues. As the monetary printing press continues to run at full blast, what will happen with asset prices? Will there be a japanification of the world and it's central bank inflated assets? All of this and more. 

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the third bitcoin halving that took place at block 630,000 on May 11th, 2020 which has now brought the block subsidy down to 6.25 per block from 12.5. Legendary Macro investor Paul Tudor Jones recently disclosed his bitcoin position and has allocated close to 2% of his net worth to BTC ($100,000,000 estimated position size). They also discuss how The Fed's true enemy is consumer price inflation and the @BitcoinStimulus twitter handle. All of this and more.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss bitcoin's recent move to $9,000,, the ongoing currency crisis in Lebanon (and why capital controls are a great leading indicator!), and why deflation may come before adoption of a new reserve currency. All of this and more. 

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the topic of KYC inevitability and how it creates a friction point that not only slows adoption, but prevents an explosion of productivity, the recent update from China's central bank digital currency, and a few point around the recent article titled "Anatomy of a Fiat Currency Collapse" by  Alasdair Macleod

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the topic of institutional money (again) making its way to BTC and how the recent change in macro landscape makes it an interesting opportunity, Ray Dalio's thoughts on how Reserve Currencies can change, and oil's recent turn to a negative price! All of this and more!

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent LSAT proposal from Lightning Labs that utilizes the 402 Payment Required code that was built into HTTP, the recent class action lawsuit against top exchanges for selling utility tokens, and the outlook for global markets as sentiment begins to shift bullish (yikes!). All of this and more

Join Brett and CH as they discuss bitcoin's recent break to $7,000 (but now lower), Unchained Capital's update on the UTXO set which showed that long term hodlers didn't move their coins during the dip below $4,000, and how the recent surge of volatility has driven new demand from both newcoiners and exchange volumes. All of this and more.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent spike in unemployment claims due to massive job loss and shutdowns of businesses across the globe, the startup bubble finally looks like it is starting to burst as Lime lays off workers and shuts down in major metro areas, the commercial real estate bubble is bursting as businesses can't make rent, AirBnb arbitrage is finally coming to an end, and binance acquires CoinMarketCap for an unbelievable sum of money! All of this and more.

*NOTE* This episode contains an audio issue that couldn't be removed during the editing process. Thanks for listening and dealing with the issue! Join Brett and CH as they discuss the increase in demand for dollars as assets deflate, what inflation looks like after massive stimulus, the digital dollar proposed in the bailout bill (was ultimately removed) and the recent attacks on privacy.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the bailouts the airline industry is looking for after air travel has been significantly decreased, ATMs and banks limiting the amount of cash you can take out, and the bitcoin dump has caused its first casualty with crypto hedge fund adaptive capital closing down and returning funds to investors. All of this and more.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss Bitcoin's recent 50% drop under $4,000 and the cascade of liquidations that happened across exchanges, the upcoming QE tsunami that is upon us as rates are expected to drop, and how quickly sentiment can change when the public reaches a "viral" tipping point. All of this and more.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent oil wars heating up in this geopolitical game of chess and what it means for reserve currencies, Lebanon defaulting on sovereign debt, and a new bitcoin mining facility that opened up in New York. All of this and more.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss bcashers realization of the importance of running a full node, Layer1 launches its mining operations in west Texas, and Coinbase is awarded the opportunity to have bitcoin debit cards. All of this and more.

Join Brett and CH as we discuss the recently proposed tax cuts that will allow investors to buy securities (and GBTC?), the potential for a USD backed Libra stablecoin, and how the coronavirus can spread with paper money. All of this and more. 

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent apps from Jack Mallers and Escher that allow users to pay lightning invoices with USD. Bitcoin on the lightning network is maturing as a payment rail technology where the user no longer has to actually touch bitcoin in order to use it! This allows them to earn bitcoin back in certain use-cases, like buying gift cards on Fold over the lightning network, sometimes earning 5% back in Bitcoin. The looming pension crisis is also continuing to materialize and has been a topic of interest for Raoul Pal and Real Vision. Their latest series on the pension crisis paints an interesting picture of things to come. Last but not least, the bitcoin network processed its 500 millionth transaction. Not bad for being 11 years old! All of this and more

Join Brett and CH as they discuss Square crypto's recent announcement of the Lightning Development Kit, Bitcoin Cash proposal that puts a 12.5% tax on miners to fund development, and another 51% attack on bitcoin gold. All of this and more.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent Virtual Currency Fairness Act which allows for cryptocurrencies to be used for daily spending (under a certain limit) while not triggering capital gains events, Grayscales investment inflows in the 2019 year, and how bitcoin's digital nature impacts asset forfeiture. All this and more.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss that over 12.5 million BTC has not moved in over one year, HEX finally completes their exit scam, and Bernanke's recent comments on the tools that the Fed has to fight the next recession.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss Bitcoin and Gaming and where the lightning network fits, Richard Heart's Hex Scam, and Poland Repatriating gold. All of this and more in episode 64.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss Bitcoin Tipping service Bottle Pay that has unfortunately closed its doors due to increased regulation and how it stifles both bitcoin innovation and the economy. Vitalik Buterin was also recently interviewed and divulged that both he and the Ethereum Foundation "sold the top" in the Dec 2017/Jan 2018 timeframe. All of this and more!

Bottle Pay

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent news surrounding Central Bank Cryptocurrencies and their continued effort towards launching digital currencies. The ECB head mentioned demand for stablecoins and China is preparing to launch their digital currency in two pilot cities. All this and more!

ECB Stablecoin

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the second annual proof of keys day, celebrated on January 3rd, 2020. Bitcoiners around the world are celebrating by withdrawing their bitcoin from exchanges for this annual "bank-run style" holiday. The culprit of the Repo Market crisis appears to be highly levered Hedge Funds in need of liquidity to maintain their positions. Lastly, they cover a recent article about the Student Loan Bubble and how similar it is to the subprime mortgage failure during the global financial crisis. All this and more!

Proof of Keys

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent Ethereum hard fork, State Street's layoff of its distributed ledger technology team, and the BAKKT CEO joining the US Senate in 2020. All of this and more!

Ethereum Hard Fork

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent Bloomberg article titled "The Way Out For a World Economy Hooked On Debt? More Debt. Recent changes in German law can now allow for German banks to provide cryptocurrency exposure to their customers. German banks are also hitting their customers with negative interest rates and charging them to store their money. France has also announced that it will be testing a digital currency in 2020. 

The Way Out For a World Economy Hooked On Debt? More Debt.

Join Brett and CH as they discuss the recent HEX scam from "Crypto Influencer" (the worse term ever btw) Richard Heart, Bitfinex adding support for the lightning network (+ a collab with Bitrefil!), and exchange drama between Digitbyte and Poloniex. All of this and more in this episode.