Bitcoin Bottom Line

In this week’s episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz delve into the recent bank closures and their impact on the crypto space. The issues raised from these closures are not unique, and people are looking for someone to blame. Olszewicz states, “I believe the FED plays a big role in this because they had to catch up after slowly raising the rate. Ultimately it's the bank's problem. It is their job to manage that risk appropriately.” People have been dependent that the FED will continue on a steady track of raising rate, but this has not been the case. 

Throughout the highs and lows of Bitcoin, people have continued to show their faith and commitment to the fight for economic freedom. Public opinion of Bitcoin is at a low, with recent scandals causing hate and distrust towards crypto. Wilson describes those who have persevered through the valleys as “those who have proven their worth with strong hands is a bear market.” Now it is time for Bitcoiners to have discipline and avoid shorting during the highs. As Bitcoiners immerse themselves in the space, they grow more skeptical of traditional banks, questioning the rate of fees and if the deal is truly beneficial long term. Wilson states, “Everything is good for Bitcoin as long as it continues to function uninterrupted.” 

Wilson and Olszewicz go on to discuss credit unions, the importance of financial education from a young age, and regulations. Many large corporations have begun moving offshore to countries with fewer regulations, but Wilson warns that they must plan for long-term alterations. Historically, large corporations have used this strategy successfully for years, but crypto companies have to be selective with the location to ensure they will not be suddenly changing their regulations. The likelihood of the country benefiting from growth-based crypto companies should be taken into consideration.

Listen to the full episode for more!

DISCLOSURE: The opinions presented herein are solely of the individual and not necessarily representative of Valkyrie Investments Inc. and their affiliates. There is no guarantee that any specific outcome will be achieved. Investments may be speculative, illiquid and there is a risk of total loss of your investment. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

In this week’s episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz are joined by special guest Mike Hobart. He is an author of Bitcoin Magazine, a seed oil disrespecter, and a former United States military member. Wilson, Olszewicz, and Hobart open the episode by talking about what is currently happening in the investing space. Olszewicz states that there is currently no good news, and we are seeing how rate hikes are not working effectively. 

Wilson has observed people starting to question inflation and interest rates while seeing that there is a person responsible for them. He believes the solution is the Bitcoin mantra “no rulers, just rules.” Hobart remarks that energy companies have the potential to have a significant impact on the acceptance of Bitcoin as well. “I believe that we will get a lot closer after energy companies like Exon, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips become vocal about how they are using Bitcoin mining to help with their production numbers and revenue. I have noticed that everyone wants to treat Bitcoin like a stock and equity or as a heavy rock like gold. It is both of these things and neither at the same time. The more information that is put out about Bitcoin, the more understanding people will have, and the adoption rate will begin to grow even more exponentially.”

Hobart closes the episode by sharing the threat medical debt has to our economy. “With the rest of the macroeconomic situation, the whole market is looking at housing because of 2008, oil, energy, and gas because of Ukraine, as well as supply and shipping rates due to covid. I think the markets are going to have the black swan come from the health sector. In regard to diabetes, ten percent of the population has diabetes, and ninety-seven million people are prediabetic. About forty percent of the population is or will be taking insulin. This does not account for all of the other metabolic diseases prevalent in society. There are trillions of dollars worth of medical debt in the United States, and nobody is talking about how this debt is going to affect the economy.”

Listen to the full episode for more!

In this week’s episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz discuss the current worldwide events. Wilson discusses how Bitcoin has recently been a safety net. Olszewicz states that “currencies appear to be collapsing on the government's management. Japan and England have been a complete mess.” The pound is currently at an all-time low, along with many other currencies. Bond markets are doing historically worse than they ever have. Olszewicz says “it does not make sense to me why the pound is up if England has been printing money and buying their own bonds.”

Wilson explains that all of the national banks lean into each other for stabilization. As trends change, we typically see a five or ten-percent wick over a long period of time. Now we are seeing twenty to thirty-percent riffs, where the dollar is up thirty percent against these other currencies in a very short period of time. People are generally unaware of how interlinked all of the central banks are.

Wilson goes on to talk about risk as an investor. “When you are an investor, you want to put your money in a diversified portfolio of risk so you are not all risk, all the time. Bitcoin does not have a yield or natural interest rate so you have to manage your cash flow in order to operate. The problem is that during inflation, your cash flow is being burned much faster than you want.” Wilson believes that inflation is here to stay for quite a while.

Wilson and Olszewicz discuss using bitcoin as a transaction method. “If you want to do a transaction, you can buy bitcoin, send it to someone and they can sell it for cash right away. There is very little volatility between transaction periods. You can decide to exchange it all for cash or you could take a fraction in bitcoin and the rest in cash.” Olszewicz says that bitcoin is “an off-ramp for all of the central banking mismanagement.”

Listen to the full episode for more!

In this week’s episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz are joined by Alyse Killeen, founder and managing partner of Stillmark.

#Bitcoin #Crypto #c.j.wilson #JoshOlszewicz #Valkyrie #BBL #Bitcoinbottomline #Killeen #Alysekilleen #Stillmark

Wilson begins by asking, “Having some focus or a lot of focus on Bitcoin makes your experience as a venture capitalist totally fascinating to me.. where does it all start?”

Killeen responds, “I started in venture capital about a decade ago and always focused primarily on infrastructure technologies. As I was doing that, I discovered Bitcoin and specifically recognized an opportunity for a financial technology that well served poor people and the world's very large unbanked and underbanked population. To me, that was so compelling…”

Turning more towards Stillmark, Olszewicz says “You’ve really focused, at least based on yourporto list, recently, on lightning. Was that a decision early on as it was developing, and beyond lightning now, what do you see in the future?

In response, Killeen delves into structure, “We're investing in two buckets, and the first bucket is the financialization of BTC the asset… Bucket number two is companies that are doing these “moonshot projects” built on lightning… where the market has been, and thus where our focus has been is in infrastructure related companies- so sometimes this can feel a little less personal, or a little less flashy or relatable. However, the pieces of infrastructure that are really going to affect the day to day experiences of people using lightning are being built now.”

She goes on to say, “Instead of being a bitcoin fund, we are actually a generalist fund, within the Bitcoin space, so we are doing top to bottom- all of it that is happening in Bitcoin right now…”

Wilson asks, “How would you say that confidence in the founders changes from traditional VC to bitcoin ventures…”

Killeen responds, “That was the opportunity for Stillmark- it was to not be adherent to the old school VC mindset, but to apply the tools and the framework of traditional ventures which work really incredibly well to bolster founders and to apply that to a new paradigm.”

Continuing on the VC line, Killeen explains, “We think about venture capital as just being resources to help founders accelerate where they are going. So we are normally backing folks that are going to get there anyway, and then hopefully with us, through capital, and sometimes with network introductions and support from prior lessons learned from working with hundreds of companies, founders can build quicker. Now, from a Bitcoin perspective, there is one other nuance… If we do good work, I hope that that means that adoption is catalyzed, and also the utility set that is offered in bitcoin expands. So my hope is if we do good work, the fundamental value of bitcoin can be increased…”

Listen to the full episode for more!

37 The Life of a Bitcoin Core Developer w/ Gloria Zhao

In this week’s episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz are joined by Gloria Zhao, a Bitcoin core dev to break down the behind the scenes action of a developer.

Wilson begins by asking “what got you into Bitcoin in the first place?” To which Zhao responds, “... There are a lot of ideologies in there from the beginning that I found very appealing, and on top of that there are a lot of very interesting engineering technical challenges to work on, and as a computer science student obviously I was drawn to that...”

She continues, “I grew up in Silicon Valley so I think that gave me perspective on how endless it is to chase this idea of ‘innovation’ and profit, and that always struck pretty empty to me so Bitcoin was very different and I had an immediate draw to it.” Olszewicz then asks, “what is your day to day like? Zoom calls and meetings or do you work independently as a decentralized developer?”

Zhao answers “...I work on Bitcoin core, which is one implementation of a Bitcoin client,... Day to day I’d say save a few community, cultural, changes it's kind of just like working on any software project, except we don’t have a boss, we just kind of review each others PR’s cause we care about them and they are important to Bitcoin, we fix bugs because if they stay in the client then the network might have some troubles, not because our boss told us to..”

To follow this up Wilson asks, “what's the percentage of time you spend, let’s say reviewing other people's work, having conversations with other people about what you guys are working on vs. just going into the rabbit hole yourself and doing more of a deep dive?” She responds that because of the nature of her work, she keeps a detailed breakdown of her time – “about 30% of my time on my main project... I try to do about 50% of my time on just peer review, and or opening small PR to fix bugs... about 10% of my time on things like advocacy and education,... and 10% just pure learning.”

She goes on to say, “I very much value time like this where you are able to send a message ... I can tell people, hey there's people working on Bitcoin, hey it's gonna break if nobody works on it, so it's really important to pay the people who do, and get more people to want to be Bitcoin core developers, because that is very important for Bitcoin's health developmentally.” Discussing personal securities, Zhao details, “We live our lives online and there is a lot at stake and a lot to lose... I think everyone should learn how to code a little bit, or equip themselves with tools to protect themselves on the internet.”

Continuing on the discussion of security in regards to Bitcoin, Zhao explains, “We care about operating in this system because there are legitimately people who need money in these systems, and other alt coins where they are not operating under that threat model, and maybe they are doing something or solving an interesting technical challenge that is useful in other aspects, but they don’t have what I think is Bitcoin’s core value proposition which is its security model.”

Zhao finishes the episode with “it is going to be built brick by brick, where everything is stable underneath, so we need more people.”

Listen to the whole episode for more!

#Bitcoin #crypto #JoshOlszewicz #Valkyrie #BBL #Bitcoinbottomline

Is Bitcoin the Key to save yourself from Inflation w/ Josh Olszewicz

In this week’s episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz are discussing the latest in the Crypto space and the Bipartisan Responsible Payments Innovation bill.

Wilson begins by discussing the New York state bill that focuses on Bitcoin mining, “Its kinda weird because they singled out bitcoin mining as a target to say hey we need to limit bitcoin mining, or eliminate bitcoin mining, unless it is from totally renewable sources, which is kind of a weird catch all because I don't think there is any industry in america that has more renewable sources being applied to it than bitcoin.”

Wilson then goes onto discussing inflation effects, “as inflation starts to hit more things, we’re seeing the things we need the most... those industries are all the most impacted, so natural resources need to be managed a certain way and the best way to do that is to incentivize people to be innovative with the natural resources that are local.”

When discussing the Bill (RPI) Wilson says “the biggest problem that the government has is they have people interchanging words, crypto and bitcoin, blockchain and crypto, all these other things, so by clarifying the definitions, step #1, we set the tone.”

Furthering the clarification conversation, Olszewicz explains, “It (Bitcoin) is clearly closer to a commodity than a security... so it is great to see that in writing.”

Wilson adds on to say, “If you have hard measurements, meaning like factual, numerical measurements, you know what those thresholds are and you know if you can exceed those or how close you can get to them... in the same sense it's possible that by setting a line you may have more people that try to get close to it but at least at the same time you are setting a boundary.”

Applying this idea to stable coin, Wilson explains, “With a stable definition, you might say ok this is not allowed, this is frowned upon, this is not encouraged, so there are like gradients.”

They continue on to the effect on mining, with Wilson explaining, “If you HODL your Bitcoin mining revenues they are not taxed... so if you are managing your treasury properly, you are going to HODL a majority of your bitcoin... which i think is going to increase mining focus and allow bigger miners to be more profitable and as they are publicly traded and stuff like that to normalize that thing...”

Olszewicz responds, “To see a de minimis rule I think would increase transaction activity for Bitcoin would be great... so just having anything on the books is great, clarity on the miners, clarity on the transactional activity, clarity on stable coins, in general this bill is good.”

He goes on to say, “it is not perfect, but it is something and we have to start somewhere.”

Listen to the whole episode for more!!

Bitcoin Policy Institute w/ Matthew Pines

In this week’s episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by guest Matthew Pines, a managing consultant at Krebs Stamos and National Security fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

Wilson begins by asking Matthew, “What is the discovery path to Bitcoin?”

To that, Pines describes the increase in “tangible action taking place across various government agencies.”

McClurg asks from the perspective of Bitcoin; “which countries do we see as a potential threat to bitcoin being a global digital currency? Which countries are really embracing it more,... where does the U.S. fall on the spectrum of support?”

Pines responds that “The United States is a remarkably pro-bitcoin place, and while the policy action and social media hostility tends to get a lot of attention… if you kind of look at where the conversation was 2 or 3 years ago and compare it with today, the trend has been uniformly positive”.

Wilson then asks about Europe, and “if there is more room to improve Bitcoin policy there,” to that Matthew explains “one thing that makes it unique is it is an economic union but not a political union… the euro is a new thing, it has only been around for like 30 years, not that much longer than bitcoin has been around, so they have a lot of vested political interest in the success of the Euro.” He adds, “They have a much more acute sense of currency as a political unifying entity, and anything that could come in and chip away at that is going to be inherently regarded suspiciously.”

Wilson asks about Matthew’s work with the Bitcoin Policy Institute, which is as he describes, “got together to put out more rigorous, thoughtful, fact based research analysis on bitcoin specific related policy issues to help inform the conversation and also to provide resources… to help inform policy decisions” McClurg furthers this thread by asking about the narrative that has been attributed to bitcoin’s energy consumption, and “what they (BPI) are doing to combat that narrative” Pines explains “you can rebut it with arguments but you ultimately need data, to look at what is happening on the ground… and investigate the claim empirically…” he goes on to say, “Bitcoin mining companies investing millions of dollars in operations in states around the country with job creation and tangible impacts across the grid, that is a more enduring story that is by definition not refutable.”

Listen to the full episode for more!

BBL Ep 33 Exec Summary:

In this week’s episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, hosts C.J Wilson and Josh Oszelwicz are joined by guest Yunkun Guo, a corporate and financial regulations attorney at Ice Miller, to discuss crypto regulations and the intersections of law and cryptocurrency.

Guo’s interests lie in bridging the gap between technology and law, she explains her tasks as “working with companies to help navigate new emerging technologies.” She highlights the complex and evolutionary nature of the relationship between cryptocurrency and regulation, “One thing that is exciting about crypto is that depending on what you do with it you fall under a different jurisdiction, a different law or regulation.” As they dive deeper into this relationship, Wilson explains; “Crypto is 24/7, Bitcoin trades 24/7, a lot of people think the law is sort of like 9-5” he goes on to ask, “Is it going too fast for laws to catch up? Or are there certain instances where the laws have been ready, or really old laws are still applying even though it’s a brand new marketplace?” To this, Guo explains that in many cases older laws are being applied, but she pushes for evolution, “educating legislators and policy makers to make sure that the laws do catch up and hopefully foster innovation so that it doesn’t impede progress.” Wilson then discusses the ways in which regulations can be variable from state to state. Guo explains that it is difficult to navigate because, “No company, especially if you are a technology company, operates purely in one state… you have federal regulations, as well as state by state regulations you have to follow and case law on top of that.” When discussing regulations in the United States as a whole, Wilson refers to it as a double edged sword, balancing safety and assurance, with comparably higher regulations. Guo explains that an increase in regulation has also been met with an adoption of crypto and Bitcoin on a wider scale. In the end, Wilson asks Guo “What would better laws and rules look like?” to which she outlines a two step process to reach clarity and understanding, starting with “What are we trying to achieve?” Followed by “What are the steps to get there?

Listen to the full episode for more!

#bitcoin #ethereum #regulation #Crypto #Yunkunguo

DISCLOSURE: The opinions presented herein are solely of the individual and not necessarily representative of Valkyrie Investments Inc. and their affiliates. There is no guarantee that any specific outcome will be achieved. Investments may be speculative, illiquid and there is a risk of total loss of your investment. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This week on The Bitcoin Bottom Line, Co-host C.J. Wilson met with Josh Olszewicz, Head of Research at Valkyrie, to discuss macro-finance and its link to Bitcoin.

The conversation was kicked off by Olszewicz sharing the kinds of markets in which he was involved before his introduction to Bitcoin. Olszewicz discusses his interest in the technology and decentralization of the Bitcoin network.

Wilson goes on to share an applicable story from his childhood about how he saved up his money for a fancy bike. This experience helped him cement the idea of savings within his young mind. Wilson shares about his past life as a pro baseball player, and the duo talks about why many professional athletes are Pro-Bitcoin. For many, it largely involves a forward-looking mindset of saving for the future.

After spending some time on this topic, Wilson discusses his past investments and how at the time, he thought Bitcoin was a scam. After hearing this, Olszewicz asks what changed Wilson's mind, and he replied “the bull market in which Bitcoin took off was where my mind changed”. Wilson, after explaining his intro to the coin, explains his early investment strategies for investing in Bitcoin.

He would give himself milestones to keep himself in check when investing, and if he reached those milestones he would invest more money, create new milestones, and so on.

Soon after they talked about trading Bitcoin, the conversation turned toward the negatives of trading and how it can be addicting, even dangerous for some. Wilson shares a personal story and states “ It becomes a little dangerous because it sweeps aside the security concerns and the factual information about scarcity”.

The hosts close out the episode with more discussion on Bitcoin trading, mining, finance, and the growth of the Bitcoin community as a whole.

Watch the full episode for more!

Jameson Lopp, one of the foremost experts in bitcoin security, joins Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson on this week’s Bitcoin Bottom Line episode from an undisclosed location. Lopp is the co-founder and CTO of bitcoin security provider Casa.

They kick off the episode discussing Lopp’s anonymity, how he has been avoiding public appearances, and the importance of privacy for the role he plays in his field.

The group talks about Casa, and how their security is so high that even if a wrench attack did happen, there’s no way that could lead to any loss of funds or compromise for their clients. On the Casa website, they offer a “well security protocol”, consisting of up to 40 pages of in-depth explanations covering how they architected their product using multi-sig protocols, multiple manufacturers, hardware devices for keys, and figuring out how to distribute them geographically. “We don’t want this to be a security through obscurity. An attacker should be able to completely understand our architecture and still not be able to do anything about it,” Lopp explains. McClurg brings up diversification and how it is one of the basic security strategies. He explains how Valkyrie receives questions about why we are using external services and hardware wallets, and his answer is always “diversification”.

Lopp explains that in his opinion, “The only reason someone would use a custodian is if they are in a regulatory position where they are legally required to use a qualified custodian.” He goes on to explain how diversification can be a threat, and closes out offering his best pieces of security advice.

Don’t miss the full episode for more! #Bitcoin #BBL #Bitcoinbottomline #Valkyrie #Podcast

Mike Hobart returns for Episode 30 with C.J. Wilson, co-host of Bitcoin Bottom Line, for a live broadcast from the Bitcoin 22 conference.

The two begin by discussing the conference and meeting Bitcoin celebrities, and the approaching one year anniversary of El Salvadorian adoption. “El Salvador making the move was like the one person willing to go against the flow. Since that country doesn’t have a history of innovation in that way, people didn’t follow them right away”,

Wilson states. Things are changing. The two go on to discuss the role that Bitcoin is playing in the war, and how the currency is helping the Ukrainian government. Wilson continues the conversation, mentioning that “If the government is running out of FUD weapons, and Bitcoin is growing at the same time, you’re going to have more voices that can attack those FUD vectors faster.”

Hobart is releasing an article through Bitcoin Magazine in which he interviewed one of Bitcoin twitters’ favorite female personalities, and she talks about how because she came to bitcoin, it made her value health in a new way. “With health, it’s all proof of work,” he continues, “If we don’t have new kids to grow the economy, in terms of not only consumption but new thoughts and ideas, we don’t solve the problems.”

Listen to the full episode for more!

Professional Wrestler is Bullish On Bitcoin w/ Summer Rae

This time, co-hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by horse racer, nascar driver, wrestler, and bitcoiner Summer Rae. She also holds an executive position at Hedge, a wire transfer program to set up your accounts so you can get paid in bitcoin. Rae is one of the top women in the WWE at the moment. She took a 5 year break due to an injury, and just returned at the Royal Rumble, taking a percentage of her winnings in crypto through Hedge.

On an environmental note, they go on to discuss the hot topic of bitcoin mining, its efficiency, and how it works in terms of the Texas power grid specifically. In terms of our national energy usage, Rae says, “Bitcoin and bitcoin mining has helped increase awareness of renewable energy usage and how we can do a lot more.” The trio goes on to discuss dollar cost averaging, wrestling, athletes accepting paychecks in Bitcoin, and more.

Listen to the full episode for more!

In this week’s Bitcoin Bottom Line episode, Co-hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by guest Nick Hansen, CEO of Luxor, and Valkyrie’s Head of Research Josh Olszewicz.

Luxor is one of the top 10 bitcoin mining pools in the world. They have a Hash Rate Index, and through that they are aiming to provide great data about the mining ecosystem. In addition, they have an ASIC Index, and are just about to launch Energy Markets which tracks the value of energy over time, which they view as very integral to bitcoin mining. In addition to a suite of other products.

Wilson says, “Hash rate is worldwide, machines are getting better every couple of years, and now there are new innovations because people like Luxor are getting involved with the firmware side” He goes on to ask, “How do you see growth in bitcoin mining in the next couple of years?

Hansen explains that he doesn’t see the consistent “all time highs” stopping, but the only thing that could stop that trend is international regulation and how the new hash rates in texas manages during the summer.

The conversation naturally leads to one on energy, and Hansen explains how “Bitcoin mining is just an energy problem at the end of the day.” The group discusses immersion cooling on massive scales, some over 100 megawatts. For reference, Hansen explains that a single megawatt is probably one’s entire neighborhood.

Hansen goes on to explain, “Whether we like it as bitcoiners or not, ESG is here to stay. If you can lean into that in effective ways, you're going to make it way easier for yourself going forward to raise capital and tell the right story to the market.

People who are leaning into ESG are going to be really effective about continuing to be on the forefront of this industry.”

The group discusses sustainable energy, and Hansen defines sustainable as “lasting one thousand generations through solar, wind, and hydro”. He continues, “This brings us to a new energy future where energy is effectively free. The best part about bitcoin is that it incentivizes that and provides you the economic value to learn how to do those things.”

Wilson explains how we as consumers struggle with sustainability since we love packaging. “The difference between bitcoin and many other items is that Bitcoin requires no packaging at all. Effectively, we’ve taken old shipping containers, a torch, and some chords and we’ve turned them into these multi-million dollar industries.”

They go on to discuss firmware, hash rate hedging, out-of-the-box carbon capture techniques, and more.

Closing out the episode, the group agrees that we have to do everything we can to protect bitcoin mining.

Listen to the full episode for more!

On this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by Josh Olszewicz from Valkyrie and Desiree Dickerson who has experience in the Bitcoin space in a nontraditional way. She is coming from Lightning Labs and is now CEO and Co-Founder of THNDR Games. Dickerson opens by sharing about THNDR Game’s strategy for gaining new users. She states that many users have no background in crypto but have found some of their applications or have been referred by a current user. “Once they earn Bitcoin through one of the applications, they have an incentive to continue using the game and become a Bitcoiner.”

#Bitcoin #Gaming #BBL

Wilson states that he frequently gamed as a child and as he got older, he was more focused on beating other players instead of the game itself. He asks Dickerson if they are focused on single versus multiplayer games and if there are different levels of interest between age groups. Dickerson says that all of their games are single-player, but will have multiplayer abilities with coming updates. They get very positive feedback from esports and host an event almost every weekend. Dickerson believes “having a highly divisible asset allows for more equitable play in esports events... At the end of the day, pretty much everyone is winning .”

As for the user’s demographics, traditionally the largest audience is always white teenage boys, but mobile gaming is starting to change this. One of the fastest-growing demographics is women between the ages of thirty-five and fifty. One of these reasons is that “there is no longer a large barrier of entry to game. You do not have to buy a multi-hundred dollar console and pay for individual games, all you need is a smartphone which opens these games to a much larger demographic.” Sixty percent of the market is mobile games and with the diversity of the applications, they are going towards mass adoption.

McClurg asks if THNDR Games will be at the Miami Bitcoin Conference 2022. Dickerson says that although they are still a smaller company we will be demoing all of our games at the conference. You can find all of their games and information on esports betting on the Bitcoin 2022 app under the games tab. There will also be a running ledger at the events of all the bets that are being placed on tournament participants. The group wraps up the episode by talking about a competition between McClurg and Wilson on THNDR Game’s traditional snake game before the conference.

Listen to the full episode!

On this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by Josh Olszewics from Valkyrie. They open by discussing the new crypto executive order. Bitcoiners have been hearing about the possibility of a crypto related executive order over the past few months and many have been pulling coins off exchanges, coing-joining, and selling in preparation. After the release of the order, there was nothing that would majorly impact users and the price skyrocketed.

Wilson asks for McClurg’s perspective on if this is a positive or negative sign for the market. McClurg explains that anytime there is a sideways market and the macro perspective is not great but they have not yet gone down, the news cycle has complete control over the price. Historically, many people traded based on the news and it continues today.

The trio goes on to discuss Senator Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the United States Treasury. The letter stated how crypto could be used as a weapon against sanctions, especially in Russia. McClurg brings up how gas prices are not refutable; they are higher on the West Coast due to less efficient transportation. Only roughly three percent of all U.S. oil comes from Russia and the rest is from the Middle East, therefore it should not have a forty to fifty percent effect that has been seen over the last year. The reason for this increase is due to inflation as well as self-interest and lack of competition. “There is an opportunity to charge more, therefore they will.” McClurg states. Wilson adds in, “it goes back to Adam Smith’s economic principles, if you eliminate competition then self interest goes up. Similarly, if you eliminate supply, then demand will increase because self-interest is tied to demand and creates consumer competition.”

They circle back to discussing the executive order. Olszewics states that the order was tamer than anticipated and that it opens a door to start seriously talking about crypto. Wilson states that the fear was far greater than the reality. McClurg brings up the specifics from the executive order and says, “number one is to protect U.S. consumers and businesses, through which they are trying to reduce systematic risk... bitcoin will eventually look like real estate. It is property, not security and many other trade associations will make sure there is no fraud.” One of the other topics that he found interesting was, “promote U.S. leadership in technology and economic competitiveness, which is what individual states are attempting.” The group wraps up the episode by talking about politicians finally increasing their knowledge on cryptocurrency and the excitement to see one another in Bitcoin Miami.

On this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by congressional candidate Taylor Burks.

#Bitcoin #Crypto #TaylorBurks 

Burks grew up on a fifth generation cattle farm in Missouri. After graduating as a first generation college student, he joined the United States Navy over 15 years ago where he is now a Lieutenant Commander in the Reserves.

Burks started hearing about Bitcoin around 5 years ago and has since been a proponent for the innovation of blockchain technology and Bitcoin in particular.

Host Steven McClurg relates his similar experience, explaining how his grandparents never used banks, always kept cash, and therefore he also grew up with a mistrust of banks.

“We don’t need some big institution to take care of our finances for us. We want that independence, because we don’t trust them to have our best interest at heart.” He continues, “Bitcoin is the ability to be independent from these macro factors that don’t have the little guy at heart.”

He goes on to describe how it allows immigrants to keep more of their hard earned wealth for themselves through remittances, and host C.J. Wilson explains how people are using Bitcoin as a savings technology, and not as a get-rich-quick scheme.

“The way people hold Bitcoin today reinforces the idea that it’s about independence. You can make a lot of money, but if you truly believe in bitcoin, you’re holding it.” Burks says.

McClurg explains, “There’s either hard earned money, or it’s found money. When you’ve actually had to work for the money, you understand that value.

In Russia, a lot of people have worked very hard for the money that’s sitting in their banks, and now all of a sudden they can’t access it anymore. Do you trust that money belongs to you, or has any value any more?”

Burks shares, “Bitcoin represents a concept of freedom that people who suffer from decisions far beyond their control really shouldn’t have to, because they can access something like bitcoin now to protect themselves and their families.”

When asked if Missouri has the chance to be a Bitcoin state, Burks explains how they have a few young legislators to create policies in a way where Bitcoin can be a part of their state lifestyle. He goes on to explain what that looks like.

They go on to discuss inflation, technology in the agricultural sector, generational wealth, values, and more.

Listen to the full episode!

On this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” host C.J. Wilson is joined by veteran and contributor to Bitcoin Magazine, Mike Hobart. Wilson and Hobart share similar backgrounds in exercise, physiology, and kinesiology. Hobart’s journey started in 2013 when he joined the military. He gives credit to the book, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl for opening himself up to finding purpose after being in a dark place. He studied exercise science while in school allowing him to now write articles on a wide variety of topics.

Hobart's curiosity in Bitcoin sparked during his deployment to the Middle East in spring of 2017. This was the first time he had a salary which led him to research investment theory. One of the most well known theories is, “You have to put your money where the market is going to go before the market goes there.” After watching bitcoin quadruple in four months he decided to invest. He studied the market for hours each day during his deployment.

Hobart has done in-depth research on bitcoin’s energy usage and believes that it is important to correct the misinformation that is being spread. He wrote an article on Microsoft’s energy consumption and discovered that each microsoft employee used roughly four thousand households worth of energy consumption per year. Wilson states, “I would say bitcoin is morally justified by producing a very high value in exchange for the energy use.”

Another popular topic in the bitcoin community is regenerative farming. Wilson asks Hobart’s opinion on why he thinks America needs regenerative farming and if there is anything that Bitcoiners have not considered before. Hobart was deployed with many farmers and was surprised to discover how many of them were trading bitcoin overseas. One thing that he was not aware of was what fertilizers are actually doing to the soil. Fertilizers are depleting nutrients in our soil and now our food has about 12.5% the nutrient density compared to the food our grandparents were eating. He believes that farmers need bitcoin for financial security. He goes on to say, “If the farmers do not have a financial vehicle with which to continue producing food, then we have no food.”

After working with many farmers, Wilson observed that, “farmers have very low time preference. If they are planting a tree, they have to wait 6 or 7 years for that tree to bear fruit. This is a real investment and time horizon that people do not understand... When farmers get into bitcoin, the are thinking ‘how can I hand this down to my kids.’” Farming is similar to trading with leverage.

Wilson wraps up the episode saying that the public perception is who started bitcoin and not who is in bitcoin now. Bitcoin is something different for everybody, with a wide range of options.

Listen to the full episode for more! 

On this episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, host Steven McClurg is joined by Greg Foss and Josh Olszewics to discuss bonds. Steven and Greg met while being co-investors in the same company that is responsible for bringing ETFs into Canada. This company gave people in Canada comfort that a spot Bitcoin ETF will work and cannot be manipulated. #Bitcoin #Bonds #Investing #Crypto McClurg mentions that the last time he was with Greg they discussed gas flaring. Greg mentioned what had been happening in Alberta and shortly after, China decided to shut down all of its miners. McClurg asks how Foss has seen this progress in Canada. Foss states, “We do not have much flare gas in Canada. The US has more flare. We have 400 megawatts of power that are former peaking plants. They're located right along the TransCanada natural gas pipeline and we will be mining Bitcoin at those plants.” McClurg and Foss go on to discuss the two different Bitcoin audiences. The first is the intermediary audience, which consists of financial advisors and wirehouse platforms. The second being institutions. McClurg says, “Oddly enough, nobody wants to own Bitcoin directly.” Which is how both McClurg and Foss recommend owning Bitcoin. While Valkyrie was looking to productize Bitcoin rather than holding it directly in a product, they found that there were two ways to do it. “Number one was miners, but even that is relatively niche for a lot of the wirehouses. The ETF we launched in December is actually way more suitable for those people and those companies that hold Bitcoin in their balance sheet. They want the correlation to Bitcoin, but they don’t want the miners, nor t to hold Bitcoin. I think a lot of these shops are a little too far off to still get there” says McClurg. McClurg states, “Life insurance is another area that you look at and are like ‘okay, well they are not going to hold Bitcoin directly.’ They can’t, but when it comes to junk bonds, life insurance agencies are governed by the rating agencies. These agencies determine how much capital they have to reserve against each one of their investments, which is why they are so filled up with investment rate bonds and treasuries even though it is technically a negative yield at the moment.” McClurg questions what the FED is going to do and what they are thinking. “They have never traded risk and they are always very backward looking. They are waiting for data from months ago to make decisions on what they can do a month from now that can affect the economy in two to three years.” Foss believes, “it is a true lack of understanding about how the markets work. You can job-own all you want, but at the end of the day when volatility exceeds thirty percent annualized in the equity market, that implies moves of plus or minus two percent average daily volatility. New issue markets and everything close when volatility is above thirty percent. Volume is creeping up and if new issue markets close, access to capital closes and growth stops.” He continues, “There are no returns left in bonds so everybody’s pentiant is relying almost entirely on equities as a performance generator. If pentiant funds go into the underfunded status, there are going to be a lot of upset pensioners and an upset president.” Olszewics brings up that Bitcoin’s decline is smaller than Nasdaq. Foss believes, “Bitcoin will be a long volatility asset...Bitcoin’s insurance is essentially being short credit. When you have short credit, you have long volatility.” He continues that Bitcoin is the best asymmetric return opportunity that he has seen in his thirty years of managing risk. As the episode wraps up, McClurg and Foss return to discussing the FED. McClurg believes that there will be one rate hike. He predicts that the FED will do something in March and there will be two, maybe three rate hikes that the market will not be able to take. Foss says that high yield bonds are the worst investment he has seen throughout his years of managing risk and

Host Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson open the episode by talking about international bitcoin adoption. Wilson asks McClurg if he believes the criticism that leaders of countries face will diminish after more countries begin to adopt Bitcoin. McClurg does not anticipate this to change. He recognizes that “a lot of people that come into power and want to make positive changes in their country have a difficult time doing it all at once.” He includes an example of Saudi Arabia taking small strides to improve their country, but it cannot change all at once.

McClurg states, “Changing your entire currency system to bitcoin with the hope of financial freedom is one step in the direction to overall freedom.” Wilson says we must look at these situations on a broad, long-term scale; have a low-time preference, and be patient. Like the government, it can be difficult for companies to change quickly, especially if they are public.

Many people have been moving to or visiting El Salvador recently. The hosts believe that this is due to their bitcoin adoption. Over the past two years, many people have been moving to places with like-minded people and fewer taxes.

Texan government officials have become pro bitcoin recently. Texas is looking to attract the mining industry and has great potential because it is an oil and gas energy-focused state. Wilson is surprised that many other states have not followed in Texas and Wyoming’s footsteps of adopting bitcoin, especially with their natural resources.

McClurg states that bitcoin is a movement for the people, and it has been happening organically. Politicians are increasingly becoming pro-bitcoin. Wilson hopes that bitcoin will become a “non-story” because it will be successful and ubiquitous. McClurg predicts that in two to four years from now, candidates that are not pro-bitcoin will be compared to a flat-earther.

McClurg and Wilson end the episode by looking at the nuance of crypto to say that we do not have to make generalizations. We can take a unique look at every leader, state, city, and country to rank them internally.

Hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson discuss regional and digital banks with the CEO of Fourth Capital, Brian Heinrichs. Fourth Capital believes in combining digital tools with the human touch. They strive to be a type of bank that has never been built before with their creativity, ideas, process, and customer service. Heinrichs explains that Fourth Capitol is unique because they are privately held, single shareholders, and do not plan on going public.

There are two segments of banking today: there are the large incumbent national regional players, and opposingly, there is the community bank player. Fourth Capital believes that banking should be sitting down with your client, meeting their needs, and doing research to make it happen. Heinrichs ensures a “yes” mindset to his clients.

Wilson talks about banks encouraging people to have their stock portfolios attached to their savings accounts to incentivize them to trade more. It is currently challenging to operate in a Bitcoin-only lifestyle with zero cash, but some individuals hope society will progress to this system. Fourth Capital looks at the individual clients and focuses on what they need and options to diversify as they see fit. This allows clients to keep their money in Fourth Capitol and personal relationships with the bank.

Heinrichs discusses how the organization's objective fundamentally changes how they function as a business and treat clients. Traditionally, funded banks have all started from the premise of “how do we make money?” They want your wealth co-mingled with your bank account so they can get fees. They do this to make money without keeping their customer’s best interests in mind. Heinrichs states, “Fourth Capitol wants to be best in terms of what they do and add value to their clients. If we do that long term, there is a mutual benefit of their clients getting rewarded through their business, and we get rewarded through long term relationships.”

Heinrichs states that a segment of the market is not being banked because individuals cannot find the experience they want, or they believe in an alternative financial world that we do not live in yet. Being financially inclusive is a long-term value play that benefits Fourth Capital and clients.

McClurg, Wilson, and Heinrichs all reflect on Nashville's past and the rapid growth of the city over the past ten years.

Heinrichs expands on the values that Fourth Capital holds and how clients are often surprised by how the business operates. Unlike many traditional banks who send applications to a nameless or faceless credit committee to make decisions, there are a handful of employees that sit down and decide together. “Get away from the formula and bring in the human element. At the end of the day, it is a people business,” says Heinrichs.

McClurg asks Heinrichs where he sees Bitcoin going, what it will be used for, and how it will be integrated into our everyday lives or banks. Heinrichs believes you have your very early adopters, the next wave is people wanting exposure and seeing where it goes, and then it will eventually be adopted and used in many different places. He believes that banks need to evolve and begin using better technology.

The episode wraps up with a brief explanation by Heinrichs on the credit facility and how credit has evolved in both private banks and the financial sector.

Listen to the full episode!

Hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson meet for another episode of the Bitcoin Bottom Line to discuss bonds and crypto. Wilson opens by asking McClurg what changes he has seen in the bond market.

McClurg states that when it comes to bond yields, the FED tightens and makes it more expensive to borrow. More prominent institutional investors must have a certain amount of their assets in fixed income for safety; therefore, large institutions will push the yield down for companies issuing debt that should go out of business. Sears and Toys R Us survived longer than they should have, while Nordstrom is struggling to keep their doors open and cannot get credit to buy inventory. As the FED begins to tighten, they increase the size of their balance sheet by continuing to upper growth of purchasing. He believes that the market is finally starting to price in tapering but has failed to price in interest rate heights. This year, the FED has mentioned three types of interest rate heights, meaning they will increase short-term rates.

McClurg predicts that with a 10-year going to 188, which was previously down around 1%, it will cause the refinance rates for borderline companies not to afford their Debt Service; meaning they cannot afford the interest payment on their new debt, causing them to refinance continually.

McClurg explains that the U.S. government’s treasury department is selling and buying the bonds. They are issuing debt to pay for government spending, but nobody else is buying it so the FED is needing to step in and buy it to keep rates down. If the FED stops buying, that means there is an open market for treasuries and for debt and market pressure pushes yields upward causing debt on spending programs to be even higher.

Wilson asks McClurg to explain the triangle trade between spending, lending, and the debt service.

When it comes to Banks and borrowing there's a FEDs fund window. This window is the rate at which the FED will lend overnight to the bank. The bank is getting cheap money that they are supposed to lend out to their customers for items like cars and mortgages. This has led to a rise in housing prices. The bank's price is spread based on their overnight lending window which is set up by the FED. McClurg believes that the low mortgage prices will rise back up to three and three quarters all the way up to four percent, which can be devastating to people.

As interest rates go lower insurance companies charge higher premiums to new customers to offset the lack of yield that they are getting. As interest rates lower, premiums rise.

Willson questions when Bitcoin will be allowable in pentiant plans or charity funds. McClurg talks about the risks that individuals take while investing in Bitcoin and other areas. McClurg has a long term mindset when it comes to investing that not everyone has. Willson states the value of looking five to ten years ahead while investing.

Willson discussed with McClurg if Barry Bonds is a hall of famer.

Wilson says that America leads many countries when it comes to bonds and discusses debasing money around the world. McClurg states that many countries are co-mingling with America’s manufacturing. Every country is forced to stay up with the dollar whether they are debasing or not.

The biggest opportunity for China is to have a strong currency that remains strong. There are different mentailites about Bitcoin depending on location. The independence that comes with Bitcoin challenges authoritarian governments, which is why we need it.

McClurg believes that people are generally more optimistic when markets are going higher. Wilson says that the best move is to assess all the different things tha

Host C.J. Wilson opens the episode by talking about the mystery of Bitcoin’s fixed supply. There are only twenty-one million Bitcoins that will ever exist, giving folks a grasp on how much Bitcoin there will be in supply at any given time.

In May 2022, the block issuance went from eighteen hundred to nine hundred. People did not know how to address the supply being different. How much were folks willing to pay due to the psychological mechanism of the fear of missing out?

About 18.9 billion Bitcoin has already been mined, but early Bitcoiners did not know what to do with the money because it could not be traded and was not yet worth much.

The total worth of the world is roughly six hundred trillion dollars. There are 100 billion pieces of one Bitcoin called Satoshi. If you were to take one dollar, you would get about seven hundred Satoshis. People view it as an added saving mechanism.

You can be a Satoshi millionaire for a couple of hundred dollars. You will see growth in the value of Satoshis, as you do with one Bitcoin. If you were to multiply one hundred million Satoshis per Bitcoin times twenty-one million Bitcoin, you would get two point one quadrillion Satoshis. Theoretically, if a Satoshi was worth one dollar, you would have three and a half the total market capitalization of every asset on the planet. There is room for Bitcoin to absorb and convert elements of the world economy.

Wilson explains how to buy Bitcoin and where the money goes. Theoretically, you sign up for an exchange and send them your currency. The exchange has some liquidity, so if someone makes a withdrawal, they have the cash to do so. An exchange functions similar to a currency exchange kiosk at an airport that will sell you British pounds for too expensive and buy them for too cheap. Therefore, exchanges like Coinbase Pro are doing a billion dollars in Bitcoin volume daily. If you are going to be a heavy trader, you want to chase the most significant liquidity. Bitcoin moves through exchanges because of scarcity.

Bots can be up on Twitter to monitor when significant moves happen in Bitcoin. If there is five thousand Bitcoin leaving an exchange, everyone can view it. Once someone takes the Bitcoin personally, it has the potential to be a one-way trade because of the fixed supply.

Bitcoin will not stop mining until 2140. People will still be running a form of Bitcoin mining system 120 from now to compete for fees, which are paid to miners.

There will be between 1,000 and 3,500 transactions in a block. If multiplied out, some of the blocks will not only be 6.25 Bitcoin, but there can be an additional .2, .3, or .4 Bitcoin in mining fees. The winner of the block will get all of it, incentivizing folks to participate in mining.

Bitcoin can be considered rarer than anything because it is fixed and ruled by rules instead of rulers. Folks should view it as “stacking sats” and not just buying part of Bitcoin.

Host and Valkyrie CIO, Steven McClurg, met via livestream with five special guests, all experts in the Bitcoin space.

Bitcoiner C.J. Wilson begins the round table discussion about the hopes and expectations of the new year. Wilson gives a short recap of the terrible flood attacks, adoption of Bitcoin from El Salvador, creation of the Bitcoin Football Club, as well as the action of mining reaching all-time highs during 2021.

Justine Harper of Unchained Capital speculates that adoption will be a significant focus of 2022 after seeing notable institutions adopting Bitcoin, while Kristy-Leigh Minehan of OhGodAGirl discusses hash rates and mining. Minehan believes that this will be the year that some mainstream guys join the ASIC development business due to all of the mining moving into the United States after China’s ban and the increased market saturation.

Charlie Lee, Founder of Litecoin agrees with Harper and Minehan that the adoption of Bitcoin will be prominent this year. He discusses Tonga’s interest in following El Salvador’s plan of making Bitcoin legal tender and the potential of a Spot ETF.

Peter McCormack of What Bitcoin Did discusses the benchmarks of the Bedford Bitcoin Football Club for 2022 and the focus on next season. One of the benchmarks will be commercial revenue proving that having an international base of Bitcoiners who support the team will allow a revenue model that matches lead clubs in the UK. Another benchmark will be strengthening the club's infrastructure, processes, and protocols to take a tenth division team through the leagues. McClurg speaks about the adoption of Bitcoin as payment by sports teams worldwide.

Author, Jimmy Song, discusses releasing his third book and seeing a trend of Bitcoin as a political issue in current and future elections. Two democrats and three republicans in the Ohio senate race have all expressed positive thoughts on Bitcoin. Song speculates that 2022 will have positive effects on Bitcoin despite potential adversity.

McClurg brings up the recent news that Rio De Janeiro is adding one percent of Bitcoin to its city treasury, similar to Miami. These two cities are now competing for forces with El Salvador. Wilson speculated that El Salvador would win due to its current Bitcoin infrastructure and commitment.

McCormack asks the other's opinions on the pegasus software in El Salvador. He describes the issue of thirty activists and journalists having information compromised on their phones due to this state tracking software. A variety of authoritarian problems have occurred in El Salvador over the past eighteen months. He challenged whether we are being objective enough regarding this issue.

Minehan states that the NSO group that created the Pegasus software was running a subsidiary of an American venture capital firm to create it. She has seen a trend of giving people a pause because they are in the Bitcoin community, which is happening in El Salvador. With the

excitement surrounding them adopting Bitcoin, people are not paying attention to what is happening with the pegasus software. Over thirty percent of the IOS population had the pegasus software installed until the IOS 14.2 update.

Song agrees and discusses the issue of tech companies having more information than they should.

McClurg suggests looking at the issue from a macro perspective. He acknowledges what they are doing is bad, but they have been an authoritarian regime for a very long time. It takes time to become a democracy, and he believes that aspects of democracy and freedom will emerge into the government.

Harper agrees that it is vital to be objective and that the people of El Salvador are benefit

Host C.J. Wilson joins us again for a solo episode to break down the topic of Open Source.

Open Source says that everything about Bitcoin must have visibility and auditability, meaning that anyone, including average non-coders, has access to download the entire language.

This encourages folks to participate in an open socratic manner, having conversations with logic and not necessarily emotion.

Wilson explains the BIP Process, which is a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal run on Github by core developers. The developers are working on Bitcoin Core, posting the proposals written by Bitcoiners to the network. After these are posted, a formative argument is made to discuss the process and decide whether or not it should pass.

Since all bitcoin iterations are reverse compatible, if a BIP is approved, each user can choose whether or not to upgrade to that version.

Another aspect of Open Source includes the transparency of all transactions on the blockchain. This explains that there is a lever of power between the developers, nodes, and miners. Developers work on the programming, the nodes are validating the programming and agreeing to run the programs.

Wilson teaches that a node is for folks to run their own transactions, and to receive. A node can also be used as a wallet. In the past, folks would have their node on their laptop also used as a wallet, and if they lost their laptop they lost everything. Now, folks might have a lightning wallet on their phone, node on their laptop, mining equipment, etc.

Bitcoin core developers have decided that the safety of the users is more important than the novelty of the use.

Wilson closes out the episode describing the speed, efficiency, and security of the network, and more.

Listen to the full episode!

Host C.J.Wilson goes solo for a short informational episode answering the question, “What is a Miner?”

Wilson explains that a “miner” is an “asic”, and shows what one looks like in the video version of this episode (on Youtube). It’s a 30 pound shoe box shaped machine with fans and plugins that connects to your laptop.

After purchasing the asic, the next step is joining a mining pool. A mining pool is a group of computers that all work together to share the hash rate. The brand new miners are usually somewhere between 90-110 terra hashes per second, which is a computing speed measurer.

For every 100 terra hashes, you are averaging around .02 bitcoin per month, in terms of how much you will actually win.

There are competing pools that are headquartered in different countries, many of which have been around for about 10 years allowing people to share the winnings. Every ten minutes or so, a block is mined and the winner gets 6.25 bitcoin. So, if you are participating in that pool, you will get your share of whatever you’re putting in the network financially or hash rate wise.

If you were mining with just one asic on your own and not using a pool, you will have a statistically near impossible chance of winning a block. This is because there are so many miners competing.

Wilson explains the conversation around how much energy bitcoin uses, and how much of it is calculated based on the hash rate. However, each machine has a different electrical efficiency- the watts to terra hash ratio has changed over time and throughout the different generations of machines.

As electricity prices change, the miners have to figure out how they will be profitable with the source they are using. He goes on to explain how co-location services work and how these benefit miners.

There is more competition for mining as bitcoin has gone up, causing people to come up with innovative ways of accessing power. One of these ways is using waste fuel. There are farmers extracting the methane from animal waste to convert to electricity. There are others converting natural gas, which might normally be burned, into energy to mine.

Wilson goes on to explain how immersion works, preserving the life of the miner and increasing efficiency.

States like Wyoming, Texas, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, New York might have an energy source that they don’t know what to do with, and bitcoiners are willing to take whatever power they can get and they scale their operations onto that. With bitcoin trading 40, 50, 60 thousand dollars this past year, it’s a really lucrative time to be a bitcoiner.

Listen to the full episode for more!

Host StevenMcClurg and Founder of Tron , Justin Sun, meet over zoom for an episode discussing all things Blockchain.

The two discuss meeting at Satoshi Roundtable in Mexico, and how the event was affected by the Covid-19 virus.

Sun explains how he got into Bitcoin back in 2013, and the inaccessibility of the cryptocurrency in China back at that time. He shares how he would bring cash to McDonalds in exchange for Bitcoin, and how it felt like an illegal drug deal.

He bought his first bitcoin at around 50 cents, and became distracted from studying for the LSAT Test. While his parents warned him to stay focused on his studies, bitcoin rose to one dollar. He continued focusing on Bitcoin, and gave up law school. “Then, it went up to $1,000, which was beyond my wildest dreams”, he says, “I started to realize the response of serious people building our industry.”

“Justin wanted to be a lawyer, Bitcoin fixes that.” McClurg says.

McClurg was also planning to go to law school, but decided he would rather study behavioral economics instead. He found an opportunity to apply that to finance, and even crypto.

McClurg asks Sun to share his expectations from the future, “Eventually, lots of countries will take bitcoin as a reserve. Bitcoin is very neutral and everybody can get bitcoin and protect their assets from inflation.”

He continues, with Aliens in mind. Sun predicts that if aliens are around, they use Bitcoin. “You don’t need to know anything about human knowledge to know Bitcoin, you only need to know math.”

The two discuss the GameFi industry in terms of blockchain technology, how far it has come, and the opportunities that have arisen in international (including metaverse) adoption.

McClurg and Sun close out the episode with more conversations of NFTs, GameFi, the future of Tron, and more. Don’t miss the full episode!

Lamar Wilson, freedom maximalist, OG Bitcoiner, and founder of Black Bitcoin Billionaires (the largest Bitcoin based club on Clubhouse) joins C.J. Wilson on this week’s episode of the Bitcoin
Bottom Line.
The two sit side by side in Austin, TX, taking a break from writing a book together (along with
others) that focuses on how to change the narrative of Bitcoin on Capitol Hill.
Lamar starts off the episode with a bang, mentioning that in regards to Bitcoin, “It’s not about the
price for me, it’s all about the freedom and the sovereignty.”
When asked how Bitcoin has changed his life, Lamar explains how Bitcoin is the freest money
we can have. He goes on to explain that, “It’s money that no one can censor, no one can tell you
what to do with it, you can hold it on your own without having to interact with anyone else, you
can send it.... All kinds of things that you can’t do with the current financial system.”
He goes on to share how he likes to introduce people to Bitcoin by giving them bitcoin, and
there is even a video of him giving out an entire bitcoin, “because it was about trying to get
people in it.” C.J. goes on to explain that in order for beginners, it’s helpful to “show them the
tangibility of it.”
“Bitcoin is just like the real world. It’s about objective truth,” C.J. states.
Lamar talks about reaching out to the black community with Bitcoin. He realized that there was
no intention around sharing information about Bitcoin with the community, and he was going to
change that. He started with friends and family and people at school. One of his classmates
became the 28th employee at Coinbase after learning about Bitcoin through Lamar.
He discusses Clubhouse, and how to keep the information very high level for those who are just
beginning. “Jesus used parables to get across high levels of thinking, I use analogies,” Lamar
says.
“Bitcoin is the strongest- just play that hand. Keep playing your aces,” C.J. explains while
discussing the irony of the creators of other coins wanting to sell their altcoins in exchange for
bitcoin. Lamar follows that with another analogy for Bitcoin: “There’s all these women you can
go chase, but that’s where it ends. Every man wants to get their ride or die. Once they have
their wife, they know that’s their base.”
The Wilsons continue the conversation around the book they are writing, how Clubhouse
brought them together, and how this year has brought many people in the bitcoin space
together.

They finish out the episode with more analogies, expressing their excitement for the direction
the space is headed. Don’t miss the full episode!