36 Burst results for "Elizabeth Warren"
Tech Path Crypto
A highlight from 1278. Gensler LOST AGAIN! | Judge Shreds SEC Appeal! | XRP Update
"Let's get into some XRP news today and talk about the SEC taking another black eye. These guys are taking round after round from the judge, and it's going to be an interesting one for sure. You don't want to miss this show. All right, my name is Paul Baron. Welcome back into Tech Path. Let's get into it. A couple of topics that we'll break down from the judge, but also the kind of impact this could have for the overall crypto markets, even the Coinbase case. We'll give you guys kind of a rundown. One thing I do want to do is thank our sponsor, and that's iTrust Capital. If you guys are looking at going into long -term investing into crypto IRAs, this is one of the vehicles you can use, and it's very simple to do it. Easy to start up, there's no monthly fees, and all you have to do is you can do your own self -directed trading. So if you want to get into XRP or others, you can do that right here within the iTrust Capital IRA. Very easy to join, and you'd be joining 200 another ,000 accounts that have already created IRAs there with iTrust. So check the link down below. You get a $100 funding reward if you decide to do something there. Helps our channel out. Appreciate that. All right, so let's get into a couple things here. I want to go over to the PDF here. This is the judge response, and there's a few points. I'm going to kind of zoom in on this a little bit for you guys. There's a few spots in here. There's going to be a lot of scrolling, but the point is we're going to get to a couple of points here. I want to go down here to page five. All right, so let's get into this. First, SEC has not presented a pure question of law. This is one of the things that the judge has already pretty much put in in the judgment on the first ruling, and of course, kind of them just saying, hey, this is, you're still in the same position here. In fact, the court specifically rejected defendants' essential ingredients, the legal test, and applied the SEC's legal standards. So this was where the SEC was essentially trying to create their own rules. Judge says, nope, not going to work here. Further into the document, the SEC seeks to appeal question C, and issuers offers and sales of crypto assets and trading platforms create a reasonable expectation of profits based on the efforts of others. But the court did not hold that offers and sales on a digital asset exchange can create a reasonable expectation of profits based on the efforts of others. So I think that is pretty much the same kind of scenario that's playing out in the Coinbase trial that we will most likely, I think we're going to see a win there as well. Ripple's programmatic sales were blind, bid -asked transactions, same as almost every crypto transaction out there. Ripple's programmatic sales represented less than 1 % of the global XRP trading volume, did not make any promises or offers, and the SEC failed to provide evidence. The SEC failed to provide evidence, and she just keeps on, failed to provide evidence over and over on all of this. So really kind of hitting home on the SEC, just not holding up their end of being able to even prove that XRP or other digital assets are securities. Further in this document, it says the SEC failed to provide evidence and the development of use cases for the XRP ledger, which constitutes a tangible and definable consideration to Ripple. That's important. Court also rejected the SEC's argument that XRP provided Ripple employees as compensation and bonuses satisfies the Howie's first prong. So getting into a lot more detail here, and I think this is going to flow into the rest of the civil cases that are still out there against Garlinghouse and Larson. All right, so court rejects the SEC's remaining argument that the courts have accordingly found section five violations where unregistered crypto asset transactions occur not between the issuer and the investor, but through intermediaries, including on trading platforms, keyword on trading platforms. That is Coinbase in a nutshell. And I think that's the scenario. Digital assets I think are getting ready to fall outside of the guise of the SEC. Court rejects the argument that there is a substantial ground for difference of opinion, meaning it doesn't matter what you think the court has a rule of law to go by and we're going to affect it. And, uh, the SEC is not creating their own law, which is the other scenario. Okay, so further in the court, uh, in the document, the court cannot draw any conclusions about library's core reasoning, uh, to an issue because it was never litigated. Therefore the SEC fails to point to any digital asset cases which conflict with the court's holding as to the other distributions. If you don't know about what happened in the library case, this was a really a milestone event for the SEC, but now the court is pretty much saying, man, not really. Listen into this clip right here. After the blockchain was launched and we didn't do an ICO and this was during the ICO boom and then we said we were trying to be a conservative company and eventually the SEC sued us and they declined to actually bring the trial until shortly before the statute of limitations was going to hit on our, on our first buying time. Yeah. We came in and we did a whole presentation and they just used that stuff against us. Never answered a single one of our questions. We've said we'll destroy the entire company. We'll give you our entire pre -mon. You can have every dollar in our bank accounts, right? But what we want is the status that Bitcoin has, right? If I have to blow everything up, if that's what's somehow the difference here. Okay, fine. Just tell me that that's what I have to do. They won't tell you that. They'll say you're, I mean, seriously, it's so it like gives me an energy. That's crazy. I mean, that would be in the founder of library talking about how much pressure and just gravitas that the sec is wielding out there on small companies. And that's the problem of overreach that we talk about all the time. All right, so let's go back to, actually there's another clip I want to play for you. This is John Deaton. Listen to this one. The judge agreed with me, promised me, assured me that he was going to make sure that the world knew that his decision did not apply to secondary market transactions. And that was a very important point because judge Torres in the ripple case cites that hearing Jeremy Kaufman and library spend between one and $4 million and they spend another couple million dollars in legal fees. The sec spends ungodly amount of hours taxpayer money. And when it's all said and done, the government protected us by getting $111 ,000 in legal fees. From library. Well, we've successfully destroyed them financially. We did what we told Jeremy Kaufman we were going to do when he argued with us and we said, we will bankrupt you pal. What happened is the library is appealing the decision by the judge granting summary judgment to the sec. I think that they have been emboldened, if you will, because of the grayscale ruling by the ripple decision by maybe even the Uniswap decision by judge failure and hopefully a really good decision that comes down in the Coinbase motion to, to dismiss. Remember people, there's not a case in 80 years that supports taking an asset that may have been an investment contract in the beginning and then calling it an investment contract. The underlying asset forever. None. Yeah. So Deaton pretty, pretty benefit. I'm pretty passionate about that. And I think he does kind of hit that point home is that the sec kind of plays unfairly, not surprising and to anyone out there. But the good thing is, is now the courts are starting to rule against them. And this seems like they are finally in a position where they're taking the bully to class here further in the conclusion denied at the sec's request for a stay is also denied. So this court basically just lashed everything down. This is an interesting statement at the end prior to the final pretrial conference council for both parties along with parties themselves shall meet in person for at least one hour to discuss the settlement of the match. So they are really meaning the court is really pushing to get this done. This of course is Annalisa Torres, judge Annalisa Torres, which I think is the one that has pretty much outlined that the sec has no case here for digital asset control and most likely is going to fall under, under outside the graces of the court when it comes to the, to the Coinbase, uh, case as well. All right. Just a couple of tweets here. Uh, corrupt sec got an effort fail on their appeal. Judge Torres wrote the fail 10 times. Uh, here's Stuart Alderati, of course, the ripple attorney courts, um, July 13 ruling was and remains law of the land XRP is not a security. Jeremy Hogan comes in and says, Hey, okay, look here. A couple of things here that I want to note. Uh, and that is really this statement right here. This is a disaster for the agency. I'm going to mark that just it's there. This is a disaster for the agency, but I think this is, this is a good thing for crypto in general and digital assets. But more importantly, I think for digital asset technology and how all of this is moving forward, keeping government overreach out of industry and innovation is important because as you know, Deaton kind of mentioned, they went through all that, you know, millions and millions and millions of taxpayers money for $111 ,000 for a library case, which is probably going to get overturned out. So not a good one. Here was Scott, Scott Chamberlain, uh, further talking about the XRP case and he kind of hits something here. So there's a lot in change. SCC failed to prove its case. Now it has to push not something nice uphill with a pointy stick if it wants to win. So they have a huge boulder in front of them to get this done in being able to win. I think the SCC has lost this and I think it's going to start either looking very bad for Gensler or the SCC is going to start to pivot their position. Now you look at it politically, that could be the case because we're starting to see some things in DC that could also kind of tie into this. I want to go over to this last clip, which is Deaton talking about this a little bit further into what this might mean. Listen in. She said some XRP holders, no doubt bought XRP for speculative reasons and they may have relied on the efforts of Ripple, but the SCC didn't prove that. Programmatic sales of XRP on exchanges are not securities. XRP itself is not a security. And what she did in this decision was solidify it. And I'm telling you it's untouchable. It cannot be touched. She even said, look, I never said that it's impossible for some crypto token to still be a security when it's bought on an exchange. I've just said that XRP in this case with these facts are not period. She even made it more clear that as of right now on this day, excluding Bitcoin, XRP is the only one clearly, with legal clarity. I'm really hoping that judge failure comes through on the Coinbase decision because I think that will be when Gensler is forced to pivot. And that's when Elizabeth Warren has to accept that her anti crypto army is a bunch of old people about to die. All right, there you go. Anti crypto army dead. Uh, and I think back to my point is that I think that Gensler is going to pivot. He has to, this is starting to impede political positioning. It's also impeding the benefits of what the SCC is going to try to do in really the work they should be doing, which is real securities law. And that is the challenge because right now it's just overreached. This is just power grabs. You look at what Graywall was saying here. Of course, this is the Coinbase attorney. SCC just filed its opposition motion to dismiss their case. This is the opposition to the motion for Coinbase trying to get this dismissed. This is going to take on a light of its own. If you look back down here at the end, it says, we look forward to filing our reply in October 24th. So as always, we appreciate court's consideration. So this is probably going to move into November, but the key here is the SCC continues to lose and they're losing in very, very grandiose ways. And this is not good for anything from a governmental overreach standpoint. I think it's even worse for the political position of the SCC. And this also starts to change things dramatically, I think in digital assets as a whole. Most likely Coinbase is going to come out of this. Coinbase is going to look really good pretty soon. So, all right guys, we're going to get into that more. We're going to be covering more of this. Obviously we had the speaker house change up this week. There's a big implication there on crypto and digital assets as a whole. We'll cover that. Make sure and stick around on the channel. If you're not subscribed, make sure and subscribe right now. Just hit that little button down there. If you want to get some of our live streams, I'm doing as much lately, but we do want to bring those back. Just hit that bell. You'll get notifications when we do this. All right, if you're not in our diamond circle, get in now. It's another place where we drop additional content. We've got a really special surprise for you. We've got new TA videos coming only to our diamond circle members twice a week. Those will be dropped on, it looks like Monday and Thursday. Plus you're going to get Kyle's webinar, excuse me, web3 podcast, and he's adding another show to it. So you're going to get four new pieces of content that you don't get anywhere else. Not here on YouTube, only in the diamond circle. Click the link down below. You guys want to catch me? It's out there on Twitter at Paul Baron. We'll catch you next time right here on Tech Path.
Tech Path Crypto
Fresh update on "elizabeth warren" discussed on Tech Path Crypto
"Let's get into some XRP news today and talk about the SEC taking another black eye. These guys are taking round after round from the judge, and it's going to be an interesting one for sure. You don't want to miss this show. All right, my name is Paul Baron. Welcome back into Tech Path. Let's get into it. A couple of topics that we'll break down from the judge, but also the kind of impact this could have for the overall crypto markets, even the Coinbase case. We'll give you guys kind of a rundown. One thing I do want to do is thank our sponsor, and that's iTrust Capital. If you guys are looking at going into long-term investing into crypto IRAs, this is one of the vehicles you can use, and it's very simple to do it. Easy to start up, there's no monthly fees, and all you have to do is you can do your own self-directed trading. So if you want to get into XRP or others, you can do that right here within the iTrust Capital IRA. Very easy to join, and you'd be joining another 200,000 accounts that have already created IRAs there with iTrust. So check the link down below. You get a $100 funding reward if you decide to do something there. Helps our channel out. Appreciate that. All right, so let's get into a couple things here. I want to go over to the PDF here. This is the judge response, and there's a few points. I'm going to kind of zoom in on this a little bit for you guys. There's a few spots in here. There's going to be a lot of scrolling, but the point is we're going to get to a couple of points here. I want to go down here to page five. All right, so let's get into this. First, SEC has not presented a pure question of law. This is one of the things that the judge has already pretty much put in in the judgment on the first ruling, and of course, kind of them just saying, hey, this is, you're still in the same position here. In fact, the court specifically rejected defendants' essential ingredients, the legal test, and applied the SEC's legal standards. So this was where the SEC was essentially trying to create their own rules. Judge says, nope, not going to work here. Further into the document, the SEC seeks to appeal question C, and issuers offers and sales of crypto assets and trading platforms create a reasonable expectation of profits based on the efforts of others. But the court did not hold that offers and sales on a digital asset exchange can create a reasonable expectation of profits based on the efforts of others. So I think that is pretty much the same kind of scenario that's playing out in the Coinbase trial that we will most likely, I think we're going to see a win there as well. Ripple's programmatic sales were blind, bid-asked transactions, same as almost every crypto transaction out there. Ripple's programmatic sales represented less than 1% of the global XRP trading volume, did not make any promises or offers, and the SEC failed to provide evidence. The SEC failed to provide evidence, and she just keeps on, failed to provide evidence over and over on all of this. So really kind of hitting home on the SEC, just not holding up their end of being able to even prove that XRP or other digital assets are securities. Further in this document, it says the SEC failed to provide evidence and the development of use cases for the XRP ledger, which constitutes a tangible and definable consideration to Ripple. That's important. Court also rejected the SEC's argument that XRP provided Ripple employees as compensation and bonuses satisfies the Howie's first prong. So getting into a lot more detail here, and I think this is going to flow into the rest of the civil cases that are still out there against Garlinghouse and Larson. All right, so court rejects the SEC's remaining argument that the courts have accordingly found section five violations where unregistered crypto asset transactions occur not between the issuer and the investor, but through intermediaries, including on trading platforms, keyword on trading platforms. That is Coinbase in a nutshell. And I think that's the scenario. Digital assets I think are getting ready to fall outside of the guise of the SEC. Court rejects the argument that there is a substantial ground for difference of opinion, meaning it doesn't matter what you think the court has a rule of law to go by and we're going to affect it. And, uh, the SEC is not creating their own law, which is the other scenario. Okay, so further in the court, uh, in the document, the court cannot draw any conclusions about library's core reasoning, uh, to an issue because it was never litigated. Therefore the SEC fails to point to any digital asset cases which conflict with the court's holding as to the other distributions. If you don't know about what happened in the library case, this was a really a milestone event for the SEC, but now the court is pretty much saying, man, not really. Listen into this clip right here. After the blockchain was launched and we didn't do an ICO and this was during the ICO boom and then we said we were trying to be a conservative company and eventually the SEC sued us and they declined to actually bring the trial until shortly before the statute of limitations was going to hit on our, on our first buying time. Yeah. We came in and we did a whole presentation and they just used that stuff against us. Never answered a single one of our questions. We've said we'll destroy the entire company. We'll give you our entire pre-mon. You can have every dollar in our bank accounts, right? But what we want is the status that Bitcoin has, right? If I have to blow everything up, if that's what's somehow the difference here. Okay, fine. Just tell me that that's what I have to do. They won't tell you that. They'll say you're, I mean, seriously, it's so it like gives me an energy. That's crazy. I mean, that would be in the founder of library talking about how much pressure and just gravitas that the sec is wielding out there on small companies. And that's the problem of overreach that we talk about all the time. All right, so let's go back to, actually there's another clip I want to play for you. This is John Deaton. Listen to this one. The judge agreed with me, promised me, assured me that he was going to make sure that the world knew that his decision did not apply to secondary market transactions. And that was a very important point because judge Torres in the ripple case cites that hearing Jeremy Kaufman and library spend between one and $4 million and they spend another couple million dollars in legal fees. The sec spends ungodly amount of hours taxpayer money. And when it's all said and done, the government protected us by getting $111,000 in legal fees. From library. Well, we've successfully destroyed them financially. We did what we told Jeremy Kaufman we were going to do when he argued with us and we said, we will bankrupt you pal. What happened is the library is appealing the decision by the judge granting summary judgment to the sec. I think that they have been emboldened, if you will, because of the grayscale ruling by the ripple decision by maybe even the Uniswap decision by judge failure and hopefully a really good decision that comes down in the Coinbase motion to, to dismiss. Remember people, there's not a case in 80 years that supports taking an asset that may have been an investment contract in the beginning and then calling it an investment contract. The underlying asset forever. None. Yeah. So Deaton pretty, pretty benefit. I'm pretty passionate about that. And I think he does kind of hit that point home is that the sec kind of plays unfairly, not surprising and to anyone out there. But the good thing is, is now the courts are starting to rule against them. And this seems like they are finally in a position where they're taking the bully to class here further in the conclusion denied at the sec's request for a stay is also denied. So this court basically just lashed everything down. This is an interesting statement at the end prior to the final pretrial conference council for both parties along with parties themselves shall meet in person for at least one hour to discuss the settlement of the match. So they are really meaning the court is really pushing to get this done. This of course is Annalisa Torres, judge Annalisa Torres, which I think is the one that has pretty much outlined that the sec has no case here for digital asset control and most likely is going to fall under, under outside the graces of the court when it comes to the, to the Coinbase, uh, case as well. All right. Just a couple of tweets here. Uh, corrupt sec got an effort fail on their appeal. Judge Torres wrote the fail 10 times. Uh, here's Stuart Alderati, of course, the ripple attorney courts, um, July 13 ruling was and remains law of the land XRP is not a security. Jeremy Hogan comes in and says, Hey, okay, look here. A couple of things here that I want to note. Uh, and that is really this statement right here. This is a disaster for the agency. I'm going to mark that just it's there. This is a disaster for the agency, but I think this is, this is a good thing for crypto in general and digital assets. But more importantly, I think for digital asset technology and how all of this is moving forward, keeping government overreach out of industry and innovation is important because as you know, Deaton kind of mentioned, they went through all that, you know, millions and millions and millions of taxpayers money for $111,000 for a library case, which is probably going to get overturned out. So not a good one. Here was Scott, Scott Chamberlain, uh, further talking about the XRP case and he kind of hits something here. So there's a lot in change. SCC failed to prove its case. Now it has to push not something nice uphill with a pointy stick if it wants to win. So they have a huge boulder in front of them to get this done in being able to win. I think the SCC has lost this and I think it's going to start either looking very bad for Gensler or the SCC is going to start to pivot their position. Now you look at it politically, that could be the case because we're starting to see some things in DC that could also kind of tie into this. I want to go over to this last clip, which is Deaton talking about this a little bit further into what this might mean. Listen in. She said some XRP holders, no doubt bought XRP for speculative reasons and they may have relied on the efforts of Ripple, but the SCC didn't prove that. Programmatic sales of XRP on exchanges are not securities. XRP itself is not a security. And what she did in this decision was solidify it. And I'm telling you it's untouchable. It cannot be touched. She even said, look, I never said that it's impossible for some crypto token to still be a security when it's bought on an exchange. I've just said that XRP in this case with these facts are not period. She even made it more clear that as of right now on this day, excluding Bitcoin, XRP is the only one clearly, with legal clarity. I'm really hoping that judge failure comes through on the Coinbase decision because I think that will be when Gensler is forced to pivot. And that's when Elizabeth Warren has to accept that her anti crypto army is a bunch of old people about to die. All right, there you go. Anti crypto army dead. Uh, and I think back to my point is that I think that Gensler is going to pivot. He has to, this is starting to impede political positioning. It's also impeding the benefits of what the SCC is going to try to do in really the work they should be doing, which is real securities law. And that is the challenge because right now it's just overreached. This is just power grabs. You look at what Graywall was saying here. Of course, this is the Coinbase attorney. SCC just filed its opposition motion to dismiss their case. This is the opposition to the motion for Coinbase trying to get this dismissed. This is going to take on a light of its own. If you look back down here at the end, it says, we look forward to filing our reply in October 24th. So as always, we appreciate court's consideration. So this is probably going to move into November, but the key here is the SCC continues to lose and they're losing in very, very grandiose ways. And this is not good for anything from a governmental overreach standpoint. I think it's even worse for the political position of the SCC. And this also starts to change things dramatically, I think in digital assets as a whole. Most likely Coinbase is going to come out of this. Coinbase is going to look really good pretty soon. So, all right guys, we're going to get into that more. We're going to be covering more of this. Obviously we had the speaker house change up this week. There's a big implication there on crypto and digital assets as a whole. We'll cover that. Make sure and stick around on the channel. If you're not subscribed, make sure and subscribe right now. Just hit that little button down there. If you want to get some of our live streams, I'm doing as much lately, but we do want to bring those back. Just hit that bell. You'll get notifications when we do this. All right, if you're not in our diamond circle, get in now. It's another place where we drop additional content. We've got a really special surprise for you. We've got new TA videos coming only to our diamond circle members twice a week. Those will be dropped on, it looks like Monday and Thursday. Plus you're going to get Kyle's webinar, excuse me, web3 podcast, and he's adding another show to it. So you're going to get four new pieces of content that you don't get anywhere else. Not here on YouTube, only in the diamond circle. Click the link down below. You guys want to catch me? It's out there on Twitter at Paul Baron. We'll catch you next time right here on Tech Path.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Trial Defense Episode 2
"The most important thing is, you know, just because a lawyer tells you something is okay, that's not a defense. Geez, he said it. He seemed to think everything was okay. Yeah. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent, that's an excuse. In part two of our series digging into SPF's defense, we dissect Sam Bankman -freed's claims that his lawyers played a larger role in FTX's collapse than he did. It might sound like a stretch, but there is legal precedent behind it. SPF also says he was pressured by counsel into turning FTX over to their hand -picked successor. In this episode, we sit down with Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff, Travis Kling, a fund manager who still has millions of dollars tied up in FTX, and Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor and fellow FTX victim, to see if there's any legitimacy to SPF's claims that lawyers who were there for FTX's rise are now primed to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees. Money that SPF says should be used to pay back depositors. I'm Zach Ousman, you're listening to the SPF Defense Podcast, a coinage investigation. SPF's position is that FTX would have made it through the crisis if not for his lawyers, which conspired to steal the company out from under him, cover up their role in its operation, and siphon hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees from the bankrupt estate. SPF even names one lawyer in particular, Ryan Miller, who joined FTX US from the law firm's Sullivan and Cromwell, and planned on returning there after his time at the exchange, according to an affidavit from FTX's top lawyer. SPF says Miller conspired to hand the company over to Solcrom and their chosen agent, John J. Ray III, who also handled Enron's bankruptcy. And whether you come to believe Sam's claims or not, Solcrom and Ray clearly won. If FTX's bankruptcy process takes the two years like Enron's did, it's on track to cost over $800 million. And Solcrom's relationship has already been called out by more than just Sam. It's even been raised as an issue by senators and 18 state regulators. But could SPF be right about Ryan Miller and Solcrom's nefarious motives? And even if they did do some evil lawyer shit, will it be enough to get SPF off the hook? To fully understand this defense strategy, it helps to start with SPF's story behind his attempt to plug the now notorious multi -billion dollar hole at FTX back in November's collapse. As the story goes, he was preparing to handle the liquidity crisis by courting Nomura, Japan's largest investment group, and the crypto company Tron, who had pledged billions of dollars in liquidity to FTX, while other investors were still deliberating. SPF had said he planned on giving away most of his equity in the company, and therefore most of his wealth, in an attempt to make customers of FTX International whole. SPF has always maintained that FTX US remained completely solvent right up to the end. But SPF says his rescue plan failed because Ryan Miller and Solcrom agents at his company, including Tim Wilson, another FTX lawyer with a past at Solcrom, pressed him repeatedly to sign the company's over to John Ray in bankruptcy, and even implied that if he refused, they could have him arrested and quote, change control in order to authorize a proper insolvency process. SPF said he changed his mind within 10 minutes of signing, but it was already too late. And he says his lawyers reneged on their promises to let him select a board share, blocking him out of his accounts and refusing to communicate further. As soon as John Ray was installed, he chose Sullivan and Cromwell as FTX's primary counsel. To be fair, SPF actually has a point when it comes to the sketchiness of that process. Even outside legal observers have taken issue with Solcrom being tapped as the firm to manage FTX's bankruptcy. In fact, a bipartisan group of two Republican and two Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to the judge overseeing the case, urging him to appoint an independent examiner rather than Solcrom, which worked with FTX and Alameda before the collapse, bringing in $8 .5 million in legal fees. The senators argued, quote, given their longstanding legal work for FTX, they may well bear a measure of responsibility for the damage wrecked on the company's victims. Regulators from 18 states echoed that issue, saying appointing an independent examiner wasn't just right, it was also legally required. But back in February, the judge in the case threw out those requests, saying it would cost too much money, though we should note FTX's lawyers also charged the bankruptcy estate $21 ,000 over 20 days just for meals, which apparently isn't too much to spend. And if you ask the victims in FTX's collapse, this is all pretty important, considering it's their deposits and claims at stake. And if their money is being drained in broad daylight by a law firm who also helped FTX pre -collapse, that might not sit any better than Sam spending it. We talked to Travis Kling, who lost his crypto investment fund in FTX's collapse, and asked him to weigh in. If you ask me at the very beginning, do you think this is going to be one of the most expensive bankruptcies in U .S. history, I would say yes. Yes. You know, it's enormous. There's a ton of fraud, and it's magic internet money. Trying to kind of Monday morning quarterback this and say, oh, Sam would have been better off not filing for bankruptcy. That's not something that I feel very strongly about. And Solkrom's outrageous fees aren't the only reason for concern. SPF also claims Solkrom gave a clean bill of health to Alameda's trading accounts on FTX in a report with the CFTC just months before the collapse. Furthermore, in his affidavit, Dan Friedberg, who was both FTX's chief compliance officer and Alameda's general counsel until he stepped down following the crisis, says Miller only included FTX U .S. in the bankruptcy proceedings precisely because Miller knew it had the funds to pay Solkrom for its work, which backs up what SPF said about how FTX U .S. was never insolvent. So this may be a case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Solkrom denies any of this, of course. The firm's top bankruptcy lawyer, Andrew Dietrich, who told other lawyers FTX was rock solid in an email just days before the bankruptcy, said he only spoke with SPF twice. The FTX debtors also countersued Friedberg to seek damages, alleging he breached his fiduciary duties. We can't say much more beyond that because Solkrom never got back to us when we asked for a comment. But one thing is clear, what guidance Sam's lawyers gave him, and particularly what they knew about the business, will become integral to SPF's defense at trial. Even if you asked Ryan Miller before the collapse, the laws are pretty simple for any business, crypto or otherwise. Here he is explaining that concept at an MIT Bitcoin meetup in July 2022. Don't do fraud, don't lie, don't release materially incomplete statements. That then creates a basis for liability, liability from a criminal authority, be it a Department of Justice or liability in a civil context. Yet according to Caroline Allison's guilty plea, they had trouble following even those rules. In her sworn testimony, she said, quote, I agreed with Mr. Bankman, Fried and others to provide materially misleading financial statements to Alameda's lenders. Could Miller or any of SPF's lawyers, for that matter, be one of those others? Sam's other allegation that Miller contacted the DOJ to turn over documents that led to his indictment days before SPF linked, which controlled the company, makes Miller start to look even sketchier. But even if Solkrom really does have a true conflict of interest, could SPF really use their role in everything that happened to get an acquittal? Given that I'm not a lawyer, we pose that defense to Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff. Can a lawyer be a criminal? Sure. Yeah. Can a lawyer be part of a criminal enterprise? Yes. Do they often go down? I don't know a lot of reputable lawyers who are going to bless lying to investors, lying to banks, intermingling funds, lying to auditors. If he happened to find one who knew all that was going on and blessed it, then maybe as a defense. But I tend to doubt it. You can't think of it as, well, oh, well, you know, Sullivan and Cromwell was involved or a former Sullivan and Cromwell lawyer was involved and, geez, he said he seemed to think everything was okay. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent. That's an excuse masquerading as an advice of counsel defense. Advice of counsel defense is very specific and narrow. You need competent counsel and they'll stipulate that any lawyer at Sullivan and Cromwell is competent in the subject area that they're being asked about. Second, every material fact has to be disclosed to them. Third, you have to seek their legal opinion on a subject. And fourth, you have to follow the advice. So if the defense can make out those elements, I would think they'd be able to present the defense and it might have a shot of winning. So Sol Cromwell might not be saints, but as we covered last time in episode one, SPF isn't exactly facing a trial over FTX's collapse. He's charged with a lot of things that led up to FTX's collapse. Arguably, what's alleged to have happened post -collapse matters more for FTX's victims. And if you ask them, the reviews are mixed on exactly what's played out thus far. If I'm going to judge Sullivan and Cromwell and John J. Wray from my purview of being someone who's seen these things in bankruptcy, I would give them a very low grade because you can say, oh, this is crypto, it's difficult, but it's not that difficult. And sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don't. I will say that these debtors are extremely bad in my professional experience. That was Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor who has experience following bankruptcy proceedings. For former FTX customers like him, Sam's spat with Sol Cromwell matters very little, as long as the firm can help achieve a meaningful recovery of their funds. And despite the fact that legal fees are stacking up, the bidding market for FTX customer claims is showing a growing hope they might not be stuck with pennies on the dollar. Another way to frame it is, you know, there's a claims market for FTX claims, trade claims, trade actively. There's a little niche of traditional finance that all they do is go around to different bankruptcies in all industries and they buy claims. This is this is a, you know, a subsector of of investing. And this is a huge bankruptcy. So this has been a very big liquid market. Right. And the first, you know, we're a very big creditor in this. So, you know, I'm in active conversations in this claims market. First, first bid we saw was in Thanksgiving and it was like six cents. That was the first bid. Six cents on the dollar, six cents on the dollar. And now now it's like 40 cents. And so it's gone from six to 40 cents. So then I'm like, OK, well, that feels quite good. Yeah. And OK, these guys are charging a load of money for that, but they have taken us from six cents to 40 cents. With both FTX's bankruptcy case and SPF's criminal case unfolding in real time, one may very well impact the other. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CFTC to share the report. Sam says Solkrom filed to support that FTX's structure was above board. The agency denied our request, saying it's unable to share documents that, quote, could interfere with the conduct of federal agency law enforcement activities. And of course, as long as Solkrom selected John Ray is running the show at FTX, it's unexpected anything comes out to support SPF's case. FTX, too, didn't get back for comment. So unless SPF has direct evidence of lawyers being aware of FTX's shaky financials and helping for years to cover it up, it's hard to judge SPF's advice of counsel defense or the idea that he thought he was in the clear leading up to the collapse just because his lawyers said it was fine. As Litt said, that sounds more like an excuse than a defense. As a community owned Web3 media outlet, Coinage will be breaking down everything we've learned together through this series and curating still unanswered questions at Coinage .Media. I'm Zach Guzman. This was the second part of Coinage's investigative series covering SPF's defense. Stay tuned for episode three, where we'll explore another pillar. Of SPF's defense. You've been listening to the SPF Defense on the Coindesk Podcast Network. Follow the Coindesk Podcast Network to get all the Coindesk shows in one place and head over to Coindesk .com for all the Sam Bankman freed coverage. Thanks for listening.
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
A highlight from JPMORGAN CHASE BLOCKS CRYPTO IN UK! SEC GARY GENSLER DELAYS BITCOIN SPOT ETF & HEARING!
"Welcome back to the Thinking Crypto podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. If you are new here, please hit that subscribe button as well as the thumbs up button and leave a comment below. If you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify, Apple or Google, please leave a five star rating and review. It supports the podcast and it doesn't cost you anything. Well, folks, tomorrow's scumbag regulator, Gary Gensler, will be testifying before the House Financial Services Committee at 10 a .m. Eastern. So I definitely will be watching that. I'm hoping that he gets grilled, that he comes down on this clown because he has not been abiding by the law. He has made the SEC political. And there's many different topics that I hope the members of the financial committee go after him on. First, of course, the loss to Ripple in the XRP lawsuit, right where XRP was declared intrinsically not a security. So that is a total contrast to what Gary has been saying, that the rules are clear in 1933 -34 how we test for stocks and bonds. But it's like you buffoon digital assets exist on decentralized blockchains distributed globally. This is not a U .S. market. This thing is global and it's decentralized. So we need updated rules for this. And I'm not saying that every crypto asset is not a security. There are some that are. But how do we differentiate? That's the need for the updated rules. So the other aspect is Gary and the SEC took a big loss in the grayscale lawsuit. And the three judges went against the SEC and they said the denial of the grayscale Bitcoin's bond ETF was arbitrary and capricious. Gary's taking big losses in court here. Right. And obviously, Gary, going after the Coinbase folks is really bad, given that they greenlighted Coinbase to go public. The other aspect is Promethean, because since Gary was before this committee, a lot of stuff came out of a Promethean that they had they got the license, but they weren't even selling crypto and that this guy is clearly a plant by Gary Gensler and Elizabeth Warren. So I'm hoping they bring the heat on this buffoon and expose him. Last time they did a great job, but they got to keep the pressure on and expose him. Now, ahead of the hearing, Gary released his testimony. But it's the same old bullshit. Right. There's nothing new here. I don't even want to read anything. He just brings up the securities laws of 1933 and so on and so forth. Now, what also happened was a bunch of letters were sent to Gary Gensler and some other folks as well. So the first is a bipartisan letter was sent to Gary Gensler by GOP members and Democrats. So this is really great that it's bipartisan and they're urging the SEC to approve a Bitcoin spot ETF. The GOP members included Tom Emmer and Representative Mike Flood. The Democrats included Ritchie Torres and Representative Wiley Nickel. So this is really good. You know, they highlighted the grayscale lawsuit and how the court of appeals sided with grayscale. So I'm hoping that these folks bring the heat on Gary tomorrow. In addition, there was a letter sent to Gary Gensler and FINRA from Congressman Blaine stating his concern over the SEC's insufficient scrutiny of registered broker dealers with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, such as Prometheum, Webull and Moomoo app. Honestly, never heard of Moomoo app, but certainly Prometheum. We know, guys, that is a shady business and we will see what happens tomorrow. So they got to bring the heat and they got to keep putting the pressure. We have to use social media to our advantage. Folks, I want you all to be tweeting, sending emails to your representatives, making phone calls. We got to use the hashtag fire Gary Gensler. That stuff matters because I've said many times, optics play a big part in politics. I know we're not there in the capital, you know, forcing these folks to sign the bill or to fire Gary Gensler, but we can make our voices heard and we can amplify the facts and the truth and expose Gary Gensler for the corrupt scumbag that he is. And here, folks, the SEC has delayed the ARK Invest slash 21 shares Bitcoin spot ETF filing. They also delayed the global ex ETF application, which was due October 7th. So, you know, James Seyford is essentially saying, you know, will this mean that BlackRock, Bitwise, VanEck, all these folks are going to be delayed, too? You know, it wouldn't surprise me, Gary, I don't know what he's up to, but I hope the members call tomorrow him out on this. What are you doing? The courts clearly are saying you're not doing the right thing and they're siding with the crypto industry. So we once again, guys, are dealing with a corrupt scumbag regulator. He's a puppet on strings doing the bidding of his tradfi buddies and trying to slow this industry down, trying to kill crypto startups. So let's see what happens tomorrow. Now, speaking of Gary Gensler's tradfi puppet masters, Chase UK, yes, JP Morgan, Chase in the UK to block crypto payments, citing fraud and scams. Unbelievable, unbelievable, folks. And I'm going to give you the context of this. But let me give you the details of what they're trying to block. Banking giant Chase is banning crypto linked payments via debit card or by outgoing bank transfer for UK clients starting October 16th, according to an email to customers. If we think you're making a payment related to crypto assets will decline it, the email said, adding that the customers are free to use a different bank or provider to invest in crypto. However, finding a crypto friendly bank in the country may not be the easiest thing as UK credit institutions have a history of blocking or limited limiting customer access to crypto. The local financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, recently said it had facilitated discussions between banks and crypto firms because lenders have shown a reluctance to offer services to that industry. The fact that JP Morgan Chase is doing this is despicable. Why? Just today, just today, folks, JP Morgan agrees to pay seventy five million dollars settlement over ties to who? Jeffrey Epstein. Do I even need to say anything else about that name? Right, folks? These banks themselves are participating in a whole bunch of criminal scumbag activity, right? We've seen over the years. How many fines has JP Morgan gotten here? Kyle Schnapps, he highlighted this. He said JP Morgan Chase has paid nearly 40 billion dollars in fines for financial fraud and predatory practices since 2000.
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
A highlight from ANTI BITCOIN BOB MENENDEZ CHARGED! SEC GARY GENSLER DOESN'T LIKE THE LAW (CRYPTO NEWS)
"Welcome back to the Thinking Crypto Podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. If you are new here, please hit that subscribe button as well as the thumbs up button and leave a comment below. If you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify, Apple or Google, please leave a five star rating and review. It supports the podcast and it doesn't cost you anything. Well, folks, we got very interesting news, which I'm sure many of you may have heard in the mainstream media, and that is Senator Bob Menendez has been charged with bribery and a whole bunch of other crimes. And you may say, well, Tony, why are you talking about this? Right. Well, folks, Senator Bob Menendez, who is a Democrat, he introduced a bill back in 2022, which would help to stop Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador. And he was citing that the adoption would open the door for money laundering and corruption. Wow. Talk about hypocrisy, folks, right? This guy all along for a very long time, his track record, he's been accused of doing a lot of shady stuff and now he's being charged here. The folks at Bitcoin Archive said the senator who said Bitcoin can open the doors of corruption in El Salvador was just indicted for corruption by federal prosecutors who seized one hundred thousand dollars in gold bars and four hundred and eighty thousand dollars in hidden cash from his home. So politicians those who are often very loud and screaming against crypto are the ones who have a lot to lose and a lot to hide, who are probably doing shady stuff. For example, Elizabeth Warren, Brad Sherman, Gary Gensler, right? I'm sure they've got some really nasty stuff in their closet. And some folks have shown that Elizabeth Warren has a net worth of seventy three million dollars. And of course, her salary is just like two hundred and eighty thousand a year. That's a great amount of wealth she's accumulated from just a senator's salary, right, folks? But we know the game, right? This is why we got to keep fighting and we got to expose these corrupt bureaucrats and politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Brad Sherman. We know they are puppets on the string doing a lot of the bidding of the tradfi incumbents and people who would love to kill crypto and not just even kill crypto, but just stop or kill the startups and allow their banking buddies and Wall Street buddies to come in and take over. So I'm glad these folks are getting exposed. And President Nayib Bukele, who, of course, he's the president of El Salvador, he tweeted about this news. He said, this is the guy that called for an investigation against us. He ended up being charged, period. So I'm glad he's doing a victory lap there. Now we got some interesting news about a library in the SEC. So we had reported just about a week and a half ago or two weeks ago that library was going to file an appeal. And this is based on the Ripple lawsuit outcome. Right. It makes sense. We have new case law with XRP, so it makes sense for them to appeal. And the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has directed library to file its brief by November 1st, 2023. Now of course, this is no guarantee they're going to win. But the point is, we want to put the pressure on the SEC and Gary Gensler. We want to expose them for their lies, hypocrisy and much more. So I'm glad library is doing this. Attorney Jeremy Hogan highlighted a video here with Gary Gensler being interviewed. And it just shows his hypocrisy that he doesn't care about the law. He just cares about his own power and his next job. And it's no wonder Judge Sarah Netburn said the SEC has no faithful allegiance to the law. So he says the crypto space is full of hucksters and noncompliance. Well, the reporter asked them, would anything a court says change your mind? Great question. Gensler said, well, no, not really. And of course, he looked very shaky. He's losing confidence. And Attorney Jeremy Hogan said, you can't make this stuff up. So clearly, this man has no respect for the law. He's just making things up as he goes. It's about his show, his power, his ego. And we can't have that, folks. This guy's supported by our tax dollar. He should be kicked to the streets. And I'm telling you, I hope that Coinbase mops the floor with his buffoon and the SEC so that he has so much pressure on him. He's forced to resign. I'm hoping that happens. Now, Stuart Aldarati highlighted that same video. And here's what he had to say. What's most concerning to me and should be to you in the full video clip, this is the shocking admission of an unelected bureaucrat that he won't respect the decisions of the courts. So I'm thankful for the judicial branch and the balances we have in the government that a corrupt scumbag regulator like Gary Gensler, as much as he can go around saying all kinds of nonsense and nasty stuff, he has to respect the courts in a sense of what they put out there. Right. The SEC has to abide by that. Now, he may not personally agree, and he can, you know, like in this interview, say, oh, no, I don't agree with anything. But at the end of the day, if he takes a loss, he takes a loss. Right. So we got to keep fighting. I'm hoping the industry keeps fighting back as well. Now, quick word from our sponsor, and that is Uphold, which is a great crypto exchange that I've been using since twenty eighteen. I've interviewed their CEO and many representatives so I can vouch for this platform. They have ten plus million users, two hundred and fifty plus crypto currencies, and they're available in one hundred and fifty countries. You can also trade precious metals and thirty seven fiat currencies so you can switch between these different currencies and crypto and precious metals at a click of a button. So it's a unique platform and they've been around for a long time. Once again, I can vouch for this platform. So if you'd like to learn more, please visit the link in the description. All right. Let's move ahead. Caitlin Long was at Mainnet and she was tweeting out some of the statements coming out of Mainnet. I was at Mainnet yesterday and I met her. I tweeted out a photo of us together. I was supposed to go on Wednesday as well, but I wasn't feeling too hot. So stayed home that day. But, you know, there was a lot of folks there. And Brian Armstrong, CEO, was there. He said the Biden administration has been terrible for crypto. Well, that's to say the least, right? That's an understatement. They've been horrendous, in my opinion. Caitlin also highlighted that 61 percent of pro -crypto voters actually this is she's highlighting what Chris Lee Hain had to say, that 61 percent of pro -crypto voters in 2020 voted for Biden. Democrats are at risk of losing them in 2024 due to anti -crypto policy. Absolutely right. And these Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot. Patrick Hanson of Circle highlighted the following, that the euro stablecoin, obviously Circle issues USDC, but they also have the euro stablecoin and it's now EURC instead of EUROC. So just an update there. So the euro coin is now EURC. So just heads up on that, folks. And I want to highlight something I tweeted out today, and I think it's important. And, you know, all emotions aside, all feelings aside, I was highlighting that I'm very bullish on Ethereum for the 2024 -2025 bull market. Now this is, once again, all emotions and feelings about Bill Hinman and Joe Lubin aside, I still want those guys to be held accountable. But as for the token and the code, it's getting adoption. And I highlight that PayPal is building their stablecoin in Ethereum, right, PYUSD, Citibank's token is built on Ethereum. JP Morgan is working on a deposit token, which is built on Onyx, which is a permissioned version of the Ethereum blockchain. Coinbase is obviously launching base, which is their layer two for Ethereum, or they have launched it, I should say. And there's a rise in institutional ETH staking. So I'm very bullish on ETH and this type of news, these facts now, not my feelings, not my opinions, but these facts of adoption from very big companies and brands has me very bullish on Ethereum. I obviously hold ETH in my portfolio. I stake it and I continue to buy the dip, not financial advice. You should do your own research. And obviously I'm not just bullish on ETH alone, but just there's been a lot of adoption. And I want to highlight that because it's about facts, not feelings now. And I'm bullish on Bitcoin, XRP, Chainlink and many other tokens. Let's talk about Core Scientific, which is a Bitcoin mining company. So Core Scientific sealed $77 million Bitmain deal for 27 ,000 Bitcoin mining rigs. The deal was first finalized in August with Anchorage as another party agreeing to an equity stake in the bankrupt crypto miner. So one of the key things is that BlackRock also gave them a bit of money. Guys, this was back in 2022. So it's kind of like to the Victor goes to spoils where Bitmain was in trouble and then a whole bunch of folks started coming in to grab up as much as they can. So the deal between the two mining companies will see Bitmain supply 27 ,000 Bitcoin mining rigs for $23 million in cash, along with $53 .9 million worth of common stock of the bankrupt firm. Apart from the mining hardware purchase deal, Bitmain and Core Scientific have signed a new hosting agreement to assist Bitmain's mining operations. The deal was finalized in August when a court filing highlighted Bitmain's plan to sell mining hardware in exchange for cash and equity. As part of Core Scientific's restructuring plan, apart from Bitmain, the restructuring plan also included Anchorage. And you guys may have seen my interview recently with the president of Anchorage and the co -founder of Anchorage, Diego Monica. If you haven't seen that, be sure to check it out. It says here, restructuring plan also included Anchorage, BlockFi and mass mutual asset finance. Apart from Anchorage, all other three firms chose a mix of cash and equity options to settle their claims. The expansion investment plan by Bitmain will come into force by the fourth quarter of 2023, pending approval from a judge. Once approved, the hardware will potentially add 4 .1 exahashes to Core Scientific's hash rate. The two crypto mining companies all have also agreed to work together to upgrade Bitmain's last generation miners hosted at Core Scientific's data centers to further increase the firm's productivity. So, folks, Core Scientific, I will be potentially interviewing the new CEO and I'll let you guys know when that's coming up. But I want to definitely get into the details here and what BlackRock is doing with them in addition to Bitmain. So I'll definitely be asking those questions once I get the interview locked in. But, you know, a lot of companies are preparing for the Bitcoin mining next year. And many of you may have seen my interview uploaded earlier today with Fred Thiel, who's the CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, and Marathon is working with a sovereign wealth fund. So, folks, there's going to be a lot of capital coming to the market. You're going to see a rise in demand for Bitcoin as the spot ETFs get approved, especially around, you know, BlackRock spot ETF and Fidelity and so forth. So I'm very bullish, you know, like I've been saying, we are in quantitative tightening, fighting inflation, rates are high, but this will end right as it has historically boom and bust cycles. The Fed will eventually start its QE again. They're going to start printing money, global liquidity will go back up and we'll be back in a bull market. We just have to be patient, dollar cost average where possible. And, you know, don't look at the price every day because you'll drive yourself crazy. And, you know, it's very volatile. Sometimes it's moving sideways. It's very boring. And I know that's tough. But just, you know, take your positions, obviously do your research, take your positions and just be patient and then, you know, watch what these players are doing. Right. Not so much the price, but watch what the players like this are doing, who's investing, who's building, who's raising capital and much more. So that's what I'm looking at. And that's why I build this podcast to share the news, because, you know, this is not going to make mainstream news. This is not going to be on CNBC, Fox or CNN or whatever it is. Right. And a lot of people are not paying attention. But I'm glad I'm here early. If you are here early, pat yourself on the back because there's going to be billions of people coming in buying Bitcoin and other crypto at a premium and they're going to go to BlackRock and whoever else. Right. But you and I are on the side of smart money. We are on the side of BlackRock. We are on the side of Fidelity. Right. Accumulating the lows. And then when the bull markets come back, then, you know, the herds, the herd who watch Jim Cramer and listen to Jim Cramer will go by. And that's when I'll be taking profits. And I'm sure many of you as well. So once you understand the market cycles, both for stocks, even real estate and obviously crypto, you know, you can make money, folks. And that's what I had to learn. I had to unlearn the mainstream media finance and listening to Jim Cramer and all these things. Right. And study the charts and understand the market cycles and know when to buy and when to sell, because all those things, you have to be a contrarian. Right. You've got to go against your emotions. You've got to go against the herd mentality. And that's hard if, you know, all your life you've been trained to go with the herd. Right. From television and media and all these things, you have to unlearn that. And once you get it, boy, it's pretty sweet. Right. To be able to make a nice return, make nice money. And obviously you've got to diversify. I diversify into different tokens, into stocks. I've often tweeted and sometimes shared, you know, my positions. Recently, I told you guys I bought PayPal because Jim Cramer said to sell PayPal. So I bought PayPal. Right. I know it's not going to be some quick flip. It may I see I may see some nice returns by next year and that's OK. I a am patient investor looking to build wealth for me and my family. So anyway, guys, that's my approach. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear what you guys think about this news. Leave your thoughts and comments below. Hit the thumbs up button. Hit the five star rating on the podcast platforms. Don't forget to check out the merchandise store. Link will be in the description. Thank you for your support. Thank you for listening. And I'll talk to you all later. Thank you.
Mike Gallagher Podcast
A highlight from Week in Review - Episode 24
"Cycling isn't just cycling. It can be cycling or cycling or even cycling. Peloton isn't just one thing. We have classes that will ease you in and classes that will make you sweat and a range of instructors so you can find your match. Whatever you're in the mood for, we can get you in the zone. See for yourself with a worry free 30 day home trial. Visit one Peloton dot com slash home dash trial terms apply. Welcome to the Mike Gallagher Show Week in Review podcast. It's just about everything that's happened this week. I'm Eric Hanson, and we begin with President Trump, who made some controversial statements about abortion this week and called Ron DeSantis's six week abortion ban a terrible mistake. We might as well get this out of the way. We got President Trump with an answer to Kristen Welker on NBC's Meet the Press and her debut as the new host, which gave a lot of ammunition to Trump haters who want to hurt him and try to wreck his chances of becoming the nominee in 2024. This is an interesting dilemma that Republicans have. Here's the dilemma. Pro -life fighting for the sanctity of those unborn babies, the sanctity of their lives, the sacredness of the innocent. That's a centerpiece that's foundational for the Republican Party. And whether we like it or not, this particular debate that we're having in America over abortion is crushing us at the ballot box. And Donald Trump, I believe, was trying to address that with Kristen Welker on Meet the Press. Let's get it out of the way. I've been dreading this all weekend. Well, it wasn't all weekend. I mean, this first broke, I think, Saturday. They gave a little preview of his answer. I don't love his answer, but I also don't love the way Trump critics are pouncing on him, claiming he's not pro -life. I got into a big knockdown drag out, as I expected I would with my friend Mark Davis in Dallas, because Mark is now hell bent on proclaiming that Donald Trump is not pro -life. And he's saying that because of this exchange with Kristen Welker yesterday on Meet the Press. If a federal ban landed on your desk, if you were re -elected, would you sign it at 15 weeks? Are you talking about a complete ban? A ban at 15 weeks? Well, people are starting to think of 15 weeks. That seems to be a number that people are talking about right now. Would you sign that? I would I would sit down with both sides and I negotiate something and we'll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years. I'm not going to say I would or I wouldn't. I mean, the sanctus would really design a five week and six week ban. Would you support that? I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake. But we'll come up with a number. But at the same time, Democrats won't be able to go out in six months, seven months, eight months and allow an abortion. Now, there are people who took that answer and proclaimed that Donald Trump is not pro -life, like it's important to proclaim or make some kind of declaration that he is not pro -life. I believe it's ridiculous to claim that a guy who's the only president to ever attend the March for Life, the guy who promised to get Roe v. Wade overturned because that was terrible federal. That was a terrible federal ruling and appointed Supreme Court justices who did just that to claim that Donald Trump is not pro -life is preposterous. It's absurd. It's virtue signaling. And perhaps it's just. The opportunistic way you chalk up some points for Ron DeSantis, because clearly Team DeSantis is pouncing on Donald Trump over this remark. I believe two things can be true at the same time. You can be pro -life and you can acknowledge that this issue is killing us at the ballot box. And we're losing elections. So President Trump has some campaign trouble to manage. Meanwhile, our current president can barely navigate a simple speech. If you miss Joe Biden at the U .N. this week, well, buckle up. Remember when Trump went to the United Nations and gave a really good speech and the media freaked out and said how goofy and wild and unpresidential and unprecedented it was, they had a complete meltdown and he gave a really decent speech. Compare that to the appearance of Joe Biden yesterday at the U .N. Now, even as we have all our institutions and drive creative new partnerships. Let me be clear. Certain principles of our international system are sacrosanct. Both Biden and Kamala Harris do the same thing when they say, let me be clear, run for the hills, because when they say, let me be clear, you're going to see nothing but mud and gibberish. I mean, babbling incoherently in front of the United Nations. And if that wasn't wild enough, you've got the Ukrainian President Zelensky. He marches in with his entourage. You know, I used to say I was torn about Ukraine. People that I respect insist that we have got to continue to fund the Ukrainian battle with Russia, that the American people have to help Ukraine with its border. We dare not have a wall for our own border, but we better, by God, help Ukraine with theirs. We better fund them. We better give them the missiles they want. We got to give them the ammunition they need. We need to. We got to stop Vladimir Putin. And if you push back against that, you're a stooge for Vladimir Putin. You're a Putin puppet. Just ask Tucker Carlson. When Tucker dared to express the belief that the American people have bigger fish to fry than funding Ukraine, he was thoroughly denounced and renounced as a stooge of Vladimir Putin. So there goes Zelensky marching into the UN yesterday with his bodyguards and his entourage, and he gets up to that podium. And what he said was pretty stunning. I expected he would stand at that giant podium in front of that ugly green background at the UN and talk about the need to fund his military. Talk about Russia's aggression against the Ukrainian people. Talk about Ukraine's place in the whole worldview of things instead. We got this. Even though humanity is failing on its climate policy objectives, this means that extreme weather will still impact the normal global life and some evil state will also weaponize its outcomes. And then people in the streets of New York and other cities of the world went out on climate protest. We all have seen them and when people in Morocco and Libya and other countries die as a result of natural disasters and when islands and countries disappear underwater and when tornadoes and deserts are spreading into into new territories and when all of this is happening, one unnatural disaster in Moscow decided to launch a big war and killed the tens of thousands of people. No wonder loony leftists have the Ukrainian flag in their front yard. You would think the Ukrainian president had bigger problems than climate change. Meanwhile, the United Auto Workers hit the picket lines this week. They made a few modest demands like a 40 % pay raise in a four day work week. Speaking of the UAW strike, I watched Sean Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers Union on the Sunday morning news shows. And you know, I admit I'm not a real big fan of unions. In fact, quite the opposite. I kind of think that unions have helped destroy many aspects of our economic system. In fact, it's a commonly held view that pension plans that used to be in place contributed to the decline of the U S automakers. Well, now the UAW is demanding pensions come back. They want the old fashioned defined benefit plan. And as Bloomberg points out, pensions are not worth striking over. You know what I find interesting about the UAW dispute? I heard all the talking points about how the corporate executives at the big three automakers make too much money. That's a Bernie Sanders mantra. That's an Elizabeth Warren trope. The executives make too much. You know, a company can be producing billions of dollars of revenue, but the Bernie Sanders of the world want to cap what an executive at one of those companies earns, which I always find so fascinating. It's as if they want to equate the guy or gal on the assembly line with the big automakers. Well, they're not the same. I mean it'd be nice if everybody made the same amount of money in life hate to break it to your life doesn't work that way. Some people make more than others and admittedly a lot of it is luck. I don't deserve the living that I make, but I'm very blessed to make a good living. There are people make a lot more than I do and I don't begrudge them anything, but simply because somebody that might have a show on television might make 10 times what I make. I don't think I should make what they make simply because we do the same essentially same thing. I mean, and Democrats always have such hypocrisy on this issue. Like somebody just texted me, how many homes does Bernie Sanders have again? It's more than one. But here's something that I noticed when I heard Sean Fain, the president of the UAW talk about executives compensation and how we're not making enough and we're taking steps backwards. I mean, the fact of the matter is the union gave up the defined benefit pension plan in a previous negotiation. Now they want it back. When you give up a benefit like that, you're not going to get it back. That's not realistic. And here's what I'm interested in. You know what was missing from all the coverage of the UAW strike? They never talk about what auto make auto workers make. Now I kept hearing how somebody on the assembly line can't feed their family. Really? What do they make? I kept hearing that Sean Fain kept saying the auto workers have taken three steps backwards. Really? How much do they earn? I know what they want to make. They want a 40 % pay increase and they want to only work four days a week. Now that's a pretty good deal.
Simply Bitcoin
A highlight from Europe's Anti-Bitcoin Bill Reveals Plan to Stop Adoption | EP 829
"It's all going to zero against bitcoin it's going up for ever more you're against bitcoin you're against freedom yo welcome to simp with bitcoin live we're the number one source for the peaceful bitcoin revolution we will be your guide through the separation of money and state speaking of the separation of money and state interesting news coming out of Europe kind of not as bad as the proposed bill by Elizabeth Warren that we covered on one of simply bitcoins simply bitcoin lives episode this week but it's something very similar right this idea that every single transaction needs to be KY seed right and then I think that will inevitably lead to the any host unhosted wallet needs to be KY seed all right the the wording specifically in the Elizabeth Warren bill included any minor any validator any software wallet so you know it's just of course the powers that be that tremendously benefit from having a monopoly on the creation of money having controls on money of course to benefit themselves of course they're not going to be okay with this and this was the theory that was originally you know put out back in the 90s in the book the sovereign individual I'm going to read you guys a passage from that book because I think it correctly predicted exactly the reactions from governments I don't think governments have been able to they're not used to this environment where they have competition and most importantly not only do they have competition but they can't shut down the competition right because we remember we saw Facebook try to launch their own you know digital currency and they got shut down real quick the thing with Bitcoin right and Bitcoin only right because aetherium is inherently centralized meaning it will inevitably be co -opted so they have no choice but to ally with the state and they were in order to survive but with Bitcoin can't be stopped and because it can't be stopped it creates a forcing function in the long term as more and more individuals choose to opt out of inflationary money into deflationary money so yes of course times are changing but it's not only on the money front right we're not only living through the disintermediation of money but we're also living through the disintermediation of information and yesterday was a historic day I've never seen this in my life the UK Parliament sent Russell Brand an extremely popular independent content creator a letter to rumble we love rumble by the way we're on there subscribe to us on there and shout out to our rumble audience as well it's been growing by the day so we appreciate you all they sent a letter to rumble asking rumble to demonetize Russell Brand like YouTube did so we have governments that are directly asking platforms to demonetize content creators of which they don't did they don't agree with that is absolutely absurd and these are the same governments that want you to trust them with central bank digital currencies if they had central bank digital currencies in place they wouldn't even have to ask the platforms they could just flick the switch themselves so when we say Bitcoin or slavery or how beauty on said it and I'm starting to lean this way to Bitcoin or death we are not exaggerating and you have to choose what world do you want to live in in the future and most importantly what world do you want the future generations your children your children's children to live in so it's gonna be a great episode I'm really looking forward to it you have to stay on top of what's going on anyways we also we also have a very special treat for you guys we have the head of customer experience from foundation devices the maker of the passport hardware wallet and he's gonna do a live demo for us during the culture cement segment so I'm really really pumped about that let me bring up let me bring him up on stage Bitcoin Q &A you're quite well known on Bitcoin Twitter as well how you doing buddy yeah doing very well thank you very much for having me I'm psyched to shoot the shit with you guys this evening well even in my time but yeah certainly some interesting goings on especially around the Russell brand thing so I'm sure we'll be able to share some insights on that one but not a good look yeah I completely agree man it's it's some some interesting times we are living through people some people call it the fourth turning I don't know man but the phrase that sticks with me the most is weak men create hard times hard times create strong men strong strong men create good times we're definitely going through this era and then I think it was actually Vladimir Lenin that said the very very famous quote right where there are decades that nothing happened and then there are weeks that decades happen I think we're definitely living through this moment of time anyways no more delay let's bring up my legendary co -host not optimistic today no smile oh there's this smile sorry I was caught reading the channels optimistic fields how you doing bro well I am doing wonderful and I'm actually really excited for this culture segment today guys I got a sneak peek of the demo that we're going to see and I think there's gonna be awesome this might be a simply Bitcoin first for the live show but to the news stories and stuff it really just goes to show that if you speak the truth you are the enemy of the state and I think more and more and more people are waking up to this because they either continue to de -platform you from your banks or de -platform you from social media for saying what they don't want to be said you know for saying the quiet part out loud and you know this is why we do our show in a very particular way so that we can survive on YouTube but man it really just goes to show that the powers that be are completely terrified of people talking about the truth hence why you guys need to talk about it more and continue to spread that signal but it just goes to show that this is the the last I don't know the last gasp of the great Leviathan you know what's them saying like darker before the dawn like this is their last grasping at straws to control the truth and and I mean I've been saying for a while I think the monopoly on truth is slowly and dwindling they're going to try to make examples of this so you know just be prepared we know what's coming so protect yourselves protect your family and continue to spread the Bitcoin truth the Bitcoin signal actually just truth with a capital T I suppose anyways Niko let's let's get into this one let's get into this one let's get into the show man I'm really really excited alright guys let's get to the numbers we have a lot to talk about today and I'm super is your Bitcoin in cold storage really secure is your seed phrase really secure stamp seeds do -it -yourself kit has everything you need to hammer your seed words into commercial grade titanium plates instead of just writing them on paper don't store your generational wealth on paper papers prone to water damage fire damage you want to put your generational wealth on one of the strongest metals on planet earth titanium your words are actually stamped into this metal plate with this hammer and these letter stamps and once your words are in they aren't going anywhere no risk of the plate breaking apart and pieces falling everywhere titanium stamped seeds will survive nearly triple the heat produced by a house fire they're also crush proof waterproof non -corrosive and time proof all things that paper is not allowing you to huddle your Bitcoin with peace of mind for the long haul stamp your seed on stamp seed alright guys I literally made it super easy for you guys you can scan the QR code on your screen it will take you directly to stamp seed website you can get you could store your generational wealth on titanium so you don't have to explain to your children why you lost your Bitcoin because you stored it on paper you can use promo code simply get 15 % off anything on the stamp seed website at the time of recording the Bitcoin price is twenty six thousand five hundred and seventy sats per dollar three thousand seven hundred sixty four block height eight hundred eight thousand seven hundred twenty nine blocks to having thirty one thousand two hundred seventy one having estimate April 21st 2024 total lightning network capacity four thousand eight hundred fifty five Bitcoin capacity value one hundred twenty nine million US dollars realized monetary inflation one point seven five percent the market capitalization of Bitcoin currently sitting at five hundred and seventeen billion dollars Bitcoin versus gold market cap four point zero one percent in the grand scheme of things Bitcoin is still a baby if Bitcoin reaches not if when Bitcoin reaches the gold market cap that is five hundred thousand dollars per coin and I think that's just getting started anyways we played you guys a video yesterday of a member of the United Nations talking about how we are in an information war we played you guys the video and she was basically recommending that that that they no longer have people to call on on Twitter to censor information she was also saying how there's an army of people that are propagating United Nations approved information well you know she's she's talking about as if the information that's coming out of the United Nations is a matter of fact right she's talking about the problem of disinformation disinformation well my question to you guys is who gets to decide what is disinformation and what is information right well we advocate for on simply Bitcoin is individuals not central planners not governments using their own critical thinking abilities right to dictate okay this is a good idea this is a bad idea right this is how the American this how the American Constitution it's literally written like that that there's a reason that the First Amendment is the way it is right the government or Congress should make no law you know basically censoring or stopping the freedom of the speech of people right and they made it that way for a reason because if there is a central authority if there's a government that gets to dictate what information is true what information is not true history has shown that they'll use that power to protect their own political mode right so thank God for the internet thank God for technologies like Bitcoin thank God for technologies like Noster for example they can't do this anymore and because they're not able to do that they're freaking out number one and number two and number two it becomes a forcing function over a long period of time but that doesn't stop them from trying here is the former New Zealand Prime Minister at the United Nations saying that that words are weapons of war right weapons of war if so if you say something against the government that all of a sudden becomes a weapon of war and again this has escalated it is escalated to the point where the UK Parliament has asked rumble to demonetize Russell Brand who's a very popular content creator who goes against the legacy corporate media's narratives right and it kind of embarrasses them so what are they doing they're attacking his money they're saying rumble okay they can't they've tried to deplatform people before they've gotten a lot of pushback so what they do instead is that they attack his pocketbook obviously YouTube complied they demonetize Russell Brand's content but rumble said no we're not doing that so love that of rumble we're on rumble we support rumble that's awesome but another thing that I want to say is that the allegations against rubble Russell Brand are just that they are allegations they have not been proven so something that has not been proven is a justification to shut off someone's living that is insane anyways let's check out this letter and this is a letter by part by the UK Parliament the specifically the cultural culture media and sport committee to the CEO of rumble Chris Palavoski who says dear Chris I'm writing concerning the serious allegations regarding Russell Brand in the context of of his being a content provider on rumble for more than 1 .4 million followers the cultural the culture media and sports committee is raising questions with the broadcasters and production companies who previously employed mr. brand to examine both the culture of the industry in the past and whether that culture still prevails today however we are also looking at his use of social media including on rumble where he issued his preemptive response to the accusations made against him by the Sunday Times and Channel 4 his dispatches while we recognize that rumble is not the creator of the content published published by mr. brand we are concerned that he may be able to profit from his content on the platform did you hear what they said the government is concerned that Russell Brand might be able to profit from his content because there was some allegations made against him conveniently a lot of Russell Brand's content is criticisms of the government so I mean big coincidence I guess you would you could say we would be grateful if you could confirm whether mr. brand is able to monetize his content including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him is so we would like to know whether rumble intends to join ryu tube in suspending mr. brand's ability to earn money on the platform we would also like to know what rumble is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potential potentially illegal behavior so they asked rumble to demonetize a content creator an independent content creator that's the key word when we had Parker Lewis on the show and I was talking about the legacy corporate media he didn't say no Nico it's not the legacy corporate media it's the legacy government media so anyways why is this happening I think Jeff Booth said this perfectly we read this to you guys the other day and this all boils down to the money this is why we say as Bitcoiners fix the money fix the world here's Jeff Booth he says because broken money Elon Musk said how did most of the legacy media go from superheroes of free speech to supervillains of speech suppression and Jeff Booth says because broken money ensures the centralization of power by stealing the productivity through inflation that should flow to society in the form of lower prices then those enriched by that theft and subsequent power must control the messaging to keep it but it all it wasn't only Jeff Booth that said this here's an article from our friends over at Bitcoin magazine of nine Bukele the president of the country shining on the hill the Savior El Salvador the first country that made Bitcoin legal tender the beachhead for the Bitcoin movement around the world he goes on to say the most vocal detractors the ones who are afraid and pressuring us to reverse our decision are the world's most powerful elites and the people who work or benefit from them they used to own everything and in a way they still do the media the banks the NGOs international organizations and almost all the governments and corporations in the world and with that of course they own the armies the loans the money supply the credit ratings the narrative the propaganda the factories of food supply they control international trade and international law but their most powerful weapon is their control of the truth and they're willing to fight lie smear destroy confiscate print and do whatever it takes to maintain and increase their control over the truth and everything and everyone I think come from Nico or simply Bitcoin that came from the president of El Salvador name Bukele so what is happening here two things are happening here thing number one the internet has empowered individuals and those individuals can now use the internet to uh to grow these massive platforms themselves and because they're individuals they're a lot harder to co -opt and at the same time we are witnessing the distance remediation of money that internet has allowed Bitcoin and Bitcoin has empowered individuals to choose their own money too so government states NGOs international institutions right that have had this privilege of having not only having the monopoly in the control over money but also the monopoly in the control over information it's quickly diminishing in front of their eyes and of course that system is fighting back they can't take that they've been used to operating in a system where they've been able to control the narrative they've been able to control the truth and that is slipping through their fingers and they don't know what to do and that's why they're short -circuiting the way they are that's why we've gotten to a point where the UK Parliament is literally asking a platform to D monetize an independent content creator not to mention all the stuff that was revealed during the Twitter files where it was exposed that the US government even though that is explicitly against the US Constitution the government should not be censoring speech was asking Twitter to D platform D boost and censor certain speech and these are the same governments that also want you to trust them with central bank digital currencies and they expect you to believe that they're not going to use central bank digital currencies as a weapon as a forcing function in order to control your actions as a individual and this was all predicted I might add in the book the sovereign individual which we'll get to during the new segment but this is some crazy times now what can you do to protect yourself in this particular situation do your own research pick what information sources you choose you you want to choose I love Twitter because it's like a news aggregator and the the news that you know pops up pops up Noster is a great platform rumbles a great platform YouTube is is good to do your own research don't rely on a single information source and then most importantly the most empowering thing you could do is to opt out of state money opt into Bitcoin I think that's the most powerful thing you could do look the most important the most important vote you can make that voting for a Democrat or Republican it's not to say that it's not important to vote but the most powerful vote that you can do that will actually change things is voting with your wallet opt out and the way that you do that is you buy Bitcoin earn Bitcoin mine Bitcoin and take that said Bitcoin into self custody the moment you do that you're part of the peaceful Bitcoin revolution whether you are aware of it or not and that is how we win if enough people take self custody we win and there's nothing they could do about it speaking of self custody we have the head of customer experience with us today Bitcoin QA and you guys make it super fucking easy to take self custody with the hardware wallet that you guys make and not to mention the awesome application that you guys make so Bitcoin QA what's your take on this whole Russell brand stuff I can't believe we've reached this point if I would have been told this five five six years ago I would have said that's impossible there's no way that's that that's so ridiculous what's your take on all this yeah before I enter you I've just got to say that was one hell of a fucking monologue I take my half to you that was fantastic yeah kudos and yeah the whole Russell brand thing man just completely shocking another example yet another example of government overreach Russell brands been a thorn in the side of the UK government if you can't tell by the action by the way to anybody's listening that I'm from the UK and he's been a thorn in their side for years and he's a very well educated man he's very well spoken and he has drawn a lot of following by speaking out against money printing against government policy he was rabid about the whole covert thing pharmaceuticals getting rich because of you know yeah you know all of the corruption that went on over those couple of years and I see this recent letter as that them seeing the opportunity as they're into trying you know get one back on him you've touched on earlier that the fact that all of these are just allegations at the moment and the fact that they're going around trying to take money off him from you know he's not been convicted of anything at all that's not see won't be but right now they're just allegations and they're trying to take his money off him it's just completely shocking and they're just trying to lash out because he's been a pain in their ass royally for years so yeah I mean they're just they're just overreaching and leveraging their powers wherever they can just to kind of deep platform and then hurt his wallet as well unfortunately yeah 100 % they attack his money they attack and again like they attack his money and they're also like hey guys these CBDCs like we'll respect your privacy you could trust us what are you talking about anyways Opti what's your take well I actually I kind of want to ask Q &A question because there is some talk about this in the chat what's your thoughts on Russell Brand being like controlled demolition Q &A whoo how do you mean like basically that this is like an orchestrated attack you know once everyone's talking about this maybe Russell Brand isn't necessarily as much of a truth speaker as people are making him out to be like does he actually believe what he's saying or is this just kind of one of those things where you know you create a figure and then you kind of tear him down to discredit the whole movement in general the whole truth movement yeah possibly I think I think most of what he says is genuine he before he started doing all of the YouTube stuff like he was he was a you know some form of a celebrity he had a big following and could have monetized himself as a product in many many other ways by coming out and being as outspoken as he has against the the prickly topics of like money printing and you know COVID etc he must have known you know he's smart enough to know that would have been incredibly divisive to people that followed him so I lean towards the fact that he's genuine and the fact that they're probably gonna try and use him as a scapegoat to warn ward off other people that kind of speak out against any government policy etc etc yeah I'd agree I mean like especially considering what his status was it's hard to follow the incentives and be like yeah he's got a lot to gain from this when in reality he's on the verge of losing everything so I'd agree with you and then just kind of going back to the beginning of this rant and and people are saying epic daily Nico Jones rant today so good job Nico I like when Nico gets get animated remember growing up guys when I grew up I had a saying and I'm sure your mother told it to you as well and we all probably said it in kindergarten you know sticks and stones but words may never hurt me and now we grow up in a world where words are violence like what is going on guys and that's a convenient it's a convenient way I know Nico I was getting there I'm asking rhetorical questions on the show now okay I'm learning some Nico Jones tactics but as we know guys as we know guys you know if you can stop words from being said then you can stop thought and if you can stop thought then you can ultimately stop behavior and this is where they're going they want to ensure that you guys sell censors so that you guys don't lose everything and this is where we are guys that they are absolutely afraid of people speaking the truth they're absolutely afraid of the average person waking up and exposing all of their lives because that's all they have they have lies and favors and they have the monopoly on truth as we think now is more important than ever to speak your minds to make sure you're having these conversations to as the saying goes you know speak truth to power and all that good stuff because there's been a constant theme throughout 2023 or actually rather since 2020 basically is that if your voice is too big and you talk against the establishment then the powers that be will do anything they can to put you back in line and whether that means you know breaking your reputation taking all your money dragging you through the court of public opinion we know what their tactics are and if you're following along closely then you know what the playbook is and it's almost like they're doing the same thing over and over and over again but I think the silver lining of this is that it seems like their playbook isn't working as well as it used to which in some sense should be absolutely terrifying because then they're going to go to even more extremes and you know I'm not gonna say what everyone's thinking but it's gonna get crazy guys and so I think it's just becoming very very clear that as an individual just even a normal person that doesn't have a platform like you want to do whatever you can in your power to protect yourself and hence why we always say that it always boils down to the money guys so protect your money protect your livelihood by taking your Bitcoin into self -custody by saving in Bitcoin and because remember guys this is always about theft they want to take your wealth and put you back in your place and then distribute it and make everyone feel good and we're seeing this happen in real time and it isn't lost on me that this is done via a letter you know it's just like hey how nefarious can a letter be but if you're reading in between the lines then you know how nefarious this letter actually is and that this is a coordinated attack on someone that's talking against the establishment and if people like Russell Brand you know say what you want about him but if people like him can't speak about the truth and they also get run through the grinder like imagine what would happen to an average individual like there's no hope for us if people of that stature can't talk about what's actually going on in the world and hence why it's so important to continue to double down on independent content creation spreading the truth talking about all this stuff because this is all we have we have the truth on our side and as the saying goes you know the truth will set us free so just just don't be afraid you know be brave but also be smart out there and the best thing you can do is just protect yourself and protect your money protect your family and I think as more people do this then the world will slowly but surely start to fix itself anyways you know amen we'll see what happens amen preach brother all right everybody let's get to the news we got a lot to talk about today let's check it out no no no no no no before we do that before we do that I have to give a shout out to our awesome sponsor Bitcoin 2024 it's gonna be the largest Bitcoin conference on planet earth it's gonna be in Nashville Tennessee it's not gonna be in Miami this year July 25th through the 27th 2024 you definitely want to get your tickets quickly before the prices go up for a GA it's 349 for an industry pass it's 849 for a whale pass it's four thousand seven hundred forty nine Opti and I are gonna be there it's gonna be awesome check out Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville Tennessee the year of the having Opti and I are gonna be there some other simply Bitcoin members are gonna be there it's gonna be awesome use promo code simply to get a 10 % discount on the already discounted tickets to Bitcoin 2024 all right now let's hit the news the daily news I want to give a shout out to our sponsor foundation devices it's self -custody done right they built a premium grade hardware wallet called passport right here in the u .s.
Simply Bitcoin
A highlight from Robert Kiyosaki: Buy Bitcoin NOW, Before Market Crash | EP 828
"Yo, welcome to Simply Bitcoin Live, we're your number one source for the peaceful Bitcoin revolution, we cover breaking news, culture, and medic warfare, we will be your guide through the separation of money and state. Robert Kiyosaki, he is the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, it was one of the most influential books that I read in my professional career, in fact it was one of the first books that I read in my late teens, early 20s, I dropped out of college so I took the non -normal path, the path where my parents are like, you're never going to make anything of yourself, and that book was a big inspiration for me, it motivated me and it really kind of changed on my mindset what is money, what is entrepreneurship, what is wealth, so I highly recommend that book if you haven't read it, and the reason I'm talking about this individual today is because he's pretty base, he likes Bitcoin, he likes Bitcoin a lot, and he tweeted something, something actually that he's been tweeting for quite a while, and essentially what he's saying is, you better get yourself some gold, you better get yourself some silver, obviously I don't agree with the gold and the silver, it's not that gold in itself is bad, I just think that the gold market is captured because of gold centralization, because of its physical characteristics it leads to a lot of people cussing their gold, and I think that inevitably leads to rehypothecation, that inevitably leads to manipulation. So, yeah, I think Bitcoin is the insurance, but most importantly, if this news was just on itself, you would say, Niko, this is a bunch of noise, what does it matter if another person is saying to buy Bitcoin? Well you guys know the deal, what we do here at Simply Bitcoin, connect the dots, remember all the people that are saying, buy Bitcoin, the other day I think it was yesterday's episode, you had Jordan Peterson, so you have another influencer, you have another person who has a huge following, who's the author of a very, very famous book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, it's a very influential book, also saying the quiet part out loud, buy Bitcoin as insurance, get on the life raft, so that is awesome, we're gonna talk about that today, and also in the European Union, European Union passed DAC8, and essentially what that would do is it would force crypto service providers to report all transaction information on EU clients, which is something very, very similar to the Elizabeth Warren bill that we covered on yesterday's episode, so yeah, we covered Jordan Peterson on Monday, we covered the Elizabeth Warren stuff yesterday, so you could see where all these countries, the direction that all these countries are heading, as the separation of money and state accelerates, and the nation state tries to maintain that privilege, the privilege, the control of money, the monopoly over money, but I don't think you can stop an idea whose time has come, so they're gonna have a very, very hard time stopping that, I'm very excited for today's show, it's Wednesday, we're halfway through the week, it's time to bring up my legendary co -host, who is literally smiling and laughing, this is Ati all the time, how you doing brother, what's up? I'm doing great, I'm just laughing at you, because like hey, you know, I was joking before the show, I was like okay, let's just get the show done, and you're like, I live for this stuff, this is what I do, and it still works, but we love to do this man, and yeah, to your point, you know, I remember reading Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad, my early days right before I found Bitcoin, and it was definitely one of those defining books in my life that, you know, I think I've come a long way since then, but it was one of those books that definitely got me reading, or at least thinking about money correctly, anyways, on that point, last week we had a kneel on, and someone asked, what are some of the Bitcoin fundamentals, and so I went on my Noster yesterday, and I asked people what they thought are some Bitcoin fundamentals, and shout out to Darth Coin, our simply Bitcoin Telegram group moderator, and he gave me one of his articles, so I'm gonna use that as a jump off point, so hopefully some new people that are in the chat, I saw someone say they just got their first, you know, their first Bitcoin, they just started stacking, so you know, we're new people in the Simply Bitcoin YouTube that maybe aren't as familiar with everything that we know, we're trying to get them on board, you know, I know you guys, I can hear you guys saying, you know, Opti repeats himself so much, but hey, we're trying to get everyone on the same page, not everyone understands as much as you do, and as I jokingly say all the time, I think I've forgotten more about Bitcoin than I remember, but all you need to remember is, stack sad, stay humble, stay solvent, take your Bitcoin off the exchange, keep it simple guys, so we're gonna kind of get back to some fundamentals, give you guys some, as Darth Coin says, some Bitcoin commandments, and we'll kind of have a little chat about that, I'd like to get, or pick Niko's brain about what he thinks are some of the fundamentals as well, so we got a good show, I think actually it's gonna be a fitting show with the Robert Kiyosaki news as well. Robert Kiyosaki man, it's absolute legend, love, love his work, love the book that he wrote, also guys if you're enjoying the show, help us break 100 likes within the first hour, I think yesterday, or the day before, we broke 200 likes, so if you're watching the live stream right now on Rumble, YouTube, Twitter, make sure to smash that like button, also join Simply Bitcoin's Telegram group, it's absolutely free, we're almost, we're about to hit a thousand people in there, so just go to t .me slash simply Bitcoin TV, join it, it's a party, you can tag Opti there with some memes and he'll feature them on the show. Alright everybody, no more delay, let's jump straight into the numbers, we got a lot to talk about today, let's check it out. The Bitcoin Numbers Is your Bitcoin and cold storage really secure? Is your seed phrase really secure? Stamped Seeds Do It Yourself Kit has everything you need to hammer your seed words into commercial grade titanium plates, instead of just writing them on paper, don't store your generational wealth on paper, paper is prone to water damage, fire damage, you wanna put your generational wealth on one of the strongest metals on planet earth, titanium. Your words are actually stamped into this metal plate with this hammer, and these letter stamps, and once your words are in, they aren't going anywhere, no risk of the plate breaking apart and pieces falling everywhere. Titanium stamped seeds will survive nearly triple the heat produced by a house fire, they're also crush proof, waterproof, non -corrosive, and time proof, all things that paper is not, allowing you to huddle your Bitcoin with peace of mind for the long haul. Stamp your seed on stamp seed. Alright guys, I literally made it easy for you guys, scan the QR code on your screen with your phone, it will take you directly to the stamp seed website, you can use promo code simply to get 15 % off anything on the stamp seed website, store your generational wealth on fucking titanium bro, titanium. Anyways, the Bitcoin price at the recording is 27 ,155, sats per dollar, 3 ,683, block height 808 ,601, blocks to halving 31 ,399, halving estimate April 21st, 2024, total lightning network capacity 4 ,829 Bitcoin, capacity value 131 million US dollars, realized monetary inflation rate, inflation 1 .75%, continuing to take fiat currencies to absolute school, market capitalization, 529 billion dollars with a B, Bitcoin versus gold market cap 4 .09%. In the grand scheme of things, Bitcoin is still a tiny little baby. Anyways, something to point out, something very interesting, which is the Bitcoin versus gold market cap. That will continue to go up if Bitcoin reaches the gold market cap, that is 500 million dollars sorry yes, 500 ,000 dollars per Bitcoin, rough estimate. So and we all know that Bitcoin is better than gold because of its physical characteristics. Again I know a lot of people that like gold in the chat and I appreciate you all and I'm a fan of gold too, gold bar like physical gold I'm a big fan of but problem is that most people don't like they don't they don't buy physical gold, they buy paper gold. That's the issue right? With Bitcoin you know it allows you to take self custody of your Bitcoin extremely easy, you know you don't have you don't have to wait for it to get physically mailed to you. If you go to El Salvador where Bitcoin is legal tender and you go to a McDonald's you know you could pay with your Bitcoin because Bitcoin has a bunch of decimal places you know it's divisible it's goes through the internet if you use lightning network it's instantaneous you know the main chain writes roughly 10 minutes settlement but you'll still see the transaction immediately.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
A highlight from ATTACK AGAINST CRYPTO! (The WORST Is Yet To Come)
"Hey, what's up, everyone. Welcome to Discover Crypto. My name is A .J. Wright's crypto. And I really don't want to talk about this, but I have to get into this because you guys need to know things are probably about to get pretty messy in crypto. I mean, it's already been, you know, with the SEC going after Binance and Coinbase and this going to security this don't give up. But my message here is that the coordinated attack against crypto, you know, Operation Choke Point 2 .0 is alive and well. And in fact, I think Coinbase and Binance was just the beginning. Just today, the head of cryptocurrency assets and cyber unit of the SEC, David Hirsch, issued a serious warning that, you know, Binance and Coinbase, that was just the beginning. In the near future, they are going to be coming after not only similar platforms, similar exchanges, but also DeFi. I mean, you know, basically, if they can't control it, they they want to destroy it. It's the American way. Crypto is straight up a threat to the legacy system and everybody knows it. And this is why they're coming after the next thing so hard. You know, they've been taking losses in court. You know, SEC didn't fare well against Ripple. They just got denied an emotion in the Binance case today. But it doesn't matter to them. It's just fuel to the fire to go after the next person with more intensity. It's like as long as there's negative headlines about crypto in the news, they are winning maybe in the court of public opinion. Not everyone that knows about crypto is well informed and watches videos like this. You know, there's just people that see it on the news and will never invest because all they've heard is bad things from the news. And this is hurting the cause. This is hurting mass adoption. And this is by design because they are scared to death of the implications of what could happen to the legacy system, the status quo and even the dollar. If crypto wins this war, this is personal to them. Their jobs are seriously on the line here. And this is why exchanges like KuCoin, like BitGet, you know, remove themselves from the American equation because they wanted to stay out of hot water. I mean, can you blame them? I mean, you know, the spiel crypto is a threat to national security. Crypto is rife with fraudsters and hucksters. Answer me this. Everybody answer me this. Who uses the word hucksters? And also answer me this. Does the S is the SEC doing this because they really want to protect investors? Or is the SEC doing this to protect the American dollar? I mean, with the rise of the BRICS nations, the American dollar is becoming less and less relevant on the global scale with every passing day when money goes in the crypto that it goes away from the dollar, away from the fiat system. I mean, right now, we're 33 trillion dollars in debt. And because, you know, we keep hiking up the interest rates, that money just gets more and more expensive to pay back over time. And it's exponentially more expensive because the interest rates are hyped. It is evident, it is evident that our government is terrified of losing the crown of having the world reserve currency. I mean, if America loses the world reserve currency, I don't even know what that looks like. And this is why they are spending millions of taxpayer dollars every day to attack crypto. It goes against the legacy system. It goes against the status quo. But you know, it's not all bad. Like there is, you know, as this story came out, Hester Piris is still in the back telling crypto firms to not give up the fight, to keep fighting back because people like Hester Piris, they see the silver lining. She sees what is possible with crypto and how it can help in more ways than one. Elizabeth Warren, Gary Gensler, David Hurst, they don't want to see that. They are focused on keeping things the way they are. And the only thing that matters to them is power. And let's not forget that. I mean, why do you think crypto is such a hot topic right now? It's a hot button issue, especially at the polls with the upcoming election. They are on purpose politicizing crypto. You know why they're politicizing it? Because politics are polarizing. Politics turn family members against family members. Politics make friends stop being friends. They want to fuel that fire and make people think, oh, if you're one of those crypto people, I can't talk to you. Cancel culture. Like they're going to mix that in. I mean, they've mixed financial disparity in with crypto. They've mixed race in with crypto. They are trying to, you know, equate crypto to other hot topic, hot button issues to polarize people against each other. This is what they do. And this is why the SEC is going to keep coming after similar firms like Coinbase, like Binance and every firm under them. DeFi, they're going to do this. So negative crypto story stay in the headlines. It's that simple. And New York is leading the way. Like the green list for New York was pretty bad, but at least there were some coins on there. Now, just after the news that just came out, there's Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a bunch of stable coins. That's all you can get into if you are in New York. They just recently dropped over two dozen coins, including Litecoin, Dogecoin, and guess who? Ripple. Even though Ripple was deemed not a security in court on the secondary market, New York still dropped it. You know, it's kind of like they're on the same team as Gary. It's kind of like they're on the same agenda that wants to keep negative crypto stories in the news. It's like they're a part of Operation Chokepoint 2 .0 because they are. New York is leading the way with the regulation. New York has always led the way with financial regulations like they have in the past for the past however many years. It's been like this forever. And the thing is, is like, let's think about this. Let's really think about this. Do you think New York is doing this to protect investors or do you think New York is doing this to protect Wall Street? I mean, we all know the answer. It's pretty cut and dry to me. And at the end of the day, you know what this tells me? You know what this tells me? This tells me how powerful crypto really is. If crypto wasn't a threat to them, they would not be spending the taxpayer money that they're spending to go this hard in the paint against crypto assets. It is that cut and dry. We are on the precipice of cutting edge technology that could change the financial future for our kids and our grandkids and everything after that. And we are literally standing at the turning point. And we are, you know, this is a very, we're going to look back at 20 years and think like, wow, we didn't even realize what time we were living in. This is the turning point between which direction America is going to go. We've seen examples like how Singapore and how other countries like that are positively like Dubai, positively, you know, growing crypto. But you know, they're incentivized to do it. They want to grow the economy. It's like America wants to keep the world reserve currency, but they're cutting their own foot off by not adopting crypto out of fear of losing the world reserve. I mean, obviously you can see that I could heat it up about this. I'm very passionate about this, but listen, I don't want to talk in circles, but I want to know down below in the comments, if the SEC gets their way, what does that look like? What does crypto in America look like? If the SEC gets their way, I want to read what you think down below in the comments below, and have yourself a great day. Get season tickets at brewers .com slash post season.
Simply Bitcoin
A highlight from BREAKING: Bitcoin Ban Gathers Momentum in the US | EP 827
"It's all going to zero against Bitcoin, it's going up for everyone, you're against Bitcoin, you're against freedom. Yo, welcome to Simply Bitcoin Live, we're your number one source for the peaceful Bitcoin revolution, core breaking news, culture, and matic warfare. We will be your guide through the separation of money and state. We got a lot of comments starting off basically saying click bait title ugh, someone else said FUD, no, not at all, not at all, especially if you guys, Denver Hoddle said FUD, no, not at all. If you guys have been tuned into this channel, we've been like surgically covering all the moves by the Biden administration, the moves by the anti -Bitcoin senator, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and yet they don't like Bitcoin, they don't want it to succeed. Bitcoin succeeding would mean that they would lose their privilege of being able to create money for free that everyone else has to work for. I think the worst thing that Bitcoiners could do is think that Bitcoin's going to win by default, right? This is an adoption race, this is about getting the people around you to understand and to wake up to the fact that it's not left versus right. It is green, the party of green versus the party of orange, the party of state currency, the party of central bank digital currencies, the party of inflation, the party of nihilism, the party of slavery versus the party of Bitcoin versus the party of orange versus the party of freedom, Bitcoin, prosperity, opportunity, optimism. So, yeah, it's not BS at all. And today we're going to cover the fact that Senator Elizabeth Warren's bill, so -called the Digital Assets Anti -Money Laundering Act, got nine new sponsors. This is a bipartisan bill. This is a Republican and Democrat bill that's being pushed in Congress, in the Senate specifically, that Pierre Richard would literally, literally said this is not simply Bitcoin or Nico's wording. He literally tweeted, if this bill passed, if this bill would pass, this bill would ban Bitcoin mining in the United States. And I would even make the case that the bill would basically ban Bitcoin in the United States. And that's exactly what the bill was designed to do. Make no mistake. So, yeah, you can like, you know, push it aside and say this is FUD, you know, this is you know, this is this is bullshit. This is a clickbait title. This is the separation of money and state. Take it seriously. There's a lot of vested interest that it's not convenient for them if Bitcoin wins. They want you under a central bank digital currency. They want to control what you think and what you say and what you do. And one of the most effective mechanisms to do that is by controlling money. If you control the money, you control the incentive structure. That's exactly what the whole social credit system is all about. Right in China. So, you know, if you talk against the state, you know, they take a percentage of your money right out of your paycheck. They don't allow you to travel. They don't allow you to sign your kids up to certain schools. That is a forcing function. And that is no longer theoretical. This has happened in the West already. I feel like people have just forgotten about the Canadian truckers protest. They literally froze people's bank accounts because they were protesting the government because of the lockdowns.
The Crypto Overnighter
A highlight from 673:Warrens Anti-Crypto Moves and Hong Kongs JPEX Crisis
"Every parent wants to witness the many firsts in their child's life. First steps, first word, first haircut. But what about their first bite of beef? Complete with nutrients like iron, zinc, choline, B vitamins and protein, it's vital for strengthening little minds and little bodies. Making that first bite of beef a moment for everyone to savor. Together, we bring more. Beef. It's what's for dinner. Funded by beef farmers and ranchers. Good evening and welcome to the Crypto Overnighter. I'm Nick Ademus and I will be your host as we take a look at the latest cryptocurrency news and analysis. So sit back, relax and let's get started. And remember, none of this is financial advice. And it's 10pm Pacific Time, Monday, September 18th, 2023. Welcome back to the Crypto Overnighter, where we have no sponsors, no hidden agendas and no BS. But we do have the news, so let's talk about that. Tonight we deep dive into JPEX's meltdown in Hong Kong and what that means for crypto regulation. Next we examine the $70 million hack that rocked Coinex and the geopolitical implications behind it. Then we turn our attention stateside to discuss Senator Elizabeth Warren's anti -crypto bill and the brewing congressional storm over central bank digital currencies. We'll also break down the recent celebrity lawsuits surrounding the now -defunct FTX exchange. And finally we will close with a look at how Europe is taking the lead in crypto ETFs, while the US languishes in regulatory limbo. Buckle up, it's going to be a time. Hong Kong -based crypto exchange JPEX is under fire from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. The SFC arrested one person linked to the exchange. We've been talking about JPEX for a couple of days now, and it sounds like they're off to kind of a rough start. JPEX has been operating without a license in Hong Kong. The exchange received numerous complaints, leading to a police investigation. Amid liquidity issues, JPEX suspended all transactions on its earned trading interface. The exchange is also considering restructuring as a decentralized autonomous organization, a DAO. Joseph Lam, a crypto influencer and former lawyer, was arrested in Hong Kong for his association with JPEX. The police raided his office and seized evidence. Lam had urged affected JPEX users to report losses via a police hotline. The SFC warned last week that JPEX and crypto influencers have made false or misleading statements. The police have received at least 83 complaints involving JPEX, amounting to $4 .3 million. JPEX froze certain operations and raised withdrawal fees due to a liquidity crisis. The exchange claimed that its third -party market makers have, quote, maliciously frozen the company's funds. Some users report a $999 USDT fee for withdrawal, with a maximum set at 1 ,000 Tether. JPEX also froze its game platform. The SFC expressed concern over JPEX's misleading statements about licenses and high returns for its products. The arrest and the subsequent probe into JPEX signal a tightening regulatory grip on crypto exchanges operating without a license. This is not just a one -off incident, but a warning shot to other platforms that might be skirting the law. The SFC's involvement and the arrest of a high -profile influencer like Joseph Lam show that the authorities are not taking this lightly. The liquidity crisis at JPEX is a red flag for sure. Not all exchanges are as transparent or as stable as they claim to be. The high withdrawal fees and frozen funds are alarming signs that could lead to a loss of trust among users. The move to restructure as a DAO might seem like a strategic pivot, but it's more likely a desperate attempt to regain some semblance of stability. The 83 complaints against JPEX and the $4 .3 million involved indicate that this is not a small -scale issue. It's a significant problem that could have ripple effects across the crypto landscape in Hong Kong and potentially beyond. The authorities are clearly taking steps to clamp down on misleading practices and unlicensed operations, which could set the tone for future regulatory actions. The JPEX saga underscores the importance of due diligence and the need for regulatory oversight in the crypto space. It also raises questions about the role of influencers in promoting platforms that may not be as secure or as regulated as they claim. This is a wake -up call for all involved in the crypto world, reminding us that with high returns come high risks. Alright, from one sinking ship to another. If you think JPEX's meltdown was a shocker, wait till you hear about Coinex. Before we dive in, give us a like and hit that subscribe button if you're enjoying the show so far. You won't want to miss this.
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
"So, very big news. And the article continues here saying, various banks, including Standard Chartered, BNY Mellon, Société Generale, offer crypto currency or crypto custody services as the digital asset space is expected to encompass trillions of dollars of assets. Folks, did you catch that? What he just said? This is Paul Mele, Deutsche Bank's Global Head of Security Services. He said, as the digital asset space is expected to encompass trillions of dollars of assets. Folks, all the money is coming here because guess what? All these traditional assets are going to be tokenized on blockchains. And many of you hold the tokens of said blockchains. What do you think that's going to do to the value of those tokens, right? Do I even need to break it down further? So, he says, it's bound to be seen as one of the priorities for investors and corporations alike. Very, very bullish statements. I hope you all see what's happening here, right? This is not something I made up. This is not pure speculation. This is coming straight from the horse's mouth. They are all getting involved while Gary Gensler and Elizabeth Warren try to pull the wool over your eyes. Now, Alistair Mein, he is the CIO of Altana Digital Currency Fund. He made a, or he tweeted a great statement here, which I think is in line of the sentiment and the thoughts that I'm sharing with you right now. He said, Wall Street is coming to Bitcoin. Your ability to huddle will be tested like never before. All your models, expectations, and estimates are wrong. So, essentially, right now there's a lot of pain and it could be some more pain, but you have to be patient. You have to buy the dip, right? Not financial advice, do your research, but as you would in the real estate market or the stock market, buy the lows, sell the highs. And we are so early in this crypto asset class, the upside is incredible, right? It's a global asset class and it's a limited supply, cap supply, verifiable, all running on the blockchain 24 seven. So, the potential upside is greater than real estate, greater than stocks, right? And that's why these Wall Street guys are all lining up trying to get involved. Now, moving ahead, Australian bank ANZ leveraging Chainlink's CCIP for cross-chain operability. So, here's a great example. Another bank using blockchains and crypto platforms for real-world use cases, payments, and many of the other use cases. Folks, I hold Chainlink in my portfolio. If you've been a follower of this podcast for years, I've been saying I'm bullish on LINK. It's a great, great blockchain that has great solutions. Many different other blockchains use Chainlink's oracles and much more. I continue to accumulate, not financial advice. It is in my portfolio. I believe it's going to be one of the winners. So, Wednesday's announcement signifies increasing harmony between the global financial system and the digital assets industry. ANZ, one of Australia's big four banks, listen to that folks. One of the big four banks has completed a transaction with tokenized assets utilizing its ADC or a dollar sign DC stable coin and Chainlink's cross-chain interoperability protocol or CCIP. The development showcased the bank's capability to transfer funds across both open and private blockchain networks, furthering experiments being conducted to test the efficiency and security of deploying real-world assets on chain. According to a statement by Chainlink on Social Platform X, formerly known as Twitter, the move Wednesday builds on the lessons learned from the SWIFT blockchain interoperability initiative or originally conducted in June. Huge, huge, huge adoption here folks. And I am definitely bullish on Chainlink. Now, moving ahead, this is a great example of how the, another great example of how crypto is disrupting the traditional financial markets and payments. This is a chart from Nick Carter at Coinmetrics. Folks, here's the title of it. Stables are catching up to establish settlement networks. In just six years, stable coins have gone from zero dollars in volume to parity with Visa. The chart shows a parabolic rise in the use of stable coins and it surpassed PayPal and remittances and it's right there with Visa. Now, with that said, with this chart, right, and this data, what just happened over the past two months? PayPal launched its own stable coin and just, I think it was like a week ago, if not two weeks, Visa said, hey, we're expanding our use of USDC stable coin on Solana and Ethereum. They recognize stable coins and this crypto blockchain movement and tech is coming to take their lunch, right? And they are getting on board because if they don't, remember what happened to Blockbuster, they will have their Blockbuster moment. Folks, this is further validity of this technology. Don't be distracted by the prices in the market cycles. Don't let your emotions pull you down and you're like, oh man, I'm tired. Oh, the price is being down and so forth. Price is important. Yes, we are all here to make money. Make no mistake about it. I'm here to make money folks and I want to continue to make money in this market, but I understand there are market cycles. There are macroeconomic factors but they are temporary and the bear market prices and the blood on the streets and the Fed raising rates and inflation, that is temporary. It will have an end to it and then you will be back in a bull market. QE will return, global liquidity will return. So you got to have the macro outlook. Many folks are trained to look on the daily, weekly, monthly and listen to Jim Cramer because we've been programmed by mainstream media. It took me years to come out of that and to finally see, I want to do the inverse of the herd. I want to be a contrarian to the herd because they are being manipulated by financial media. This is why I've said, don't listen to Jim Cramer or do the inverse. Just the other day, I shared with you guys that I inverse Cramer and I bought PayPal stock after Jim Cramer said on TV, PayPal is a value trap and don't put your money in it. While PayPal just expanded their partnership with Uber and they launched a stable coin. Who should I believe? Should I listen to Jim Cramer? No. So when I bought some stock, I'm actually already up like near a 1 point something percent. So, so far inverse Cramer is working again for me. But anyway, I think you guys get what I'm saying, right? And this is why you have to kind of unlearn all of that mainstream financial media nonsense. Study the charts, look at what they're saying and what they're doing. Excuse me, look at what they're doing, not what they're saying. That's the important part. Some good news, ex Celsius executive pleads guilty to four charges. Some of you may say, why is this good news? Well, we want the bad actors, people who scammed and stole money from many, some of you listening who had funds on Celsius and the scammers like Sam Beck and Refreed need to go to jail folks. We need this market to mature and go to a higher level and we need more accountability. So here, Ronnie Cohen Pavin, if I'm saying that right, former chief revenue officer at Celsius pled guilty to four charges according to multiple reports. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the charges included fraud, securities price manipulation and conspiracy. His sentencing is set for December, 2024 and he has a chance of leniency depending on his corporation in the case against his former boss, Alex Mashinsky. Now, Alex Mashinsky is another one that needs to go to jail with Sam Beck and Refreed. They should probably share a cell or be in this same vicinity, their cells next to each other or something like that. I don't know, but I hope you guys get what I'm saying. Here though, some more good news. Singapore bans three AC founders from conducting market activity for nine years. I love it, it should be 90 years, but after what these guys did at three AC, they should not be involved in anything crypto. And I know it's hard to stop that, but I think they should be banned from getting any licenses because they were outright committing fraud. It's not one thing, okay, your business went out of, you know, had issues and it went bankrupt, right? That's one thing, sometimes that happens, but they were knowingly like doing fraud and that's what I don't like. So these guys should be banned. So Sue Zhu and Kyle Davies are banned from roles involving capital market services companies under Singapore securities rules. I hope the same thing goes in many other countries, but good news that these bad actors and scammers are having to pay for some of the things they've done. Well, folks, that's the news. Let me know what you think. Leave your thoughts and comments below. Hit the thumbs up button, share this podcast, hit the five star rating. Be sure to check out the merchandise store. Link will be in the description. Buy some fire Gary Gensler t-shirts and hats. It supports the podcast. Thank you for your support and I'll talk to you all later. Bye. Bye.
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
A highlight from ELIZABETH WARREN RAMPS UP ANTI CRYPTO PLANS WITH SEC GARY GENSLER - DEUTSCHE BANK CRYPTO CUSTODY
"Welcome back to the Thinking Crypto Podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. If you are new here, please hit that subscribe button as well as the thumbs up button and leave a comment below. If you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify, Apple or Google, please leave a five star rating and review. It supports the podcast and it doesn't cost you anything. Well, folks, we've got big news that Senator Elizabeth Warren has added nine new co -sponsors to her anti -crypto bill. They're all Democrats, those co -sponsors. This has not changed the trajectory of the bill as most of these co -signers were expected. This is being reported by Taylor Barr of the Digital Chamber of Commerce. And you know, it's not a surprise that they're all Democrats, but these Democrats got to get their act together. Many of them are not going to be reelected because of this stance on crypto, in addition to other political issues. And I'm not here to say Democrats are worse than Republicans or Republicans are better, right? I'm pretty much an independent and I look at who's the best candidate from that standpoint. But the Biden administration and many Democrats are really, really screwing themselves over. Now I want to be fair, there are many Democrats who are pro -crypto, right? We've seen Richie Torres, Ro Khanna, and a bunch of others who have been doing a great job. The problem is Senator Elizabeth Warren's voice tends to drown out many of the other Democrats. And she has a large following, right? Because of other issues that she covers. But we know she's corrupt and she's been doing a lot of backdoor dealings with scumbag regulator Gary Gensler. We know she sends him the questions and answers ahead of hearings. We know she's been working with him to try to get the crypto market in a mess. We saw that Promethium was a plant by Gary Gensler and the SEC. And I think Elizabeth Warren certainly helped with that. Elizabeth Warren also contributed to the bank runs that were happening early in 2023. It started with banks that were pro -crypto, of course, and then that domino effect happened where you had a whole bunch of different banks started collapsing. So I don't trust Elizabeth Warren. I don't think ultimately she's going to win anything here against crypto. The most she may do is slow us down. But crypto is going to outlast her and corrupt scumbag regulator Gary Gensler. But we do have to make sure that we keep fighting and we spread the facts. This is why I always tell you guys, contact your representatives, use Twitter and social media to your advantage, make content and much more. We can drown out all of her tweets and all of her things about crypto. And we see the narratives around Gary Gensler collapsing, his false narratives, and he's getting exposed in court. So the more Gary Gensler takes defeat, the more Elizabeth Warren's going to lose wind in her sails to back Gary Gensler and to say, oh, you see all these crypto things are all scams when the courts are disagreeing with Gary Gensler and the SEC. But we've got to be vigilant. We've got to watch out here. She's certainly not giving up. She's up to something. But we're ultimately going to win the war, folks, and crypto is going to outlast both her and Gary Gensler. Now speaking of Gary Gensler, some of you may have seen this video and it's hard to convey this on the podcast, those of you listening on Spotify and Apple and Google. But Gary was interviewed by Brooke Masters, who is a journalist at the Financial Times. And Gary was stating his false narratives and lies, right? He was saying, crypto, these guys don't abide by the law, there's hucksters, there's scammers, the same old bullshit, talking points. But surprisingly, the journalist, the interviewer responds saying, they seem to be finding some sympathetic judges, referring to the SEC's recent court losses to Ripple and Grayscale. Then she said, so you got to watch out there. And if you saw Gary Gensler's face, I mean, those of you watching the YouTube video, just look at his face. This is going to become a meme. He just, he didn't say anything in response to her. It was like this awkward silence and his face just tells it all like, he was not expecting that. And I'm sure it cut him deep. But even, you know, journalists and mainstream media are recognizing this guy is blowing out hot air. Like you can say all those things, but the reality of the situation is you just took a big loss with Grayscale and the judges are ripping you apart. And you took a big loss in the Ripple lawsuit, and it looks like the SEC is going to take a loss in the Coinbase lawsuit. So once again, the optics and narratives are falling apart, and this is what I've been telling you guys. A big part of politics is optics. And he can shout on the top of the hill that, oh yeah, there's all hucksters, scammers, and it's all securities, but the courts are disagreeing and that's where we're going to win. Now, quick word from our sponsor, and that is Uphold, which makes crypto investing easy. Uphold is a great platform that I've been using since 2017. They have 10 plus million users, 250 plus cryptocurrencies, and they're available in 150 countries. Another cool feature is you can trade precious metals on this platform, as well as 37 Fiat currencies. You can easily swap between those respective asset classes, Fiat, precious metals and crypto. So it's pretty incredible. No other exchange offers this type of functionality. So if you'd like to learn more, please visit the link in the description. All right, folks, we also got news here that John Deaton, yes, our friend John Deaton, who has been fighting on behalf of the 75 ,000 XRP holders, well in the library appeal, remember library is now appealing the ruling, given that there's updated case law with Ripple, John Deaton has filed his notice of appearance on behalf of Amicus Curae Naomi Brockwell. So if you remember Naomi Brockwell, she served as Amicus Curae, where she was stating that how she was using the library platform to earn LBC tokens and much more. I was also, you know, using the platform the same way. We know the SEC unfairly attacked the library here, but it's all, you know, the bullshit from Gary Gensler just attacking the market, not providing any guidance, not trying to work with the market. And even, you know, commissioners at the SEC, such as Hester Peirce and Mark Ueda have been dissenting on all these actions. So it's pretty clear what's happening. Now yesterday, we talked about the SEC attacking Stoner Cats NFTs, which was founded by Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher. And we know it's just unfair, right? We talked about it. It's like, well, you can't release artwork anymore. What about baseball cards and sports cards, right? Are those all securities now? It's just ridiculous. Well, Stuart Eldoradi, chief legal officer at Ripple, he weighed in on the SEC's decision saying, I don't know all the facts here, but I do know that a settlement to avoid a crushing SEC process without admitting or denying anything is binding on no one. A cynic would call it a PR stunt. What matters is that when seriously challenged in court, the SEC continues to lose. He's absolutely right. But folks, as we've been talking about for years now, the ultimate goal here is Gary Gensler has been weaponized. He's a puppet on strings so that he can come in and kill these crypto startups so that his big Wall Street buddies and banking cartel buddies can come in and take over. Here's another prime example, Deutsche Bank to hold crypto for institutional clients. Well, look at that, folks. Gary says there's only hucksters, scammers, and fraudsters in this market. Does that include Deutsche Bank? Does that include BNY Mellon, Fidelity, BlackRock, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, right? All of them are getting involved in crypto in one way or the other. So let me give you the details here, folks. Deutsche Bank has partnered with Swiss crypto firm Taurus to provide custody services for institutional clients, cryptocurrencies, and tokenized assets. Taurus said in a statement on Thursday, the partnership means Deutsche Bank will for the number cryptocurrencies of for its clients, as well as tokenized versions of traditional financial assets, a Deutsche Bank spokesperson said, folks, see what's happening. Always watch what they do, not what they say, right? If you were only listening to the talking points of Elizabeth Warren and Gary Gensler, you may be scared, right? Let's say you're not well -researched, not well -versed. You don't listen to the Thinking Crypto podcast, right? And you're not paying attention and you're passively looking at this. You may catch some headlines from Gary Gensler and Elizabeth Warren and you're like, oh my gosh, man, it sounds like there's a lot of scams going on in this crypto market. I better not get involved. But we know, folks, watch what they do, not what they say. As Gary and Elizabeth Warren are saying that, in parallel, BlackRock, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity, all the big institutions are getting involved, right? The facts are right in front of our face. You've just got to look at the entire market holistically and pay attention to what's happening and who are making moves, who's investing, who's raising capital, and much more. So, crypto trading is not the bank's immediate plans, this spokesperson said. Deutsche Bank said it aimed to offer crypto trading in a World Economic Forum paperback in 2020. But, folks, let me give you a prediction here, which I think would be 100 % accurate, right? Just in a matter of maybe three to four years. They will all offer crypto trading. This is going to be, what is it, the 12th sector? If I'm not mistaken, I'm getting all my sectors together, right? Of the S &P. Crypto will be trading on stock markets. ETFs will be the thing. It's coming. We've seen the maturation and the growth and the adoption.
The Breakdown
A highlight from The Senate Doesn't Seem to Care About Crypto Anymore
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, September 13th, and today we are talking about news that Binance US CEO has left the company. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, last night I had assumed that today's show would be some combination of Gary Gensler testifying before the Senate with maybe a little side of CPI. But then last night, new Binance news broke that had the whole community chattering. So that's where we're going to start. According to anonymous sources, Binance US CEO Brian Schroeder has left the company. Chief legal officer Norman Reed will step into the role on an interim basis. Alongside the resignation, Binance US announced internally that it will slash around one third of its workforce, laying off approximately 100 employees. This is the second round of layoffs for the US -based exchange as they dig in to fight legal battles against the SEC and the CFTC. Binance US said in a statement, Now, if you are paying attention, not even closely, just at all, you will know that this is the latest in a series of high -profile departures across the Binance empire. At least 11 executives have now resigned across all Binance companies. Three key personnel left on the same day in July, including front -facing Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillman, amid rumors of dissatisfaction with how Binance CEO CZ handled rumors of a DOJ investigation. Five more executives quit earlier this month, with the headline resignation coming from Leon Fung, the head of Asia -Pacific operations. In all cases, the resignations have been officially explained by a range of personal reasons, probably capstone by former compliance officer Steven Christie's extremely weird Twitter thread, which included the statement that, Now, the wide -ranging lawsuits against Binance have largely come home to roost for their US subsidiary. Both the SEC and CFTC cases include allegations that reach deep within the international Binance empire. However, regulators have been careful to focus their attention on Binance US to ensure that they have clear jurisdiction. A key focus of litigation so far has been the flow of funds between Binance US and the international organization. All of this means that the focus on the domestic exchange has led to the US subsidiary taking the brunt of the consequences so far. More acutely, Binance US was essentially cut off from all access to onshore banking, forcing them to operate as a crypto -only exchange. This shutdown of financial services has led to a dramatic collapse in trading volume. Binance US captured around 22 % of US market share in April, but this figure has now dropped below 1 % as traders quite reasonably flee to safer shores. Schroeder is now the third Binance US CEO to walk away from the role. Both Kathryn Coley and Brian Brooks, who earlier served as CEOs for the exchange, have provided extensive testimony to regulators and law enforcement. Schroeder joined the firm as president in September 2021, well into the company's claimed attempt to clean up their operations. One consequence of that could be that he has significantly less scandalous information on how the exchange functioned than other former executives. So what are the community's takes on this? Well, as you would expect, the anti -crypto folks are cheering. They see Binance as the next and perhaps ultimate shoe to drop. However, many folks in the industry, regardless of what they think of Binance, view it as a sad episode that shows just how problematic the SEC's approach really is. Wolf of All Street's host Scott Melker said, The SEC killed Binance US without proving a single thing, without due process. It simply took accusations to scare away customers and partners. This is the legacy of Gary Gensler. Another take which I resonate with strongly comes from folks like Byzantine General who wrote, I don't know why people are up in arms about this. I thought it was quite obvious already since the SEC lawsuit that Binance was just going to wind down operations of their US branch. It's so small and completely inconsequential to Binance anyway. Or more crisply from Icebergi, just closed down Binance US already. It has seemed untenable for quite some time and this only seems to reinforce that point of view. Now the other big generator of conversation was investor Adam Cochrane. He tweeted, I've been saying if Binance blows up, we'll be fine in no time. Got a tip that I've not yet been able to fully verify, but I would lean towards it being true on, and if it's true, it'll be a longer, more painful ride than I thought. Life behind bars would be the good outcome for CZ. I've sent that tip to some journalists I think can confirm if it's real and will keep folks updated if I get anything back. But in good faith I had to redact my will be fine stance and replace it with, we'll probably be okay unless this other part is real, in which case holy eff we're really going to zero and going to have to rebuild up again over time. Anyway, fun times in crypto. Now this certainly got people chattering, but not always in a good way. Zero Knowledge consulting partner and founder Austin Campbell quote tweeted it and said, If you have a financial interest in an outcome and post that you have a rumor without saying what the rumor is, you are part of the problem in this space. This would have been prohibited conduct in most regulated markets. I certainly would have gotten in trouble for this at JPM. Now, interestingly, however, 4Lex4Shaw had a different take. They wrote, It's all so tiresome. Binance had the support of dozens of governments from Singapore to UAE to every corner of the global south, and Tether too. The U .S. can't cut the UAE, Caymans, Bahamas, and Singapore out of Eurodollar markets, so it can't de -dollarize Binance. Any successful prosecution of Binance has to cut off Binance's access to USDT, cut Binance off from access to UAE, Singapore, etc., Eurodollars, or prove beyond a shadow of a doubt a huge hole in Binance's balance sheet, i .e. accounting fraud. Everything else is just low -budget theater. If the U .S. can accomplish one of those things, Binance is dead. If the U .S. can't, CZ doesn't have to give a crap about what the U .S. government says, indicts, or cajoles. The latter possibility breaks a lot of people's brains, but I don't make the rules. The interesting take here is, of course, that in many ways the Tether and Binance stuff going on is kind of just a proxy war for the U .S. about the U .S. government trying to exert sovereignty over the Eurodollar market that they simply don't control. I think it's a really interesting lens through which to look at these prosecution efforts, as well as questions around USD stablecoins. Anyways, who knows what happens next with Binance, but it continues to be the biggest open question in the entire space. Now, moving back over more officially to the U .S. government side of things, SEC Chair Gary Gensler appeared before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday at a routine oversight hearing. Now, coming into the hearing, Gensler reinforced his well -worn position on crypto and written testimony. He stated that, quote, Given this industry's wide -ranging noncompliance with the securities laws, it's not surprising that we've seen many problems in these markets. We've seen this story before. It's reminiscent of what we had in the 1920s before the federal securities laws were put in place. Brushing off the recent Ripple decision, Gensler asserted that, quote, The vast majority of crypto tokens likely meet the investment contract test. Given that most crypto tokens are subject to the securities laws, it follows that most crypto intermediaries have to comply with securities laws as well. Now, the hearing itself was kicked off by opening statements from Chairman Sherrod Brown. As the leading Democrat dealing with financial issues, any crypto legislation being moved forward in the near future would likely require Brown's seal of approval to become law. Judging from his comments about the state of the industry, that seems unlikely. Brown said, quote, The FTX collapse showed how dangerous crypto can be. But FTX wasn't a lone bad apple. It was just the most explosive example of the problems in crypto. The problems we saw at FTX are everywhere in crypto. The failure to provide real disclosure, the conflicts of interest, the risky bets with customer money that was supposed to be safe. FTX was just the biggest and the ugliest. For consumers, it adds up to billions of dollars gone. Bad actors keep flocking to crypto. They use it to launder money, to evade sanctions, to fund crime and human trafficking and terrorism. We need to protect workers and families in these markets. We need to clean up the scams and fraud. As Congress considers digital asset legislation, I'm glad the SEC is using its tool to crack down on abuse and enforce the law. Now, of course, a casual observer might suggest that 1. FTX was distinct, given that its former CEO is on trial for perpetrating fraud against his company, investors, partners and the public at large. And an observer might note that the SEC didn't use its tools to do anything about that or any of the other big examples of actual fraud and problems happening. Instead, it's wrote in after the fact to win settlements against projects too small to defend themselves and chalk it up as victories, which might, to some, be seen as much more politically motivated than actually driven by consumer protection. But that's just one take. Now, ranking Republican member Tim Scott used his opening comments to drag Gensler for his lack of engagement with congressional oversight. Scott noted that the Senate hasn't heard from Gensler since last September, despite the FTX collapse and several bank failures occurring in the interim. He said, complete and timely attention to congressional inquiries is critical to ensuring independent agencies remain transparent and accountable to the American people. Yet, sadly, your agency has fallen short in this obligation to be transparent and responsive to congressional oversight. Without pro -growth regulations, we are limiting opportunities for our kids and our kids' kids from being able to take control of their own financial futures. The American people have a right to know what their government is doing, and your agency's blatant refusal to respond to our constitutionally mandated oversight represents a dereliction of your duties to the American people. And yet, still, when all was said and done, the most striking thing about the hearing was just how much crypto had faded as a front -of -mind issue in Congress. Gensler didn't mention crypto at all in his brief oral testimony, and lawmakers had numerous more pressing concerns to discuss. Based on the questions, climate reporting rules and AI use and financial services ranked as much higher priority than crypto enforcement, even for previously fervent Democrats. We didn't even get the customary anti -crypto soundbite from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who instead used her time to rail against a perceived lack of toughness in new private equity disclosure rules. The crypto discussion, to the extent there was any, touched on pending crypto ETFs. Senator Bill Hagerty brought up the point that the SEC's rejection of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust had been labeled arbitrary and capricious by a federal judge. He asked what the SEC would need to see in order to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF, to which Gensler responded that the agency is, quote, "...still reviewing that decision and reviewing multiple filings around Bitcoin ETPs. I'm looking forward to staff's recommendations." Now, on top of some of those specifics, many GOP senators had more general criticisms for how Gensler's SEC had conducted itself. Senator Steve Daines, for example, complained that the SEC has frequently overreached its mandate in attempts to expand its jurisdiction. He suggested that 80 % of the SEC's rulemaking efforts under Gensler were not required by legislation. Daines said, "...this means that the vast majority of the agency's rulemaking agenda has been voluntarily undertaken. Chairman Gensler, you are not an elected official that is beholden to your constituents. You are an unelected bureaucrat who has taken it upon himself to reshape American markets to your liking, to the detriment of innovation, of investors, and small businesses." What's more, it seems like many in the Washington establishment are not just concerned about Gensler when it comes to the crypto markets. Earlier this week, for example, the Wall Street Journal published an op -ed article penned by former U .S. Attorney General Bill Barr. Specifically, the article warned of Gensler encroachment into regulating the use of AI. But Barr was scathing in his attack of Gensler's leadership at the SEC more broadly. He wrote, "...this is only the latest example of Mr. Gensler's grandiose regulatory style. He takes on airy theoretical issues and attacks them with broad prophylactic regulations that are long on speculation and paternalism, short on evidence and rational analysis, and heedless of Congress and the Constitution. He claims these measures will head off speculative evils, but they are more likely to throttle the dynamism of U .S. markets." So how are we to sum this all up and make sense of it? To me, this was very clearly the first hearing of the next election cycle. Crypto is now an afterthought for Congress. Or maybe better put, it is an exhibit and an example of a broader narrative which is around SEC overreach. It seems fairly clear that people aren't that interested in getting regulation done for the industry and even on the GOP side are more interested in defeating a broader political agenda embodied by Gensler. The big themes were agency overreach, major questions doctrine, and the role of unelected bureaucrats, not crypto per se. But to the extent that anyone is looking for good news as relates to the election cycle, as finance lawyer at Davis Polk Scott Johnson pointed out, for those keeping count, Senator Sherrod Brown's odds are about 60 % chance to lose his seat next year as of now. Change isn't always necessarily good, but it certainly opens up new possibilities. But gear up, because we are definitely in the election part of the cycle. Thanks as always for listening, and until next time, be safe and take care of each other.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
A highlight from Are Altcoins Still In Trouble? (Gary Gensler Not Giving Up)
"Dark AI agents, you know, giving us just answers that, you know, that they get access to, the government gets access to, the tech companies get access to those answers. Why can't we ask the crazy questions? We have Gary Gensler. He just had some comments. He just was speaking in front of the House Financial Subcommittee, I believe here in the SEC. Gary Gensler demonstrates an unbowed will to stand down from his stance towards crypto ahead of the Senate hearing. Here was the Senate, following the Commission's partial loss in the SEC versus Ripple lawsuit, and an even more clear -cut setback in the ETF contention. Gensler is seemingly poised to stand by his gambit, claiming he is out to protect both crypto users and issuers and investors. And in written testimony ahead of the Senate Banking Committee hearing, Gensler stuck to a consistent theme, lying. No, no, no, no, no. He's reiterating that nearly all transaction qualifies as an investment contract, subject to US securities laws. As I previously said, without prejudicing any one token, the vast majority of tokens likely meet the test. Given that most tokens are subject to the securities laws, it follows that most intermediaries have to comply with securities laws as well, hiding behind vague terminology like most and a vast majority. So, and then also likely meet. So he's staying away from anything where he could point to and say, hey, you, you issued us, you know, a clear -cut yes or no. No, he's doing the opposite. He's being vague. He's being obtuse. He's being gray and murky and swirly. And it's all smoke and mirrors, as they say. Likely, you know, likely meet. It's most crypto tokens, most intermediaries. All right. Keep scrolling here. Is he blinking back? Is that pollen? That's just pollen, right? Is that pollen? It's something. Maybe, maybe it's like the, the, the final act of a Pixar movie, you know, maybe, maybe that's maybe he's looking at DZ's portfolio. He's looking at the ape coin. He's just looking at another security, whatever it is, he's looking at it. He's so I actually watched like, you know, 40 some minutes of the oversight hearing this morning. And I mean, he's just like a broken record. Like, you know, crypto is just rife with, blah, it's just so terrible. It's non -compliant. You know, everything's a security. Like, I like really, I made a video, like, ironically, like, you don't even need to watch this video because we know what he's going to say. And then I watched it anyway. And he said everything I thought he was going to say. And it's so funny because you can obviously see, like, obviously the Democrats give him like the soft, the softball answers and agree with everything he says, and then the Republicans push back. And no matter what hearing it is, it's just such a clear divide on who's on his side, who's already like prepared the questions they're going to talk to, you know, and then the other side is clearly like, you're not helping anyone, you're not protecting investors, like you're saying one thing and doing another just classic, classic Gary. And I'm so sick of talking about him. Classic Gary is like an 80s sitcom character, the rascal neighbor kid that's like next door. And guys, I have a new strategy with the combatants against crypto. I'm gonna say their name one time, might be the last time you ever hear me say their name. I'm talking about Elizabeth Warren's tactics and the tactics used by people like her. There's going to be a new strategy we're all going to employ together, and it's going to help out the crypto industry. Thank Ryan Selkis for this one, giving me that idea. All right, let's talk about the wide ranging non -compliance here. This is what he's saying is the main issue with crypto. He also raised concern about non -compliance in the industry, which he termed, guys, it's wide ranging. Given this industry's wide ranging non -compliance with the securities laws, it's not surprising that we've seen so many problems in these markets. Gensler will be grilled about recent enforcement actions by the commission, which according to many observers have been nothing short of a witch hunt and an overreach of their mandate. I think we would all be in agreeance with that, right? Well, let's go from the SEC to the CFTC. CFTC commissioner plans to modernize investor protection with technology, with technology to minimize the danger. I'm sorry, God, God, that was terrible. That was my JTTI impression. That was top notch. It was an okay song, but I butchered it. All right, to minimize damages caused by financial fraud, Romero proposed the formation of the national financial fraud registry, a centralized record of all crimes and fines related to financial fraud. Isn't there like a website that does that already? I feel like we don't need to create more committees. And what was the word that they use here? We don't need a registry. To me, that just seems a little big brother ask. How about we just have a fun website where, you know, let's just detail all the things. We have the entire US debt. We have the GDP up. We have all these websites. They have all this information up. So why couldn't we do it with just companies that have been fined by the federal government and state governments are then one that has everything combined there. That's genius. Genius. All right. You know what? They're going to do it. They would. That's the thing is that they probably would. That's hilarious. All right. A spearheading this effort to amp up investor protections and guard rails. Romero appointed technology experts in FinTech, AI, crypto, blockchain, and cybersecurity to their advisory committee. Let's see here. We have Christy Goldsmith. Romero's the chairperson there. The commissioner revealed that the TAC experts are tasked with identifying ways to instill KYC, which stands for know your customer and AML processes, which stand for anti money laundering and to defy in crypto invest in avenues. We're also tasked with promoting responsible AI development because we can have those dark, dark AI agents, you know, giving us just answers that, you know, that they get access to, the government gets access to, the tech companies get access to those answers. Why can't we ask the crazy questions? Uh, you ever see some of those crazy prompts? I'm actually kind of for a little bit. We don't, we don't need a first grader to be able to, I don't even want to say them out loud. There's some dark prompts where you can find out ways to do a lot of harmful things that doesn't surprise me at all. I remember when chat GBT first came out, there was like this really long prompt where it would give you like chat GBT's answer. And then it would, it was like some name like Kevin Dan. Yeah. And it was, it would give you like the, the far right wing sort of answer. It was hilarious, but I don't, well, where is that prompt? Someone sent it to me, please. Well, yeah, they, they fix a lot of it, but yeah, we don't want someone to say, what's the most harm I can create on humanity with household chemicals. And then all of a sudden, you know, like mustard gas and you know, the, you know, we don't want anarchy cookbook version of chat, TPT on steroids. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's reel it in here. It's really didn't reel it in. Yeah. This basement talk, right? Yeah. Sorry, Drew. All right. Investigations have shifted away from primarily backtracking trade activities to monitoring social media platforms, such as X Reddit and Facebook. However, they also recommend the use of tools to aid such investigations. The registry would help investors do background checks for any investigations or fines for fraud imposed on the companies. Yeah. I just, I just don't want a whole agency. I don't want a whole registry. I don't want a whole entity of government spun up for this. Just make a little website. It's not that hard. We don't have to have a overseers and, you know, people in trench coats and briefcases knocking on your door in the middle of the night.
The Financial Guys
A highlight from BONUS episode From Marine to Entrepreneur: Overcoming Challenges and Thriving
"Since September 11th, 2011, there's been 31 ,000 suicides, veteran suicides. So 7 ,100 of us have perished in combat. 31 ,000 have taken their lives, and part of that, I'm not an expert, I'm not a psychologist, this is just my personal feeling, part of that is lack of purpose. They've transitioned out, this 20 -year war that never ended that really didn't mean anything to anybody now, and they've lost purpose. Welcome, everybody, for our special release podcast. I'm Glenn Wilko here with Mike Lomas. We have a special guest in studio, and this is gonna kinda be a tease. This podcast, we're gonna be releasing now, but we're also gonna release this podcast again in the future as part of a series that we're gonna launch. And this is gonna be like a podcast miniseries, so it's not gonna be a forever podcast. We've got enough of those going already, right? This new series is gonna be a series will be just a probably 10 or 12 -episode series where we're interviewing different business owners, and we're gonna call it something along the lines of you built this. That's still in the works, so by the time this is the actual series release, it might be different. But back in 08, 09, one of the things I found extraordinarily offensive was when the Democrat Party, which really started with Elizabeth Warren, by the way, Obama actually ripped it off. He's not even, he even plagiarized that, the guy. But Obama was the one with the power to really resonate it. Move this thing, yep. And he came out, and he's, you know, everyone remembers famously saying in his speech, he said, well, you didn't build that. You got a factory. Somebody else made that happen, you know? And the whole idea was, and the whole concept, and their little tiny brains, was that somebody else built the road to that factory for you to be able to move their goods. That's right. What these folks didn't realize was that back in the days when some of these factories were built, there was no federal government interstate road system. It was oftentimes the business owner themselves that were indeed building the factory and the road to get things to the market. And they're still doing that because the revenue from that factory is what actually affords the road. Not some liberal in their mom and dad's basement that is on TikTok for the day. Right, but nevertheless, as business owners ourselves, and Mike and I have owned 12 businesses over the years. I think we currently own nine and have sold three. But we've also been extraordinarily fortunate to work with a lot of business owners that have sold businesses, are running businesses, and as I was telling our guests, who I'm gonna introduce in a second, before, I don't wanna tease it here, I'm gonna keep the suspense, before we started the podcast, it's amazing to hear the different stories and be fortunate of the people that have started their business, and how they built it, how they started it, what they had to go through, some of the sacrifices they made, some of the difficulties. I think a lot of people that have never owned a business have no idea what it means. And so this was, this I had an opportunity to bring you in, and I wanted to start with you, Robbie. So Robbie DeNiro is our very first guest here, and we're happy to have you in. Robbie, you obviously have been in the news a lot. You're famous in Western New York, of course, for standing up to the face masks and the garbage when you owned the gym. And I know we're gonna talk about the new business, which I'm excited to hear about, but just start me from the get -go of that business, how hard was it, some of the regulatory stuff. Remember, you started a gym, it's hard enough to start a gym, and then you had to go through COVID when they were trying to shut things down. How hard as a business owner is it to pay bills when you have no income and no revenue? I mean, it's crazy. They were so worried about people's health that they shut the gyms down to help their health. So Robbie, you built it, and I wanna hear how you did it. Well, I appreciate that. Thanks for having me come on. So I had just got done with about 14 years in the Marine Corps. I transitioned out. God bless you, by the way. Thank you. You got it. Greatest 14 years of my life. It's an amazing experience to serve the country, especially as a Marine.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
A highlight from This Altcoin Just WON BIG! (Huge SEC Loss)
"What's up, crypto fam? Welcome back to the most talked about show on the entire interweb. Today, you're gonna be joined by Joshua Jake, who is myself. I'm going to be coming from TikTok. A lot of you in the chat already know who I am. And I'm excited to be here. We have a lot to break down with these markets. We had some huge announcements come from some lawsuits with Uniswap, which are going to impact Gary Gensler and his entire motion in attacking the crypto sector. And of course, today, I am joined by Deezy himself. So thank you for having me here today. Deezy's in the corner today, folks. Deezy's in the corner. How are we all doing today? Hit that like button, everybody. Hit the like button, hit the like button. So they're jumping straight into markets here today. Bitcoin coming back down a little bit off this initial pump up to the 28 ,000 levels. We had a massive spike, right? Everybody was talking about we're going back down. We're going back down to 23 .8. We're gonna go back down to 22 .7. We're sitting in panels all this last week, people trying to figure out where prices were gonna go. And we had some pretty bullish opportunity this week with the Grayscale announcement. So ,661 27 right now for Bitcoin. We have Ethereum sitting at a 1 ,700 level. And in terms of markets, we're gonna click on this 24 % right here. We're seeing some pretty big gains. Bitcoin Cash, TON, XDC, which I was watching yesterday's show. And Deezy actually pointed this out. XDC does always seem to be with Stacks in that top moving section. It's always pumping. Yeah, then you got Phantom and Injective. I don't know what it is. They just like to move a lot. Is it no liquidity for these coins? What's going on? I mean, don't tell that to their communities. They're gonna believe that liquidity is sitting there very well. My order book is the thickest order book in all the order books. Yeah, there's nothing going on the inside there. But yeah, seeing some good price action once again today. Stacks obviously is gonna be moving with the Bitcoin announcement. That's gonna be your direct layer one that's building those smart contract protocols and bringing those smart contracts to Bitcoin's network. So it makes sense that it's moving with this price action. But we're gonna jump into the first article because this is gonna spark a massive discussion lawsuit with Uniswap dismissed, DeFi crypto exchange not liable for scam tokens. This is huge. There is going to be a claim coming out from these judge once we get down the article just a little bit more. I'm gonna go through all the highlights here with you guys. But a class action lawsuit brought against Uniswap was tossed out by a district judge on Tuesday who found those associated with the decentralized exchange were not liable for so -called scam tokens that purportedly burn traders. So this is big. This is a big news, especially for decentralized exchanges. I think a lot of people in this industry are scared of the phrase DeFi is dead. And what I mean by that is this is a huge conversation that people don't really know where compliance is, KYC, and the way that the United States is not only lagging behind on regulations, but they are worried about in terms of what does that mean for a lot of these decentralized exchanges and the tokens that they're gonna be trading on these platforms. So I don't know if you've used Uniswap a lot, so if you're gonna be looking from pancakes, I don't know where your fan base token is gonna be for your DEXs, but what have you seen coming out of these centralized or decentralized exchanges with these lawsuits? What does this mean for you? Well, it's always funny. It's like, all right, where are we serving these subpoenas? Who are we suing? Are we suing the guy that pays the light bill? Are we suing the guy that has the domain? Are we suing the guy that has a Twitter account? There's varying degrees of decentralization. I'm more excited about disclosure. We could kind of peek behind the curtain and actually see, are you really a decentralized exchange or you've just been centralized this whole time. It's like Scooby -Doo. What are we gonna see when we rip the mask off? That's so true. You run in between the door. I feel like that's how our regulators work. They're just running into doors that they don't know and they just keep popping out in the hallway back and forth, and it's never ending. But so some of these tokens that were included in this lawsuit were Matrix Samurai. I don't hold any of these, but it's Rocket Bunny, Alpha Wolf Finance, and Southern District of New York judge Kathryn Falia, Polk and I might be mispronouncing that one, who dismissed the case, said the plaintiff's dilemma is the pseudo -anonymous nature of those token issuers. So again, huge win for this industry, huge win for crypto. And if I scroll down right here, this is probably the most important phrase. I'm actually looking for it as I scroll down here. Here it is, the lack of clarity. So the lack of clarity surrounding how securities laws apply to DeFi was noted by the judge. Reference a warning from Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler in September 2021. That class of projects were under increased scrutiny. Now Gary's really not, I don't think anybody in this chats, I know everybody on the stage, who may not be the most ambitious people towards, you know, we're not the biggest fans, but I'm trying to find, I don't think we highlighted it here, is going to be the fact that out of this lawsuit, the judge did say that both Ethereum and Bitcoin were commodities, and that is a massive breakthrough for the entire crypto sector. If you guys come from the XRP community, you would know that Bill Hinman and the entire things that went on over the summer, we needed that clarity. We don't have those security laws and everything implemented. We don't know where the regulation is for the future of these tokens. But as a commodity, this is a very interesting topic because they didn't say digital currency. They clearly didn't say, you know, a security. And if this means a commodity, what is the outlook for this? Because this brings in the questions. This brings in, okay, now is there gonna be more compliance measures from a commodity -based token? If you're gonna be looking at Ethereum, now there's gonna be market manipulation laws and everything that they have to address that we're now gonna have to see in court. So very interesting, at least from the terms of Ethereum, and comparing that to Bitcoin, because they're completely different functionalities. Yeah, and just kind of what I was saying earlier, we get to peek underneath the hood, see what's going on. Have they been doing those oil changes? What is up with the gas? So it'll be interesting. It definitely will, it definitely will. I'm excited for it though, guys. This is a huge moment for the industry. It's coming off the grayscale when the SEC's losing back -to -back lawsuits. Uniswap taking this beautiful, beautiful victory lap, and that leads us perfectly into the next article right here with SEC Chair Gary Gensler to testify before Congress twice this September. Now, out of this, we're looking at the Securities and Exchange Commission, guys, to testify twice, we're reading that twice, but in front of the House Financial Services Committee on September 27th. So the hot seat here is gonna be Gensler has been under fire for his comments about firms they need to register with the SEC. The House Committee on Financial Services asserted that Gensler's push for registration is a willful misrepresentation of non -existent registration process. So, and we all know this, we all know this, we've seen the regulatory by -enforcement, we've seen them come out and battle not only the CFTC, Congress, our politicians, our government, the United States has no idea what they're doing. You have Jerome Powell with the Federal Reserve now coming out and obviously stepping on Congress's toes by issuing new advisory boards that are gonna be advising and supervising stablecoins, which is a direct threat and competition to the policies Congress is pushing in. And then on top of this, you have the people supposed to be protecting investors from the CFTC and the SEC just clashing heads nonstop. And so this is just, again, another moment we're gonna be seeing Gary Gensler in the hotspot, especially as he just lost, again, multiple lawsuits back to back, and yeah, I mean, I'd be scared to be in his position. Is he gonna get the grilled treatment by the House subcommittee, the Fauci treatment, as some people call it? Yeah, I mean, look at this. He's what, a year away from proving that he deserves this position. And it's not only just the people that are saying, hey, we need to fire Gary Gensler. You've seen the hashtags trend on Twitter. This is more than that. This is committee members, this is people of Congress, this is, I think, even Elizabeth Warren has said things now as well. These are things that are putting him, again, in that hot seat. Moving on to our next article here, though, this is probably gonna be one of the most favorite announcements today, but it's gonna be, XRP may have just become one of the biggest threats to big banks following Ripple's historic SEC win.
The Breakdown
A highlight from The Treasury's Broker Definition Could Crush US Crypto
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me and LW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Monday, August 28th, and today we are talking about the new broker definitions from the US Treasury and all of the scuttlebutt around them. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello friends, hope you had a great late summer weekend. Today we are getting into news that broke just before the beginning of the weekend but has continued to reverberate throughout. The US Treasury has finally released their definition of a broker as part of broader crypto tax reporting rules. The nearly 300 -page rule proposal was published on Friday to codify language in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The rule would require centralized crypto exchanges, payment processors, and other entities that regularly redeem crypto issued by them to report customer transactions to the IRS in a similar way to stockbrokers. Now the issue is that the definition of broker is so broad that it captures some hosted wallet services, some DeFi applications, and potentially much more. In addition to the reporting requirements, the rulemaking introduces a new dedicated tax form, the 1099 -DA, which settles confusion around which form crypto brokers should file. Miners and validators are expressly excluded from the reporting requirements, but the rules seek to capture essentially all other web -based services that provide access to trading platforms within their own user interface. Now of course, this set of rules was controversial from the start. In late 2021, as the infrastructure bill was being negotiated, there was an industry outcry that the rulemaking instructions as drafted would be unworkable. These concerns were shared by many lawmakers, including a small group of pro -crypto -democrats. Still the loudest complaint came from Republican Patrick McHenry, who said the current language is completely unacceptable, it needs to be fixed. The major concern in 2021 was that the loose language would be used to put reporting requirements on miners, validators, and self -hosted wallet providers, who plainly did not have the personal information and transaction data required to comply. As the bill moved towards a vote, the Treasury attempted to ease nerves. One source told Bloomberg that the Treasury Department wasn't looking to go after businesses that don't have transaction data, however they noted that much of the lobbying was aimed at limiting the Treasury Department's authority to collect legitimate tax information. This was viewed as an indication that the rules were not intended to place an unworkable reporting burden on miners and validators. The Treasury has stuck to their word on this end and ensured that the rules do not apply to those groups within the crypto ecosystem. Alexis Goldstein, Financial Policy Director at the Open Markets Institute, and frequent anti -crypto witness at Congressional Testimonies, argued that DeFi protocols should not be given a carve -out from the new rules. She said at the time, Ultimately, an eleventh -hour effort to amend the language in the bill was snuffed out by an unrelated procedural quirk which forced an unamended vote. Crypto lobbyists recognized that the rules would need to be objected to once published. Since then, there have been multiple legislative efforts to repeal the rules before they were issued but none have progressed. The rulemaking is being justified as a measure to close the tax gap. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that these provisions would raise up to $28 billion in additional tax payments over the next decade. The Biden Administration and the IRS under them view unpaid taxes on digital asset trading as a major contributor to the tax gap which is the difference between taxes owed and taxes collected. Some estimates put this overall tax gap issue in the ballpark of $500 billion per year. The Treasury directly addressed this issue as the reasoning behind the rulemaking and stated that it was an effort to crack down on tax cheats while helping law -abiding taxpayers know how much they owe on the sale or exchange of digital assets. This isn't really the main point but obviously the crypto industry as a source of tax revenue looks very different to the way it looked in mid -2021 when the infrastructure bill was passed. And what's more, even if somehow this rulemaking brought in the entire $28 billion in additional revenue over the next 10 years, which most think is extremely overzealous, it would still barely make a dent in the $1 trillion price tag for the Infrastructure Act. Maybe because of that, the Treasury gave the impression that funding the Infrastructure Act was a secondary consideration. Now, speaking of Patrick McHenry, he said that he was Other than that, however, he was disappointed in how broad the rulemaking was. He stated that However, it fails on numerous other counts. Any additional rulemaking related to the other sections from the law must adhere to congressional intent. McHenry also directly called out the White House for yet another piece of bad faith policy, adding that Now on the flip side, Elizabeth Warren, leader of course of the anti -crypto army, didn't think the Treasury went far enough. She said in a statement Kristin Smith, the CEO of the Blockchain Association, noted that by overreaching, the Treasury has presented both an unworkable set of rules and failed to execute on policy which could lower the burden of calculating taxes for everyday crypto users. If done correctly, she said, these rules could help provide everyday crypto users with the necessary information to accurately comply with tax laws. However, it's important to remember that the crypto ecosystem is very different from that of traditional assets, so the rules must be tailored accordingly and not capture ecosystem participants that don't have a pathway to compliance. Another concern was the cost of implementation and the sheer difficulty of compliance, even for well -established centralized exchanges. Coinbase Vice President of Tax, Lawrence Latkin, said in a statement The practicality of the IRS's requirement to report, let alone enforce this incredible minutiae of taxpayer data, is questionable at best. Miles Fuller, head of government solutions at crypto tax software company Taxbit, was a little more credulous about the feasibility compliance for large firms, stating that Quote, There's obviously an immediate investment cost to brokers that will have to implement this and digest and figure out how to do it, but the longer -term outlook in my view is good for the industry because it'll help bring more mainstream adoption. Still, by far the most common discussion point on Twitter was that these rules were overly broad and capture far too much of DeFi infrastructure in their definition of a broker. Crypto commentator Spreak writes, So to recap the new proposed tax rules, Metamask is a broker and has to KYC and report all users unless it removes swaps. Uniswap is a broker and is required to update its UI to a new KYC version. Anything with a multisig is a broker and required to add KYC. For completeness, the proposed definition of a broker includes A person who, in the ordinary course of a trade or business, operate a non -custodial trading platform or website that stands ready to affect sales of digital assets for others by allowing persons to exchange digital assets directly with other persons for cash stored value cards or different digital assets, including by providing access to automatically executing contracts, protocols or other software that automatically affects such sales.
The Breakdown
A highlight from What Progressives Should Understand About Crypto
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Sunday, August 20th, and that means it's time for Long Read Sunday. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another dose of Long Reads Sunday. Now, today's essay is a topic that I feel very strongly about. It's one that comes up quite frequently on the show, and it's about progressivism and Bitcoin. Now, Bitcoin has, of course, had a historic reputation as a bastion for libertarians, and there are lots of reasons why that is. Holding aside the early adopter group, which often intersected with that political cohort, the fact of the matter is Bitcoin and all of the cryptocurrencies that follow it did take something that has for hundreds of years been the province of governments, i .e. money creation, and put it in the hands instead not only of private citizens, but really of this totally new type of force, which is a math -based protocol. Inherently then, there is a power limiting aspect to it relative to government, and so it's perhaps not a surprise that it's more historically been associated with the right, which again typically favors smaller government, than the left, which has more confidence in the government to help be involved in producing a better world and environment for citizens. That said, Bitcoin and crypto had until very recently done a pretty remarkable job of staying a non -partisan concern, at least when it came to policy. Then, of course, FTX and SPF happened. Democrats in particular, who had looked to SPF as something of a hope for the future, not just in crypto, but as a wealthy primarily democratic donor, were extra keen to be seen as tough on the industry coming off of that betrayal. Now, in some ways, I think what that's really meant is the anti -crypto forces that were always there in the Biden administration having a window to kind of run roughshod over their peers who might not feel as strongly as them, because in the wake of FTX, there just wasn't anyone who was going to risk their political capital to defend an industry that seemed really messed up. However, that has started to change once again. We've seen Democrats break from their leadership in order to pass sensible legislation like the stablecoin legislation along, and in general, we seem to be getting to a point once again where the biggest line dividing how people think about Bitcoin and crypto isn't so much party, but age. So that is the backdrop for today's essay, which is called what progressives get wrong when it comes to crypto. It's by Sheila Warren, the CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, and Justin Slaughter, the policy director at Paradigm. It was published in Fortune. Sheila and Justin write, From women's suffrage to civil rights, from the growth of unions to the fight to protect the environment, social movements typically grow from the bottom up. Leaders emerge, but in victorious movements, those individuals reflect the views of the people. That's why we, dyed -in -the -wool progressives, are confused and distressed over a choice by many of our allies to devalue decentralization in the technology space and even to portray it as worse than big tech alternatives. In recent months, a number of progressive commentators have attacked the very idea of decentralization, arguing that it's a distraction from other political goals. This has also led to progressives making crypto a favorite target and, bizarrely, taking the positions of big banks, which are notoriously monopolistic. To us, the more pressing concern is legacy tech platforms and their ongoing capture of user data. Decentralizing technology will prove crucial in ensuring that the world isn't run by a handful of unelected technologists. As progressives, we join the crypto space not despite our personal history, but because of it. Crypto is an exception to so much technology because it runs on blockchain and no single person or corporation can control it. We value a world where power is dispersed to the people, where no one is so powerful that they can dictate terms to the rest of us when it comes to civil rights and civil liberties. That is a decentralized world. Needless to say, we are far from that utopian vision today. Around the world, inequality has spiked over the last few decades, a trend especially bad here at home. There are many causes, but one is certainly that the power of technological change has accrued to a handful of giant firms. When it emerged 30 years ago, the internet was a wild expanse of opportunity. Now, it is just a small collection of corporate walled gardens, which are difficult if not impossible to escape from. We all know people who have sworn to leave a social media network only to return because everyone else is there or because their content remains the property of one of those digital feudal lords. Anti -crypto folks would say this doesn't matter, that the problems posed by large technology companies and large banks can be solved through political action. And while we support such efforts, there is no reason to think of political action and decentralized technology as oppositional. Instead, they are two arms of the same fighter. You need government to knock giant firms down to size and nascent decentralized technology to create competition for those giants in a way that doesn't just produce more giants. So we're perplexed. Why the progressive distaste for decentralization in tech and the apparent support for behemoths with well -known drawbacks? Maybe it's because they don't understand the technology, and if so, that could be on us. We in the crypto industry have may not done enough to explain it. Decentralization at its core includes a public permission ledger, one that no single person inherently owns. Blockchain is tracked through a ledger that uses computers globally to ensure that only validated information is added. Think about the websites we use, banks, YouTube, even Reddit, and how a single centralized entity owns all of them and can decide on a whim to change the site's features, remove users, or use those users' data in novel ways. Just look at what's happened to Twitter. Comparatively, a blockchain allows everyone to own their own data, to control their own information, and to port that information and data to another system at their discretion. It also allows for people to exchange both data and money in a peer -to -peer manner, without permission from expensive bureaucratic and, in many cases, unnecessary intermediaries. Why does this matter? A great example is the rapid response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the international community faced months of bureaucratic hurdles before it could provide critical support, crypto bridged that gap immediately by identifying wallets that could not be seized or frozen by Russian authorities and delivering, since the invasion began, some $421 million directly to Ukraine for defense, medical aid, and rebuilding. On the data side, war crimes being committed by Russian militants against Ukrainian civilians are being documented on the blockchain, so tamper -proof evidence will be available at later hearings. Even in peacetime, progressives who engage in potentially dangerous organizing similarly need secure ways to communicate that can't be compromised by governments or corporations. As risk -averse banks have cut off operations within entire countries, millions have been riskier actors. Blockchain -backed crypto offers a transparent way to create fund flows without incurring the hugely expensive intermediary fees that arise when banks deem an area a greater risk. Migrants also use crypto to send money to their home countries, and this activity alone will become increasingly important as political and climate migration continues to accelerate. We understand that some support for centralization stems from a good -hearted hope that centralized actors can be more easily steered towards the common good. It's tempting to think that a strong central government could bring about radical change by fiat or that a more concentrated economy enables better central planning, but history tells a different story. As the saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and efforts to drive wayward governments towards the common good without a strong decentralized movement have resulted in tyranny. The best path forward requires leaning into decentralization to create a world where no one person or clique is indispensable, where an economy of diverse actors can work together to preserve stability and fairness for all. The way to avoid new tech monopolies is to create an infrastructure that doesn't allow for them. Instead of focusing on how the few can bring change to the many, we should be supporting systems that empower the many to affect change. That's the ideal for which Web3 is striving, and one that we hope other progressives will also look to as a path forward, not a movement to be suppressed by any means necessary. All right, guys, back to NLW. The first thing that I will say is that I think our discourse around this issue, progressives in Bitcoin and crypto, is getting a lot more sophisticated. The arguments are getting more cogent. They're being aired by people who actually understand what progressives are thinking in Washington, and I think that's a hugely positive thing. Now, one of the things that Sheila and Justin posit as a possibility is that a reason that progressives don't support crypto or decentralization efforts is that we haven't done a good job teaching about them. Frankly, this strikes me a little bit, at least, as letting the political class off the hook, given that there have been now years and years of exactly those types of efforts from numerous organizations trying to do exactly that. What's more, I think that it's quite clear that those efforts have borne fruit. As I mentioned, if you look at some of the latest legislation to be working its way through Congress and the Senate, strict party lines haven't applied to how that has advanced. At the risk of sounding ages, because I don't mean to be and I don't think that there's anything inherent that makes it so, younger Democrats and, frankly, younger Republicans are simply more likely to have given this technology the time of day and see things in the way that Sheila and Justin are describing. One of the problems, I think, that may explain why there appears to be an age gap outside of just a different technological literacy in general is that the longer that someone has been in Washington or on any field of battle, the harder it is to not bring one's priors and pattern recognition to things that are fundamentally new. When I first saw Elizabeth Warren, for example, going off on crypto, the interesting thing about it, because it was a money thing, it must mean that it was corrupt as every other money thing that she had fought against. It was almost as if the idea that anyone would spend time on a money thing made them as a person and by extension as an industry null and void as a person or an industry that she wanted to engage with or thought had any redemptive qualities whatsoever. That's not crypto. That's the priors of old battles, many very legitimate that she fought being mapped on inappropriately, frankly, to a new field in which, as Sheila and Justin explain, many of the people there are trying to fundamentally change the problems of the traditional financial sector. You can see the same thing happening with the big tech patternicity happening now as well. While Sheila and Justin point out that decentralized technology is the inherent enemy of big tech consolidation, there are many on both sides of the aisle who simply saw crypto as another tech thing. And because they didn't like Zuckerberg, they clearly didn't like this. Now, it perhaps didn't help that for many of them, the first time they actively engaged with the issue was around Facebook's Libra project, i .e. crypto in the Zuckerberg universe. But it's still bringing priors back from a different fight into a new one. It's also hard not to feel, especially if you listen to someone like Brad Sherman, that part of that bringing priors, part of bringing that antagonism and old battles from both finance and big tech into crypto is that these politicians just flat out don't like us. Ultimately, anything that's a part of human nature is unfortunately a part of politics as well. So there's not necessarily much to be done for that, but it is a really bad way to make policy. And that's why I'm so glad to see a shift happening once again, where this issue of decentralization and the crypto industry that embodies it is not just owned by one party or another. I think that our fights around technology are going to do nothing but get more serious as new technologies come online. And I think a lot of what we will look at now, these early skirmishes, will be viewed as just prologue for what's coming next. So let's do our best to get as smart as we can and have the best conversations, because Lord knows we're going to need it. Hope you guys are having a great weekend. Appreciate you listening, as always. Until next time, peace.
Tech Path Crypto
A highlight from 1203. Ethereum Adoption Exploding Uniswap Launches on Coinbase Layer-2
"All right, so the markets are in an upstream right now, and of course a little bit of this is pending on where Bitcoin is going. Also Ethereum starting to have some very interesting plays across the market. So we'll break all that down for you guys. Hopefully it'll be a good one. I think you'll like it. My name is Paul Baron. Welcome back in the Tech Path. Getting into it today, of course, we want to thank our sponsor, iTrust Capital, if you're looking at a long -term hold. This is one of the places you can do it for an ETF, or excuse me, an IRA. I'm thinking ETF because it's so close, or at least I feel like it's so close. Anyway, if you're looking at a crypto IRA, this is one of the places to go. And of course, the cool thing about this is there's no fees. There's no monthly fees. Obviously, you can self -direct trades. There's a trade fee there. But one of the cool things is you can get into a lot of different assets in there. Get into all coins, of course, feel like Bitcoin and Ethereum. But you can also get into gold and silver. So there is a lot of flexibility. All you have to do is use our link down below, and you'll get a $100 funding reward if you decide to open up an account. So check it out. See what you guys think. All right. A couple of things happening right here. Of course, Uniswap hits a tweet here, rumor has it that BuildOnBase needs a DEX. We're excited to announce that Base is now live on the Uniswap web app. That's big news, I think, for Coinbase and Coinbase in general. A little bit more into the detail of the story if you look at this. Since the integration went live on Uniswap, Base recorded more than 11 ,700 transactions, about $3 .65 million in trading volume. This makes the fourth -largest DEX by volume on Base, according to RocketSwap. So cool things there. Base Network is now set to open to the public this Thursday. So all of that is getting ready to roll out. This would be good for Coinbase in general, but if you think about this, this pretty much opens up everything into Coinbase usage. And with the combination of Coinbase Wallet and whether Coinbase account, they are quickly becoming a titan in the ability to truly get into Web3, all the different kind of projects out there, and also some other aspects. And I'll show you something here that's happening with Chainlink in general. But if you just look at Uniswap's volume, obviously they're on ETH, but really very consistently high, and I'm just kind of going out on the monthly, but you can kind of see here a little bit on where this is going. But this, I think, again, just shows more good bullish signs in the market, especially around trading and getting ready for what we think will be an interesting bull run. Other things that are playing into this, this of course, just don't forget in case you guys are not already out there, OnChain Summer is getting ready to launch. Again, Coinbase is not a sponsor of ours, but it is something we're watching you of go over there and bridge and mint over there on OnChain Summer today. So even if you're brand new to crypto, this would be maybe one of your first experiences to try something in terms of getting engaged in Coinbase, but also into Ethereum. So lots happening there. Other things that are happening within this is Chainlink has a price feed that is now going live on Coinbase's base Layer 2 network. Now what does this mean? If you understand a little bit more about what Chainlink is doing around tokenized assets and what that might mean for Coinbase, especially with Wallet, this is kind of interesting. And I want to focus on a couple of things here in the article. Let me kind of zoom in on that. Integration of Chainlink with base will support DeFi apps and allow Coinbase incubated Layer 2 networks to link with external DeFi apps like lending protocols, futures markets, things of that nature. So that's pretty exciting. Price feeds are one of the leading price data solutions for developers when it comes to the security, reliability, and usability. This of course on Chainlink. Integration of Chainlink price feeds will empower base developers to create next -gen use cases and existing DeFi protocols to seamlessly onboard into base's Layer 2 blockchain. So again, this gets into the benefit of tokenized assets. All those kind of things can play into this technology, especially with Chainlink tying into this. If you look at this headline right here, tokenized Coinbase stocks are coming to Polygon, of course, obviously thanks to backed finance, but more importantly, integrating Chainlink's price feeds. So tying in two of our favorite tokens, Chainlink and also MATIC, and I think, or maybe, what is it, Paul now? But the cool thing is, is that you'll notice here there's a lot of movement within the Coinbase ecosystem. So good news for them, and I think it's also really good news for Coinbase in general, further good news for them is they begin their $150 million debt buyback. This will be a 36 % discount if they pull this off, which is only going to create better value I think for Coinbase, the stock, if you're maybe just a regular stock investor and you like coin. If you are, make sure and smash the like button. It's one of the things that helps us, and it also helps videos like this start to really kind of use the algorithm to help others start to learn a bit more about blockchain and what's happening in the ecosystem of crypto. So just as a reminder, last month the exchange redeemed $65 million in convertible notes at a discount of almost 30%. So that's pretty significant, simply meaning you're reducing your overall cost of some of the money that you've got out there on notes, and any time you can do that is very beneficial for the platform. Couple of notes here I wanted to hit on, and this I have a feeling, and there's a lot of things that are playing into the markets right now. Why is Bitcoin starting to edge up close to $30 ,000 again? What are some of the key things? We'll talk about PayPal and some other aspects that might be leading this, but here's a note from Galaxy CEO, Crypto Headwinds dissipating with Bitcoin ETF plans, the Ripple ruling, all those kind of things. There's a few things that Mike is talking about, Novogratz. The approval, if we get one, deemed more likely now by some of the industry after a flurry of second -party filings, would signal that the government's backing of Bitcoin in a sense. Now what he simply means is if we get an ETF that could legitimize everything that's happening, especially around Bitcoin, and if that happens the next shoe to fall, most likely it would be Ethereum. Obviously, we already saw quite a few filings for Ethereum just this last week, so lots happening. If you think about the pre -Sam Bankman -freed blowup, lots and lots of institutions got to the starting line, and then they all backed away. Certainly stunted the overall growth in the space, but I think now we're starting to see some open water, and I think that's the key thing going forward. There's a clip here I wanted to play where he was over on CNBC, and listen to what Novogratz had to say. The market does think we're going to roll at one point. We've been wrong. The economists have been wrong on how fast it would take for the economy to slow down. I actually think when I look back, why was everyone wrong? Our entire careers, all of yours and mine, every response from governments to crises was always monetary, right? Cut interest rates, inject lots of liquidity. Well, with this COVID response, it was giant fiscal, and we've never really lived through an experiment where we did UBI for the entire country. We've normalized 5 % budget deficits, which is a dangerous thing, but I think one of the reasons the models aren't working is we're just not used to this, and none of us have kind of lived through an experiment where you just gave away so much money. All right, so what he's talking about there is really kind of how these markets have continued to perform in somewhat of a downtime. Many people would say even a recession. If you look at are we in a recession, are we maybe coming out of one, or are we about to enter into one, that is the real question that I think a lot of these analysts are trying to get to, and this is the thing that has started to kind of trip these analysts up because of the fact that we've continued to see some growth here, and obviously if you've been investing in Bitcoin since January, you've doubled your money. Same thing with Ethereum. So what is it that is continuing to draw this out? And now you have a lot more activity coming in from the market itself that's only showing more bullish indicators. So I want to get into a couple of points of what they're talking about here. This was from Eric Balcunas. Also notable, we're going to fight like cats and dogs over market share. This is talking about ETFs. It's something Cathie Wood brought up on the ETFIQ yesterday. What she's basically said, and we did a little bit of a breakdown on this from Cathie's interview, but the point is that if all of these ETFs, Bitcoin ETFs, get approved, there's going to be a very significant amount of competition. And what that means is really good for Bitcoin. It's really good for crypto in general because all these firms are going to start to really start to spend money on education and marketing. And that itself will start to open up to the masses and really create some very interesting things. So you can kind of see what he says here, going to be crucial and thus heavy and probably over the top. That's what I think will be the case. I would agree with Eric. Definitely going to be over the top. Here's Deaton talking about if I told you XRP would get regulatory clarity but not hit a dollar, many would have said no way. All right. Likewise, if I told you PayPal would issue a stablecoin on Ethereum, but it wouldn't increase Ethereum, you know, everybody would be saying, OK, like or not, Bitcoin still drives the market. I would agree with Deaton here. The only difference is I think we are about to see maybe a bit of a cataclysmic shift in how Ethereum and other projects will start to play out. And it's only because of the amount of adoption that we're starting to see in the space. There's a stablecoin coming on with PayPal, but many others, too. There's a lot of other indicators that are kind of flying in that direction. Doesn't mean I'm moving out of Bitcoin, but it does mean I am giving more consideration to some other projects. I want to play this other clip here, and they kind of go into the Ripple side of this, but listen into what Novogratz had to say. I think it's like this Ripple lawsuit taught us anything, right? Gary has been saying, come in, the rules are clear. The rules are absolutely not clear. The judge just basically said to the SEC, you're wrong. And so, you know, Richie Torres, the congressman from the Bronx, put a beautiful letter out to the SEC to Gensler saying, guys, it's time to come to the table for the White House, for the SEC, for Democrats to sit down with the Republicans and give us some damn legislation so we can get on with life. I don't think Gary inherently hates Bitcoin or hates crypto. He did see an industry rife with a lot of fraud. I do think Elizabeth Warren and the progressive side, for reasons I can't understand, have been anti -crypto. And I think any central bank governor gets nervous about something. You know, Larry Fink went on TV and said this is going to be the first global currency. All right. So you can see a lot of indicators there from a regulatory environment that even Novogratz who's been a little bit staunch in terms of his critics toward D .C. is agreeing that maybe there's an opening here and the opening could come in from the SEC. There could be some openings from the political weight that is being pushed upon Gensler. There's a lot of things that are playing into this right now. And of course, we know that the House is going to have two bills on it that we'll be voting on here in September coming up, a stablecoin bill and then, of course, the traditional crypto markets regulation. So that in itself, I think, is, again, very good indicators. Plus you have these companies that are starting to move ahead of this. Now everybody knows PayPal and what happened. We did a whole video on this. But when I look at PayPal and one of the things that they're playing into this, remember, PayPal USD, too big to shut down. This is why it would be a bit different than what Meta tried to do with Diem, which was essentially where Facebook tried to create a concept around this. And there's a couple of points that they hit on in the article. Meta abandoned its stablecoin, first known as Libra, rebranded. We already know about that. This was mostly coming from the European ban and the blacklist from the Federal Reserve, U .S. Treasury. But remember that Facebook at the time, not a money services, not a financial services entity. Big difference there. Experience with payments, long years of investment in crypto initiatives, plus an already established relationship with regulators, which I think is the big one right here. PayPal, especially USD for success, I think is going to be clear. And this gets back into a point that I think I made earlier in the week is that when you look at the lobbying power of companies like PayPal on the streets of D .C., those are real. Why would they make this move now? I mean, because clearly this has been a project they've been working on. They don't necessarily have to release this now. Could be a scenario where they think there's going to be a lot more competition in the banking area. All of that could be playing into this. Further in the article here with Diem, Meta took the opposite approach, only offering a partner with Fed regulated versus what we're dealing now with PayPal. PayPal is something Meta never did, which is an integral player in the payments management ecosystem, which is another aspect. Almost every ecosystem out there from e -commerce has some sort of PayPal payment system. Plus they have a 40 % market share of online payment processing. So all this is a good sign. Now many have looked at this and said, well, Paul, but this could be a bad thing for crypto in general. And I remember that there are still the crypto natives out here that most likely watch our show and have been around for quite some time. Many bull runs, they've lived through the wars. They've seen the Luna fiasco. They've seen the crash of all these different entities that happened during this last cycle. And now they're starting to see the early adoption of how some of these major companies are starting to move into space. Here's JP Morgan saying PayPal stablecoin could boost the Ethereum activity. Yeah, I think that's true. The question will be, will we see people that maybe have never experimented with crypto before start their journey with something like PayPal? It could be very well one of the key things because remember Coinbase, as much as we like them, as much as when I say we, meaning crypto in general, likes what Coinbase is trying to do for the industry, they still don't have the base of growth that a PayPal does. PayPal is sticking on 500 million members and active users. These are real people and these are interesting because there's a lot of money that is sitting in these PayPal accounts easily could be converted to a stablecoin, which obviously would benefit Ethereum, which will benefit all these projects and build on Ethereum and obviously you kind of see where all this plays from there. Couple of notes in this article. Could boost Ethereum activity, enhance Ethereum's network utility, agreed. More firms would be encouraged in the future to choose Ethereum blockchain, agreed for their stable and decentralized project just because of the involvement around what PayPal is doing here. Another aspect of this, you know, when you think about where this is going to go, PYUSD, the token itself, I think there's some great opportunity for where this plays out. Another thing too, I wanted to jump in here because there was another piece right here, PayPal. This is, okay, so this was one of the things that people were kind of hitting on a spaces today with Mario, Knafel. They were talking about the issue of PayPal stablecoin could still be frozen just like Tether and Circle. And my argument for that is this, is that there's going to be people who are Bitcoin and decentralized diehards. That is crypto natives, guys like myself, others that are out there educating the space. And then there's going to, because you can't expect everybody to go all in like that, go hard at that kind of level. So this may be the entry and this may be okay for most people, just like a bank. I know those are bad words, but we say them occasionally here on the channel. But the point is, is that I think this really gets into an opportunity for growing like the normal audience in accepting what's happening in the blockchain industry. So a lot's happening there. Coin Bureau hit on it right here. Guy was talking on there and I heard him go on another show about this where he was really kind of zoning in on this, but it's now confirmed that PayPal stablecoin can be frozen. It's known that PayPal has a history of limiting and restricting accounts based on political views. Yes, yeah, it has happened, but that's also happening in the UK with banks where they're holding back and even in some cases, freezing bank accounts. All those are traditional finance pitfalls that everybody faces. But the cool thing is you have an out. If you get yourself educated and if you're brand new to our channel, first thing I want you to do is subscribe because this is going to give you kind of your own gateway into education of understanding how to move to this next level. So make sure and hit the subscribe button right now and hit that little bell. It's going to give you a notification when we do live streams like this one right here. If you've caught this after the live stream, make sure and of course tune in. You'll be able to get those. You'll get a little notification on your phone. But anyway, I agree with Guy. I think it's a good thing, but also it's just an evolution of how TradFi is going to move into this space. So definitely not one that I'm worried about, but it's one that I'm always keeping my eye on. Another thing to be thinking about is Paxos right here has other white label stablecoins. I'm going to zoom in on that for you. Opportunities in the works in addition to PayPal. Likelihood is we're going to see a lot more of these stablecoins coming in. More likely than not, we could see everything from major retailers to banking titans to other aspects, maybe even other major social platforms. I just don't know whether or not we'll see the likes of a PayPal outside of traditional banks really make a big dent in the markets because I think those are the ones that we have to watch. Just so you know, right here, this is kind of an interesting data point from Logica. This is the average amount of money that is in a PayPal account versus cash in wallets. Meaning average users of PayPal keep more money in their PayPal balance than they do cash in their wallet. So if that is the case, $485 and PayPal says, hey, listen, you can buy a stablecoin and you can get interest or yield on it. Why wouldn't people do that and what would that mean to the Ethereum network? That would mean massive because you're talking about a user base here that is absolutely incredible. So lots definitely happening. We'll take a look at the charts. Don't forget, we're going to do a quick poll for you guys too. Let's just jump to the poll and then we'll get to some charts here in a quick second. Let's take a look at the poll. All right. Oh, great. Should I swap all my Bitcoin for Ethereum? I don't think the audience likes that idea of the 68 % saying no. All right. Well, there you go. All right. Well, speaking of Bitcoin, let's go over to the chart right here. You can kind of see a little bit of movement. Again, some of this, I think, is because of the activity that we've seen around just these bullish measurements. And it also has been something that, remember, Bitcoin has not moved much. Right now, we're on the two -hour, but it has not moved much in weeks. And for the first time, we're starting to see a little bit of upward trend on sentiment data. And this, of course, is showing up nicely on the charts, holding at about 2 .5 % growth. The one that I'm interested in right now is still Solana. Solana continues to be a high performer, and it's one that we've continued to look at really since back in early January. And if you look at the growth on that, I mean, the question is whether or not Solana can make its way back up here into the $28 to $30 range. I don't know. I'm interested in this right now, but it is on a tear right now. I'd love to get you guys' feedback. If you're investing in or, you know, holding or getting into any of these projects, are you going the route of Ethereum, are you going the route of Solana, or maybe going the route of Avalanche? Are you hedging your bets on different kind of projects that you're interested in playing into? I don't know. Love to get your comments down below. Make sure to drop some sidebar questions. We'll try to get some of those as well. Let's take a few, and it looks like we got a few here. All right. So, all right. So we got PayPal makes no sense. This is not what the masses will use. I don't know. I'm still questioning whether or not...what is the gateway? Because right now, I don't know that it is Coinbase. As much as I'd like it to be in the United States, regulatory scenarios are still going to be a big part of this. It could be a Fidelity if Fidelity were to break loose with something crazy like an in and out wallet, or possibly Coinbase really starts to expand because of their expansion into DeFi. Maybe there's some opportunity here, but I'm still questioning as to... There will be something that is that gateway into mass adoption, for sure. Solana's faster than MasterCard, Visa, no doubt about that, flat smack. Chainlink, protect on the next bull run. We like Chainlink. It's definitely one that I've invested and played with before. Definitely one that I would probably look at. Who's adopting ETH except Paul? I don't know. Hopefully, a bunch of people, but I think there's a lot of people that are starting to shift over in terms of, you know, just what that might look like in terms of payment architecture. Let's see, what else do we have? A quarter of Bitcoin into LINK and a quarter into ETH. Okay, that's an interesting play. I like making those kinds of bets. Those are good. All right. And then what else do we got here? Small man priced out of the Uniswap and ETH cost plenty of dollars for a swap. It is a pricey. I think those are going to come down in time. It will, you know, most likely be a scenario that, you know, many people are facing if they're brand new into crypto. There are fees just like any kind of other trading platform out there, whether you're trading in stocks or any of that. What is it that you guys would like us to see? You know, just drop some comments down below. Are you interested in more CEO interviews? Are you, do you like our breakdowns on projects or are you really kind of liking the strategy that we take here in the crypto pit where we break down projects, look at how the impact starts to affect in the markets? We're always kind of playing with some of our content. We always love to get feedback. So make sure and just drop some comments down below. Before you leave, hit the like button right now. It's one of the ways that helps spread this video. If you're not part of the Diamond Circle, make sure and get in. It's very easy and it's free. We drop a podcast over there, additional analysis, more research, all that stuff is available over in the Diamond Circle. If you guys want to catch me out there on Twitter, it's thatpaulbarron. We'll catch you next time right here on Tech Path.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Featured story is an opinion piece by CoinDesk's Daniel Kuhn. Our piece today is entitled, Why Elizabeth Warren is Wrong about Crypto and the Fentanyl Epidemic. For a while, crypto's role in the illegal and gray area drug trade seemed swept under the rug, or at least it was not getting the attention it could have, which is good and which the Fed shuttered back in 2013. It's good because some people have a tendency to moralize about drug use, and the less crypto is linked to crime in general, the less the entire industry will be stigmatized. However, it would arguably be better to be upfront about such things, assuming they're going on, as data now suggests. If crypto ever has a shot at finding a killer use case, or mass user base who understands why blockchains are important. U .S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, is calling for a greater crypto crackdown following new research from blockchain analytics firms Chainalysis and Elliptic that found Bitcoin and Tether, or USDT, have become cornerstone to the global fentanyl trade. These are the same research companies that put out annual reports showing a fraction of a fraction of crypto transactions can be tied to illicit use. Quote, crypto is helping fund the fentanyl trade and we have the power to shut that down, Warren said, continuing, it's time. End quote. The Senator is a longtime critic of crypto, who recently made an incomprehensible anti -crypto army campaign part of her re -election bid. But does the Senator have a point? I already know what the crypto faithful will say. Chainalysis estimates less than 1 % of total crypto transactions are related to crime, so it doesn't matter if Chainalysis is now saying there's evidence. At least $37 .8 million worth of crypto was sent to drug manufacturers in China since 2018. But hold that thought, we'll get back to it. First, let's try to place crypto's alleged use for drug sales in the context of the global drug trade. To start, it's difficult to judge just how large the fentanyl economy is, because it is, by nature, kept mostly out of sight. But if Chainalysis and ellipsis figures are to be meaningful, they need context. According to one source Chainalysis cited, total quote chemical exports, end quote, from China, assumed by most authorities to be the largest manufacturer and exporter of black and gray market drugs, surpassed $100 billion in 2021 alone.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
"This is the type of wolf in sheep's clothing we're dealing with here. Did she change because she really cares or because she moved from Texas to Massachusetts, got a job at Harbor? We are talking about a woman who will lie about absolutely anything to paint the picture she wants you to see. Want to know about someone else who Elizabeth Warren cheated? Scott Brown. This is who Warren stole her seat in the Senate from in Massachusetts back in 2012. Like anything else, she would downplay this to no end, but Brown really did get the right end of this deal back in the day. As a result of the lawsuit, $276 ,000 were spent to send voter registration forms to half a million welfare recipients. Obviously, the welfare votes are more likely to vote blue than red, and that's exactly what put Warren on top in that election. The dirty part of the story here is that the lawsuit that got these voter forms sent out was filed by a left -wing nonprofit called Demos. And who was on the Demos board at the time? Elizabeth Warren's daughter, Amelia Warren. Wow. Just wow. To defend themselves, the Warren family will point to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and the Motor Voter Law that allowed them to do this. On the other side of the coin, Scott Brown said in a written statement, I want every legal vote to count, but it's outrageous to use taxpayer dollars to register welfare recipients as part of a special effort to boost one political party over another. This effort to sign up welfare recipients is being aided by Elizabeth Warren's daughter, and it's clearly designed to benefit her mother's political campaign. Just another lie to add to the lengthy list of Elizabeth Warren's illustrious political career. And this is the lie that landed her a seat in the United States Senate. The list just never ends. It's one thing after another. Look at this tweet from John Deaton. Elizabeth Warren is a fraud because she abandoned her constituents and refused to even speak to John or her own constituents because she couldn't risk being seen on the same side as billionaires.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
"Before, and I'll say it again. Elizabeth Warren is one of the most corrupt politicians to ever step foot in Washington. Believe it or not, but on the surface, some people actually think that Warren is actually a great politician, and she's doing all the right things, but it's behind the curtain while her best work is done. That's the stuff no one knows about. Her entire career is literally a warpath of half -truths and covered -up lies. And it's time we put this to bed once and for all. Because certainly, no one else will go to bed with Elizabeth Warren. Let's get it. Welcome to BitBoy Crypto! My name is Ben. In this video, we're going to continue to pull back the curtain to expose the real Elizabeth Warren. For those of you who don't know, it's not the first video we've done on Elizabeth Warren. Some of you might think that we're only going after her because she's creating an anti -crypto army. But in all honesty, that's just a cherry on top in terms of her being nothing short of a cancer in American politics. In fact, just a few weeks ago, we put out this video here, and as good as it was, it barely scratched the surface on the truth behind the Democrats' darling. If you want to watch that video, there's a link in our description. For context, I'll give you a quick rundown. dropped Once Elizabeth out of school, got married, had kids, got divorced, kept the same name, went back to school, graduated and started applying to universities as a professor, this is where things really started to get bad for Ms. Warren or whatever her name is. For the first time in her life on her university applications, she identified as a Native American. She wrongly ran with this narrative for way too long. Of course, she did this for her own personal gain, but the sly ran so deep that colleges like Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania even touted her around as a minority professor, which couldn't be further from the truth. To be honest, this was the lie that single -handedly ruined her career for the White House. I can't even stress how disgusting of a lie this is. The lie is one thing, but how hard she stuck to it was the most egregious part. She took a DNA test. Didn't matter. She apologized on national TV, and it didn't matter. It was so bad that Chuck Hoskin, Cherokee Nation's Secretary of State, went on TV and told everyone how the DNA test made it worse.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
"If I start with a joke. But their language is different than American. How do you say I am Italian? I actually should know this. I'm probably going to get slapped from my mother. Coinbase cofounder Brian Armstrong took to Twitter to express his disagreement with the letter. Now you know, Ben gurz will said on that interview that he refused to sign that thing that Elon Musk passed around. Right, so he said, bring on the innovation. Right. Why do we want to pause the innovation? It makes no sense. I think that's kind of what Brian Armstrong was saying. Why would we want to slow this down this is going well. Yeah. No, I think so. Bloomberg reveals AI for financial data, community response. Financial media outlet Bloomberg revealed a new artificial intelligence model intending to open new ways to use the data available within the company's terminal may respond to the latest development with some saying that this sparks the next wave of corporate AI. This AI is going to be so big. It's going to be as big as the Internet. I'm telling you guys, this AI is going to revolutionize almost everything that we do and it's not going to stop. Yeah, I've been trying to think about a better way to compare it because it's not as much as a network. It's almost like as big as computers. With Bitcoin, there's no big coin. And that's what makes it different. It's just belief. You and I, assess, you assess the value is going to go down. It's going to go up and therefore I buy. So it's Elizabeth Warren's valuable as a darker. Look at this nice gentleman. No. Because at the end of the day, I think that thing on my wall. And I can enjoy it, or I can throw darts. You never hung anything. You could sell it for money. Sure you can't. I mean, there are features about it that are the same, but it's not the same. And look when she does that. One of the things we have to remember about, there are a lot of things that are associated with this crypto world. So for example, we could be talking about instead of Bitcoin, we could be talking about digital currency. Now, that's something. Okay, you guys see this set up. Do you understand what's happening here? This is the
The Breakdown
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on The Breakdown
"Which comes out a few hours later in the evening. Wherever you listen, if you are enjoying the show, I would so appreciate it if you would take the time to leave a rating or review, it makes a huge difference. All right folks, well, happy Friday and not just Friday, but the last day of the month and the last day of the quarter and boy, what a quarter it was. Going into this year, the smart money was betting on a pretty rough time of it. December was all just a very beginning of cleanup of the fallout of FTX and nearly everyone assumed that there would be a big, loud and potentially price depressing regulatory response as well. Well, folks were right about the antagonism as is the subject of today's show, but boy were the bears wrong about the price. Bitcoin today completes its best quarter in two years. BTC is up around 70% since the beginning of January. And to be fair, it's not the only asset that's up. The tech heavy NASDAQ stock index is up around 17% and gold is up about 8.5%. Now, maybe the key thing that happened this quarter from a broader U.S. economic standpoint was the banking crisis. The powers that be initially tried to blame it all on crypto, but really it was about something different and endemic across the entire banking sector. That of course were the unrealized losses sitting on bank balance sheets, reflecting that the bonds and other securities they purchased with an influx of SERP era deposits were now underwater. Due to the fed's interest rate hiking cycle, which was the fastest of its type in 40 years. Unrealized losses only stay unrealized if no one asks for their money back, but unfortunately when people start to get nervous, they ask for their money back. In early March, when Silicon Valley bank revealed that a lot of their customers had been asking for their money back, not because they didn't trust SVB, but just because being a startup in 2023 involves a lot less money than in 2022 or 2021, they had to sell billions in securities at a loss.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"And most recently, march 21st, 23, a second letter to the public company accounting oversight board urging them to take action of, quote, sham audits of crypto companies. Talk about living rent free in someone's head. So there are a lot of interpretations and discussions of this inveterate main character syndrome. The first, which feels like it should be dealt with right up front is that it's a strategically calculated streisand effect thing. In other words, Warren knows how loud we are in this industry and knows that by targeting us, we're going to squawk our faces off and put tons of eyeballs on our campaign. In an any attention is good attention world, maybe that's the goal. Sorry founder Ryan selk is rights, from the day forward, we do not say her name. She wants to make anti crypto as streisand effect issue, so she no longer has a name. Instead, we punish her vulnerable Friends. Next, a second interpretation may be more generous than I'd personally make, is that Warren is so conditioned at this point to see anything having to do with money as inevitably morally bankrupt and doomed to hurt regular people that she just hasn't tried to understand why crypto is different. You see this take from a lot of progressive bitcoiners who once saw Warren as an ally, aligning with her on the corruption and malpractice of large financial institutions. They feel incredibly frustrated that she can't see as they see that new decentralized financial models could break the sort of monopolistic and centralized power she spent her career nominally rallying against. And what's more, they feel personally betrayed that she doesn't even seem to want to try. Mark Jeffrey writes crypto DeFi is fractional citizen ownership banks in exchanges. It pushes the profits of banks to the edges to the people. It is the most progressive thing ever invented, but it uses capitalism not socialism to accomplish it. Left usurper says I'm a progressive Elizabeth Warren, your anti crypto stance is defeating. I donated to your campaign in 2020. I am pro crypto because it allows working families to break generational poverty created by the failed monetary system. I will vote pro crypto wherever they sit politically. Dystopia breaker writes, I'm a progressive and I'm here to fight for American families against the big banks. That's why I'm working tirelessly to attempt to exterminate technology that reduces the power of banking and runs on infrastructure that architecturally treats everyone the same while executing contracts in a manner that anyone regardless of stature can verify. Because I'm so progressive in fighting of the big banks and for the American family, I will stop at nothing to ensure that the abusive business models used by the big banks are the only legal ones and to actually legally destroy any attempts to improve or disrupt the situation. I am asking for good faith engagement instead of knee jerk culture war bullshit that hurts everyone. Put even more simply, Stephanie esquire writes, senator Warren might single handedly be responsible for my decision and many others in leaving the Democratic Party. You're on the wrong side, senator, history will not be kind to you on this one. That's just the tip of the iceberg of progressives who feel betrayed in that way. A third interpretation sees this attack as implicitly a contradiction of her own values. Put simply, the group most excited about Warren's attacks on crypto are the bank lobby, the same bank lobby she once fought. Indeed, according to the article that senator Warren referenced, Politico writes that senator Warren was, quote, starting to recruit conservative Senate Republicans to her anti crypto cause, and getting some early positive vibes from bank lobbyists who also want to rein in digital asset startups. A fourth interpretation just sees this as wild regressive luddites that perhaps reflects America's current hatred of tech, not just crypto. Stephen Cole writes think how hilariously luddite and cringe and all around dumb it would look if you'd run an anti Internet campaign back in the early 90s. That's you, Elizabeth Warren, that's what you look like. A 5th interpretation is that this is all about utter human pettiness. After all, politicians and their staffs are people too, and in this case, it seems to be personal. Nick Carter writes true Liz Warren story. One time I took a call with her chief of staff, she recalled a tweet where I had called her a despot. Liz Warren's team copes and seeds over your tweets and saves them in a dossier of mean tweets. Never forget that. A 6th interpretation is that this is about creeping authoritarianism. Hailee Lennon writes Elizabeth Warren isn't building an anti crypto army, she's building a pro CBDC army. Zero X makes he says Warren said the quiet part out loud. The path for crypto to gain mainstream sympathy is as a nonviolent resistance movement. Warren is invoking the image of weaponizing the state's monopoly on violence against the minority group to eliminate the private sector's ability to develop this technology. And clear a path to a dystopian retail CBDC that violates civil liberties. This is not a winning issue and should be resisted within both parties. Finally, a 7th interpretation a really question is who is this meant to appeal to? Stats on this are notoriously bad, but still many are making the point that this is extremely weird given how many Americans own crypto. Some put the numbers at above 20%, but even Brian brinkman here with a lesser estimate makes the point. He writes, 8 .3% of Americans own crypto, 30 6% are liberal leaning. That's around 10 million voters. These aggressive moves are politically disastrous for Democrats in every state. The opposite of progressive. Now, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention there is one self reflective type of take that I think is worth considering. That's the recognition that the industry's action have given Warren and her ilk room to maneuver. Anthony sissano writes being anti crypto is sadly the popular stance in the normie circles of the world, and will win Elizabeth Warren many votes. What we as an industry need to do is work to change the attitude of regular people towards crypto. One of the ways we do this by building products and services that regular people can get value out of. We also need to do much more to call out Ponzi's like Terra and frauds like SPF. Do you find the people running these projects did enough damage to make being an anti crypto politician a popular stance?
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Wherever you listen, if you are enjoying the show, I would so appreciate it if you would take the time to leave a rating or review, it makes a huge difference. All right folks, well, happy Friday and not just Friday, but the last day of the month and the last day of the quarter and boy, what a quarter it was. Going into this year, the smart money was betting on a pretty rough time of it. December was all just a very beginning of cleanup of the fallout of FTX and nearly everyone assumed that there would be a big, loud and potentially price depressing regulatory response as well. Well, folks were right about the antagonism as is the subject of today's show, but boy were the bears wrong about the price. Bitcoin today completes its best quarter in two years. BTC is up around 70% since the beginning of January. And to be fair, it's not the only asset that's up. The tech heavy NASDAQ stock index is up around 17% and gold is up about 8.5%. Now, maybe the key thing that happened this quarter from a broader U.S. economic standpoint was the banking crisis. The powers that be initially tried to blame it all on crypto, but really it was about something different and endemic across the entire banking sector. That of course were the unrealized losses sitting on bank balance sheets, reflecting that the bonds and other securities they purchased with an influx of SERP era deposits were now underwater. Due to the fed's interest rate hiking cycle, which was the fastest of its type in 40 years. Unrealized losses only stay unrealized if no one asks for their money back, but unfortunately when people start to get nervous, they ask for their money back. In early March, when Silicon Valley bank revealed that a lot of their customers had been asking for their money back, not because they didn't trust SVB, but just because being a startup in 2023 involves a lot less money than in 2022 or 2021, they had to sell billions in securities at a loss. So much so that they were actually needing to raise more money. This freaked markets out and led ultimately to a chain reaction where the extremely densely network tech industry started pulling their funds on mass. As I discussed with Nick Carter earlier this week, SVB kind of destroyed the ability for regulators to write this off as a crypto issue, and since then, everyone has been laser focused on these potential unrealized losses sitting at bank balance sheets all over the country. However, in that context, Bitcoin has seen a bit of a boom. It's not totally clear that narrative drivers got the rally moving. And in fact, many suspect that the initial price action might have been more driven by binance stitching their stablecoin for Bitcoin. What's very clear, however, is that the narrative of Bitcoin as a solve for banking problems has significant traction. The last couple of weeks have seen a ton of versions of that same story, coming not just from the crypto space, but from mainstream outlets. Those narrative forces are interacting with a broader move nudging back into risk assets on the basis that the market believes that the banking crisis is a new factor that will force the fed to effectively end and ultimately reverse its tightening cycle. And so take all this together and we have Bitcoin's best quarter from a price standpoint into years. Alas, price is only part of the crypto story. Yes, when the history books are written, we're not going to remember Q one 2023 because Bitcoin went from 17 K to 28 K we're going to remember it as the beginning of a full frontal assault on the entire industry. The crypto community is extremely fond of the apocryphal Gandhi phrase, first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. We have a tendency to pretty much always think we've entered the then they fight you phase, but as of this quarter, I think it's pretty much official that we are now well and truly into the then they fight you face. The breakdown has had numerous shows about operation choke .2 and what seems like a coordinated effort to deplatform crypto companies from U.S. banking and in general push crypto offshore. But just in case there was any doubt, any doubt at all. Yesterday, Elizabeth Warren, the self styled emperor of the crypto antagonists, announced her formal reelection campaign for her Senate seat in Massachusetts. To do so, she released a video on a series of graphics with her looking determinedly off camera, with a big blaring headline that had been recently written about her. Some of the accomplishments highlighted included, subsidized child care, and over the counter hearing aids, great things for sure. But that wasn't all she chose to focus on. And what she did focus on would overshadow all of it. The image she chose to start that video, the headline reads Elizabeth Warren is building an anti crypto army. The headline is drawn from a February article in Politico, which covered the senator's sponsorship of the digital asset anti money laundering act last year. That act would require software providers and blockchain validation infrastructure operators to record significant personal information about protocol users and proactively generate money laundering reports without any government requests for information. Coin center called the bill unconstitutional and said it was, quote, a direct attack on technological progress, and also a direct attack on our personal privacy and autonomy. Of course, that's not Warren's only attack on crypto. Since this time last year, senator Warren has sent at least 15 letters on the topic of crypto to regulators, companies, and even the FTX bankruptcy judge. She's also sponsored at least two bills which were dramatically increased the data collection requirements within
Bankless
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on Bankless
"In my mind, Ryan, I'm just saying regulators putting undue burdens upon the crypto banking sector, and then as a result of those burdens, and perhaps also other things, FTX and interest rates, but also as a result of what Elizabeth Warren is doing here in this tweet, putting undue burdens upon the crypto banking sector, then the big crypto banking sector fails. And then she's like, I told you so, even though she's part of the problem that caused it to not be a well service industry in the first place. Remember, Tyler cowan's caution, he wrote an editorial about this, came out of our podcast and he was like, hey, I'm most worried that regulators and those in Congress will backlash far too far. And yes, there was problems with FTX, but you're really going to try to choke United States citizens, U.S. citizens from this entire asset class. I worry about that's what's going on. I think Nick Carter had a fantastic take here on silvery gate. He said this about silvergate about this situation we're just talking about the politicians are now telling us that because a single bank peaking at 16 billion in assets that silver 8 wound down in an orderly manner, making depositors whole, no one lost money here, David, no depositor lost money, affecting no one but shareholders, causing no knock on effects that crypto firms must be shut out of the banking system. Right. Those holding equity, the shareholders of silvergate lost in this. That's how it should be. That's how this works. It's a risk asset holding equities a risk asset that the company is going to go bankrupt. Of course, so in that sort of situation, equity holders get liquidated, no one that deposited funds in silvergate has lost anything. So like I bank wound down in a correct and orderly fashion and Elizabeth Warren is like grave dancing. Is that what's going on? I think so. I mean, Nick Carter, Nick goes on and says, they cry out safety and soundness will chipping away at the foundation and then act vindicated when the structure starts to crumble. I think that's what's going on here. Yeah. Here's another thing. Yeah, so this is a take from a mic from block works. Liz Warren has a $67 million net worth, even though her salary is $285,000 per year.
Bankless
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on Bankless
"At the firm's headquarters last week and have been since reviewing the firm's books and records. The department is evaluating compliance with all financial laws, as well as safety and soundness obligations and is working closely with relevant federal counterparts. So I think there's probably a big question out there is like, was it silver Gates fault or was it external forces that have caused this? I don't we'll have to find out. I don't know if there's any reason to suspect silvergate of anything, but I guess we're going to find out either way. Do you have a take on this round? Well, a lot of people encrypt are saying that this is basically a run on the bank, perpetrated by people in power, those regulators and politicians going on the megaphone and saying the operation choke point sorts of sorts of measures. People like Elizabeth Warren, for example, broadcasting this and saying, withdraw withdrawal funds from these crypto banks, these crypto companies. And I would say the broader point is, remember guys, we live in a fractional reserve banking system. That means any bank, whether it's Wells Fargo, bank of them, any commercial bank that you use operates on faith. Operates on faith. And so if there was a run on the bank and you decided to withdraw all of us decide to withdraw all of our money at once, that's it, we can't get it. It doesn't exist, guys, it doesn't exist. It's a fragment. That's how the system works. Yes, it's a figment of our imagination. It's all kind of on the ledger and it all works as long as everyone trusts it and the FDIC has a 250 K guarantee and all of these things. So there is some element David where, yes, they probably were sloppy in areas, is kind of my take right now based on the evidence I've seen. Yes, silver gate could have done additional AML KYC in places. They could have had some tighter risk policies. But I don't think this is not an FTX type situation, right? I don't think that there was anything incredibly nefarious going on, at least the evidence hasn't borne that out yet. But what I do know is there has absolutely been a run on this bank. And perpetuated in some, in some cases, by regulatory congressional influencers who are pushing silvergate towards the edge. And to that extent, I mean, I would say that is extremely irresponsible. Right. Just to start this from the beginning of a run on the bank is a fear and emotion based phenomenon from all bank from all customers, clients, depositors of that bank. And so if there is this run on the bank that's happening and the reason why silvergate is shutting down is because there's just so much net outflow out of the bank because everyone is fearful that silver gate is going under. And that fear perpetuates, right? Turns into a mind virus.
Bankless
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on Bankless
"This is what all while mortgages rates just hit 7.1% in credit card debt hit, a record 25%. We are fighting inflation with debt. This can not end well. Wow, that's a long tweet. Yeah, okay. But by the way, how long can tweets be now? Oh my gosh. You can keep going. It's not only, they're almost limitless, dude. Limitless tweets. I don't know if I like that, but we're inflating. Inflation is the name of the game these days, including two length, got inflate tweets. Our tweets. The Twitter money printer keeps going for. Stablecoin check in. Let's talk about crypto markets for a second though. USD T is on the rise. It's the highest level in 15 months. That is, of course, tether, David, why is tether going up? It should be as a result of outflows from BUSD, right? So B USD going down USC going up. That's got to be the conclusion here. I think that's what's happening yet. Tether's gain came mostly at the expense of BUSD after the announcement we talked about that last week, announcing they were halting new minting of BUSD, and it's grown 5.3 billion to a total of $71 billion in tether, which is tether fully backed. We think so kind of mostly. I don't know. That's not tether's product, brother. Tether's product is being on offshore stablecoin. That's right. And that's what BUSD was maybe filling part of and tether is just going to take that. So the U.S. system has no ability to go find hunt down tether. Can they do that? I mean, this is outside of the bounds of U.S. jurisdiction. But the U.S. does have jurisdiction over some other things. We're going to talk about that when we come back, David. What are we covering next? Silver gate liquidate is the only true words I'll say about that. Elizabeth Warren returns versus binance and the SEC taking an L perhaps two is the tide turning against the SEC. And we'll probably talk about some eth number chatter as well, among other things, also, of course, beyond all of that, the biggest news of the week, bankless two. You know that's coming. So we're going to get to all that and more right after we talk to some of these fantastic sponsors that makes this show possible, especially cracking our strategic sponsor for 2023 who supplies this market section of the bank this weekly roll up with the most beautiful charts that you've ever seen. Here we go. Cracking has been a leader
Bankless
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on Bankless
"Bangla station, it is the second Friday of March David, what time is it? Brian, it's the bank this Friday weekly roll up where we cover the entire weekly news in crypto, which is always an ambitious endeavor, especially in this economy, yet we persevere nonetheless because we've got coffee with us. We've coffee, we've got news. We got crypto. What more could you ask for this morning? We've got some topics of the week too. The silvergate liquidation event. We're going to cover that. This is crypto's trad 5 bank. Did the politicians cause a bank run here? What are you getting to that story? What else we got, David? Elizabeth Warren versus binance also on the table. Liz Warren on a rampage. It's not Gary gensler this week. It's Elizabeth Warren. And then after that, the SEC taking an L so as Elizabeth Warren comes into the main character, Gary gensler, taking a back seat. Maybe two L's, is it too good to be true? We will talk about all of that and more. And perhaps the biggest news of the week, Ryan, which I know you're excited about. Tell me about it. Tell me what was the biggest thing to the week then? We got something called bankless two. That's just dropping at 12 p.m. today eastern. All right, so listen to this on a Friday morning. Maybe later, if it's later, this thing has dropped already, 12 p.m. eastern on March the tenth, 2023, a whole new website, a whole new experience for members. A whole new bank list, a whole new era. My God, it's a whole new everything. Whole new media company. What else, David? The bull market starts today. We're calling it the drop. Two. Guys, we're super excited about this because we've been working on this for a while. This is a new experience for our free members and then for those of you who are a bankless citizens to upgrade. So go check it out, bank list dot com.
Native America Calling
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on Native America Calling
"If the Supreme Court overturns this law, it will be more important than ever to protect native children and to stand up for tribal sovereignty. So I want you to know that I am right there with you on this. Even as native children face news threats, the United States still has not reckoned with its shameful history of cultural genocide and assimilation practices through its Indian boarding school policies. And that is why I have worked with my dear friend, secretary Deb haaland, back when she was still in Congress. And with wonderful advocates to introduce a bill to establish a commission to advance healing from the shameful legacy of the Indian boarding schools. Congresswoman sharice davids and I reintroduced this bill in the last Congress. Last year, the Senate committee on Indian affairs held a hearing on this issue and on my bill. And I want to acknowledge the good bipartisan work that the committee's chair and vice chair. Senators Brian schatz and Lisa Murkowski have done to advance commerce's work on this issue. Secretary Holland's launch of the federal Indian boarding school initiative at the department of interior has also been critical in elevating this issue. In her address, president sharp highlighted the importance of native representation across the highest levels of government and she is absolutely right. I'm a big believer that personnel is policy. And that means representation matters. Secretary of Holland is a perfect example of that. But we still have more work to do to get this across the finish line and your advocacy here will make a real difference. Now, president Sharpe also mentioned my bill, the honoring promises to native nations act. And if you'll bear with me for a minute, I'd like to talk about it too. You may remember that the U.S. commission on civil rights published a report in 2018 called broken promises. It found that the federal government has woefully underfunded programs for native peoples in areas of criminal justice and public safety, healthcare, education, housing, and economic development. And dedicated a chapter to each of those 5 topics. The report correctly stated the United States expects all nations to live up to their treaty obligations. It should live up to its own. And soon after that, Deb haaland and I decided to take action by developing legislation together. We worked with numerous stakeholders to prepare a legislative proposal for the honoring promises to native nations act. And then we incorporated the many great suggestions that Indian country offered in response. When secretary Holland moved on to her current job, congressman Derek Kilmer of Washington state took the baton from her. And he is now my excellent partner. In December, we introduced the honoring promises to native nations act, and it has 5 titles to match the 5 broken promises chapters. Throughout the bill, we prioritized full funding for federal native programs. No more shortfalls. And the bill ensures that the funding going to Indian country is mandatory. Fulfilling trust and treaty obligations is not optional. Too often federal decisions are made for Indian country, not with Indian country. And for that reason, our Bill articulates principles to ensure that meaningful and timely tribal consultation is the norm. And it begins to lay out a path to ensure that free prior informed consent becomes the standard. President sharp has championed this point for years. And I want to thank her and I want to thank NCA. For their invaluable assistance with the entire bill. So although this bill won't become law immediately, I think it's crucial for Congress to have legislation that says unequivocally the United States has broken its promises and the United States must start making good on them. Now, I will reintroduce the honoring promises to native nations act this Congress and your continued input and partnership will remain indispensable in moving forward. As I look forward to the rest of 2023 and the remainder of the 118th Congress, I'm filled with hope. Hope for all that we can accomplish together. Hope for continued learning partnership and new opportunities. Hope for the future of Indian country. It has been an honor to speak to you today. And I thank you once more for all that you do. Thank you.
Bloomberg Radio New York
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on Bloomberg Radio New York
"Different streaming services don't seem to give as much choice Tara thanks so much for joining us The hook for this if I can put it that way is the proposed merger of discovery with WarnerMedia And some objections from senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts Right So you have senator Elizabeth Warren representative David siciliani and a bunch of other Democrats in Congress calling a tension to this $43 billion deal where AT&T is trying to sell WarnerMedia to discovery and they're saying that they're concerned that this transaction is going to substantially less than competition in the entertainment industry And what they probably mean by that is specifically streaming because I think that's what most people have come to say is like the entertainment industry nowadays We don't really talk about the box office as much or cable TV It's all about these streaming apps that are trying to compete with Netflix But when they say that this deal will substantially less in competition I'm struggling to see how that's the case And that's not to argue in favor of the deal getting done or further consolidation But if you take a step back it's basic economic gospel in this country to believe that having more options greater choice is better for consumers And then what you have with the streaming TV industry are dozens and dozens of apps purporting to do similar things And yet it's costing consumers a great deal of money as this industry starts to kind of resemble the reviled cable industry And it's also costing consumers or patients as far as the subpar user experience and a lot of these apps So I think what that tells you is that at the moment the streaming market doesn't have a healthy degree of consumer choice There's instead an illusion of choice simply because there's so many providers And so allowing this deal or stopping this deal I should say isn't going to fix this bigger problem And I think that's maybe what we should be calling attention to is how do you make this market healthier for the consumer Because right now it's really heading in the direction that the cable industry was in Well I must say just from my personal experience the one thing that all these streaming services have in common is whichever one I'm on is not the one that has the program I want to get which means that I have to go sign up for another one And so I add another service So why is this so different from the way it was with basic cable or even back in the olden days broadcast What you just described is exactly the issue So we have all these different services that are purporting to do similar things except they don't really They don't compete against one another They are not substitutes for one another You can't.
News Radio 920 AM
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on News Radio 920 AM
"Mention Elizabeth Warren is running for another term. I think we did mention that she's running for a third Senate turn. She's out the term. She's out there, pushing her book right now. And it's called persist. But I can boil down the book for you very simply. I I should do this. Somebody came up with the idea of this service. You pay a flat amount per month. They basically read all the new books that have come out and they provide you with the cliff notes of the book. So much, You know, they give you the main point of the book and a few things and like you can get in a 20 minute, Reed, you can get everything that the book was trying to say. I should have come up that idea. Well, I can do it for Elizabeth Warren's book in less than 20 minutes. I can do it in less than two. I can name that book in one note. Basically, she said she lost the presidency because she was a woman. She didn't get the nomination because she was a woman. That was it, but you don't need to read anything else. The rest of it is just all filler and baloney. That's what she did, She said. Hey. Hey, I'm a woman. That's why great your victim fall back on that and blame that for everything, Not yourself. Um, I'll get to what's going on in Indiana second Am I alone in saying here? Elizabeth Warren has no ability. To connect with people. Will give you an example. Well, I've had to interview her on many occasions. So I can tell you she is She's 100% plastic. There's there's nothing there. But anyway, let me let me give you an indication of just how plastic she is and how she can't relate to people. He was asked the question years ago. About her running for office. And somebody at one of her, you know? Meetings or town meeting for him. So what can I do to help? She said. Well, you know you can. You can get your neighbors and your friends to vote like when you're standing in line at the cheese shop. Standing in line at the cheese shop. Turn around and talk to the person behind you. And in front of you, Jack. Have a quick question for you. Um, what was the last time you were standing in line at the cheese shop? The shop? You know, I can't really think of the last time I've been to the cheese shop. I mean, it's a great Monty Python skit. But she shop the odds of great. Sounds like it has potential. Yeah, but Look I can eat. I can admit I like fine food, cheeses and meats. Okay, You may see me shopping for that kind of stuff in the north end in on Federal hill, certain neighborhoods in Worcester and Springfield, you might see me like going to a specialty shop. I love that. That's right stuff. I don't think I've ever been to a She a shop that sells nothing but cheese and frankly, I don't think the average person has ever been to the cheese shop. Okay? And for the average person, the cheese shop is that refrigerated glass cabinet at the supermarket. Honey, can you get some cracker barrel? What more cheese? Could you possibly need Well, I mean, look, there are a lot of great cheeses and I love cheese, but I felt I find that most supermarkets when they have a special little cheese section have everything I could ever run. I've got a market basket all the time. And they have every exactly everyone. Exactly. But the cheese shop. That's where you go if you live in Cambridge. You go to the cheese shop and you shop for Are you ready for it? You ready for it? Artists and cheeses. Artisan. That's you. Add artists in tow anything right? And it makes it sound like Oh, so a guy with hairy arms and a white apron didn't make this all right. That's why she can't relate to people. George H. W. Bush, who was the wealthy man he could relate to people. George W. Bush. Hey. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump. These people can relate to people. Elizabeth Warren. I'm sorry. You can't relate to the average person. Sorry. Anyway, Here's what's going on in India, and this is a little gross, and I don't do it to be funny. You know that in India right now the country is It's I don't know. Teetering on the brink of I don't know what The government really didn't prepare for this second wave of covert 19. They don't have adequate field hospitals. Even the Chinese built field hospitals. Do you remember? Last year. More little more than a year ago. I mean, they were doing it in March, and in April they were building hospitals because they knew they needed field hospitals, which kind of flies in the face of their public statements that Oh, we've only had 300 cases. Well, people in India are so did, um So desperate now People are pardon the expression smearing themselves with cow poop. As a cure. Or as protection. Against Covert 19. Now you must remember that the cow is representing represents life in the Indian culture and in the Hindu faith represents life. So they're stream covering themselves with this, and then there they wash it off with milk or butter milk, thinking that it's going to protect them. Listen. People do desperate things in pandemics. Think I could go through a laundry list of the craziness that went on during the black Plague. The bubonic plague Another thing and yes, I know that was a long time ago, but people do desperate things. And we'll look for any hope. And it is sad in India is going to lose a significant portion of its population and that is sad. Um Anyway, Let's let's get to the break. Let's get to John's news get you up to date and then when we return Tommy B. Our weather guy. You're listening to the gym, Pelino. Show your safe space. When history Thies military working dog Sure. Smart. What do you think he's trying.
Biz Talk Radio
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on Biz Talk Radio
"About game stop. And the haves and have nots. And the bad people, the hedge funds and the good people that are just trying to make a buck in the market. Can on Lee say. I hope you trust me. When I tell you certain things. You know, I can tell you I don't have a new a new gender and ulterior motive for a bias. It doesn't mean you believe it. So let me start by mentioning a few things. Number one. Unfortunately, They are parading. Political pundits out all over the air. On what's going on. They're putting politicians on air. Tell you what is going on? They all have an agenda. They all have an ulterior motive. They all don't give a crap about you. You have Elizabeth Warren, saying, We need a wealth tax. This is because people are too wealthy. Yo see saying We need a Wall Street transaction tax. We have Bernie Sanders saying, You know, we didn't need a tax on every breath you take because you're sucking up the oxygen. You have people going out on TV, accusing others off crimes and that they should be in jail when they have absolutely no fax in front of them. You have people commenting on the stock market, like I would comment to you. On how to conduct brain surgery. And I don't want you guys getting screwed by that. You know? That guy who used to be president. With fake news and misinformation. Well, this is really the misinformation. I've got to spend my time today. On making sure you're not missing formed. And unfortunately it's going to go on all weekend. They're going to be talking about it on the Sunday shows. I'm sure the front cover of barons. Tomorrow's gonna be this And the political pundits. It's us against them. It's the big against a small they're full of crap. Full of crap. So let me start by saying what I told you yesterday. All these short squeezes. All of them. Are going to go down huge. With many gold back all the way with a came from That is number one. Hey, Gary. How do you know that? Come on. It's simple. Always 100% of the time. He eventually All these bubbles and mania is go back to the norm. And price will go coast to coast and even more. Gamestop did not sell an extra DVD or whatever the heck they sell. Nothing happened. All that happened was certain people were able to take advantage. Of stupidity. And the stupidity paid the price in the market. Simple is that And it was such extreme. Stupidity. That the moves work sensual waited beyond the beyond. Then mistakes were made. Robin Hood. In case you don't know. They stopped people from trading yesterday in the midst. Of absolute wildness in the market. People that were exposed. One way or the other. Don't blame them from being pissed off. I wouldn't blame them if they showed up at the headquarters of Robin Hood. There was a reason why the CEO was on TV last night and all over your TV today. Offending his arse. He was accused. Being incurred hoots. With others. That we're losing their arses. And Orly was trying to do was save them. There's a guy named Dave Portnoy God, Blessem. Set up a fund to help small businesses. I think he's raised 30 40 million bucks. Less something. He's out there, accusing people who doesn't even know of committing crimes. Without evidence. As I have always told you. If he did. Charge him. Enditem Tryem. Convict him. Before we even go there. I know these things. And what happened is you had a bunch of people buying game. Stop it 400 bucks. With 50% of money on margin, So in other words, they took 10 Grand but boy 20 grand of stock. If the stock went down, 50%. They lost all their money. 100%. And you know what happened yesterday. It went down like 80% during the day. It wasn't just that stock. It was a bunch of others. They have to put up capital on all this, and they didn't have enough. So they had to stop things. They handled it piss poorly. The reason I know this is fact. They had a reason. Billion dollars overnight. In order to cover their capital requirements. That's.
790 KABC
"elizabeth warren" Discussed on 790 KABC
"Down to connect with Project shine. They're fine. Yeah. Welcome back. This is the bench apparel show. So one of the beautiful things about being a democratic that you don't have to have any relationship with reality. Apparently, you can just make up your own pseudo reality where men are women and women are men where babies don't exist until after they're born. Even then, maybe kind of existence. Sometimes not Also, economics just don't exist in this in this alternative universe. When all the good things that have come from capitalism and free markets, those air natural goods they're things that just normally exist in a society. And we can just get rid of all the fundamental all the fundamentals, underlying economy, and all those things will still remain. Elizabeth Warren is a person who engages in such a magical thinking. But here is Elizabeth Warren, who is she lives in a fantasy world all her own right where she is a native American until she isn't in any case. Elizabeth Warren. She was being pushed on raising taxes. And she fought back on this. And this is why Twitter is the dumbest place on Earth because Twitter was like Clap back Elizabeth Warren Strike back Elizabeth Warren Twitter is just a place to Duncan be dunked upon and have your fans. I'll cheer you like a bunch of morons. Anyway, Here is Elizabeth Warren, saying a blatantly untrue thing about economics. And people cheering for her because everyone is an idiot. I'm sorry. There is no evidence that anyone is going to leave this country because of a two cent wealth text, and we just keep in mind right now In America who's paying taxes? You know the bottom 99%. Last year, paid about 7.5% of their total wealth in taxes. That's what it pays the top 1/10 of 1% You know how much they paid? They thought about 3.2%. If they added a two cent wealth tax. They'd still be paying less than most of the people in this entire nation. Look, someone has to pay to keep this nation going. Okay? That isn't bullcrap Sophistry, which is saying right there, because what she is saying is that the bottom percentages pay a heavier percent of their wealth. Why? What is it? Wolf made up of? Well, typically for poor. Your wealth is not made up of actual assets like houses. You don't have a house. Your wealth is made up of your income. So you're paying a little bit in income tax and you are paying someone sales tax. Okay, when you are very, very wealthy. Typically you have paid millions and millions and millions of dollars in income tax. And now after tax, you have bought real estate, for example. And then you pay a certain capital gains tax. Sometimes when you sell a house, for example, and even then not necessarily, but To measure the amount that you pay in taxes by how much you pay against your wealth is insane. Considering the people at the bottom of the economic spectrum have no wealth to tax because that's that's south. History Also Speaking of her generalized perspective on whether wealth taxes drive people to leave So normally what you see from Democrats is why can't we be more like Europe? Why can't we right? Why can't we be more like France, for example? France is a great place. You know, It's a place with art with Chris Sands and with people were wearing hats is pretty fantastic Friends. Why can't be more like France nationalized health care all that? Okay, Well, why don't they look to France when it comes to ball tax? Hmm. If we're gonna see whether wealth taxes work, maybe we ought to look for a place where they tried 12 text. Oh, wait. Friends did So, according to NPR. Normally progressives like to point to Europe for policy success. Not this time. The experiment with wealth tax in Europe was a failure in many countries. Francis well, thanks contributed to the exodus of an estimated 42,000 millionaires. Between 2020 12. Among other problems on Lee last year, French President Emmanuel Macron killed it. 1990 12 countries in Europe had a wealth tax. Today there are only three Why it was expensive to administer. It was hard on people of lots of assets a little cash, it distorted saving investment decisions. It pushed the rich and their money out of the taxing countries, and it didn't raise much revenue. So all of this is just a lie. It is just garbage. It just says stuff that has no relationship. With reality and people cheer her for it, because this is the idiot world in which we live. By the way. How is Elizabeth Warren going to make sure that you stay in? She's gonna build an economic Berlin wall. She's planning her actual wealth tax proposal was that there would be an exit tax that would confiscate 40% of a person's well over 50 million bucks if you renounce your citizenship. She's gonna lock you in and then tax you She started to propose that how many people above 50 million bucks would immediately shift their citizenship. Immediately. Yeah, I speak is somebody who left California and one of the reasons I left California is because of their state tax on one of the reasons that I left California now is not just because they're state tax sucks right now, but because they're looking at raising their state tax, and they have looked at a wealth tax, and they have looked at locking people in tow. Well, Text 10 years after you leave the state So I am case in point of somebody who shifted location, at least in measure because of tax policy. So did our business. Elizabeth Warren thinks that you can just grilled people and destroy their wealth and they're just gonna sit around for it. Because why not? Elizabeth Warren says so..