Circle P:

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
It is 09:11AM
Pacific Daylight Time. It is the June
2025.
This is episode 1,114
of bitcoin and and welcome
where the readings done for you. The narratives get shredded and the signal
stays
uncut. This is your host,

(00:23):
David Bennett, and we've got the news today for bitcoin. We've got several stories,
so we're just going to dive right in
to the crybabies
over
at the FSB
who are warning
that crypto is nearing a tipping point
as ties to traditional

(00:43):
finance deepen.
Ahmed Haskeh
Khanis
has this one for Cointelegraph.
The Financial Stability Board,
the FSB,
is sounding
an alarm
on growing risks from the crypto sector warning that interlinkages,
oh my god, with traditional finance

(01:04):
are nearing a critical threshold.
Speaking in Madrid on Thursday, outgoing FSB chair, Claes Nott. No. Literally, Claes Knott,
jeezies names,
said that while crypto does not yet
pose a systemic
risk to traditional finance,
that status may not last much longer, quote, we may be approaching a tipping point here, he said.

(01:31):
Not noticed
or noted that entry barriers for retail investors have dropped significantly,
particularly
with the introduction of crypto exchange traded funds.
Knott added
that another area of concern is the stable coin market. Yes.
He noted that issuers now hold

(01:52):
very large amounts
of United States Treasuries,
which increases the linkages between crypto and traditional finance. Quote, that's a segment
that we must
monitor closely. Gee.
I wonder why.
Well, let's continue with stable coins.
Our digital assets pegged to fiat currencies like the US dollar,

(02:16):
they're becoming increasingly embedded into financial systems.
And according to data from Defi Llama,
the total market cap of stablecoins
is just north of $250,000,000,000.
A recent research paper by the Bank for International Settlements
analyzed the growing impact of stablecoins on traditional finance, focusing

(02:40):
on their influence
on short term United States Treasury
yields.
By using daily data from 2021
to 2025
and an instrumental variable method, the paper found
that stablecoin
inflows
lower
three month treasury yields
by two to 2.5

(03:01):
basis points
within ten days,
while outflows
raise yields by six to eight basis points.
These effects are concentrated in short term maturities,
with minimal impact
on longer term bonds.
Among issuers,
USDT has the largest effect, of course, followed by Circle's USDC,

(03:24):
confirming the influence of stablecoins
in treasury markets.
Knott, who also serves as president of the Dutch central
bank, de Nederlandekschagerbank,
will step down from both of his roles on June.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey is set to succeed him at the FSB,

(03:48):
while The Netherlands
has yet to appoint a replacement.
On Wednesday, the United States Senate voted 68 to 30 to advance the guiding
in establishing national innovation for US stablecoins or Genius Act.
The vote paves the way for floor debate and a final vote before the bill moves to the House of Representatives. And if passed, the bill would create national framework for stablecoin issuance,

(04:12):
boosting The US digital asset industry's global competitiveness.
I really wish they
didn't end with that one because
it really sucks the air out of what's really going on with what Klaus Knott is actually saying.
Let's get back I wanna get back up here to the top,
and he says,

(04:35):
this one is the most telling.
Knott noted that entry barriers for retail investors
have dropped significantly,
particularly with the introduction of crypto exchange traded funds.
But then he's still he becomes increasingly
concerned
of the clear effects on short term treasury yields

(04:59):
that things like Tether and Circle are having
You know I'm not a fan of stablecoins, but you also know that stablecoins are not going away or at least that's
that's my working theory
Because they're not going away, and there's nothing I can do about it, and you also know that I'm working on the thesis that

(05:22):
Tether, in particular
Tether,
is going to be used to export United States debt when we crank up those money printers and we will crank up the money printers
nothing stops the train
the only thing that you can do is get it to move a little faster so that when it finally hits the wall, maybe it'll punch through it. It won't, but

(05:46):
it's this is they're going to be their thinking.
Nothing stops the train.
They're just going to put on more gas. So they're gonna crank up the money printer, but they're gonna be able to export that debt to other countries. Instead of just
swimming in our own debt that we produce, we will send it to Kenya and Ghana and

(06:07):
the after the rest of the African Continent and Central America and South America and everywhere else but here. That's going to be USDC's
job or Circle's,
stablecoin.
So with these two things together,
right,
this concern that retail investors

(06:27):
are easily able to access this brand
new
asset class
and the fact
that they really don't know what the effect
that Tether buying treasury bonds are going to actually be on the rest of the world,
they're terrified,
and rightly so. In fact,

(06:48):
he's not he's not entirely wrong about being concerned about this
because you and I don't know what the hell
tell I mean, I can say all day long what I think is gonna happen with my thesis. Okay. Great. What if I'm wrong?
What if it it could be something completely different. I don't think it will be. But even if it is exactly what I say it's going to be,

(07:12):
we don't even know the long term effects of what that looks like,
do we?
No. But we are in uncharted territory. We have
Klaus Knott and his little band of merry men are just as clueless as the rest of the world is what happens next.
Nobody knows what's going on.

(07:34):
And because of this,
I feel fine
when I say the following.
It makes me happy that people like Klaus Knott
are scared,
that they're terrified,
that they feel their power slipping away.
Does it mean that it will be good for the rest of the plebs?
Not necessarily,

(07:56):
especially
the plebs that are going to have
inordinate amounts
of United States dropped on them like we flew a b 52 bomber over their heads and opened the bomb bay doors and just let her rip.
Right? That's what it's gonna look like, except it's not gonna be one b 52. Right? It's going to be hundreds,

(08:19):
thousands
just flying over the other
six continents of the planet and just dropping debt like its ordinance
is
just going to be a,
probably a terrible thing
for everybody but The United States, possibly Western Europe, or at least the EU, because somehow or another, we're still terribly connected to each other.

(08:44):
But Europe should be terrified because they know
that even though that they were probably one of the very last
unions on this planet that are going to be
firebombed with United States debt. They know it's coming, and they know there's nothing they can do about it. And even if we didn't do it to them directly, they're so connected to the rest of the world that when we do stop draw start dropping our debt on all these other countries in ways that you've never seen before and I've never seen before, nobody's ever seen before, they will be affected, and it will be negative.

(09:17):
They do not like this.
I still one of the thesis is that I have is that The United States is in open conflict with the European Union and wants them to die.
And that this whole stablecoin,
Bitcoin
thing that has just propped up,
they're
they're going to leverage it

(09:39):
for for evil deeds. I guarantee it. It it doesn't make Bitcoin any less secure. It doesn't make it any less valuable,
but evil people are going to do evil things,
and a hammer
does not have a choice as to who it's wielded by. Right?

(10:00):
So
I feel bad for Klaus,
but I do hope that he has nightmares,
because he's one of the progenitors of what's caused the problems in this world, him and people like him
for the last
I don't know, man. Let's just call it two hundred and fifty years and be done with it. That way, we can talk a little bit more about tether.

(10:22):
Yeah. We're we're continuing with the with the story of Tether here because they have acquired
1
of a stake in a Canadian gold focused firm
named Elemental for $89,000,000.
Yeah.
This is this is important

(10:44):
because we already know they've got 50 tons of gold in reserve.
We know they've got, like I don't even know how much Bitcoin. I think it was like a was it a 100,000 Bitcoin or something like that in reserve?
They're going
to stack
gold and Bitcoin.
Paolo's not an idiot, man. But stablecoin and gold backed token issuer, Tether,

(11:07):
has acquired approximately a 32%
stake in Canadian precious metals royalty company, Elemental Altus Royalties Corporation,
through its affiliated
but independent investment arm named Tether Investments.
The investment
offers Tether diversified exposure to global gold production

(11:29):
through a royalty and streaming model
that sidesteps direct operational risks of mining.
The firm said in a statement on Thursday,
Elemental provides funding to mining companies in exchange for royalties
on future revenue
or the right, and this is the important part,
the right to purchase metals at a discount.

(11:53):
At the acquisition price of 1.55
Canadian dollars, which is about a buck 14 US,
Tether investments,
or investments,
78,421,780
common shares in Elemental are worth around a 121,600,000.0
Canadian dollars. Elemental shares fell 2% on Wednesday, but are up 34.2%

(12:19):
year to date according to TradingView.
Including the 4,360,511
shares that it already holds,
Tether's total ownership will rise to 82,782,000
shares,
which is about 33.7%
of the company's
outstanding shares,

(12:41):
quote, building on previous discussions with Tether,
we are very pleased
to officially welcome Tether as the company's brand spanking new major shareholder.
Their unmatched ability
to support the company in its next phase of growth is exciting for all stakeholders
and shareholders and is a positive for the gold royalty sector.

(13:04):
Tether is one of the world's largest companies,
largest holders of US treasuries, and a growing investor in the gold space.
The gold space. A growing
investor
in the gold
space. I've said it three times because it's important.
For those

(13:25):
just pausing,
please. Guys, for those Bitcoiners out there that are going,
gold sucks, only Bitcoin.
I don't think that's entirely the right way to think about this.
Gold has
has several issues. It has two major problems.
One,

(13:45):
you can't transport it
because it has mass.
It's highly dense. That's one of the reasons why people love this metal so much. Right?
But you also can't transmit it at the speed of light.
Right? So that's kind of two sub problems all contained in one. The other one is is that there's a shit ton more gold

(14:11):
out there in this solar system than anybody can possibly even imagine.
We already are fairly certain,
fairly certain that there's an asteroid out there
that
at current ounce prices of gold
would be worth something like a 100 quadrillion
dollars.

(14:32):
And I've heard I've heard dumbass news stories say the following, there's this gold the gold asteroid
that, that could make everybody on on Earth a billionaire overnight. No. No. It can't.
Because if you import that much gold let's say we go out there, we attach a whole shit ton of rockets to it, and we fly it into near Earth orbit, and we put it in, you know, into orbit around the Earth so it doesn't crash into the planet, blah blah blah. We just mine gold and we just continuously send it down to the Earth. Right?

(15:04):
It's just going to devalue the the
the the purchasing power of the gold that's already present on this planet.
If you think that's the only nugget of gold out there in the asteroid
field or belt or wherever this thing is, it's definitely within our solar system, and it's definitely
between Mars and Earth, so it's fairly close from that standpoint. If you think that's the only nugget of gold that's out there, you are mistaken.

(15:30):
So that's the problem with gold.
Its emission rate is completely unknown
outside of the boundaries of the Earth.
We're getting to we're going to be a space faring race.
It I I mean, we kinda already are with you know,
we've sent, you know, men to the moon. Yeah. I know. There's people out there that don't believe that. I wasn't there. I don't know. I'm just gonna say, let's go with it. Okay? We got men on the moon. That's as far out as as a person from the human race has actually gotten.

(16:03):
Solar system's a big place, y'all.
Gold is everywhere, and it's not just in this solar system.
The you need two neutron stars collapsing and colliding together and exploding to be able to have enough nuclear furnace to forge gold.
Right? Guess what?

(16:23):
There's billions of galaxies, hundreds of billions of galaxies, each one holding, like, trillions of stars, and that's just what we think of in math.
The amount of gold that's in the universe right now
makes all the gold on the planet worthless.
Those are the two central problems with gold. But until we become a space faring race that can go attach rockets to this fucking nugget of gold and bring it back to Earth orbit, we ain't got nothing to worry about. So in the short to medium term,

(16:56):
gold has value.
It has it from my from my standpoint,
gold has value as a local currency
to be used
in your local markets.
That's where gold should be used.
I'm not going to put gold into an envelope and send it to you in India because I want some, I don't know, Indian spices or whatever it is that I want. I'm going to use Bitcoin for that.

(17:23):
Tether has the right attitude here.
They're getting both.
They're positioning themselves
for not only the short and medium term,
but for the longer term.
We're talking about a company that is looking at three things as fundamental
facts of economics on this planet that is US Treasury bills,

(17:44):
which represents
the global reserve monetary
currency.
They're looking at gold, which is short to medium term wealth, and they're looking at Bitcoin,
which is everything. Takes the place of treasuries, will take the place of gold, it'll take the place of anything else into the future for a long, long, long, long time, and Tether knows that.

(18:06):
Circle
doesn't.
Tether wins this, by the way.
So let's just continue because this move is part of Tether's broader strategy to integrate long term stable assets like gold and Bitcoin into its ecosystem, both
as a hedge
and to support its goal of building robust and decentralized infrastructures for the digital economy.

(18:30):
The shares were acquired
from La Mancha Investments,
with the transaction completed offshore via a private agreement
on June.
Tether Investments also signed an agreement with Alpha Stream Limited and its wholly owned subsidiary, Alpha One SPV Limited,
on Tuesday,

(18:52):
granting it the option, though not the obligation to acquire an additional
34
Elemental common shares currently worth around $38,700,000
in an offshore deal.
The option can't be exercised before October twenty ninth of twenty twenty five unless it's approved by Elemental
and is subject to certain terms and conditions, Tether noted, if the option is exercised.

(19:18):
Tether would hold a 117,226,000
common shares representing
just under 50% of the company's outstanding shares.
Quote, Tether's growing investment in gold and Bitcoin reflects our forward looking strategy to build a more resilient and transparent financial system. Just as Bitcoin provides the ultimate decentralized hedge

(19:43):
against monetary inflation,
gold continues to be a time tested store of value.
By gaining exposure to a diversified portfolio of gold royalties through Elemental,
we are strengthening the backing of our ecosystem while advancing Tether Gold
and future commodity backed digital assets.
This is not just about investment. It's about building financial infrastructure

(20:07):
for the next century.
Okay. I wanna pause just here. I want this sentence. I want you to start looking for the sentence everywhere.
Not just this sentence. This sentence structure
where they say it'll be something like like this. Let's do these two sentence
two sentences together.
Let's see. By gaining exposure to a diversified portfolio of gold royalties through Elemental, we are strengthening the backing of our ecosystem

(20:34):
while advancing Tether Gold
and future commodity backed digital assets.
This is not just about investment, it's about building financial infrastructure for the next century
That was written by AI
I can tell because of the last sentence
Start looking for this sentence structure
This is not just about x,

(20:55):
it's about Y
or X plus Y. Let's do it that way. This isn't just about X. This is about X plus Y. That's the sentence structure.
I'm seeing this sentence structure
everywhere.
And I know it's AI because I get when I'm using AI, I get this sentence structure. It pops up when I ask a question. When I say, hey. Would you do me a favor? Give me a couple of ideas for, I don't know, maybe presenting the show a little bit better on Twitter. Twitter or something like that or on Nostra. You know, something that's more eye catching because I suck at writing, and it's nice to have another pair of eyeballs on it. I'm seeing it's it's

(21:35):
it's not just about x, it's about x plus y.
I see that sentence structure everywhere. It is a telltale
that something was written by AI. So be careful
when you're using AI, and if you don't now, you probably will in the future,
and if you don't ever wanna do it, that's fine too. I'm not not casting any judgment here. I'm just saying when you see that pop up

(22:00):
in your response,
you need to rewrite that sentence. Otherwise, people are gonna know
off the bat
that you just
copy pasted something from AI.
But
that's an aside. Tether Group recently disclosed holdings of over a 100,000 Bitcoin
and nearly 80 tons, not 50, but 80 tons of physical gold alongside its Tether Gold token,

(22:26):
x a u t, backed by physical gold, which has become a key part of the firm's product and risk strategy. Quote,
we believe in financial systems that are backed by real assets, not just promises.
Our investments in Elemental complements
our long standing belief that tangible assets like Bitcoin and gold
will underpin
the most durable forms of digital value.

(22:48):
Tether Investments stated that they may seek further collaboration with Elemental's leadership on governance and long term strategies subject to applicable
regulations and market conditions
Tether's gonna be one of the most valuable companies on the planet inside of ten years
It just is
I don't have to like them.

(23:10):
I don't have to hate them. Hell, I don't even have to be neutral on them. I just think that that's a good standpoint for me considering that what I'm trying to bring you guys on a daily basis.
This is an important company because they're making the correct moves.
Until
at such time, Paolo Ardoino
makes bad decisions,

(23:32):
like, I don't know, selling gold pieces with
the Doge Shibu Inu stamped on it like doubloons or something like that, I'm going to continue to think that he's making
the correct movements here.
He's going to be a backing company.
This thing is going to start acting more like a black hole

(23:57):
than anything that you've ever seen.
I think what's happening here is that they're setting themselves up
to do a Michael Saylor
type of strategy
only on fucking steroids
and something that doesn't look anything like Michael Saylor's strategy
if you look at it at surface value.

(24:18):
That's really all I got to say about it, but you have to watch what Tether's doing.
I don't care what kind of
regulatory
moats
Jeremy Allaire and his little band of merry men over there at Circle try to throw up, they're not going to survive the long term.

(24:39):
They do not have the stones for it.
Clearly,
tether does. Again,
I'm not praising them. I'm just saying,
I'm just call I'm just calling balls and strikes, guys.
So yesterday, I brought you news about Marty Bent's

(25:00):
opportunity cost.
It's a browser extension,
but Ryan Gladwin wrote up a basically,
a deeper
view of what this thing is
and I wanna read it to you. This is out of Decrypt
a new browser extension converts prices on every website into Bitcoin and Sats

(25:22):
Its creator says that the extension is a step towards mass adoption,
will help him in his personal life, and might even stop unnecessary
purchases.
Ninja Blender
for 84,182
Sats, a Lamborghini for 3.83
b t c, a luxury five bedroom apartment overlooking Central Park, a mere 560

(25:47):
Bitcoin.
Highest paid athlete, Cristino
Ronaldo's entire yearly earnings is 2,570
BTC.
Holy
smokes. That's a huge paycheck.
Viewing money
in Bitcoin and sats instead of dollars can be refreshing and kinda funny, but the extension's creator says it also opens your eyes as to how much Bitcoin you could stack instead.

(26:12):
Opportunity cost
launched on Chrome and Brave Browser on Tuesday with Firefox compatibility to follow soon.
Immediately, it was met by social media buzz as crypto enthusiasts flocked.
Flocked. They flocked like seagulls, a flock of seagulls, get it, to see their favorite products and sats and started to realize how much Bitcoin they were spending on dumbass shit. Here they say silly purchases, but whatever.

(26:37):
The extension was created by Marty Bent, managing partner at investment firm ten thirty one and founder of media company TFTC.
Bent told Decrypt that the extension serves multiple purposes, but most importantly,
it's a memetic tool for normies to understand what he believes the future will look like.

(26:58):
Quote, you can try to explain things to them. You can grab them by the shoulders. You can shake them. You can urge them to do things.
Many people hear you when you do that,
but not many listen.
So I thought this app was a good way to help people see Bitcoin and really begin to conceptualize what the world looks like if Bitcoin were their money.

(27:19):
Ironically,
it launched the very same day that the economist and longtime bitcoin critic, Peter Schiff,
said he would admit he was wrong about the cryptocurrency as if everything
became
priced in bitcoin.
The opportunity cost extension is a step in the right direction for this to become a reality. The creator said, quote, I don't imagine

(27:42):
that many people who aren't into Bitcoin will download it at
but the power of the tool is that it can go very viral because people who are into Bitcoin will take screenshots of things priced in Bitcoin,
share that, and the people who are outside will see that
and begin hopefully to have questions enter their mind
about Bitcoin, end quote.

(28:04):
While he hates the term Bitcoin maxi,
Bent understands
that most people would label him and his company as exactly that. He says that he uses Bitcoin every day as a form of payment, and his company TFTC
pays all of its employees at least partly in Bitcoin. As such, the extension doubles as a tool to help his employees better understand the pricing of the products that they're purchasing.

(28:28):
Bent believes that Bitcoin is simply a better type of money to hold and use rather than fiat currencies because the dollar is inflationary. And for that reason,
he opposes the use of stablecoins,
crypto tokens tied to the price of fiat currencies like the US dollar.
Quote, they're still tethered, pun intended,
to the dollar which is being inflated every year, he said, alluding to tether, the issuer

(28:52):
of the world's largest stablecoin, quote, stablecoins are inherently
unstable
in the sense that they are tied to a continuously
debasing currency,
and so I think you want to hold better money.
To illustrate the point further, a new feature in development will show users how products cost less Bitcoin due to its rising value, even as those same products cost more in fiat currency due to inflation.

(29:19):
By viewing products in Bitcoin, he also thinks that it may reduce unnecessary
spending habits.
As you're shopping on the web and engaging in consumerism,
it's also not only to help you gauge how much you're spending in Bitcoin, but also to ask yourself the question,
would I rather have this trinket
that I'm buying online right now

(29:40):
or buy this much
Bitcoin?
He added, quote, when you see a four bedroom apartment in New York City priced at 500 Bitcoin, it forces one to question,
is that apartment really worth 500
Bitcoin?
It's an important question.
It really is an important question.

(30:03):
And it really is an important question when it comes to the circle p, which is open. Circle p is where I bring plebs just like you that have goods and services for sale
to plebs just like you, who might actually want to buy something from a fellow pleb rather than a
massive
dysfunctional
corporate
shit show.

(30:24):
Here we have
peonylainewine.com.
Do you like wine? I like wine. And this dude, Ben Jessman,
he grows his wine in high altitude
environments
in north I believe it's Northwest Colorado, but it's high altitude wine.
It makes a lot of sugar.
It's I there is

(30:45):
the sunlight
in on the mountainside
high up in altitude in Colorado,
you wanna talk about getting
irradiated
by the sun,
man, go skiing.
Go freaking skiing and see. It's like, oh, well, it's, yeah. It's not gonna be all that bad. Even in the wintertime,

(31:05):
when the sun is low in the horizon, just, like, getting blasted with a freaking maser, man. And it does wonders for photosynthesis and what does photosynthesis make it make sugars and where do the sugars go in a grapevine it goes into the grapes and what do we need to make high quality alcohol we need sugar
in the grapes

(31:26):
or whatever it is you're doing. In this case, it's wine. He makes red wines and he takes Bitcoin for it.
So
if you want to support me, then support Ben Jessman by buying his wine. You can buy it in Bitcoin. If you're not paying in Bitcoin or if you're not selling in Bitcoin,
you're not in the circle p,
and

(31:47):
he does.
He he's he's set up with Zap ZapRite
to be able to take on chain
or lightning payments. You can do that at pandelainewine.com.
That's p and e lane wine, p e o n y, p o n e, lane wine dot com.
And
in the notes section

(32:08):
of your
and you could pay in fiat too. So either way, whether you're doing a Zapprite invoice or regular invoice, there's a comment section just drop bit I heard about it on Bitcoin and
just make sure that Bitcoin and is somewhere in there. He's not giving you a discount.
Me and Ben worked it out where he's just trying out the Circle P.

(32:29):
If you tell him that you heard about it here on the Circle P and he makes a sale then he gets to determine
how much of that sale he thinks
I was worth for making that sale for him and then he will get me on the other end
with Satoshis. That's the nature of the circle p. It's not just about the circle economy.

(32:51):
It's not about making just a circular economy for plebs.
It's not just about
me getting something for my time here. It's about how do we arrange ourselves in a situation where we can support each other
like when you support Ben Jessamine and Peony Lane Wine at peonylainewine
dot com

(33:11):
then you're supporting me
because Ben can then go, hey, he made a sale. This is great. I'm gonna cut him some satoshis. And then all of a sudden, I get satoshis for the value that I put into making this spot for him, and then
I bring the show to you. And you listen, and hopefully, you laugh, and you figure out what the hell's going on in Bitcoin for the day, and you decide you didn't like what I said, so you wanna get drunk and hammered about about it. So you go to pandlainewine.com.

(33:37):
That's pandlainewine.com.
You grab three bottles of this wine, you pay for it at Bitcoin, and all of a sudden, it's a see, it's a circular loop, man. It's gonna be great.
I promise you. Now, the dollar index has fallen,
and it's causing some issues
today.
The dollar index falls below 98

(33:57):
for the time in not one, not two, but three years.
And it's giving room for
crypto. God.
Crypto to run.
James Van Stratten, please use Bitcoin.
The dollar index, which is a measure of the dollar's
relative strength against the basket of major global currencies dropped below 98 for the time since 2022.

(34:22):
This move signals a notable shift in global currency markets
and could create a favorable environment for risk assets, especially
Bitcoin.
He actually says the word cryptocurrencies, but I just cut it out. In recent years,
a DXY reading above 100 has typically reflected dollar dominance
and a risk off sentiment,

(34:44):
often weighing on equities and digital assets.
Conversely,
a weakening dollar eases financial conditions,
boosts global liquidity, and tends to benefit speculative and or risk assets.
Several factors are
contributing to the current decline. US headline inflation came in at 2.4%

(35:05):
year over year,
slightly below the consensus estimate of 2.5,
strengthening market expectations for a dovish
monetary
policy
shift. No.
It's working. I told you this yesterday. Jerome Powell thinks he's right.
It's working. He has all the ammunition he needs to go up against Trump and say, I ain't doing dick, old man. And by the way, you shouldn't have pissed me off by calling me all these names, so it's gonna make it even harder for me to become unrecalcidrant.

(35:37):
Not lowering rates.
It's working.
If there hadn't have been a fight between Jerome Powell and Trump, that that may have been a different story but no no no no no we are humans we are hairless apes that fell out of the tree and I guarantee you Jerome Powell's
is he's he's feeling
feeling a little
unappreciated

(35:57):
That
remember the old adage? You catch more flies with honey?
Trump wasn't using honey with Jerome Powell.
He is very less likely to lower rates and go dovish. All these people keep expecting him to do it. I don't think it's coming this summer. Anyway, according to the CME FedWatch tool,
markets are now pricing in a 99.8%

(36:20):
probability of a rate cut
in June. Oh, with this meeting.
Oh. Oh, wow. Let's see. Now, I think this meeting is coming up in a couple of days here, but
they're expecting a target range,
to drop to two no. 4.25%
to 4.5%.
I don't understand.
That's what we're at right now.

(36:42):
That's exactly where we're at. We are already at 4.25
to 4.5
on the tenure or yep. On the tenure. Yeah. On the tenure.
So I don't know exactly what they're talking about, but whatever. Growing narratives
around dedollarization
combined with policy uncertainty from the Trump administration's

(37:02):
trade and tariff policies have eroded confidence in the dollar
accelerating its decline.
Yeah.
For the short term.
And in the longer term, but in
I don't know, man. In the medium term,
I
think it I think it could shift. Who knows?

(37:23):
All I know is we are on a wild ride, and it's probably gonna get more wild. Let's run the numbers.
CNBC
Futures and Commodities, they got oil down almost a half.
Still chilling at $67.86,

(37:45):
which is pretty high. Brent's North Sea is down point 69%
to $69.29.
Natural gas is up a to $3.52
per thousand, and gasoline
is down a full point, still hanging out at $2.14
a gallon.
Most of your shiny metal rocks are doing well this morning. Gold is up almost two full points,

(38:06):
to $34.00
6 and 5 dimes. Silver is up point 18%. Platinum
Palladium is the only thing in the red, down 2 points.
Most of ag is in the red today. Biggest winner is gonna be chocolate, 1.79%
to the upside.
Biggest loser appears
to be wheat.

(38:28):
Wheat.
Cool whip. Anyway, 1.5%
to the downside.
Live cattle is down a quarter. Lean hogs are up a quarter, and feeder cattle
moving
downward
a of a point. The Dow
moving straight up sideways slightly in the green.
S and P is up a quarter, Nasdaq is up a and the S and P Mini is down point 11%.

(38:53):
Meanwhile,
Bitcoin is at 107,600.
That is a $2,140,000,000,000
market cap, and we can purchase 31.6
ounces of shiny metal rocks with our one Bitcoin of which there are 19,877,775.84
of, and average fees per block are low
at 0.03

(39:14):
BTC. You take it in fees on a per block basis. There are four blocks
carrying 7,000
transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of three.
Satoshis per v byte low priority is gonna get you in at the same.
Wow. 933.5
exahashes per second. Ladies and gentlemen,
yesterday was at 900 and I think it was, like, 918.

(39:38):
So miners coming back online,
ladies and gentlemen, from the Empire Can't Stack,
yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and I got Psyduck with 715.
Sat says
Psyduck.
Chill now with 555

(39:58):
says process start.
Why the fuck is everybody freaking about freaking out about this bullshit?
Forced nose rings proposed,
arresting
insider,
trough feeding politicians, corporate copycats, enthusiasts
woah. Euthanizing themselves.
Corporate copycats
euthanizing themselves

(40:19):
can only be a good thing. Despite it all, it's a normal day. For none you business, bring an undeniability
and omnipresent peace out of the digital chaotic fear mongering maelstrom
process. End.
Caught smiling. Yodle with 511
says, I like the little weather report read.
Hi there, fellow boosters.

(40:41):
How are you doing, fellow kids?
Turkey with 500 says nothing again. Come on, turkey. Don't be a turkey. Thank you, sir.
With five hundred says, I was just in Connecticut.
The people were great. Pity about the government. Well, that's true for everything, isn't it?
Every country, every state, every city.

(41:01):
The people are great.
You know why they're great? Because they're not ruling something. They're not trying to control shit. I guarantee you that does something to your mind. Whatever. I don't I just don't freaking care. Thank you, sir. With another 500 says, staying calm and moisturized
here, captain. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you.

(41:21):
Harangone with 200 says, you know how once in a while text will get duplicated
and as long as that's been happening, people as well as myself
will still text back and say, hey,
why'd you text me twice?
Like,
we don't know, but just imagine
that happening with zaps, boost, I suppose, in this instance.

(41:42):
There'd either be an uproar
or it would be a beloved glitch since the Nostra and Bitcoin community are very gracious in giving, I don't know, just a random thought.
I appreciate
your random thought, sir, and that is the weather report.

(42:07):
Welcome to part two of the news that you can use
Spark,
the layer two
launched by LightSpark
from Atlas twenty one. Gee, what's it all about? You're about to find out.
LightSpark introduces a layer two for instant payments,
stable coins,
and
interoperability

(42:28):
with the Lightning Network.
It is an open source,
layer two protocol developed by LightSpark,
designed to offer instant low cost payments without the need for intermediaries.
It allows the creation of wallets and applications that interact directly
with the Bitcoin and Lightning Networks.
The company stated goal is to transform Bitcoin into a true global digital currency,

(42:51):
solving the scalability
limitations
on the base layer.
LightSpark is led by a guy named David Marcus,
a former PayPal and former Facebook guy.
He officially launched Spark in beta version on 04/29/2025,
and developers can already use Spark's SDKs
to build self custodial wallets

(43:14):
compatible
with lightning and tokens like stablecoins
native to the Bitcoin network.
So how does it work? Well,
Spark adopts a state chain based approach
allowing the transfer of ownership of a UTXO
off chain
between different users without using the main blockchain

(43:35):
thus reducing cost and transaction times and instead of executing an on chain transaction that physically moves the asset,
users acquire signing rights
or control over a key that represents a Bitcoin UTXO.
Transfers occur
through a chain of signatures and a mechanism
that allows subsequent transactions to overwrite previous ones, ensuring that neither the user nor the service provider

(44:01):
can lose funds during that operation.
Spark is designed to be fully interoperable with lightning network supporting not only Bitcoin transactions,
but also stable coins
and other tokenized
assets. So there's gonna be a little bit of shit coinery here.
SSPs,
I guess that is
Spark Service Providers or SSPs,

(44:24):
facilitate lightning payments by accepting funds on spark
and converting them into lightning transactions or vice versa, eliminating the need for users to manage nodes
or worry about channel liquidity. For example,
a user can pay an l n invoice with a stablecoin
on Spark
with the SSP

(44:44):
converting the stablecoin
into Bitcoin
in the background and sending the funds to the recipient.
There's a shared signature model, a multisig two of two.
Unlike
the LN or Lightning Network Trust model, which is based on peer to peer bidirectional channels
with smart contract logic,

(45:06):
Spark involves a coordinating
entity, the Spark service provider, the aforementioned
SSB.
This shift
or sorry. This shifts
part of the risk
from channel liquidity management to trust in operations
who sign or rather trust in operators who sign off chain

(45:28):
transactions,
the SSP's
task
is to sign blindly
on behalf of the user, which means that the SSP
does not see the content of the signature
and doesn't
even know if it is signing a Bitcoin transaction
or another type of transaction.

(45:49):
Bitcoin deposited on Spark always remains under the user's control. When a user sends funds to Spark, they are initially transferred to a state chain.
Once funds are on the state chain,
payments on the Spark network occur instantly and at near zero cost.
At the heart of Spark security is the use
of a shared signature scheme, specifically

(46:12):
a two of two multi sig.
This means that two keys
are required to authorize a transaction,
and the user always holds one of them.
When users adopt funds on Spark or rather adopt, I don't know why I said that, when users deposit
funds on Spark,
they send them to a multisig address.

(46:33):
Here, they may control
maintain control of their funds and can perform a unilateral exit without the need to interact with other parties.
Each payment is enabled by a Spark service provider,
which must coauthorize the transaction together with the user for it to be valid and successful
Although,
the network is currently managed by the LightSpark and other operator, the FlashNet is what they say here in parenthesis

(47:00):
Users do not risk losing funds even if these operators stopped cooperating.
In fact,
Spark offers the possibility
to unilaterally
force the return of Bitcoin
to the main net at any time.
Users can exit Spark in two ways:
through a cooperative exit, which is cheaper and faster, or a unilateral exit, which is slower

(47:23):
but possible in case of a malfunction or some loss of trust.
LightSpark has declared its intention
to add more operators in the future to increase decentralization.
Regarding fees,
transactions within the Spark network are zero fee. The only fees users will have to bear are Bitcoin's on chain fees

(47:44):
for depositing or withdrawing funds from Spark and additionally transferring Bitcoin from Spark to LN involves
a point 25%
fee plus routing fees.
Conversely,
a transaction from Lightning Network to Spark
cost 0.15%
in fees.
Introduced in the summer of twenty twenty four, LRC

(48:06):
20
is a token issuance protocol designed to be compatible with both Bitcoin's mainnet
as well as Lightning Network, and anyone can issue an LRC 20 token.
The protocol also supports freeze and burn operations,
giving the original issuing wallet the power to freeze tokens at any address,

(48:27):
preventing transactions
until unlocked.
LRC 20 is primarily designed for issuing stablecoins and regulated assets.
After thoroughly testing it, The LightSpark team decided to run the LRC 20 protocol
natively on Spark
to enable token issuance on the network.

(48:47):
The birth of Spark has immediately attracted the interest of other Bitcoin projects.
Among the various partnerships established, the multisig wallet Theia
has integrated Spark
to offer its users simpler and faster Bitcoin and stablecoin payments
Last May,
Breeze announced a new implementation of the Breeze SDK based on Spark,

(49:10):
which allows developers to integrate lightning payments directly into their apps
through Spark. And as part of this collaboration,
Breeze will also act as a Spark service provider,
helping to expand the ecosystem.
According to the two companies, this partnership will provide developers with new Bitcoin native tools
for use cases such as streaming payments,

(49:31):
international
remit,
and micropayments
for
AI.
Oh, my god. It's artificial intelligence.
I love all layer two stuff.
I really do. We got ARC.
We got this Spark. Yeah. We got Lightning Network.
We've got and then we've got like I don't know. Maybe they should be called layer 2.5, but stuff like e cash and Fedimint and stuff like that.

(49:57):
This is gonna there's
there's no way
the FSB
or the
World Bank or the International Monetary Fund or the Central Bank of Mexico or the Federal Reserve or the SEC
or the CFTC,
they they're
they're completely outgunned.

(50:18):
And when your enemy is outgunned, believe me, guys, the the people that I just mentioned, those those institutions are indeed our enemy.
Stop thinking that they're here for you. They don't give a shit. They don't care about you. They don't care about your wealth. They don't care
about your children or if you have anything left over to send to them. They don't care. They're way too busy glad handing each other at, like, 10,000 a plate, you know, $10,000

(50:42):
a plate dinners,
$50,000
a plate dinners, half a million dollar a plate dinners. You know, these assholes that are wearing, you know,
$5,000
dresses that say tax the rich on it and just laughing their asses off that. That's them thumbing their nose at you.
These people,
they don't care.

(51:03):
And all I see is when when I read stuff like this one about Spark, and then I I put that into my little filing cabinet in my mind, and I look and I see Bitcoin, and I see what Tether's do, and I see Lightning Network and Arc and all the stuff that I just named, and all the stuff that I tell you about day after day after day.
All
of the bad people

(51:25):
are, at this moment,
outgunned.
It is almost our duty to open fire.
You know? So what I I I just I hope
that there are, you know, more people out there that are, like, literally, we could be doing anything else and making a fuck ton more money
And we're not why why do we continuously

(51:47):
want to be poor?
We always you know Twitter was that whole time is I have fun staying poor The only people that know how to have fun staying poor are actual Bitcoiners
because we're not working at Google. We're not taking a 150,000
jobs at some fucking university so that we can sit in a cubicle and do essentially the the

(52:07):
nothing
for humanity at all? No. No. No. No. That's not where the real fun is.
And I know it sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not.
What what do you think wealth is?
What is it that you really think wealth is?
If it's a if it's like a shit ton of money so you can go buy a Lambo,

(52:27):
you're not listening to this show and you're probably not a Bitcoiner.
And if you are,
you probably were and are now a shit coiner thinking Doge is gonna get you the Lambo so that you can, I don't know, every two years
change timing chains at $5,000
a pop? Because that's what it costs to change the timing chain on a Lamborghini. It's about $5.

(52:50):
I mean, that's every two years. Do you even think about that when you buy the Lambo?
I'm gonna buy a Learjet. Do you have any idea what ground cost on a on a Learjet is?
Are you insane?
That's not that's not wealth. That's poverty.
That is a poverty mindset.
I just

(53:11):
I keep thinking what what happens if
a 100,000
people one day wake up
and they all knew how to code,
and they all didn't give a shit about being poor for ten straight years,
and they all loved Bitcoin. What the hell would happen to the rest of the what would happen to the IMF and the Central Bank of Mexico?

(53:31):
What would happen to Agustin Carstens? What would happen to Christine Lagarde and her felonious ways?
What would happen to all the assholes in the United States Congress
if we were just armed to the teeth and willing to pull the trigger? Because right now, ladies and gentlemen, they are outgunned.
They are they don't even know about Spark. I guarantee it. Not yet.

(53:53):
And when they do, they'll go, Jesus, one more thing.
We don't have the resources to keep up. Do you see
where we are on the hill?
We have the advantage.
We're not gonna have the advantage for for long. I mean, we'll probably have it for a lot longer than even I think, but at one point or another, you gotta pull the trigger.

(54:16):
You can't just continuously
point the gun at your enemy while they're tracking you up the hill even if you have the advantage.
It's time to start pulling some triggers here, ladies and gentlemen. And RemixPoint
might be one of the people to help because
they're investing 887,000,000
more yen into Bitcoin.

(54:36):
Remix is a management consulting services company, and they have announced a purchase of $887,300,000
worth of Bitcoin, and they got 55.68
Bitcoin
for that.
Would do they do anything else? It's a Japanese company that started in the automotive
and energy sectors, but has changed towards

(54:57):
digital assets. It's one of the few public companies in Japan actively holding Bitcoin,
seeing it as both a store of value and a hedge against the weakening in. You mean weakening
everything fiat.
It's all going to hell, people.
Their move highlights a growing shift in Japan's
corporate space
towards Bitcoin adoption.

(55:19):
Are they the only ones that I'm gonna tell you about today? No. Why? Because there's
Mercurity.
Mercurity
fintech
is raising $800,000,000
for their very own Bitcoin treasury.
Mercurity
fintech holding incorporated
has announced
they don't have it yet. They have announced plans

(55:41):
to raise $800,000,000
to establish a long term Bitcoin treasury reserve.
And according to Mercurity, they intend to transition a portion of its reserves into Bitcoin
supported by blockchain native custody,
staking solutions, and tokenized treasury tools
designed to advance yield
and extend asset duration. And here's some suit speak from

(56:06):
XiQ,
CEO of Mercuity. He says or she says, I don't know. We're building the Bitcoin Treasury Reserve
based on our belief
that Bitcoin will become an essential component of the future financial infrastructure,
and we are positioning our company to be a key player
in the evolving digital financial system. Are we done?

(56:27):
Are we done? No. We are not.
F Street. God, I wish their name was f u Street, but it's not. It's f street. They've announced
their own goal of accumulating
$10,000,000
in Bitcoin.
It's an alternative investment in private lending firm. So we just jumped from automotive and energy sector

(56:50):
where they're saying, fuck it. We gotta get into this. And now we're back over to
alternative
investment and private lending firm land
because
f street today announced that it has begun adding Bitcoin to its own corporate treasury with the goal of accumulating $10,000,000
in Bitcoin.
The company began daily BTC purchases

(57:11):
on June,
so they've been stacking for three days
using business proceeds and treasury funds.
Quote,
Bitcoin offers a compelling hedge against inflation and dollar debasement. Incorporating it into our treasury
is a strategic step
to preserve and grow value for our investors and our business interest.

(57:32):
Yada yada yada yada. It's one after another after another after another after another.
We have the advantage.
The enemy's looking straight down the barrel of our gun.
Will we pull the trigger?
I don't know.
Somebody tried to pull the trigger though because I leave you with

(57:55):
don't wear swag.
We'll go back to these alleged
New York City Bitcoin kidnappers who have now plead not guilty,
and they're making some fairly wild claims about their accuser.
We don't wanna be anywhere close to this story.
Do not make this story your story. Stop wearing Bitcoin swag in public. Don't get hammered at conferences by yourself.

(58:21):
You know the drill. Know your exits.
And stop advertising that you have Bitcoin.
Logan Hitchcock ends us off with
decrypt.
Two men alleged to have kidnapped
and tortured a man for access to his Bitcoin. They pleaded not guilty Wednesday.
And their respective lawyers are saying that the accuser

(58:45):
was able to move freely throughout New York City on the days that he was allegedly held captive.
Are you already confused? Because if not, you will be.
You will be. Lawyers for William DuPleas and John Waltz
said that the unidentified
accuser
can be seen in videos

(59:05):
laughing and smiling
and smoking crack
and participating
in group sex
according to a report from the Associated
Press. Oh my god.
Quote,
the story that he is telling
doesn't make any sense,
Sam Taulkin, Du Pless's lawyer, said in the criminal court on Wednesday.

(59:27):
The lawyer for Waltz
added that witnesses told him that the accuser
moved about freely,
contrary to accusations that he was held captive
and tortured.
I am very confused at this point, and I hope it's not just me because I'm like, I don't know what the hell is going on. He was either

(59:49):
kidnapped
and held or he was what? Kidnapped and they let him go to the store to smoke crack and participate in groups. What?
WTF.
Waltz was initially arrested and charged in late May after the accuser
allegedly escaped a Manhattan townhouse where he said he was held.
According to prosecutors at the time, the alleged victim was bound,

(01:00:12):
beaten, and electrocuted
as the captors attempted to gain access to his crypto.
Assistant district attorney Sarah Khan,
wrath of Khan, said that videos
were leaked
to try and present a counter narrative indicating that the accuser was not permitted to leave the house freely as the defendant's lawyers

(01:00:34):
claim according to the AP report.
Police found evidence like a chainsaw,
a loaded pistol,
which helped corroborate
corroborate
the accuser's story,
alongside photos of him with a gun to his head and one where he is being set on fire according to multiple reports.

(01:00:55):
But no burn marks were found on the alleged victim because the defendants quickly extinguished the flames,
sometimes
by urinating on him, per the AP.
How many times was this guy set on fire?
Because the sentence
that he was they extinguished the flames
sometimes
by urinating on him means that this happened more than once.

(01:01:19):
Plus the fact that they're pissing on him to put him out when he was on fire. See, this
it's this kind
help god.
Help god. Please help help. I I don't know what's going on.
Prosecutors
additionally believe
that there may be two additional victims in other locations

(01:01:40):
and that the defendants have held people against their will before.
The pair, who were charged with degree kidnapping, assault, and more, could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.
They were denied bail and will be detained until their next court appearance on July.
A person was arrested and charged in connection to the plot, but later released.

(01:02:02):
Physical attacks and kidnappings
of crypto investors have become more high profile, and then they go through the ledger guy, David Ballen, blah, whatever.
Does anybody understand what happened in this story?
Is does anybody have any clue?
Or or you like me where you're going,
what the hell? You know what this actually sounds like? Here's my gut feeling. All three of these guys are working together somehow, and I don't know.

(01:02:30):
Something weird happened.
I mean, I would say that this is a ruse, except
some people are under indictment for it, so that that I can probably
kick that one out the window.
But nothing about this makes sense.
If did you kidnap the guy or not?
Because it sounds to me what they're saying is, like, yeah, we kidnapped him, but we we let him roam around. So we weren't really held it holding him captive.

(01:02:56):
We just kidnapped him. So that's in my mind.
And then I'm like, who is this guy that's going around having group sack sex and smoking crack?
I mean, did okay. Well, hey, guys. You know, I know you're kidnapping me, and I know you want my Bitcoin. And I haven't given it to you yet, which is why I'm clearly still a fucking captive. But I was just wondering,

(01:03:17):
you mind if I go down to, you know, the bodega and grab a six pack of beer, maybe a handle of whiskey, and, you know, walk over to Rosita's place where I can smoke some crack cocaine and have group sex.
Do you see why I'm confused?
And maybe it's just because I'm a nutbag. I don't know. I mean, maybe I shouldn't be confused. But everything about this sounds

(01:03:41):
sketch as hell.
It doesn't matter though because
my plea to you always remains the same.
Stop wearing orange.
Stop it. Don't wear the Bitcoin hat. Don't wear the Bitcoin shirt. Don't because all of that just makes you a target. You might as well literally wear a giant target on your front and back that says, rob me, I own Bitcoin. Kidnap me, I own Bitcoin.

(01:04:09):
Hold me for ransom, I have Bitcoin. Or better yet, kidnap me and let me go out and smoke crack cocaine and have group sex with roserita while I drink a six pack
of beer and a handle of fucking whiskey. If you want to be in a very, very confusing place like this poor gentleman is, then by all means, wear as much swag as you possibly can, get hammered, smoke crack, hang out with hookers, go to the strip club, and announce

(01:04:33):
on the deck
that you have
a 100,
and you're drunk and you're going home by yourself at 03:00 in the morning. Please do that,
and guaranteed, I will not see see you on the other side.
This has been Bitcoin, and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon.

(01:04:56):
Have a great day.

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