El Salvador Reveals Bitcoin Reserves | Britcoiners by CoinCorner #128

Transcript

what where have you got that from they put lightning on what love that we don't know if they did it at the minute [Music] so hey hey welcome back episode 128 are we ready mhm cool how are we all uh great right let's go this uh yeah me and Mikey are sick I think but everybody else is I mean you aren't you me and Dave have both been just not about it well got full full sick podcast toam today Zach still on holiday hope you're having a great time Zach maybe see you next week back next week yeah back next week cool okay agenda um Len Alden um talking about Japan and us treasuries uh Joe Biden Administration is weighing in on bitcoin legislation um US Bank has 14 million in Bitcoin ETFs private jet uh charter service is now accepting Bitcoin GameStop drama um Joe Biden uh orders crypto mining operations to shut down uh El Salvador government uh revealing how much Bitcoin it owns and Renaissance Tech is long Bitcoin and Dees cool all right bitcoin price first though just about to come back to $63,000 is that a reverse B I see is that what it's called there is very much right there actually yeah that's very look at me with my technical analysis pretty accurate as well that up and down that was uh coinbase going down was it oh was it oh no no it's a couple days yeah it was back on the 10th it started dropping the other drop on the right was coin Bas is coinbase still down or not I've not heard anything since they're on the agenda aren they they're down for 4 hours they're still in they I didn't read out on the agenda not fully operational I think or something but no we didn't take it oh well we just covered it there still hav yeah but is that is still frustrating and bad I guess in some respects that they I mean they are trading and custody in for most of these ETFs and they still going down for like four hours at a time randomly and it's not once this has happened how many times since the ETS kicked off it's quite a few it's like fourth or fifth I think are they scheduled no no just just 4our accidental outage that dips the price yesterday morning mhm um yeah never looks good does it it doesn't it doesn't I think they sort themselves out by now for that anyway s okay so coinbase bashing done in the first 30 seconds and bitcoin price done mhm let finish the Pod get out the way right okay first on the agenda then um ly Alden says we're bailing out ourselves by making it so Japan doesn't have to sell them massive horde of us treasuries did we talk about this last week I can't remember no we didn't no not not the lalon comment but the just no I don't think we don't think we did bench but they do ownn a they own a lot of crazy yeah um us treasuries and they they came to an agreement didn't they last week because the Japanese Yen has just been dying a death and then they came to us and Japan came to an agreement that they it was a bit of a weirdly worded agreement wasn't it effectively that was basically saying they they're basically going to us is helping them hold the value of the Yen up so they don't have to sell the us treasuries to hold the en up because the US don't want them to sell the us treasuries because it will make the US weaker um they don't want that dumped no uh which is kind of scary they're all kind of like if you go down we go down sort of thing so actually we'll help you stay a float for as best we can um but while making the scenario worse as time goes by um but nobody's not really you know what it has done it's brought volatility into the treasuries market so like because of this doubt for the thing I read today or the other day first time in 45 years gold is less volatile so like gold is now seen as a less volatile than the US treasuries than treasuries just treasuries in general not us okay which is interesting cuz normally like in terms of Safe Haven treasuries are the first Port call from those nation states and now I'll be like oh so this is when was the last time they were volatile hm when was the last time they were volatile well I just I only know that comparison to Gold so then that was first time in 45 years so it's been yeah so it's interesting it's it's it's Global instability everyone's kind of seen as a you know a bit of a deck of cards now isn't it everything's being propped up by America that's exactly what I was just visualizing in my head a deck of cards yeah yeah I don't realize the debt that Japan were actually in like they are the most inbt country of all the developed nations in the world by by substantial margin as well W like US debt is 1 124% of the GDP and Japanese debt is 263 of their GDP which is just they're a weird country aren't in the sense of sounds just let's just leave it let's move on no the um like things like you think I think a lot of people think of Japan as like a futuristic technologically advanced country which in in many ways they are I think in certain respects um but I think there's a lot of issues within the country like we're seeing here with the financial side there's like the is it Japan and South Korea is it that have quite a problem on the uh the baby front so teration most of Asia I think is having same problem yeah so then they're not able to come through there's not enough younger generation to help them what will support the older generation it's going to become a bit of a house of cards a little bit as well I mean that's a global problem though as well apparently so I saw that the other day like the UK is pretty much doomed so I've heard the Alam man's the perfect microcosm for there huge the oldest population population very much like Japan the old pension deficit but we're still we're not uh we're still having kids at an okay rate as such where the South Korea and Japan I think are at such an alarming rate but now I did see that the US UK and stuff are now getting slowly worse and worse and people are not having kids as much so population's slowly but doesn't that come back to the whole economy like you don't want to bring kids into a world where everything's so expensive like kids are expensive oh if you thought about the cost of children you never have them yeah I don't know why it's was there a reason I think it's just more countries getting um access to like contraceptions and just women being educated women having choices and stuff like that as well yeah it is it's I think it's a careers driven a lot of career it's regionalized because it's the global population is still Rising like yeah this was what this thing was about it's slowing though isn't it it's been rising but I think it was slowing I'd have to red detail so I got a great podcast I'll share with you about it maybe that can be one next week none of your podcasts that you listen to are any good in fact they they anger me the people that you listen to it's really hard great topics they one was about it one was exactly about this but it's it's never mind it being a great topic if you can't listen to the person talking you know what I mean if it's like think we should move on that podcast review show Japan have been in trouble economic trouble for ages this isn't news this is just constant development yeah but nobody really talks about it do they they just kind of left to do their own thing I don't think like it gets as much attention as well that's because it's now become every American's problem yeah that's now the attention but yeah it has been ignored I guess over the years for the most part okay well yeah paying attention but but everyone's propping up various bits and pieces I read I think the Chinese government are the biggest purchaser of China of property in China like private property so they're propping up their markets everyone's doing it that know why I shared with you the other day no I've heard I've heard come from a source did you yeah I shared it with you right remember Source me bad sauce yeah so I wouldn't believe a word of it just a pack of Lies came me um yeah that was about residents of China owning less but actually the UK is getting into a worst state it was the comparison against UK and China wasn't it of individuals actually owning property yeah okay is that all with all with Japan y next how yeah are we are we saying how's that compared to bitcoin what are we saying in terms of this is a Bitcoin podcast so we're saying what was deemed a safe Reserve is now being thrown into somewhat doubt yes and we're saying Treasures being the thing you're talking about and then we're seeing a bigger movement of companies putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet and it might be in response to this rather than that is something we see well would we I know we're a Bitcoin company with slightly different mindset but would we put a treasury on our balance sheet would we buy a treasury which we don't and we never have done no but we buy Bitcoin and put Bitcoin on the balance sheet which we definitely and then you're seeing micro strategy share price who is the proxy for Bitcoin I mean they've just been listed on a major index because of the the not the S&P 500 another one mmcs I think right but another Global index to say that this is not part in terms of their Market cap I think it's based on market cap but I mean their share price has also been outperforming Bitcoin yeah which is for me I something I can't really get my head round um I why would that be outperforming Bitcoin I guess you've got the combination of you've got the company Performance Plus Bitcoin on and you've got a combination but I imagine I I think originally people thought it was because they couldn't traditional investment rout couldn't access ETFs until ETFs came around but then ETFs have come and micro strategies continued so but is it a cheaper way to get access to bitcoin than the ETF fees um but the ETF fees are pretty low but does it not it doesn't have tieing or locking does it you can get pretty liquid in terms of getting in and out I guess so I I honestly don't know the only people I know are the ones that buying it yeah but it's all right so if you're buying micro strategy asxy to bitcoin yeah why yeah that is unfortunately the case with a lot of these things you you know the person that knows is the person that's buying H why did they buy that rather than buy an ETF or buy Bitcoin yeah I just don't know but anyways how stripping the Bitcoin price anyway substantially anyway let's move on okay um next topic is US President Joe Biden says Joe Biden Administration says Biden would vote a veto legislation that would allow highly regulated Financial firms to custody Bitcoin and crypto this is just another overreaching statement rather than an actual thing they've done as such but it's just there was seen a lot of that from the US aren't we the minute where um it's now not just SEC this is saying like Biden's Administration are going to step in and do things and we've literally just seen this yesterday as well saying about which is a topic I think in a minute um which we may as well tie you in a little bit which was uh the GameStop stuff and GameStop um a uh what's it called aaring raran Kitty uh whatever it's called the GameStop guy um from Reddit back in the day I say back in the day it was only like seven years ago wasn't it six years ago um he is back on Twitter so roaring Kitty he's come back on Twitter and all he's done is tweet like meme videos basically he's not really done or said much more than that at the minute um and everyone's just gone crazy for it and that has caused GameStop to rise dramatically over the last four hours just because he's come back on Twitter yeah yeah that's why you following him AMC and GameStop yeah yeah yeah I follow him I followed him back in the Reddit days when he was doing this it was it was part of because our industry was quite heavily paying attention to that at the time um I never got involved and bought any GameStop shares but we were watching that go crazy so it's I presume everyone knows but in terms of people that don't he was a long GameStop for fundamental reasons and there was big Institution shorts on GameStop and when you're shorting some it becomes expensive as the price is rising so he think he bankrupted he might have actually bankrupted some he bankrupted some hedge funds well he didn't but the game the rise in the GameStop price caused by the fomo generated by this guy actually bankrupted some institutions that were substantial institutions that were heavily short GameStop yeah and they were short because of it a High Street game retailer when everything actually is moving away from High Street and it's moving away from physical games it's more downloads so you can see why they were short it but fun I don't know how people think about Market shorters I I kind of think there's a moral issue on it in terms of I understand that you might you do kind of need it in the market um in terms of what people are doing but they're kind of they are betting against the success of a company they're betting against they're betting on people losing their jobs and high stre closure which for me is kind of a moral issue NE for the economy yeah you would want to support especially if shorters that are then involved in the company in any sort of way but you would want people to be you know how do we make this grow how do we pivot this how do we innovate not the negative side of it of let's fingers cross it fails and the market price crashes because you're also betting on individual shareholders losing their money but yeah it's the way you're making your money there's other people losing that yeah exactly so you just okay so the i i quite like this guy because he for me had moralities on his side he was against yeah that was the whole thing he realized people were just manipulating things on purpose to make money for themselves and screwing over a lot of like you say people that worked in them companies and TRS at the same time so it was yeah David and Goliath and moral and there's this one guy in his basement looking at the numbers the film is good the film is actually D Money film money film yeah yeah was pretty good actually um so yeah I think um so he's back and has just caused this pump again him coming back yeah has caused GameStop and AMC is it I think to pump yeah if you remember last time Robin Hood actually closed buys on it you could only sell GameStop so that probably because of the third party pressure for their liquidity provider but that's huge uproar in terms of yeah the movie makes out that they did it because they weren't fully one toone collateralized was it and they were then I don't know basically in the hole thems Yeah they were they were pressured into doing it by yeah yeah in terms of their mechanism of of actually buying and selling those shares they were pressured by third party but they literally made it so you could only sell it yeah which obviously which they did get the sh holders they did get done in the end for that I think they got fine and something slap on the wrist I'm sure um but they yeah so them stepping in and effect it was robing Hood last time as a private public company doing that now we're talking about um the US government stepping in and and stopping it under the guys of protecting who yeah but theya protecting shareholders or protecting they always say individual investors yeah but would like to mean it's the man on the street who's going to be you know who's getting involved in this fomo protecting against fomo but the Biggest Loser last time tended to be the person short in it it was and then depending on when people were coming out of it I guess as well who really who are they trying to protect is something that needs to be looked at it's questionable I don't get like this is they're basically saying that the president will veto what the SEC decide but the president chose the SEC is that that's for the the regulation piece is it that's for this custody of the Bitcoin for basically yeah saying how it would um disrupt the Securities and ex same commissions uh work to protect investors in crypto asset markets but he by him Ving it when he's the one who appointed the SEC chair and just if you scroll up they said it was to protect Innovation as well so you're just like okay it's you're going to you're going to close down a market a growing Market to protect Innovation I'm intrigued it that makes more sense to me I I don't know you know I'm I'm almost that's what they said though yeah no no I'm I'm so Innovation so Innovation happens a lot of the time when you backed into a corner mhm and there's no choice but to innovate and do something different and that is necessity largely you end up doing that because of it because of a reason if they say to the banks no they're talking about big Financial Banks here that saying they can't custody Bitcoin and crypto for their clients if they say they can't then banks have to innovate or slowly die potentially and become Blockbuster style because they if crypto Bitcoin ecosystem takes over the traditional Financial system in the next many decades then Banks either become Blockbuster or join but if they can't join because they're not allowed to custody they've going to have to Branch off and do different things and innovate and find a new way to be part of that economy and part of that world so they would have to innovate which which is kind of then true but innovate on fat on it it means they could they create a new compy it kind of breaks the banks up a little bit in some sense the bigger Banks up because they would have to or they go and buy like coinbase or go and buy one or they go and basically get involved in crypto exchanges that saying it's protectionism is making it could break down the banks a little bit in which case it would be a positive yeah yeah there's a couple of different ways you could look at this as might not be their intentions but the the could create different Direct you you are worried about American monopolization in terms of centralization of the banks right that's a decreasing number of banks so that is a problem and if you're saying now these Banks can't custody you have to diversify and innovate in a different way yeah that could so help to decentralize their Monopoly us crypto exchanges all of a sudden are already there and blossoming you don't want the banks to just swallow them up eventually and take them in and then they all just become Banks and they get swallowed up and it that problem continues but actually then there needs to be more crypto exchanges because the bank doesn't want the like coinbase to have all the fun they want to go and do it themselves so they have to do the start one themselves and create a new company and do that or they get involved in a different one but then that's an opportunity for people outside the banking world to start a crypto exchange and try and run that and try and do that that's interesting so it's actually very Pro Bitcoin in that HK because it sounds like there's less going to be less access to custody for the individual because we know a lot of the individuals have bank accounts and it would the easiest pathway would be you know get Bitcoin within within your banking current banking system but what you're saying is actually this is kind of pro Bitcoin because it takes that power away from the banks Pro the other the companies in our ecosystem already existing and the new ones to potentially come because if banks then just take it on then no new ones will come and no new innovation will come because you'll just be sat on the Legacy companies Reliance to actually innovate and do something in the space and they won't so in some sense I don't know if they mean it in this way I like to think they do it it can Jo B to me switched on is he saying say to me probably probably is proba is what he's thinking he's a Bitcoin I'm not sure switched him on when he goes on to talk off so um four four more years Mate different yeah there's different ways to look at these things sometimes I think it's not always like an attack a negative it may even be negative in terms of what they're thinking and the uh the administration themself may be thinking but actually the outcome and the output could be completely different um so yeah I I I wouldn't care either way if they block that if I'm honest block the banks from custody and crypto that's great for c for the crypto exchanges in the US and if they don't block them that's great also and then more people's hands yeah well they've allowed access to it via or they've allowed institutions to come to which gives it credibility so either direction I don't think it really matters to there's only one real winner Bitcoin yeah so I don't think it really matters which way it goes sweet cool next topic um US Bank has $14 million in Bitcoin ETFs per sec filings uh Us's fifth largest bank has uh 450 billion assets under management of course they're going to have just the US the Bitcoin ETF so there I've got a couple of things on it so there is a lot there's a lot that I've got um we're seeing a lot of big institutional buyers of the ETFs now where Banks and all different countries we've seen we're get to the reporting periods after the ETFs have been released it's all going to come out in the watch Wisconsin is it was it them the state they a lot actually $99 million is it yeah it was a lot um but I think some of the banks take with a pinch of salt because I think there there's been so my very little understanding on some of this is like say for example these guys have got 40 million 40 million is an absolute Drop in the Ocean for them for these sort it's a nothing and they potentially don't have it for an investment purpose they have it for a liquidity Arbitrage money movement perspective where they're doing something to make money on it they're not doing it as a an investment if that makes sense um so they've just got it incidentally because they're doing Arbitrage on small I think it's just we' seen the CL we were looking at some date this morning declining correlation with S&P 500 right so it just makes sense for them to to actually have yeah but $40 million is not an investment from a a 500 billion billion ass on the management compan no no I'm saying I don't think it's an investment from them oh I I I think it's an incidental outcome of them holding it on their balance sheet because they were arbing something or hedging something or doing something good more for a functional function way you're going tell that is if on the next filing give is Gro if yeah well the JP Morgan one I think was was explained to be that so the JP Morgan do have Bitcoin on as well the ETF on it but I think there was explain it was explained at some point somewhere as to why and it was not to do with an investment it but do you think but everyone's treated it like that because it's on the balance sheet or is that's what JP Morgan is saying yeah but it was such a drop in the ocean I think there was like 10 million or 11 million as well wasn't it it was it was nothing in comparison to what they if it's an investment you put it more than that in as JP Morgan just it's a St I mean I mean Black Rock failed creep in there it's like their their advice of putting 1% just grows into be having 15 25% Black Rock seeded theirs with 10 million just to like kick things off and have that liquidity available it was like that's a nothing I don't I don't believe it's JP Morgan themselves buying it as an investment okay it's hard to infer from one data point I think in the next few returns you'll be able to see Trend yeah we'll start to learn soon but Wisconsin no that's more in that's 99 million significant amount it's for what they hold as well 100 million there so who is in charge of Wisconsin who is running that what's the typical Wisconsin demographic where is it where does sailor live yeah what's what's made them I've never been to W looks like a little retirement type place over yeah it's like up in the middle so I know this only from is it That 70s Show TV show that was in wiscons I think what's what's the big cities in Wiscon you're asking too many questions now Michigan or is that just the lake that might be the lake lake isn't it Lake attached to Milwaukee right doesn't sound great does it nice place as far as my understanding Milwaukee Madison Green Bay Appleton does look nice I've heard of Milwaukee looks quite unassuming doesn't it you wouldn't it doesn't look like this sort of place that would you know looks very nice buy Bitcoin my go it wasn't was it it wasn't on the radar of all those you know the governors and stuff that were running for election and we're all pro like the Miami Governor wanted to go to the conference and we all talking very Pro Bitcoin yeah and know I'm not in sure sure who's in charge of Treasury decisions on a state level or whether who who can actually make the decision to buy assum the treasury so we heard a lot of rhetoric a couple of years ago about those governors and the people in charge saying Bitcoin Bitcoin Bitcoin and yeah it's the left field it's Wisconsin that have come out Tony EVS that guy look at Tony look at him he's the governor isn't he but then Treasury Department who knows I don't know who who but is there there's a Bitcoin amongst them hiding well there's a bit it'll go to a vote as well like in John liba is the treasurer treasure yeah so he'll be the head of IT John Liber Twitter account is something like Maxi Leber yeah layer eyes on yeah layser eyes on it um but like we know like even the Alam man here have been it's gone to treasury about putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet twice I mean you've personally failed the AL of man I have personally failed you haven't managed to convince them to do what Wisconsin have is there an exchange in Wisconsin I wasn't allowed to sit in front of the Treasury Department to did you try hard enough it went to them twice for a decision it's been rejected twice thir well no actually the third the second time yeah the second time they actually come back and said they weren't against it but it would have to be done through one of their investment managers have you have you followed that up with them because if they had where would they be now so they have the the funds for the for the government for example they end up sitting in loads of different uh treasury Financial sorry fund managers as such and um for example was like KPMG one and someone else and something so you've got to then go to them and get them to do it within that fund within that pot but none of them are allowed because it's not on their criteria of what they're allowed to invest in and what they're allowed to put money into so the treasury's department was saying oh yeah you can go and do it if you want but you have to convince one of these guys to go and do it but they were happy for it but they knew full well that they couldn't actually go and do it so it was basically a no but in a polite no it's very hard with governments to find anyone in char isn't it anyone that can actually make change that was an individual we were talking to treasury to do that at that time and but then that decision then came back after their committee meeting how long ago uh once was like back in God knows 2016 or something maybe and then once was about bitcoin price in 2016 2020 2021 I mean there's been a few years now since then but there was there was two occurrences of that happening you but they probably wouldn't have the pension deficit they have now if they' done if they' done it in 2016 God yeah I mean we we tried and we spoke to them but I would love to sit in front of the committee when they're making a decis they I Told You So guys but they could have bought Bitcoin at $500 $23 and the annoying part is the people we have spoken to we I don't want to say convinced they were probably already convinced but then they've took it through and it gets a vote between the whole committee and obviously you've got to go individually T to all the I'm still if there's anyone to blame for the recent tax rises in the alaman it's Danny Scott it's me cuz he weren't convincing enough he didn't get on I convinced the guys I'd spoken to you weren't convincing no my problem wasn't I wasn't convincing my problem was I wasn't thorough enough in my networking with the other nine committee members only one Committee Member was was within my it's a Pity because I think al man knowing what I know I think they'll be the last in the world and yet could have been the first they could have been the first whenever the UK does it I imagine just what we tend to do mhm follow that lead yeah it's just a bit depressing isn't it it's a shame but the Well Done Wisconsin y yeah it's good for that black rock ETF as well awesome um private jet charter service candy Jets now accepts Bitcoin lining payments yeah just th thing it was on yeah want to talk about it no that was it that's it no it's it's it's good um yeah so can Jets uh We've partnered with them they now accept Bitcoin for their private J Char service lots of nice planes and yeah you can now pay in Bitcoin we do already have a jet company that does that you were described as a prominent Bitcoin service provider there is that is that your your words no but it could be I like that Bitcoin magazine that's I prefer that that's my main man Nick at Bitcoin magazine writing nice things service services provider I am I've been looking for this start still cuz so um we've been looking at this last couple of weeks uh where we're trying to figure out how many online like websites now actually or businesses like that actually accept Bitcoin payments so the old historic number used to be like 100,000 or something was about 50 to 100,000 and that heavily came from bit pay then bit pay ended up getting uh hit with the sanction um laws not sanction laws the sanction uh violations in 2021 22 was it 22 maybe um and they got absolutely squeezed so you couldn't pay like all the websites that were accepting Bitcoin via bit pay you no longer could pay with a Bitcoin wallet you had to then pay with a bit pay wallet which meant it was basically just PayPal so you had to just operate like PayPal so if you were paying at a shop in Bitcoin you had to kyc with bit pay to even just make a payment which was ridiculous so you can't expect businesses to continue that cuz the volumes no one would pay with it and the volumes dropped off so all their businesses seem to have disappeared and they now have they do have on their website um their merchant list they now say over 250 except Bitcoin 250 from 100 Grand from 100,000 well I think it was like 50 to 100,000 region has dropped which has disappeared off the thing now to down to 250 Merchants should be able to find out what they said on way back Machinery uh yeah that's what we did that's what we did in Jets so but then they took it off back in like 2019 or something 2020 they decided to remove it but now they brought it back in but it's 250 Merchants they have we've got more than say close to 250 more than that so but so I'm like actually when you're saying we're prominent we are prominent at the minute the online market so I'd love to know how many other so you got like coin payments and you've got a couple of other ones but most of them when you look at their Merchants most of them are like crypto esque companies that and not really your mainstream Merchant I know it's more physical but BTC Maps must have more than that that does yeah it's got like 10,000 or something thing now but that yeah so that's like the physical iners payments but e-commerce there's not really a place for that um where you can find a list of them and bit pay now seems to have come down to 250 which we need to figure out small amount we did we actually did something back in the day where we spyed every website uh in the world um to find any mention of Bitcoin and any mention bit pay so you should tell us you'll take Le don't you kind like a web scrape yeah like a web scraper like what Google does when it's spider's websites and checks on them and stuff like and then records information about the web page but we just went spidered like the top million websites in the world and looked for the mention of Bitcoin on the homepage and then looked for like bit pay and we we then gathered a a list of all the websites that we believe were accepting Bitcoin or accepting via bitay um so that was like many years ago now um but it was just for our information to understand what that market size looks like and how that fits we haven't done that for years now and maybe someone needs to go and do that and and see what that kind of looks like um because it is a bit is it a dose of realism where people could have been falsely inflating in terms of how the adoption on e-commerce sites yeah the reality is probably much smaller I think there's a big like bit pay were that big prominent one back in the day and they did the Super Bowl advert and they did like spent all this money they massive BC funding they had um New Egg acception it they had Microsoft acception it they had all these big players accepting it um as we got into the stage of Bitcoin on chain doesn't scale for you $10 payments that started to shrink I think and they started to get hit so they started to try and pivot to a b2c model rather than B2B model in in with their bit pay wallet and things and gift cards they PIV like a gift card mentality thing as well and then they got hit with the sanctions and then that's kind of just squeezed hell did you hear that thing I don't know how recent it was but sailor saying that payments is a distraction yeah I've seen a lot of that recently is do you think's purely going down the store of wealth route now and saying that payments are yeah just like do say a distraction he he did the he is doing lightning Services through micro strategy though and he he was pivoting micro strategy to a lightning Services yeah which still is that not not becoming a mining solution they were trying to use lightning payments to do for miners I think now originally it was lightning payments for um what you call it like rewards okay like Starbucks rewards and things like that um and then now I don't know what's happened to that that seems to have been fell off a cliff now I don't know you think he was just specifically talking about microsof strategy being distracted by that I'm not I've not listened to him so I don't know what he said on that I'd have to listen and see just said a clip and I was a bit like was this the one in Vegas I don't know where it was on it was on like CNBC no that was an old that's an interview from like a year ago yeah yeah an old interview he did it one in Vegas recently and then they were talking about stuff on that so be worth listening to that one I think it should be more up to date right it might have been an old clip that one I think it a 2023 clip from something I think because it kind of contradicts his actions um but yeah sorry I we just on the prominent we've gone off from tangent here from Candy Jets oh yeah that's what we were talking about but I'd I would love to start getting a proper indication of how many like websites accept Bitcoin P like we know we've got who are you expecting to do this anyone in the community just just I mean we can go enough and and try and figure this out but time and everything else and what's our benefit it's more of an interest isn't it really um but we know we've got what we at 3 4,000 Merchants that are have accounts not necessarily have websites that accept Bitcoin pays cuz that that's a slightly different thing that's true um so we've got maybe towards 4,000 Merchants within our customer base then we probably have what did I say was it 250 with Bitcoin on the balance sheet we've got um a lot that might accept Bitcoin but not necessarily have a website where they accept it so they might accept it via like email invoices and things um and then we have the websites as well which I don't know how many websites I have to go back through and count them all again w we and see how many we've got uh there's no comprehensive Source about everyone that's outside of our database for our own customers no we could obviously we can get that Source ourselves but outside of that no it's do we get good feedback on the candy yet stuff yeah incredibly good feedback um yeah positive from the community and also from candid themselves oh really they've been in touch yeah I had an email actually yesterday saying that they had had a lot of Outreach um a lot of inquiries off the back of the announcement and also just a lot of people messaging them Bitcoin is getting private jets now times have changed already they have been for a long time haven't they lot yeah but also just just people reaching out in general um just to basically congratulate them and say that it's it's a good move so yeah they're Keen to uh they're an example Merchant for us that don't have it on the website yeah but you would have to have an email invoice to make the payment for that which is kind of like that's what I'm trying to explain before just to help people understand that and what sort sort of merchant would be accepting Bitcoin but not have it on their website yeah it's so easy to accept Bitcoin whereas going having a Dev set up all the back end for having a checkout if you can buy the products on the website just do a straight through of sending a wallet it's much easier isn't it we've got an accountancy firm that just builds their clients then they're not going to have a website where you go and do it it's just not worth it they'll just email their client with an invoice and click a link and get to pay so that's yeah sounds odd when we say we've got so many thousands of merchants but actually only a small percent them except on the website so that helps clarify yeah thanks cand Jets um yeah so really really great announcement I'm excited to be partnering with them cool right just move on more people using Litecoin on bit pay than Bitcoin yeah seems weird to me i' I've been a while a few times now we've been so you can't cuz you can't pay with Bitcoin an external Bitcoin wallet you have to pay with a bit pay wallet so it's only bit pay users that are paying bit pay so your your um what you call it uh customer based demographic there is now skewed it's not really bitcoiners biased yeah because most bitcoiners will not want to pay that way not bitay wet so it's a bit skewed because they did even have lightning didn't they bit pay and it was a big thing about everyone was it was about a year ago was it and they added lightning but that's absolutely pointless because everything's an internal database change because you got to pay with so I'm not sure how they paid with lightning on do any unchain payments anyway yeah do you think we just announc lightning CU it's all internal let's call this lightning so I'm I'm not entirely sure what happens with that and also if you're holding Bitcoin and lightning I mean and Litecoin you're going to use Litecoin AR for for aggressions law right there there's no on chain so it's like it's this will all be internal database movements I assum for these payments as well so I I don't understand exactly what's happened with this at the minute um I'd need to dig into it more but I also don't know if it's if it's worth the time to figure it out um well people are still using Bitcoin more than twice as much as eth do we like we like bit pay though do we not no no we love what where have you got that from they put lightning on what love that we don't know if they did it at the minute so doing great for the industry oh come on they're better coinbase no are you being sarcastic you weren't around back then B pay were the enemy it was big were big blockers it was big pay that tried to drive the Big Blocks fire because big pay get some intens get it going yeah yeah what want what want not my first pod poke the bear oh so we don't like bitpay no we're a big fan of bit pay oh okay so um bit pay were the big blockers back so that it messed up their business model because Bitcoin transaction fees were increasing and the blocks were one mag they needed cheaper fees for payments so they were for trying to push the big blocker route and trying to get Big Blocks to then help their business model so they were choosing their business model over the over the uh thingy of Bitcoin um success of Bitcoin which then in turn would have killed their business model eventually anyway so it was a stupid thought process of them but they were backed into a corner and had to do it mhm so I love bit pay yeah cool well that was the moving on um Joe oh Joe Biden again he ordered crypto mining operation to shut down because it's less than one mile away from a nuclear base and is backed by Chinese owners and never got proper clearance to set up there is that just a generic ruling about companies near nuclear bases and we've been dragged into that I think it is right yeah I it was a bit of a sweeping one I don't know but I would say headline clickbait great story but I think it's more BBC just trying to force crypto into every news story because they know it gets eyes I think any probably Chinese business operating near a nuclear plant is probably going to get kicked out the headline for that should be unauthorized company can't open their nuclear power plant so I think it's a bit of a silly one yeah I know America have been doing this with a lot of they've because Chinese companies have been buying quite a lot of property near military bases and they've been doing this to a lot of them it's not just mining companies yeah okay so is that I didn't know they've been buying near them that's yeah they've been buying buil um businesses and um properties have they just been buying or is it specifically map of where they are in relation to milary Bases it is quite Str America has a lot of military bases in most towns have one do they not but well so and most towns have most homes so is it what is it correlation causation situation or is it just the fact that the more interesting fact is the amount of property China are buying up any I haven't seen the heat map that's interesting yeah I've seen it in a video I see I if I can find it up yeah that's quite that's intrusive bit of data though isn't it who's put that together a heat map of all military bases and Chinese own property it's very specific isn't it it's weird public I don't know what you've got access to Mikey I'm now slightly supicious of you it would be public information you have to assume wouldn't it yeah but this guy's got yeah show me the public information Mikey I'm starting to think we got CLE or something Wikileaks author right on in our midst land Deeds a public aren they and then I assume they are they are in the UK that side aren't they but then um how public are they are they pretty actually yeah you can see the owner I think in you're not of the land yeah but they all have to be I think now you're making me question this now oh a very weird Rabbit Hole here yeah yeah well Mike is taking it there playing the producer and the military bases are not exactly you can hide them can you just military base in the middle of your town you notice it you safely cing them off yeah but you know they're there do you actually what's that building there's a great example of a building in New York that no one knew was a military building looked like a a normal Tower block but actually when you look at it had no windows or something you must know that one had no window I don't want to go down this it was literally you look at it and you go oh that's just a normal building but it was actually like oh no it's not okay some sort of conduit for a military thing or a government thing should we move on nice on heat maps of Chinese spoken for like three minutes Dave you just you just thought you'd absolutely Dr I've been trying to find a map of the heat map you such public information place I've seen it I'll over I'll find it somewhere okay moving on um El Salvador government says it owns 5,700 50 Bitcoins a a tweet that was how much is that now yeah ex 353 million it says according to Bloomberg um but they're quite Publican there in Shan they've got a website that shows you how much they're buying to them they they wer they I think this is the first time they've said the full figure oh yeah I thought there's a website I thought there is a website Bitcoin treasures. net which no I thought they I saw on Twitter that there's a website for it now just for Salvador oh right okay watch his website to track that so previously they hadn't announced we had a wallet address which we think we had some in but they didn't say whether that was all of it and obviously it wasn't all of it cuz they've got more this is just um me m space's website though is it no go back no they just me yeah they're just pulling in the yeah I think so so they've just pulled in it's defaulted to an address I assume so that's 5,750 Bitcoin there but yeah this I think this is just um M space's website and they've just they've just included 19 hours ago they introduced a pro proof of Reserve node 202 mle dospace this is it they're just effectively like white labeled it and if you scroll up you've got I think they they've like done it so it's their address basically is there yeah and the history and everything and all that is there it's quite cool though isn't it yeah proof of reserve for a nation state I mean if you asked there just there one a day that they do yeah oh yeah One A Day Day still doing one a day that's cool to see yeah they're also mining now did you guys see yeah the volan yeah volcanic energy yeah they've um they said they got like 464 total so far this is only this morning's news this yeah 474 using geothermal volcanic energy which is quite a lot it is I mean already when did it come online accumulated over over three years Holdings the mining was only like last year I think when it kicked off properly since 2021 no that's when few more Bitcoin than we have haven't they they only announced it back then actually no they only announced volcano is like 20 21's Throwing Shade at our heating project that's mining Bitcoin I'm not I'm just I'm just saying facts I missed what I the volcane they've just mined a few more Bitcoin than we have that's all I said the sight inflection in a voice was like purely dismissive like look at your little pile of Bitcoin compared to what poor attemp that minor was in the corner helps Molly it's really cool now we've got um actual like you say uh Pro of reserve for is cool it's good isn't it you asked Japan to do that yeah but that's significant amount as well 350 mil you know bitcoin price Double's trebles Rupal whatever then you you are looking they've got a massive portion which will pay off what's their debt at the minute cuz that was the whole thing wasn't it about paying the debt the IMF Deb was it 500 mil or is it more did they not just recently have to extend that I don't know 1 79.5 mil I think it's more than that I'm sure it's more than that that might be the one of them and then they've got multiple of you but anyway they'll get out from that eventually country to do so pay off using Bitcoin if they wanted to of course they could just continue just paying off drip feeding it back into true actually and not bother you would do that you'd use the Bitcoin to pay off over the next 10 20 years and not then take anything more because you don't need it because you got the Bitcoin to survive take out a load on your Bitcoin which is Bitcoin back L just to play off the AMF good job Next Level next um cool so Ren a Renaissance Tech founded by late Jim Simmons is long Bitcoin oh yes J who's Jim Simmons well yeah was the question cuz this is only come my radar last few weeks I call him Simons say that Simons no a lot of other people call him Simmons sim Simmons is normally D we're not arguing pronounce his name I can pronounce Jim Jim Jimmy but did were you aware of Jim Simon I've never heard of him now I saw something about the chat yeah the CH for so I'm I'm aware of him and I'm not I know a lot more about him recently if his returns were that good they are if they were that good surely everyone should have heard of him he's everyone has heard of him in the traditional Financial world and hedge fund I think not I can't once wewe Molly Works in trfi and she's never heard of him we don't we're not trafi Molly Works f f future f Fi Fi yes um he so yeah he has got so Medallion fund is his one that's been the great return over the last 30 40 years now 35 years or something like that um and it averaged at like uh show the return you show me this I was like what it's crazy the year each year has been like average at like 34% years there was red flags in it cuz you like you could you have to be involved in that fund which is outperforming everything else ever you have to be an employee or something sh yeah that was I think what I shared yeah who you say they have to be an employee so they don't take so originally they started out with external money I think and then but then over time that slowly changed and now you can't invest in the fund the fund is only available to the employees at Medallion or at the renaiss um it's incredible it means they've got like the amount of billions I think it's something like a $50 million per employee average well they hold in the F some nice bonuses very wealthy well it's all it's money money they're all like millionaires at working it so it's just that's just split down their returns just get split down between this is why it's so weird I thought they'd still be salaried and then it would just be the like exacts would get yeah they're salaried but the the money in the fund is input by the staff so you can only they they don't take any external money so it's like say we did one at coin cor and we did a fund and said right you guys all put your money into this so the staff have pulled the funds and okay yeah so they so the billions that they have under management is all the staff which I suppose we're thinking of like typical office staff but it won't be at all it'll be speci scientists of specialism mathematicians I think quite heavily in I don't know these days I I'm talking from like when they first started in the 80s and '90s and going through they were like he's a mathematician they're all he built a team of clever people that were doing it was when like uh data analysis sort of quantitive trading was first becoming a thing um and they kind of they can't that edge anymore look his return dominated during the financial crisis as yeah that's I just it's too close to be real someone need to give me some evidence or say this is all rubbish I just don't believe those returns I have a Google and find out but he's he a very well known he he's outpa buffet and and everything so they're they're mad off they're all burn Burnie flags are they not I just think it's a bit well no because if it's other people's if it's the staff's if it's the company's money and the staff's money thing that's not if it was external money coming in then yeah but otherwise they're only screwing themselves unless they got they employ thousands of people every year in which case put your money in that's what me I don't know how they manage that I see stuff like this and go I don't know what year it was as well cuz I think originally they were taking external investment when they first begun I think but I I don't know what when they move that over to staff and I suppose it's made made our headlines cuz they hold Bitcoin uh it's made headlines because he died last week unfortunately um but then obviously yeah now this week it's come out or today or yesterday whatever it was that they hold a chunk of do you find out what their other Investments are how's it come out that they whole Bitcoin uh because on the ETF islands is it on the S3 whatever it is over there they have they've bought X am yeah X round of Grace scale and black rock okay um but we don't know what else they're involved with cuz it's l you probably will be able to because you'll be able if depending on no it's all I think it's all public and um originally I think they started more in FX and commodities and then I don't know now if it's shares or what I don't know I don't know enough about that detail right I tried to get in it a couple of years ago I do remember apply for a job and they turn you down cuz it cropped up in the Bitcoin World about maybe about two or three years ago I think as well and that's when I this guy can't even convince the Alan government to buy Bitcoin he no good for us yeah he's not going to come work can't add two and two anyway yeah interesting to see they're capped at 15 billion the fund is that what it's capped at yeah so it's worth noting the cagr is theoretical as the fund is capped at around 15 billion right excess returns being returned to investors each year and I assume the investors are the staff in this case as far as I'm yeah as far as there like to actually investing I think they have some Medallion fund not ETFs but like I don't know what they call them like it's tried to clone it in some respects or uh hedge against its value I think in some way I don't know that I did find a few of weird Sals of things um but you can't actually get into it oh so the capping kind of skews the figures a little bit doesn't it potentially this is like we are saying because it's private and it's not there's no investors to report to as such outside of the company they could just say oh yeah we made um like you could say for example they've got a 10 billion assets under management but actually they've only got 10 million actually invested in anything at the time because the rest of it in cash and on that 10 million they've made a 50% return on some random thing so their fund has returned 50% so there there's they have no idea they could be playing them games I imagine if they were playing them games someone would have already pulled them down by the now on this and I've not seen anyone do that so unless you can do that Dave Dave could be the man um I hav got the time or energy really we can tell from the response so I mean he is a got a legend going down in history I think for what what he's achieved um yeah he's got a book he does yeah but he doesn't it's he was involved in in helping write it as such but it wasn't his it was a journalist that did it and WR okay um maybe that might be my have a read of that access point cool okay that's the end of the agenda but we've just got a one day day of this week the the way you printed out that still really works all that black ink cost money you know I could have printed in color but I chose not to I chose to be eco-friendly and printed black and white the pr is Tony by the way Dave well I'm not surprised you look at that CH now I know what you're doing I know what you're doing there office manager Dave come on right sort out okay question for the Pod um I'm seeing this from Gemini users do you think they're trying to implement this to Li with current or future regulations do coin cor have any plans to do this also so he sent a screenshot of um an email from Gemini and it's basic saying a review of your recent account activity showed regular deposits of Fiat and one way trading patterns where you deposit funds uh can you please explain the following and then it's asked a couple of questions so yes do we think they're trying to implement this to comply with current or future regulations none of us can see what this email says can we so we don't just read it I just read out the main point but I wasn't listening well that's a you problem isn't it no I was listening but I know I know sounds like your basic AML question isn't it yeah de da anyway I'm I'm it should well it's should basically AML question they that person's probably hit some thresholds and has triggered some questions that Gem and I have to ask I mean it's same with us say does have con any plans to do this also I think we already do it don't we you have to Y I've I've hit checks before I work here it's an it' be potentially an adop so for example this one someone puts on Twitter everyone jumps on it abuses them and it's unfortunately it's regulations in some respects but you don't know what that regulation is in that there's not a regulation that says when you have withdrawn five times from your exchange The Exchange has to ask you something they don't do it like that that's not they to do an ongoing monitoring it's ongoing monitoring under the company's policy and the company as long as the company's comfortable with you being a customer in operating the way you are then they probably wouldn't ask questions if they think okay you've done x amount and we're not sure what you're doing then they're asking the questions to understand what you're doing and making sure you're not doing anything illegal um so that's theoretically all they're doing it could be maybe worded slightly nicer it could be um you know if a customer vs is is sending in every month or every week whatever that says and buy in Bitcoin and withd drawing the Bitcoin to the C Storage then that's a great customer for us that we we that an ideal customer in some respect there um so we wouldn't really question too much probably on that uh in that respect um if that patter changes though if the patterns change and things like yeah people get flagged up but they for example Gemini may not know that they with draw into Cold Storage so they may be asking um is this going to Cold Storage you just have to respond yes it's going to C Storage and then Gemini might be then comfortable with that yeah so it's on Gemini and it's on the company internal policies um more some of them aren't that Neer could be like you are trying to protect the customer in a way and it's hard to do that it's hard to do that without being too intrusive we did this in the last couple of weeks last about was it the last episode we talked about um why for some reason we wouldn't send it was when Kracken we stopping some deposits or something like that same yeah so it is it's to protect customers from like even romance scams and stuff like that some of them are um but yeah I don't know about Gemini I can't speak for Gemini cuz we don't know what's going on there great question though yeah always happy to answer these questions M clarify do we have any others just just the one the we this week okay sound right anything else cool no and can we anything happen at coin Corner getting excited for Bitcoin Pizza day next week is that next week yeah 22nd isn't it you sure is next Wednesday week today week today to get on the Pod I know because I know I know you like it as your but it might be your favorite Bitcoin day I yesterday that it says Pizza Club on it that's how excited I which is fine we fine who might to people wearing enjoy that and do that and two of my favorite things together in a day in in a great t-shirt can't wait to see it you obviously wear it for the pods over if we and we record the Pod next Wednesday that's the thing yeah should be should be yeah oh if we do it on pizza today we could get I can order one for you in time if you you okay um yeah sa size I've just never been a mega fan of the pizza day I don't know why in terms of's your faite favorite day in Bitcoin I don't think I have one you know the today is my favorite day in Bitcoin it's a it's a journey you know we're carving out the future it's a piece of History to Pizza isn't it yeah I get it put some respect on laslo's name yeah I I just think Mark have to cling on to these things you order to push some it out as in content right they do they do that's unfortunately that's the way that that even media have to do it cling on to these things and the reality is it's about the future not about the past you see me again excited about Bitcoin white paper day that much like that's that's great no it isn't because it doesn't have the appeal pizzas do there's more of a hook that much is obvious if any wants to listen to this I'm anyway praise anyway let's all enjoy it see you next week to yep all right Cheerio see guys see [Music] you how can you [ __ ] on bitcoin Pizza day just did best day