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Jan. 25, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

55:52

Bitcoin Update!

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	Good afternoon, everybody.
	Just a little shorty, chitty chat.
	It is the 25th of January 2024, and it's an AMA, AMA-MA, AMA to Bitcoin questions, crypto questions.
	Just the usual caveats, my friend.
	I'm a rank amateur fool in this space.
	It's all opinion and Not financial advice.
	Don't buy or sell anything based upon my demented ramblings.
	These are all just thoughts for entertainment purposes only.
	Good evening from Sweden. Hey, stop taking my evening.
	It's not here yet. Swedish berry buggers.
	All right. So, hello, hello.
	Just toss in your questions, toss in your comments, and let's get into it.
	So... Of course, one of the big questions which people have, which I don't have an answer to, but I'll give you my thoughts.
	So, thank you for the tips.
	Of course, tips more than welcome if I've helped you out over the years.
	Tips more than welcome, freedomain.com slash donate if you'd like to help out the show.
	As a whole, freedomain.locals.com, the premier philosophical community destination on the planet.
	All right. Hit me with a Y if you've been a little surprised.
	Burdened and burned by the fact that Bitcoin hasn't gone to a zillion.
	Come on, man! The halving is less than 100 days away.
	ETFs have been approved.
	Money should be flowing in.
	And it's just BAH!
	Yes, that's true. That's true.
	That is a 2006er, 18 years ago.
	Introduction to philosophy. It's really remarkable how little has changed and how much we have grown.
	So, yeah, you're...
	Okay, so wherever you go to look at the price of Bitcoin, I'm going to give you some mental...
	I'm going to give you some mental tricks and tips here.
	I'm going to give you some mental tips and tricks here.
	So, this is all in Canadian because that happens to be the...
	Fiat, I'm familiar with.
	So, if you are a...
	You hold some Bitcoin or some scraps of Bitcoin or whatever, right?
	So, if Bitcoin...
	It's all around expectations before you hit that fatal F5. The refresh, the refresh, right?
	So, what I do...
	Let's say that Bitcoin is trending down.
	Yesterday, it was... Yesterday it was 54, right?
	And then you go to bed, maybe you wake up, and you check the price of Bitcoin.
	Now, if you sit there and you say, I really hope it's gone back up, and then it's 53 instead of 54, oh, it feels bad, right?
	My particular thing is, well, it's going down.
	If it's 55 the night before, it's probably going to be 52 the next morning.
	Oh, it's 53! That's good!
	Right? So it's all about...
	For me, you know, I can't tell you what to do, but it's all about setting your expectations.
	If your expectations is that it's always going to be going up or it's going to bounce the moment it goes down, then you're just going to be in a situation of frustration, bafflement, bewitchment, and be-botherment.
	So my particular thought is, oh, if it's going down, I bet you it's gone down a lot overnight.
	Oh, it didn't go down so much overnight.
	That's a good and big plus.
	Mindset, mindset, mindset is just about everything.
	So I just wanted to point that we smidge out.
	Just wanted to point that we smidge out.
	That if you condition yourself...
	Now the other thing too, of course, is that if you are upset...
	If you are upset about...
	The price of Bitcoin, because it's gone down a little bit, might I suggest, wherever you go, like most places you go, there's like one day, five days, year to date, last quarter, last six months, last whatever, whatever, right?
	So, if you, oh my gosh, it's gone down $1,000, and you go, oh, left ventricle has been removed from your heart.
	Well, that's not the way to look at it.
	If you're upset about the price of Bitcoin...
	Zoom out. Two words, not F-U. Zoom out.
	Just zoom out.
	If you're upset about the Bitcoin price over the last week, zoom out six months.
	Heck, zoom out a year.
	Go to the winter, the great Bitcoin winter of 2022.
	Heck, go to 2015.
	I mean, just zoom out.
	You'll feel better.
	You'll feel better. To me, at least, investing is not in the day-to-day, up-or-down stuff.
	It's kind of crazy. It's just kind of crazy.
	Well, what do you guys think? How do you deal with price volatility?
	Somebody was saying Domino's Pizza went down 31% overnight.
	Boy, that's a crust that just refused to rise.
	SPF FTX? Bankman Fried.
	Fried the bank. Yes, still causing us headaches.
	Yes, I get all of that and we'll get to that in a sec.
	But... Let's see here.
	I just want to get to your comments.
	You just dollar-cost average?
	Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
	Let's see here.
	Ah, so, Lemminglord says, you mentioned in a recent Bitcoin stream that the long term for Bitcoin is as a B2B tool.
	I'm active in the Bitcoin software development world and I disagree.
	In short, we're building tools to scale self-custody and make Bitcoin usable as a day-to-day currency for everyone.
	Well, isn't that special for you?
	No, that's great. Listen, I mean, you obviously know a lot more about what's going on close to the metal than I do.
	But I'm not sure why this would be this false dichotomy, right?
	So I think its greatest value in the short to medium run is as a business-to-business tool where you don't require instant settlements.
	And so, if you're building scales to make Bitcoin usable as a day-to-day currency for everyone, I think that's fantastic.
	I think that's just wonderful.
	I think that's just great. I don't personally understand how that's possible, given that you have to have all of the disparate pieces of data update, but I'm certainly happy.
	I understand that there's the sort of hold-my-tab-bartender approach from the Lightning Network and so on, but it doesn't mean...
	Somebody says, I want my house in Costa Rica already.
	Right. Right.
	Bora Bora would do too.
	Right. The Bitcoin return is still lower than philosophy's return on investment.
	Well, that's true. If I'm not looking to sell right away, I don't want it to go up.
	Yeah. Boy, that's quite the...
	Shout out to all of us who survived the last years of bear market.
	Yeah. My expectation, says Edward, is Bitcoin is going to the moon so I can buy a Lambo to then be told that material goods are no substitute for the joy and happiness that the pursuit and spreading of virtue can bring.
	Thank you for the tip.
	I appreciate that, Mr.
	J. Mr.
	J. 20-30% pullbacks are normal in a secular bull market.
	Nothing will top that December 2015 from 20k to 1k.
	That's right. That's right.
	The price is being ripped off to you to the point where you're screaming Kelly Clarkson while they're getting a chest wax job.
	If you know, you know. Yeah, the recent price drop looks non-existent when you zoom out.
	Yeah, that's right. That's right.
	That is correct.
	FreeDomain.com slash donate.
	All right. So let's...
	Let's get some theories going here.
	So, of course, it is in general, as you know, by the rumors, sell the news.
	What that means is there's rumors that there's going to be a...
	There's rumors that there's going to be the ETF's approval from the SEC, so you buy in anticipation of that rumor.
	When the rumor is translated into fact, you sell.
	So remember, there are people, and nothing wrong, right?
	My very first, I think it was my very first podcast was about speculators versus investors.
	Speculators versus investors.
	So investors are people who deeply understand the space, understand the purpose of the company, probably know some of the board members, know their history, know the market, know the customers, and that's very few people.
	That's very few people in the stock market.
	Most people in the stock market are buying and selling based on weird Excel spreadsheets.
	Like I remember when I worked at a trading company, I worked as a programmer for buying and selling stocks for about a year.
	And I remember going out onto the floor sometimes, talking to people and...
	One guy had, you know, three screens back when that was a big deal and was telling me how he turned Excel.
	It's like a neural network.
	It's like, no, it's not. I'm a programmer.
	Excel is a neural network.
	But there's just a bunch of rumors.
	I'm sure that for some people there's probably some levels of inside information.
	There are general trends.
	There are people pushing stocks claiming that they know which way the price is going to go when they're trying to maneuver which way the price is going to go.
	There's a whole bunch of people in the stock market who don't really understand the fundamentals of what they're investing in.
	Now I would argue that most people who are in the stock market, even the professionals,
	don't understand the fundamentals of what they're investing in.
	They just hear it's a good tip, they hear it's a hot property, they see the numbers,
	they look at a bunch of candles and they say basis points rather than percentage points
	and they just buy and sell.
	And sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, but they are speculators, not investors.
	So when I first started, co-founded a software company, we had not speculators, we had investors.
	So I had to sit down with people, get them to write their checks so that we could start the business in the way that we wanted, right?
	The Wall Street is something like 5% investors and 95% bots, speculators, retirement managers, right?
	That's your theory or your idea or your guess, right?
	Maybe it's true. Maybe it's true.
	So... Most people are speculating and so they don't understand the core fundamentals of Bitcoin.
	They don't understand its moral purpose.
	The moral purpose of Bitcoin is to decentralize the production of currency.
	Human beings cannot handle power.
	That's the fundamental business case of Bitcoin.
	Human beings cannot handle power and there's almost no power that is greater than the control of currency.
	And the associated control of interest rates.
	And the reason that it's so powerful is because it's largely invisible to the Majority of the population.
	If you've got a bunch of jackbooted thugs going up and down the street, arresting every third member of every third household, that's pretty obvious.
	That's all over the place, right? But if prices are just kind of going up and then there's a recession and you've got all of these people who were talking about the Fed this and the economic cycle that and so on, the problem is that the power that has the greatest profitability but the least visibility is the worst power of all outside of like direct gun to the head, turn and face the wall force.
	So, Satoshi Nakamoto's fundamental brilliance is to say that We need to turn...
	Let me give you an analogy here.
	So in the past, there were wizards and warlocks and witch doctors and so on, and what they did was they said, I can control the physics of our environment, right?
	I can ward off famine, I can ward off disease, I can bring the rains, I can prevent earthquakes, give me money, and I can control the physics of the universe, right?
	You pray. You pray and the laws of physics will be violated and you get what you are asking for and what you are praying for.
	So, a thought, opinion, perspective, need, greed, all of that defines and determines and controls the natural properties and energies of material reality.
	Now, When you have the illusion of control, you avoid actual control.
	So as long as we believed that subjugation to witch doctors and the sacrificing of children and chickens controlled the natural world, we couldn't have science.
	We couldn't have science.
	Because the scientist and the witch doctor are mortal enemies.
	Because when the scientist comes along and says there are natural physical laws that can't be violated, he's directly stepping on and destroying the entire business model of the pathological lying sophist known as the witch doctor.
	So the witch doctor says he's an unbeliever, he's a heretic, he's an infidel, he's got to be killed so that the witch doctor continued to rake in his money by promising to violate the laws of physics which the scientist says can't be violated by the nature of reality.
	When we move from subjective imaginary control to objective observable facts When we are no longer active participants in a system, but rather recognize that we are passive observers of it, and the only way the system can really be controlled is to take out human interference, then we mature.
	We grow up, right? So we go from magical thinking to thinking, right?
	Magical thinking is just psychosis, is fantasy, right?
	and curing mankind of the psychosis of the delusion that power doesn't corrupt
	is one of the fundamental tasks of philosophy.
	So Bitcoin takes currency, the most foundational building block of human survival,
	Bitcoin takes currency out of the hands of witch doctors and puts it into the observable and objective nature of
	reality.
	Can't be controlled, can't be managed, can't be lied about, can't be falsified, can't be printed, can't be manufactured at will and at whim.
	And so it is the biggest events in sort of human history.
	Now, as international tensions rise around the world, as they absolutely are doing at the moment, and as the U.S. begins to see its status as a reserve currency come under increasingly skeptical, well, a whole bunch of increasingly skeptical question marks, then the business case or the use case for Bitcoin goes up enormously.
	So if you want to...
	Buy something from Japan, like you live in America, you want to buy something from Japan, well, you need to find somebody who's going to exchange your dollars for yen so you can buy things in Japan, and sort of vice versa. Right now, so most people have been willing to trade in U.S. currency, but that's the U.S. debt.
	What is it, a trillion dollars a year of deficits?
	It's completely mad, right?
	So you are going to need an international medium of exchange that's not going to be, in the long run, that is not going to be the US dollar.
	And as international tensions rise, and of course, as we know, in the war in Ukraine, I mean, there's a number of things that have happened that have had people really sort of skitter back from fiat currency.
	Of course, de-platforming is a big deal, right?
	De-platforming is a big deal because de-platforming is...
	It's not exactly specifically and directly related to fiat currency, but when de-platforming starts to affect...
	The actual access to the economic system, then the business case for Bitcoin goes up and up and up.
	And of course, a blockchain-based social media platform can't really de-platform, right?
	So, I mean, the two big things, of course, is the attack upon property rights that came out of the Ukraine war.
	Whatever you think of the morals or the ethics, like the economic...
	Consequences are huge, that there is concern that assets can be seized kind of at will.
	And that's not good.
	The second, of course, which has just been rendered unconstitutional by the Canadian Supreme Court, is the shutting down of bank accounts of protesters in Ottawa a couple of years ago.
	So international tensions arising and concerns are there that governments are getting even more interventionist.
	So people are going to look for a way to exchange international values or values in an international context without necessarily relying on the U.S. dollar.
	Because the US debt overhang at this point is becoming obvious even to the economically semi-literate that payment is really not an option.
	Repayment is really not an option.
	So what's going to happen? Inflation or war or something like that, right?
	So... What are the triggers that could drive up the price of Bitcoin?
	Well, of course, the halving of the Bitcoin production rate in April of 2024, increased inflows to Bitcoin ETFs.
	And remember, I said there was going to be a delay.
	I did say that there was going to be a delay as the marketing begins to sort of crank up.
	So it's going to take a while. And we'll get into one of the things that's happened that's pretty wild about that in a second here.
	But... So here's a quote from an article.
	When Russia invaded Ukraine, its assets are frozen in political interest and now working to confiscate the assets and use them against Russia.
	The whole world is noticing this and nation-states all over the world are now looking for seizure-resistant assets like gold, which they hold within their own borders.
	So... So what happens if an exporter only accepts one, but you have only dollars?
	By definition, you cannot simply exchange the dollars to one because the entities that are willing to trust dollars, which at the end of the day are claims on U.S. banks in the U.S., would not be willing to trust one in a scenario where international trust breaks down.
	Of course, Bitcoin is a digital bearer asset with intrinsic value, meaning that the value resides within the Bitcoin itself, not as a claim on any counterparty.
	Bitcoin is not controlled by any states or centralized constellations of power.
	Bitcoin is also traded all over the world against every currency and can be stored and transferred digitally at almost no cost.
	In other words, you could easily take your dollars, buy Bitcoin, send the Bitcoin to the receiver, who could then buy one?
	That would be a B2B scenario for the most part, right?
	Business to business. That way you would be able to cross a geographical trust border and have efficient and final settlement any time of the day, any day of the week, any week of the year.
	This is the article Ryder says, for decades the US dollar has served as the world's reserve currency, but I believe those days are numbered.
	I believe the main reason is the growing fear of the US leveraging its currency as a weapon censoring those that they disagree with.
	In addition, the massive U.S. debt does not help the position of the dollar.
	The U.S. has a debt of more than $34 trillion, a deficit of $2 trillion, and exploding interest payments at $1 trillion a year.
	I remembered it was $1 trillion, but it's the interest payments, not the deficit.
	This is not sustainable. There is no way the debt will be settled in dollars with today's purchasing power.
	So what's interesting, in 1971, Nixon left the gold standard, and when he did that, Charles de Gaulle sent ships to pick up the gold the U.S. owed to France.
	Isn't that wild? So, that is important.
	I'll get a couple of other facts out here that I think are really important as well.
	So, Bitwise, a prominent firm in cryptocurrency asset management, has become the first U.S. Spark Bitcoin ETF to openly reveal its Bitcoin address holdings, setting a new standard in the industry.
	The quote is, BITB's holdings and flows can now be independently verified on the blockchain.
	Being transparent on-chain is fundamental to Bitcoin's principle.
	BITB takes pride in embodying this with its actions.
	Well, that gave me literal goosebumps at my arms when I read that.
	You understand that with all of this, fraud, Ponzi schemes, all of this kind of crap...
	Ceases to be a possibility, right?
	You can't do all of the stuff that has been done on a regular basis to investors.
	You just can't do it anymore, where you have a Ponzi scheme and lie about the assets and maneuver the assets.
	They're like, you have them or you don't.
	You have them or you don't.
	With an aim to cater to the increasing calls for transparency and responsibility in the sector, Bitwise is enabling both investors and the general public to access the Bitcoin address linked to its ETF holdings in real time.
	This move ceases to enhance trust and transparency, addressing the issues of verifying the ETF's assets backing and allocation.
	My gosh. For how many years has Ron Paul and others been crying out, we need to audit the Fed?
	Audit the Fed. I mean, who knows how much gold is in the vaults of entities that claim to have that gold, particularly government entities.
	Bitwise added, revealing on-chain addresses marks an initial step towards enhancing public transparency.
	As the infrastructure develops, we plan to expand our efforts, like collaborating with entities such as whose key app for instantaneous cryptographic verifications.
	Wow. What is it worth investors that they can actually independently verify in real time the assets of the fund?
	What does it mean? I mean, there's been no audit of the Fed.
	Can't really seem to get any auditing of military around the world.
	So, what is it worth to investors to be able to actually verify?
	To actually verify what is there, right?
	Nick Carter, a great Bitcoin guy, wrote, Imagine trying to explain to a boomy that you can mathematically prove the existence of every penny's worth of Bitcoin ETF. Meanwhile, the gold behind their ETPs sits in unaudited vaults.
	Unaudited vaults.
	Adam Back, a long-time Bitcoin developer, wrote, don't blame the ETFs.
	Nine new ETFs are BTFD, huge price support, $4.4 billion in eight days, $550 million a day.
	That's like 30 times the effect of halving, literal wall of buying.
	If anything, it's Bitcoin, weak hands, underbuying.
	Those ETF buyers are low velocity, fairly cold.
	like whale, bye, and hodl.
	Bruce Fenton, decades in Wall Street and Bitcoin advocate from the beginning,
	he's aware of the moral mission.
	Bruce Fenton writes, You ain't seen sales until you have seen institutional and retail sales by Wall Street companies.
	Believe me on this one. BlackRock and Fidelity and others will be selling this to thousands of financial advisors who have many thousands of customers.
	BlackRock is holding a webinar tomorrow about Bitcoin for financial advisors, calling the ETF approvals a pivotal moment for investors, right?
	So the transfer of knowledge to financial advisors is underway, and it's going to be huge.
	Huge. BlackRock now holds 45,688 bitcoins worth of $1.8 billion for their spot bitcoin ETF. The US government is filing notice to sell $130 million worth of bitcoin seized from Silk Road.
	Quite interesting.
	A local member, Jeff, made a great post about the ETF. He said...
	Came across this article regarding Grayscale, which I think is a helpful explainer on their recent trading activity, moved 52,000 Bitcoins to Coinbase, and also why the price of Bitcoin went down after the ETF approval.
	All right, let me just...
	Yes, I can.
	There we go. So let me just get to the article.
	We'll do a little bit on that.
	This is from CryptoNewsland.com.
	The cryptocurrency market is witnessing a significant development with Grayscale, one of the largest Bitcoin holders, engaging in a notable sell-off of Bitcoin.
	This move has raised questions among investors and market analysts about the reasons behind it and its potential
	impact on the Bitcoin market prior to the approval of spot exchange traded funds
	grayscales Bitcoin trust would redeem its shares by providing investors with the
	USD value without actually selling the underlying Bitcoin this practice contributed to grayscale becoming a massive
	holder of Bitcoin rivaling even Satoshi Nakamoto the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin
	However, the landscape has shifted to the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs investors are now withdrawing their money
	from GBTC influenced by two primary factors Firstly, Grayscale charges a 1.5 yearly management fee, significantly higher than the fees charged by other ETF issuers, which are typically five to six times lower.
	Secondly, many investors who previously bought GBTC shares at a 40% discount are seizing the opportunity to exit their position now that the discount has narrowed to 0%.
	In response to these investor withdrawals, GBTC is compelled to sell Bitcoin to repay its investors, leading to the current sell-off.
	This situation poses the question, when will this selling pressure stop?
	The process could take a few weeks during which time the Bitcoin price might experience sideways movement or even a decline.
	As the situation settles, it is expected that investors will reallocate their funds from GBTC to other ETFs that offer lower management fees.
	This transition period is critical for the Bitcoin market as it could lead to temporary fluctuations in Bitcoin's price.
	The key takeaway for Bitcoin investors during this period is the importance of patience and a long-term perspective.
	The current sell-off and market dynamics are part of a broader shift in the cryptocurrency investment landscape.
	As the market adjusts to these changes, those with a long-term view of Bitcoin may be better positioned to navigate through this transitional phase.
	So, I mean, I don't want to boil down their thoughts.
	Their thoughts are their own.
	But when you get ETFs, you get a bunch of people who are getting into Bitcoin for the first time.
	They're going to be buying and selling not based on a moral mission, not based on the end of war or the liberation of mankind from the boot on the neck of fiat currency.
	They are simply running the numbers.
	It goes up. Maybe you'll sell a little.
	It goes down. You might dollar cost average, but they're not in there for the moral mission.
	And of course, at some point, you know, if people say Bitcoin has value, they might be introduced to it through an ETF. And then they're going to be saying, well, why am I paying management fees for an asset I can hold for my own for free?
	I can hold on my own for free.
	As more and more people begin...
	To understand what Bitcoin's all about.
	They'll say, why am I paying a percentage and a half a year for people to hold my keys when I can hold my keys myself for free?
	So they're going to come in, buy up a little, and then at some point as they get better educated, they're going to exit.
	This could also be the case, of course, for financial advisors, right?
	Financial advisors might be like, well, hang on, if I can just make a bunch of money by...
	Or at least maintain the value of my money by having and holding Bitcoin.
	Shouldn't I just do that rather than be a financial advisor?
	Who knows? Who knows, right?
	But it is a pretty wild thing.
	Steph, when you were a businessman, did you notice a lot of women in the workforce not pulling their weights?
	Off topic, I've noticed a lot lately and it's annoying.
	I mean, well, I mean, the women with kids, you could see them, like 4.59 and 5, and they're out of there because they've got to go and get their kids from daycare.
	So the women with kids, they left.
	Yeah, they left. So what's the option?
	The women work as hard as men, and then we don't have the next generation, or the next generation is completely messed up because they don't have moms around.
	So that's just the reality, right?
	All right, let me just get your comments.
	I always consider Bitcoin better than the current gold standard of audited financial statements, right?
	BlackRock didn't go through all of this to not push Bitcoin in the millions.
	The more Bitcoin is worth, the more they make.
	Yes, yes.
	But the more the Bitcoin, the faster the Bitcoin goes up, the less you need BlackRock as your management company or any management company for that instance, right?
	Once you get into the whole idea or argument behind it.
	Of course, with Bitcoin as well, the fascinating thing is there's really no or not much insider information.
	So insider information generally has to do with government regulations, which is why there are a lot of politicians with suspiciously large asset classes, even though they don't make that much money relative to those asset classes.
	I think everybody knows who I'm talking about here.
	Actually, everybody has their favorite magical investor.
	So because...
	Government regulation affects the value of businesses enormously, then there's a lot of inside information when there's upcoming government legislation.
	There's a lot of inside information just knowing what the Fed rates are going to be, knowing what the money printing is going to be ahead of time.
	There's a lot of insider information that doesn't really exist when it comes to Bitcoin.
	So, it's pretty bad.
	It's pretty bad.
	Somebody says, the most exciting thing for ETFs is when they get options trading.
	You can get yield via selling covered calls and puts and leverage if one wanted, plus better future price guessing via looking at where people are putting their money on those options contracts.
	I think that's a good way to put it.
	That's a good way. It's a good way to put it.
	What was the last thing?
	I mean, yeah, so, I mean, in general, if there's a core...
	Value to the asset, my particular opinion, just an opinion, if there's a core value to the asset, then the money flows from those who don't understand the core value to the asset to those who do understand the core value of the asset.
	In general. In general.
	The money flows from those who deeply understand the positive business plan as opposed to those who are just buying and selling based on candles and numbers and guesswork and rumors and all of that, right?
	And I don't think, personally, I don't think there's ever been A bigger change in the human economy since the end of slavery.
	The end of slavery was the birth of the modern world.
	Slavery was a government program, right?
	Slavery was a government program.
	Governments enforced the laws around slavery and government forced people to become slave catchers which
	they didn't want to do and particularly the poor hated slavery.
	I mean morally it should be hated no matter what but the poor hated slavery in
	particular because it drove down the price of wages.
	So you had a government program called slavery that was foundational to the economy and prevented any
	sustainable forward progress in the economy because
	when you pay for labor that then becomes quote free there's no point investing in
	labor-saving devices.
	Why? Why?
	So you had a government program That vastly impeded any sustainable progress.
	And there were other government programs like serfdom and so on, but the government program called slavery was the biggest interference in the forward progress of the economy of human beings.
	And when slavery ended, the modern world foundationally began and labor-saving devices, which really are the foundation of profit and productivity and economic growth, became the norm.
	When labor was expensive, saving money with regards to labor-saving devices became economically productive.
	So, why am I saying all of this?
	There was a government program called slavery that kept the progress of humanity stalled for tens of thousands of years.
	Now, I'm going to say that the same analogy holds true, that there is a government program called fiat that does the same thing.
	So the ending the government program called slavery moved labor into the free market.
	And Bitcoin is moving currency into the free market and away from a government program.
	So Bitcoin is doing to currency what slavery did to labor.
	To move it into the free market and to create and herald forward an unprecedented age of human creativity, invention and economic progress.
	I mean, there's a lot of fighting about it.
	A lot of fighting about it.
	I get all of that. But that's the moral mission, isn't it?
	Yeah, it's still crazy early.
	I mean, the asset is 15, 16 years old, something like that.
	It's the fastest growing asset in human history.
	Now, at some point, of course...
	The boomers are going to end up realizing that the bribery they're getting for their own prior real estate assets is going to come crashing down.
	Boomers bought property and then the government prints a bunch of money and then there's a lot of immigration and the value of their real estate continues to go up.
	So this sort of stimulation of demand for real estate along with restriction of supply with it's difficult to build new real estate has basically bribed the boomers with the loss of their income through inflation.
	They have been bribed with an increase in the value of their real estate holdings.
	That obviously can't go on forever for a wide variety of reasons.
	So when that ceases to be an effective bribe, then people will start looking for a place to protect their assets.
	Because right now the boomers feel, well, my assets are protected.
	How? How are my assets protected?
	My assets are protected because they keep going up in value.
	So, when the assets stop going up in value forever and ever, amen.
	In other words, when their assets...
	The increase in the value of their assets...
	No longer keeps up with inflation.
	Then they start to lose money.
	Then they're all going to start looking for a safe haven.
	And that safe haven used to be gold, but now there's an option, right?
	That safe haven used to be gold.
	Now there's another option.
	And so what we're doing is educating people about where the lifeboats are.
	People don't even think that the ship is tilting yet, but we're educating people out.
	And if you've ever been on a cruise, they do this whole thing where they tell you, here are the lifeboats, and here's what's going to happen, and here's the sound, and we've got to practice.
	So what's happening right now is people are just being educated where the lifeboats are.
	That's all. And that's not going to translate into a massive price increase, if that makes sense.
	At least for my opinion.
	But, of course, in the long run, the business case...
	Well, the business case gets stronger and stronger every day, right?
	The business case keeps getting stronger and stronger every day.
	Alright, let me just check here.
	I think that was most of what I wanted to get across.
	a little bit of a lot we go you're home mining stuff interesting
	Interesting. Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust has significantly reduced its Bitcoin holdings, decreasing from 552,681.22 Bitcoins on Tuesday to 536,694.93 Bitcoin by Wednesday, January 24th as of yesterday, marking an outflow of almost 16,000 Bitcoins worth over 635 million in a single day.
	Since January 12th, the fund has seen a total reduction of 80,385 bitcoins, valued at $3.19 billion.
	This change positions GBTC as the leader in trading volume among 10-spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, with a substantial $762 million recorded on Tuesday.
	So, a lot of numbers, but of course, when people have Bitcoins and want to withdraw Bitcoins, as I said in the past, they could just sell, or they could just use money and give them money.
	Now they have to give them Bitcoins sometimes.
	It's a little different. The SEC has pushed its decision on BlackRock's spot Ethereum ETFs.
	ETH ETF to march with Chair Gary Gensler saying on Wednesday not to read too much into the agency's approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF earlier this month.
	Oh my gosh!
	All right. Sorry, let me just check here.
	I've got one other thing to chat about, but I just wanted to...
	When Molyneux Saylor interview, I like him, of course, but I don't think that we would have much of particular value to talk about.
	Although he's great. He's great.
	All right. I heard the argument that Bitcoin is too slow to use daily usage.
	What is the expectation of Bitcoin as usage?
	I have it as an investment that cannot be manipulated.
	I am a new listener. Yes, there can be significant delays in Bitcoin in terms of like buyer coffee stuff.
	But again, the majority of the economy is B2B, which doesn't need fast settlement.
	So even if it's just all international stuff, right?
	So buying the coffee stuff is a fairly small part of the economy as a whole.
	So... And compared to what, right?
	Compared to what? Oh, Bitcoin's slow to use.
	Yes, but it isn't a bunch of termites eating the foundation of your economic health through inflation.
	If your package is delayed, it's better than it being delivered as something that blows up half your ass.
	So I'll take a delay in the package over something that destroys the value of my property through inflation.
	I'm good with that. Take it slow, baby.
	Take it slow. All right.
	So, let me just get any last comments and then I'll get to this.
	Yes. Okay. So, we did a survey, which I can talk about a little, little, little bit here.
	So, we did a survey to just, you know, see what people liked and what they didn't like about the show and so on, right?
	Interesting stuff. This is AI in the style of Stefan Molyneux.
	Ladies and gentlemen, it is my utmost pleasure to present to you the results of our recent survey.
	I, Stefan Molyneux, your humble servant in the pursuit of truth and knowledge, will guide you through these fascinating insights.
	First, let us address the question of audio versus video content.
	I mean, it's true that I have a fairly pleasant voice, but the giant ostrich egg of truth is something truly hypnotic.
	The giant thumb of reality processing is something that has to be seen to be believed.
	It seems that the majority of our audience, a whopping 61%, prefers to consume our content in audio form.
	Audio form.
	You think I'm ugly.
	This is testament to the power of the spoken word and the human voice.
	Yes, yes, yes. For those who enjoy audio content, 48% of you listen on a particular platform, while 25% use a podcast feed with a podcast player app.
	As for our video fans, a significant 53% of you watch our content on freedomand.locals.com.
	Really? My gosh.
	You don't use a podcast app?
	You don't use a feed?
	What? What are you talking about?
	You don't use a feed? I don't care about the preferring audio.
	That's totally fine as well.
	I mean, but...
	I mean, you don't use a feed app?
	That's wild to me. That's wild to me.
	Because, of course, a feed app, you just get the feed.
	It downloads them for you.
	It organizes them for you.
	It stores where you've listened to.
	You can time it out if you're listening to it at night to go to sleep.
	It's all right. I do it too.
	But, yeah, I mean, I just can't recommend.
	Just get a podcast player app.
	They're totally free. Just get a podcast player app.
	Just go to Google or go to iOS at the store and just the podcast player.
	They're all built into the operating system and so on.
	So, like, heaven's sakes.
	Just get an app.
	I mean, if you're just an audio person, just download a few.
	You can listen to it offline and all kinds of cool stuff.
	So, yeah, that would be my suggestion.
	So, the loyalty of our audience.
	Loyalty Test 101.
	An astonishing 96% of you have been with us for two years or more.
	Because all of that outreach that's happening these days, right?
	This level of dedication warms my heart and fuels my passion for sharing knowledge and wisdom with the world.
	Beautiful. As for how our audience found the show, the spread is quite diverse.
	14% of you discovered us through platform algorithms on sites like Locals, Rumble, Gab, etc.
	Another 14% found us through friends, family, or acquaintances.
	Ah, word of mouth.
	Beautiful. A small but intriguing 4% of our viewers initially discovered the show after seeing it attacked or insulted?
	And were curious to see what it was all about?
	Wait, we've been attacked or insulted?
	I should go look that up if I ever want to lose my eyebrows.
	We are, of course, and I am in particular, immensely grateful to our dedicated fans with 68% of you being paid subscribers.
	Of those paid subscribers, 27% have been supporting us for five or more years.
	Your unwavering support has been instrumental in our journey to spreading truth, knowledge, wisdom, and virtue around the world.
	Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.
	Thank you. When it comes to the content that earned your paid subscription, apparently less me is more value.
	Less me is more value.
	I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that.
	So, what do you guys think was the most popular format of the show?
	What? No, there's no premium feed.
	What is the most popular kind of show?
	Just out of curiosity.
	What do you think is the most popular format of shows?
	You guys are slow as the slowest typists in the known universe, but I appreciate you being here.
	.
	Steph, please come back to YouTube!
	Pretty sure I'm still banned.
	Pretty sure I'm still banned.
	Live streams? No, because the live streams are more me.
	But no, it's the call-ins where it's usually less than half me because I'm usually doing more listening than talking.
	But the call-ins are the most popular show.
	So the call-ins are the most popular.
	34% presentations and truth abouts are 27% of the votes.
	Let's see here.
	Premium content and features available to our audience.
	55% of you are aware of the premium content search engine, while 73% know about our private live stream access.
	Yes, that's right.
	Private live stream access.
	So I do donor-only shows where we shake it to spice till it makes our nose cry.
	So, just wanted to mention that.
	There is a lot of great stuff that is up there.
	I'll just run through it real briefly, real briefly.
	What is it here?
	There we go. New series on the truth about the French Revolution.
	We now have a feed for the truth about sadism, which is some really great stuff.
	Access to the audio book for my book in progress, Peaceful Parenting.
	The multi-language ask and answer in whatever language you want.
	Steph.ai, the private live streams, premium call-in shows, the 22-part history of philosophy series, and more.
	And more.
	I actually came across a show that I recorded when I was in Hong Kong.
	I was in the gym, doing my weights, lifting the gym, and a good chunk, of course, of the hotel corners.
	But I was practicing and rehearsing one of my speeches for the Hong Kong documentary while doing weights.
	It's pretty wild.
	Pretty wild. Yeah, you liked...
	Izzy and Steph video game tips.
	Those are fun. We can't find any good video games.
	I use CastBox.
	You can just search free domain and find the podcast feed.
	No RSS input needed.
	Well, isn't that special? I think that's very cool.
	I don't know what CastBox is, but it sounds like a friend of philosophy.
	All right. Ah, call-ins, yes.
	Only Steph fans.
	No shirt Steph. Yeah, yeah.
	Subscribers, questions next.
	I like the subscriber questions for sure.
	Yeah, call-ins are the best. Truth abouts number one.
	Call-ins number two. This is your guess.
	The truth about social media reviews and just talking philosophy and how to use it in the world are the best.
	Yeah, I'll get back into social media reviews, but I have not been doing those much lately.
	You see, trashing Karens are fun too.
	I'm not going to disagree with that.
	I am not in a million years going to disagree with that.
	All right, any last questions?
	Any last tips for your friendly neighborhood, hard-working philosopher head?
	I'd really, really appreciate that.
	Why don't you create a premium feed for each subscriber and link it with billing info?
	Then we can use a podcast app for all the content.
	Why don't you just create a premium feed for each subscriber and link it with billing info?
	Hey man, if you're a coder and you know how to do that, please let us know.
	If you're not a coder or don't know how to do that, I'm afraid we're just going to have to take that under advisement and put it in the not really going to bother pile.
	Why don't you just do this?
	This is always what you hear in the technical...
	Yeah, early release of shows, yeah.
	Early release of shows for sure.
	I love the truth about the French Revolution.
	Much thanks for that, Steph and Jared.
	Appreciate that. Appreciate that.
	What did you think about the 1949 version of The Fountainhead?
	I thought it blew massive chunks.
	And in fact, was it Gary Cooper said he didn't really understand the character until long after the filming was done.
	So I did not...
	I like it. I've tried watching it a couple of times over the years.
	I just...
	The movie is too precious for me.
	Sorry, the book is too precious for me to watch that movie.
	It's just too painful to watch them murder the characters as a whole.
	The mobile website updates have been great.
	I'm glad. I'm very glad to hear that.
	I'm very glad to hear that you've found those to be helpful.
	Yeah, James is a coder and has looked more than once...
	Feeds are just tough.
	Feeds are just tough. Because to try and tie them into subscriptions and then have them cancel and...
	Oh, it's just... It's a mess.
	It's a mess. The truth about slavery was eye-opening back in the day.
	Oh, you think so? Oh, you think so?
	It's very interesting to see people starting to discuss stuff that we were doing over 10 years ago.
	Just crazy. He says, I am a coder and know how to do that.
	Ah, very interesting. Very interesting.
	I mean, the other thing I would have as a mild concern about a subscriber feed is someone could subscribe, download absolutely everything super easily, and then just cancel.
	And it could happen, right?
	It's not a huge, huge issue, but it's something that I have thought about.
	A little bit of a barrier is not the end of the world.
	And the demand isn't hugely there.
	All right. Well, you know what?
	You guys, it's been nice to have you drop by today.
	I appreciate the couple of tips.
	So, I'm going to do you a little bit of a solid.
	A wee bit of a solid.
	Amy? I'd like to.
	Where did that go? Oh, is that the wrong browser?
	No, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	I can get there. I really can.
	Uh-huh! Alright, yeah, so I just put today together the truth about sadism.
	and I will give you that feed.
	You can just copy that and put that, or you can just download it directly.
	But that's my way of saying thanks for dropping by today, and for your support of the show, and just general squishy
	gooey love for Jan.
	Here is your feed.
	You can copy and paste that, and I've done five shows on the truth about sadism,
	the whole history and details about it, and the causality of it, and how it manifests,
	and why, in my humble opinion.
	So, it's a very interesting show and I hope that you will check them out.
	I hope you will like it. If you're listening to this later, of course, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show would be magnificent and wonderful and thrilling and makes me happy, happy joy juice.
	It sparks joy. It sparks joy within me.
	So, freedomain.com slash donate.
	You can join the great community of freedomain.locals.
	And, of course, I just wanted to sort of point out, it's like, it's not the 65% or whatever.
	It's not the 65% of all listeners subscribe to the show.
	That'd be kind of nice. No, it's just the percentage of people who responded to the survey, which is not exactly a random sampling, but the percentage of people who responded to the survey were supporters.
	So don't think everyone else is carrying the load and you don't have to do a thing.
	So I just wanted to point that out.
	The number of people who...
	Who subscribe or support the show relative to the total number of listeners is probably, from what I've last measured, is a couple of percent.
	It's a couple of percent.
	Three percent, four percent, five percent.
	And just something to remember that this whole show is an inverted pyramid on the few people with the integrity and resources to donate.
	So if you're one of those, thank you.
	I really, really appreciate it. If you're not, You might be happier helping to support the spread of philosophy and virtue in the world.
	All right. Thanks, everyone.
	All my love from up here.
	FreeDemand.com to help out the show.
	I will talk to you soon.
	I guess I will talk to you. I think we're up for tomorrow night.
	Damn, only a few percent?
	Lame. Yes.
	And, I mean, the amount of happiness people buy by supporting the show, it's kind of funny because once they experience it, they never look back, which is why so many people keep supporting.
	But before you experience it, you don't even imagine what it is.
	So it's hard to sell... It's hard to get someone to taste something when you know they'll love it if they taste it, but it's hard to get them to taste it in the first place.
	So just try it.
	Try it out. Try supporting the show for a month or two.
	See if you like it. Just see if you like it.
	If you don't like it, if it makes you feel bad, you don't think you're getting your value, cancel away.
	Absolutely cancel away. Give it a try.
	Give it a try. See if supporting philosophy is worth a cup of coffee a week.
	Just see. Just see if supporting philosophy is worth a cup of coffee a week.
	If it's not worth it for you, I don't know really because I don't know if I can do any better philosophy and I don't think anyone else is doing any better philosophy out there.
	So if philosophy isn't worth a cup of coffee to your week, I really don't know what to say.
	I think it is and I think that you'll feel good about it when you do it but that's of course up to you.
	I can only encourage you.
	It's like exercise. Yeah, you'll feel better when you get into it but getting started is a little tough.
	Freedomain.com slash donate if you'd like to help out.
	Freedomain.locals.com.
	I really, really appreciate you guys dropping by.
	Lots of love. Take care.

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