Bitcoin Doesn't Negotiate

Yo, welcome back to another episode of the Jack Morers Show. I am your host, Jack, and you are listening to yet another edition of Mailbag Monday, episode 118, titled Bitcoin Doesn't Negotiate. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Bitcoiners corner of the internet. A weird corner of the internet, but a corner of the internet where we care about truth, humility, prosperity, transparency, a prosperous world we want to enjoy. Without further ado, let me timestamp this bad boy. Ladies and gentlemen, I talked to you all at a Bitcoin price of $77,080. That puts Bitcoin's market cap at 1.54 trillion. Bitcoin down a little bit week overw week. And I think I know why. We'll talk about it in a second. Our all-time high that we made on October 6th of 2025 remains at 126,160. That puts Bitcoin just under 39% off its all-time high at 38.9% off its highs. That was made 224 days ago, by the way. Almost a full year. The last Bitcoin block mined since I hit stream was block height 950,01. Road to 1 million Bitcoin blocks. Almost there. All right. Bitcoin doesn't negotiate. Listen, markets are taking a beating across the board. Bitcoin, gold, stocks have fallen off their highs. The bond market is getting its butt handed to it. There's a lot going on. I think it's fairly obvious. And I'm no genius. I think it's fairly obvious to everyone with a brain cell. What's going on in global markets? What's going on in the Middle East? And so that is what we will talk about today. Let me check. Not a professional podcaster. Make sure I'm live. Oh, I'm live. It doesn't get more live than this. All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's go. First and foremost, I said it's not a political podcast. I have no interest of hopping between the left, the right, the red, the blue, the up, the down, the wazy, the woozy. You know that uh that scene in Wolf of Wall Street. It's a wazy. It's a woozy. It's fairy dust. That's how I feel about politics. Not my thing. I bleed orange. I'm a Bitcoiner. So instead of going back and forth between what the Iranian regimes are saying versus what Trump is saying versus this this, we ask four questions every week to open the show and they go as follows. One, is the straight hormuz still closed? Yes, it is. Two, is the conflict still ongoing? Yes, it is. Three, are global supply chains still disrupted? Yes, they are. Four. Can global debt survive this disruption? No. In fact, it's starting to collapse because of it. Look at the bond market, guys. We, the Jack Maller show, Mailbag Monday, the live chat, the YouTube commenters, we, yes, this strange corner of the internet, the Bitcoiners, we've been saying since the end of February, that the strait is not opening anytime soon, that this conflict is going to last a long time, that inflation is upon us, that global supply chains will be disrupted, that the bond market will collapse. This is only expediting the death of fiat. You can call me a crazy person. The kid in the hoodie. The empty closet menace. We were right. We were right. We were right. Let's check in on the straight of Hormuse. Does this look closed to you? This Hormuse straight is very, very, very, very closed. As a reminder, there used to be about 150 daily vessel crossings and now we were r we range between zero and five. Okay. Hormuz is very closed. In fact, Iran now charges a toll to get through. They sell you Hormuz Insurance for Bitcoin. I'll table that rant for later on in this episode, but the point is Hormuz remains extremely closed. Now, I had referenced everything that you can own is getting its butt kicked. Arguably, maybe not the dollar. Um, but uh I want to make this point. Uh, the system can't take crisis anymore. Uh, I've made the point week over week the way you can think about the amount of debt that the United States is in and not just the United States, global sovereigns, especially the West, the amount of debt and deficits that these countries run. The way that you can think about that is leverage. Okay, debt is a form of borrowing from your future. You are pulling your future forward to spend it now. Now the only reason that you would do that is because you think by spending your future resources now you can enter the physical future in a better state. Now obviously the risk is that you misappropriate the capital that you spend now and you enter your future in a worse state. Now I think that there's no argument that governments around the world have pulled forward their future pulled forward their kids time energy and labor pulled forward commodity resources. pulled forward oil reserves, spent it and didn't spend it well. A misallocation of capital, some would say, and now we have large large swasts of debt and not enough of productivity to show for it. Okay, that's how you can think about the amounts of debt, the amount of deficits, and the problem that governments have. Now, because they're so indebted and they're so levered, they can't take a crisis. Okay, think of it this way. Um, you guys ever do the exercise? I used to go to boxing with my dad when I was a kid. And they would do the exercise as a boxer. Here, I'm gonna get up. You guys can see this. A boxer. Look at me up in the closet. People say that's a fake background. You're fake. Your face is fake. This background is real. When you're boxing, you got to be on the balls of your feet. Okay? The balls of your feet. And the instructor would do a drill with us where when you're on the balls of your feet and someone tries to push you, you can't push me down. I'm not going to fall backwards because my weight is even. My weight is forward. My weight is on my front foot. Sometimes I'm on the balls of my feet. Now, when I'm on my heels, if I'm standing flatfooted and someone shoves my shoulders, I go tumbling backwards. Okay? Think of it like that. balls of your feet is not a lot of leverage, not a lot of debt. A sound footing, grounded, balanced. When we're standing on our heels, that's leverage, that's debt. Everything has to go perfectly for us to win that fight. If just a mere gust of wind or just a mere push to our shoulder tumbles us over and the whole thing collapses. And so something like the straight of Hermoose which causes a bunch of inflation which causes supply chain shortages it blows the entire western financial system down. And you guys have to understand why that is because people will will relate and say oh no this is just like the 1970s. Oh no this is just like the dot bubble and AI. This is just like the year 2000. No, it's not because there's never been a time in human history where Western governments and Western civilization is so levered, is in so much debt. And you guys have to appreciate that because every time people say, "Oh, this is just like that time." Let me pull up a chart from 50 years ago and tell you how the world's going to proceed. No, absolutely not. Debt to GDP was not 120%. The United States government wasn't $40 trillion in debt. the whole western civilization wasn't entirely levered with the expectation that things are going to go perfectly. And so what we're seeing and what I'm about to present to you guys is the bond market is falling apart for that very reason. The whole system is levered. Gold is selling off for that very reason. Gold is a way to raise cash. When the bond market goes kaputs, people are getting margin calls. They need to raise cash. They sell what they can, not what they want. Bitcoin goes down. Gold goes down, stocks go down, bonds go down, and that's what we're seeing. Bitcoin's fallen from 82,000 to 76. Gold's down 5%, and the 10-year US Treasury yield is above 4.6%. We are approaching crisis levels. I also want to point out, I said I'm not going to go quote politicians all episode because who wants to listen to that anymore? But I will point this out for pure economic reasons. Okay, so over the last 24 hours, President Trump, so on Sunday night, he put out a post that says, "Time is of the essence. This Iranian deal, we got to go go." Uh, like they better get a move on. And that implied that there wasn't a lot cooking, that this might take a while. He's pleading for them to get a move on. So the S&P futures opened down, big down. 2 hours before they opened this morning. So, fast forward to the morning after, he said that they were we're close to a deal. We're close to a deal. The S&P 500 futures rallied. So, there's just a lot of jaw boning going on right now. This morning, once the market actually opened, we learned we're not close to a deal actually, and the S&P 500 went back down. This afternoon, we're holding off on tomorrow's attack to get a deal done. The S&P recovered again. So Trump said that he was going to attack Iran or or the Middle East. And now in this screenshot based on someone that said something, he canceled the attack. Now the interesting part that I want to point out to you guys is yes, the jawbon from politicians causes volatility. But mind you, oil used to be going from $150 a barrel to $50 a barrel to $125 a barrel to $80 a barrel based on every single post Trump would post. markets are barely moving anymore because the the whole Bitcoiner thesis is that we are meant to be governed by physical reality. We want real money that isn't, you know, live in La Narnia land where it's governed by unelected central bankers or by politicians that can increase the supply and seize someone else's property. We want real money, hard money, physical property. That's what proof of work is. And financial markets just don't care about political jawbon, right? They shouldn't. The price of oil, oil is a physical commodity. The price of oil doesn't it doesn't matter what politicians think about energy. Energy is the currency of the universe. And we're starting to see the market shrug off political jawbon from all sides, by the way, not just United States, and start to price the future as it physically is. Okay? is a very important update because usually Trump was able to price the markets however he wanted just by tweeting and that seems to be no longer the case. Okay, I have two chapters. One, we're going to look at the consumer and how bad it is for the everyday man. And then chapter two, we're going to look at the bond market. The last chapter, as always, we're going to talk about Bitcoin. So, chapter one, the consumer is broken. And I'm not mincing words. the consumer is actually broken. Um, the biggest news over the last week is PPI came in hot. Hot. Okay. Piping hot. I'm I'm smoking some beef ribs upstairs. So, after this episode, I'm I'll I'll post a picture on Nostra. I've got some fresh beef ribs. PPI came in hotter than the beef ribs I've been smoking up there for 12 hours. Okay. It came in at 6% versus the 4.8%. 8% expected. And the way you can think about PPI is it's uh it's it's the appetizer. It's the precursor. It's the prelude to CPI. Okay? It's it's the wholesale market before the goods reach the consumer. It's it's from wholesale to retail. Okay? And so if you look at the visual here, and for those listening, uh it's important I explain this. The blue line which is PPI always leads the red line. Okay, it moves first which is CPI. Okay, so think of it PPI is what you know the suppliers are getting charged and or it technically it's getting quoted but think of it like you know what is Walmart and I'm oversimplifying for for all the experts that are going to be in the YouTube comments. That's not technically true. Shut up. All right, I'm oversimplifying but barely. But barely. Okay, so think of it. You get your stuff from Walmart, but who does Walmart get its stuff from? You got to go up the supply chain. And so the point of PPI is what is Walmart getting charged for the goods and services that they're selling to you. And that way we can see the data come all the way through the supply chain from raw materials all the way to produced and serviceable goods for the end person. And so to see this blue line come shooting up with an expected 4.8. It's at six. You can see where the red line will go, meaning CPI is on its way up, meaning inflation is about to blow our head off. And if you've been a listener to this show, this is not a surprise. If 20% of the world's oil goes offline, if we enter an energy crisis, if America is entering a hot war, all of these things, I mean, when when uh the Federal Reserve stopped QT, and they're not calling it QE, but it's effectively QE, all of this is inflationary, guys. Remember, inflation is not just what the government tells you. Inflation is not just the price of eggs. The Bitcoin price has been highly inflationary. My first Bitcoin was under $100. Now to get a Bitcoin, it's over $70,000. Okay, all of this is inflationary. But what's happening in the Middle East is an accelerant to the death of fiat. It is extremely inflationary. Energy, everything in your life. Your phone, your car, your house, your travel plans, your television, everything is a derivative of energy. Energy is the currency of the universe. Time is the scarcity of the universe and energy is the currency of the universe. Bitcoin is time and energy money. Quote that. Clip that. Okay. When you take 20% of the world's oil offline, when the energy market goes through crisis, you are going to get extreme amounts of inflation. Extreme. And that's besides all of the money they have to print and all of the debt that they have to monetize. And so what this PPI print told us is we were right. Inflation is going to come in. And by the way, this is this print is before all of the straight of horm has been fully processed. You can make an argument that this print was a lot of the capex spending and AI. I mean, how inflationary is that? You've got companies now, guys, appreciate how how stimulative this is as well. You have companies like Google, like Microsoft, like Amazon, like Facebook or Meta. Now, these companies used to be making tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in net profit, and they'd use that cash to buy back their stocks. Okay? So, that cash wasn't seeing the economy. That cash was being just puked into the financial markets by rebying their stock. That cash is now not going into buying their stock. It's going into the main street economy by employing people, creating factories, creating jobs to produce AI infrastructure, data centers, power power infrastructure, energy infrastructure. So that's also extremely inflationary. You have the most profitable, greatest companies in human history now bidding up energy, bidding up commodities. Facebook's probably like, "You know what? I don't really care what the price of silver is. Give me a bunch of it. I got to build AI chips. What do you want me to do?" And so this is not even with the full straight of horm processed. This is coming in hot probably off most of the back of AI and the beginnings of the straight of hormones being closed. And it doesn't look like the straight's going to be open anytime soon as I'll get into in a second. So, the consumer, which we've been last week, we talked about consumer sentiment, all-time lows, all-time lows. I'm talking below 2008 financial crisis, below the burst of the dot bubble, below everything, below the 1980s recession, below below below below. The consumer sentiment's never been worse in the United States in the 70 plus years it's been recorded, ever. And inflation is just picking up again. And it looks like it's going to break the record that we set during co So on the back half of all of this, our Treasury Secretary, which again, this is a show by the common man for the common man. How how do I think about the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessant? Think of him like the CFO of the United States, okay? Manages our finances. Scott Bessant comes out and says, "Hey, by the way, we may get one to two hot inflation numbers." So any politician that's forewarning you is trying to ease the pain that the people are going to spit in their face, right? Obviously. And so he's trying to forewarn everyone and say, "Listen, things might get a little hot. Inflation readings might come in a little hot. Just a heads up. By the way, one to two inflation readings. In reality, this is going to be 1 to two years." He means one to two readings. He would never he would never be that honest and say one to two years. I'm telling you guys, inflation of just co look at the little blip of co felt it felt like we were locked in our houses forever, right? Because I mean like literal human grown adults were locked in their house and like threatened to get arrested for going outside and getting some sunlight. But it wasn't that long. And it took years, years for global supply chains to get back to operating normally, for inflation to get all the way through the system. We had to hike rates faster than we ever hiked them before just to tame it, just to get it back down. And by the way, we never got it back down to the 2% target. We're still above the 2% Fed target. And now inflation's picking back up. So one to two hot readings. You're crazy. You're crazy. This is going to take 1 to two years. Mind you, how we now know that the strait is not opening anytime soon, that the United States can't really snap their finger and do anything about it, and that there is an energy crisis, is today Scott Bessant, US Treasury Secretary, came out and tweeted this. The US Treasury is issuing a temporary 30-day general license to provide the most vulnerable nations with the ability to temporarily access Russian oil. currently stranded at sea. This extension will provide additional flexibility and we will work with these nations to provide specific licenses as needed. This general license will help stabilize the physical crude market and ensure oil reaches the most energy vulnerable countries. It will also help reroute existing supply to countries most in need by reducing China's ability to stockpile discounted oil. So again, we've s said on the show and we've talked about how the United States has unsanctioned Iranian oil during this conflict. Why would they do that? Well, they don't want the price of oil and energy and gas to go up so much. What's a way to get the prices down to keep them low while this conflict is ongoing? Well, increase the supply. How do you increase the supply of oil? Well, there's a bunch sanctioned by the United States, Iranian oil. Let's get that back into the market. And how do we know that things aren't great in the energy market, in the oil market? Well, the United States of America just unsanctioned Russian oil. That's how you know. And again, not a political podcast, but the United States is unsanctioning their enemies oil. I mean, this is beneficial to Russia. These moves are beneficial to the people you're at war with, like Iran. So, why would you do it? Well, you would do it because the energy market in the oil market uh is in quite a pickle. There there's some serious issues. And you think inflation is bad now because Meta and Microsoft and Amazon and Google are taking their cash flow and they're pouring it into the real economy and they're pouring it into uh into commodities and they're pouring it into energy. You think it's bad now? Wait until the world figures out the real cost of oil and energy with the straight of her moose clothes. Not with these oil SPR, strategic petroleum reserve buffers, not with this unsanctioning stuff. When all of that is through and people have to bid for the real cost of energy and oil, wait till you see what inflation inflation is going to rip to double digits easily. So, this is a what I like to call a signpost. This is a signpost. Interesting, really interesting move that Bessant comes out and says, "Hey, by the way, we may get one to two hot inflation numbers. Oh, and I'm unsanctioning Russian oil. Not a political podcast, just quite interesting. Hard to ignore. Back to how bad the common man is hurting out on the street and why everyone needs Bitcoin. Real wages just went negative. This is for the first time since 2022 and I have a feeling it's going to get a lot worse. So, this visual that you guys are looking at is the average hourly earnings of a private sector employee. And what do we mean by real wages? Well, again, if your wages are increasing at 1% a year on average, but inflation is 2% a year, you're working backwards, right? Put it put another way, let's say your dream house is getting 5% more expensive every single year. Well, in order to make progress towards owning that home, you need to be getting at least a 6% raise every single year. And so by measure measuring real wages, we get to see well is the common man, is the average private sector employee, are they making progress towards owning things in their life, towards getting sufficient food, owning a home, paying off their car, paying down their student loans? And when real wages go negative, it means the things around them are getting more expensive than they're earning. Not good. Really, not great at all. No duh. Consumer sentiment is down. It doesn't matter what the stock market price is. And by the way, equal weighted S&P 500 is not at all-time highs. Just the S&P 500 as it's weighted today. And it's dominated by tech. So everyone in tech is making loads of money. Wall Street is making loads of money. But the everyday man, the everyday consumer getting crushed. Real wages going negative. Sentiment never been worse. On the back half of that, delinquencies. So, a lot of the American dream and the American lifestyle as we know it, and listen, I don't live in the UK. I don't know that much, but you'd have to assume a lot of western the western dream lifestyle is financed on debt. Okay? People that quote own a home don't actually own it outright. They own it on a loan via a mortgage. People that own a car haven't paid it all off. They have an auto loan. uh people that went to college and got a degree, well, they're renting the degree. They haven't fully paid off the education that they got. Okay? Now, if the consumer, if the everyday man is in pain, real wages are going negative, people are bleeding into their savings, AI is taking their jobs, what we would see as a sign of that is delinquencies going up. And on the money, credit card delinquencies are near postglobal financial crisis highs. Look at this visual. Credit card delinquencies shooting up. Student loan delinquencies rocketing up. Auto loan delinquencies now rocketing up. Not good. Not good. And it's one thing to have pain in the street. But it gets to become a crisis when the pain in the street collapses the financial institutions that support the world as we know it, like banks. And how this is going to collapse banks is banks have all of these loans written and valued on their balance sheet. Let's say they're they're valuing these loans at par at 100. If these loans are actually worthless because people have no ability to pay them back because oil and gas is getting too expensive because inflation is coming back because AI is taking their job and they're now unemployed. Some combination or all of those things and they can't make their credit card payments. They can't pay off their student loans. they can't pay off their auto loans. Then the bank's balance sheet that's full of these loans valued at 100 is now worthless. Then the bank doesn't have your deposits and they we have a banking collapse. We have another financial crisis. Something to keep an eye on. The pain that the consumer is feeling is real. It's relevant. It matters. The K-shaped economy is not a joke. It's not the future. It's right now. And it is starting to pose systemic risk in the economy and to these institutions. I'm telling you right now, this cannot last that much longer. I'll get into it at a later slide, but a a an economy in a country that's this indebted, they cannot take this much pain before the whole thing falls apart. That's the difference between this and 2008. That's the difference between this and 2000, that's the difference between this and the 80s or the 70s is the amount of debt, the debt to GDP, the amount of expenses and interest that the United States has. These type of metrics are soul crushing to the western idea that they can lose $2 trillion a year in deficits, that they can print as much money as they want, and that everyone in their countries is going to be happy, their own nothing, be happy, and have their American dream. So, on the topic of Wall Street versus Main Street, take a look at this. Consumer sentiment is in the orange. The price of the S&P is in blue. S&P 500 is flirting with all-time highs almost every single day. And consumer sentiment can just gets lower and lower and lower, all-time low, all-time low, alltime low. And for me, this is the visual manifestation of what fiat does. This is why fiat is not money for the people. This is why the system is broken. This is why we need to build something better. This is why Bitcoin is money for the people. Everyone gets the same rules. Nobody can seize anything. No one can censor anything. No one can inflate anything. Because what people need to understand is the S&P 500 at all-time highs is meaningless. Politicians used to parade around and remember the Dow's at 50,000. The S&P 500's at all-time highs. Look how well we're doing as a country or as a political party. It doesn't matter. The the stock market doesn't reflect the prosperity of the people. Clearly, we need a new system. We need a new we need to build something else. And mind you, I had to throw this in. If you price the S&P 500 in Bitcoin or in gold, because people will say, "Oh, you're just cherrypicking. Bitcoin started at zero, so clearly its performance is going to be better." Okay, gold's been around for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. What about the S&P 500 priced in that? Is that okay with you, tough guy? S&P 500's getting crushed in both. So, mind you, everything you see in your life is an illusion. The S&P 500 at all-time highs in dollar terms is an illusion. It's like putting on drunk goggles. You don't drive drunk. You'll crash. You don't look at the world in fiat. It's an illusion. It's fake. It's phony. If you measure things in hard money, things that can't be printed, then the world starts to make sense. The S&P 500 is making lower after lower after lower against hard money. Now, this is starting to look like consumer sentiment, right? You guys picking up what I'm putting down? So, consumers getting crushed. Main Street. Listen, this is why we have to stay humble and stack sats. And I talk about it all the time. The most important financial metric for any person or any household and family is excess cash flow. Okay, getting my Dave Ramsey on here for a second. Okay, if you want to get wealthier, you have two options. One, you can earn more. And earn more means be more valuable, right? In theory, your income is some form of representation of how valuable you are to the market. Okay? So, you could pick up another job. You could uh I was going to say shovel snow, but the sun's getting out. You can um you can uh rake leaves uh on the weekends, right? Find find a you could try and get a promotion and take on more more ownership at your company. Find ways to be more valuable, grow your income. The other option you have if you can't grow your income is consume less stuff. So if your lifestyle is less consumption mean ah I'm not going to get bottle service on the weekends. I'm not going to order the Uber blacks. I'm not going to fly first class. I'm going to consume less. That leaves more excess for you to save, allows you to prioritize your future and value your future more, and allows you to stack sats. Because make no mistake about it, guys, inflation's coming back. The fiat currencies that you're using, no matter where you are, are going to be debased. The debt is going to be monetized. And listen, there's a $40 trillion hole in the United States balance sheet. And that's just, you know, that number could be different and higher depending on how you calculate, but let's just go with 40 trillion. Someone has to realize that loss. And it's a game of hot potato. Who's going to realize that loss? We've borrowed tremendously from our future. There's been a misallocation of capital. And we're entering the future with nothing to show for it. Someone has to lose. And by owning Bitcoin and exiting their system and building our own neutral and fair one, you're saying, "I don't know who's going to lose. I don't know who's going to be caught with the potato, but I do know it's not going to be me. That's how I think about being a Bitcoiner. I don't know who's going to have to lose, how many wars are going to have to be fought, the political violence and fighting domestically that's going to have to go down. I just know I'm not going to lose because you can't debase confiscate my time and energy, my money, my savings, my future. So consumers are getting crushed. Take care of yourself. Reduce your consumption. Try and earn more where you can and save. Stay humble. Stack sats. Turn on your DCAs. Chapter two, the bond market trap. We got to talk about the bond market because it's collateralizing right now the entire world as we know it and it's falling apart. We are I mean people talk often about a sovereign debt crisis. I don't know when it would technically start. like are we in one right now? I'd make the argument that we are, but I don't know. Either way, let's talk about it. So, um if you guys want to know how bad it is, uh the G7 is discussing the bond market right now in Paris. No joke, they're in Paris. This is from Bloomberg G7 to discuss bond selloff as yields hit multi-deade highs. Not good. Okay. The 10-year US Treasury just broke 4.6% today. Really, really bad. This tweet from Arthur Hayes jokingly saying, "Come on, Buffalo Bill Bessent, do something." When the 10-year Treasury gets this high, which means people are selling and dumping bonds, the US government usually steps in and provides some liquidity. So, when he's saying best, do something, he's making a joke. This is usually where the US starts to think that there's crisis on the horizon and provides something. This is similar levels of when we had liberation day or liberation week and the Trump administration reverted that. So before we get into the bond market and taking a look at it and really just how scary it is for western markets, let's revisit bond math 101. Okay, this is a show. You guys say it with me. By the common man for the common man. No man left and woman by the way. Sometimes you get those comments. just a it's a a it's a what is it term of phrase common phrase terminology whatever men and women this is for this is for the people for all of us okay so bond math 101 is this a bond is a loan think of it that way when you buy a bond you are let's say you buy a US bond you are lending the US government money that bond pays you a fixed interest rate okay so I buy a 10-year US government bond, they're paying me 4.6%. Okay, that's my interest rate. When people sell these bonds that they buy, the price of the bonds drops, right? Like when there are more sellers than buyers in Bitcoin, the price of Bitcoin goes down. There are more sellers than buyers in real estate, the price of real estate goes down. When there are more sellers than buyers in the bond market, the price of the bonds go down. But the fixed interest payment remains the same. So if you take the same payment, interest payment, and you divide it by the lower price because people are selling more bonds than there are people buying them, you get a higher yield. And so that's what we call bond math is that yields rise when people are dumping bonds. When the demand for bonds goes down, the yields go up. Does that make sense? So when you see things like, "Oh man, 10year US yields are skyrocketing." And you're thinking to yourself, "What does that mean? Why is that such a bad thing? That means people are dumping bonds. Okay? And they're dumping the things that are effectively lending money to the US government. So another way to think of it is people at the margins are not interested in lending to the United States anymore. And you ask yourself, well, why is that? Well, there's many reasons. I mean, someone that's already $40 trillion in debt, has a spending problem, wants to spend more, and is not showing enough productivity to pay you back. That's one reason. But more recently, the reason is inflation expectations. If I think my life is going to be getting 6 7 8 9 10% more expensive. The PPI just came in at 6%, guys. 6%. So, if the PPI is at 6%. I don't know what CPI is going to be, but it's going to be it's going to follow PPI. And the bond market's at 4%. Why would I lend my money to the US government? They'll pay me 4% when the world around me is getting 6% more expensive. That's what we call real rates negative. Yes, you're getting paid to lend money to the US government, but the world around you is getting more expensive than what you're getting paid. So, you're the bozo. You're the clown. You're the dummy. You're the one losing. You're better off owning Bitcoin. You're better off owning gold. You're better off owning stocks. You're better off owning an asset that can yield you more than the inflation around you. So, bond math 101. Yields rise when bond prices fall. When people are dumping bonds, yields go up. Now, one more slide of uh for for the people here. What does that mean for our everyday lives? For one, it means the US government has an impossible time financing their debt. Okay, US government's about $40 trillion of debt. And when their yields rise, the cost to roll over that debt explodes. So, they have to refinance their debt just like anyone else. And the reason that you see the US government or the Federal Reserve or some combination of them intervene and roll out new policy whenever these yields get too high is because they quite literally cannot afford their interest expense and the cost to roll over the debt to be this high. The 10-year can't get to 5% 6% 7% because the US government quite literally cannot afford it. Think about the ways that they pay for the these interest expenses. That's like our taxes. So, one way they can do it is say, "Hey, we're raising all your taxes to 90%." But do you think that that politician is going to get elected? Absolutely not. Right? And what we'll get into is what if the central bank just prints the money to cover their expenses? That's what we call yield curve control. And that's just the most inflationary thing of all time, right? So, for one, the US government can't afford yields this high. They need people to want to lend to it, and they need people to want to own bonds. If the whole world is like, I'm dumping these things. I'd rather own Bitcoin. I'd rather own gold. I'd rather own equity and companies that are doing AI stuff. Then no one's left to lend to the US government. The US government can't afford that. The second, and this is where it hits Main Street, where it hits the everyday person, is things like mortgage rates, things like your car loans, your credit card rates. That mortgage rates have a relationship with the 10-year yield. Okay? So, if yields are at 5%, that means mortgages are getting close to 10%. Which again, the American dream gets entirely priced out. I find it to be a shame that the American dream can only be financed on long-term loans. The American dream as we know it today is not owning a house, owning a car, owning an education and expertise in the labor field. It's renting the education that you got over decades because you couldn't afford to go to college. It's renting the car that you drive because you need an auto loan. It's renting the house that you live in and raise your kids in because you need a mortgage. But fine, that's the American dream. Even that American dream gets priced out when yields are so high because of the relationship with the 10-year yield. I mean, these things have to be financed somehow, right? Like when the bank finances it for you, they they they have some relationship with some form of financing and it's the 10-year traditionally, not not everything. Again, oversimplified, but not by a lot. Make sense? So, now let's take a look at the bond market around the world and let me try and articulate how bad it really is out there. So the UK, the United Kingdom is now acting like an emerging market, like a third world country. And what do I mean by that? One, their yields are skyrocketing. Okay, which is not good. Obviously, that means people are dumping their bonds. They don't want to lend money to the UK. And by the way, lending money to a government is a way of instilling confidence in their future, right? Like if you thought the UK or the US or whatever market was going to boom, you'd have no problem financing that, giving them a loan and entrusting that their ability to pay you back would be in real terms. So of course they can all they can all print money and pay you back. But what you want is paying you back with real productivity. like all of the people are getting employed and getting uh salary increases and there's new jobs and there's AI and there's all this product production and productivity and deflationary and all this stuff's amazing and you're getting paid back in dollars that are actually going to get you more eggs that are going to get you more housing that's going to get you more cars. That's why you would lend to a government. If you didn't believe in the government's future, you wouldn't lend to it because they're going to give you your money, your interest payments in printed currency, which is going to get you less eggs, less housing, less, and that's real rates negative. Now, the interesting thing that makes the UK an emerging market, well, not not yet, not actually today, but it's behaving like an emerging market is because while yields are soaring, the currency is trading down. If yields go up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up and it's a market that isn't emerging, that isn't third world, that has a good future, that attracts capital, capital comes soaring into that market because they're like this is the United Kingdom, how bad can their future be, right? Or this is the United States, how bad can their future be? They've got anthropic and open AI and the US stock market and you know um most of the big Bitcoin companies are there. How bad can it be? And that attracts capital. Attracting capital strengthens the currency. Now, if a market has yields rise and people fleeing the currency, that means the world doesn't believe in its future. Now, you usually see that in a market like Argentina, not the United Kingdom, not Japan, but that's what we are seeing, guys. Look at this chart. Yields up, currency down. This might as well be Argentina, but it's not. This is the United Kingdom. Really, really scary. Now, if we take a look at the Western bond market across the board, in the green, I have Japan. In the red, I have the UK. In the orange, I have the US. And in the blue, I have Australia. All yields are soaring. And this is I I clipped this chart from the start of the war in Iran. And again, there's no political bias here. The start of the of the conflict in Iran for me is just when energy markets, global supply chains, the price of oil started to get disrupted because why is that relevant to bond markets? Well, if you have a disruption to commodity markets, to energy, to oil, you get inflation. When you get inflation, people are saying, "Whoa, the things around me are getting 10% more expensive every single year. I'm not lending you money at 4%. I need 10%." So, they sell the bonds, the yields go up. So you can see the entire west is facing a bond crisis. This is why they're all in Paris talking about what they want to do, what intervention they can propose, what money they can print. It's across the entire West. US will be hit last because of all of the West, the US is definitely the strongest. But to see the UK start to behave like Argentina, this is real, guys. I'm not, now listen, I'm not saying uh the world around you is going to collapse tomorrow. You're going to go out in the street and all the cars are going to be on fire. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying as Bitcoiners, the world is what we thought it was. You guys ever see that uh postgame press conference from uh the Arizona Cardinals head coach? They had played the Chicago Bears. As a Bear fan, I'll never forget this. Played the Chicago Bears. Played us really well. They were the better team. Should have beat us. And we won because Devin Hester returned a kick in the fourth, a punt in the fourth quarter. And the coach gets up there and he slams his hands in the postgame and he says, "The Bears, they are who we thought they were and we let them off the hook." That's what he said. And it's the same vibes right here. Bonds, they are what we thought they were, but we're not going to let them off the hook if you buy Bitcoin. But for everyone out there that's just hoing trusting that politicians and unelected central bankers are just going to somehow make their life affordable by the snap of a finger. No. Bonds, perpetual debt, printing things out of thin air is what we thought it was. Trash. Look at the screen. It's trash. Okay. A reminder as well that foreigners are all in on equities. The foreign holdings of US financial assets continues to climb. So again, as yields go up and the dollar strengthens, people like, let me put you guys this way. People around the world own a bunch of US stuff like equities, like bonds. if they need to raise cash. Let's say the United Kingdom or Australia needs to raise cash to feed their people because the global supply chains got so disrupted that um there's food s shortages or there's energy shortages and they're going to subsidize some gas until the conflict in Iran is over. How do they raise that cash? They sell US bonds. They sell US equities. So just a reminder of the flow of funds here. In order for people to raise money that are in trouble, they have to sell assets they own. Well, what do people own? People own US equities. People own US bonds. That's generally what's collateralizing the entire world. The reason that you see gold and Bitcoin sell off as quick as they do in moments of crisis is because they're the easiest ways, the least um like politically complicated ways to raise cash. So anyways, as it relates, we got Kevin Walsh, who's going to be sworn in this Friday, I believe, um, as the new Fed chair. Here's the trilmma. Okay, what do you do? You can't cut rates because you already have inflation. Mind you, you're really going to cut rates with oil at over $100 a barrel. That's crazy, right? You also can't hike rates because of the bond market, because of the banks, because of the capex that AI needs. AI is a is a national security whatever asset threat mission at this point. It's it's a national it's of national interest. Okay. So you can't hike rates either. Although it looks like they're going to try. That's we saw what happened last time they hiked rates as fast as they did. Silicon Valley Bank went kapoot and the banking system went entirely insolvent. So you can't cut, you can't hike, and you can't let the bond market just fall apart because the entire world is collateralized by treasuries. The western civilization as we know it would collapse. My prediction remains the same. The only option they have left is intervention, is money printing, is monetizing the debt, is something like yield curve control. Either way, if the whole whole financial system as we know it collapses, that will be painful for everybody. Make no mistake about it. But Bitcoin will be a competitor, in my opinion, the winner of whatever we use next. If they intervene, print money, monetize the deficits, and basically inflate their way out of this, Bitcoin is a competitor for what we use next, and will, in my opinion, be the winner. Either way, Bitcoin wins. There's the way that I think we'll go versus the way that we also could go. I think they'll just print the money, but we'll see. Um, again a reminder, I mentioned this earlier. This is not the year 2000. There are some similarities with times of the past. No doubt about it. Oh, this is reminds me of the 70s. Oh, yeah. No, no, this one reminds me of the 80s. Oh, no. This one reminds me of the '9s. This, this, this, this one reminds me of 2000. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm sure sometime today reminds you of some time before today. Got it? But there's a very important point that we all have to understand. Debt to GDP right now is approaching 130%. No time ever before that was debt to GDP that high. That means the level of indebtedness is never been seen before. We can't The point of that is we can't afford a crisis. We can't afford like any global financial crisis, any collapse, any anything will get immediate money printing. COVID was supposed to be 2008 all over again. Guess what we did? Printed the money. So just keep that in mind, okay? I'm not that I expect the immediate future to be extremely volatile, extremely chaotic, potentially lots of pain. As my dad said on the show once before, markets try and wear you out or scare you out. They try and wear you down, fatigue you, make you question your thesis and your ideas for the future. Or they try and scare you out, take 20% off the thing you own, take the bottom from up under you, make you want to puke. Okay, you got to hang in there. But I expect a lot of near-term pain, a lot of near-term volatility. This is why we earn more than we spend. We stay humble. We stack sats. This is why. But with that being said, they're not they cannot afford a long drawn out crisis. The system is too levered. I expect money printing in the near to medium term because things are starting to reach their limits already. So, I mentioned it before. My best guess is yield curve control. What is yield curve control? Well, the who is the last resort lender to the government? If no one else is willing to buy these bonds and no one else is willing to lend to the US government, who's going to cut the check? And the answer is, well, can't they just print money? Yes, they can. So the answer is the Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air and effectively lends it to the US government, but it's not even a real loan because there's no cost of capital. They're not lending anything that they actually had to work hard to produce. No man should work for what another man can print. So they just hit a keystroke, print money out of thin air, and they lend it to the government. That's just La La Land, Narnia. That's what you read about in the books. That's hyper hyper hyper hyperinflationary. No one would value that currency anymore. And that's the beginning of of the end of fiat. I don't know if we'll get literal yield curve control, if we'll get literal QE or they they repackage these things with different acronyms and different names. We we'll get the ABCDE EFG program that's here to save your life and protect you against AI, but it's really yield curve control/iwi. That's my best guess because it doesn't look like there's any marginal lender to Western civilization anymore. Given the amount of inflation that's coming, given the amount of pain that Main Street is feeling, these people are not swimming in it, getting promotions, getting raises, starting businesses, hiring people, going on fancy vacations. Car delinquencies up. Car del uh um credit card delinquencies up. Car delinquencies up. house uh mortgage delinquencies up. Uh student loan delinquencies up. Not good. Really bad. So, this is my best guess, but we'll see. My message throughout this uh thing is stay humble, stack sats. Stay humble, stack sats. Earn more than you consume. Buckle up. Hold on tight. You know, this was always what us Bitcoiners thought. The bond market would fall apart. Fiat would start to see its dead end inevitably. But it, by the way, that was never going to be clean and pretty. It wasn't going to be like we wake up one day and we all transition from fiat to Bitcoin and Bitcoin's at a million dollars and like we're teleporting and and the grass is green. That that was never the case. It's going to be it's going to be hard. It's going to be painful. No doubt. So, we move on to the Bitcoin chapter. Um, yeah, listen, Bitcoin's going to get hammered here. And and it's obvious. You should understand why. When bond when these yields go soaring up and the bond market experiences volatility, everything sells off. Gold included, people got to raise cash. Mind you, there are countries around the world that are currently raising cash, probably selling bonds because they're going to have to subsidize their country and their citizens oil consumption, energy consumption, food. Would you rather own a bunch of bonds and have your people starve or feed your people and own less bonds? It's obvious. It's not. There's no debate. And that goes for corporations. That goes for people raising cash. You sell what you can, not what you want. Bitcoin is the most sellable global liquid good there is in the world. So, make no mistake, Bitcoin, there's going to be volatility. It's going to get punched in the mouth here, but this is this is the transition from fiat to a prosperous future. So, just buckle up. Stay humble. Stack assets. Reduce the consumption that you have. Reduce your spending. Find a way to increase your income if you can. This is a perfect time to turn on those DCAs. I've been saying it this entire 2026. Going to be volatile. Catch some of these dips. Strike. We've got no fee DCA. Free withdrawals to cold storage. Get those sats on ice. Okay. Um I kind of just mentioned this, but this is what paying before print looks like. So, Bitcoin and gold, they when you see these things sell off together, that means the dollar is probably ripping. The dollar is probably ripping and getting stronger because US yields are going up. People are meeting margin calls. Sovereigns are raising capital because there is an energy crisis. Think of Bitcoin and gold or hard money, these salailable 247 liquid markets as like the ATMs for the world. Like whenever they need cash, they go to these things. Okay? That's why they react first. That's why they're usually leading in market environments like this and that's why they're selling off. And again, this to me is what winning looks like. This is the early chapters of what a $500,000 Bitcoin is. Bond markets are going to fall apart. Inflation is going to rip everyone's head off. They're going to have to print money. And this is you. If you're Bitcoin, you got to just hang on tight. Okay. Um, and I thought this point was interesting as well. It's unclear to me that we ever had a real bull market. So, as the economy starts to heat up, so with hot inflation is hot economic data. Um, the economy is starting to really warm up. Now, it's not there quite yet, but you can see Bitcoin's correlation to strong economy. And I'm looking at PMI in particular, and PMI right now is at 52. Um, this article, so I'll read straight from the article. This is from Anel Linder. He wrote below is an image that I sent out on Twitter. I've talked about the fact that 2023 to 2025 might not have been an actual bull market at all. PMI being in contraction speaks to that possibility. If that's the case, PMI is expanding right now. So that should mean price has a tailwind to go higher. I believe this. If you look at Bitcoin in gold terms, 2023 to 2025 wasn't a bull market. We reached our previous all-time high, but we never really made a smashing new all-time high. So, I I don't think that the last quote unquote bull market was real. I've been in Bitcoin for almost 14 years at this point. This is nothing like the bull market postco. This was nothing nothing nothing like the bull market experienced in 2017. So, I believe this to be true. I'm I got my eyes on PMI and again I think as they print money as they continue to try and finance US government at the short end as these large massive companies roll their cash flows and raise money to pour into the real economy as opposed to equity buybacks I think the economy will heat up. I think Bitcoin is going to go to the moon. Just something to keep in mind. Uh the last topic, I mean obviously we cannot go a show without talking about it is Iran adopting Bitcoin and maybe the biggest way in Bitcoin's history ever. So for those that missed the news, Iran officially adopted Bitcoin. They launched a Bitcoinbased insurance for Hormuz. If you want your ship to get through more or less, uh you just give them some Bitcoin. And this is to me this is crazy. And and I put this slide together. the trend towards Bitcoin as the new world reserve currency. You got El Salvador adopting it as legal tender. After that, Russia legalized it for crossber trade. Then you have an official adoption of Bitcoin under the US strategic reserve. Then you have state level reserve legislation. So independent states within the United States have reserve legislation now adopted. And now in the middle of war, global conflict, energy markets, global trade, you have Iran adopting Bitcoin not only as a store of value, but as a medium of exchange for Hormuz settlement. This is what Bitcoin as the global world reserve currency actually looks like. Bitcoin is for the sanctioned. It's for the small. It's for the strategic. It's for all. It's for everybody. Money that even enemies can use. And this again, this might be Bitcoin's biggest adoption moment. And Bitcoin does this, you know, I remember getting into Bitcoin and like some company partnered with PayPal and it was more a press release than any actual product. It was a bunch of fluff and hype. But at the time, we were just dying for any outside validation that our crazy idea that this was actually the best money in mankind. We were just dying for external validation. And so we would go nuts when like PayPal partnered with Bit Pay to do something something. None of it actually ever came out. None of it made any sense. All of it was [ __ ] stupid. But we would go nuts. And it's funny just like how people value external validation uh value val validation at all. Whereas something like Iran using Bitcoin for settlement during a war for 20% of the world's oil supply to pass through one of the most like sensitive and critical passages for global supply chains and energy consumption as we know it. People are like me. It's just funny how that works. This is It doesn't get bigger than this. Why? Iran needs to trade and use money with anybody. People they trust, people they don't trust, people that love them, people that are threatening to drop a nuke on their head. Because money is akin to water for a functioning society. It is a necessity. It is a technology we invented to solve for barter and scale human interaction. It is not that you don't have the option to be like eh I'm not a big fan of money. It's not like I don't I don't like soda. I'm going to stick with water. I don't like money. I'm going to stick with barter. That's not an option. We need money. It's like water. We will die without it. And so Iran electing Bitcoin as the money to use, knowing that everyone is trying to censor them, sanction them, and kill them. But they still need money because they still operate in a market like we all do. They still get up and have time and energy to expend. And they need to trade that so they can consume energy like calories to survive. They chose Bitcoin. They didn't choose gold. They didn't choose the dollar. They didn't choose stable coins. They chose Bitcoin. Why? Because at the end of the day, the best money wins. That's why Bitcoin scarcer. It's more divisible. It's easier to transport. It's cheaper to store. It's cheaper to receive. It's more sellable. It's more liquid. All of it. Poundforpound. The best money. Yeah, central banks are hoarding gold right now and buying up gold. Yeah, sure. Uh, Nvidia has outperformed Bitcoin over the last two months. I'm telling you, pound for pound, according to throughout human history, what makes money good. What's the best form of monetary technology? Bitcoin kicks every other money's ass. And it's not even close. One example, Iran. And and and people will say, "Wow, Bitcoiners really like the Iranian regime. You know, I liked it more when Bitcoiners were cheering on PayPal." That that's that's the irony in it all. Bitcoiners don't like Bitcoin doesn't like any politician or country. You know, these are all to Bitcoin. These are all useless squiggly lines on a map that are meaningless. It's just the best money. And you can either get with it or get out of its way. But getting in its way has rendered you a loser so far in its existence in its 17 years. Okay, with that, let's get to some grind my gears. Let me take a sip of water first. We're about an hour in. Making good time. Okay. What grinds my gears this week? Um, the government. But hold on, I'm not going to make this a political rant. In fact, this is as neutral of a rant as we can get. This is a meme created by Quinn Thompson. Shout out Quinn. I really like the Forward Guidance uh show and I read all these guys. Quinn's got a Substack and I read all their stuff. It's really good. Uh, and I just they're cool guys, too. At least I've never met them. They seem cool. Um, but he puts out this meme and on the left it reads, "Biden draining 200 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve ahead of the 2022 midterms." And on the right it reads, "Trump draining 200 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve ahead of the 2026 midterms." And it's the office meme where the question is, corporate needs you to find the difference between the picture, this picture and this picture. And she reads, they're the same picture. And what grinds my gears is just that politics and politicians divide us. And listen, I know that the K-shaped economy, the fact that the S&P 500 is at all-time highs while Main Street is at all-time lows, people getting poorer and the rich getting richer, politicians dividing us. Now you have politicians and like socialism getting popular where everyone's trying to violate property rights. I know that these are all a function of policy. This is what happens when you print money out of thin air for 50 years. This is what happens when you're not governed by mother nature and the physical realities of the universe. This is what happens when proof of work is not a necessity. This is what happens when people can't lower their time preference and prioritize and value their future. This is what happens when human coordination struggles. When someone does something wrong, but instead of suffering for it and learning that they shouldn't do that, they get bailed out and they get rewarded for it. This is what happens. You get domestic fighting. You get a population that's trending more towards a civil war than prosperity. But what kills me is that politicians and politics are such important part of all of our lives. And people derive their identity or where they want to live or the relationships that they have or the friends that they have or where they can work from it. Because make no mistake about it, they're all the same. push comes to shove at the end of the day. And I'm not trying I know that I'm gonna get killed for that comment. I'm not trying to make light of some of the policies that are flatout wrong from both sides. From both sides. But the point is, this is the point. Well, look at this tweet real quick. The US injected 9.9 million barrels of oil from its SPR into the market last week. That's a record high of over 1.4 million barrels a day. It's the second consecutive SPR record high flow rate. And the point is this, this reserve is for local crisis. Like it's literally for if there was some civil war, some local domestic crisis. Mind you, we've burned through almost all of it just to pump just to suppress gas prices for elections. So between the conflict in Iran and the conflict in the Ukraine, the left, the right, the blue, the red, it doesn't matter who they are, they have chosen short-term suppression for votes over long-term insurance for the people. We are now closer to $250 uh dollars per barrel of oil than we've ever been because our reserves are pretty much empty. And this war is pretty [ __ ] real. And it's a reminder to the people, don't make politics your identity. Don't make politics where you can work, who you can date, who you can be around. Governments around the world have gotten too big. We are meant and belong to be governed by mother nature. We are a function of a child of the universe. We want markets to be free. We want human interaction to be free. When these people take off all the makeup and all the clothes and all the banners and all the campaign slogans, at the end of the day, they're the [ __ ] same. They choose short-term gain for long-term pain. They borrow from your kids and their time, their energy, their effort, their prosperity, and they spend it now for midterms. Both of them, both sides. It's all garbage. This is the perfect reminder to let everyone know at the end of the day from the highest level possible, there is no sides. You're either for Bitcoin, you're for free markets, for hard money, or you're not. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous because now we have real multipolar threats, real energy crisis, real conflict in the Middle East, and we're running out of oil. You got the US Treasury Secretary unsanctioning Russian oil. Hope the I I hope the 2022 midterms were worth it. Were they? You guys think Trump's midterm popularity later this year is going to be worth it? So that towards the end of the term, you're paying $250 a barrel for oil. It's [ __ ] stupid and pathetic. And it's crazy to me. I you know I could scream into the void about politicians on both sides and it doesn't matter what if they're not listening to me but I talk to you the people. Your time and energy is precious. Your future is valuable. Let me end it on this. No one's coming to save you. How about that? What if I phrase it that way? No one's coming to save you. Harmony in society will be restored when personal responsibility is valued again. No one's coming to save you. It doesn't matter who they elect. Doesn't matter where you live. It doesn't matter what big corporates try and tell you. Nobody's coming to save you. And that's the way it should be. Life is earned, not given. I've said the world as you know it is a derivative of energy. Money and us earning wealth is all about who gets to consume how much energy. Who gets to fly the private plane or sit in first class versus someone that has to walk across the country? Who gets to fly to Europe instead of having to canoe to Europe? Who gets the flat screens and the fancy phones and the big house to live their life and consume energy and consume entertainment? Who gets the two-car garage that guzzles tons and tons and tons and tons of oil versus the person that has to take the bus? The world around you is just a derivative of energy and earning capital is just a right to consume energy. The point is, you earn your lifestyle. No one gives it to you. No one can print energy and print oil out of thin air for you to consume. That's [ __ ] and that's a lie. And these people don't care about you. No one's coming to save you. Don't make it your personality to expect someone's coming to save you and then when people don't come and save you, you finger point and you cry. And this is to the younger generation in particular. Sometimes tough words are the are the most true. No one's coming to save us. These people are not coming to save us. We save us. We didn't get to decide the world we inherited. But we do get to build the world that we spend the rest of our lives in and that we birth our children into. That's our decision. They can't take that from us. If we want to work on Bitcoin and we want to work on AI, we can. If we want to save in Bitcoin and not save in bonds and not save in fiat, we can't. These no one's coming to save you. They're going to drain the strategic oil reserves for midterms despite needing it in the future to protect your lifestyle. Know that. Know that for a fact. And it doesn't matter what side you vote in. At the end of the day, the images are the same. know that personal responsibility is the unlock to a harmonious, prosperous society. I promise you that. I promise you that. It's all earned. None of it is printed out of thin air. If it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be true. Okay. Next, um updates from Strike. uh Illinois, uh our Bitcoin backed loans are now the minimums back down to 10,000 uh which we're very excited about and we continue to just push um interest on cash and yield on cash for Strike uh is coming very very soon. Excuse me. I was just uh on a call this morning figuring out uh pricing where we're going to start um which is very exciting. And so I I don't know. I'm super super super bullish strike. Um, we've got some exciting uh Europe and UK stuff around the pipe. Um, we've got interest on cash and yield on cash coming. We've got more lending features. Um, we're we're looking to roll out our liquidation proof loans where you can get a Bitcoin backed loan and pay an upfront fee. Um, or just a high slightly higher rates. We haven't decided which one we're going to go with um to prevent the ability of ever being liquidated. Um, Strike's just becoming the Bitcoin bank for the world. Best place if you hold fiat and you want yield on it, interest on it, best place for that. Best place to buy Bitcoin, best place to borrow against your Bitcoin, best place to get a line of credit. I mean, I'm really proud of the Strike team and all the progress and doing it all over the world. We've kicked off Strike Canada, um, which I'm really excited about. Um, so anyway, I know you guys always have Strike questions. leave them in the comments. But um shout out strike team for 21. Um you guys know the public proposal from Tether, our largest shareholder. Uh as we have updates that, uh are allowed, frankly, to be publicly communicated. Um I will do so. Um I I I do expect to be able to share some updates in uh the near term, but we'll see. But we'll see. Okay. With that, let's do some Q&A. Let me pull up uh Dylan's doc. Blow up my camera here. All right. Hour and 15 minutes in. Not bad at all. Not bad at all. Oh, my hair is messed up. Whatever. Whatever. All right. Hope you guys are having a good Monday. It's getting warm here in uh Chicago. So, I'm having a great I've been smoking some meat. I did uh some lamb I think they're lamb chops. I'll post pictures on Ner. I think they're lamb chops um over the weekend. Really good. Dylan can merch that. Dylan had some very good. And I got f no six pounds of bison beef ribs that are in the cooler right now uh waiting for me. As soon as this episode is over, I'll post those as well. So, sun's out. I know the Bitcoin price is down, but no bond market's got to fail. Fiat's coming to an end. That [ __ ] happens. Um you got to stay humble stack at smoke meat. Get some sun. Um okay, let's get into the questions. Macro question for Jack. Last week you framed taxing the rich as a violation of property rights, but if wealthy benefit from the Canilian effect, isn't it fair to say their wealth is not fully earned? Um, sure. Sure. But what that's not how taxing the rich is. Taxing the rich doesn't say, "Well, you benefited from the Canillian effect, but you didn't, so I'm going to go after you." The the point is we benefit more from free markets than we don't. Let the markets be free. No one should be centrally planning where property should go and who gets to own what. That's not that doesn't work is my point. I'm not saying that there isn't someone out there that as a product of fiat and money printing as we know it has an an amount of wealth that they otherwise probably shouldn't have. But as soon as you get into subjective measurements of well this person's a bad person. I don't like the way they smell. I don't like the way they look. I don't like the way they made their money. And they either have a right to or don't have a right to property. And let me actually uh expand on this one a little bit because I did see a lot of comments that are like, "Jack, you're saying that a billionaire that makes money trading stocks is more valuable to society than a teacher or a firefighter? You [ __ ] I'm not saying productive in in the subjective sense like I'm judging someone's character or I'm judging their interests or I'm judging their profession. I'm not making a moral measurement of a doctor, a firefighter and a hedge fund person. I'm saying productive in the economic sense. Productive meaning how much value are they producing versus how much is it cost them to produce said value. That's just an economic term. Teachers make what they make because the market is willing to pay them a certain amount of money to teach who they're teaching. Put another way, if teachers made a billion dollars a year, I might sell strike, quit 21, and go be a teacher. the market has found an equilibrium to compensate someone to teach something that they're an expert in to people that want to learn. That's not a moral judgment. I'm not saying that I would rather go to the Cubs game with a hedge fund manager than a teacher. I would probably prefer to go to the Cubs game with a firefighter and a teacher than a Wall Street douchebag. There's no doubt about that. I'm not making moral judgment on these people. What I'm saying is in the marketplace, productivity is measured on inputs and outputs. Don't mince the word productivity and how productive they are with a moral judgment on their character. Okay? And that's just that's just how the marketplace works. That's it. And so taxing the rich, taxing the rich and saying, "Well, some of them had to have benefited from the money printer, right? That's a violation of property rights. Which ones benefited from the money printer? How much how much of their wealth was earned versus benefited from the money printer? When did it start? When did it end? This doesn't scale. We don't know. Of course. And obviously if it can be abused, it will be abused. Power corrupts, right? And so then all of a sudden you get people in office that say, "Uh, taxing the rich, more like taxing whoever voted for Trump." And then property rights goes out the window. If property rights is only granted if you're rich and benefited from the catillian effect, how much longer until property rights is only valued if the people in power value you? It's ridiculous. So again, my point is economic measurement of productivity. It's not a it's not a judgment on who you are, what you like, what you do, none of those things at all. at all. If anyone doesn't like Wall Street douchebags, it's me. Trust me. Okay. And then as far as like at the margins, whose property should we violate? Like how about this? I'm a Bitcoiner. I've benefited tremendously from them printing money because my bitcoins have gone up a lot. I would wage to say since I bought Bitcoin, if they hadn't printed a dollar, Bitcoin would be less valuable in dollar terms. Do I deserve to take my bitcoins from me? I've benefited from the money printer. Everyone that's a bitcoiner has benefited from them debasing currency. Does the government deserve your bitcoins? stupid. Come on. Free markets, less government, less tax, more freedom. How about that? Can we agree on that? Uh, Jack, if someone earns massive wealth through contribution to society, how should we view future generations inheriting it if they aren't major contributors themselves? Oh, you guys are obsessed with this whole um me talking about productive people and uh okay. uh how how do how should we view trust fund babies is is the question firstly however you want first and foremost I can tell you how I view them but how I view them is only as relevant as you want it to be your opinion think for yourselves there's no central planning of how to think about people but how do I view trust fund babies I view them as normal people listen what Bitcoin solves is once you've built wealth in order to remain as wealthy as you are, you have to still be productive. Bitcoin solved that. Meaning this, let's say I earned 100 bitcoins, okay? And I pass 100 bitcoins to my kids. If my kid has 100 bitcoin inherited, but my kid sits on the couch all day, takes drugs, plays video games, and does nothing, how are they going to live selling the bitcoins? So in order to remain 100 bitcoins wealthy, they have to earn more than they consume or else they get poorer in bitcoin terms. So sure, they're wealthy. Why are they wealthy? Because someone productive, I earned that wealth and I gave it to them. It is my wealth and my property to give. If my dad wanted to give me wealth he's earned, he has every right. It's his it's his property. It's not the governments. It's not the states. It's not his colleagues. It's his productivity that he wants for his son. And if I made that decision, it would be the same. So if my neighbor is a trust fund baby, cool. Good to like I guess that's information. Your parents were productive in some capacity and they wanted to give that net wealth to you. Nice. Now, as far as how productive are they to society, it doesn't matter. If they spend all of that wealth on private jets and stuff, well, then their kids have nothing to inherit. Well, then they start missing rent. Well, then they start having to downsize on the dinners that they're going out to on a weekly basis. So, in in a hard money world, in order to remain upper class, you have to remain productive or you can consume less. You can have a 100 Bitcoin in cold storage, but if you're working at McDonald's and make an hourly wage, in order to not bleed into that Bitcoin, you have to consume less. You have to consume like an hourly wage worker. So then your wealth is irrelevant. So it doesn't matter to me in a perfectly free market. Now, in this effect money printing world, yes, it's [ __ ] There's some people that just get to inherit legacy assets and benefit from Wall Street relationships and all stupid [ __ ] That's absolutely true. But I don't care. Whatever. [ __ ] them. I don't, you know, waste my time hating on on someone else. I don't care. But for me, in the way I view the world, be productive. And that could be, you know, people are like, "I'm a teacher. You're calling me not productive? [ __ ] you, Jack." No, I'm not. Teachers can be plenty productive. Go out and teach the world. And by the way, being a teacher carries varying definitions nowadays. Is that university educator? Is that elementary school teacher? Or is that a teacher? Like you run a podcast. Like Joe Rogan could be a teacher. He makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year or whatever. I don't know how much he makes, but a lot. Go be productive. Go provide value to the world. Consume less than you earn. Go be productive. If you're productive, you've earned your ability to consume in the marketplace. And if someone inherits productivity that was passed to them from a friend, a boss, a parent, good for them. But in order to remain at that level of wealth, they still have to be productive. In order to grow your wealth in Bitcoin terms, you have to be productive. Never forget that. Someone hands you 100 Bitcoin, in order to have at least 100 and hopefully get to 100 one and then 100 two and then 100 three, you got to be doing productive stuff. Pretty simple. Okay. Bitcoin and markets. Dylan asked Jack, "If Iran is using Bitcoin to get around US sanctions and the US sees Bitcoin as a national asset, would it be advantageous to pump the price up to reduce the amount of Bitcoin gained from the ships?" Sure, in theory. I mean, it's not bad thought. I just um So, you're saying pump the price of Bitcoin up so that in Bitcoin terms they're getting less sats? Sure. But I just can't imagine that that's what's crossing the US mind at this point. Um, I think that the United States appreciates the fact that neutral reserve assets are important strategically. Something like Bitcoin is going to be important across the whole spectrum. Everything from AI to global settlement and global trade. Um, and that's probably about as far as they've gone with it. And right now they're like in Paris uh talking about the bond market and unsanctioning Russian oil. I'd be shocked if they logged into Coinbase and started bidding up the price to make sure that Iran got less sats. Um, and mind you, we know the traffic that's going through the straight right now is so low that it's not like Iran is like really raking it in broadly. I mean, who knows? Maybe they end up with a bigger reserve than the US, but I think that the US wouldn't try and prevent that by making the price go up. I think the US would just start buying for themselves. Who knows? I don't think it's top of mind, at least at the moment, but it's a good thought. Question for Jack. How would you expect Bitcoin to act in a time of crisis? With fiat, the shock can be softened by printing, but Bitcoin standard, it would not have that luxury. Yeah, I think in a time of of market crisis, everything sells off, including gold. Um, and then these things rally on the back of money printing. So, that would be my base level expectation. Unless we go through a time of austerity like the Great Depression, then everything's going to be down for a extended period of time for some years. Um, but again, I own Bitcoin and I work on Bitcoin because I think it's the new system that is better and serves my interests and my ideal future the most. I want to contribute to and save in and work on something that's fair, that's equitable, that's inclusive, and that allows me to value my future. And so no matter how you slice it, I see Bitcoin winning. But that's my low time preference speaking. People are like, "Yeah, but month over month the price is down." Well, guess what? I don't like I don't think in months or in days. Like I'm thinking about when my kids are my age, what world are they going to be living in? And you know, if I have a say in that, where am I going to cast my vote, which is what I work on and I spend my time on. So I think in crisis people need to raise cash. Bitcoin will get hit like it is now, like it has been, like gold is. And then on the back half of the printing, I think Bitcoin is always the best performer because it's the scarcest. It's pretty simple. When there's more fiat currency units created, those fiat currency units are now competing for the goods in the marketplace. So how much more eggs can we make with the more fiat units coming online? How much more houses and pen houses can you make? How much more boats and cars? How much more gold can you mine? The fact that Bitcoin is fixed literally in supply, it performs the best because it doesn't matter how many fiat units are created, the supply doesn't change and that makes it the best performer because more more currency units are competing against a literal finite supply. So, I think it'll be the best performer. Um, crisis it gets punched and then on the back half of the crisis it goes up the most. Uh, Jack, I know the best is to buy Bitcoin and don't think about it for a couple of years. So, I wanted to know what are your tips because I can't stop thinking about it. I mean, I I bought Bitcoin and my my dad's advice was buy Bitcoin and take a 5 to 10 year nap is what he is what he used to tell everyone in our neighborhood. And now it turns out you end up getting obsessed and checking the price every day and reading the Bitcoin standard and following everybody on Twitter. And I would say don't don't uh don't convince yourself not to do that. Follow your interest. Be curious. Ask questions. And if Bitcoin becomes a passion of yours or an interest or a career, that's great. And if it doesn't, that's also great. Um but my advice would be lower your time preference. Think of what Bitcoin can provide to your future. So, you know, humans, we are different and we are best because we are future oriented species. We have an ability to value tomorrow, right? Like instead of just leisurely laying by the water like a [ __ ] crocodile or a fat seal, we like coordinate and get to work and we expend sacrifice and energy today for a better tomorrow. And so, don't overweight yourself in owning Bitcoin where if something bad happens, you got to sell it all. Allow yourself and afford yourself the ability to hold it. Continue to add to it. And think about your future. Think about a future where you've been compounding your savings for years, where Bitcoin has been able to go from 70K to 700K. What that would unlock for you. And I don't know what that means for you. Could be getting married, could be getting a house, could be having kids, all the above, none of the above, some of the above. But if you're interested in it, I'm glad you're listening. And don't take that away from yourself, right? Like if I'm interested in going to the bulls game, I don't curtail that interest. I go to the [ __ ] game because that's what I want to do. You know, you got the only thing as scarce as Bitcoin is time on this planet. Spend it how you want. Uh, congrats, Jack. Thank you. I appreciate that. I don't know what for, but um I appreciate it nonetheless. Can you eventually explain step by step the best way to set up and use Bitcoin? Which wallet, KYC, etc.? Thanks a lot. Greetings from Portugal. Wow. Hello from Portugal. It's late there. Thanks for tuning in. Yes. Um, it's an idea I had in passing. Um, Dylan and I are so busy all the time. I would like to do more content. I feel like I want to tweet more, do more videos. Some tutorials is up my alley. So, I got to talk to Dylan on how we can pull that off somehow. But, um, yeah, I would love to at some point for sure. U, maybe I need to hire some of you guys um to help me out. We'll see. If Bitcoin was so valuable, why would it be the first thing that people sell? Lots of liquid things you can sell. If Bitcoin was the most valuable, it wouldn't be first. Yeah, I disagree with that. I mean, there's a saying in markets that's older than me, which is you sell what you can, not what you want. Um, on a Sunday night, you say there's plenty of things you can sell. I don't think so. At least not this liquid. Sure, if you need to if you need $20, you could have raised 20. You could have requested that from your friend on Venmo. Sure, you're right. Okay. If you needed a million dollar, $10 million, $100 million, a billion dollars after markets close on a Sunday night, or if you're in a country that its markets and property rights aren't the US, what other market are you talking about? I don't know of it. And by the way, like the Ganaan SETI market, no, it's not nearly as liquid. And liquid meaning like it can absorb a billion dollar sell order. When you need to raise cash quickly, you don't have time to ladder in a bunch of orders through an order book and get filled over a week or two or a month or a quarter. I'm talking about raise cash. So I I just disagree. Tail is oldest time. Sell what you can what you want. Um okay, Strike questions. Hey Dylan and Jack, would Strike consider implementing Cashew and running a Cashew mint as well? Sure, if there's demand for it. I think, you know, at Strike, the most difficult thing is prioritization. I think the vision that we have is the same as everybody else. Bitcoin continues to be better money. It could be used for payments. It could be used for savings. It could be used in credit cards and rewards and how credit cards are collateralized. It could be used in lending and borrowing. Um, there should be a strike Canada. There should be a strike Latin America. there should be strike. Uh like all of that vision is all well and good and you guys never have bad ideas. The problem is what do we work on today and then tomorrow and then the next day and we try and sequence that on how many people are asking us for things. How much business can we do and business we can do as a proxy to how much outside external demand. We don't want to spend our whole corporate resources to build one person one feature if we can build a million people one feature. And so I would say Cashew is definitely somewhere on my vision for the world. It's just where does it slot in? And so we haven't gotten a ton of demand for it considering Strike is a regulated KYC service. Um people don't run to us for privacy, right? And it makes a lot of sense. We don't that's not something that we sell necessarily. Um but given there was demand and it made sense. Absolutely 100%. Question for Jack. Can we get a partnership with Square to be able to just tap and pay with Bitcoin through Strike? Certainly. Um, it's possible. Maybe. Uh, I I think I'm going to see some of the Square employees uh in June, so maybe I'll ask them. Uh, last strike question. Hey Jack, can you please give an update on this feature if it's at all being considered a debit spending function from my strike cash? I want to get off the credit cards entirely for psychological reasons. It is certainly being considered. Yes, I've talked about this before. A lot of you guys want to strike card and the way we've thought about it is I don't know if I can give you guys a better card than Chase Sapphire or than the MX cards. They're giving you cash back, free stays at hotels, access to airport lounges. I don't know if I can compete with that. And so my answer was always, why don't you guys use those cards and pay the credit card bill with Strike? Like that's what I do. I use my Strike line of credit. So, I'm not even I'm constantly stacking Bitcoin. I'm not even selling the Bitcoin. I got this little consumer credit line. I pay it down when I feel like it it's timely to me. And like that's how I do it. I'm like, why do you guys want a card? But you guys are relentless with it. You want a strike card. And so, we definitely we've been talking to Visa. I've thought about maybe even having like a strike black, which is like a premium strike experience where you get a card. our lowest trading fe tiers, our lowest lending rates, and like for some fee you get like a Strike card and all the best of Strike. I don't know. We're We're definitely considering it. I just don't want to launch a product because everyone thinks it sounds cool, but then when they get it, they're like, "Oh, I might as well use my AMX." Like, why why would I use Jack's card? I'll use Jack for borrowing against my Bitcoin, getting a line of credit, buying Bitcoin, using it as a wallet. But I mean, Chase is better at rewards and being closer to the money printer than Jack. So that's what I'm nervous about. But I don't know. You guys are relentless with it. So we're definitely taking a look. Wow. Oh no. Okay. Dylan, uh Dylan has one question here. Okay. Um Dylan, question for Jack. Can we get dollar bill on for a celebrity segment sometime? Also, Jack, thanks for the updates. I look forward to the stream every week. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Um, yeah, I will try and get Dollar Bill on. I mean, Dollar Bill, and for those that don't know, is my dad uh used to be on all the time. dollar bill like he looks at all the [ __ ] I get online and uh all that comes with recording weekly podcasts and being online for a lot of my life. And he's like, "Fuck that." I mean, Dollar Bill is in his 60s. He's on the ocean somewhere, retired. Um stayed humble and stacks for a long time. Worked his ass off. Best dad in the world. and he enjoys his time doing what he wants um chilling on the ocean. So when he realized that he wasn't needed for the podcast and um as the podcast got a bit bigger, all that came with it, people making [ __ ] up about him, yelling at him, being mean, he was like, "All right, you got it from here, dude." And he's always like, he's like, "I'm surprised that you like putting up with this. If I were you, I'd be on the ocean. [ __ ] that." So, so that's just to give you some insights and I mean I don't blame him. He's retired, man. He's he's enjoying uh his life with my stepmom. Um with that being said, I'm sure he would come on. Um he's my dad, so um I'll ask him for sure. And I know that he appreciates the love that you guys have for him. Um it's fun. It's fun doing stuff with your dad. I mean, bonding with my family, my dad and I have always been close, but as close as I've gotten with my stepmom and my family over Bitcoin is very cool. So, it's cool that you guys enjoy the family episodes and uh know my dad and stuff. That's cool. So, I'll pass it along. Okay, I think that's all I got, guys. I'm going to go uh eat these ribs. Thank you for tuning in. As always, leave the comments and questions and critiques and the positive notes in the comments. Uh, I'll read them as always. Man of the people show by the common man for the common man. Uh, and I appreciate you guys tuning in. This is fun. I love the relationship we got going. Hang in there. Consumer sentiment at all-time lows. Uh, bond market getting crushed. Expect some volatility. Buckle your seat belt. It's going to be okay. Earn more than you spend. Try and spend a little less. Find ways to earn a little bit more. Stay humble. Stack sats. Turn on those DCAs. We're going to be okay. But make no mistake, the death of Fiat is not going to be pretty. And with that, I will see you guys next week.