Wall Street Still Doesn't Understand What's Setting Bitcoin’s Price

Hey everybody, welcome back to the pleb underground. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

Wall Street still doesn't understand what's setting the Bitcoin price.

And neither do I, but we've got some hope in them.

From one of my favorite hopium dealers, that's maybe going to explain that.

So I'm excited to go over that. We're going to take a look at Bitcoin's trend.

There's a little, a little report that came out from river.

And apparently, apparently concentration and adoption, having a bit of an impasse.

So we got to take a look at what's going on there. Is this good for Bitcoin?

Is everything good for Bitcoin? Bitwise, publishes the report on how Bitcoin gets

to a million dollars and we are going to take a look at it.

The government will be retrying tornado cash developer, Roman storm.

But I thought mixers were okay. What, what happened? I don't understand.

Because it's always then they fight you and they won't actually give a shit about your privacy.

It's about making examples of these people.

So that nobody else, nobody else tries to exert any form of personal freedom.

The U.S. Treasury wants to give crypto exchanges power to freeze funds.

Nobody actually surprised by this. I'm not eyes.

We finally have a strategic Bitcoin reserve update.

And I'm sure everyone is excited.

A new IRS tax form. That's right, guys.

Saul Holba. It's so convenient. I kind of remember last year around this time.

Hear me out. Sounds crazy.

Every year taxes around the same time. Actually is the same time.

And every year around this time, there's some type of tax fraud.

Oh, no. Yeah, we're going to take a look at this new form.

Blockchain integrating lightning into their Jade hardware wallet.

It seems to be the first hardware wallet to incorporate lightning, which is pretty cool.

We're going to take a look at some of the background on it.

And good morning, original shed boy.

Good morning, silent lamb guys. You know the deal.

We're going to dive into this stuff. Here we go.

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Okay, current Bitcoin price 70,370.

The block height new all time high 940,287.

Oh, let's see here fast as fee two sats per V bytes.

Say it ain't so apparently there's no demand for JPEGs.

Who would have thought?

Who would have thought?

Anyways, what else have we taken a look at here?

The total public lightning capacity has not moved at all since yesterday 5,677.

Okay, why not?

I'll take that as a win.

Hey, good morning Phil.

And good morning ACP.

All right, guys.

The numbers are looking good.

We're still alive here.

It's good stuff.

It's good stuff.

Okay, so here we go.

Wall Street doesn't understand Bitcoin price.

Neither do we.

And that's okay.

Because we've got this guy.

David.

The EPA engineer, I guess.

NBA engineer.

Anyways, got some solid hopium.

Let's do it.

ACP.

I know ACP loves the hopium.

So I'm also a huge fan.

I'm not like saying you're a huge fan of it.

And I'm not.

This is like what keeps me alive here.

Anyways, new weekly supply.

And the weekly demand.

Beautiful graph.

What is he talking about?

Let's dive into it.

Here we go.

Bitcoin's price is not being set by everyone.

Okay.

No less detected yet.

It is being set at the margin.

This is what the market still misses.

That's right, Wall Street.

Pay attention.

Take notes.

New supply is only about 450 Bitcoin per day.

And Michael Sailor is buying it all with his STRC.

About 3,150 Bitcoin per week.

It's funny because it's almost like we don't know

that he's actually buying all this Bitcoin.

I know.

I know nobody wants to believe that.

Silence pleb silence pleb.

Sailor is buying Bitcoin.

You know what?

I'm going to make that into a meme.

That's probably a good one.

You know, with that.

That dude.

They're the statue that holds its hand up.

Anyways, okay.

So here we go.

Last week US spot ETFs took in 568 million or approximately 8,200 BTC

that today's price is strategy bought.

17,994 Bitcoin combined demand 26,200 new weekly supply.

3,150.

That's more than 8x the new supply.

And yet we're flat, flat going down.

Just somebody make it make sense already.

Please make it make sense.

Anyways, this is the real story.

Bitcoin doesn't need everyone.

We just need people to stop selling to Wall Street really.

And we need not to have these paper derivative products that people

have pulled themselves into thinking that this is what's making Bitcoin better.

Or giving more people access to Bitcoin.

It only needs enough large buyers to absorb the float faster than miners create new coins.

This is how price moves in a scarce asset.

I mean, look, again, I appreciate the Hopium.

Unfortunately, we've got paper Bitcoin.

We see what Jane Street is doing.

There's at least seven other actors.

Okay, I'm talking about Goldman Sachs, Macquarie, JP Morgan, all these other people.

They're all doing the same shenanigans.

They just haven't they just haven't been caught yet.

Okay, that that's all.

That's all there is to it.

Roark, it's going on here.

Yeah, absolutely I owe you Bitcoin buys.

He can't prove it in that whole nonsense about not showing proof of reserves

because of safety and stuff like that.

Dude, you are sitting on Twitter every single day talking about all the Bitcoin you buy.

How is that better for your opsec than proof of reserves?

Like I was at any different.

Like you're still talking about buying Bitcoin every day.

Anyways.

Yeah, that is a good question.

Will Wall Street stop trading Bitcoin like a tech stock?

Humans are humans, dude.

You know what?

I think they will.

I think that people will when they start to understand Bitcoin better.

That's, you know, but for now, this is where we are trapped.

You know, this is exactly where we are trapped.

Hey, good morning, Roman.

Okay.

I appreciate that, Christine Lagardefields.

I really appreciate this.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, right?

Nothing wrong with that.

I love you too.

In the most pathonic way.

And good morning, plastic.

Okay.

Let us continue.

Here we go.

Boom.

This is the river stuff.

Institute.

This, this I actually don't like.

It's like Phil, there's a whole bunch of stuff you don't like and you talk about it every day.

But this time it's different, right?

Institutions may end up owning the most Bitcoin.

That's crappy.

But only if we let them.

I mean, look, you know, we can sit here and say that we're surprised, right?

I'm not, I'm not really surprised to say that that is the end all, right?

Because according to this report, according to this graph, institutions may own a majority of the Bitcoin by 2035.

But that's the thing about Bitcoin, right?

You can't produce more of it.

So as a result, you're by 2035, there may be a shift into institutions.

However, I don't believe that that shift, if it actually occurs, will be necessarily permanent.

So unlike the Fiat money that we have today, which we all know the Kantian effect and we all know that essentially it's all it's a proof of stake system.

So the more money that you have, you just simply, quote unquote, put it to work.

And then you will just simply have more and more money because the dollars are simply being created as opposed to Bitcoin.

That is not what happens, right?

We have the finite supply and essentially you have to quote unquote to provide value, right?

Some type of product or service in exchange.

And the Bitcoin that you get once you get rid of it, you got, you got to get it back, right?

There's no, there's no actual institution that's going to pay you more Bitcoin because of your Bitcoin.

Because again, the finite amount.

So anyways, the point I'm making is that although it seems to be a concern,

let's see how this actually plays out, right?

I think it's like, it's a lot of assumptions.

It definitely should be a wake up call to the plebs.

And I understand, right? There's some people.

And I can't say that I necessarily disagree with this, but I've seen some people say that, you know, the average individual is never going to accumulate Bitcoin in any massive way.

Okay, that's fine. I don't care.

What I do care about is a person that recognizes Bitcoin's qualities and decides at that moment, hey,

I am going to use this to store my time value into the future and I'm going to, you know, and it off to my kids if you have kids, you know, or your grandkids or whatever it is.

So that doesn't really matter to me.

It's about the individual recognizing what Bitcoin's qualities can do for the individual who cares about the institutions.

But anyways, don't place too much importance into this.

Lots of stuff changes. Good morning, Torep. Good morning, mattress.

All right. Here we go, guys.

The big Bitwise report. How does Bitcoin get to a million?

Samson's been touting the Omega candles.

All we heard this cycle was the million dollar Bitcoin, the two million dollar Bitcoin.

All of that good stuff. And we saw none of that.

We got instead a muted bull run.

So let's actually take a look at what Matt Hugen at the same.

So Hugen's argument centered on the assumption that the market itself will not remain static.

He points to the expansion of gold's market capitalization over the past two decades as evidence that the store of value category can grow significantly during periods of macro economic uncertainty.

If the store of value market continues to expand at a similar pace, who can estimate it's going to reach roughly 121 trillion within a decade under that scenario, Bitcoin would need to capture about 17% of the market to reach a price of one million per coin.

So it's the gold is the leading indicator.

And if we just take a look at gold, we see what gold does. We extrapolate out.

This is how we get to a million bucks. Again, I appreciate the hope you it's not happening tomorrow.

Okay, it's not happening tomorrow. And then like the people that are sitting there telling you that like you should be mortgaging your house today and like living in a cardboard box and like taking on all kinds of debt so that you can buy Bitcoin because we're going to a million like it's not happening tomorrow.

Okay, you're just going to sit there saddled with a bunch of debts. It's all waiting.

Yeah, it's not fun. It's not fun, but that's what happens guys. That's exactly what happens. Okay, let's dive into the let's dive into the tornado cash story.

Now, I know guys tornado cash with tornado cash was a and is a shit coin mixer. However, this has to do with personal freedom. This has to do with privacy tools.

So we are going to talk about this and this also has to do with the severe encroachment of the state.

Just my opinion. Anyways, US government will be retrying tornado cash developer Roman storm on conspiracy charges of money laundering and sanction evasion.

This fall last year, jury was unable to come to a conclusion on the two charges resulting in a guilty verdict only on the charge to operate an unlicensed money service business.

They just take whatever they can. They throw it at the wall to see what sticks and that's the problem right when you're fighting the state.

Like you're fighting the state. This is not just like one lawyer, one judge or something like that. It's anyways.

Next month, a court will rule on storms on storms rule 29 motion to decide whether he will be acquitted of the guilty verdict on one charge on legal grounds.

So here's comments from Roman storm today, the southern district of New York prosecutors filed a letter to judge failure.

I don't know. There's the word fail in there.

Anyways, requesting a retrial date. They want to go again in October. The prosecutors want to retry me on two counts.

The jury couldn't unanimously decide on a jury of 12 Americans heard four weeks of evidence and deadlocked no verdict on money laundering, no verdict on sanctions violations.

The government's response. Try again to make writing code a crime and this is exactly it because again, what people cease to realize it doesn't matter what actually happens.

It's going to sound terrible, right? It doesn't matter what actually happens to Roman storm.

Okay, and I'm not saying that from my personal opinion. I'm saying that from the view of the state because it's about setting a precedent.

Okay, you all that needs to happen is that other people need to see what happened.

And it becomes a cycle of self-sensorship. That's all. Well, I'm not going to write that code because I saw what happened.

It's just about making an example of somebody. You guys remember, I mean, look, I'm old. So Gen X, right, being in elementary school.

So when a kid acted out, right, or or maybe made a joke at the teacher's expense and all the rest of the class laughed, what happened to that kid, right?

That kid was made an example of, right? And what happens to the other kids?

Do they see what happens? And obviously they don't want to be singled out. They don't want to be other.

It's we're so stupid. It's unbelievable. This is this is what this is what we are. It's okay. Humans. Yeah, humans. We love it. We love it. Okay.

Anyways, the two counts up to 40 years in prison for writing open source code for a protocol. I don't control for transactions. I never touched a jury already couldn't agree.

This was criminal, but the SDNY prosecutors want to keep trying with the hope of getting a different answer. I'm pretty sure that that is the definition of insanity, right?

Where you keep doing the same thing, expecting different results. But the difference is this, right? The state has endless funds. The state has endless money to ruin your life.

I think to think about. Okay. And again, I'm not saying that right as individuals, we back down. I'm just saying this is what we are up against as individuals.

Okay. I have. And by the way, guys, the link to this whole thread is obviously in the show notes. If you guys want to go and read the whole thing. So here.

Last piece here of the Roman storms comments. I have a daughter. I have a life in Seattle. I'll never stop fighting for freedom, but I need to be honest with you.

Four weeks of trial, a hungry. Now they want to do it all over again in October. I have basically exhausted my legal defense funds.

And people don't realize how expensive it is that the legal system. This is all by design. Okay. This is all by design.

Right. They can't tell you that it's unfair. Right. So you just make it completely unfair. Anyways.

I'm staring down another full federal trial. Every dollar raised goes directly to keeping this fight alive, attorneys, experts, the full defense apparatus. It takes to stand up to the SDNY prosecutors.

This isn't abstract. If I can't fund a defense, they win by default. Wow. Justice is blind. If you care about financial privacy. If you write code and believe that code is speech.

This is the moment. And like I said, guys, if you feel so inclined to donate or to help tornado cash, just check in the show notes that there's a link there to Roman storms thread.

But yeah, this is serious stuff, guys. This is what it's like. You go up against the state. Like you're just not going to win. Hey, good morning. Play a space boy. Good morning.

Yep. Exactly.

And you know, people just a lot of people don't want to accept that, but that is exactly it. The bureaucratic process, the red tape.

This is what it is. That is the machine. Right. And then people just don't recognize that. So either, either you play the game. Right. And you become exceedingly wealthy.

And you are able to afford to fight that machine. However, by the time you can afford to fight that machine, one could argue you are captured by that machine.

One of the reasons I don't actually enjoy going to conferences. Right. See what happens is is that, for example, it's not on a much smaller scale. Of course, right.

But that's something I learned a lot. Right. When I was a lot younger is that that's that's how you buy silence. Right. It's very simple. You go, you meet somebody.

You know, they treat you nice. Maybe they buy you a hot dog. Maybe they buy you a beer. You know, something like that. You have a couple of jokes. Then all of a sudden. Right.

A couple months later, there's like a massive argument.

Well, thing is that if you appreciate that person's flattery. Right. If you appreciate what they did for you's a good guy. You know, well, chances are you might silence yourself. You might sense or yourself. You might hold back from saying what you really think.

Because you maybe don't want to lose the approval that you think you have. But really it's not about that. Right. This goes back to the comment I always make. Right. They want you on their team. They are not on yours.

That's the difference. So while you're sitting there thinking that like this is a mutual thing.

Deal, but we may still argue. I do like hot dogs.

It's so bad. It is. It is so bad. That's something I picked up on right away. You know, because like you go when you meet these like influencers and stuff. And now all of a sudden when they say stupid shit, you're like,

I don't want to say anything back against it. You know, you followed me. If we follow each other, shit like that.

It's just pathetic. Anyways, anyways, the type of stuff that we see.

All right. Let's let's talk about the whole exchanges that are going to freeze your.

This is completely unsurprising, completely unsurprising. But let's dive into this. Yeah, exactly.

Man, that this is it's the same way that the political lobbying works. Absolutely. You know, you give. And I've put this quote out before, right?

Oh boy, humble is influence. Now now I'm afraid. Now I'm afraid. But yeah, this is this is where the quote by gifts one makes slaves.

I can't tell you, you know, like it's so easy to silence somebody. You know, I've had people in my past experience, even specifically in this space, right?

Trying to, you know, trying to buy things for me. And it's like, I'm a grown man. I don't need you to buy me a television.

I need you to can buy me a trip somewhere that that's weird. You know, but yeah, there's there's people out there because it's an easy way to gain your support.

And then all of a sudden, you owe them, you owe them something.

Now, this is what happens. Anyways, okay. So let's talk about how the US Treasury wants to enable crypto exchanges to take away your corn.

No, the US Treasury wants to give crypto exchanges power to freeze your funds if they look suspicious, no court order, no charges, just blockchain analytics and vibes.

The kicker, they can freeze your assets, but legally can't tell you why that sounds familiar. This is actually exactly what happened when I got debanked.

Okay, they couldn't even tell me why I had to figure it out. And funny enough, PayPal also did some some fuckery like this to me and they couldn't tell me why either.

So your frozen no explanation, no timeline, no recourse, narrowly tailored, what narrowly tailored authority never stays narrow.

Indeed, crypto was supposed to be the escape from our big sherry financial censorship. Now we're debating handing that same power to private companies.

Yep. Somebody actually surprised nobody surprised.

We're talking about this for I don't know how many years, you know.

Yep, Roark, that's right. What people will do for some free Bitcoin stickers, that's right.

Or even just to have somebody follow you, you know.

Yep, it sure does salty crayon sounds like a repeat of the Canadian truckers issue a few years ago. Indeed, let's dive into it though because there's some interesting stuff going on.

So the report explains how governments and companies can monitor suspicious activity on blockchain networks.

Okay, that that's always been there.

The report also suggests a possible new rule called a hold law.

So this is where they insert some extra crap.

This idea would allow crypto exchanges to temporarily freeze suspicious funds during investigations.

The goal is to stop stolen illegal funds from moving quickly across the system, normally freezing access requires legal approval from a court.

Congress will now study the report and its recommendations.

Lawmakers may use the findings when writing future crypto regulations, the Genius Act itself already focuses heavily on stablecoins, including rules for issuers and oversight by regulators.

So yeah, again, this is all about moving the over 10 window.

There's going to be some pushback against this and then and then we're all going to begrudgingly settle on a middle ground, which of course takes more personal freedom away from the individual.

And hands more power and control to the corporations.

Good morning, RS guides.

Yeah, I know I'm disappointed about that stuff.

All right, guys, it's okay.

I've got ray of sunshine.

Let's freaking do it.

The strategic Bitcoin reserve.

You know, maybe I've been wrong this whole time.

Maybe the government is going to buy Bitcoin.

Nope.

Not today.

Not today, my friends.

The US Treasury completed a buyback of 14.7 billion worth of debts.

The largest Treasury buyback in history.

Guys, they are going to do everything and they're never going to buy Bitcoin.

Okay, I'm sorry and I'm not saying this because I'm happy about it or anything like that.

I would love to see this aspect of the game theory play out, but all they are ever going to do.

The government is only ever going to seize Bitcoin.

They will buy back 14 billion dollars worth of garbage before they buy Bitcoin.

Okay, so all of these influencers and these people that are telling you, you know, about how the government

is a secret Bitcoiners and all this stuff.

You don't understand how the state works.

There is nothing beyond the power of the state.

Full stop.

Full stop.

That's right.

It's 14 billion dollars of fucking garbage.

Oh, what's that?

That's the weird IRS letter that's conveniently going around just in time for tax season.

Man, what a coincidence.

I better do something fast.

I better act quick, right?

Quick.

Okay.

Anyways, Andrew Gordon, who does some crypto.

He has crypto tax company.

Let's dive into it, of course, right?

Of course, we're going to take a look at this.

So we just obtained a new form.

The IRS is sending in crypto audits.

It lists 100 plus exchanges, Coinbase, Binance, Crackin, FTX, Mount Gox, Self-Custody wall.

It's like Metamask, Ledger and Trezer.

I don't know why they list Metamask.

Most of that shit's been rugged anyways.

So I don't know what they're going to find there.

You have to check yes or no for every single one.

Then sign it under penalties of perjury.

The IRS isn't auditing your trades in a single year.

They want the complete map of everywhere your crypto has ever been.

Of course, this is just freaking people out, right?

Going back years.

Forget a platform you used once in 2017.

That's a problem.

Disclosed too many.

You just opened a new line of inquiry.

I mean, this is true anyways.

In terms of when you file taxes, like if you're self-reporting.

So you're telling them you're telling the tax authority, the IRS.

What's happening?

Anyways, don't respond at all.

They'll issue a summons.

This is a trap dressed up as paperwork.

Do not sign this form without a crypto tax attorney.

We're watching this closely.

More analysis coming out on our blog.

Okay.

So just to provide some clarity around this in case some people

didn't understand.

Okay.

So it's not a standard annual tax filing requirement for all taxpayers.

It's an information document request.

That doesn't make it any better.

Okay.

Issued by the IRS, small business self-employed division during active cryptocurrency

or digital asset audits to map a taxpayer's full historical activity across

platforms, wallets and services potentially going back years.

So the point that I'm trying to make about this is that this,

you've already been flagged for an audit.

Okay.

So that, like, this isn't something that's just like showing up in the mail,

all of a sudden.

Because again, this is always, it's always this, this kind of like freaky framing.

Right?

That you're going to have to fill this out.

You must do this.

And again, right?

Obviously audits are terrible just all on their own.

However, I'm just pointing out there are, by the time you get this form,

you're already knowledgeable that you are in an audit.

And you definitely should have already contacted a tax attorney in that case.

So, but I know, I know people want to pretend that they don't pay taxes.

And that's okay.

That's okay.

Everybody teach their own, right?

Teach their own.

I know.

I love to pretend that I sit there and, you know, battle the state and all that crap.

And it's like, yeah, look, all I can do is buy and huddle Bitcoin.

Okay.

That's not some fucking superhero.

Anyways, anyways.

Okay.

So if you receive this in an audit, right?

We're talking about this, this, this freaky little paper that nobody was able to scan properly.

Okay?

If you receive that, consult the tax attorney before responding.

And noncompliance could lead to summits or penalties.

Okay?

Be careful.

It's insane stuff.

It is.

Isn't it ACP?

It is.

It's totally freaky framing.

You know, it's like every, every year, man, I can't tell you ever since I got into Bitcoin every tax season.

It's like everyone's going to jail.

Everybody's going to jail.

It's just automatic.

You know, it's like, come on.

Come on.

What's happening, guys?

It's not what's happening.

All right.

Here we go.

Lockstream integrates lightning network support into its jade device.

Yay.

Super excited.

That sounds great.

This lets you receive Bitcoin instantly over lightning.

Go on.

Hold it securely in a J protected wallet and move to the, and move to the base Bitcoin layer whenever they choose.

Interesting.

I wanted to show the picture.

I have a jade.

It's one of the hardware devices that I've tested.

And actually do like using it.

That's kind of a decent, the jade.

And I find, which, it's not a hardware wallet, but nunchuck is also great for, like, a hot wallet.

Anyways, but so who look?

So here's the details, guys, because it's not, you know, obviously it's not as great as the framing.

So here we go.

Blockchain development company block stream is released version 520 of its block stream green application.

Starting to chain capture this update connects lightning payments with the liquid network.

Womp, Womp.

A Bitcoin side chain developed by block stream using atomic swaps to convert lightning payments into liquid Bitcoin secured by jade devices.

Eh.

Eh.

Sorry.

It's.

I don't consider it like it's a step in the right direction, but I, it's like stop trying to make like guys like liquid is crap.

Yeah, exactly.

Right?

Oh no.

You suck again.

That's.

It's just exactly what it is.

Rob Snyder.

It's like his best line ever.

I, I hope he wrote a really good contract for that.

Because like, that's pretty much what's keeping the lights on for him.

Sorry.

That's mean.

Can't help it.

Anyways, the report highlights that the block stream jade hardware wallet is currently the hardware wallet, capable of interacting.

The only hardware wallet is capable of interacting with the Bitcoin lightning network.

So why did you make it suck?

Why do you have to drag liquid into this?

Nobody cares about liquid.

Nobody.

Anyways, this allows users to send and receive lightning payments while securely storing funds in cold storage.

Yeah, that's great.

But, but why are we stuck having to use this third party side chain?

Kaka, I don't want this.

I want this.

I'm not interested in this.

Yeah.

Too bad.

Anyways, oh, step in the right direction.

I know, I know, I know, I know.

You got to think positively.

Step in the right direction.

Anyways, speaking of speaking positively, guys, over 15,000 signatures, right?

Even though tornado cash is going back up against the judge in October, these guys are already in prison.

That mixer news is not going to help these guys because they already pled guilty.

Consider signing the petition, consider donating.

All they did was write privacy preserving software.

That is what's really unacceptable is their incarceration.

That's going to do it for this episode, guys.

Have a great rest of the day, and I am going to catch you all tomorrow.

Have a good one.

Thank you.