“Bitcoin Dead” searches surge. Bottom signal? #Cryptotownhall

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Bitcoin Dead" Searches Surge. Bottom Signal? – The Wolf Of All Streets #Cryptotownhall

Podcast: The Wolf Of All Streets
Host: Scott Melker
Date: February 19, 2026
Episode: “Bitcoin Dead” searches surge. Bottom signal?
Panelists: Scott Melker, Dave, Adam, George, Gary, Bruce, Kelly, Michael, others

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Episode Overview

In this #Cryptotownhall, Scott Melker and a roundtable of long-time industry voices tackle a crucial question: As Google searches for “Bitcoin dead” and “Bitcoin going to zero” hit all-time highs, is this “peak fear” a classic bottom signal? What do such negative waves say about Bitcoin’s future, and is the original crypto asset at risk of losing its way amid bear market pessimism, institutional influence, and the relentless march of AI? The group explores market psychology, proofs of humanity, miners’ profitability, institutional adoption, and personal philosophies on holding Bitcoin in tumultuous times.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. AI, Bots, and the Proof of Human Problem

(Starts ~00:00)

• Dave describes his struggles recovering a hacked account, lamenting lack of “human” customer support in modern platforms.
• Panelists discuss how AI and bots have become nearly indistinguishable from real users, and speculate about “proof of human” systems as the future of online community and media.
• AI-generated content is already crowding out authentic discussion, worrying the panel.
• Scott: “You’re not going to care about your account in about two to four weeks, because it’s only going to be AI on this platform creating its own AI… there’ll be nothing to engage with from humans anyways.” (01:55)
• Gary: “There’s this, like, becoming Neo in the Matrix and I can tell the difference, bro.” (04:36)

Notable Quote:
“If what you want is actual citizen journalism… proof of human is going to be absolutely the killer app for media companies.” – Dave (02:09)

2. Bitcoin “Going to Zero” Searches as a Market Signal

(Starts ~09:00)

• Dave discusses the phenomenon where terms like “Bitcoin dead” and “Bitcoin going to zero” spike in search interest at market bottoms.
• He claims this signal is “almost perfect” at previous lows:

  "If you search and overlay the chart of these peaks... it's literally almost perfect correlation to bottoms." (09:17)

• Generationally, the same arguments repeat: that virtual assets have no value—an idea he labels as outmoded and logically flawed.
• Scott recalls similar signals in Tesla and other assets, interpreting extreme negativity as a contra-indicator.

Notable Quote:
“When you’ve reached ‘Is it going to zero?’—to me, once again, that’s peak stupidity.” – Scott (14:40)

3. Bearish OGs, Burnout, and Changing Culture

(Starts ~17:55)

• Bruce and other “OGs” admit to feeling less excitement about Bitcoin as it becomes more corporate and mainstream.
• He cites sentiment change: early events had “the smartest people you ever met”; now, much is “corporate slop… dumbest people you ever met.” (17:55)
• Some discuss selling significant portions of their stack just for quality of life, dealing with tax events, and stress.
• Scott: “You guys have been through so much. This is just another iteration of a whole lot of stress.” (32:55)

Memorable Story:
Bruce’s Thanksgiving “panic sell” in 2017—sold at the bottom due to tax worries, then watched the price surge—serves as a personal lesson in psychology and regret (23:00–24:30).

4. Macro, War, and How Geopolitics Impacts Bitcoin

(Starts ~26:42)

• Bruce worries about a potential Iran conflict causing a drawdown, but recognizes that risk assets often rebound quickly after the start of war due to resolved uncertainty.
• Dave: “Markets hate uncertainty. And once the war starts, you have certainty.” (27:14)
• COVID-19 responses and loss of faith in government are cited as shaping the conviction that “playing the cards you’re dealt” and planning for risk—not just chasing upside—matters most.

5. Bitcoin As Store of Value: Is the Thesis Dead?

(Starts ~45:24)

• Dave pushes the panel: Is your thesis for Bitcoin dead, or as strong as ever?
• Bruce is less sure that scarcity and sound economic theory alone are enough anymore to make people care.
• Kelly is “more bullish than ever,” pointing to institutional and sovereign participation as huge steps forward, despite social media negativity.
• George and Kelly stress the importance of patience, HODLing, and ignoring short-term noise:

  “Knowing what you own… go for it long term and there will be volatility, but don’t get shaken up.” – George (51:36)

6. Mining Economics and Quantum Fears

(Starts ~50:59)

• George, a legendary miner, dispels the “miners are unprofitable” FUD, noting efficient setups in low-cost energy regions maintain profitability.
• The group notes cyclic FUDs: energy concerns, quantum resistance, and coordinated attacks to shake out weak holders.
• George: “This is just like ridiculous… we huddled at $150 when things were collapsing.” (57:12)

7. Investment Philosophy & Risk

(Throughout)

• Multiple speakers describe obsessing over risk, both personally and as investors.
• Bruce: “Risk is everything… really, really sophisticated people—that’s all they talk about.” (39:33)
• Many highlight the futility of trying to trade around Bitcoin vs. holding for the long term.
• The importance of studying history, reading the white paper, and understanding what you own are emphasized as psychological armor against volatility.

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• 00:00–06:00 — AI-bot spam, proof of humanity, and philosophical concerns about future online content
• 09:00–11:30 — Peaks in negative Bitcoin search traffic and market bottoms
• 17:55–26:00 — OGs reflect on burnout, “corporate slop,” and stress of holding/letting go
• 26:42–32:55 — Macro risks, war, COVID-19 fallout, and market patterns post-crisis
• 39:00–41:30 — Risk obsession and investor psychology in crypto
• 45:24–51:36 — Revisiting the store of value thesis, new institutional wave, and anti-FUD pro-HODL arguments
• 56:54–58:23 — Mining costs, energy, cycles of FUD, practical mining realities

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Proof of human is going to be the killer app for media companies.” – Dave (02:09)
• “When you’ve reached the ‘is it going to zero?’—that’s peak stupidity.” – Scott (14:40)
• “I’ve probably never been so bearish. I’m just not as excited about it anymore… I got in here to change the world and it’s become a bunch of corporate slop.” – Bruce (17:55)
• “Risk is everything. Really, really sophisticated people… that’s all they talk about.” – Bruce (39:33)
• “I couldn’t be more bullish… what has Bitcoin’s price done since COVID? Despite the price, what has also happened on the fundamental infrastructure?” – Kelly (46:00)
• “Trading around bitcoin is the dumbest thing you can do. Directionally, just look at what’s happening globally… it’s a directional bet.” – George (51:36)
• “Just stay true to the cause… read the white paper… and everything will be fine. I’ll see you at $1 million, guys.” – George (63:00)

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Overall Tone & Final Takeaways

The conversation, while sprinkled with fatigue and frustration from long-time participants, ultimately strikes a tone of resilience and pragmatism. Panelists recognize the repeat cycles of panic and FUD—a sign, for many, that the market is ready to reverse. Despite the noise—be it from AI, corporate takeovers, quantum FUD, or war—“knowing what you own” and holding for the long-haul remains the advice from true veterans. Volatility and fear are necessary ingredients, not defects, of an asset rewriting the rules of value and trust.

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For Listeners

This episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at how Bitcoin OGs, industry builders, and thinkers process periods of peak fear—not by dismissing the risks or challenges, but by contextualizing them within broader history, technology cycles, and personal experience. If you’re in doubt or rattled by the latest “Bitcoin is dead” headlines, this is the grounded—and occasionally cathartic—discussion you need to hear.

Transcript

[Dave]

As we're trying to get things started. Can anyone hear me? Because I never heard music this morning.

[Adam]

Yeah, we got you, man.

[Dave]

Oh, okay. Well, it's just you and me so far, Adam, but I. Some other people are coming up.

[George]

How.

[Adam]

Give us the update on getting the account back, man. How's that. How's that going for you?

[Dave]

Oh, I got my. My sixth rejection yesterday, so I filed again this morning. I mean, you know, the funny thing is, is. Is. I mean, you would think. I mean, I've asked Mario if you could reach out for me. I mean, we have the ghost of Mario up here. It is absolutely amazing, you know, someone who. I actually see incredible potential in this app to do multiple things, just beyond spaces and, you know, videos and content and news. But there's literally zero probability that that will work if they don't up their support game. I mean, zero.

[Adam]

Mean, I mean, I. I honestly don't understand how usually there is. I mean, I saw you tweeted out and. And people were commenting and, you know, tagging support, and I. I found that actually does work in the past, but maybe the system's just so overloaded now that they don't really pay attention to the kind of social signals. But, boy, it would seem like this should be an AI thing where if enough real accounts tweet that, hey, you got hacked, it's like it just pops to a person. You know what I mean?

[Dave]

I don't know it. All it would take is any human being. I mean, that's the. The weird part is that, you know, we go through. I mean, anyone who does this goes through ID verification, right? So you present your. Your driver's license and a selfie, like we do with crypto. Although in crypto, I'm pretty confident they keep it and then they do it again if you're a creator. So you have all that and they can compare the two accounts, but it's not. In my case, it's. It's even easier because there's a just absolute crap ton of video content in this space, for example, where voice signals could be, you know, AI could certainly verify. You don't need a human being, but you do need judgment.

[Scott]

The good news is that you're not going to care about your account in about two weeks to four weeks, because it's only going to be AI on this platform that's regenerative and creating its own AI and all the content, and there'll be nothing to engage with from humans anyways.

[Dave]

Well, you know, the funny part about that, Scott, is This is kind of proving why that's possible. I mean, you know, literally, it's the lack of judgment. I mean, AI can often in fact pretty well determine what's other AI. And so can. And so can some people. Easier for AI than people. But if what you want is actual citizen journalism and people engaging humans engaging, then proof of human is going to be absolutely, you know, the killer app for media companies.

[Scott]

Yeah. Which people are working on. But you take away even with the proof of human, you're going to be spammed by so much non human content.

[Dave]

Well, no, but I mean, you could. But then once you have proof of human as. As it works, then the setting is I want to inter. Interact with human content. And if a human posts an AI thing but it's gated by the human being, that's okay. I mean, I don't care. I mean, it's like, it's like, you know, if you're writing something and you use AI to polish the language, that's very different than tell AI hey, write something. Right. I mean, and so it's. But at the end of the day, if it's a human who's posting and humans posting, I mean, the problem that we're having is there's bots that basically just say the same over and over and over again, Right. Of course there's some humans who do the same thing.

[Adam]

So which is, I mean, and they're getting better. I mean, let's be honest. Right. I mean, we think about, I don't know in 21, when you kind of got all these bots with, you know, just trying to shill coins and like that. But they're way better now. It's sometimes difficult. You know, the usual filter, which I used to filter was. They didn't follow me, right. So I was just muting all these ones that weren't following me and just commenting. But I think they've, they've learned that game, they've gotten smarter. They'll follow you for a time, comment like legit, what looks like legit real comments, you know, to try and build up their own standing.

[Bruce]

I don't know.

[Adam]

I think we're lost, man. I think there's just, there's there's almost no way to get around it. They're learning so quickly now that it's, it's like Scott said, it's just going to be all AI maybe in a

[Gary]

couple weeks you can tell when you get a comment. And I mean, it's not so much that I can tell when I get A comment that it's AI, I can. It's more like I'll be like, oh, that's a human. I'm going to follow them back. Like, it's just the way that. And less so with you know, an email or, or something that's been written where you know what the purpose was already. Because it's sort of just like, oh, what was the point of you even writing that if you're a human? You know, you just get a sense, you get a gut sense of what's a robot and what's a person. I think get better at that over time. And we are getting, you know, they're better at masking it. But there's this like becoming Neo in the Matrix and I can tell the difference, bro.

[Adam]

You can say, are you really getting better? Because maybe I'm just, I feel like I'm, I'm losing. It's, it's almost over for me. I need help.

[Gary]

Maybe this is something we need to teach. Maybe there's an education or like some sort of. Maybe the AIs can make us look. I'll ask them.

[Scott]

Yeah, I mean, I think at least learned, like, maybe it'll be the gap between the for you tab and the following tab. Like I don't look at for you anyways because it's complete slop. But like that's going to become complete AI slop. Right. I mean, for you, there's no slop determining. Right. But I'm saying if you go to, if you go to following, at least you can unfollow those people or it shouldn't be fun to you at all.

[Gary]

Yeah, there will have to be. These signals will matter more and it'll become harder. Like if your job.

[George]

Let's reverse it.

[Kelly]

Right.

[Gary]

If your job was to become undetectable AI, I would be pretty nervous as well about how that's going to go in the long term because we are going to form these signals that will make it harder to mimic us, I think.

[Scott]

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

[Gary]

All right.

[Dave]

If you believe Jason Lowry, this is a important case use case for Bitcoin. So, you know, that's, you know, bitcoin

[Scott]

or more I think more specifically the proof of human that we talked about. Like, I don't think it has to be on the bitcoin network. That's a very bitcoin maxi kind of idea. As if it's the only solution to everything, of course. But there are plenty of crypto and non crypto platforms that are working on proof of human. Like I know Humanity protocol is one of them and a lot of others. But that regardless, having some provable way that you're human when you sign up. Clearly that does not exist on Twitter, period. Or X. Right. I mean, how do these AI accounts even like get accounts start engaging and imagine when they are just actual agents and not just like the same slot, like people are going to just.

[Dave]

Yes, but what doesn't make any sense is when you want to become verified as a creator, you have to provide an actual ID and a selfie. Well, how does a frigging AI do that?

[Scott]

I don't know. Seems possible.

[Dave]

Well, I mean, seriously, I mean, it's like, it shouldn't be very hard to, you know, classify. Maybe you have two different classifications, AI creator and human creator. And then you give people the ability to say, I don't want to listen to AI or have a different channel says, okay, let's see what the AIs are saying. You know, any of those are possible. I mean, it's. I mean, I don't know, it would be. If you think about how you want to design this platform and if you think about the profit motive of the, of Elon and what's his name, Nikita, you know, I don't know, the guy who runs the product. I mean, one would think if you're trying to create an everything platform, you need humans and you want to make it human centric, right? It doesn't mean you can't have AI to supplement, but it's. If you listen to anything Elon tweets. In fact, this morning he was talking about it, you know, about how robots and AI will enhance, you know, quality of life, yada, yada, yada. Well, that's only true if you could distinguish between them. Does anyone who disagrees with that, I mean, I don't know.

[Adam]

Well, I mean, look, just four of

[Scott]

us so we can talk about whatever we want.

[Adam]

In the old days, Dave, right? I mean, old days, like a year or two ago, the whole idea was they didn't want to shut down the bots because it increased the numbers of, you know, quote unquote people on the platform. Users.

[Dave]

Right?

[Adam]

So that was the old, old argument. And I think that still kind of holds. They still want, you know, this a very, a lot of, you know, users. And we're just recognizing now that probably, you know, I don't know, what is it 6 out of 10 users are AI now? I don't even know. It feels like that right now.

[Dave]

It's hard, it's. It's hard to tell I mean honestly, the only ones that that you know are humans are sometimes the dumbest questions that. That you get or the or the most true questions you get. So people actually asking. I don't understand this. Could you explain it those people you have to believe that's human. I mean maybe bots are getting smarter and come out with dumb. But you know, but there's not. But there's no, you know, ignorance is not a crime. And stupidity, that's a crime. Right. You know, it's perfectly fine. I mean I am ignorant about so many different things. It's. It's insane. I mean I'm. I'm finding myself. I don't know how I don't know about you guys, but I ask Grok. And of course when you do that you have to ask in multiple different ways just to make sure that whatever. But I go to AI to ask and double check things that I think to be true or that I thought I understood so many times a day now it's crazy. And so I think that's helping. I think that I say less stupid stuff than I might have otherwise said. Of course you can't filter out everything but it is whatever. But I mean the topic of today's thing Bitcoin dead. You know I did wrote. I literally did a video on this. The. Was it yesterday or the other day? I can't remember. But you. If you, if you search and you actually overlay and I did this. The chart of when we see peaks in bitcoin dead Bitcoin going to zero. It is almost perfect in terms of bottoms. But I mean it's literally almost perfect correlation to bottoms. And if I knew how to put post something to the nest. Someone's going to have to explain this to me someday because I don't see the buttons. I don't know where to do it.

[George]

They changed it.

[Scott]

Yeah, they kind of changed it.

[Dave]

How do you do it? Because the video I'm looking at an example right now.

[Bruce]

Yeah.

[Scott]

Or just send it to me and I'll do it and then I'll show you once I do it Right.

[Dave]

But you know, so the I did a video last night buy when everyone is afraid and one of the things that I showed in there is exactly this. But here's the interesting part. When bitcoin dead bitcoin go to zero surges it's not like it's the bottom of the V bottom. In fact in. In the most of the cases when that has surged it yes it has been right around the bottom. Sometimes it's gone a little bit lower first, but, you know, nothing. Not. Not nearly as much as it's already moved, but within some period of time of that process. Weeks in a couple. In one case, you know, maybe a month and a half. That's when the largest bull runs took off. And in none of those cases was there really an obvious catalyst. Just it was like, okay, well, it got faded out and people got tired and started moving higher, which. Which kind of jives with. With my base case for bitcoin right

[Scott]

now, because I would love to see that same chart aligned with all other assets. I talked about it on my show this morning, but I remember the Tesla is going to zero because Elon Musk smoked weed on Joe Rogan and it was the best time ever to buy a Tesla.

[Dave]

No, I think the best time to buy a Tesla just for the emotional satisfaction of it is when Tim Waltz was dancing on stage about how Tesla had dropped out.

[Scott]

That too. It just did. Pretty.

[Bruce]

Yeah.

[Scott]

I just remember at the time I bought and I was kind of public and people were like, you're nuts. It's going to zero. You know, my favorite signal. And it was like 180 bucks pre split on the way down. And it was the dead bottom within like $3 or something.

[Dave]

Yeah. But I mean, the funny thing is, and I've been thinking about this is the exact reason given by all the people dancing on the grave of bitcoin as we're sitting at $66,000 is the exact reason they gave when bitcoin was. They were dancing on the grave with bitcoin at first at 30 and then at $16,000. 22. Or when it got to $8,000 and then dropped as far as like 3 or $4,000 in 1819 is the same thing. Bitcoin failed the first, second, and third time at $1,000. And it all boils down to a really simple point, which is Peter Schiff's ultimate. Whether he actually believes or not, I don't know. But the ultimate point, which is nothing virtual or that doesn't have a physical manifestation could ever have intrinsic value. Which is, by the way, one of the dumbest arguments used. It kind of proves how old you are. Although not all of us old people are that dumb, because we all know there's tons of things out there with totally virtually that are completely virtual. Dollars being one of them. Yeah, there's these strips of paper that nobody uses anymore, but they're virtual. It's just that the government says they're worth something. And so it's worth something because the government puts their faith and credit behind it. And that works out really well for most of the world where the credit ratings of governments are in the toilets. But yet there's still value and it trades and it moves up and down. And if you ever played a video game or deal everything, I mean the notion that something has to have a physical manifestation to have value is just wrong. And that is ultimately what almost every one of these posts have in common. Virtually every single person who says this, whether the most obvious, the hankies, the shifts or whatever, it doesn't matter. I mean, you know, you could go through if you look at these Bitcoin is worth zero posts. That's what they all have. They, they in logic. There's a word for that, it's called begging the question. It's like you assume it has zero value, so therefore it has zero value. It's a really great argument, but that is literally what these things are about.

[Scott]

Yeah, I tend to agree and just to be, I think the search was Bitcoin going to zero, correct. Is that basically an all time high? So I think that some of the signal there, when you think about it, I would be interested to see how that compares with other bitcoin bear market related searches like should I buy Bitcoin now? Is bitcoin going down further? Because bitcoin going to zero is a very, very extreme and specific search.

[Dave]

Right? Yeah.

[Scott]

So like when you, when you've reached the is it going to zero? To me, once again, that's peak stupidity.

[Dave]

Right. Or just peak fear.

[Scott]

Right. I would love to see the other relatively similar search queries that are not as hyperbolic.

[Dave]

Yeah, I mean, yes. I mean I specifically look for bitcoin dead, but I think going to zero, you're right. I mean that is, it's like even I've gotten there. So you do a math. We just use pure math to say, okay, what's the value of bitcoin? Right. You have multiple paths. Path one, which is the one that people who invest in it, believe in, is Bitcoin will eventually represent real value in the monetary system and be the denominator. The way that fiat is today, the way that gold used to be. That's the ultimate case. That's the sailor with you get the hyperbolic estimates which come because you expect some version of hyperinflation in fiat currencies. The more tame but still ridiculously optimistic based on the market is Larry Fink and what he says and what Paul Tudor Jones says and a lot of other people say, which is, well, bitcoin is going to become parisu with gold in terms of the monetary value of gold. And I went through the exercise this morning of trying to get. Let's see if I got a good answer. I'm trying to get the monetary value of gold bit out of grok to try to see what he says. Generally, most people believe it's somewhere around 80% of gold's market cap is pure monetary value. And so you get to numbers in bitcoin where effectively the market is pricing the odds of bitcoin achieving that now at somewhere well below 5%, somewhere between 3 and 5%. And ask yourself the question, what has changed over a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, when people thought that those were really good odds and I think they're actually better odds. That's the question, Scott. I mean, do you get that a lot?

[Scott]

Yeah, constantly.

[Dave]

I mean.

[Scott]

Oh, sorry, I'm adding Gary up here. We're finally getting some speakers lawyered. I was hoping we were just going to hear you talk for an hour.

[Dave]

I mean, but you know, look, there are some posts this morning and you know, Bruce is the best person to talk about this as you're here, of OG saying, yeah, well, I hate Trump and Trump is, is, is parroting bitcoin, so therefore it's going to go bad, or I hate this politics, or I don't like the way that this is happening. And that's fine. Inside the crypto community, that's almost certainly true that there are people who are disillusioned. But the real question is, is the network effect and has the value, you know, has it slid to the point where, relative to the store of value, you know, narrative that it's gone and it's dead? And that's really the question, right? I mean, you know, it's, that's why I was asking you, Bruce, the other day about the Satoshi Roundtable and, and a lot of the people who are OG in the space, I mean, it feels like you have CZ on one side and a bunch of other people on the other.

[Bruce]

I mean, there is some definite, oh, geez over the last year, including me, I think, you know, I've probably never been so bearish. I mean, I'm just not as excited about it anymore. I, you know, I got in here to change the world and it's become a bunch of corporate slop, you know, and, and, and it's, and it's, you know, in the early days, you used to go to a bitcoin event it was like the smartest people you ever met. Now you go and it's some of the dumbest people you ever met. I mean it's a bunch of people with the, you know, charts and graphs talking about the Clarity Act.

[Dave]

You know, it's like specific question.

[Bruce]

Yeah.

[Dave]

If, if someone said to you, okay, we're going to have, there's going to be a new asset that is going to become a measuring stick that will by the virtue of its absolute scarcity make it eventually, but not immediately eventually impossible for governments to print money without consequence. Is supporting that and helping that achieve that goal worth it? Now that is not the same as replace the monetary system.

[Bruce]

I don't know. I mean the premises that the scare. You said scare that the scarcity will ensure it. I, you know, I don't, I don't think is enough.

[Dave]

It's really measuring, really it is because governments get away with all sorts of stuff unless like people keep making the statement. Today you're seeing more and more people saying well, gold is sniffing out. Obviously gold doesn't sniff anything. But you know, but, but it, Greenspan, believe it or not, used to before he became Federal Reserve chair or maybe in his first year, he, he used to watch the price of gold like a hawk, literally thinking on the, on the notion that if gold got too high that was proof that they were up. And then eventually, you know, he and everybody else said, okay, this is pointless, we don't care anymore. The question is if you get to a point where countries have to worry about their price of their currency vis a vis Bitcoin, it has that effect. That, that's really the question and really is, and I'm asking it as a question because long term philosophy, that is what a lot of people who are investing in Bitcoin thinking. Okay, that will be, that will be a really good thing because this free money society that we're in where you could just print other people's money is exactly why we have a lot of the, that we have. I mean, you know, it's just, it's, we could go through the pathology, but I think we're all disgusted these days.

[Bruce]

Yeah, you know, I think that there's merit to that. I just wonder if people will care enough. I don't see what country that's going to be other than El Salvador maybe. And they don't have any economic might. I think it's, it's become less interesting. You know, I travel a lot, I talk to people, you know, some of the biggest investors in the World, the big sovereign funds in the Middle east and stuff. And yeah, there's just very little interest. I mean, it's. I don't know why. I don't know where this new wave of interest will come from. And I don't think people see it as a serious asset like that. And I can't really blame them because if you go in.

[Scott]

Because that's actually a bit surprising. There was two news stories today. I think Abu Dhabi, UAE, mined 450 million in Bitcoin so far, and there's been no outflows from that, so they're holding it. And then there was, I guess, the uae. Somebody in the UAE government said store value, intending to accumulate it. So how does that jive with kind of what you're hearing it? You know, I think we get the impression that there's still a lot of interest.

[Bruce]

Yeah, there's some of it. I mean, there's. There's, you know, the Abu Dhabi story is not really new. You know, they've had a lot of coins for a long time and they've been mining. They have basically free energy because of their nuclear power, ironically, not because of the oil. Oil doesn't hurt, though. And so they can. They can mine. And I think it's, you know, if. If bitcoin is above $7 or something, they might as well mine because they have free energy. And. And so, yeah, there's some interest. I mean, it's not like it's totally dead. I mean, there's certainly like the sailor narrative and there's, you know, there's a lot of people. I'm just wondering if there's going to be a new wave of interest. You know, I'm not really sure what the catalyst will be. I. You know, and I don't know. I mean, my. Like I've said before, you know, people go through different times of. Of life. You know, a lot of us who are early are at a different phase in life now. You know, I mean, I'm. I don't know. I mean, personally, I'm just not as excited about it anymore. I wish I was. And I love. I try and have people tell me, you know, tell me something bullish to put me in a better mood because I still hold Bruce.

[Scott]

You know, I find with myself, and I think we all find it, that maybe our own sentiment or changes in feelings can also be a signal like. Of like, maybe, you know, you'll. It's just kind of the bottom for you and you'll come back around. You know, I've Definitely felt that like I'm my best counter indicator for I

[Bruce]

sold a little bit like a week and a half ago when it was right at the very, very low 64. And then like, like within four hours of me selling it when we had a 10 grand candle. And I've done that before.

[Scott]

That's what I'm saying exactly. Is like one of the few panic

[Bruce]

sells that I had. I'll probably never forget. It was like one of my worst days in crypto was I think the day after day before thanks 2017 and I had a huge tax bill and I, I was worried that my bitcoin that my especially I had other coins at the time too. Like I said, oh my God. Because if you remember that time, that was like a brutal, brutal bear market. And I'm like, holy crap, it's going to go so low I can't even freaking afford to pay my taxes. Because what happens is if you have X do if you have $10,000 and in gain, you know, buy bitcoin at a thousand, it goes to 10,000. You sell at 10,000, well, guess what, you owe 1500 in taxes and then if it goes back down to 900 bucks, you can literally end up behind not being able to pay the taxes on what you have.

[Scott]

A lot of people suffered that, that

[Bruce]

happened all the time. And it happened, it happened in the dot com era. I think it was the CFO of Yahoo ended up with like a $300 million tax liability and they only had like a net worth of like 10 million. So, so I, I, I was like, oh man, I can't risk. I'm not going to lose all my money and risk, you know, getting beat down by not having enough money to pay my taxes. So I, so I, because I remember it distinctly because it was, thanks. The Thanksgiving kind of holiday I think was the Friday after. And I like, I could walk to my office in the, in the, I was living downtown at the time and I like trudged over to my lonely office and got my gear together and did what I needed to do to do a trade and it was, it was dismal. And then you know, of course that ended up being kind of a, you know, a little bit of a panic sell because you know, it came back and you know, I was feeling like that, like whatever it was 10 days ago and I kind of feel that now. I hope that's a bottom sign. You know, there is always, you know, someday it will go down and someday it will be gone. You know, someday it would be like it's going to go down and not. No, man, that might be in 50 or 75 years, you know, let's hope. But it could be tomorrow, you know, I mean, you could have a global war. And I'm worried about Iran because I think that you could see a 10 to 30% drop just because that's what happens. Historically, Bitcoin recovers. My best trade ever was the COVID tyranny trade. I knew that that wasn't going to fundamentally change bitcoin and I said, oh, the whole world is going to go, you know, stupid. And I sold like, I don't remember, 20,000 or something. It immediately dropped. Once all the lockdowns came in, I bought right back. I was able to almost double my stack. So that was like one of my best trades. I don't usually do those kind of trades, but I was just so convinced. I'm like, this is not fundamental. Like, like this is not going to end the world. Like, it's just not. Now Iran worries me more because I see a potential 10 to 30% drawdown if we have war tomorrow or over the weekend or whenever. And then, and then it, then it's like it's putting more pressure on what is already kind of pressured. You know, some of the weaknesses, some of these treasury companies might go belly up. Some of the leverage strategies will unwind. And then you could see us slide down to 22,000 or something. And then meanwhile, now if gold then continues to break out and people say, oh my gosh, there's global war, I need a flight to safety. And then gold goes to 9,000 or something, then it's kind of like, oh, wait a minute, did bitcoin do what it was supposed to do? Why am I interested in this? Everybody's focused on war and that'll dominate 99% of the news coverage for a year or more. So that could be bearish. And then people say like, well, I don't know, maybe this didn't, wasn't, wasn't all that. And it could be, might not recover or it could be used for, for to recover, you know, I don't know.

[Dave]

So, Bruce, I did some digging this morning on war and while I am, this is not, please, dear God, there are, you know, 3,000 people here. Do not say that I am a warmonger. Saber rattling I do not believe we should indulge. We should indulge in regime change or any of that shit. So no, not saying that, but just pure numbers. The numbers are that risk assets do shitty while war is under threat and do actually quite well once war breaks out. And it doesn't matter which kind of war it is, whether it's the Granada invasion, it's over in a day.

[Scott]

That's because markets hate uncertainty. And once the war starts, you have certainty.

[Dave]

Right. And if Bitcoin is trading as a risk asset, which as much as I don't think it should, in a sense it does, you know, and you know, you could. It's like, as any poker player knows, you don't play the cards that you wish to have. You play the cards that you actually have been dealt. And so if in fact there is an action in Iran, which I frankly think this is, this is more, you know, Trump bluster. I mean, we went into Venezuela, no one even knew we were thinking about it. It was in. Bing, bang, boom, done. I don't think that he telegraphs his moves like this, you know, but. But whatever. We'll see. What the hell do I know? But the fact is, is if you think there'll be a 10 to 20% drawdown because of going in, it totally depends. I suppose if they went in and it was a complete failure and it became a new Afghanistan, which seems highly unlikely given the state of the population, but if it does that, yeah, sure, right. You know, if you end up with these ridiculous forever wars that continue to go. I mean, the. I will tell you, just so. Just so to be clear, at the time of the Gulf War, and I don't mean the first one, I mean the second one, the junior one, I thought it was the dumbest thing we could possibly ever do for a host of reasons, sadly, most of which have played out. This one depends on information I don't have. It's really about the population of Iran. But the truth is that that war tends to be better for risk assets than you might think. Historically, it's actually been quite good. And while that's counterintuitive, it's just worth knowing that.

[Bruce]

So the. The move would be to sell now, wait. Of the war, if you think there's going to be war, and then buy back. Just like it'd be similar to my Covid trade. Yeah, I gotta always say Covid tyranny trade, because there was never. There was. Covid was a very bad flu. And I don't lighten that because lots of people die from flu, but Covid didn't affect anything. It was worse than that.

[Dave]

Covid was. Had we actually known the truth, it would have even not been that bad of a flu.

[Bruce]

Yeah, yeah. No, it was it was, it was,

[Dave]

I think it was far worse than Covid but because they didn't understand and, and, and I, I, I, this isn't large enough audience and, and I'm sorry for this diversion but had we known it was gain of function research, had we known what it was about, had Fauci been forced to actually say the truth as opposed to lie continuously, they would have immediately known how important antihistamines were and immuno and immunosuppressants and other sort of things. You know, the whole thing that it got politicized with Ivermectin, all that stuff. We know that if you get Covid now how to treat it right and no one dies from it anymore. Yeah, there's long Covid and yes, there's, there's certain people who are suffering, but that's true with every flu, it's true with every virus. There's always tail people are, But Covid was like I, you know, I had friends die, right? You know, and, and we, and, and one of my, my sister in law almost died. She's one of the few people who survived being on a ventilator. And you remember how we were told ventilators are the most important thing we can get and we can't get them

[Bruce]

because oh yeah, there's an article about me in the New Yorker about, about, it's called the MacGyver's trying to source ventilators. Because like a naive fool I heard that oh, everybody's gonna die if they don't get a ventilator and there's not enough ventilators. And I said I, well I'm going to solve that. So I got a bunch of experts and money together and I said I'm going to solve it. And then very quickly I found out that it was a total lie and that Como, Como owned a stake in a company or cronies owned a stake in a company. They were buying ventilators for 500 bucks, stockpiling them, selling them back for 20,000. And there was no shortage. And it was, it was all just a big myth. And then I find out that the things aren't even effective. And then I find out that they actually are horrible. And the people put on the ventilators had a, Basically you, you, you, you're, you have a, a far far far higher chance of dying.

[Dave]

Now the only reason I went let you and I go down this rabbit hole is because every time someone says I have at peak, you've said it. By the way, Scott, I'm at peak distrust of the government because of what's

[Bruce]

going on with this space was downloaded via spaces down.com visit to download your

[Dave]

spaces today about the Epstein files and the redactions. Honestly, you can't go lower than my peak distrust of the government because of what happened with COVID and the lack of accountability for all the people who made these horrible decisions. So, yeah, I'm certainly right with you in terms of distrust of governments, but I'm not sure this is worse. I think this is just more infuriating is I think, a better example.

[Bruce]

Yeah, well, they're probably going to do whatever the dumbest thing is and that's what, you know, concerns me. But yeah, I mean, good. Maybe that's, that's, you know, I, you know, obviously in the backdrop of potentially, you know, many, many lives lost, it's a, it's a horrible, horrible thing. But you know, maybe, you know, from a pure economic standpoint, you know, if there is war, we'll have a quick, a quick rebound, you know, and you could, you could. I could see, I could see us having war and bitcoin going from 65 to 35 and then bottoming out at 29 or 27 and then going right back up to 75 in a matter of a couple weeks. That. That's kind of exactly what happened with.

[Scott]

Exactly why you don't trade it, Bruce, you know.

[Bruce]

Yeah, I know, but. Yeah, but I, I'm tired of the stress, man.

[Scott]

Not you. I mean, the people, you know, like

[Bruce]

350 years old in, in bitcoin years. And I just want to enjoy my life and not have this freaking stress for so long.

[Scott]

And it's funny, Bruce, I think people who've been around a long time, I'm only late 2016 vintage, so I'm speaking from conversations and not from experience. But you guys have been through so much. This is just another iteration of a whole lot of stress.

[Dave]

Right?

[Scott]

I mean, if you were here, imagine for someone like you, I imagine going through Mount Gox or going through, you know, if you had money with FTX or Voyager or Celsius or Prime Trust or any of these. Right. How many times have you, beyond even the emotion of thinking it might be over or wondering, you know, if the narrative is changing. Had literal like zero day events happen

[George]

to you in your stack that you

[Scott]

had to like somehow navigate and protect yourself from.

[Bruce]

I, I know a good an og and he wrote a public post like a few years back and he's like, I'm selling half. You can make fun of Me or whatever. He goes, I'm 66 years old. He's like, what the heck am I gonna do? I gotta enjoy this money at some point. And so he publicly, you know, announced that he was selling a big chunk of his stack, like half of his whole mass of coins. And I mean, what else do you do? Like, you know, time is a. Is the one. The one thing that everybody's going to have hitting them. And especially if you've done really well, you have a great trade, you never want to let a great trade turn into a bad trade. You know, luckily the early people on bitcoin have a long ways to go before that would happen. But it would also be crazy to, you know, you can't take it to the grave. You know, you might as well spend some and you know, move some around or something. You know, it kind of goes back to.

[Scott]

Did Taylor say he'll take his to the grave, he'll burn it?

[Bruce]

You know, he did, he did say that. And what an amazing. What a. What a crazy thing. That would be a gift to every bitcoin holder. I mean, wow, that would be something.

[Scott]

Yeah, I mean his stack is pretty big at this point. Although I guess it'd be very hard to burn a public company's.

[Bruce]

No, I mean, but he has his

[Dave]

own or so personal.

[Bruce]

Yeah, it's the identical. By the way, for people who don't know this, it's. It's the identical equivalent of taking the same. So if he has a hundred thousand personal bitcoin and burns it, it's the identical equivalent of taking that hundred thousand bitcoin and. And sending it to every single holder proportionate to what they own. That's the exact economic equivalent. So basically a gift, a true gift to bitcoiners.

[George]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Except for. Without a taxable consequence.

[Bruce]

Right.

[Dave]

Which is.

[Scott]

What did you say his personal stack was, Dave?

[Dave]

I thought it was his personal stack. Not including probably is.

[Scott]

I just wonder how big that is.

[Dave]

Like 17 to 20,000 coins was personal stack. But that there was also a. Obviously he has a significant amount of MSTR stock which is. Which makes his net worth being significantly bigger than that. But, you know, what the hell do I know? I mean, that's what I saw in this platform. It could have been a bot as we were talking about before, but it's interesting. So Gaurav, you're up here. I mean, you've been in this market a while. We were just talking about how bitcoin zero search is at an all time high and there's more posts about it as well. And that has generally been a pretty.

[Michael]

Are there people who do that?

[Dave]

What?

[Michael]

Are there people who really search bitcoin? Zero.

[Bruce]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the same thing is true for bitcoin. Dead or death of bitcoin. I mean, you know, it's like we've seen this before. It's, it's, it has been a ridiculously reliable indicator. But of course, you know, it's. How statistically significant is it? But it, it does seem to be there. I'm just curious, you know, what your thoughts are.

[George]

I thought.

[Michael]

Yeah, I thought the worst news was, you know, Michael Burry made two predictions. One was Palantir short and the other was bitcoin short. And so he's doing well with both so far. And that's doing rounds because everybody knows him because of the movie and his shots are famous. And of course we all want to. Not all, but all bitcoiners want to shit on his face. But so far he's going right. So I thought that would be the scariest factor around the bitcoin pricing. But I'm sorry, I'm not qualified to take a jab at the bitcoin debt search. I never thought that would be a reality.

[Dave]

Yeah, I mean, all I'll say about Michael Burry is that it's funny, people forget that, but by a factor of weeks, he could have blown up before the trade. I mean, I actually was in the same trade as him. I was exactly in the same trade as him on the, you know, in the big short. I was short MBMA and a lot of the firms that were involved in this stuff, Fannie and Freddie, et cetera. And so I'm really well aware of why he was saying what he was doing. And frankly, I don't care. Remember if I was following him or various others that said it at the time. But his rationale on bitcoin is literally the exact opposite of his rationale the other ways. But that's besides the point. I don't care. It boils down to his rationale on bitcoin is the same as Peter Schiff's is the same as Roubini's or Steve Hanke's. It's like, well, it can't have any real value. And so since it has no real value, by definition, it's going to go to zero. Okay, well, you know, yeah, I think,

[Michael]

I think the best opinion around, around bitcoin and such volatility would probably come from people like Bruce or probably, I don't know, maybe not Bruce, do you, do you often check the price of bitcoin? Does it even matter? I think you've seen one more cycle or two more cycles than me.

[Bruce]

Yeah, I got a block clock on my, in my office I'm looking at right now. And yeah, I check it. I don't check it that much. I go whole days and a few days sometimes without checking it and somebody will tell me, you know, and then I, I, you know, I, about, about 300 times a day I search. Is bitcoin dead? I asked

[Michael]

string ranking.

[Bruce]

Are we cooked? Are we cooked? I don't know. No, I do get, I get a little panicky sometimes. You know, I'm very, I think this manifests differently in different trading. But I think anybody who's been in bitcoin a long time and most good investors are very, very, very risk averse. I mean, I mean they may take risks or I should say risk aware, you know, you have to understand risk. But I obsess about risk. Is the whole, by the way, risk is the whole game for investing.

[Dave]

That's the whole thing.

[Bruce]

That's everything. And you looked at really sophisticated people like Marcus Scully or something like that. It's all they talk about is risk. And really, really complex trades, big trades, big P E deals. It's all about who has the risk and where do you put it, how do you put it on people? Big institutional trades like Dave did, you know, it's all, risk is everything. So I obsess about risk, personal risk, security risk, safety risk, food risk. You know, I went into super panic mode. We were talking about the COVID tyranny. I went into super panic mode because I'm like, oh, we're going to have Walking dead. I better go and get. I got a year's worth of supplies for 20 people and I got gates and you know, ways to protect ourselves. And I got, you know, food and security cameras and stuff like that, you know, because I'm just like, I'm planning for the worst all the time. Any room I go into, I'm planning for the worst. Any trade I go into, I'm planning for the worst. So in that obsession, you know, and I'll take risks. I mean, I've taken huge, huge risks. One of my good, one of my best friend from grade school, he says, he, he, when I was talking to him about running for Senate, I said, ah, should I do it? Should I not? He says, you know, Bruce, you've, you've made your entire life by doing crazy risks all the time again and again. And again, so I do take a lot of risks, but I also obsess. I. So, so because of that, I'm always thinking opsec. I'm like, oh, do we have communist CCP spy, you know, running bitcoin code? Do we have devs, Copper Miles?

[George]

Do we have.

[Dave]

So speaking of that, Bruce, is there, do you think. So you were talking about running bitcoin code. Do you think that, that the. What is your thought about the assertion that Epstein corrupted Bitcoin and therefore it's pito coin and all the other crap? That's.

[Bruce]

Yeah, no, that's. That's crap. That's crap because I ran the Bitcoin foundation. So I'm aware, I'm very, very aware of this deal that was done. It had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Epstein. That's why the guy, Joy Ito wrote a note to him saying he was, you know, Epstein was a donor to mit. MIT had a group called Media Lab, Media Lab had a group called Digital Currency, later known as Digital Currency Initiative. At the time it was just Media Lab. Epstein donated money. His, the guy ran it, Joy Ito wrote a letter to his benefactor saying, hey, great work that is happening with your donations. Here's what we did, you know, and that's, that's very, very, very, very typical. Every nonprofit does that, particularly when people make six figure plus donations. So Epstein didn't even know about it until he was told after the fact. And the idea that he and they had the same deal that, that these developers. So what happened is those, those developers were paid by our organization, Bitcoin foundation, which I donated to, a whole bunch of other people donated to. I worked as a volunteer and we would pay these developers. In the early days, the first developer, Gavin Andreessen, the first paid one, people were like, oh, it'd be cool if this guy could work on bitcoin full time and leave his regular job and just work on bitcoin. Let's all pass the hat around and raise a few thousand bitcoins so he can buy himself a sandwich. And so that's how it started. And, and then Bitcoin foundation went through ups and downs. They ended up burning a lot of money, some bad decisions, some just whatever stuff. And then, and then I came in after, unfortunately, after all of that, you know, all that huge treasury of thousands of bitcoin had been spent and I came in as a volunteer and we still paid the, those developers. But just before I came in, the foundation had kind of run out of money and couldn't really afford those Devs. And the devs knew that that was. They saw the writing on the wall and one of them had a connection at MIT and they said, and MIT has all the money in the world. So they're like, yeah, we'll hire you guys. We don't care. You can just sit around mess with bitcoin all day. That's like absolutely trivial to us. It's, you know, 450 grand or something like that for three developers. So Bitcoin, so, so MIT said, yeah, we'll pay it. They ended up doing it through this media lab and that. That's the only connection. And then they had that. So they had a deal with the foundation that said foundation didn't tell them what I. When I used to run the foundation before that, people would say, oh, you're telling bitcoin. You're telling the developers what to do. For one thing, that's not how the developers work. They would never take those orders. And they also had agreement that said that you wouldn't, you wouldn't do that. So these developers are like cream of the crop people. Especially at the time. Like, anybody would have hired them. They could have. They had plenty of bitcoin. Bitcoin. They could have done anything they wanted. They're not going to go and like, oh, I'm going to go and do what MIT says. No, they're going to go and work on the way that they work story.

[Dave]

It's complete.

[Bruce]

Yeah, it's. It's total. It's total. There's all kinds of. I mean, I'm a big conspiracy truther, you know. Yeah, there's a lot of experience.

[Dave]

You were unique, but that's qualified.

[Bruce]

No, that's, that's, it's just, it's a total, total, total nothing burger. I mean, you know, the fact that the Prime Minister of Israel had installed cameras in Epstein's house. I mean, that seems to be true. Mario just tweeted that the other day. I mean, that's a pretty big deal. There's a lot of, you know, the

[Dave]

fact that, like, it depends which prime minister. Yeah.

[Kelly]

Flawed.

[Dave]

You and I disagree on, on the generic issue, but there are lots of bad people in governments and some.

[Bruce]

It must, it must have been cut. Right. Cutter must have liked that. But anyway, there's a lot of shadiness about. And there's things that I'm concerned about. Bitcoin. I used to be a critic of some of the development efforts because, you know, you. One step. Compromising developers alone is not enough to compromise Bitcoin. You still gotta get miners and nodes to agree. But it is one minor step in the process. So if you do compromise development, that doesn't mean you control bitcoin, but it means it's a little bit of a step. You still, you know, you need to kind of do all, all of these things and it's non trivial. But that's a.

[Dave]

But I'm segue. That's a great segue. We've got a couple of other guests up. Yeah. And, and I think the one topic that needs to be, I'd like to get everyone's opinion on is, is your thesis for investing in bitcoin dead? Is or is it as strong as ever? And this is, this is just a great opportunity to, you know, where people have been bailing for Epstein reasons and quantum reasons and whatever. And we have George and we have Kelly who definitely have opinions on, on this topic. And curious, what do either of you gentlemen think, you know, about the fact that so many people are coming out of the woodwork to talk about bitcoin dying again?

[Kelly]

I'll jump in. I, I, for me, I couldn't be more bullish. It just feels like a rhyme and repeat with, with different, I mean everybody's seen the metric that came out recently, the World Uncertainty Index. But at the same time it's like in some ways it's like that's spiking and it's scaring people. And we saw how uncertain the world was during COVID And what has bitcoin's price done since now? Despite the price, what has also happened on the fundamental infrastructure layer of Bitcoin? Sovereign bodies, the institutional, more than 10x in growth in terms of players that are getting involved in addition to how much they're stacking the pipes, the, the legislation. Some of it is a bit frustrating. It feels slow as hell. Feels like even with the clarity stuff, you know that it's likely going to get pushed again. But you know, when you look at the, the reshaping of the global monetary layer or, or at least an avenue for a different monetary layer that's being stacked in the way it is, it's moving light speed. We're, we're all, all of us that are on here are either listening to content daily or talking like I am, like you are. Dave and Bruce Benton. Gary Cardone. George, good to see you again. So we're locked into what feels like a very slow timeline because we're so aware of the minutiae of everything that's going on. I couldn't be more bullish especially with the, the report that you guys were just talking about about the Google searches at all time high for bitcoin going to zero. It's like it at this point, you know, three and a half cycles in, I, I feel I, I laugh at myself when I, when I take the bait of being worried whatsoever. The only worry is how patient can you be? Because everybody was so excited. Bruce talks about this a lot, and he's kind of set me straight a few times with some of the things that he said, which I really appreciate is we got a little bit hoodwinked on how excited we were for institutions to get involved. Like seven years ago, 10 years ago, I remember this was the thing outside the system. And then somehow in the last year and a half, Everybody's wondering, did BlackRock sell today? Did they buy today? What's Fidelity doing? Oh, my God. Vanguard's on board. And I think we're, we're. We're having our attention diverted and diluted into things that don't matter and then focusing on those and not realizing the things that do matter. Bitcoin is still outside the system, but the system is trying to take advantage of it as well because it's such a great asset. The question is, what are you doing for yourself and how patient can you be? Because we're seeing the institutions stack like mad. We're seeing the government bodies get involved. So I'm more bullish than ever. On the near term. I'm a little patient, but more bullish than ever over the next few years.

[Dave]

I mean, look, I don't care. More bullish. The real question is a binary. Do you think the probability of bitcoin growing into a global store of value that roughly approximates gold, or potentially eats gold's lunch, et cetera, is a higher or lower probability today than it was a year ago and. Or five years ago? And if the answer to that question is yes, then at that point, that, that informs your strategy. If the answer to that question is no, then that also informs your strategy. And if you can believe, you know, just the, the, the emboldenedness of those who think the answer to that is definitively no. They're, they are much louder today than they've ever been. Because that's, that's the tone that I was going at. I mean, that is different than the tone that Gary has said many times, which is the bitcoin community can't get out of its own way. It's going to languish here for a while until a new narrative takes over. This has to run its course. All of which is a perfectly rational way of looking at the world by the way. Not, not arguing, I mean I don't actually agree but I totally appreciate the viewpoint and think that it makes sense.

[Kelly]

Well, to Gary's point, I agree with them. In the sub niche of social media and crypto, Twitter, I think the large majority of, if you looked across the globe, the large majority of people that hold bitcoin are not participating in, in Twitter spaces and posting on X and stuff like that. There's just, just weird sort of bully mentality of the way I'm holding it is better. And while I do think, you know, self custody is the way to go, I'm not going to hate on my 104 year old grandfather for wanting an ETF versus self custody. You know, I'm just excited, I'm excited that he has some exposure. Even though it's a proxy exposure exposure in terms of being better than be, I don't want to say being better than taking over some of the market share of, you know, as a store of value. I think in my mind that's an unquestionable truth that's going to take place. The question is the timeline. But yeah, great points there, Dave.

[Dave]

So George, you know, you, you're, you're up here, you obviously have been involved. People talk about mining and they talk about all this stuff. What do you make of the, of the constant, recent constant, you know, statement that miners are, are all non. They're obviously not all, but miners are completely non profitable and that presages the, the death of bitcoin. Now I understand that that's completely ridiculous narrative given difficulty, adjustment, et cetera. But I thought you would have a unique perspective on this. Are you behind the mic there?

[George]

Yeah. Hi guys. Seeing Bruce. So all those spaces wanted to chime in. Yeah, I've been in space for also 350 years and you know, I've seen this cycle and it's always amusing every sort of way there is this discussion for you know, bitcoin dead and you know it's going to zero and this and that and all these clouds keep appearing. And frankly speaking, you know, there is a concept of diversification but there is also a concept kind of to have your basket and to watch it very carefully and knowing what you own. And I've kind of always been proponent of that maybe sort of my upbringing in Soviet Georgia where you know, the life savings of my parents, doctors who are evaporating rates and hyperinflation kind of Similar work. Some of the folks in Argentina and Venezuela went through Wences, which basically were the first folks that I met up on my journey in 2012. And complete distrust towards the central governments and central banks. And you know, these distrusts have even gotten sort of more suspicious over the years. So I just want to reassure everybody that do not worry about the sort of short term gyrations, you know, do not try to time the market. I've yet to. I've probably funded dozens and dozens of geniuses that have promised that, you know, they would trade around bitcoin and they would end up sort of coming back with more bitcoins. They all failed. None of them produced positive return in bitcoin terms. Trading around bitcoin is, is the dumbest thing you can do. It hasn't worked. But directionally, you know, you just like look in terms of what's happening globally. Look in terms of this, you know, stupid idiotic warts that are being unleashed. Look at what's happening in terms of whether it's Republican government or Democratic government in the United States. You know, they're spending and spending and you know, the more capital and money being printed and fear is being debased. So regardless of what's going on, it's a directional bet. So you know, what you own, go for it long term and there will be volatility, but don't get shaken up. And it's very interesting, Dave, that in this sort of a cycle, kind of the, it's always a part, you know, it's always been, you know, there was an energy fud and you know, there was this kind of crib in know, money fud. And you know, then there was sort of this fought around, you know, you know, blockbust obviously we had going on in terms of, in the fork and sort of explosion of the network and, and the quantum was kind of lingering on and off and sort of, it came back. And my sense is just like a very coordinated attack in terms of, to shake out, you know, a bunch of sort of retail and bunch of folks that haven't done their due diligence, that haven't done their homework. And you know, this is kind of a very well coordinated attack brought out of thin air that if you look down in terms of basics, in terms of quantum, quantum resistance cryptography. Conversation with Dave Chaun, you know, Bruce's event quite lengthy and we're sort of 10, 15 years away. But it's, it's a well coordinated attack to shake out and get coins. And interestingly, you know, Three, four years ago we had this setup with Mike on, you know, on combating energy fought. And I reached out to Mike, I said hey listen, maybe something we do on, on the quantum plot. And it has been sort of a lukewarm on day so I don't want to be a conspiracy but you know, he's a super smart guy so maybe this is a way for him to acquire cheap coins because you know, he like all the OGs know where this is headed and it's a great opportunity to load up and sort of ride the wave. So guys, keep on huddling, don't worry, everything will be fine. Bitcoin will surpass gold. Bitcoin will be, you know, in terms of capitalization, it's gonna be magnitude of gold and you know, know what you own and you know, enjoy the ride. That's, that's my sort of advice.

[Dave]

Yeah, it sounds a lot like I, I posted a video last night about buying when others are afraid on this account. By the way, the, the one, my one personal thing I will say is quite a few of the people listening think you're following me, but you're following my old account that I finally got a reach out from Premium support. But supposedly a human. We'll see what happens. But this account is one that a lot of people aren't following. So if you're not, please click on that and also follow all the other speakers here who we drag up here to, to talk. So you know, I think everyone who's willing to give their time time and talk, it deserves a follow. So please, please do so.

[Bruce]

And people should know who George is who just spoke. George is the biggest miner in the history of bitcoin and one of the truest OGs in the space. So it's great to have that alpha. That's just the message I needed. I was just about to dump everything. So I appreciate you brother Bruce. Thank you my friend.

[George]

Come on, Bruce. I'm here in Switzerland. We just had dinner with Paolo, another OG of tether, and we kind of joking at what's going on and we're just sort of smiling. You know, this is just like ridiculous. But listen, it's, it's the fifth, I mean we huddled at $150 that when things were collapsing and you know, this bear market of you know, 60,000 or 30,000 or whatever. And Dave, to answer your question, there are miners that are actually very profitable. So Typher Mining, Iris Energy, they're all set up with the three cents in the great state of Texas where their cost of mining. Bitcoin is about 28, $29,000. That's the beauty of mining, you know, if you set up in a low energy location and you have efficient mining gear, then you know, when the prices go down, you know, you basically gain market share and further driving cost. So if you have an efficient setup, you're fine. And you know, in times like this where your model gets tested and they're, you know, few great companies that have set up in a low energy which you know, they're, they're doing quite well right now is you know, not an 80% gross margin, but you know, close to 40, 50% which, you know, I'll take it. Yeah, no, I'll take it on a given Sunday.

[Dave]

I, I said it to tee you up. It was a softball question because.

[George]

Thank you.

[Dave]

So many people who look at George.

[Michael]

But I think, I think the 28,000 wouldn't really work at the, at the difficulty levels and the, and the rate at which machines would grow. So are you sure the 28,000 delivery cost is still exactly the same with the new generation machines?

[George]

Well, it depends on the machine. Right. And depend on you know, the setup that you have and you know, obviously the cost, whether you list those machines will require them. So it varies across the industry. But you know, people talk about, you know, new machines and you know, yeah, that, you know, that plays a role. But you got to understand, you know, when we first came up with our ASICS in 20, 2013, the jump in efficiency was 4x but now the jump in efficiency is maybe you know, 25, 30. So you got to look at the cost per volt or parallel, you know, that's very important. But the Holy Grail, which I've seen, you know, I mean we built out probably thousand two hundred megawatts in eight countries. And you know, my, my piece of advice, the Holy Grail has always been cost of energy. And if you can secure a low cost energy and we've been able to do it in, you know, in Texas at sort of substrate sense that has been, you know, foundational layer. And you know, if you have built your model of mining on the kind of Rock of Gibraltar, so to speak, then you, you, you know, you can be successful long term. If you don't, you know, you don't. So you know, I'm of the foundation,

[Michael]

I'm of the same age. I saw the whole story of Bitfury. Not whole, but the BitFury built. And the reason I jumped into Ethereum first thing when I saw Ethereum was Because I was tired of you know, switching from S2s to S3s to S7s and whatnot. that time I was mining in Venice, Washington State and so. Huh.

[George]

Was Dave Carlson there?

[Michael]

No, no, no, no. They were, they were, they were parallels. They came in a bit later. My partner who was a US Tactical soldier X knew that place had access to hydropower energy. No, no point discussing that long one. But point is we were mining at 1.8 because it was a variable, variable charge setup. And even then, like you said, the device launch, the ASIC launches would sort of disrupt the entire mechanics, the entire Dynamics. You know, 2015-16 you would probably switch machines twice already in a year from, from S1s to S3s and then by 2016 you were already at S7s and you know, God knows what parallel provider. So I, I think yes, the Forex dynamics are gone and you know, 25% and 30% are in. But so is the price, right? The price used to do 2x to 4x a year at that time and now it doesn't. So, so I don't, But I'm just like. Anyways, bottom line, I am surprised somebody, somebody in the world still has you know, 28,000 to 35,000 delivery dynamics. That's insane.

[George]

I'll tell you even more. I mean if you sort of have access to you know, ridiculously low, I mean I think one of the things like you know, you have seen in Venezuela, in Iran, basically cost of energy is close to zero, right? So they've been shipping, you know, the old, you know, S9s and even, you know, even later because you, you have all the equipment amortizing, the cost of energy is close to zero. You know, you're basically minting cash. And that's been the case. So if you can push down the cost of energy, you know, to $0.02, $0.01 and even lower then you know, you can bring out sort of a, you know, the old equipment and you know they will be printing, printing points for you, right? So energy is the key bottom line. You know, the equipment's coming, but energy is, is the foundation. And I've seen many folks get burnt on that. Being excited and good times sort of a building out, putting something at 5 cents and tolerating. But you know, in times like this, which you have right now, you just get wiped out. I mean you just have to close your shop and mock pull everything. And you know, those that have positive setup, you know, they're, you know, they're doing quite well relatively speaking.

[Michael]

100. 100.

[George]

All right guys, listen pleasure to you know jam with you. Just stay true to the cause and you know if you, if you ever have any doubt just to go back, read the white paper and you know you realize not what you own and everything will be fine. I'll see you at 1 million guys. Everything will be fine.

[Dave]

Thanks George.

[Michael]

And watch, watch 10 year charts.

[Dave]

I think that is a great place to end it because we are at time. So we will see you all again tomorrow morning and enjoy the rest of your day. I'm sure it'll be lots of fun like it's been over the last week because here we are big. We're still within a two thousand dollar range for the last week which is kind of crazy but I will say this volatility has a funny way of changing its regime and we'll see what happens. Ciao, ciao everyone.